|
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4
|
 |
|
Author
|
Topic: A SC4 Suggestion Thread for those who know MMORPG is not the answer. (Read 15191 times)
|
Draxas
Enlightened
 Offline
Gender: 
Posts: 1044
|
Indeed. It's been almost 15 years since the game was released for DOS PCs (which says a lot in and of itself). While it is a classic, I'm not too proud to say my desires for the next installment *might* be clouded by a bit (lot) of nostalgia. I trust TFB to make an awesome game without bowing to my (or any of our) suggestions on what it should be like.
I think about the only thing I would actually balk at buying on release day would be an MMO. Seriously. Even if the game turns out to be a Spathi-tossing-multicolored-rocks-at-monsters-from-up-in-a-tree simulator. 
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
RTYp06
Guest
|
<b>"But if they had today's technology, then, it probably would have been 3D and you'd now be asking for a 3D remake."<b>
Oh would I? *cough* Star Control 3 *cough*,
Look ,I guess you do have a point Seud..er Sidios.. or what ever name you're using this week I'm resigned to the fact you and I will probably always disagree on pretty much.. well everything, I just feel that turning the game into yet another, run of the mill 3D shooter isn't the answer. Games like TimeWarp and Weird Worlds show how great 2D games can still be made, even in today's 3D world... I'm more concerned with game mechanics rather than flash. SC2 had it right mechanically IMO. And yes that is MY opinion and don't expect everyone to agree.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Arne
Enlightened
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 520
Yak!
|
I'm a big 2D fan, and by 2D I mean just having a flat playing area, it could very well be drawn by a 3D engine. There's something very 'graspable' and playable about 2D, and in my opinion having that often makes up for the false reality stuff you get with one less dimension. It's also easier to make content for 2D. With 3D, the player starts to expect more and more because suspension of disbelief has been broken with this reality-ish thing. I fear that with 3D there'll be so much content having to be done that the universe will feel dilluted and thrown together, and I'd hate to see the interior of a Spathi Eluder being some misaligned repeated textures inside a phong sphere.
However, if I were head honcho at some game developer today, 2D would probably seem very risky. Geometry Wars did well though, and retro gaming is on the rise. There's a lot of nostalgic 20-30 year olds out there, some even with jobs and money! Hmmm.
Regardless, the publisher and mainstream audience are probably going to cry for:
- Online play, ladders, community.
- There'll probably be a great deal of pressure for 'next-gen' 3D
- Pick up and play (aka dumb it down and probably forget scalability)
- Ports to many platforms (hopefully it wont be scaled after the weakest platform)
- A super linear story (Okay, they won't put it like that, but it almost seems like most players wants to be nannied, choices are confusing, ruins pick up and play and makes people drop the joypad in frustration over not knowing what they're supposed to do. Sandbox is of course completely pointless. What's the point in comparing stories if you have different stories, like "I lured the Ilwrath into a black hole with the Hyperwave caster" and "Oh really? I played Ilwrath and took over the entire galaxy, clacking my mandibles together in delirious joy as I feasted upon the remains of VUX babies at my altar."... no, that's not good, how about something like: "I rescued the priness!", "O really? Me too! I killed the last boss with the clear spindle", "Yeah! I stabbed him in the eye and there was a long scripted death scene!", "OMG, That's exactly what I did! It was so cool when the boss fell in slowmotion to the side and just whammed into the ground with Zelnik sitting in a crazy-awesome spider-man pose on its head!!!")
|
|
|
|
« Last Edit: May 04, 2006, 02:46:08 am by Arne »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Deus Siddis
Enlightened
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 1387
|
Even if the game turns out to be a Spathi-tossing-multicolored-rocks-at-monsters-from-up-in-a-tree simulator.
That's actually not a bad idea for a mini game. Would add some extra TFB style to the game.
Oh would I? *cough* Star Control 3 *cough*,
That's actually a 2D game, methinks.
Look ,I guess you do have a point Seud..er Sidios.. or what ever name you're using this week
Exactly what other names do I have? Notice that I have an actual account on this forum (hint, hint) and my post count for this account is sorta hard to get up to within a week's span.
Games like TimeWarp and Weird Worlds show how great 2D games can still be made, even in today's 3D world... I'm more concerned with game mechanics rather than flash. SC2 had it right mechanically IMO. And yes that is MY opinion and don't expect everyone to agree.
I think weird worlds was 3D, it only operated on a plane. Timewarp is freeware, and WW is not a real high-end game, like Activision would most likely expect (demand.) The only way TFB could really make a successful fully 2D game, is in somekind of handhelds market, but I don't think that is the plan.
But, I do think there will be good gameplay, even if it is different. Perhaps TFB will have a fully 3D combat engine, but if you prefer, you can set it so battles are limited to a 2D plane. I suppose it is a possibility.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Jerry2006
Guest
|
Check this out ....
I am downloading the client and have looked at the images.
MMORPG with 2D battles, planet colony screens, etc.
Alien races, colonies, trading.
www.starportgame.com
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
RTyp06
Guest
|
Actually, if we go back in gaming history, I'm not so sure PR3 and FF would have made SC2 in 3D "had the technology been available to them" as suggested. Games like Wing Commander and Doom ran on 386 DOS machines just fine. PR3's first popular game was Archon, a top down chesslike battle game. Very popular and ported to many platforms. Next was SC1 which was basicly Archon in Space with a bit of story added. SC2 was pretty much a polishing of the SC1 melee engine with a much richer story & universe added.
SC3.. Activision tried to make a "blockbuster" using many of the newer popular gaming techniques of the time.. seudo-3d ships, 3D starmaps, animatronic looking puppets which did give a 3D look but ultimately was crap.. Gone was the feeling of piloting your ship and the campy, old school chram of SC2.
I suspect many advocates of a 3D rendered starcontrol sequal may be dissapointed by the demise of "Starcon" and yearn for it's final frutation.. To me, 3D works great for games like Doom, Quake,Tomb Raider, Halflife,Call of Duty , BattleField, Rainbow Six, CounterStrike,....and their umteen million spin-offs and mods. Personally, I've played enough of these first person 3D games to last a life time. Besides,do we really need the Star Control series to cater to quake kiddes just to sell copies ?
For all intents and purposes the SC story is like a good movie. It has all the same elements: A plot, character interaction, heros and villans etc. Take the classic War of the Worlds for example. How many times has the classic Orsen Well's story been retold? Some of the movie remakes aren't as good as others but the very premise is rock solid.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Deus Siddis
Enlightened
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 1387
|
Note that 3D doesn't mean it would have to be based around you running around as a dude with a gun, in FP perspective. What made SC3 melee sort of suck, was the isometric renderings of ships (not that they were rendered from 3d models,) a mistake later repeated by ambrosia in their 3rd escape velocity game. It is really hard to aim with this perspective. The fools. . .
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
NamelessPlayer
*Many bubbles*
Offline
Posts: 104
|
I've already made many posts on this subject, but what the hell...
And not to be an ass or anything, but something inside my head begs me to correct this:
Take the classic War of the Worlds for example. How many times has the classic Orsen Well's story been retold?
You might want to give H.G. Wells most of the credit, IIRC-he wrote the novel everything else is based off of. Orson Welles just did the (in)famous radio adaptation.
*notices all the annoyed looks*
Okay, back to what I was originally coming in here for:
Part of the reason why SC2 is the greatness it is would definitely have to be the characters. Each of the races have this charm to them that I can't quite describe. Few games have had characters as memorable as Fwiffo or those Frungy nuts...
Another bit of icing on the cake is a simple-yet-effective combat system.
The music makes up one of the best soundtracks in gaming history, and little details like different text for the dialogue of the various races are also nice.
As far as the next Star Control is concerned, all of those things have to be included for good measure.
Graphics-wise, I don't mind if the game is done in 3D, but it would probably work best if it were cel-shaded. Also, moving to 3D would make life a hell of a lot easier when it came to animations and re-using art assets instead of having to create new ones.
Note that I did NOT say that the game had to make use of all 3 dimensions. It could still play out in 2D for all I care-it's just that 3D brings the advantages I just mentioned.
|
|
|
|
« Last Edit: May 06, 2006, 07:37:23 am by NamelessPlayer »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
keybounce
Zebranky food
Offline
Posts: 6
|
I actually did not find the 3-d galaxy of Sc3 to be a problem. The only real problem was the need to use a spreadsheet to determine how to allocate people (solving that problem was a LOAD of fun, very enjoyable brainwork. Sadly, for me, I'm not joking, but I can see how most people would hate it). Simply making planetary allocations better -- and seperating out "where they are working now" from "where you want them to build next" would go a long way towards making the colony building process better.
Not to mention: Give us better response options. The fixed choices in SC3 just did not account for things properly. And, truthfully, I actually tried one game giving the vux the best planets, and the most planets. They still complained, and there was no "You already have the best/most" option.
<Sigh>. Ok, SC3 wasn't TFB.
Here's what I want:
1. The ability to use all the ships in game. Maybe not all at the same time -- allying with X may make Y an enemy. (come on, the torch was the most fun ship to play with in melee, and yet there's only one in-game, and it's a neutral.)
2. If there's a melee mode, the ability to take our game-fleet and use that as a melee mode fleet.
3. If ships have upgrades, use either base or upgraded in the melee mode
4. Better AI opponents. Pay attention to players, how they fight, and model the AI after that.
5. Make it easier to see ships, and facing, when scaled out on the combat screen.
6. Perhaps going to "split screen", rather than dynamicly moving single screen.
7. Melee currently only takes the two ships into account. Yet all too often, the planet is crucial to strategy, and not shown. Just keeping all three in view at once would be a big help.
3D space battles? No thank you. Realistically, you'd have computerized control of stuff. Just think about the speeds people are moving around the planet at, how crazy those speeds are, (heck, how crazy is two days to cross the solar system?). Maybe with a specialized display and information system, it wold be doable, but if it really was manually piloted, we'd have a 3-D display (holographic, or something) showing how things were interacting. And, for just two ships, two velocity vectors, you'd probably model it with a flat plane that moves through space. (A plane that moves is adequate to keep one ray and one point on the plane as the second point moves along its ray.)
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
My other computer was a Trs-80 :-)
|
|
|
Vux_Brush
Frungy champion
Offline
Posts: 67
|
A pc game up to quality standards today, means being 3d, and made by a whole army of people. Small medium size companies can't easily survive anymore.
Yet though, nothing stop teams of like 5 persons to do an independent project, which takes the risk, though selling at a lower price (usual game buyer of AAA titles have a lot of demands about the techy thing )
That army you need, is really really expensive. Star control is a good license and surely an strong user base to start with (=ensured sales) .But seems big distros do really want no risk and not be blamed of using an old technology. Remember that is considered old even using prerendered 3d. heck, it's considered really old not even using normal , parallax maps in real time 3d...
My very personal opinion is...while I like doing and playing 3d games, for me is perfect a game in old school 2d. Or in whatever the technique. And I don't have a need of the game being techy or whatever. Neither huge with a million of linear and boring equal levels like today games... But I am a very rare case.
There's a going back for retro style, but only at portable consoles and mobile, and unsure if it'll last much more now that chips are really evolving there too...
But if the $ bet is really valliant, then, TFB should have full freedom to do whatever they think is better for the game. Not what is marketable (anyway, in long run, marketable means loss these days, in many cases; often playing safe is a loss among a load of companies just "playing safe") But financial pressures are a big issue ,though. So whatever the line followed, it must be understood by fan base, imo.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Vux_Brush
Frungy champion
Offline
Posts: 67
|
btw, 3d does not mean automatically first person.
I think the main point of this game is the control in third person view, with the gravity and all addons it has. I mean for combat.
Building a huge universe all in 3d would be such a pain. maybe more in the line of strategy games like Rise of Nations, would be more realistic and better for the game; you could keep a similar combat gameplay and build from there. yep, adding lots of stuff, but not wrecking it for the fan base. (and for the strong point in game itself)
What is more, if it's small staff, is the only way. No way to go and try to make a huge title of today if not 2 years or more and an army of artists and very pro, experienced (expensive) programmers...Today would need physic programmers, ppl dedicated to AI, ragdolls, etc, etc, etc....A tittle today is sooo different. But What i meant, is...it depends on if they really depend their plate of food on it or not...stuff changes dramatically.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Deus Siddis
Enlightened
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 1387
|
"""Yet though, nothing stop teams of like 5 persons to do an independent project, which takes the risk, though selling at a lower price (usual game buyer of AAA titles have a lot of demands about the techy thing)"""
The problem is, I don't think Activision would go for this. And I don't think they'd allow the TFB team to go AWOL while they worked on their own independent SC game.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Vux_Brush
Frungy champion
Offline
Posts: 67
|
Oh, Actiivsion...
going for a big title.
Well...
Can be good...
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4
|
|
|
|
|
