Master of Orion 3 - What Went Wrong?

[MetalKing]

Silellak I completely agree with you. The time that was inserted into this game, the game should have been a stone cold classic. But what the f***.

I addition to what you said i noticed even more f***ed up things.

Why can't you come out of some menus? for expl. Foreign Matrix - from this screen you can't come out to galactic screen without switching menus(personel) and hit the close button. It sux.

Diplomacy on the other hand is something left to be desired. No race introduces itself anymore it's plainly among the news."We met a new race"THAT'S THAT?? MOO2 was better in these things. Another thing. I was playing with nommo and had an alliance with the humans. Together we were happilly attacking the klackons until we destroyed them. Then in a matter of turns the humans pronounced war on me!? I looked at the relations screen and i had a cassus belli +140 and that other thing +160 with the humans. Now how the f*** can this be possible.

Another thing tactical combat suxx, not to mention the ground combat. Now if anyone of you likes the ground assault screen by seeing it in MOO2 you're crazy!
A bunch of useless tactics, and that marine keeps saying the same things. I rather would not start with how much clicking is needed to get 6 transporters together. Awful.

Hmmm....Researcing and keeping up with the discoveries is another thing left to be desired.

I'm not here to entirely criticise the game. I'm a huge fan of the MOO series. I keep playing the game i want it to pull me in i want to like it! Though luck probably.The more i play more flaws i discover.

[The Rusty Gamer]

Ah well, the inevitable want list for the first patch thread is bound to begin shortly.

[Ellestar]

Why they did this so called 'interface'? Better to say 'interass'. This is simple.

1) Manual control, or micromanagement always more effective than any AI control. They wanted a game with 'fair' Difficulty settings - i.e. computer didn't get additional modifiers to research/production etc. compared to a player.
But computer can't do things as well as player. So, they effectively 'taken' away ability to micromanage your empire.
There are much signs of that politics - i spot them in my 1st turn. I can't find precise formulae (as in MoO2, SMAC etc.). In other Strategy games player also don't get full info about calculations, but at least some things are fairly obvious - then all 'free space' filled with food - city get +1 population - these are easy to calculate.
And what we see in MoO3? No info AT ALL!!! What all buildings do? How race modifiers change production? How much bonus to production rich planet gives? Tech tree?
I can't calculate effects of my actions - so i can't make choices! Tell me how a STRATEGIC game may be without CHOICES???
So, i see that designers wanted to make 'difficulty' to player this way - they are not giving info about how player's decisions affect game and make difficulties in micromanagement making worst interface ever.

2) Why they did it, you ask? This is also simple - they did game not for PowerPlay, but for casual gamers - so we see lot of pictures with no info (see at any screen - how much info may be there and how much is), you can make lot of actions without any sense (because there is no info) and spending too much time (interface) and this must be COOL for us. Yes! I think player must see at this pictures, press 'End of Turn' and set all on full auto - this is for what designers design this game. So, almost every player can win in this game.

So i don't start a full game before i can't find in Inet etc. how things in this game work - i want to play Strategy game, and not this piece of crap.

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by Corentor
MOO3 did not go wrong.

The ideas of what the game was going to be were executed fairly well.

Just because it is not to *your* tastes does not mean the game sucks.

Just as the fanboys were wrong in trying to question the negative review's point of view, it is wrong to say that the game bad or that the developers went astray simply because you do not agree with the vision of the developers on what MOO3 should be.

The game seems to be 99% bug free and with the exception of bad documentation, there is little fault you can find within the game.

Now, I haven't the game, and based on what I have heard will certainly never buy it till it hits the bargin bin.

But this Corentor, seems to me the lowest standard to which a game could be judged.

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by Ellestar
Why they did this so called 'interface'? Better to say 'interass'. This is simple.

1) Manual control, or micromanagement always more effective than any AI control. They wanted a game with 'fair' Difficulty settings - i.e. computer didn't get additional modifiers to research/production etc. compared to a player.
But computer can't do things as well as player. So, they effectively 'taken' away ability to micromanage your empire.
There are much signs of that politics - i spot them in my 1st turn. I can't find precise formulae (as in MoO2, SMAC etc.). In other Strategy games player also don't get full info about calculations, but at least some things are fairly obvious - then all 'free space' filled with food - city get +1 population - these are easy to calculate.
And what we see in MoO3? No info AT ALL!!! What all buildings do? How race modifiers change production? How much bonus to production rich planet gives? Tech tree?
I can't calculate effects of my actions - so i can't make choices! Tell me how a STRATEGIC game may be without CHOICES???
So, i see that designers wanted to make 'difficulty' to player this way - they are not giving info about how player's decisions affect game and make difficulties in micromanagement making worst interface ever.

2) Why they did it, you ask? This is also simple - they did game not for PowerPlay, but for casual gamers - so we see lot of pictures with no info (see at any screen - how much info may be there and how much is), you can make lot of actions without any sense (because there is no info) and spending too much time (interface) and this must be COOL for us. Yes! I think player must see at this pictures, press 'End of Turn' and set all on full auto - this is for what designers design this game. So, almost every player can win in this game.

So i don't start a full game before i can't find in Inet etc. how things in this game work - i want to play Strategy game, and not this piece of crap.

Thanks for saving me some money.

[Corentor]

Originally posted by jimmytrick Now, I haven't the game, and based on what I have heard will certainly never buy it till it hits the bargin bin.

But this Corentor, seems to me the lowest standard to which a game could be judged.

I see, so what you think MOO3 should be is what everyone thinks MOO3 should be and anyone who disagrees is a moron....

People are trying to judge the game based on whether they find it "fun" or not. What they don't understand is that different people find different things fun.

The developers are not mind readers. They cannot tell who will find what fun. What they can do is implement what they think is fun and what they think people will enjoy and then let people play out their vision.

Its just like art. Some people will enjoy the piece some will say "wtf?".

The "standard" I laid out is really the only standard that can measure a game concretely. Any evaluation beyond that falls into the scope of opinion, and everyone has their own.

[Yodasplat]

Originally posted by Corentor


I see, so what you think MOO3 should be is what everyone thinks MOO3 should be and anyone who disagrees is a moron....

People are trying to judge the game based on whether they find it "fun" or not. What they don't understand is that different people find different things fun.

The developers are not mind readers. They cannot tell who will find what fun. What they can do is implement what they think is fun and what they think people will enjoy and then let people play out their vision.

Its just like art. Some people will enjoy the piece some will say "wtf?".

The "standard" I laid out is really the only standard that can measure a game concretely. Any evaluation beyond that falls into the scope of opinion, and everyone has their own.

VERY well said! couldn't have said it better myself.

I actually think it's a great thing that there's people here that are complaining and that are posting their negative opinions about the game. If anything, the more opinions (negative or postive) are posted the more likely it is that a potential buyer will make and informed decision.

As for me: this is all I have been waiting for. Not disappointed in the least. True, there are a few things here and there that could be improved but they are minor compared to the scope of the game.

What went wrong with MOO3 for me? my wife will divorce me in a month, cause I won't get any sleep and any shred of social life I had went down the drain the moment I bought the game.

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by booje
Hey Silellak I totally agree. I have many many years of playing both board and computer and I'm a software professional with a technical degree as well.

So? Is this supposed to make your opinion worth more than a janitor who has a PC and bought the game and enjoys it?

I loved Master of Magic, MOO1, MOO2 (not as well as MOO1 but pretty darn close) and I have to agree with the points you make about MOO3.

Now I've been getting flamed about "I need to do this" or "I need to do that" to make the MOO3 experience better. But, notwithstanding a learning curve, why should I adapt and bend over backwards (or forwards in this case) to learn to enjoy the game when I should just be having fun automatically.

Why should you learn to play a new game? Umm, because it *is* a new game. Did you expect the same interface on this game as Moo1/2? Sorry you actually have to *learn* to play a new game all over again, I guess you never like to learn anything new?

This being said, if the game isn't fun for you right out of the gate then return it, but why did or do you buy ANY new game if you never want to learn how to play it?

That makes no sense.

I'm certainly not saying it's easy these days what with the production values of Medieval Total War or the true honest depth of Europa Universalis 2. I'm sure everyone involved had the very best of intentions but it just seems like they shot for moon and really missed.

Nah, they just wanted something a little more complex and deep than Moo2 and in this case they suceeded. If people don't want to stick around and learn how to play to understand and have the fun of running the empire then that is the individual's loss. Oh and for the record, I am extremely lost in the game now, but like the extra management features that are available now compared to MOO2 so I'll stick it out.

Copied well, but not original and lacking soul.

You definitely didn't learn to play the game because there is much more to this than having one big ship to protect (Homeworld), there is an entire galaxy of planets to manage and run.

Maybe if you had stuck around you wouldn't be blaming the game for your not wanting to learn.

What I care about is gameplay more than anything else
and Silellak is right when he says this game has no soul.

Where's the love?

lol, the game has no soul? I guess you'd say someone was boring on a date because they didn't have sex with you in the first 5 minutes and wanted to get to know you better first? lol, life is full of learning opportunities, some like them, some don't, but just because you don't like something doesn't mean it's not fit, or is bad, for everyone.

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by kalbear
The design doc for MoO3 declared it was to be an A+ title to sell 500K copies or more. That's a mainstream game if there ever was one.

Regardless of whether that was their intent, it sure as hell wasn't what they got. I can't imagine any casual gamers even remotely liking it.

Maybe the casual gamers won't buy the game with their pre-concieved ideas clouding the potential game like the people who wanted the game to be MOO2.5.

Don't dicount the "casual gamer" since they aren't all stupid nor have the impatience of a 2 year old.

[MetalKing]

Dear Corentor.

You missed the entire point of the matter. We judge this game by its predecesors.By what you wrote this game could be an arcade. IT COULD BE FUN!!

Speaking for myself i didn't say that anyone is a moron. I wrote down a few things that bother me and people can read it and god-forbid maybe they find those things annoying to.

Not to mention your relation to art. How about abstract art??How many people f***ing like that!?!? If the game was ment to be in your words abstract "art" well f*** 'em.

Bottom line is the game is not bad, but it's not a classic, it's not a game that would set standards for others to follow. Do you get my point.I was expecting this kind of game. At least by the time they had to make it...

You know I am really dissapointed at games(read sequels) that are coming out. HOMM4 came out. Everyone said it sucked but i defended it. I tried to find something that would be WOW...well it didn't happen. Now i agree it sux.

Civ3 came out, everyone said it sucked. I still defended the game and said it was awesome. But the first time that two archers defeated my tank civ3 never saw the light on my computer again.Plainly the kind of things that shouldn't happen in that kind of game. I did not complain about those kinds of things happening in original CIV1 but 12 or 13 years later!?!? come on.

Well MOO3 is the next and i assure you it is just an average game full of useless things that should be put aside and make the game less complex and more like it's predecesors.

That's it my emotional breakdown is over!

[H Tower]

are you done then? never coming back? or are you going to give QS a chance to patch some stuff first and then possibly rethink your opinion?

[AeternitasXIII]

So I've clocked up over 40 hours since Wednesday morning playing MOO3, finishing two normal difficulty games of 16 Empires on Huge Maps (1 3-Armed and 1 Cluster). Won both of them, first as Nommo through elimination victory, second as Cynoids through election to Senate Presidency. In general my view of this game is fair to poor. Its fairly easy once you figure out that half the gauges are worthless to fiddle with, and the other half only need to be fiddled with in the very beginning before being locked in.

Diplomacy is erratic. Long term allies around 100 or so turns after you've entered into a full alliance with them will mysteriously threaten you to "cease all actions", with no references to what actions they mean, before declaring war on you. Empires that begin to dislike you are virtually impossible to get back to positive relations, either with bribes, tribute, or Senate actions. Interaction with neutral or allied empires consist of accepting their proposal to improve economic/intelligence/research treaties every few turns, and military alliances seem to have zero effect other than to give your new allies permission to enter systems under your control and place colonies in uninhabited planets (colonies which soon become yours since the AI will spontaneously declare war on you later, and not bother to post a single unit of ground forces or bolster its system defenses before the war begins).

Despite the stage being set for some sort of complex interweave of internal political factions pestering you and planetary viceroys with dreams of your throne, there's absolutely zero indication that any sort of internal politics exist. Even with parlimentary or republican governments, the viceroys behave with few variations, and are simply faceless automatons balancing tax income with development costs on each colony. Every government type basically devolves into a choice of what bonuses or penalties you want applied to your economy, and any sort of politics don't exist.

Economics seems rather sound, with grants from Imperial coffers being dispersed to the 10 lowest ranked colonies in your empire each turn, space ports allowing trade between nearby systems, and the AI managing each planet fully capable of developing and managing them to full self-sufficiency. The only interaction I have with my planets by turn 200 is to clear the production queues of the endless stream of useless command centers/hackers/commandoes that the Viceroys build (despite having a trained army of battleoids deployed on every single planet I own, with enough left over in reserves to fill 6 titan-class troop carriers), or to lower the tax rate 2-3 percentage points to prevent my cities from going into revolt. The viceroy will of course fill the queue with those units again, and raise the taxes as well, forcing me to repeat this cycle ever 3-4 turns on every single planet I own. DEA development is easily left to the viceroys, with the only input from myself being the occassional removal of an extra mine to replace with an industry. Once you have empires of 50 or so planets, you'll probably stop even monitoring the DEA usage by viceroys.

Espionage is virtually worthless. Despite having a dozen spies (2 of each discipline) continually at home, enemy spies frequently nuke buildings, sow social discord, and assassinate any heroes I have. This was true as the Nommo, when my spying was ranked as average and my oppressometer set at 7 of 10 for the entire game, and as the Cynoid whom I modified to Dangerous at the beginning of the game and left their oppressometer at 6. My own spying missions on enemy empires were frequently screwed up before they started due to a bug that causes any spy caught trying to cross a border for insertion to go into a endless loop where he keeps inserting himself into the empire rather than completing a mission, forcing me to retire them and replace with a new spy. Only the technology stolen by my science spies reminded me there was some usefulness to the Espionage tab, since none of the other missions run by my spies seemed to have any effect on enemy empires.

Space combat, even with a dozen task forces of armada size on each side and a fairly rounded distribution of mission types, was easily over in a few minutes. The longest part was often the long, leisurely drift towards an enemy planet, or waiting in the center of the map for the enemy to drift towards you. Advanced weapons and other tech seem to offer few advantages, as Titan class vessels with several generations lead in the tech department could be overwhelmed by 3 or 4 light cruisers. Long range weapons often were only useful when a small task force of disposable recon vessels were sent out to the enemy and left to die so that my other task forces could see them despite having the most recent sensor techs available. Even then, long range task forces insisted on closing to point blank range every single time, even when all the ships in the force were gutted of short range weapons, and would often suffer casualties even though they would have been safe firing from outside the enemy's range. The graphics for space combat are essentially the sort of stuff you'd expect from a game circa 1995, with tiny pin-head sized polygonal smudges of green and brown representing capital ships, even at high levels of zooming in. Compared to the capital ships of games like Hegemonia or even the dated Imperium Galactica 2, the space combat graphics are incredibly weak. The upshot of this is I was able to install and play MOO3 on my Pentium 133 and its Rendition 2100-based graphics card, and despite some slow down at end of turn, and the need to turn off the music, the combat went rather well.

Ground combat is probably the only bright spot in the gameplay side of things, and even after invading dozens of planets it was still amusing to listen to the soldiers reporting news of the combat as waves of battleoids swept over planetary militias unchecked. I never had the chance to deploy nuclear/chemical/biological weapons, nor was I forced to consider my chosen tactics, since the AI never felt it necessary to place armies on its planets to oppose my advancing forces. Not once in either of my games did the AI decide to land troop transports on my controlled planets.

The arrival of heroes to my empire was a welcome sight at first, since they offered some mild boosts to spying and economics, but by midway through my first game I had stopped caring about them since enemy assassins never failed to kill them in 5-6 turns.

The tech tree has virtually no new conceptual additions to the tree in MOO2, the exception being a handful of economic and political techs that reduce the cost of your imperial bureaucracy. There seems to be no clear organization to the tree, with technologies we have today in our own modern society like ion engines being placed in trees long after futuristic advances like nanofactories and neutron blasters. By the end of 50 turns you'll probably have found a distribution of percetanges for research money that suits your race, lock them down to prevent the AI from fooling with them, turn off tech advance notification in your situation report, and never take notice of research again. Every 50 turns after that you might redesign your fleet to take into account advances (no point redesigning on a shorter time scale, since even with a fairly productive society you'll start finding your fleets aren't even constructed by the time they're two generations of tech obsolete). All the other tech advances are automatically instituted by the planetary viceroys, or other AI, and you'll likely never even realize they've occured unless you take an occassional peak at the research tab.

I've played MOO2 and MOO1 extensively in the past, but came into MOO3 with expectations that it might be a simulator of how to rule a civilization. The promise of independent viceroys and a wide range of government, economic and espionage options set in the MOO universe was very strong. Unfortunately it seems the developers passed up every chance to turn MOO3 into a truly evolutionary experience from MOO2, and instead left us with a mess of inefficient tabs and bland graphics that are somewhere between MOO1 and MOO2 in terms of quality and presentation (except of course the beautifully rendered ambassadors for the various races), with game play that is void of any new features from MOO2, and has managed to water down quite a few that needed no change.

[wilebill]

Hmmm. My MOO3 just arrived from Amazon and is still in the box. Think I will send it back and wait for Galciv instead.

[ewanad]

AeternitasXIII, I hear you man. I share your pain. I think I will return this game and get Galciv or wait for Homeworld 2

[vmxa1]

AeternitasXIII I have not played enough to form options yet, but I highly suspect that you are correct.
I would fine the spy stuff to be a real show stopper.
So far I have found no real reason for me to do anything, but hit the turn toggle. Once I have gone through and seen it to the end, I am not sure I will have a reason to start over. At least in SEIV you are able to have a real impact.

[kalbear]

If it's any consolation, I've not experienced anything like what he did with spying. No problems at all, really. There's the occasional unrest and whatnot, but usually it's pretty solvable.

[Quag]

I'm on the thumbs down side as well. Others appear to have played more than me (I made it through 500+ total turns in 2 complete games), but my experience is much the same.

The only significant impact you can have appears to come in locating what the viceroys are doing wrong (sometimes really obvious, sometimes not) and correcting it over and over again. Probably the most disappointing aspect of the game for me (mentioned already) is the disembowelling of the ship-building aspect of MOO2. The primary role of the player has become not to build ships, not to see how their weapons perform in combat, not to engage in any strategic consideration of which weapon works best under which circumstance, but simply to label old ships obsolete. That's it: just stamp the old ones obsolete and autobuild the new; the turn button takes care of everything else.

If ever there was a game played in a visual and conceptual cause-and-effect void, this is it. You end up hitting the turn button over and over again simply because everything else seems so damn pointless. You could be playing a real game for cripes sake, and you just want this damn thing in front of you to be over. (Maybe you should be able to activate a "turn button" viceroy somewhere; that wouldn't be too hard to screw up.)

Ultimately, I didn't care about my self-sufficient colonies, I sure didn't care about my annoying viceroys, I didn't care about my ships, my fleets, my heroes, and I increasingly didn't care about giving the game another 3 to 4 to 5 hour chance.

I used to care about the MOO series. But the viceroys appear to have covered that as well -- and it sure looks dead from here.

[Corentor]

Originally posted by MetalKing
Dear Corentor.

You missed the entire point of the matter. We judge this game by its predecesors.By what you wrote this game could be an arcade. IT COULD BE FUN!!

Is there something wrong with arcade games? I happen to like Street Fighter, a lot. I have missed nothing. What you don't understand is that you do not get to define what is fun for other people. You cannot say something is universally not fun and therefore a bad game. You can say its a bad game for you and people who wanted something similar to what you wanted but thats about it.

[SIZE=1] Not to mention your relation to art. How about abstract art??How many people f***ing like that!?!? If the game was ment to be in your words abstract "art" well f*** 'em.

Umm yes. You don't happen to enjoy abstract art so you **** em and dismiss them as insignificant. Oh yes, and this just in: The universe revolves around your head.

[SIZE=1]Bottom line is the game is not bad, but it's not a classic, it's not a game that would set standards for others to follow. Do you get my point.I was expecting this kind of game. At least by the time they had to make it...

Who gets to define classic? You? LOL.

[SIZE=1]You know I am really dissapointed at games(read sequels) that are coming out. HOMM4 came out. Everyone said it sucked but i defended it. I tried to find something that would be WOW...well it didn't happen. Now i agree it sux.

So you defending a game that you didn't like to begin with....yes you are a smart one.

[SIZE=1]Civ3 came out, everyone said it sucked. I still defended the game and said it was awesome. But the first time that two archers defeated my tank civ3 never saw the light on my computer again.Plainly the kind of things that shouldn't happen in that kind of game. I did not complain about those kinds of things happening in original CIV1 but 12 or 13 years later!?!? come on.

Should not have happened? By your standard? By what you think the combat ruleset should have been. Oh yes, I forgot the universe revolves around you.

[SIZE=1]Well MOO3 is the next and i assure you it is just an average game full of useless things that should be put aside and make the game less complex and more like it's predecesors.

Waa waa waa, what I want. Hint, what you want is not what everyone else wants. I know this might be hard for you to understand but I've got a little secret for you.....shhhhh *not everyone thinks like you do*.

Really, if I were to send this post back to my earlier self sometime in the past, I would have not agreed with it myself. But sometime after you become a jaded gamer, you realise that maybe, just maybe, that your own opinion is not the only thing that matters when labelling a game good or bad or whatever.

[AeternitasXIII]

Quag: they already knew what you were thinking and did indeed include a "new turn" viceroy. When you start a new game, turn off unlimited turn length and set the turn length to something small. Voila, you now have a frantic button mashing mess where you have to burrow through menus as fast as possible to correct as many planetary AIs as possible before the next turn hits.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by H Tower
are you done then? never coming back? or are you going to give QS a chance to patch some stuff first and then possibly rethink your opinion?

H Tower,

Calm down and lay off, man....

I've had reason to defend this game as you have over the past week or so from all of the annoying rants about it before it even came out.

But honest appraisals by people who have PLAYED the game and are having difficulty with it are entirely valid.

Remember that this was a game which was DELAYED for months in order to work out the bugs and remaining play issues. Saying that we shouldn't judge the game until a patch comes out when we (myself included) have been arguing for weeks that the game would be better for being delayed is extremely faulty reasoning.

I think I'm starting to really like this game and you can see the thread I started for my comments on that, but I fully respect the opinions of those like Silellak who have PLAYED the game and see problems with it. I've seen many of the same problems.

As for Sillelak, other than the fact that he's a college friend of mine and that obviously biases my stance on the issue, I really respect his point here. The game, despite the fact that I think it's basically a good game, suffers from a severe lack of a tutorial or other learning experience for the new player. It's also not MoO... and for a number of people, that's going to be a disappointment. They'll get over it.

As for Sillelak himself, I was just talking to him over IM for about the last hour and now he's back to playing the game. I think he has a good attitude toward it. The last IM he sent me was:

Silellak: For now, I face Moo3 again in mortal combat
Silellak:

As for me, I'm about to go do the same. With enough hours under my belt, I'll finally be able to get beyond simply treading water with this game and start really playing it. I just wish the game came with a better tutorial to speed that process along.

[JoD]

Originally posted by kalbear
The design doc for MoO3 declared it was to be an A+ title to sell 500K copies or more. That's a mainstream game if there ever was one.

Regardless of whether that was their intent, it sure as hell wasn't what they got. I can't imagine any casual gamers even remotely liking it.

I agree that MOO3 is not a mainstream game. I doubt anyone would debate that.

However, half a million sales does not make a game mainstream. It's still a niche game for a certain market of gamers. Very few computer games are really considered mainstream -- really, The Sims is the *only* extremely popular mainstream game. A comparison might be Empire Earth or Age of Empires -- both of those games sold over a million copies, I believe, but no RTS game will ever be considered mainstream. There is a strict limit on how many people will ever play the game, unlike the Sims.

(And no, I don't get any money from the Sims. Wish I did.)

[kalbear]

Huh. To me, a mainstream game is one that you can expect to find on any computer that can run it, assuming that the person likes games.

The Sims is much more than a mainstream game - it's a lot like simcity, in that it transcends boundaries and gets non-gamers into playing.

Mainstream means, oh, something like Warcraft 3 or GTA. Games that everyone could be expected to know about, at least. At this stage, half-life is a mainstream game.

But that's just quibbling about definitions. Point being, MoO3 will definitely appeal to a small group of people, and will not appeal to the larger gaming public. And it won't sell 500K copies. Not for a very long time, anyway.

[delmar]

Originally posted by JoD
A comparison might be Empire Earth or Age of Empires -- both of those games sold over a million copies

Where do you get this information from? Is there a public source of per-game sales statistics?

[vmxa1]

Yes their is a publish one, but you need to subscribe.
You can also see the list and numbers in most of the game mags from time to time and one (CGW?) has the top few each issue.
You can often see if on sites such as EB and others.

[JoD]

Originally posted by delmar

Where do you get this information from? Is there a public source of per-game sales statistics?

I am going on memory for those particular numbers; I don't know of a particular website which just lists numbers like that, but such numbers are published on an irregular basis.

For instance, http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/ind...php?story=1574 is the story, "Sony announced that it recently shipped its 50 millionth PlayStation 2", which is actually slightly old news.

Sorry I can't be more specific, but information like this can be found ... maybe try some searches if you want something more specific.

[billybaruch1]

Espionage is virtually worthless.

Shuh...yeh! I guess it is if "worthless" means disrupting your neighbor's scientific and economic and military plans. How about stealing some tech? Pretty nice when those Grendarl won't trade with you! I hope that "endless loop" doesn't appear in my games.

Corentor and the other Canadian have the right idea.

It's a game!

[MetalKing]

Corentor it is more than obvious that you are a moron. You can't even normally argument my statements.In a normal coversation people usually listen(read) to what people have to say and then try to see how it bothers them. And the tell their counterarguments. You obviously don't have them or worse you fail to produce them.

And another thing.How do you define a classic?? I bet you don't know that either. And yea this game ain't gonna be a classic that's for sure. You don't need to listen to me ask smbd else(read gaming reviewer)

And yea street fighter sux. Well depends how old are you if you're 13 i understand your view completely and won't adress you anymore.

[hands2go]

thanks for that, Sillelak. no polemic can beat facts. so: how about some more polemic views...moo1 caught up with many for vast options in simplicity. moo2 did the same based on a brilliant interface in a gripping atmosphere. had both been combined, moo3 might just be worth the money (or ripping-hassle). instead they combined the downsides of both previous versions. but there will be other games...

[Corentor]

Originally posted by MetalKing
Corentor it is more than obvious that you are a moron. You can't even normally argument my statements.In a normal coversation people usually listen(read) to what people have to say and then try to see how it bothers them. And the tell their counterarguments. You obviously don't have them or worse you fail to produce them.

Atleast I have proper grammer structure: "argument my statments"? Uh huh. As for arguments, my point, all along (and you accuse me of not reading lol) is that you do not get to define what is fun for other people, you cannot define what is or is not a good game for other people.

Originally posted by MetalKing And another thing.How do you define a classic?? I bet you don't know that either. And yea this game ain't gonna be a classic that's for sure. You don't need to listen to me ask smbd else(read gaming reviewer)

I am a moron huh? Let see, am I the one who does not know the definition of "classic" but despite that, still go on to proclaim that MOO3 will not be a classic.

Lets me define classic for you in the sense of the word (courtesy of dictionary.com since I don't want any confusion here) that applies.

adj.
-Belonging to the highest rank or class.
-Serving as the established model or standard: a classic example of colonial architecture.
-Having lasting significance or worth; enduring.

So since you *know* its not a classic, you automatically know that MOO3 will not be a model or standard. You also know that the game will not endure like the other Master of Orion games.

Tell me, where can that purchase a crystal ball you have?

Originally posted by MetalKing And yea street fighter sux. Well depends how old are you if you're 13 i understand your view completely and won't adress you anymore.

Uh-huh, have you actually gone to real arcades and seen who plays the street fighter games? Hint its not the little kids.

I like rather childlike attempt at being cool by using 'sux'. Your impressing a lot of people. LOL.

Well thanks for comming out. Let me know when you can post without making it look like you didn't get out of grade 1.

[syf]

I love development plans and the various AIs.

But... whoever designed the interface should be shot, what on earth were they thinking?!

NO-NOs:
1: 3 Layers to get to a build queue, it took me 1 hour to find out where to queue something (yes i can look it up in the manual, but that's besides the point, it should be intuitive).
2: can't scroll the build queue, or queue more then 3 things (as far as i can see, do tell me if it's possible).
3: ohhhh an ENCYCLOPEDIA, very handy, especially when i can't right-click anywhere to get instant help, instead, i get a non-working search function in it, since looking for 'ground' will not find 'ground troops', oh, and half the keywords they use in-game, are NOT to be found in it, brilliant!
4: the sitrep. pretty nicely done, but why can't i double click on something to get more indepth info on what just happened, for example, after a research has completed, i'd like to be able to view what it does!
5: can't multitask without getting screen corruption (yes, it can be fixed by opening up any windows, but why?! other games don't do this)
6: when you load a game, the sitrep loses all it's info.
7: oh god, the blue-lined GUI boxes, i can't even concentrate on the game since the whole interface is a constant distraction, that and the overload of unneeded data being thrown at me.
8: the shipdesign, and the 'auto-build' option, which gives names to ships that are completely unpersonal, next to that, you can select the text in the name box with the mouse, i can hit delete to remove it, YET, i can't hit ctrl-u to clear all text, use shift + arrow keys to select a character, can't copy/paste, nothing, thanks oh-so-brilliant non-standard textbox.
9: development plans: "clear selected" how do i select, why do i have to search for the plan through the combobox, instead of just being able to select a row in a table? adding a new development plan is also utterly retarded.
10: lets see, there's leaders! uh-oh, where did pilots go, yeah, no longer in-game, not even a task-force commander.
11: diplomacy, they should have taken a look at civ3 and incorporated some diplomacy features from there.

Seriously, wtf is up with the interface, it's godawfull, have the developers played the original MOO at all? have they tried their own MOO for longer then 10 turns, you have to be really dense to not notice how awfull this is, and here's the sad thing, had the game just had bugs, it would be fixable, a bad interface isn't fixable, least they can do is add context-sensitive help (encyclopedia) ala civ.

And no, i don't hate games that have a hard learning curve, i actually like complex games that require thinking, but i can't tolerate having to learn an interface or having to wait for 4 layers to access some information, with all the nice graphical effects that take ages to show, such as menus 'scrolling out' and what not, this has no place in a strategy game.

I'm really disappointed in MOO3, not because of the fact that they decided to change the game-concept, but mainly because of the interface.