RANTZ HOSELEY interview!

MarkG · June 11, 2002, 17:44

our first moo3 interview with Rantz Hoseley

http://apolyton.net/misc/interviews/moo1-rantz-1.shtml

ChaotikVisions · June 11, 2002, 23:56

Hmm, sounding much better then when I had first heard about it. No more IFP, and you can actually control combat somewhat, and lots of other cool stuff. It also seems that Infogrames must actually be listening to all the people who complain when they make developers rush games.

Skanky Burns · June 12, 2002, 00:25

infogreed not the root of all evil?

Good interview, will be interesting to see what 'Poly people say when its released.

moomin · June 12, 2002, 03:57

Good work, Markos.

I do wish there had been a question or two about the recent purges at QS, but otherwise we have now confirmed that the guys left there still think it's a game worth paying for.

A real shame they won't be relasing a demo, though.

Solver · June 12, 2002, 04:38

Before I ask anything else... what is MoO3?

player1 · June 12, 2002, 05:18

Solver,
Are you joking?

Anyway,
It is long awaited Master of Orion III

Solver · June 12, 2002, 07:53

I know it's Master of Orion 3, and that's exactly where my knowledge of it all ends.

Apocalypse · June 12, 2002, 08:42

It is like Civ in space. One of the official scenarios for Civ2 was about MoO.

Solver · June 12, 2002, 08:52

TBS's apart from Civ just can't be good

.

I think I should find a preview somehwere.

Apocalypse · June 12, 2002, 08:57

The series was originally made by Microprose, so some of the people who worked on MoO knew some of the people who worked on Civ.

Xentax · June 12, 2002, 09:01

Quote:

Originally posted by Solver
I know it's Master of Orion 3, and that's exactly where my knowledge of it all ends.

It's a Civ-like TBS. The "Feel" is a bit different because of the planets vs. terrain nature; if you can imagine an island-hopping Civ map, where there's a potential city but only one on each island, that's a glimpse of what the landscape would be like. Space Combat can't occur just anywhere, though -- only within solar systems.

There's lots more to it than that, of course. MOO's strengths compared to Civ include the fact that you can design units (in MOO3, that includes missiles and fighters and mines, not just ships), a richer espionage and diplomacy system (especially in MOO3), and an open-ended timeline -- the game goes until a victory condition is met. Weaknesses compared to moo3 -- well, I'm biased, so I don't see many, but Civ is a little easier to approach for new strategy players (without sacrificing richness), and since it's historical to near future, the game setting is more familiar than an interstellar, distant-future universe.

Totally off-topic: Can I ripoff your Avatar?

TCO · June 12, 2002, 13:50

Who did the interview and why is his name hidden behind the site name. That is really screwed up.

Xentax · June 12, 2002, 14:20

I'd be awfully surprised if it wasn't MarkG...

TCO · June 12, 2002, 14:35

The interviewer should be named.

Pythagoras · June 12, 2002, 17:26

Quote:

Originally posted by GP
Who did the interview and why is his name hidden behind the site name. That is really screwed up.

Who cares, questions were asked, thats what he answered.

TCO · June 12, 2002, 19:46

Quote:

Originally posted by Pythagoras

Who cares, questions were asked, thats what he answered.

The interview is more than just answers to random questions. The identity of the interviewer determines what questions are asked, what followup is etc. Especially in this case, where we had a live interactive (i.e. real) interview, not just an e-mailed script of questions. The interviewer also deserves credit (good or bad) for the quality of the interview.

I don't mind using the "Apolyton" moniker in fron tof the interviewer questions. (I assume this is aping the Playboy interviews.) I just want the interviewer identified at the beginning of the interrview text. Let's say this wasn't MarkG. The identity of the interviewer gives me some basis to judge the interview and put it in context. When Larry King interviews someone I know it will be a "light" interview. If it is Sam Donaldson, I expect some tougher questions.

MarkG · June 13, 2002, 03:43

i guess you didnt read the whole thing GP

Solver · June 13, 2002, 06:06

Exactly why Moo3 doesn't excite me... space civ... blah. Civ is meant to be on earth and historical. Though, OTOH, I'm not a hardcore gamer, that is, don't play many games.

At least I can say I wasn't the one to make this interview, so don't blame me

.

LDiCesare · June 13, 2002, 09:52

The interview shows IMO that you can turn MOO3 into micromanagement hell. Sure you can group planets together, and even get 2 sets of orders for a given planet. That is cool. But will you get better results out of your empire if you do that than if you micromanage? I doubt tools to help macromanagement are the way to solve micromanagement problems. Maybe IFPs were bad for gameplay, still, I'd have liked to see what they played like. So bad there isn't even a way to impose them on the AI (I can limit myself, but the AI?).
I am glad they say the game is still on track for running on low-end (old) machines.
Still, I think Rantz' comments on the AI for fights is a bit off. Basically he says "your AI will lose if you gave it silly orders". This means the AI will lose against me if they have been given silly orders. I always played manually in MOO because the AI was so good at destroying your own ships and couldn't use them effectively, I am not going to trust the AI to do better here, however much I'd like to.

MarkG · June 13, 2002, 10:13

it's been several years since moo LDiCesare, lets have some faith in the progress of AI programmers

LDiCesare · June 13, 2002, 10:48

Hell yes, but I still play the game... Now maybe they get better. Still, since the fights will be real-time, there is a remote possibility that having better reflexes than what the game expects will give you an edge... I am a bit pessimistic about clever tactical combat because I don't hear about it much. And asking a programmer to have faith in other programmers is hard. I know too well what some programmers call code.
I'd just like to hear from QS something like "We are testing and tweaking the combat AI" specifically, and even more the tactical AI to be more confident about the game. Without proper testing, the AI will miss points that will become obvious to human players pretty fast. Giving stance for your civ looks good for instance, but I'd be much more confident if I could write the scripts saying how to use my weapons myself for instance. I have no idea whether the engine allows such details. Like saying "use the XXX ship to teleport near the most numerous opponent ships which can cause damage to XXX, black-hole them and NEVER send more than one XXX ship at a time, rinse and repeat until opponent is less than ZZ estimated offensive power". I never saw any information leading me to think that I could not only design the ships but also the AI that should go with it. As long as there were IFPs, that was OK because I would be spending my attention elsewhere. But now if I find out one my fleets is destroyed by lack of tactics, I will mm all the fights.

TCO · June 13, 2002, 12:35

Mark, is there something hidden in there, with a personal reference? I skimmed parts of the interview, yes.

Try to be a bit more of a journalist. Put the interviewer's name in the first paragraph before the interview starts. It shouldn't be a hide and seek game. Just like having a headline and a byline at the front of a story.

MarkG · June 13, 2002, 13:26

we usually have done that at the end of the interview GP, just like in this case

TCO · June 13, 2002, 19:13

Markos, I just saw this: "Interview conducted by Markos Giannopoulos".

Was this on there when you posted it orginally? If so, it certainly hid well. Would still reccomend moving to the front. If not, maybe make it a little more prominent.

Pythagoras · June 13, 2002, 23:04

Quote:

Originally posted by GP

The interview is more than just answers to random questions. The identity of the interviewer determines what questions are asked, what followup is etc. Especially in this case, where we had a live interactive (i.e. real) interview, not just an e-mailed script of questions. The interviewer also deserves credit (good or bad) for the quality of the interview.

I don't mind using the "Apolyton" moniker in fron tof the interviewer questions. (I assume this is aping the Playboy interviews.) I just want the interviewer identified at the beginning of the interrview text. Let's say this wasn't MarkG. The identity of the interviewer gives me some basis to judge the interview and put it in context. When Larry King interviews someone I know it will be a "light" interview. If it is Sam Donaldson, I expect some tougher questions.

I dont think it matters, these questions were fairly standard and I think we know generally who did it, Mark or Dan. I dont think his answers would vary appreciably with that distinction.

MarkG · June 14, 2002, 02:59

Quote:

Was this on there when you posted it orginally?

yeap

our "tradition" of posting the name(s) at the end of the interview came from the fact that initially it was a common work of me and dan. saying that one of the pages of your site was done by you is a little too much for us

so we actually didnt "sign" them. later when we had help in the questions from team members we mentiond them at the end. foa interviews which are 100% done by someone else from me and dan mention the name of interviewer at the begining. this is actually the first interview completely by dan or me that is "signed" and i'm deeply ashamed for that

TCO · June 14, 2002, 05:05

Quote:

Originally posted by Pythagoras

I dont think it matters, these questions were fairly standard and I think we know generally who did it, Mark or Dan. I dont think his answers would vary appreciably with that distinction.

If it had been done by Chris, I would have been more likley to read it all the way through. (So it matters...to me...and others I bet.) If it doesn't matter to you, fine.

Hagbart · August 8, 2002, 17:43

Nice that the turns don't last too long.