yuppi - MOO gets a new edition!

[enpi]

Sorry to post this here but I am so excited. I thought this is interesting to every 4x gamer. MOO gets a new edition from wargaming.com (which made Massive Assault and World of Tanks)

http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/master-of ... 86711.html

http://www.pcgamer.com/master-of-orion- ... wargaming/

[Arioch]

I hope they do a good job.

[enpi]

Oh, I am sure they will do. Wargaming.net devs are big fans of turnbased strategy games themselves. Nowadays only world of tanks is well known but before this they produced excellent turnbased games.

eg
-Massive Assault
-Galactic Assault (super game but sadly not well known in the west because it was released and marketed in eastern europe)

I play Massive Assault every day for many years now. (no. 35 in world ranking! ) Its one of the best games I ever experienced, so I think that the MOO legacy is in good hands. Wargaming.net is one of the 2 game companies I fully trust. (the other is firaxis)

[Gilleous]

I am not a fan of the World of Tanks, but it has caused many to be worried they will use the same model for MOO. I can sympathize with that fear since I seen my share of franchise dilution.

However, they assured us it won't be, and as you said, they have a history of strategy gaming. It would be like assuming all future Blizzard products will be MMOs because of WoW (which obviously didn't happen).

So I'm curious on how they will pull it off.

[Arioch]

I realize this may sound strange, but it looks a lot like StarDrive.

[luciderous]

Wargaming.net devs are big fans of turnbased strategy games themselves. Nowadays only world of tanks is well known but before this they produced excellent turnbased games.

I disagree with this one. For starters, Wargaming is only a publisher - the actual development is being done by some NGD studio from Argentina, without much prodigy in 4X department. On the other hand, the hope for success remains. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

[enpi]

Wargaming.net devs are big fans of turnbased strategy games themselves. Nowadays only world of tanks is well known but before this they produced excellent turnbased games.

I disagree with this one.


For starters, Wargaming is only a publisher - the actual development is being done by some NGD studio from Argentina, without much prodigy in 4X department. On the other hand, the hope for success remains. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

They said that they have assembled several of the former simtex staff which now work for NGD for this remake. You can inform yourself eg at Space Sector where the wargaming.net staff member ChrisK is directly answering in the commentary.

[luciderous]

They said that they have assembled several of the former simtex staff which now work for NGD for this remake. You can inform yourself eg at Space Sector where the wargaming.net staff member ChrisK is directly answering in the commentary.

Well, unless they spill out the names, I don't buy it. It doesn't matter much if they have a programmer or a composer from the original Simtex team. What matters most is game design. Thus, unless they asked Steve Barcia to help out (which is doubtful), anything else is simply big talk for now. And I can already see they switched to "star lanes movement" concept. This is so NOT Master of Orion of old.

[Arioch]

They said that they have assembled several of the former simtex staff which now work for NGD for this remake. You can inform yourself eg at Space Sector where the wargaming.net staff member ChrisK is directly answering in the commentary.

Chris said on the subject: "we actually have several members of the original team consulting on the project to make sure we get the spirit of the game right, the way they would have done it themselves." The unnamed former SimTex staff are 'consultants,' not developers actually working for NGD on the game.

[enpi]

hm..now they said that tac combat will not be the focus. Thats terrible news, when the dev of a reboot dont fully understand what made the original good. I hope this game dont tank. My optimism seemed to be a little bit premature.

[Arioch]

hm..now they said that tac combat will not be the focus. Thats terrible news, when the dev of a reboot dont fully understand what made the original good. I hope this game dont tank. My optimism seemed to be a little bit premature.

The producer Chris Keeling posted a clarification of his comment in the PC Gamer article about tactical combat:

What I meant was (guess I needed to be more clear) was that we weren't diving deep on tactical combat and ship design at the expense of the core gameplay, as has been done by other games. We're doing core strategic gameplay first (because it's the most important), but we're also having extremely fun and deep tactical combat with a lot of cool features, as well as ship design more in line with the MOO2 level of control. We're not abandoning these aspects of the game, we just recognize that focusing on parts of the game used by only 10% of the players isn't the way to make the best game, it's the way to ensure that the primary gameplay - conquering the galaxy through strategic decisionmaking and resource management - would not be up to par.

Don't worry, we've got this. More to come.

[Tssha]

That is a really awesome response and I am 12% more excited about this project.


I should probably also clarify that, while I love a great tactical battle game, I also think the strategic game is more important, especially since that's where I'll be spending most of my time and thus it should be the most fun.

It's also where I build my doom fleets of doomy doom and thus that should also be fun.

[Awaras]

I am looking at some released screenshots for MOO...

This screenshot makes it seem like they are using some kind of jumplane system for the game instead of free travel between the stars like in previous games.



Please tell me I am wrong!?

*edit* Just checked their forums, and yes, starlanes seem to be in... Sigh...

MoO 2-esque colony management, with three fields (food, production, and science) and buildings, with adviser available if you don't want to manage them directly.
MoO 3-esque starlanes, with ability to block off lanes with satellites or ships

[Arioch]

Starlanes can be a good thing, if implemented properly. It makes certain systems more strategic, and reduces the problem in the later game in which fleets can deep-strike into the interior of your territory, bypassing your fleets and defenses.

[Lithari]

Starlanes can be a good thing, if implemented properly. It makes certain systems more strategic, and reduces the problem in the later game in which fleets can deep-strike into the interior of your territory, bypassing your fleets and defenses.

I guess they could be trying to do it like Freespace, they had jumpnodes and you can't just jump from point a to point b, you have to go through the whole route.