It's been over 20 years, why haven't these games been completely topped yet?
There have been a lot of games that have come close but many fall flat.
What the fuck happened?
Was recently playing the new MOO, balancing is pretty shit, game progression is slow as fuck even on the highest settings, only a few races and tactical combat control is garbage.
I actually liked Master of Orion 2 better than the first. It expanded and changed a lot of things, but thematically, it was very true to both the spirit and mechanics of the original. Also, space titties.
Everybody and their brother has tried to bottle the lightning that made Master of Magic so fucking amazing. Nobody has succeeded. I think the first big obstacle to overcome is the sheer amount of complexity endemic in 4X as a genre (it's extremely difficult to make a game simple enough so that you don't lose your entire audience on the initial curve, yet deep enough that they can each sink 1000+ hours in without becoming bored with the finite amount of content you include).
The second, and more Master of Magic-specific obstacle, is that you need to be ready and willing to throw game balance out the window. You start out the game as an archwizard capable of building an empire, and your end goal is to become a literal god of magic. If that's the story that you want your game to tell, then slumping over in exhaustion after casting one stupid fucking fireball spell is not going to cut it. You need to be able to give players spells to annihilate armies in one go, or enchant your soldiers so that five inbred villagers with sharp sticks and a shared rock can successfully hold off an army of the undead, or tear the top off of a mountain and turn it into a flying fortress from which you can launch airborne assaults on some fool. Magic airships? Armies of pure magical energy? Bound elemental spirits? Untiring legions riding magic carpets into battle? Whatever magic bullshit you can think of, whether it's from D&D or the adventures of Conan or the Old Testament, needs to be something you can do if you're going to make a game about being an archwizard. None of this mealy-mouthed "but an army of flying islands would be unfair" bullshit. Of course it'd be unfair. Wizards are supposed to be unfair.
You're right about Master of Orion 2, it is pretty great.
After this new MOO released out of EA, heard about how there have been a lot of fixes and mods for the third game and realizing that I never tried any of it.
The last time I touched the game was somewhere around 2006 and was really shit then.
People here dont play games that require thought. I hope you don't expect an active thread OP
I was going to say that Grand Strategy requires thought, but then I remembered it really doesn't.
I don't think games like these would be very popular nowadays, OP. Never played MoO1, but I think MoO2 is great. Master of Magic was surpassed by Age of Wonders, in my opinion. The industry moves to wherever it smells money, and making complicated strategy games doesn't make as much dosh as simpler or more exciting, action packed games. If you want more games like these you will have to either wait a long time or make them yourself.
We had a giant MoM thread just last week.
But why don't people like complicated strategy games?
SoTS 2 could have overtaken MoO 2 but you know what happened.
MoO 2 is a great game regardless of its age.
How good is it, worth a wait for torrent with fixes? Wargayming kikes as publisher make me very pessimistic about it.
The same people pre-order AAA with season passes, why they don't like complex games, I wonder…
Master of Orion's only failing is the AI opponents. There is an unofficial patch for it (or was) that fixes a number of issues with the AI (and other things).
Master of Orion 2 is perfect when fully patched by its unofficial patch. Not necessarily better than MoO though, just a different flavor. I prefer how MoO handles planet management (in particular the sliders were perfect) but I prefer most everything else that MoO2 offers.
The reason why they won't be surpassed is because anyone who tried either makes a convoluted boring mess (galactic civilization series) or doesn't get what made those games good in the first place.
Also grand strategy is boring shit, how anyone can stand playing any of that EU shit is beyond me.
Because they require effort to understand and become good at. Most normal people don't want to read a wiki or spend hours fucking around to get good at a video game. They normally come back from work and have precious few hours that they need to divide between friends, family, personal needs and interests. If they do sit down to play vidya then they just want to start having fun and relaxing as soon as possible.
I go to college and I experience the same thing. During the semester I play a lot of more straightforward games like Doom or simple RTS like Red Alert. When I'm on vacation I dig into longer RPGs (though it's hard to find one worth playing nowadays) or autistic shit like Terraria and Dwarf Fortress.
Also this. When people get a stable job, they tend to have more money than time. Most people also have more money than common sense.
I was so disappointed.
I'm glad there was absolutely no hype or excitement for the game. Literally no one else but me knew it was coming out. That way, less people know of its existence.
SoTS 1 was a very flawed and very low budget game, but it was a lot of fun during my first few playthroughs.
The worst part of it all is that they fucking lied their ass off.
Am thinking they made it way too big and complex compared to SoTS.
Which is not bad,but they bite more then they can chew.
Paracucks & Mecron played a huge role with what happen to SoTS 2.
You should be shot
why?
PC gaming was different back then.
Nowadays games have to sell millions because of the insane budgets. So a game has to be accessible and easy to pick up.
Also the average gamer gets distracted easily. The intelligence and attention span of a goldfish.
Can't make a game too deep.
Still there's some good stuff that's still around.
Good post.
Check out Steam achievements.
Most people never finish their games. They put in 10-20 hours and move on to the next hyped triple A trash.
I think about it every day, user.
I can understand if a game takes some time to understand, but having to read external sources to actually understand a game is really fucking retarded
Let me tell you a shocking truth: There were no external sources.
These games predate wikis. You had to figure shit out for yourself. Is it worth enchanting an artifact with flight? It's fucking expensive. But then you get the flight spell dispelled over water…
You misunderstand. Reading the wiki is the easy way to learn to play a complex game. However normalfags hate reading, so they won't do it even if they have the time. People who like complex videogames will normally spend a lot of time learning via simple trial and error, because discovering new things is fun.
why did you post civ IV, the one where it started to go to shit?
microprose being gone is what happened
but that's wrong
I blame consoles
except it was the best one
This actually warrants its own thread, user. If you kindly will.
Singleplayer console games used to last us kids quite a few months, without any guides to follow. They were both nintendo hard, and cryptic as fuck.
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never made graph paper notes for Metroid, Dungeon Master or Wizardry? then you don't know SHIT about videogames
i still have notebooks full of maps in my parents' storage shed
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I mapped out all 3 zorks when i was a kid, good times
Hey, it's the sperg from the Luigi thread who cried about his threads not being popular.