Sid Meier's X-COM update

Apocalypse · March 6, 2003, 00:51

Remember back like over 6 months ago when I came up with the theory that Firaxis was still making an X-COM type game despite the earlier rumor being supposedly discreditted?

Then Sid said there would be an announcement about the next game in October or November.

It's been over 4 months and still no announcement. This can really only mean one thing. They aren't liking how the gameplay/design is turning out. Just like Dinos.

Anyway, I'm just throwing some thoughts out there. I'm trying to get my mind off other things.

notyoueither · March 6, 2003, 02:13

They must hire more people to work on failing projects then...

Datajack Franit · March 6, 2003, 06:10

Bugs ****ing Bunny · March 6, 2003, 16:17

They're now working on "Sid Meier's Tetris".

tniem · March 6, 2003, 23:59

At least they learned their lesson from Dinos - wait to announce the game until you have enough developement that there has been some progress. Any other reasons for the delay (i.e. people left the company, they were working on some patches for PTW, they have a problem with licensing rights)?

Apocalypse · March 7, 2003, 00:39

Well the PTW team is not the new game team so patches have nothing to do with it. If it was license problems I'd expect we'd hear about it. I haven't heard about anyone leave the company either.

I really just believe they can't come up with a good design.

Urban Ranger · March 7, 2003, 00:51

I don't think it's a game design problem, XCOM has a solid design. It's probably they have a problem coming up with a new story, with various alien techs and humand techs.

Personally, I don't mind they do it in stages. First, there are these aliens we fight on Earth. After we defeat them, we find they are sent here by their bosses at Alpha Centauri. So we go there and fight those, etc. Maybe on the way we find some other aliens that are enslaved, and we can free them to help us.

DrSpike · March 7, 2003, 10:12

How about in an ironic twist on that we blow up their planet and then discover 99% of aliens were on our side.

mactbone · March 7, 2003, 13:39

"What have we done!"

It would be way too melodramatic of an ending. Just consider all the movies or books that have the same kind of ending.

tniem · March 9, 2003, 22:21

Quote:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I don't think it's a game design problem, XCOM has a solid design. It's probably they have a problem coming up with a new story, with various alien techs and humand techs.

How do you know that it has solid design? We are theorizing that is what they are working on and you know that it already has solid design.

Maybe your Sid!

Skanky Burns · March 9, 2003, 22:26

The XCom series has a solid design.

DrSpike · March 10, 2003, 09:25

Quote:

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
The XCom series has a solid design.

Yeah, but so did Civ1, Civ2 and SMAC.

Urban Ranger · March 10, 2003, 11:44

Quote:

Originally posted by tniem
How do you know that it has solid design? We are theorizing that is what they are working on and you know that it already has solid design.

Maybe your Sid!

That was pretty easy.

Alex · March 12, 2003, 09:56

They're working on Civ4.

Paul Hanson · March 12, 2003, 10:00

Hopefully the team is working hard to fix the dodgy screen resolution bug that makes it impossible to play UFO: Enemy Unknown on my PC.

And hopefully they're fixing the bugs in Terror from the Deep that made it hopelessly ****.

Urban Ranger · March 14, 2003, 12:03

Terror from the Deep is pretty much a hopeless case. They just tossed a bunch of junk together to ride on the fame of the original UFO. It's the same game, just the aliens became a lot more bad-arsed.

Skanky Burns · March 16, 2003, 20:13

They also increased the rate that aliens built bases such that at the end of 5 years in the original, the aliens had about 8 bases. In TFTD, they were building them at the rate of 1 a month. Also, they introduced a bug in the two-level missions where all equipment not carried to the second map would be lost forever. Considering some aliens only appeared on the first of two-level maps and were required for the research tree, that made the game very difficult.

In its defence though, at least the aliens still looked as though they were out to kill you, rather than the Apocalypse aliens who looked as though they would be more at home on a muppets set.

DrSpike · March 16, 2003, 20:31

Quote:

Originally posted by Skanky Burns

In its defence though, at least the aliens still looked as though they were out to kill you, rather than the Apocalypse aliens who looked as though they would be more at home on a muppets set.

True, but at least Apocalypse wasn't an opportunistic pile of sh1t.

Skanky Burns · March 16, 2003, 21:55

Yeah, the gameplay was mostly good, and not too many exploitable or game-breaking bugs either.

Urban Ranger · March 18, 2003, 04:39

For what its worth, UFO: Aftermath is coming along nicely.

Screenshots