Post by Star Runner on Apr 14, 2013 11:48:05 GMT -5
New to the forum.
The past few days I've been playing around with Battlecruiser Millenium and it caused me to read up on what 3000ad has been doing. I saw your post in the 3000ad forum so I came over.
On the subject of Derek Smart and his games, lately I've been examining BCM and wondering "How could it have been better without sacrificing the complexity inherent in a Derek Smart game?" I started to wonder if there was a way to make hte interface and learning curve more accessible to new players, while appealing to veterans alike. I find the whole problem to be exciting because I really do believe complexity doesn't have to be sacrificed. I think the biggest flaws in BCM were the lack of time acceleration, the small-print and lack of pictures in the manual, the lack of a tutorial-specific interface, the lack of text-labels for the onscreen clickables (which was later addressed in Universal Combat), the slough of unnecessary player character classes (marines, pilots, explorers, traders, etc) that just served to distract a player from the more meaty commander class and of course the instability that led to numerous crashes at the time. In addition to that, I think it was a mistake for Derek to stick to the abbreviations so adamantly in his interface; Commlink, TacOps, Logistix, Perscan, Miscon, etc. Somebody should have taken a fine toothed come and grouped related functions under more generic headings so new players would adjust quicker. For example, to get various crew information, you go to perscan or to roster or to tactical->crew. That's just making it more convoluted than it needs to be. Complexity doesn't have to be sacrificed to make it accessible.
Free roam space games are great. But I think my interest in them started with Privateer and Daggerfall. Everybody in this genre knows what Privateer is, or should. The Wing Commander series! I never played Righteous Fire or Privateer 2. But Daggerfall isn't even a space game, it's an rpg set in a fantasy environment. Daggerfall exposed me to a level of scale that I hadn't seen before. It had thousands of cities with dozens of citizens each and all of it was randomized. You could cross the map via a pseudo time-acceleration function. It also was a game that had an extensive "free roam" feature. You could follow the plot, but you could also go out on your own. You could buy a home and even buy a boat. And even if you did finish the plot, you could still keep playing.
I later bought 3000ad and BCM, both Derek Smart games. I also bought X2: The Threat and Terminus. All of these have free roaming. This was over 10 years ago.
About that time is when I started to play mmo's more, but I still play single player games.
After being exposed to free roam, I never looked back. I've never been able to play a linear game since and been able to enjoy it. The mission-based games don't ever appeal to me.
I get the same reaction when strategy games do not have a random map generator for their skirmish modes. The thing about the random map generator is that you get something new each time. When there's only one set of maps, it feels very restrictive anymore. All my opinion ofc.
Anyway, I program as a hobby and one of my dreams is to produce my own game. Not to sell it, but just to say "I did that." Can you understand this?
This is all very interesting. Over the years, I've seen many beginners to veteran programmers start their own attempts at creating the ultimate game. Most of them never get completed, but it's a dream many share and strive for. I've had my own ideas now and then, but nothing ever matures.
Wish you the best and I'll try to revisit these forums. I find the threat topics to be very compelling and right up my alley.
The past few days I've been playing around with Battlecruiser Millenium and it caused me to read up on what 3000ad has been doing. I saw your post in the 3000ad forum so I came over.
On the subject of Derek Smart and his games, lately I've been examining BCM and wondering "How could it have been better without sacrificing the complexity inherent in a Derek Smart game?" I started to wonder if there was a way to make hte interface and learning curve more accessible to new players, while appealing to veterans alike. I find the whole problem to be exciting because I really do believe complexity doesn't have to be sacrificed. I think the biggest flaws in BCM were the lack of time acceleration, the small-print and lack of pictures in the manual, the lack of a tutorial-specific interface, the lack of text-labels for the onscreen clickables (which was later addressed in Universal Combat), the slough of unnecessary player character classes (marines, pilots, explorers, traders, etc) that just served to distract a player from the more meaty commander class and of course the instability that led to numerous crashes at the time. In addition to that, I think it was a mistake for Derek to stick to the abbreviations so adamantly in his interface; Commlink, TacOps, Logistix, Perscan, Miscon, etc. Somebody should have taken a fine toothed come and grouped related functions under more generic headings so new players would adjust quicker. For example, to get various crew information, you go to perscan or to roster or to tactical->crew. That's just making it more convoluted than it needs to be. Complexity doesn't have to be sacrificed to make it accessible.
Free roam space games are great. But I think my interest in them started with Privateer and Daggerfall. Everybody in this genre knows what Privateer is, or should. The Wing Commander series! I never played Righteous Fire or Privateer 2. But Daggerfall isn't even a space game, it's an rpg set in a fantasy environment. Daggerfall exposed me to a level of scale that I hadn't seen before. It had thousands of cities with dozens of citizens each and all of it was randomized. You could cross the map via a pseudo time-acceleration function. It also was a game that had an extensive "free roam" feature. You could follow the plot, but you could also go out on your own. You could buy a home and even buy a boat. And even if you did finish the plot, you could still keep playing.
I later bought 3000ad and BCM, both Derek Smart games. I also bought X2: The Threat and Terminus. All of these have free roaming. This was over 10 years ago.
About that time is when I started to play mmo's more, but I still play single player games.
After being exposed to free roam, I never looked back. I've never been able to play a linear game since and been able to enjoy it. The mission-based games don't ever appeal to me.
I get the same reaction when strategy games do not have a random map generator for their skirmish modes. The thing about the random map generator is that you get something new each time. When there's only one set of maps, it feels very restrictive anymore. All my opinion ofc.
Anyway, I program as a hobby and one of my dreams is to produce my own game. Not to sell it, but just to say "I did that." Can you understand this?
This is all very interesting. Over the years, I've seen many beginners to veteran programmers start their own attempts at creating the ultimate game. Most of them never get completed, but it's a dream many share and strive for. I've had my own ideas now and then, but nothing ever matures.
Wish you the best and I'll try to revisit these forums. I find the threat topics to be very compelling and right up my alley.