Stardock's greatest strength is the quality assurance.

I'd have to say that their QA rigor is just an aspect (very important, though) of their real "greatest strength:" offering lasting value for your license fee.

I'm a huge MoO2 fan, and spent maybe a year faithfully following the MoO3 web site during the painfully drawn-out dev process, only to be horribly disappointed when I finally got the game.

Watching the way GCII updates have been driven by input from these forums has been about as different an experience as possible given the shared context of game development. The MoO lineage suffered b/c too many decisions were made based on concerns about "the franchise" and the top decision-makers were bean counters, not developers. Brad seems to really understand what a brand should mean--Stardock's not a logo for a bundle of copyrighted software, it appears to be a dedicated and reliable organization.

Forget MoO. And everybody pushing for MoO4 are a bunch of ungrateful assclowns. Stardock has a bolt of lightning in their hands with Galactic Civilizations. If you want them to let it go

The thing about Stardock doing a MoO 4 is that they could then make a game with features unique to MoO; features, that if put into Galciv, might give Galciv the appearance of being a 'MoO clone'. MoO also has more name recognition than Galciv, and that alone would help a Stardock developed MoO 4 sell copies.

I wonder about your grasp of the game development industry. Atari deserves nothing less than death for sitting on their licenses.

And here I'm wondering about your grasp of the industry. Activision, EA, Interplay, Atari... what publisher doesen't sit on their classic licenses? According to your flawed logic, all of the bigger publishers deserve 'nothing less than death'.

According to your flawed logic, all of the bigger publishers deserve 'nothing less than death'.

You are correct. Every one of the companies you mentioned deserve death. Particularly EA. I believe Interplay died shortly after Brotherhood of Shiat. The logic, however, is not flawed.

Copyright in the US is insane and does not fulfil its constitutional mandate to serve the "Sciences and useful arts."

Merely sending a cease & desist letter to anybody doing something to your comatose intellectual property (example, x-com, 11 years) should not be grounds for holding on to said comatose intellectual property.

Copyright law was rewritten twice in the first 190 years of this country and 11 times since Disney discovered how to buy Congress.

The original copyright protection was 14 years. Then 14 years with one renewal. I would go with 14 years with two uncontested renewals. Three additional renewals where the author has to prove and defend the property in front of a copyright panel.

If you don't use it, you deserve to lose it.

I thought in the US copyright lasted until 50 years past the death of the author. If so, then how long does it last in the case when the copyright is held by a company not the author (e.g., Disney)?

I spent over a year heavily researching intellectual property in the mid-'90s and it has remained a moving target. Just now, Wikipedia said "(US) Copyrights are currently slated to last for seventy years after the death of an author, or seventy-five to ninety-five years in the case of works of corporate authorship and works first published before January 1, 1978."

p.s. Wheel does have some details wrong, but in spirit he's right about the recent steady escalation of copyright duration and Disney's leading role in the problem, although they are hardly the only major corp with serious interest in undermining the framer's likely intent re the "Progress of Science and the useful Arts." And don't even get me started on how wrong it is that software is under (c) and not patent law, or that you can patent *a freakin' life form*!

I'd love to do a MOO 4. It would basically be MOO 2 with some elements from MOO 1 with a big graphics update, more streamlined multiplayer options (along the lines of Civ IV) and a campaign mode to reintroduce players to the mythos that Simtex created.

This prospect gets me excited. Things that I liked about Moo2 were:
1) the ability to make your own race, even thou it wasnt really that balanced and in the end there was a clear favorite race.
2) the ease of manipulating population. Moving them from one planet to the next using the population units. Assigning them to work as farmers, scientists or workers.
3) tactical space combat with custom ships. You could have a strategy, like missle ships or beam ships, and a bunch of others that weren't really well balanced so no one used em in multi
4) solar systems with variety of planets and sizes
5) colony buildings were simple to understand and use. You didnt have to build 15 factories, just one! or more preciesely, one of each kind. Altough there could be some more tweaking here so that it would be a bit more benefitial to choose what buildings to build. Cause as it was then, you could build all the buildings since the maintenance wasn't so bad once you get a high pop.

I can't think of any Moo1 features that were better than Moo2, except maybe for the random tech tree. Moo1 was fun but the sliders were a pain and the way ground combat was done was very simplistic like galciv model :/

There were actually many Moo3 things I LIKED! It's just that they were packaged badly. Here is a list:

1) Bigger solar systems with moons! Even thou the moons werent a seperate entity.
2) Real tie tactical combat! This always means a bit less cheese. Moo2 combat is basically all cheese, once you figure out how to make your ships move first all the time, you almost never lose.
3) The sspace map was a lot better. The space lanes were a good thing, it created virtual bottle necks. The Humans in Sots also use simular space travel form. And lastly I cant recall if you could intercept in deep space :/
4) Mobilization centers! Brilliant really. Having a reserve force from which you could mobilize fleets to any mobilization center. Really eliminated lot of mincro management.
5) Fleets! I know it was made very poorly, but I like the idea. It would take a lot of planning to make it more worthwhile thou. The Escort/picket/core system could be good thou.

I would rather have both Moo4 and galciv3. Both games are completely different. Of all the Moo games I played though (2 & 3) I prefer 3 as perverted as it sounds. Hell, my favorite 4x is still Stars! and its a decade out of date (not to mention 16bit lol)

I would rather have both Moo4 and galciv3.

I would rather have two crews like Stardock working from some differing goals and assumptions. I don't care what the darned things are called, but I have no doubt that a worthy competitive team for the current Stardock crew would leave both "us" and "them" happier in the long run. (And yes, I'm the weirdo who's called himself a US socialist elsewhere--socialism is about *managing* market forces, not denying them!)

I'd love to do a MOO 4. It would basically be MOO 2 with some elements from MOO 1 with a big graphics update, more streamlined multiplayer options (along the lines of Civ IV) and a campaign mode to reintroduce players to the mythos that Simtex created.

I good MoM successor is what we plan to do. It won't be MoM2 (i.e. we're not looking to clone it) but as MoM fans we have a pretty good idea of the key points that made MoM so fun for us.

You're a sadist, right? You keep saying things like this just to torture me, I'm certain. You go to all this effort to make a respectable company that makes games I enjoy, and then go and say you'd like to make some of my dream games - except you don't have the manpower. You are a cruel, cruel man.

Hmm, I think I'm going to go forge a small personal fortune, and then sponsor several university scholarships for computer scientists with the requirement that they must want to live in northern Michigan once they obtain their degrees. That'll teach you! I'm calling your bluff!

Moo1 was fun but the sliders were a pain and the way ground combat was done was very simplistic like galciv model :/

So you likeed the MoO 2 two system where it took minutes to manage your planets better than the MoO 1 system where it took seconds *and* you didn't need to exit the galaxy screen to do it? That's whacked.

MoO 2's combat was just as simplistic as Galciv's or MoO 1 by the way.

That's whacked.

Alright, now I want to know where you (Jeff Graw) found found your icon . It looks like it came from some game, as mine indirectly did.

I'm sure I'm far less game-literate than Jeff, but I am *very* MOOx literate and given my play style tendencies, I found MoO2 a *very* worthwhile upgrade.

Knowing more about other games might help me and other readers here reassess our take on the larger database-in-space genre. Jeff, can you recommend any web articles (reviews, etc.) that are related?

The avatar comes from Tyrian, my favorite top down shooter.

Knowing more about other games might help me and other readers here reassess our take on the larger database-in-space genre. Jeff, can you recommend any web articles (reviews, etc.) that are related?

I can't really think of any articles off the top of my head.

The best way to get to know a genre better is to get Dosbox, and search for old games on HOTU. HOTU even has a Galactic War section.

Hey, G.W., I assume you've played MoM? It offers a pretty cool picture of the transition from MoO 1 to 2.

MoO 2's combat was just as simplistic as Galciv's or MoO 1 by the way.

I find taking over population and buildings instead of killing everyone off on the planet a lot more complicated.

Yes, that is more complicated, but that's not the 'combat' part, is it? Anyway, I get what you mean now.

that is more complicated, but that's not the 'combat' part

Now I'm much more confident I don't have a good context to follow Jeff's arguments. Not only I do I basically miss the MoM as MoO1 to MoO2 edification thing, I cannot at all see how a planetary invasion ending with an occupation force and remaining local population is not part of how you model (play) combat.

Maybe I'm off w/ Jeff b/c I'm seeing outcomes as the final part of combat.

p.s Huge thanks for the links--I don't know if I'll spend time getting properly educated, but it is good to know I could

Now I'm much more confident I don't have a good context to follow Jeff's arguments. Not only I do I basically miss the MoM as MoO1 to MoO2 edification thing,

It's pretty simple. Look at the diplomacy, graphical style, and menus in MoM... a lot of that stuff is like MoO 1, and diplomacy is pretty much copy and pasted from MoO 1. Then look at heroes, custom wizards, city management, experience levels for units... a lot of that stuff appears later in MoO 2.

I cannot at all see how a planetary invasion ending with an occupation force and remaining local population is not part of how you model (play) combat.

I was thinking about the actual combat aspect, where for Galciv, MoO 1, and MoO 2 you basically have a graphical representation of how many soldiers are killed from each side, with no input from the user. A less simple 'combat' would allow the user some control over this phase. So I was thinking about just the combat part when Astax was thinking about the entire process of planetary invasion. It was my mistake.

Heck with moo4 Just make moo2 available again and I'll be happy.

look at heroes, custom wizards, city management, experience levels for units... a lot of that stuff appears later in MoO 2.

Oi, you seriously make me wish I'd taken better care with my original media. I don't know if it is my basic contempt for copyright or what, but despite having paid for MoM and all 3 MoOs, I have no good install media now for any of them

Guess that's yet another reason to stay in the chorus here asking Stardock to do a sword and sorcery TBS worthy of GalCiv (and keep GalCiv going until it makes the MoO line just part of the story).

Yes, that is more complicated, but that's not the 'combat' part, is it? Anyway, I get what you mean now.

It really doesn't need to be any more complicated than that. You had different ground units, altough only one offensive ground unit. That oculd be changed. Really the autoresolve is fine with me.

Wheeloffire, Silent Storm was a pretty good game but the incredibly lazy, buggy, and criminally unsupported sequels (Silent Storm: Sentinels, and that other one about being a KGB agent I can't recall the title) make me rather certain that Jowood cannot be trusted with .. well pretty much any license! About 75% of what they make is bargain-bin fodder hardly fit as a coaster, and the other 25% are slightly broken gems. The category any game fits under is somewhat random, I think it comes down to whether it's almost bug-free or not once it hits QA because.. they don't have any?

One of them is actually impossible to finish due to various bugged missions that never got patched in the U.S. version, might not have been patched in the UK version or any other for that matter. In fact-- based on the frustration level of that last unfinishable mission, it may not be accidental, you're getting attacked by undetectable enemies that will obliterate your entire squad from minute one and you'll only ever get to the 'you lose automatically' ending by saving, reloading after every slaughter, then blind-spraying down corridors where you know the invisible enemy is.

I don't think they would do any better than UFO: Aftermath, which was a truly disappointing title to anyone expecting a spiritual successor to X-Com (I think Aftermath was good for about an hour or so once you got over the learning curve, then the horrible balancing took up the slack). Either Jowood doesn't have anybody talented or there's a steady and proven record of their executives creating an environment where a good, polished product cannot be produced-- they're exactly the kind of publishers/developers/whatever that'd shovel out another Aftermath.

I agree with you about Brotherhood of Steel though.. a sad 'end' (for the time being) for the Fallout franchise. (I'm not sure if you meant Fallout Tactics: BoS, or that Diablo-clone that came out on the consoles-- either way, they were pretty depressing but in retrospect at least Fallout Tactics was kinda a good game. Just not good enough for the franchise)

Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Shiat was the title I was discussing. Sorry about the confusion.

The problem with that game is that they abandoned the economy of the previous Fallout games. The whole "you're in an army but it doesn't mean anything" thing was annoying. Redoing the enemies was also annoying. The maps were atrocious. No freedom to complete tactical missions beyond a narrow scope. Real time without pause was the killer in my book. A more friendly real time mode would have overcome the other annoyances.

I simply wasn't inspired to keep playing. Silent Storm needs to be liberated from Jowood. I like the potential it has.

One of the things I particularly liked about Master of Orion II was the freedom to design a certain kind of ship for a given mission - there was an equipment listing longer than you could shake a stick at. It had an amazing replayability factor.

MoO3's only good point was the introduction of macromanagement. Instead of being bogged down with endless decision-making every turn players could (much of the time) happily hit end turn knowing that their empire wouldn't run itself into the ground. However this also meant that it was hard sometimes to tell where you were making a difference, especially if you were having to drill through several screens to the vital statistics.

If there should ever be a successor to the Master of Orion title it should spend a decent amount of time at the drawing board and be refined in the way GalCiv has been, and not abandoned shortly after birth like MoO3 was.

If you liked X-com you may want to try to get a copy of this game:

UFO Aftermath I found it met my X-com needs

Official web site

Its alot like X-com and there is a sequal I think also. Not to shabby a game but now its a little old i think.

As much as I miss my Beloved MOO and would instantly buy any new installment, Atari is the Antichrist. They are cursed with the Anti-Midas touch. I would advise anyone, especially Stardock to walk ... no RUN away from any dealings with them. MOO and MOM will stay dormant until Atari goes bust (which looks like it might not be too long, thankfully!)

Besides ... as someone wisely pointed out ... why waste your time on MOO? GalCiv 2 is the new 4x strategy king now!
Dano

Thirded. GalCiv2's a better game in every way than any iteration of MoO ever was, sorry people. It'd be a tragic misallocation of resources for SD to pursue a MoO revival when simply advancing GalCiv would invariably produce a better game.

Now Star Control, there's nothing on the market like that anymore. I'd love to see an SD game along those lines, even if it wasn't connected to/licensed as Star Control.