StarDrive: Invasion of the Space Bears.

[keith.lamothe]

Err. 4X games need a story? When did they ever have a story?

I think that's his problem with them.  Well, one of them.

[eRe4s3r]

Err. 4X games need a story? When did they ever have a story?

Well that among many things pretty much sums up why the genre is dead and not progressing anywhere. A story would allow for progression, and 4x games have nill progression. It's all 1 stage, the "spam ships to make grey dots on a space map turn into your color" stage. And that got boring fast.

Maybe developers should learn that making a 4x game does not mean cloning every element MOO2 had just because MOO2 had it. And if you played MOO2 or Ascendancy and then boot up StarDrive, Space Empires or Endless Space, the things that are functioning nearly identical are aplenty.... *hint* before writing this I played Ascendancy, Endless Space and MOO2. I had a urge to some 4x, but I got bored with all of them, sadly in Ascendancy the AI is brain-dead.

The latest batch of 4x games all invoked a certain feeling in me, the feeling that I could be playing something else and have more fun and less work. ^^

Sidenote: To me Galciv 2 is not a traditional 4x, it's more like a CIV game. Listen to the 3ma podcast to understand that logic

[PokerChen]

Not too dead, and he's making a bit of amends/some progress in Unity (quite probably remaking the game there).

 I've been hovering on the side-lines for this one. I'm unconvinced that a one-man team on a thing on your foot-string budget can ever make a 4X work. His fiscal goals versus coding goals were way too low to make sense, although IMO it has damn fine race designs, leaving aside quadrupedal overpopulation.

 I'd still cut him the slack: for one, not even AAA teams make satisfactory AIs. IMO it is not currently tractable to make an agent(s) that is both believable and capable. The problem of evaluating  successful ship designs before the game is playable, is not that far from writing a program that weakly solves the combat game given its rules.  Rather than a dead genre, I'd suspect that it is beyond our current capability.

 It must be (to me) more often the case that a dev team looked at a idea that remotely resembles 4X, and said no they can't do that. Even if they did it, the game will either play itself or be a logistical nightmare. Neither of which is fun. Ruling is not intrinsically a fun activity, changing the destiny of ones civilisation is.

[zespri]

The fact that he is porting the game to unity and intending to sell the result as a new game to existing customers is not exactly news. I find nothing excing about it.

[Mick]

The fact that he is porting the game to unity and intending to sell the result as a new game to existing customers is not exactly news. I find nothing excing about it.

It's nice to know I'll be given the opportunity to be screwed twice!

[chemical_art]

It's nice to know I'll be given the opportunity to be screwed twice!

I chuckled at how true this is.

[keith.lamothe]

Haha, yep.  The Bears are coming back for a second pass!  Quick, hide the picnic baskets.

[Wingflier]

Better yet, hide the campers.

[Tridus]

I would spill a single tear were the game any decent... though for me not having MP is actually a selling point, as games designed for MP will always be inferior in SP. Sadly this game is inferior in SP even without MP.

This attitude alawys bugs me, because it's not true. Civ 4 didn't suffer at all in SP by having a workable MP mode. Ditto with the Total War games.

Even Endless Space didn't suffer due to MP. It suffered due to the giant ball of fail that is Disharmony.

[eRe4s3r]

I would spill a single tear were the game any decent... though for me not having MP is actually a selling point, as games designed for MP will always be inferior in SP. Sadly this game is inferior in SP even without MP.

This attitude alawys bugs me, because it's not true. Civ 4 didn't suffer at all in SP by having a workable MP mode. Ditto with the Total War games.

Even Endless Space didn't suffer due to MP. It suffered due to the giant ball of fail that is Disharmony.

I am talking about design decisions that go deeper. How turns are calculated for example or how mods work. I admit the games I was thinking about were SOTS2 and Anno 2070.

Total War is still a pure SP game and always will be. MP is just tacked on. I mean when a games basic design is made for MP. And no time was spend thinking what that does to SP.