Let the users build the content

[Kilarin]

Will Wright's newest "game in development" SPORE sounds like an interesting idea. Instead of paying a large team of developers to write lots of content for his game, he is concentraiting on building a REALLY easy to use and powerful engine that will let users build the content. user 1 can build his own planet, and then user 1 can upload that planet full of content to the web where other users have access, and then other users will find user 1's planet and all of the content somewhere in THEIR universe.

Good article: www.gamespy.com/articles/595/595975p1.html

Great big video of his presentation:
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8372603330420559198&q=spore

This just sounds like the kind of idea that MIGHT make Xaa happy. Not this particular implementation necessarily, but the general idea. Build a REALLY good engine, with the intent of encouraging users to provide new content.

[Xaa]

kilarin said:

This just sounds like the kind of idea that MIGHT make Xaa happy. Not this particular implementation necessarily, but the general idea. Build a REALLY good engine, with the intent of encouraging users to provide new content.

Been waiting for "Spore" for years. I hope it won't be as much of a disappointment as Civ IV was.

[sidebar]
Hint for those of you looking at Civ IV - don't. Just don't. Leonard Nimoy does the voiceovers, he's seventy-five years old, and he sounds it. His voice is dry, somewhat raspy, definitely weak, and his readings of the quotes have all the emotion of an Asperger's sufferer reading baking recipies. I mean, come on, did they REALLY need Nimoy to say "Beep. Beep. Beep." as the quote for Sputnik? WTF is this sh*t?

The rest of the game just goes downhill from there. The game itself is totally hosed compared to earlier versions. They went so far in trying to stop players from using the Infinite City Sprawl strategy that there is only ONE strategy that works to win the game: Build Culture. Build up a vast culture. Nothing else works.

No, seriously. Don't bother building the spaceship, you'll only lose to an NPC nation, as soon as you start building one part, they'll start building six or seven at once.

Don't bother trying to win by conquest, either, the game's combat mechanics have been completely re-worked to favor the defender, you'll waste the production of dozens of cities and hundreds of turns in one battle. Victory by conquest is only possible when everyone is in the stone age. As soon as someone hits bronze, that's it - you can't conquer the world, the defenders will just tear up your attackers. Oh, sure, you can beat a city. But you sent in 20 units to defeat 5 in the city, and lose 10 to 15 doing it - and that's assuming you build a mixed force such as catapults, archers, knights and swordsmen all working together in a "combined arms" strategy. Just send 20 knights in, and if the Defender has ONE archer, he'll hose half of your knights before you get him. If he has two, the city can't be taken. In the long term, you just can't win by conquest, attacker casualties are just too high. Oh - and if you think nuclear weapons will allow you to do it, think again. I once dropped four (4) nukes on Rome trying to get the Romans to capitulate. I reduced their capital from a size 15 city to a size 3 city, blasted all the units surrounding the city to atoms, the land surrinding the city GLOWED IN THE DARK (not kidding) and they STILL refused to surrender. Instead, they just kept building spaceship components and moving on as though having me NUKE THEIR CAPITAL TO RUBBLE was pretty much par for the course, no reason to be alarmed. Hell, having me do that didn't really lower them in the civ rankings much. Nukes are pathetically weak - and, believe it or not, pretty easily defended against. Build a few bunkers and you won't even lose military units in the city, or even much of your population. Cancer, shmancer, radiation is good for you in Civ IV!

You can sometimes win by diplomatic victory by building the UN, but there's a damn good chance that if you try, you'll fail and be stuck trying to rescue your game by some other victory method - or, worse, the NPC's just vote someone they like better than you as world leader, you lose. Building culture is the only way to go in Civ IV, nothing else really works. And let me tell you, there's just nothing exciting about watching little culture numbers slowly grow turn after turn for eight to twelve hours of play. Nothing.

Bottom line - I'd been waiting for it for years, it finally arrived, I got a copy, spent $60, and after a month of desperately trying to win with some way OTHER than building the "Rock and Roll" world wonder, I finally gave up. Civ IV was NOT worth the wait. I am hoping that Spore will be, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
[/sidebar]

[ann123456]

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