MOO3 is finally out!
http://moo3.quicksilver.com/main.html
Has anyone tried it? Is it as good as I hope? Are there any problems with it? Should I rush out and buy it now?
Hmm, that says it’s gone gold, that means that the masters are ready for the publisher to start making copies with, could mean a couple of more weeks before it’s on the shelves.
I plan to buy it, I was a big fan of the first two.
It doesn’t ship until the 25th, last I checked the website.
Crap, I thought that meant they were finally done with it.
I’ll ask again next month 
Which means we should probably expect the first patch sometime mid March.
If not sooner; it’s had a somewhat lengthier gone-gold-but-pre-shipment period than some other games have. For as complex as I expect it to be, several patches are pretty much guaranteed, though.
I really hope it doesn’t suck; I have extremely fond memories of making nice-nice and managing to swing an alliance with every other race (using the humans of course, the diplomatic bystyrds), just long enough to park Annihilation Fleets over every other planet–in order to wipe them all out in a single glorious turn. Good times, good times.
I have bad feelings about MOO 3. You may not be aware, but Infrogames took a look at the game in the fall and forced the team to scrap much of what was there. That leads me to beleive either 1) Infrogames knew what they were doing, but the designers were overambitous with their heads not screwed on or 2) The designers (Quicksilver?) were taking creative risks that may actually have been interesting, but Ifrogames didnt want that risk on their hands, they wanted a good product.
Either way, its a little fishy. I’ll wait a bit on this one.
by “good product” I mean “more easily marketed.” Its too early for thought…
Though I admit some of their reaons were not bad. Still I really wanted to see the evolving culture of my alien species.
MOO was one of the classics of the time, MOO2 I never fully got into. It was a while ago but the interface was just not right and too much mircomanagment for my taste (the battles were much better though). I’m hoping that MOO 3 is more of global management then micro and they spend the time to test then interface.
From what I’ve read (I’ve been following the development of the game for a while), they had planned originally to limit the amount of fine-tuning you could do to your empire - you had a certain number of command points (may not be the name they used for it) that you could use for adjusting build orders, designing ships, taking diplomatic actions, etc. Players had enough points to manage their empire themselves while it was still small, but when it got larger you had to appoint governors to handle most of it for you, and you could choose leaders at different levels of control to fit your policies. You could get more of these command points (focus points?) by having certain kinds of government or racial traits, but you would always be limited in how much control you actually had. The designers did this to improve multiplay, so players wouldn’t and couldn’t take an hour for one turn when the game progressed.
The designers later decided that the game was playing itself too much, and went back to the more traditional model, where you can tweak things as much as you like and governors basically just provide bonuses.
After all the delays that they have subjected us too, there better not be ANY problems with the game. Remember, the initial release date was Q1 or Q2 of 2002.
I am very, very hesitant about this game. After the total fiasco that was “Civilization III Play The World,” I’m nervous about any product that as Infogrames’s name on it. I’d also point out that “Rollercoaster Tycoon II” might have been the biggest ripoff of 2002, seeing as how it was, right down to the very last detail, “Rollercoaster Tycoon I” with some new maps.
Infogrames does not have a good recent history of publishing quality products.
Sadly, I concur, Rick. The PTW fiasco could/should have been adverted by giving Civ 3 multiplayer and real world map in the first place. Given their declining level of satisfaction, I’m quite expecting the first patch for MOO3 needed for fixing bugs in the installation program.
Is there any word on if there will be a demo for MOO3? I can’t seem to find any info on the offical website, so unless it’s buried in one of the discussion forums…
That way at least we gamers can get a better sense of how the game will be, before shelling out the $$$ for it.
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Huh? Those are very different development houses, and those two examples in particular are cases of “strong” people in the industry (Chris Sawyer and Sid Meier) instead of just wholly publisher-owned development studios. And Infogrames is one of the largest publishing firms there is. It’d be like saying that all books published by Random House are alike, or all movies distributed by Paramount are alike.
A publisher can milk a title past a developer’s willingness or ability to support it (as with RCT2). And a publisher can pressure a developer to release a game too early or not provide enough testing resources, as might have been the case with Civ3 PTW. (But a multiplayer expansion for that game was inevitable and I’d be stunned if it wasn’t item 1 on their list of things to add all along; it’s not as if Infogrames came in and surprised them with a sudden announcement that they have to come out with a multiplayer add-on in <6 months.) But that doesn’t have much bearing on a game that’s been in development as long as MOO3.
No, it doesn’t work that way. Games don’t get delayed a year for bug-fixing and testing; it’s for developing or adding features, play-balancing, or changing the design. Even if you feel like you’ve been “subjected to” delays, realize that that was development time. Don’t have higher expectations for the game’s stability than you would for any other game releasing in February. (Whatever those expectations may be, is up to you. But “better not be ANY problems” is very unrealistic.)
Well,
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Sid Meier had nothing to do with Play the World, and
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Infogrames was widely blamed for the PTW fiasco by allegedly pushing Firaxis to publish it in time for the Christmas market. It was ALSO claimed they pushed the timing of Civ 3, which is why it was an unfinished product, thereby necessitating Play the World.
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With all due respect to Chris Sawyer, if he is responsible for RollerCoaster Tycoon II, he should be ashamed of himself.
The buzz, according to just about everyone, is that it’s Infogrames, not Firaxis, that was responsible for PTW being junk. I realize they aren’t the developer, but if the publisher’s pushing his authors to released stuff before it’s ready I’m entitled to be a little cautious about buying from them.
I expect a few bugs in any software. PTW was way, way past “a few bugs.” The primary feature, a patch that most games have as part of the product to start with, DID NOT WORK (and even after patching still does not work well) and the rest of the content was mostly crap you can download for free.
Hmm, I wasn’t aware of that. Claimed by whom? Somebody more reliable than a fan forum or fatbabies, I hope. I’m not being trying to be argumentative; either scenario is completely plausible to me. I’ve just seen way too many cases of people on the internet getting all worked up and working out elaborate conspiracy theories that just simply aren’t true.
And my comment about bugs was in response to adam yax’s post, not in relation to PTW. I’d seen a lot of messages on SimCity forums saying similar things – “They delayed the game past Christmas, why are there still bugs?” It’s just the nature of software that systems get more and more complex and try to do more and more things (except maybe for RCT2), and no company can afford to hire 10,000 playtesters, so the people who first buy a game are going to find stuff wrong with it. Especially with a game as complex as MOO3, it’s just unrealistic not to expect bugs to be there. And it’s unrealistic to believe that any publisher would allow a developer to delay a project an entire year to fix bugs.
(BTW, I only bought PTW for the new civs, not the multiplayer, so I haven’t noticed any bugs with it yet. But of course, I’m in no way saying that they’re not there and every single review of the game is wrong!)
No, there is not going to be a demo. I’m not really sure how you could have a demo for a game like MOO3, really.
I don’t have a specific link handy, but I read through the MOO3 board daily. This one’s come up quite a few times.
I’ve been waiting for this game for over a year now. The repeated delays have worried me, but you never know… maybe they just needed the extra time to put out an especially outstanding game. I HOPE that’s what it was. ;>