Someone should design Civ 5(well, different name) without good graphics

[Levgre]

Like, it could be a 2-D map, simple pictures, if any. Just make a game that would incorporate all the gameplay of CIV5. I have a feeling the Civ community could design a game as well as Firaxis.

Then if it gained enough popularity, perhaps it would be taken over by a company that could produce the game with good graphics also.

 

[Turquoiside]

No.............

 

[r_rolo1]

I don't have any issue with the 3-D graphs on Civ IV, expect they are useless ( I was expecting that the 3-D would have game impact, like altitures and such ). I'm quite sure that Civ V will have some of that 3-D ingredients, so starting with a 2 D engine would not be a good way.

Now, if you're talking about developing a game algorythim to be tested by fans even before Firaxis starts making Civ V ( suposing that they aren't doing it already )... well, that might be a damn good idea ( like the yankees say )

 

[Gorey]

i say no too.

as much as i liked games from long ago.. i always go "ewwww" whenever i fire them up again.

its true that gameplay > graphics.

but bad graphics definately suck as well.

 

[Earthling]

Oh hey! This would be an excellent place to look for an answer to one of my long standing questions. So... the whole deal about the radioactive/dancing bananas - is that because of the banana resource in civIV? I seem to recall it might be something like they bothered to animate the little bananas in the tree + basket - the heavy focus on graphics. Or of course it may be an entirely unrelated meme, I was just wondering.

As for actual civ5, I don't particulary care to have any more graphics than we have now (in fact, civ III levels were fine for me - only the movies/leaderheads really seem like much of an advancement). Mod-ability, a good interface, and transparency for the player to actually be able to get at all the info they want (and should have) are 10x more important.

And finally - I'd think a remake of civ into civ5 still sounds not nearly as exciting as a remake of SMAC - and I've never even played it, only heard about it. Still, we can always dream...

 

[Levgre]

Now, if you're talking about developing a game algorythim to be tested by fans even before Firaxis starts making Civ V ( suposing that they aren't doing it already )... well, that might be a damn good idea ( like the yankees say )

I guess I was not clear enough... this is what I meant. I think it is "relatively" easy to program a game like Civ (in a way it is just a really big board game), but creating the graphics and making it "polished" would be many times harder.

There would likely need to be money involved for all the work, but it wouldn't run into many thousands (5 thousand could be a rough estimate, but if 500 people donated 10 dollars each that would be enough, pretty easy to raise when there is interest).

 

[Roller123]

Like, it could be a 2-D map, simple pictures

There is truth in that 2D has better graphics than current 3D. Low polygon models vs high quality pictures. The solution is however not to abandon 3D, but to create higher quality polygons, and have best of both worlds.

Visualization:

Civ3 jaguar:


Civ4 jaguar:


Now Civ5 should have a rotateable version of the civ3 jaguar, not some crappy static pictures again.

 

[noto2]

How about no. Did you ever think about how you would feel if you spent months working on this Civ 5 idea only to have Firaxis steal your ideas and not pay you or credit you for them? If you're that interested in video games I suggest you look into working for one of these companies. Oh, and on that note, it's probably very rare, but sometimes a person with brilliant ideas for a game can get hired by a company on the spot. Much in the way a person with a brilliant screen play can get it turned into a movie, a person with a brilliant game idea (written in great detail) can get it worked on by a major game company. I saw it happen to my friend. Way back in the day he was hired by Square Soft to work on an RPG for the Super Nintendo because he copywrote a game idea and sent it to them. So miracles do happen. Good luck.

 

[Joshua368]

The opposite of good graphis are bad graphics. Bad graphics are bad. Simple!

Wouldn't mind a nice crisp highly stylised 2D game (like a board game a la Paper Mario) but no pixelated early-90's stuff.

 

[killmeplease]

Civ3 jaguar:


Civ4 jaguar:

personally i like the latter more

 

[Roller123]

personally i like the latter more

The above pictures only indirectly relate to what i said, i guess i need to post more obvious pics.

This is civ4, thats graphics level of 1998, Unreal. Actually even worse since Unreal models didnt have ugly 2D sprites on them.



And this is 2007, Crysis, and what Civ5 units should, and probably will be.


If you still like the first picture more, youre definitely in minority.

 

[Smidlee]

Like, it could be a 2-D map, simple pictures, if any. Just make a game that would incorporate all the gameplay of CIV5. I have a feeling the Civ community could design a game as well as Firaxis.

Then if it gained enough popularity, perhaps it would be taken over by a company that could produce the game with good graphics also.

The first GalCiv graphics was very dated and it shows both in previews/reviews of the game and the fact some people complained about paying $40 for a game with dated graphics. Brad said the Galciv idea that gameplay first then deal with graphic later was not a good marketing idea. Thus Galciv2 started out with good 3D graphics from the beginning. So graphics are extremely important to the publishers which will be marketing the game. This is why Atari required civ4 to have a 3D engine.

Civilization 3D graphics has to be more in common with flight sims than in FPS. In a FPS large part of the map/landscape doesn't have to be in the memory at once unlike a game like civ where the whole map (as well as all it's menu) has to be just one click away. (Flight sims also has to limit it's polygon count since it has to reveal large amount of land at once.)

 

[Rolken]

Good graphics are always nice, but I think the opinion that Civ5 should require Crysis-level hardware is in the minority. Does anyone actually zoom in on units like that?

It's also worth noting that how much stuff is on the screen matters as much as the quality of any individual model when considering hardware requirements.

IMO Valve and Blizzard have proven that great art and style matters far more than polygons.

I would kill for an SMAC2 though.

 

[LegionSteve]

I would kill for an SMAC2 though.

Me too! If I had to choose I would rather have that, than Civ 5 even! Now SMAC was an extreme case of great gameplay, horrible graphics...

 

[ahmedhadzi]

I just downloaded FfH2 last night and played it for few turns. I never zoom to the ground level and spend most of the time on standard camera height (so to speak). I was AMAZED to see how that game look like, especially those models of units on the lower left side of the screen. I don't have a problem with current level of civ graphic especially since I play on low end lap top, with all settings low. For me, gamplay is what makes civ a civ and if I wanted an eye candy I would date a blonde (read: play FPS). I would also fully support 2-D gamplay experiment how the mechanics of CIV 5 should look like based on the feedback from the best civ website there is (read: civfanatics.com), so if anyone would like to do this ti would be great. I don't have any knowledge how can I help but if anyone could point out what programming skills I would need, I'll visit Barnes and Noble today!

 

[feralminded]

I guess I was not clear enough... this is what I meant. I think it is "relatively" easy to program a game like Civ (in a way it is just a really big board game), but creating the graphics and making it "polished" would be many times harder.

The graphics are not really the concern. I could whip up half decent graphics in a few days using freeware engines. The hard part is actually the AI and more importantly the engine itself. Ever try playing Civ4 on a huge or larger than huge map with like 30 AI's? Each turn can take minutes late game regardless of the HP of your machine. This is where a lot of the real work is in optimizing the turn by turn processing. Sure its trivial for the human who has minutes or more to complete each turn but the AI (and ALL of them) have to complete all of their turns in seconds at MOST or else the human player's experience is compromised.

THAT part of the development will take a long time, specially to fully regression test since there's about a trillion use cases. I reckon Firaxis' QA department has to be three times the size of their line developers.

 

[Roller123]

Its not that bad, already GalCiv2 supports simultaneous turn processing, where the AI "thinks" during player's turn. Best done on multi-core CPUs ofc.

 

[Willem]

I guess I was not clear enough... this is what I meant. I think it is "relatively" easy to program a game like Civ (in a way it is just a really big board game), but creating the graphics and making it "polished" would be many times harder.

There would likely need to be money involved for all the work, but it wouldn't run into many thousands (5 thousand could be a rough estimate, but if 500 people donated 10 dollars each that would be enough, pretty easy to raise when there is interest).

You obviously have a very unrealistic idea of what it take to make a game. It wouldn't be an easy thing to do at all and it would cost alot of money to develop. The days of the basement programmers are over, it takes a very large sum of cash to produce games these days.

And as for the idea in general, no way. A 2D game would have to designed with just a few screen resolutions in mind as the graphics don't scale like with 3D. So chances are the game would either look like sheer crap on a monitor that was outside the those ranges, or be too small to see clearly.

 

[Willem]

This is why Atari required civ4 to have a 3D engine.

Atari had nothing to do with it. They sold the rights for Civ 4 to Take Two.

 

[Levgre]

You obviously have a very unrealistic idea of what it take to make a game. It wouldn't be an easy thing to do at all and it would cost alot of money to develop. The days of the basement programmers are over, it takes a very large sum of cash to produce games these days.

And as for the idea in general, no way. A 2D game would have to designed with just a few screen resolutions in mind as the graphics don't scale like with 3D. So chances are the game would either look like sheer crap on a monitor that was outside the those ranges, or be too small to see clearly.

1. It would be largely volunteering. People would be compensated and costs would be paid for, but salaries would not be given.

2. It would almost certainly not be the complete game. The plan would be to have a company take over at some point. A demo of the game is more likely.
The AI would need to only be programmed for limited instances, in that case, or if necessary they could even have scripts or such to deal with some of the more complex parts. There would be no 30 civ option.

3. I don't know where I said it would be easy?? I may have underestimated the cost, but that would be because I don't know exactly what equipment is required.

Anyways I don't think it'll work because you'd have to get too many people in support of the same idea, and it seems people have different ideas about the game, so it would be hard to get everyone on board.