Trying to understand why there is no successor to Moo2/3 yet

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Henara
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Trying to understand why there is no successor to Moo2/3 yet

#1 Post by Henara »

I just want to understand why it seems to be impossible/hard to get an orion successor!

I understand that the market today consists of simple minded players going for "woot" when seeing nice graphics, but are not smart enough to get along with like Moo3.
So therefore there is only a small target group for companies and therefore there are not big chances to make big cash.

But when i take a look in the internet, i read like billions of times: "Is there any game like Moo2/Moo3"

=> People seem to want it, so why isn't there one yet?

Now a few stupid questions:

- Why does no one just take the basics of Moo3 with all its patchs/mods, gives it a nicer look and a few tools to have better control?
- Why does it take so long for a great project like Free orion to get finished? (or reach playable status)
=> There are a lot of Fans out there, why don't more of them join you guys? I myself got no clue about programming and stuff at all, but a lot of people do.
- Is it possible to just take Moo3 and remove the 3d-combat, insert a 2d-combat mode like Moo2? Or just use a better one? (decent 3d-graphics nowadays should be very easy to aquire?)

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MikkoM
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Re: Trying to understand why there is no successor to Moo2/3 yet

#2 Post by MikkoM »

Henara wrote: - Why does it take so long for a great project like Free orion to get finished? (or reach playable status)
Probably because no one is getting paid to do this and so everyone is working on their free time. Also projects like this are quite large with many different parts to consider, so they take a lot of effort to finish.

Perhaps a project like FreeOrion could use a rich donator, like George Lucas for example :) , so that the core developers could use more time on the project and wouldn`t have to worry too much about personal income. However a rich donator should then also of course respect the independence and non commercial nature of a project like this.

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EmP
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Re: Trying to understand why there is no successor to Moo2/3 yet

#3 Post by EmP »

Henara wrote:I just want to understand why it seems to be impossible/hard to get an orion successor!

I understand that the market today consists of simple minded players going for "woot" when seeing nice graphics, but are not smart enough to get along with like Moo3.
So therefore there is only a small target group for companies and therefore there are not big chances to make big cash.
Well, many games tried to fill that empty space but ended up being very different game. Sword of the stars for example ended up being more battle oriented and losing empire management depth.
Henara wrote: But when i take a look in the internet, i read like billions of times: "Is there any game like Moo2/Moo3"

=> People seem to want it, so why isn't there one yet?

Now a few stupid questions:

- Why does no one just take the basics of Moo3 with all its patchs/mods, gives it a nicer look and a few tools to have better control?
Isn't FreeOrion trying to do that? As I've seen, many projects (open source, hobby projects and stuff like that) started as clone of MoO, usually MoO 2, got some GUI, maybe even some primitive playability and after year or two got canceled. FreeOrion is the only alive project that I'm aware of. Hope my project will survive long enough to become v1.0 :).
Henara wrote: - Why does it take so long for a great project like Free orion to get finished? (or reach playable status)
As I've read on this forum, there was changes in development team. Also people have to eat but I don't buy that as excuse for still being in version 0.3.
Henara wrote: => There are a lot of Fans out there, why don't more of them join you guys? I myself got no clue about programming and stuff at all, but a lot of people do.
More developers is not necessarily better, ten times less people worked on Windows 7 then on Windows Vista. Maybe FO team could benefit from extra programmer. Maybe I'll contribute next year when I get may degree.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Trying to understand why there is no successor to Moo2/3 yet

#4 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Henara wrote:=> There are a lot of Fans out there, why don't more of them join you guys? I myself got no clue about programming and stuff at all, but a lot of people do.
The main roadblock to FreeOrion getting more playable is current programming. Programming contributors generally need to:
* be reasonably proficient with C++ or Python
* be fans of 4X games, or have some other motivation for contributing to FreeOrion specifically
* have enough free time to contribute
* be willing to contribute for no money / for the reward of having the whole project be released under free licenses
* speak passable English
* be not already contributing to another project that takes up all their time
* accept joining a project that's not already very popular / successful and media-covered and externally funded (eg. Wesnoth)
* not mind joining an established project that they can't control the design of completely, even if they don't like some of the established design decisions

Major programming contributors also need to be reasonable good at designing software systems and/or understanding data structures and algorithms, and be good at picking up the workings of a complicated existing software system. These are separate issues from being reasonably competent with C++ or Python.
(decent 3d-graphics nowadays should be very easy to aquire?)
Making a decent 3D rendering engine is still very complicated. Even using an existing 3D library such as Ogre3D requires a lot of understanding and research into its workings. Making suitable art and models to use in such an engine is complicated and difficult. If there's a secondary roadblock to FreeOrion getting more playable, it's the need for suitable art assets.
EmP wrote:
Henara wrote:- Why does no one just take the basics of Moo3 with all its patchs/mods, gives it a nicer look and a few tools to have better control?
Isn't FreeOrion trying to do that?
No; FreeOrion is not a remake of Moo2, Moo3 or any other game.

Henara
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Re: Trying to understand why there is no successor to Moo2/3 yet

#5 Post by Henara »

Okay, I think I understand a little now.

Maybe i should change my field of study from business-shit to programming... :wink:

Must be a lot of joy to work on something you really have fun playing/using.

I hope you guys will finish this and maybe be able to get some money for it too.
I would pay decent money for a decent game (of course i would compare it to Moo series).

Zeraan
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Re: Trying to understand why there is no successor to Moo2/3 yet

#6 Post by Zeraan »

EmP wrote:Isn't FreeOrion trying to do that? As I've seen, many projects (open source, hobby projects and stuff like that) started as clone of MoO, usually MoO 2, got some GUI, maybe even some primitive playability and after year or two got canceled. FreeOrion is the only alive project that I'm aware of. Hope my project will survive long enough to become v1.0 :).
A challenger appears! Beyond Beyaan!

Oh wait, you already know about my project (just looked at the username of the post :lol: )

To add to what EmP said, part of the problem is that this kind of game is not really fun to program. 4X games have a lot of UI components that you need to set up just to get the game playable. The only fun stuff that you'll see is the combat, and maybe seeing events like exploring systems. It is basically a glorified spreadsheet underneath the fancy graphics. Other kind of games are fun to make since they focus more on gameplay itself, not data processing.

But since I view different aspects of the game as a way to learn and challenge myself, I get motivated just thinking "How can I optimize this A* algorithm?", or "How can I set this screen up so it interact with data in a non-clunky way?". I might be a bit weird, but hey, it works for me, as you can see from my blog. :D

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Zanzibar
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Re: Trying to understand why there is no successor to Moo2/3 yet

#7 Post by Zanzibar »

Henara wrote:I just want to understand why it seems to be impossible/hard to get an orion successor!

I understand that the market today consists of simple minded players going for "woot" when seeing nice graphics, but are not smart enough to get along with like Moo3.
So therefore there is only a small target group for companies and therefore there are not big chances to make big cash.

But when i take a look in the internet, i read like billions of times: "Is there any game like Moo2/Moo3"

=> People seem to want it, so why isn't there one yet?

Now a few stupid questions:

- Why does no one just take the basics of Moo3 with all its patchs/mods, gives it a nicer look and a few tools to have better control?
- Why does it take so long for a great project like Free orion to get finished? (or reach playable status)
=> There are a lot of Fans out there, why don't more of them join you guys? I myself got no clue about programming and stuff at all, but a lot of people do.
- Is it possible to just take Moo3 and remove the 3d-combat, insert a 2d-combat mode like Moo2? Or just use a better one? (decent 3d-graphics nowadays should be very easy to aquire?)
To answer your basic question here... technically... if you want a Master of Orion successor... You would have to ask for a MOO1 successor... and I would like to suggest that, based on the core elements of the ORIGINAL Master of Orion game... Sword of the Stars totally fits that bill!! Here's hoping Sword of the Stars 2 is the equivalent of Moo2... From what I've been reading about it's development... it sure as heck is looking that way... And it's scheduled to come out in September... so let's wait and see, eh? So yes, someone is paying for this project... and that someone is Paradox... let's hope it's a success! :)
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Sai
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Re: Trying to understand why there is no successor to Moo2/3

#8 Post by Sai »

While I meet most of Geoffs criteria, time certainly still is an aspect for me.

As for commercial incentives: Master of Orion 3 was highly hyped, but was far less enjoyable than it could have been. People coming from Master of Orion 2 had extremely high expectations that simply weren't met at all. It took many code patches to make the game remotely playable, and then generally you needed user made modifications to have a good game.

That said, Master of Orion 3 with UOP Tropical was and is a very enjoyable game to me. And I would still buy Master of Orion 4 the moment it was released (given it was actually a 4X game, too many multiplayer 3D fps crap around these days).

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Uziush Vielky
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Re: Trying to understand why there is no successor to Moo2/3

#9 Post by Uziush Vielky »

Henara wrote: - Why does no one just take the basics of Moo3 with all its patchs/mods, gives it a nicer look and a few tools to have better control?
Galactic Civilizations 2 was fairly succesful at this ground. Planetary development was more fun than in MoO2, ship design was pretty cool to, the map was beautiful. But the whole game had one big flaw: The space combat. There was essentialy none. What was the point in designing those cool ships, attaching weapons to them if you could only watch them battle in a cinematic? Sure this had algorithms behind the battle, but the player could only watch and do nothing more.

While I'm a big fan of micromanagment and spending a hour on one turn after giving Sword of the Stars a second chance i began to understand the philosophy of Free Orion. Less micro can also be fun. Just hope FO won't turn out a battle oriented game as SotS did. I'm crossing my fingers for the development for a nice diplomacy system.

Sad;y I can't help much on FO (I don't know anything about programing and I can't compete with the high quality artwork already provided for the project. I have a degree in biotechnology. At least I could consult some things in the tech tree or write descriptions in Polish and English). For now I will stick to the brainstorming forum.

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