Jurrasic Park ?

dexters · June 16, 2002, 05:08

How many types of dinos are in PTW?

Hagbart · June 16, 2002, 10:45

The Firaxis guy Jeff said PTW will include a dino-set of about 10 dino-units.

Solver · June 16, 2002, 11:34

Which is a waste of time.

HazieDaVampire · June 16, 2002, 13:11

i agree solver. I want more units in the WW2 set, and other units in the different era's!

Oerdin · June 16, 2002, 13:18

I can think of a dozen things in Civ3 that still need fixing. Why are they wasting time with dino units? If they have so much extra time on their hands then they should be play-testing PtW more; that way we won't have a repeat of the bugs, balance issues, & rough edges which occured with Civ3's intial release.

Carver · June 16, 2002, 14:02

What are the dinos for? A Dinobot Civ? Extra units for existing civs? A dedicated dino scenario? A fifth, pre-historic age where these are the weapons of men? Or is it cross-marketing with the new ABC show Dinotopia ?

Solver · June 16, 2002, 14:05

Hooray, dino critic!

While I'm not enjoying scenarios too much, I will probably like some historical based ones, like WW2, and such, but I'm sure I'll not play with Dinos, if just for 5 minutes to see what does it look like.

Adagio · June 16, 2002, 14:26

My guess is, the dinos will proberly be something like what existed to Civ2: Your civilization was a dino civilization, researching "dino-advances", and building dino units and dino buildings...

It was actually a pretty funny thing, though I'd say Firaxis shouldn't bother making it...

Solver · June 16, 2002, 16:20

Right, they shouldn't. They better add a couple new units, a new historical scenario or spend the time on hunting bugs.

Down with dinos!

Was it initative of Sid?

Oerdin · June 16, 2002, 17:47

This whole dino idea exposes an on going conflict with in software companies: fluff vs substance.

Fluff adds very little to the game/program but is dirt cheap and can be easily advertised and shown as a bullet on the back of the box. As such fluf often helps to increase sales despite the fact that it hardly ever gets used.

On the other hand substance cannot be easily advertised. It manifests itself in the form of a well designed and thought out program that has few bugs and fewer balance issues. Substance is very expensive because sometimes you must delay a product or over shoot budgets in order to achieve it.

In summary fluff provides immediate benifets and the possible drawbacks don't effect you until later while substance has immediate drawbacks and the positives only appear later after you've established your company's reputation.

dexters · June 16, 2002, 18:10

That is why Nintendo has such a great following of fans, and despite whatever innuendo and crap Xbox and PS2 fans would like to throw at it, Nintendo is laughing all the way to the bank. Their games are second to none. Third parties like Infogrames worry only for their bottom line.

Jaguar · June 16, 2002, 19:55

I don't mind the dinos. More units is good, regardless Of course, wink wink, I would rather have an in-between unit to close the huge gap between horsemen and knights.

ammt603 · June 16, 2002, 22:48

Quote:

Originally posted by Oerdin
This whole dino idea exposes an on going conflict with in software companies: fluff vs substance.

Fluff adds very little to the game/program but is dirt cheap and can be easily advertised and shown as a bullet on the back of the box. As such fluf often helps to increase sales despite the fact that it hardly ever gets used.

On the other hand substance cannot be easily advertised. It manifests itself in the form of a well designed and thought out program that has few bugs and fewer balance issues. Substance is very expensive because sometimes you must delay a product or over shoot budgets in order to achieve it.

In summary fluff provides immediate benifets and the possible drawbacks don't effect you until later while substance has immediate drawbacks and the positives only appear later after you've established your company's reputation.

I completely agree. I would of rather had the company put the time they spent on creating things like the dinosaurs with time used maiking the game more solid.

Zurai001 · June 16, 2002, 23:34

Quote:

Originally posted by ammt603

I completely agree. I would of rather had the company put the time they spent on creating things like the dinosaurs with time used maiking the game more solid.

Of course; anyone would. However, you people are ignoring two important facts: One, the dinosaur art was almost certainly ALREADY MADE, and 'borrowed' from the canceled Dinos game. Two, even if it WEREN'T already made, artists have NO connection to the content of a game. They animate units and create tilesets, they don't create new rules or program in any way.

I doubt more than a day was spent putting the dino unit pack together since most of the materials were pre-existing. I'd much rather have them spend a day giving me 10 units than a day getting half a unit done.

Apocalypse · June 17, 2002, 00:38

My main problem with this is that you can't do much with just 10 dinos.

Capt Dizle · June 17, 2002, 11:56

I dunno. Sure dinos are dumb for this game. But maybe the dinos will simply replace barbs early in the game. This would be kinda neat.

OTOH, if the dino are going to be a playable civ, I wince at the thought of losing a city to the dino's superior culture.

Harovan · June 17, 2002, 12:09

Considering the known at this time facts, I find the dino idea braindead. Sorry. It would be much better to add more balance and accuracy to the game's core, than to add some fantasy worlds. On one side, the original game has no wonder movies and animated advisors (god I loved those clowns in Civ2), and on the other they add some kind of Jurassic park to the XP, which has nothing in common with the history of mankind and civilizations.

Capt Dizle · June 17, 2002, 12:17

Braindead? Yeah, but there is precendent for that. I once had 8 military units go poof in a city that reverted.

They just had the dino art laying around. Its no big deal.

Zurai001 · June 17, 2002, 13:25

Quote:

Originally posted by Apocalypse
My main problem with this is that you can't do much with just 10 dinos.

Sure you can. How many units do people actually use from the modern era? Stealth Bombers, Modern Armor, Mech Inf, Radar Artillery. That's about all *I* ever use. If I'm not on a Pangea map, I'll use battleships and carriers too, but I believe battleships are industrial.

Thus, 10 units is way more than enough if you wanted to add a 'pre-historic' era to your game. Don't forget that this is an optional unit pack - nothing is forcing you to play with the dinos.

Cesa · June 17, 2002, 13:40

The art team only do the art in the game, but I'd much rather see one wonder movie than the dinos.

Even if the art already was there, they had to make some sort of scenario to include them, that time could've been used better!

Apocalypse · June 17, 2002, 17:36

Quote:

Originally posted by Zurai001
Sure you can. How many units do people actually use from the modern era? Stealth Bombers, Modern Armor, Mech Inf, Radar Artillery. That's about all *I* ever use. If I'm not on a Pangea map, I'll use battleships and carriers too, but I believe battleships are industrial.

Thus, 10 units is way more than enough if you wanted to add a 'pre-historic' era to your game. Don't forget that this is an optional unit pack - nothing is forcing you to play with the dinos.

Ok, you add another era. That is the not much I was talking about. There are too little to make a scenario just for them.

Zurai001 · June 17, 2002, 19:49

Quote:

Originally posted by Apocalypse

Ok, you add another era. That is the not much I was talking about. There are too little to make a scenario just for them.

Not really. If the scenario is an actual scenario and not a total conversion, I could easily see a caveman vs dino scenario. I might even make one to prove it when PTW comes out. We already have all the human graphics we need from the ancient era.

Coracle · June 17, 2002, 20:07

What's the matter with dinos? Civ 2 had a fun scenario with them, and dinos are about as realistic historically as some of the concepts and units Firaxis dreamed up.

zulu9812 · June 18, 2002, 15:21

Quote:

Originally posted by Coracle
What's the matter with dinos? Civ 2 had a fun scenario with them, and dinos are about as realistic historically as some of the concepts and units Firaxis dreamed up.

ah right. I see. Presumably, you think that there never were any dinos, thus any reference to them is 'historically' inaccurate...

Changmai Beagle · June 18, 2002, 21:34

Of course they aren't historical. There is one theory that competed with Thomas Huxley (the brains of the outfit?)'s theory for a while - Creation included the creation of dinosaur bones to be found by people

(Not that I'm taking a viewpoint).

Maybe this is the Dinosaur game.....

My favourite theories for extinction:
1.) Young Dinosaur toughs take up smoking (Gary Larson)
2) Plant eating dinosaurs creating large amounts of methane gas (at both ends) were essentially big birds that had an unfortunate predilection to eat flint and iron ores as part of the stones they used in their crop.....

Apocalypse · June 18, 2002, 21:59

Quote:

Originally posted by Zurai001
Not really. If the scenario is an actual scenario and not a total conversion, I could easily see a caveman vs dino scenario. I might even make one to prove it when PTW comes out. We already have all the human graphics we need from the ancient era.

I guess it is possible to do a few things with it. It'd be nice if they were more useful though.

Chandragupta · June 18, 2002, 22:07

Does anyone else remember the imperialism mod for civ2 that came out a loooong time ago? Not the one they just recently posted on civfanatics, but the one by Leon Marrick or whoever? That one took up way to many hours of my life and i'd much rather see a Firaxis (i.e., professional) creation of the imperial to world war 1 era than dinosaurs in civ3. Dinos would be neat, but how much would they contribute to the game?
Maybe a few dinos that would outdo modern armor and mech infantry could be in as a goodie accessed by beating a scenario or something on deity level rather than 10 of them with little use?