[MoO] Master or Orion 4

Stardock, well known publisher, after getting in production a Master of Magic-like game "Elemental: War of Magic" has their CEO, Brad Wardell thinking about the possibility of a Master of Orion 4 produced by his company.

But before you lose all hope after remembering what happened when someone wanted to make a new MoO, Master of Orion 3, this one would be in fact a remake of Master of Orion 2 with some "improvements" (i am always cautious when i read about improvements over an already excellent game, but let's hope for the best).

On Gamasutra :
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20998

Wardell also mentioned Simtex's Master of Orion as a franchise he would like to see Stardock continue. Like Star Control, its third entry was developed by a different studio -- in this case, Quicksilver Software -- and was not as well-regarded as the original games.

"We'd like to do a Master of Orion 4," said Wardell, noting that those rights are owned by Atari as well. "It would be an updated Master of Orion 2. There would be more to it, but that would be the basis of it."

He took the opportunity to deliver some stern words to those entrusted with a series they did not create: "If you're making a game that ends with '3,' or Something: The Sequel, it should be similar to the original game," he claimed.

Wardell noted: "Don't go off and say, 'I have my own artistic vision.' Okay, good -- so call it something else. Don't ride the coattails of the people who came before you to launch your own artistic vision."

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Sounds interesting, and the intention seems very good.
I hope it will be reality and that MoO4 will be in the same kind of MoO2 and will not fall into the MoO3 curse.

Well, we'd have to see. Personally, if it devolves into micromanagement hell the way so many other 4X games tend to do, I won't be terribly interested. I will withhold judgement until I see what they come up with, however, assuming they even get the rights to do so.

I am all for it and I tend to buy these games, even if I am not fond of them to give them a chance. I am not a big fan of Galciv, it was not my cup of tea. I still bought both versions and addons.

It's little more than a pipe dream at this point. Still, I'd be curious to see what Brad Wardell could come up with. I doubt it would be anything close to the original Master of Orion though; no modern game can avoid feature creep.

Despite adding more features over time through expansion packs, Sword of the Stars has tried to stay true to the minimal-MM ethic of the original MOO, and for the most part has succeeded. But you're right that most 4X games tend towards more micro, rather than less.

It is likely they would want too much for the lic anyway.

I'll definitely want to keep an eye on this, but MoO3 has taught me to remain skeptical. So yeah, I'll believe it when I see it.

Wardell noted: "Don't go off and say, 'I have my own artistic vision.' Okay, good -- so call it something else. Don't ride the coattails of the people who came before you to launch your own artistic vision."

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I very much agree with this sentiment. In many cases I don't think there is an artistic vision though. It's just stressed artists who haven't had time to do proper research, and an art director who doesn't care what is drawn as long as it looks kinda nice and is delivered on time.

Very few games (or movies) follow up on the design established by the original. Sometimes it's good to try out new stuff, but you can still be consistent with previous design, use it as a bridge to the new material.

Unfortunately most or all of the franchises that I loved as a kid has mutated into something else, so I can't be optimistic. A lot of developers say that they're going to respect source material end up just redesigning stuff into something...uh, what's the term... 'contemporaneously hot'? The Golden Axe: Beast Rider designers made a big number about how they were all fans of the original game, even brought in the original designer.

On top of that, MoO 1 and 2 are a bit different visually. The sequel almost completely disregarded the original (visual) designs. I think it's okay to change style, but MoO2 changed the underlying design and made many of the aliens kind of stale and boring looking. (Yeah, I prefer the more cartoony look of MoO1.)

I think "I have my own artistic vision" was meant in a broader sense - the art of game design - rather than the graphics of the game itself (though maybe not in this case, as it has been said that MoO3 failed largely because its design was made to serve its art director's vision rather than the other way around). That said, I liked MoO2's artwork, in large part because I thought it was still cute and cartoony. The reason I'm still playing and enjoying MoO and haven't touched MoO2 in ages is not because of the art but the difference in game play.

MoO has a better, more variable, more race-dependent tech system, races with more individual feels, controls that minimize MMing by being at once finer (eco costs automatically adjusted to the minimum, within 1% of planetary production, as opposed to food production adjusted manually by the player in increments of larger-in-comparison-with-planet-size population units) and less detailed ("Build industry" instead of "first build an autofact, then build robominers, then this, then that, and then annoy me again to ask what to build next since you're all out of room in the queue.") ... and more. There were many things I liked about MoO2, and like still, but if someone setting out to make MoO4 wants to base it on MoO2 (instead of MoO1) with "more to it" ... well, if "more to it" means streamlining the interface and improving the AI and game balance, more power to them; may they get the license. Unfortunately, I fear "more to it" is more likely - in any new computer program - to just mean "feature creep."

Hi guys, new member here.

MOO was the first game I played when I got my first x386 machine and I have replayed MOO2 like a million times, and like most others, were very disappointed with MOO3(some of the mods made it a little more playable, but its still missing out on alot of potential).

I chanced upon Sins of A Solar Empire also by stardock and found it very similiar to the MOO series, with the 3D GUI of MOO3 and exceptional graphics...you could actually see ships during warp mode and all the fancy phase jump graphics like in the old star wars movies...it does not incur too much micromanagement and yet still offers a great deal of control over most planatery developments.

I see bits of MOO2+MOO3+C&C+DOTA in this game, and its not all that complex tho Im still trying to get used to the "non turn based" playmode.


If anyone has not tried it yet, please go check it out! In fact, I would have taken this as MOO4 if it wasnt called another name

I tried SoaSE out (via demo) and I didn't find it very similar to the MOO franchise; it seemed it inherited too many RTS elements for that -- especially the rock/paper/scissors style combat mechanics. It was enjoyable enough as RTSs go but not really what I am looking for in a 4X game.

I've found the Sword of the Stars series to be a better spiritual successor to the MOO franchise. It's a turn-based 4X strategy game with a real-time tactical engine, rather than trying to do everything in real-time with the consequent simplifications to the strategy layer that entails. At the same time, however, the strategy layer of SotS is not overly ornate, either, and tries to keep a strong focus on eliminating as much micromanagement as possible -- in my view, a good thing, and very in keeping with the flavour of MOO (especially MOO1.)

Definitely worth checking out, especially now that it's got 2 expansions out there and an updated demo based on the Collector's Edition code. It's considerably more polished than it was at first release.

Here's an article that might be relevant to the discussion. It's from 2005 though.

http://tgnforums.stardock.com/?aid=88762

It had to be much closer to MOO2 than GalCiv2 for me to be interested.
I don't want any wonders, I want tactical combat and ship design like MOO2 and I want forced tech specialization.
The only new element I'd like to see in a MOO2 remake is a civic system like SMAC (not CIV).

Space Empires 5 is kind of where I wanted MOO to go, but developped by a proper team of people on a decent budget rather than by 1 guy and the communnity, though they have done a great job considering.

Take SE5, add slicker graphics and a good AI, add a nice interface that looks like the MOO2 one not this quadrant split (I'd actually prefer a click on a star system to open it system like moo 2 or 3 than the pre devision into linked systems like SE5) and I would be happy.

Also what no game gives me at the moment, SE5 ot galciv or whatever, is a good enough ability to easily pre design scenarios. If I want to say throw toghether a game with 1 big non player empire, medium to high tech but slow to advance, call it the evil empire, and then add a sprinkling of smaller ones, lower tech but faster reasearch, none of them let me do it. More customisabilty of the scenrios and individual customisation of rules per NPC or PC race in the same game.

Sullla said:

It's little more than a pipe dream at this point. Still, I'd be curious to see what Brad Wardell could come up with. I doubt it would be anything close to the original Master of Orion though; no modern game can avoid feature creep.

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And the reason for this is, because it looks good on the back of the box..

is their anything new about wether there will be a MoO4 Or not? been a long time since anyone posted here and I loved MoO and MoO2

I hope they wont get it.
IMHO MOO3 was almost the best game ever.

Its just that too much of the originally planned content was scrapped, there were bugs, the macromanagement feature didnt work very good, and the turns took 10minutes in the lategame in large universes.

Otherwise it was genial.

Not heard a word, but eventually someone will have to go for it. New ideas are hard to come by, it is easier to make a sequel. I finally came around to not hating III. It still takes too much work to play one out.

Mallipeep said:

I hope they wont get it.
IMHO MOO3 was almost the best game ever.

Its just that too much of the originally planned content was scrapped, there were bugs, the macromanagement feature didnt work very good, and the turns took 10minutes in the lategame in large universes.

Otherwise it was genial.

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I agree completely, MOO3 was and still is the best. To me it only came natural that it was much more advanced than its predecessor. I hope - if someone makes MOO4 - they don't dumb it down like GalCiv2.

Or like MOO2 for that matter. While that was a nice game 10 years ago, anything of the kind is too old fashioned now, no matter how spiffed up. We moved beyond the micro management, overly abstract concepts and simplistic AI behaviour. I wanna feel like I'm the master of a real civilization.

For Master of Orion 4 they should remake MOO3 and put in a lot of new interesting and fun stuff, use incredibly realistic artificial intelligence, allow fan mods, preserve scalability and add a lot of nice visuals, 3D graphics and eye candy. And for making it appeal to a broad audience the ability for role playing should be improved with some more CGI or 3D viewings of planets and events. I'd like to say that the previous era is definitely over. So here's hoping MOO4 can carry over from MOO3 and enter the galactic turn based 4X genre into the century of modern gaming!

You may be correct, but to some it is not about the look. It is about the play and replay. Making games look good is easy today with the power of the systems and the graphic cards. Making it fun and replayable is another altogether.