Dear Christopher Park

[keith.lamothe]

Haha, oh they're nice now, until one of your AIs becomes so intelligent that it gains sentience and takes over the world.  I might have a few different things to say after that ;p

Yea, like "I'm so happy about our new abiological overlord, it even lets me work in the mines!"

[x4000]

Heh.

[BobTheJanitor]

having to sit through the same animations really repetitively.

YES. Any game dev or art designer should be forced to watch any animation they create about 100 times in a row. If they still feel that it's good for their game, awesome. If they're ready to pound their face on the keyboard, they should admit their mistake and go back to the drawing board. Long, drawn out animations are fine in two scenarios. One, you can still do other things while it's going on. That's no problem. In a turn based game, that's usually not an option since you have to wait for one thing to complete before the next thing can happen. Two, they have a very LOW chance to fire. Like, 1% of the time, your character does his drawn out super awesome animation. Then it becomes something special and impressive that they player wants to watch.

I still remember how ridiculous the summons in FF VII were. Casting knights of the round, be back in 5 minutes...

[x4000]

I find FF8 unplayable now because I can't wait through all the summons even early in the game.  30 second lag between issuing one command, watching a video AGAIN, and then issuing the next command?  Yikes!

But you forgot one third case in which drawn-out animations are okay: if it's the first time I've ever seen it.

[Cyborg]

I still remember how ridiculous the summons in FF VII were. Casting knights of the round, be back in 5 minutes...

Mating chocobos was indeed miserable. But I felt rather satisfied watching the game play itself, mimicking knights of the round after I cast it for a double whammy. I even remember eating an Italian sub, knowing full well victory was imminent. Barely touched the controller.

[zoutzakje]

long animations is fine, just give us players the ability to skip it if we want to.

[Echo35]

On the topic of 4X games, I would just like to point out that EA just trademarked Alpha Centauri, so any last vestiges of hope I had left for AAA companies has completely gone out the window. Hand it to the indies for making awesome games such as this!

And I agree with other people here, I'd love to see Chris' take on a traditional Civilization/empire building style 4X.

[Blasphemy]

With a "true 4X" game my goal would be to make a turn-based game that moves quickly, has a lot of interesting decisions, and isn't just a slug-fest in terms of combat (since that's one of the places that turns in multiplayer in particular really tend to bog down).

One solution from a non-multi-player perspective is the one animals use in the wild.  Only when 2 even matched animals meet is there a true battle.  Otherwise there is just a lot of posturing.  That is the human would have to convince the AI that victory is impossible and it will resign.  This could put the emphasis/dependence on tech trees and knowledge of the enemy.  For example, when Napoleon sent 1,000,000 troops into a Russian winter he still lost (even with overwhelming military dominance) but he might have won if he had better warmth tech.  There are countless other examples, the US pulled out of Vietnam having never lost a battle, USSR lost badly in Afghanistan, the Ethiopians fought off Italy in WW2, etc.

In a multi-player game the resign feature would allow for removing the tedious, "I'm gonna get owned in an hour and half due to a slight but insurmountable deficiency in my army/base(s)." aspects of other RTS games (dawn of war) while introducing a fun bluff dynamic.  This might not work with the online community but I have always appreciated that in a game of chess I could resign and play again quickly.  Oh you got my queen, I resign, that was fun, lets go again.  Further one could remove the resource cheap zurg rush if one lvl more advanced units where, say, 10X more capable.  Send 1000 units against my 100 and you won't get slaughtered but you won't win either.  Thus when to spend resources actually building an army/armada will be at least as important as building it.


This could also introduce a fun pokeresk "calling the bluff" aspect which no other game has.  So, while two individuals may choose to engage in a cold war others may not.  The possibilities seem limitless.  For example, one could pretend to bluff, sucker their opponent into an untimely attack and then counter-attack.

If players could agree to a draw that would add another layer to the strategies implemented.

[x4000]

That's pretty interesting, actually -- though, in multiplayer typically the problem is when some random opponent gets slightly down and then immediately resigns.  You wind up with playing just the very start of a lot of games.  It's been a problem in everything from Mario Kart DS to RTS games.  But with the AI in mind for that, it's more interesting, to be sure.

[PLivesey]

Never played dungeon keeper, but I've heard good things!

I understand you're a busy man, and you are developing great games... but this surely needs to be sorted out IMMEDIATELY!  If you don't have it, I'm happy to buy it for you!

[x4000]

I'll have to check that out at some point, it does sound like something worth playing.

[Echo35]

Never played dungeon keeper, but I've heard good things!

I understand you're a busy man, and you are developing great games... but this surely needs to be sorted out IMMEDIATELY!  If you don't have it, I'm happy to buy it for you!

I'm actually kind of surprised. It's an excellent piece of game.

[Mayjori]

I find that this game is a 4x by definition..... It may not have some of the features of other 4x's but I think some of it is the next generation of 4x. There is nothing that says a 4x game has to be turn based and I actually like and prefer the way they did it here. While I cant complain about the tech, I love games where there is a ridiculous amount of teching to do, but its decent here. As for turn based.... press p ever 10 seconds . I dont think i can go back to turn based space 4x's.
I would like to reiterate though, that i definitely would love more tech and even racial type stuff .

[Echo35]

I find that this game is a 4x by definition..... It may not have some of the features of other 4x's but I think some of it is the next generation of 4x. There is nothing that says a 4x game has to be turn based and I actually like and prefer the way they did it here. While I cant complain about the tech, I love games where there is a ridiculous amount of teching to do, but its decent here. As for turn based.... press p ever 10 seconds . I dont think i can go back to turn based space 4x's.
I would like to reiterate though, that i definitely would love more tech and even racial type stuff .

Races, ship designs, diplomacy, TONS of resources, economics/trade. It's not quite the same, but certainly has a ton of 4X elements in it.

[Mayjori]

that still dosnt mean it is a 4x game, it just a 4x that has some features that other 4x's dont and dosn't have other features that some 4x's do.