What games are you most looking forward to?

Actually for MORE, it was a stretch goal. They never reached that. As it is being built, it will have control over what ships go where. Not what ships fire on what ships and such.

And as I said in the other thread, I found no definitive answer that the offline mode is anything more than online startup and then offline mode as we know it. (If they said it will never require Internet access to start the game for single player I would be drooling. But I never found that.)

 

Here. They call it the "Advanced Space Battle Module". Note that according to this, there will not even be a single player campaign.

I hope we get both. But the proof is there to see that they never reached the amount where they would bother to make one.



*Edit* Source is here. But I should note that the image here is out of date. They have reached the 90K mark by a hair. Just 5K from what I call tactical combat, and 10K from a full playable game. Ground combat is not important to me. But I think those 95K and 100K stretch goals are things that they should have before launch anyways.

*Edit* Yet again I edit. Either that or triple post... I figured I should give this link too. It is the official site and may have more details if anyone wants to dig through the forums there and see if they can prove me wrong. (I would gladly welcome being wrong.)
http://www.morethegame.com/

 

I don't see what a singleplayer campaign would add to a 4x game: Colonize galaxy. Oh noes! Armageddon. Do it again. Repeat X times.

DoD doesn't have a campaign, but I would consider it a full playable game. In my opinion, not all games need are conducive to a guided story. I do appreciate general lore / backstory / fluff in my 4x games, don't get me wrong, but those are different from a campaign.

 

Well you and I see a campaign as two very different things. I freely admit I could be wrong. I see them as the singleplayer side exclusively. In my eyes, MoO and MoO2/3 each had a campaign. If I understand you, that is not how you see them.

Backstory is what makes genres. DoD has a very limited backstory because there is little need for details on how everything came to what they are. But there was a tremendous backstory behind ToME and Nethack and Angband. They made the genre have a set standard of what is expected. DoD just goes a different way. No criticism intended.

In Tome/Angband/Nethack/any of a dozen or several dozen more similar games, the bulk of the backstory is in the descriptions of the true artifacts. And while you could say this paints them into a corner over time, they have been around a very long time. And they are still going strongly.

Back to the subject, MORE is a game that is supposed to bring back the allure of the MoO series and similar games. It will be a clone. It will have enhancements never seen in the series it is cloning, and may be great fun or a tremendous flop followed by the sound of someone flushing it away.

To my eyes the "Fluff" aspect is the graphical nonsense. I do not enjoy spending time admiring art, so why would I do that in a game? I want a game with a rich and detailed backstory that does not entirely paint them into a narrative corner. I liked MoO1 just fine for the graphics. MoO2 was better, but this is a radical goal they are setting. I hope the fluff does not negate the content.

 

I would have agreed with you about the 'graphical nonsense, if you had said that 15 or more years ago. Certainly, graphics are more meaningful in games that are supposed to be immersive (such as open-world RPGs and MMOs). However a game with an ugly appearance, can simply be unpleasant to look at (that's one of my main difficulties, really, with Fallen Enchantress). I'm not talking about low-rez graphics, I'm talking about bad art design. A bad color palette can make playing a game simply painful to the eyes. In many cases, I'd actually welcome ascii graphics over unappealing graphics any day.

What I've noticed about myself, though, is that a pleasing appearance, while not enough to win me over, IS more important to me than I once thought it was. Good graphics are not going to hook me on a game, to be sure. But it does help me maintain my attention -- then again, I've been suspected of having A.D.D. so that may have an affect. It's not equally true for all games, but nice graphics are nice. Period.

And as far as plot is concerned: In a strategic game, I really don't need anything more than build a great empire, and don't let any of those pesky aliens get in your way of doing so. But maybe that also is just me. I read a lot. I like good stories. I also like games. 99.999% of games with stories have horrible, clicheed, and/or shallow stories. My belief is that this is because games are intrinsically horrible at story telling, simply for a variety of reasons. In a book or a movie, the writer (and director) controls the pacing. You can't do that in a game. Consequently, you can't tell stories that rely on pacing, which leaves out most good stories. In a game you are restricted in your POV, not so in other media. In games, your hero dies and comes back and retries stuff. That simplly doesn't work in any kind of narrative.

/edit One more thing -- good writers tend to write, and don't (usually) make games.

 

OmniaNigrum: I don't remember MoO2 having a campaign. I need to check into that. I would agree a campaign is generally something done singleplayer- though I could envision a co-op campaign being possible, I just don't think I've seen this.

To me, a campaign is generally reserved to the RTS genre. Usually, an RTS map is smaller in scope than a 4x game, so it is easier to string random maps together with some story bits and say it is in a different location. It's harder to do that when each map of a space themed 4x game generally contains the entire galaxy. All other singleplayer portions of non-RTS games I just consider the game, not a campaign.

Clear as mud?

 

As I said, you and I have different ways of seeing a campaign. The ability to play single player and have enough backstory to make it unique to each major choice you make is all that is required to me.

If you see a campaign as something that has specific missions as you progress through the game and no real replay value if you pay attention the first time through, then MoO2 did not have one, but linear games like most shooters do.

To be honest I think we are just seeing two similar things very differently and it may be impossible for us to see eye-to-eye. Fair enough. To each their own.

 

No need for defeatist attitude in this case, I think I understand what you call a campaign. Our terminology differs; oh well.

 

No advanced Battle Module was a stretch goal. That means very advanced tactical combat, with extra options etc. They WILL have basic tactical combat from the get go.

Lemme see if I can find it for you.

Well I found this: "@Archon. Yes, we will include AUTO-COMBAT option." <- wouldn't be needed if there wasn't TB combat... also their kickstarter page starts with saying that, etc.

And this:
$150k - The Advanced space battle module means adding more options for our spacebattles. Such as targeting specific ship system (engines, shield generator, bridge etc). It also means that we create a separate module just to play space battles alone. You won't need to play whole 4x strategy. You will just pick technology age, and specify the number of battle pool points, to scale up the size of the battle. Then you will choose ships for your fleet from your previously created ship projects/prototypes... and then fight in turn-based 3d fight with your opponent. It will be something like Player Vs Player arena, similar to battles fought in "gratuitous space battles" or "total war rome"

 

Thanks Godwin. I am very happy to be wrong. I see the cup as half-empty, but this time it was half-full instead!

 

Cool

 

That's pretty much what a campaign is, basing it on the normal definition. A series of defined lesser missions supposed to bring you closer to the ultimate goal. Just like military campaigns are composed of lesser operations and individual attacks/sieges/manoeuvres/whatever instead of just being "1. Attack Russia/China/Poland/Insert whatever country; 2. Victory".

But it's just a definition, really.

 

I'm actually kinda looking forward to the next Wadjet Eye game... Primordia? I've gone through two Blackwell games this week and enjoyed them, Resonance I never finished but liked parts of it (shame it's such a moon logic-y, vague, wishy-washy game), but Primordia looks kinda cool. Plus I saw this picture and for some reason I was like I WANT TO KNOW MORE THIS GAME SHALL BE MINE.