OT: stardocks fantasy strategy game

[snarko]

Read about it here.

It's essentially--imagine Civilization with magic, in terms of general, broad play style. I mean, it's a lot more than that, because I'm a Civ fanatic--no pun intended, great site--but there's a really good mod for Civilization IV that lets you do magic and stuff. Obviously it's a lot more than just Civ with magic.

I wonder what "good mod" he's talking about?


Given how long until it's coming out we might (might) be tired of FfH 2 by then.

 

[Jhoniten]

Could be interesting, wish I knew what mod that was he mentioned.

 

[kenoxite]

Given how long until it's coming out we might (might) be tired of FfH 2 by then.

People might get tired of crack or heroine. Not of FFH2.

I was already interested in Stardock's next big thing, and knowing it might (might ) have a fraction of genius of this mod makes it even more interesting. So, thanks for the heads-up

 

[Kael]

Wardell's next product is supposed to feature dynamic terrain (good lands become good, evil lands turn evil), capturable mana resources. He also stated the following recently:

1) Single player or multiplayer
2) Persistent servers for multiplayer to make getting games going easier
3) Integrated modding support
4) Tactical battles
5) Much more like Civ/Mom than say HOMM or AoW
6) Player designed cities and units
7) Beta next Spring
8) Release date based on beta tester satisfaction

Wardell: We're working on a turn-based fantasy strategy game. It won't be out for another couple of years still. We've been developing a new 3D engine for it. The game relies heavily on user-created content. And, I stress, we started before Spore.

The modding tools, so to speak, are built into the game in such a way that's how we're putting content in the game. You can build your own worlds, your own races, your own characters and cities. You'll design everything you want. You can submit it into the game, and it goes up to us.

Once it's moderated, any user has the option to download third party content. The game itself is a little like Civilization, a little like Master of Magic, in that you start in a world that's been totally devastated by an event called the Cataclysm. As you start rebuilding the world, the map starts to come back alive.

But outside your realm, things are pretty desolate. It's not like Heroes of Might and Magic when there's just cities there - you actually get to build cities, build settlers, move them out, form new cities.

There's these things across the world called Shards. If you get them, they give you mana which you can use to cast increasingly powerful spells. I know one thing people liked about Master of Magic was the spell effects. But imagine what you could do on today's 3D hardware with spell effects.

Its a cool project and Im really excited to see how it turns out. Im on another forum with Brad (that also gets a lot of FfH interest) and have shared quite a few arguments/discussions with him. Hes a great game designer and consistently produces quality games, Im sure this wont be any different.

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

Now the big question arises: Will it be good enough for FfH3? :>

 

[Kael]

By the way, as features of the game are announced some people may think that "not-MoM" (as Brad calls it) borrows ideas from FfH. Even without knowing much about not-Mom its inevitable. They are both turn based fantasy games they are going to share some features and ideas.

But I dont think that is a fair assumption to make. If anything they will both probably borrow heavily on mechanics from earlier games, especially MoM. The nature of the gaming industry is constant refinement and sharing of ideas. Thats part of what makes it so exciting. People tend to associate particular mechanics with the first time they experienced it, thats rarely the original source.

If developers of other games do get some tiny inspiration from FfH then Im delighted. Its hard to find any component of FfH that wasnt inspired by another game. Im really excited to see Brads take on turn based fantasy.

 

[Gelvan]

One thing I really like about Star Dock is that they really make an AI that get's more difficult with higher difficulty levels. Not only "more units", like most games.

The only thing which I don't think is at anytime a good idea, is the idea to make it 3D. CivRevolutions showed what happens... Spore showed it also to a degree, and that was quite high on my wish list. But now... I don't know..

The Gaming industry does not need (that much) 3D - it needs people like the FFH2 Design Team, or other Moders for Civ2, Civ3, Civ4, people who CARE about their product. Who want to finish it.

I really would appreciate if Brad and his team (best AI ever) would make a fusion with the Firaxis guys (best licence ever ) and Kael and his boys (best producers ever). To make Master of Magic II or FFH3, a game like no one ever saw it before. Of course Civfanatics as a whole will beta test it while they produce it.

 

[Ahriman]

I'll be hoping for props to this.

I loved the original GalCiv. I was amazed at the fact that Brad hung out on all the message boards and would reply very rapidly to almost any question put to him - best company support I have ever seen (Kael doesn't count, he works for free).

I thought Galciv2 was fine, but not all that new and shiny.

I find Sins of a Solar Empire very... mixed. It has a lot of cool design decisions, don't get me wrong. But when it came to balance, and unit/tech utility, it was just awful. Half the techs are never worth getting, refineries are worse than units, half the units are never worth building and balance between capital ships was terrible.
I felt underwhelmed by Sins; maybe because it works much better as a multiplayer game and I'm fundamentally a single player gamer.

But still, I'd definitely look forward to a MOM-style game by Brad. I think he is much better at project design than most - even if he is a little obsessed by the digital distribution medium.

 

[Mergle]

I'll be hoping for props to this.

I find Sins of a Solar Empire very... mixed. It has a lot of cool design decisions, don't get me wrong. But when it came to balance, and unit/tech utility, it was just awful. Half the techs are never worth getting, refineries are worse than units, half the units are never worth building and balance between capital ships was terrible.
I felt underwhelmed by Sins; maybe because it works much better as a multiplayer game and I'm fundamentally a single player gamer.

Stardock didn't design Sins; they were the publisher.

 

[fuzzy_bunnies]

Another nice thing is that they will actually continually update and add to their products. Lots of gameplay additions for Galciv2 ended up being free while major updates came with a relatively low cost expansion pack.

The bad side of this was of course the documentation became woefully out of date very quickly.

I'm looking forward to Stardock's game... despite some issues I had with Galciv2 (no strategic combat?!) it was still quite fun and a good successor to Moo2

 

[Kael]

The bad side of this was of course the documentation became woefully out of date very quickly.

We would discourage professional studios from adopting this particular aspect of FfH.

 

[Mailbox]

I'm very excited about the player cities and units, it sounds like Spore except placed in a much deeper game. Also being easy to mod is always great news, I love companies that keep this in mind.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

We would discourage professional studios from adopting this particular aspect of FfH.

!

 

[Darksaber1]

Stardock didn't design Sins; they were the publisher.

Yep, Ironclad Games designed Sins, Stardock just published it.