Shurdus
Am I Napoleon?
There already? I stopped reading at "to understand civ5 we need to look at Super Mario. "Sorry, but you lost me at "Civilization I was a godawful game"!
There already? I stopped reading at "to understand civ5 we need to look at Super Mario. "Sorry, but you lost me at "Civilization I was a godawful game"!
So true... You could see it in E:TW and N:TW as well. HUGE games, that wanted to do SO many things with graphics, naval combat, huge land battles, giant strategic map and all that. But guess what? AI couldn't handle ANYTHING in those games, so they came out atrocious! Totally unplayable...!
The same thing is in CiV. The game design didn't hide AI limits...
All we wanted after STW and MTW was better AI, but they jumped the shark into pretty pictures and my second favourite franchise was gone. Reloaded Shogun and enjoying a 9 yo game! (but the AI needs improvement!)
CiV: same thing - pretty pictures but can't play the game and doesn't make an enjoyable game. Lets just go back to Civ4 and make a better AI, and start considering Civ6, if the franchise survives till then.
(and Civ1 on the amiga was fun! just took ages between turns)
Good thread and good discussion, except for a couple of silly posters refusing to read the message.
I'd say he's a very talented "game conceptor", that is he find good concepts for games.The thing is, Sid Meier is not a great game developer. No, really, he isn't. Yes, he's famous, he has some really cool games that bear his name, games like Civilization, Alpha Centauri, Railroad Tycoon, Pirates etc. But he's not a great game developer. What he is good at is finding great game developers.
Hu, no, sorry, you're just being ridiculous here.Without letting nostalgia getting too much in the way, I can safely say that Civilization I was a godawful game.
Too bad Blizzard, that you give as an example of this, has completely forgotten every single of these rules lately in WoW...Unlike Blizzard, Sid Meier nor Firaxis never really understood how or why their games work, which is bizzarre, considering Sid almost single-handedly (lol) defined the 4X genre. Unlike Blizzard or Black Isle or DMA/Rockstar (etc.) a game having a Sid Meier's label is not an assurance of quality. But the man knows how to sell himself, that's for sure.
[...]It would be silly of me to go into an in-depth description of this game, but the basic principles are very important.
The four basic principles around which Super Mario is built are these:
1. For doing okay (having skill) you're neither being awarded nor punished.
2. For performing badly you're punished.
3. For peforming great you're rewarded.
4. For having non-essential talents (exploration, persistence, memory) you're being awarded further.
I think that game companies, led by folks like Sid, are adopting the same philosophy: you make more money by churning out mass market, almost identical games that are very easy and simple than you do by developing complex ones.
I struggle with these statements, maybe you can qualify your meaning......
If I perform badly, doesn't the AI beat me?
If I perform great don't I win ?
If I perform okay don't I risk the AI beating me?
Not sure if I'm understanding the intent or not of this ...
TO be honest, I have only been bothered about three game franchises over the last 20 years. Championship/Football Manager. Civilization and Total War.
For me, TW died with M2TW
and Civ has just died at 5
However, it did make me go back and install the Europa Barbarorum mod for R:TW, if you have not played, I highly recommend you do.
I found a very interesting article called Behavioral Game Design:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3085/behavioral_game_design.php?page=1
I might just do that. Do I need to buy the expansion - can't remember what it was called, barbarian invasion or something?
A known name does not equal lasting influence. Paris Hilton is a known name, Dizzy Gillespie is a lasting influence. Asimov is my favourite sci-fi world-builder, Heinlein is my favourite sci-fi writer. I could draw a similar paralell with Tolkien and Zelazny. All dead except Paris Hilton. Call that fair.
Sid Meier is a known name in the gaming industry. Everyone who's being persistent and doing some things right gets that benefit. Eventually. But Silvester Stallone is not Clint Eastwood. Not for a long time now.
The discussion I brought up about Sid Meier is not about diminishing his factual work, I'm just pointing out that his influence in making the Civilization series is vastly overrated. If he's the overseer he's not overseeing. What good is his title then?
No one has, nor ever will, refer to Paris Hilton as a "legend". Sid Meier is so named in pretty much every gaming industry article I've ever seen his name in. You may dispute whether or not he deserves that status, but to deny that he has it is to deny reality.
The emperor's new clothes.