Good old Games

[melkathi]

I'm curious if it was seen as "not worth the effort" because of people like me?

 

In other words you are the reason we can't have nice things.

[Spider]

Personally I never liked SMAC all that much. I acknowledge it's strengths in atmosphere and storytelling, but found the asthetics of the world to be very boring, and it got fairly repetetive.

 

The scripted events were cool the first few times, butafter a while you started playing around them, so I felt replay value was way less than in other civ games. The very specific nature of the faction leaders that Drowsy mentioned also contributed to this.

 

At the time I even preferred Civ3 over SMAC, but given hindsight I will acknowledge SMAC is  a better game. Civ4 on the other hand, is way better than both.

[alanschu]

 

 

I wonder if the sales figures include Civ:CTP and it's technically non-Civ sequel. The games mag I was subscribed to at the time had a "shootout" between SMAC and CTP1 and called it for the latter. Ugh, that was a terrible, terrible call.

 

Well, in terms of Firaxis' needs, Call to Power's performance is mostly irrelevant.

 

 

 

 

At the time I even preferred Civ3 over SMAC, but given hindsight I will acknowledge SMAC is  a better game. Civ4 on the other hand, is way better than both.

 

I'd probably agree.  Civ4 was such a solid game IMO.  I still remember the outcry when they removed "offensive" and "defensive" attack values haha.

[Spider]

Yeah, I was one of the criers (at least I was concerned). Turns out they knew what they were doing just fine.

[melkathi]

 

I'd probably agree. 

 

 

Watch it mister, you already are walking on thin ice having admitted to being the reason we wont get an Alpha Centauri 2

[Drowsy Emperor]

Eh. what I would give for AC2, just a remake with souped up graphics and a few tweaks.

[Drowsy Emperor]

Don't you guys think that SMAC2 would be financially viable through partial crowd financing?

 

I think SM could get a couple of million just by dropping his name behind the project.

 

I mean, they resurrected XCOM and its debatable which game had more fans after so many years.

Edited May 8, 2013 by Drowsy Emperor

[Malcador]

Should work easily, I'd say. Who holds the rights to the IP, EA ? Then again, I doubt they need to do a direct sequel - it's colonization of an alien world.

[Drowsy Emperor]

EA has the rights, since GOG published it as part of their catalog. The real designer of SMAC was apparently Brian Reynolds and he's in a separate company now. So basically, we'd need Brian and Sid to get together and obtain the rights from EA.

[melkathi]

EA has the rights, since GOG published it as part of their catalog. The real designer of SMAC was apparently Brian Reynolds and he's in a separate company now. So basically, we'd need Brian and Sid to get together and obtain the rights from EA.

 

Seriously?

I'd back a sepparate crowd fund just for them obtaining the rights.

[alanschu]

What specifically are the features that you would want bear man?

 

I guess, what is it specifically that separates an Alpha Centauri from current incarnations of Civ?  If it's just the setting, then you don't need to buy an IP for that unless you feel that the game must be called Alpha Centauri in order to get the warm fuzzy feelings.

 

For myself, it's a great strategy game that had a strong narrative.  Many of the gameplay elements were very familiar to any Civ veteran, with some exceptions (unit customization being the biggest one, but there are some others).  What else should be listed?

[melkathi]

The strong underlying narrative is very important. As is its, inmy opinion, subtle presentation with different bits of story triggering through different... erm triggers (for example your first ever mindworm unit you trained yourself being killed by an opposing faction triggering the revenge story and adding the setting that the next city you conquer from that faction is renamed in the dead unit's memory).

Beside that:

The attention given to faction and faction leader personalities

The social engineering

The unit customization

Terraforming

Diplomacy - politics - voting in the council

The decission to include real world politics/political views and have them interwoven with all aspects of the game.

 

I fall right into the validation of your theory though I guess: to me narrative is extremly important.

 

Yes I could get all that from a new setting. But that goes for any sequel, no? This is a setting that I enjoyed a lot. Probably my favourid setting in PC gaming that was created for a particular game. (I would have loved a Dune MMO or a Dune rpg, before Brian Herbert took the setting out back into a dark, smelly alley and shot it in the back of the head)

 

Right now there are two games I would pay to have made sequels to, even at an early stage:

Alpha Centauri, Alpha Protocol (and I just noticed the pattern there...)

And one game I'd love a modern remake for:

Magic of Endoria

I am not sure if I should add Syndicate to either of those.

Edited May 8, 2013 by melkathi

[Drowsy Emperor]

I'm just thinking out loud. In order to make money it would be helpful for the game to feature the original name and Sid Meier's reputation.

 

As for the what made AC special - it was the setting and the ideas featured in it. A lot of sci fi games have a ton of techno babble, but AC's often had sensible explanations to go with them.

Faction leaders were also well designed, and had a definite (although) limited personality and playing style.

Terraforming was pretty well done. Other civ games had workers, but AC's terraforming was so well thought out that it had a lot of flavor packed in.

[Drowsy Emperor]

well, melkathi pretty much listed it all.

 

But the one thing to keep in mind is that success is not the result of simple accumulation of well made features - in the sense that having all those features won't necessarily give the same result. AC has a definite personal touch to it that definitely can't be copy/pasted into a new game. A spiritual sequel would likely fail.

 

A real remake, with the real IP would be far more likely to work. Plus the hype would go through the roof.

[alanschu]

 

 

The attention given to faction and faction leader personalities

The social engineering

The unit customization

Terraforming

Diplomacy - politics - voting in the council

The decission to include real world politics/political views and have them interwoven with all aspects of the game.

 

The Social Engineering was fantastic (even if I tended to not be experimental at the time).  Civ 4 had something similar with its civics, and Civ 5 tried a different iteration (with a bit less success, IMO).

 

What Terraforming was there again?  It's been so long.  I remember UN voting to alter solar exposure which would change sea levels, and planting forests.  Anything else?

 

The Diplomacy aspects were great too.  I loved the council, and passing measures.  Civ games have sort of had this, but AC's seemed a bit more varied and interesting.  Might just be nostalgia, however.  Civ also has the disadvantage of "International politicking doesn't exist until later in the game" which AC doesn't suffer from.

[Malcador]

Civ V's talent tree way of doing it was rather disappointing to me. As for terraforming, towards the end in SMAC you could drill boreholes, install giant mirrors to enhance solar collectors nearby, raise elevation (or decrease it), affect rainfall indirectly - that'd have an impact on food production although I never really noticed alot.

[alanschu]

Civ V's talent tree way of doing it was rather disappointing to me. As for terraforming, towards the end in SMAC you could drill boreholes, install giant mirrors to enhance solar collectors nearby, raise elevation (or decrease it), affect rainfall indirectly - that'd have an impact on food production although I never really noticed alot.

 

I see the boreholes and solar collectors/mirrors and the like to be similar to later game Civ tile improvements as well, so I don't know if that was necessarily unique to SMAC.  Though the elevation aspect WAS, and it was interesting because I remember the setting had the concept of planetary winds.  While static, it meant that one side of hills would get more precipitation than the opposite side, which was interesting!

[melkathi]

 

What Terraforming was there again?  It's been so long.  I remember UN voting to alter solar exposure which would change sea levels, and planting forests.  Anything else?

 

Earthalan, your formers could raise and lower levels as well (though most people, myself included, just put them on auto). It was a slow process, but I doubt anyone plays this kind of game for speed. Tectonic payloads on missiles were a lot of fun as well: drop a terraforming payload near a city and watch it suddenly be by the sea.

And then, Earthalan, there was the whole fungus planting and removing and of course fungal payload missiles - now those were fun.

Edited May 8, 2013 by melkathi

[Drowsy Emperor]

Terraforming was much like building improvements in Civ but the way it was done was very atmospheric. Everything you could build made sense in the in game world.

 

Bascially there are: farms, mines, forests, solar collectors, condensers (alter rainfall patterns), echlon mirrors (alter energy levels), thermal boreholes, drilling to underground rivers, raising ground level up or lowering it and various combat enhancing improvements.

Towards the end satellites could be launched for massive resource bonuses.

 

I don't know if there's a comparable unit in Civ but there are Supply Crawlers in SMAC, autonomous resource collection units that don't cost any upkeep and enable you to collect resources from outside base range. They're essentially "borrowed" from Dune spice collectors.

[Malcador]

And they're handy for rapidly building wonders.

[Zoraptor]

SMAC is one of the games where I don't think the IP itself really matters as you don't have to call it Alpha Centauri or have Sid Meier involved. Call it Tau Ceti* or Epsilon Eridani or whatever, a rose by any other name smells as sweet. Given what happened with Wasteland there is the possibility of someone buying it from EA, but unless that someone is 2k/ Firaxis the Sid Meier part has to go in any case.

 

*Hmm, have the Many instead of mindworms...

 

The real designer of SMAC was apparently Brian Reynolds and he's in a separate company now.

He's currently unattached so far as I am aware. He was at Zynga (or some other FB type dev) but left recently.

[babaganoosh13]

There's a new survey on GOG.

 

This one is on merchandise and special offers.

 

Basically: Do you want Cafe Press clothes, and deals on hardware?

 

------------

 

The sale this weekend is on some adventure games, including The Longest Journey 1 & 2.

 

Carmageddon is half off as well.

[Rosbjerg]

Interesting approach they are taking with these polls and what not - it makes sense though, in a business where your main asset is people liking you, then why indeed struggle with trying to be ahead and innovative when you can simply ask and comply.

[Walsingham]

Interesting approach they are taking with these polls and what not - it makes sense though, in a business where your main asset is people liking you, then why indeed struggle with trying to be ahead and innovative when you can simply ask and comply.

 

Just good engineering, really.

 

Just kidding. I get frustrated by it as well. What the feth happened to leadership?

[melkathi]

I find it frustrating that customers are so fickle that you have to ask them if its ok if you will sell t-shirts as well. Because I havea  nagging feeling that they are not just asking to see if people will buy, but to gauge what nerd rage they could expect.

Or perhaps I just have a low opinion of people