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Step 1: Decide if you remake MoO 1 or MoO 2

Step 2: Implement the game mechanics EXACTLY the way they used to be in MoO 1/2 - just use modern graphics. Do IN NO WAY change any game mechanics.

Step 3: Add new CONTENT - that´s what people (at least thats my impression) actually want. No different game, just the same - and more of the same. And with new CONTENT, i mean

- Technologies: More Beam weapons, rockets, torpedos, special systems, computers, planetary technology,....

- Ships/Star Bases: More Shipdesigns- and sizes, just more of it

- Races: New Races, new race attributes

- Evil enemies/guardian: Stronger, better, evil, new unique technologies,...

- Planets: New types, bigger planets,...

- Galactic events: New galactic events, more stuff like space dragons,...

 

And please, give me feedback. When thinking of a remake, i think of the same game with modern graphics and new content, but no change in game mechanics.

 

The actual remake changes a lot in game mechanics (star routes, tactical combat, no creative/uncreative races,....) and gives us less content (less races, technologies we already know,....) instead of adding NEW and MORE content. So instead of a remake i see a different game with the same title.

 

 

Who is with me?

@smilyx85

 

That would be good. But I doubt that it is going to happen.

 

A lot of projects started with this requirement and they all (!) failed cause they did not finish the "exact remake" first and started to implement new things first.

 

MOO1&2 were good games but today they will not suceed anymore. The customer base has changend younger customers may be scared of turnbased fights.

 

I think they know exactly what they are doing and it is the first approach. If this project fails MOO will be dead. Forever.

 

 

So I am with you but to stay realistic: not going to happen. MOO was a good game in its time. But those good times are over forever. I hope everybody enjoyed it cause that is the way the world works. Old things vanish, new things come. You get older and stay connected to the old things.

 

Sorry.

@Idinyphe: Yeps, I think the same, its not going to happen. Its far too late already, the game is in a state where u cannot make fundamental changes anymore. At least not without investing A LOT of effort (and money). Besides, the developers do want the game they have produced and not something else, as I suggested. I put much hope in this project, cause developer promised to remake MoO and they appreciate the old game. So i was happy and thought "Yeah, finally someone remakes MoO. Literally remakes it." And now....seen it, and I´m disappointed. As MoO this game has already failed. It can become a good random 4x game. Maybe a very good one. But as MoO it has failed

 

Well, its time to not think about that new "MoO" anymore and look for some cool MoO2 Mods

Edited by Smilyx85, 09 March 2016 - 03:07 PM.

I would add that I also want to feel the same awe, glory and magnificence of universe, extraterrestrials and intergalactic diplomacies rather then a feeling that I am inside Pixar animated movie for kids which is aiming to make fun and kid around to amuse children.

They never promised that. They actually stated very literally that it's a reboot (=new game) and not a remake of MOO(2). (Not that that means they shouldn't fix the problems this game has of course).

Edited by NLxAROSA, 09 March 2016 - 06:12 PM.

They include micropayments , payed dlcs , races, torpedos and even christmas event...

If it is not supposed to be remake they should have chosen different name and different races, different technologies and everything different. But making a crap and naming everything inside after genius game is just despicable and shameful.

My advice to the developers:

Make the best you can out of this version of the game.

When this project is finished make something the MoO fans really want:

A graphical updated MoO2 running native on modern OS, like Windows, Mac OS, Linux, ANDROID etc.

 

please vote in this poll to make it more representative:

http://forum.mastero...e-make-moo2-hd/

 

regards,

CB

it has failed 

 

The world has evolved and improved from the "PAUSED tactical combat" to "REAL TIME tactical combat". Before you explode: I do NOT mean the combat currently implemented in MoO but rather the stuff you can see in Battlefleet Gothic: Armada. Sadly that game has its own "stability problems" atm but the way it is designed is awesome. The biggest problem with combat in MoO is ... SPEED. The "normal" setting is wayy too fast and should be replaced by the slowest available setting. Oh and asteroids should NOT be destroyed by missile barrages to provide tactical options. [If I had to build a space station I would probably start with an asteroid if one was readily available ... because "rock = free armor".]

 

Now to your wish for "bigger planets". That is really a BAD request because "more stuff" will make every single planet and/or fleet become part of an "unnamed soup" which doesnt really mean anything anymore. If you only have a handful of colonies and only just get enough of stuff you will care much more about each and every one of them compared to an empire of 20-100.

 

MoO1&2 were good games, BUT they also had their problems. The end game - you know what I mean ... the fleets of lots of those "round ships" with black hole generators and death rays and such - was TEDIOUS. Thus MORE is actually LESS.

 

The stuff that is missing:

• planetary governors
• meaningful diplomacy
• espionage
• interesting and meaningful events
• challenging AI
• meaningful racial boni (a quote from the Champions RPG: "A disadvantage that isnt a disadvantage isnt a disadvantage" (and thus worth no points).)
• better pirates with bigger ships (maybe a black market where you can sell older ships to them but the other governments shouldnt find out about it ...)
• interesting combat (not a carbon copy of Battlefleet Gothic, but that game is a really good inspiration for it)
• better voice acting (I do not mean the quality but rather the lack of variety. I would strangle that Psilon advisor after he has given his "Even without me ..." speech a few times. Lets hope they have recorded lots of lines ... but they could have already been part of the game, so I have a nagging feeling at the back of my mind. Also: this is supposed to be the advanced future. Why then are the GNN robots "stuttering" (in addition to being absolutely annoying)?)

The stuff we dont need:

• unlimited fleet size (but the limitation should come from economics/command points instead of having a "fixed numerical value&quot
• stop-motion-battles (they are unrealistic and we can have better games now)
• fanboys who are whining for a carbon copy of MoO2 even though the game is in early access and will supposedly get a major update each month until launch. C'mon guys ... there is lots of stuff missing. No reason to go fusion about it.

I am not a fanboy of moo2 at all, but now that I had another look at it after maaaany years, you really see that it has an immense level of depth and variety, strategically and tactically. A Moo remake should be made more accesible, but it cannot be a shallow one. Just look at the moo2 wikis how much stuff is written up on offline (vs AI) and online strategies, its insanely awesome.

 

Totally agree on copying ideas from Gothic Armada, i just looked at a simple gameplay campeign video with 3 ships and even that simple battle was pretty epic. The sturdyness of the ships is good, and even though the battle did not take that long, a lot of intersting stuff happened, pretty cool. 

@Rabiator

 

I agree with you in most things: MOO is what you say.

 

But all the time I dreamed of a "Big" MOO with a good concept of automatisation. The way MOO3 did it was not wrong in the core, problem was people did not understand the concept of the automatisation.

 

If they would build a MOO like Factorio where you start small and CAN micromanage everything but give the player mighty tools to automatise everything then you will end up with something like MOO3 ... but on the way to that you will have fun with the game like with Factorio.

 

So I think you both are right: MOO is what you say but I understand SmilyX85 what he seems to wish for: this soup will be repleaced by tools and that is not really a problem. Development plans CAN be done well. The problem was not the concept, the problem was the way of implementation!

 

But if you plunge the players into that soup without telling, no without letting expierence him the way automatisation is needed they will decline to learn.

 

This MOO is not the right place for this discussion but it might be a challenge for a real enhancement in the future for 4X games.

 

A lot of games are doing this sooo wrong: There is a clever way to start a game small and let the player believe he "invented" the automatisation and how to play the game by small steps. That is what people like in those games even if they don't know it.

Edited by Idinyphe, 14 March 2016 - 10:05 AM.

 

Hm, i dont agree on the "unnamed soup". It strongly depends on the style of game you want to play. Sometimes you choose small galaxy size, have 4 star-systems and you care very much about each planet you have, even the small ones. 

And sometimes you choose huge galaxy size, never care about a single star system as you have 40 of them anyway and you play the macro-management focused game instead of micro-managing single planets. Each of those game styles is fun, it simply depends on your mood which gamestyle you are into that day.

A bigger planet size, for instance, would give you the option to spam fleets or technology even in the small map size. And if there is the option to just disable the "hugest planet size", everything is fine. It would give the game more depth.

 

On the point of the world has evolved from round based to real time i disagree too. Because MoO is not a game of realism. I mean......you have deathrays, other dimensions, populations of just 10 millions on a huge planet (earth is not even close to huge an you know our population).....i think its just wrong and not possible to go for realism in this game. Logic: yes. Realism: nope. 

 

The thing is, i just cannot understand why they name it MoO but do not make MoO. I expected something else from MoO. As I already said, that game can be a very good, maybe even an outstanding 4x game. But it´s not MoO. So, I think they should have either given the game another name, or have named it MoO but then stick more to the original game. In the way they do it, they just disappoint a lot of people....because of expectations and stuff.

So, just read in an interview, they are absolutely NOT gonna make round based battles. "Because its unblalanced". Im out of here.

Edited by Smilyx85, 16 March 2016 - 04:38 PM.

@Smilyx

 

Why should round based battles be "unbalanced"? I don't event get the concept of that information, do you hava a link to the interview?

What is unbalanced on round based combat?

 

Also the 4X community is quite small, so is your buyer base, and these people know quite well what they want and/or expect from a MOO reboot.

 

Think trying to make the MOO reboot to appeal to a mass market is the wrong approach as there are just not so many players who want to spend countless hours on 1 play through. On most modern games a playthrough for a single player campaign lasts about 6-10 hours (RPGs and massive Adventures excluded but they are a niche in themselves).

I just recently played the new XCOM2 and even there after not even a week moderately playing I am in the endgame, and now just try to stall to not finish the game.

 

Same about multiplayer, really how many people have the time and ability to shedule to get together on a regular basis to play a 100 hour strategy game? In a MMO if one from your group is not here you just play with one player less or recruit someone who is hanging around. In MOO that seems kind of impossible.

 

Judging from the forum the game heads to being a trainwreck. Driving away the faithful MOO players by not being close enough to MOO  and MOO2 and not apealing enough form mainstream users. I am kind of sorry for the developers, as I think they had a novel idea, but I guess that money talked and WG kind of told them in which direction to develop their idea.

 

Their argument is, in a round base battle the player who may move first has a too big advantage and for this reason, its unbalanced.

 

The interview is in german, so either you can speak german or you try your luck with google translator

 

http://www.gamestar....63,3269448.html

There is a quite easy solution to it make it resolve at the same time. Has been done in boardgames so should not be that much of a challenge in a computer game.Player a moves, Player B moves, Player A declares fire, Player B declares fire. firephase is resolved, losses removed, next turn.

 

But really with a bit of good will there are many options you can make round based combat fair, there are tons of examples in boardgames and tabletop.

 

RTC is also unfair if you go by their definition, the guy who is better at micromanaging his fleet wins, or who can quicker fire of his macro commands.

@smilyx85

Thank you for the link, I can speak german so no problem with that.

 

So chess or Go or hundreds of boardgames are imbalanced games in their opinion as the beginner has ALWAYS an advantage?

 

I really don't see the problem with that as there is a well know solution for that called "initative". In every boardgame you can buy the "start" player for the next round. In MOO you could invest in your ships/race/tech to gain the initiative during the fight. The other solution already brought into the discussion from Boomer7 is right with his "Battle Isle" concept of gameplay, that did work fine. Or in chess there is always a possible way to build a defense against greedy abuse of tempo.

 

One of the aspect why people like games is the illusion to be in control. So he is right if he says: well a real commander doesen't have that option to control everything so it is only realistic. But that is not the point why people play games! A game is selling an illusion! Thats why we like it cause it is near enough at reality but made that way we whish reality would be

 

There are a few exceptions where games that don't follow that illusion are a succes. (XCOM not supporting that illusion is a core unique selling point of that game)

 

But I don't think that MOO community is the same as the XCOM community.

 

 

To give an example:

 

A shield device that is mutual exclusive with initative bonus system that catches the first "firestorm" is possible. But it should be a trade off: you are doing this you will have to pass other things.

 

If it is working like paper, scissors and stone it is balanced.

 

I agree that this kind of balancing is incredible hard to do and even big players like blizzard do have problems with that and putting a lot of effort into it. (As they know how important that is)

 

I agree that not everybody has the resources for that but that kind of answer in the interview from MOO seems to be self-abandonment

Edited by Idinyphe, 18 March 2016 - 01:10 PM.