muxec wrote:In the last 7 years no 4X could catch my attention for more than one evening. Nor civ4, nor GalCiv, nor sucky MOO3. Looks like nothing new can be done in the genre. Surely, modern 4X TBS games are better than 17-years old civ 1, but not that much better. Someone already bored with Civ 1-3 will not find much new in Civ 4 or Galciv or whatever. Yes, galciv features different economical model, but is it THAT different? There are not many ways to keep the game balanced, there are too few ways to let players make meaningful decisions.
All genres are suffering from aging of the industry, veteran players have seen it all, veteran player are probably not the target customer, but TBS games can not be significantly improved by improving graphics, it is minor aspect of the game. Increased complexity was the way to go in early day but now it leads to excessive micromanagement or reduced understanding.
4X games are not that good in multiplayer, for most of the game players do not interact and wars are often too fast with winner often known too soon.
A few words on future games:
Space Empires 6, Civ 5, MOO4, Galciv 3 will probably be developed later, but how much innovation can these titles provide?
I hope Master Of Magic 2 will be made sometime, but honestly I doubt the quality of the future game. Old "good" Age of Wonders utilized the worst parts of original MoM with good sides thrown away. Will MoM 2 have the same fate? Is it possible to keep it balanced without making it boring (original MoM was poorly balanced (1994, duh) and AoW was balanced even worse.
Stars! Supernova Genesis will never be released due to publishers' greed.
Is X4 really dying?
Will freeorion achieve what other developers failed? Will it provide something attractive to veterans who have seen it all already?
i don't think 4x space games are dying. there is always an urge to play these types of games; however, very few have been as immersive as the original MOO and MOO2. i think MOO3 did get one thing correct in that it tried to simplify some of the experience; however, it might not have simplified the correct experience.
if we look at the original MOO game we have distinct phases of the game.
Explore - this phase of the game we are trying to go out and discover the relative value of all of the stars/positions around us.
Expand - this phase of the game we are rushing to capture key stars before other races do.
Exploit - this phase of the game we are focusing on ramping production and ramping research.
Exterminate - this phase of the game we are just cleaning up the weaker races.
the problem i feel is that all of the races treat each position relatively the same. and when i say position i am referring to surrounding stars. there is no penalty for over expansion and thus just denying the other races planets is a good enough reason to expand.
the expansion phase needs to be more thoughtful just like the exploitation phase. there is more strategic planning involved in what techs you need to get instead of (i am just getting every tech) because time and resources is a constraint. expansion should also involve more strategic planning than dumb luck.
anyhow i am pondering all of these things because i am working on a 4x game myself. and i am looking to improve the experience for this in a MMOSG that's not real time and not turned based... more like timed turns.