BE vs SMAC discussion

[Westwall]

One of the biggest problems for me is how boring everything is early on when you can just avoid conflict with the aliens for the most part. This is only exacerbated after you've cleared out the nests and laid down your cities.

SMAC shook things up a bit by having heat waves when alien activity would be at an all-time high and they could start springing out from anywhere, even within your borders. They should really do that here, having random nests or burrows pop up that you have to contain, so you can't completely relax.

I mean come on, this is their planet. They're watching over it, they're the immune system. Hell they should be attacking us on sight and continuing to do so unless we go the harmony route.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I mean come on, this is their planet. They're watching over it, they're the immune system. Hell they should be attacking us on sight and continuing to do so unless we go the harmony route.

Nah, they are just animals.
No, I am not kidding. That is the actual design idea behind them.

 

[GenyaArikado]

yeah. While BE planets are kinda like Pandora (and could probably pull an "Avatar final battle"), they're far from Planet having near literal anti-bodies.

 

[Westwall]

Isn't the whole point of the Harmony victory that you find out the planet is alive? Seems like another missed opportunity if these creatures are just a beat shy of a petting zoo.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

As far as I understood it, the planet can create intelligence and the mindflower is used to awaken/communicate with it. The aliens are just a part of that intelligence, but not intelligent by themselve.

 

[Lord Tirian]

As far as I understood it, the planet can create intelligence and the mindflower is used to awaken/communicate with it. The aliens are just a part of that intelligence, but not intelligent by themselve.

Yeah, the Mind Flower entry describes the idea behind it and is basically a giant brain. So the planet in itself is a mega-organism but without any guiding intelligence or force behind it. It's basically a vegetable and only by plugging in the Mind Flower and connecting it to all humans, it becomes a mega-intelligence.

The "alien life are anti-bodies" is a pure SMACism and transplanting it to Civ:BE would lessen Civ:BE. It would be much more interesting to explore the idea that the Civ:BE planet is what it is: a planet with a latent communication network and the fact that Xenomass is basically universal stem cells on speed.

This would result in alien reaction being a lot more local than SMAC but having a) planet-wide echoes and b) cause interesting interspecies interactions. Imagine if every alien and nest had its own "mood" but attacking them changes the spawn rate of nearby nests but to some extent the planet-wide mood. Global pollution could then cause global warming which, in turn, causes miasma to condense.

There are ways to make the current setup become more interactive without porting over SMAC's fiction. On the other hand, this does highlight the need to communicate these ideas in the game to the player. It's what people have said over and over: BE has narrative potential but it's wasted sitting in the pedia and not being communicated through play.

 

[bouncymischa]

I find it hard to believe this is the same company that gave us those incredible quotes and cutscenes in SMAC, with a wide array of voice over work and philosophical brain teasers.

It's almost as if, over the course of the past 15 years, the company has changed and evolved as older staff that worked on these earlier games moved on or retired, and new staff with new viewpoints or ideas came in and took their place. How strange!

I always find it rather bizarre how people who are fans of something expect the people or companies who produced it to somehow stay in stasis, or retain the same perspectives and principles they had over entire decades. Honestly, I know I'm not the same person I was in 1999, so why the heck would Firaxis be the same company it was back then?

 

[Galgus]

The core advertised trait of the Aliens pre-release was that they were mostly harmless on arrival, but dangerous to attack and anger.

Making that true would make Civ:BE far more interesting, particularly in the early game.

 

[Westwall]

It's almost as if, over the course of the past 15 years, the company has changed and evolved as older staff that worked on these earlier games moved on or retired, and new staff with new viewpoints or ideas came in and took their place. How strange!

I always find it rather bizarre how people who are fans of something expect the people or companies who produced it to somehow stay in stasis, or retain the same perspectives and principles they had over entire decades. Honestly, I know I'm not the same person I was in 1999, so why the heck would Firaxis be the same company it was back then?

No one expected the company to "stay in stasis" or never change. Quite the contrary actually, the expectation should be that it will change, and change for the better. It's not as if the older staff took all their notes, records and every living memory of their work and what made their games enjoyable with them on their way out. And they certainly didn't erase history.

Is expecting the next generation of staff to be capable of more given the lessons learned from their predecessors and the advances in technology and available resources really that radical a notion? No, I don't think so. And if we continue settling for less, then less is exactly what we should expect to get. Who could have predicted that not only would BE not be a worthy successor to SMAC out of the gate, it wouldn't even be a good followup to Civ 5?

Hell, who could have predicted that the company's product model would change to where the customer would be expected to shell out for a vanilla game initially and then a couple of expansions over the course of the years that follow before (hopefully) being able to have a satisfactory gameplay experience?

I'll admit, I didn't see that coming. And if you did, then I hereby dub ye "Prophet for the Ages."

 

[Gorbles]

Who could've predicted that 'satisfactory' is a personal descriptor that is impossible to quantify?

 

[Westwall]

Who could've predicted that 'satisfactory' is a personal descriptor that is impossible to quantify?

Yes, it's all subjective. There's simply no possible way to quantify what constitutes a satisfactory experience whatsoever, regardless of whether we have other experiences with which to compare. I suppose by that logic, no reviews - even those written by players to air their grievances - saying BE was an overall disappointment relying on the better features it carried over from Civ 5 can serve as a gauge.

If that's true though, why even have a discussion? After all, there will always be someone somewhere who will be happy with their purchase.

 

[Gorbles]

Because you're the one stating a subjective as a fact in a sarcastic reductive attempt at belittling someone else's point.

Context is key, naturally. I'm on my mobile so unfortunately there's too much to digest, but the fact you started with 'shell out' (negative connotations) doesn't bode well, and your post follows through with that tone.

 

[bite]

Moderator Action: People need to get back on topic

 

[Westwall]

Going back on topic, one thing I really liked about SMAC was having a complete game from release, with free patches to smooth things over obviously but otherwise you basically get what you pay for.

The expansion, while neat, mostly served as a way to expand that experience a bit further, but otherwise you could take it or leave it.

These days it's kind of expected that you'll have to shell out for at least two more expansions to get the complete game. Most people who play SMAC don't even count the expansion except as an afterthought. I don't think anyone can imagine Civ 5 without BNW anymore.

 

[Kutuzov]

Going back on topic, one thing I really liked about SMAC was having a complete game from release, with free patches to smooth things over obviously but otherwise you basically get what you pay for.

The expansion, while neat, mostly served as a way to expand that experience a bit further, but otherwise you could take it or leave it.

These days it's kind of expected that you'll have to shell out for at least two more expansions to get the complete game. Most people who play SMAC don't even count the expansion except as an afterthought. I don't think anyone can imagine Civ 5 without BNW anymore.

You dismiss the SMAC expansion as something you could take or leave but it is possible for you to casually dismiss any of Civ (X)'s expansions as well following that line of reasoning. Of course, I might argue that SMAC was not complete on release either

The games ARE complete when they are released. Civ BE IS complete right now. What it is not is not balanced or bug-free but that's different from being complete. (No game of this complexity has been both balanced and bug-free on release and I don't ever expect to see that happen either.) The expansions BUILD on the base game and add something new and arguably, better than the base game too. (I HATED Civ IV BTS's corporations for example) It's a result of more development time being available, not a conspiracy against the public to deprive us of the full game until we've shelled out $100+.

 

[Westwall]

The games ARE complete when they are released. Civ BE IS complete right now. What it is not is not balanced or bug-free but that's different from being complete.

That argument can certainly be made, absolutely. Just like if they took Civ 5 and did nothing but add an orbital layer and called it "Civ 5: Orbital Edition," that's technically a complete game too.

Anyway, I never really saw it as a conspiracy. Simply their preferred business model of late that allows the company to charge more for less than they eventually plan to put out, while also having more time to flesh out those details.

I won't say it's better or worse, but it is what it is.

 

[Kutuzov]

That argument can certainly be made, absolutely.

Ah, but do you agree or disagree with it?

Anyway, I never really saw it as a conspiracy.

Heh heh. The 'conspiracy against the public' part of my post is a quote from one of the Civ IV techs.

Simply their preferred business model of late that allows the company to charge more for less than they eventually plan to put out, while also having more time to flesh out those details.

Hmm. That's far too negative an interpretation of the new business model for my taste. However, I've learned from experience that it's utterly fruitless to try to persuade people who cleave to this belief that this is not what's happening. Me? I think it's exciting.

 

[Westwall]

As I said, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing if that's what they're doing. It is what it is and there are pros and cons, provided the end result is worth it in the long run, for both company and community.

 

[whyidie]

SMAC is an immortal title. Comparing it to BE is a bit of a joke; it's like comparing a Dean Koontz paperback to Tale of Two Cities.

No comments on BE from me. Haven't given it enough time (waiting for expansions to settle before buying) to give it a proper judgment. Your words on SMAC however...

"Resources exist to be consumed. And consumed they will be, if not by this generation then by some future. By what right does this forgotten future seek to deny us our birthright? None I say! Let us take what is ours, chew and eat our fill."

"It is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks and become one with all the people."

The artistic direction, excellent writing & theme of that title not only sticks with veterans of the franchise, but draws in new players all of the time - which says a lot for something whose interface & graphics haven't aged well, and which won't entirely play nice with modern systems.

Really good stuff, couldn't agree more, SMACs writing was off the charts. Again, I'm not judging BE only because I didn't give it enough playtime, but they certainly didn't draw me in as much as SMAC did at the start.

Not enough credit is given to SMAC's terraforming mechanics, either, which were a great big toy in their own right. They were totally unbalanced & one of the easiest ways to break the game, but if we're honest, the game was never really about the challenge so much as the experience (by the same token,

BE is also terribly balanced

, but you can't really make the same argument about the experience it provides).

YES! So much focus on "good game design theory" and "balance" tends to kill the fun of things. Sometimes the fun is in being on one of end or the other of an unbalanced experience, at least when it comes to playing AI. Against humans, not so much.

BE's writing is just terrible, leveraging mostly pop-culture references that will lose any relevance as the title ages. The jokes it attempts to make are rarely funny, and it tries way too hard to create soundbyte-appropriate phrases that it hopes will become successful memes (none have, of course). Nobody in 5 years will remember any of what few things Kozlov had to say, or grin at the idea of what it meant to build Deep Thought (but oh lol an Adams reference. How clever and original!).

Can't comment on BE (need to give it a fair shake first) but I hope they were audacious in their writing. Lot of what I see today it seems the writers and artists are too afraid to take themselves too seriously so we get quite a bit of meta referencing snark. As you said above SMAC did this really well.

 

[Westwall]

The designers kept saying they didn't want things like quests to go into too much detail, that they wanted their descriptions to be vague like Magic: The Gathering cards so players could fill in the blanks on their own or whatever.

I wouldn't be surprised if that philosophy bled into the rest of the writing, hence the forgettable BE quotes. Of course SMAC had incredible writing so most things would pale by comparison.

That said, BE certainly didn't do itself any favors by making the quotes so short and having only one VA.