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yin26
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This space reserved for Darkstar.
Apr 1999
time: 14:13
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First, let me give you my assumptions:
1. Sid IS a genius and has earned the right to make any damn game he pleases. If the next project is "Cement Setter Sally," God bless him. He has given me more for my money than any designer of anything ever.
2. Sim Golf will be a great game...for its genre.
Those are my assumptions, so please understand where I'm coming from as I explain why I simply will NOT buy Sim Golf:
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...plop down a tee, lay down a little bit of fairway, position the green, scatter around a few bunkers, and turn my little golfers loose. There's something mesmerizing about just watching my golfers whack that little white ball and seeing it sail through the air.
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A few years ago, this might have had some vague appeal. But this kind of stuff has been done TO DEATH...by people who actually spent their careers doing it and NOT by people who got inspired reading a golf magazine last October. And let's face it, plopping down a tree is just not that compelling no matter how well you do it. If I want mesmerizing action placing cute artifacts and watching minute things go around in circles, I'll get a fish tank.
In fact, a fish tank simulator is something I likely WOULD buy. Sid, please consider making "Sid Meier's Sim Fish Tank." Or just drop the 'Fish' part and go with "Sid Meier's Sim Tank." Now we're talking!
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We are particularly fascinated by the way 'The Sims' has fostered a very active online community of people who enjoy sharing Sims skins, story books, props, wallpaper, etc. To me this represents in a way the future of online gaming. While some games are suited for competitive RTS style multi-play, I think a lot more people respond to the idea of joining a community of like-interested gamers to share ideas, experiences, and game pieces that they have created or collected. This is something that we are planning to expand upon in SimGolf.
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This, of course, begs the question: So why has Firaxis absolutely ingnored this important aspect of gaming ...the community... before? Firaxis was unable even to properly moderate its own forums (which were open of all about a month?). And to this point, the manner in which Civ3 has been presented as a second class citizen and Firaxis as a reclusive, self-absorbed company doesn't bode well either. If you plan on using the same people to do the moderating, interacting, and hyping, better plan on sending them to a few seminars on how to deal with the public.
Better yet, just pay Maxis to handle it.
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Well I'm a busy guy these days! It's really great to be working on a brand-new game like SimGolf, and a classic like Civilization at the same time.
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The million dollar "this begs the question...": Any chance BOTH games will suffer? It reminds me a bit of Sid's 'Covert Action Rule,' which says it's better to have one good game than two great games. Of course, he meant it's a mistake to have essentially two great games WITHIN the same game, causing the game as a whole to lose focus.
But what about two completely different games at the same time, Sid? Almost every demise scenario I've read about a bankrupt gaming company started with:
A: Flush with excited from our success, we decided to hire 5 times the staff and consult Steven Spielberg on the Hollywood budget cinematics
OR
B: We felt comfortable doing more than one project at once.
Firaxis has already done a bit of 'A' in terms of the number of staff they've added since Gettysburg (awesome game, by the way). And as for 'B', that approach NECESSARILY dilutes your focus as a company and creates room for all kinds of potentially ruinous things like in-house grudges over who gets to work on what project or, even worse, who gets pulled mid-stream from one game to work on stuff for the other. A kind of infinite digression of wasted time and energy.
A should I toss in a Dino reference here for good measure? Why in all that's Good and Holy would you be chasing Dinos and Golf Balls when Civ3 is back where it belongs...in YOUR hands at YOUR company. My God, Sid. CIV3!!! You can ALWAYS go back to plopping down trees and lush gardens. Any compelling reason to jepordize your Flagship Game?
I just don't get it. Are you just THAT bored with Civ? I guess so if exchanging Sim Golf wallpaper seems thrilling by comparison.
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Will you pamper your players with lovely gardens, comfy benches, and a luxury hotel or will you torment them with monstrous sand traps, tacky vacation homes, and spine-chilling golf shots - the possibilities are endless.
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Yes, and "endless" ain't always a good thing. Consider, for example, Hell.
[This message has been edited by yin26 (edited May 10, 2001).]
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Lord_Davinator
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Kathmandu
Nov 2000
time: 10:43
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Its sad that all the work we put into these forums are not going to mean much...
Now I've even reversed my decision to buy the game when it come out, first I'll wait for the goood reviews then I might even wait for another few months if it ain't too bad and I don't get any other game before I buy it.
And I definitely will not but a crappy golf sim game.
[This message has been edited by Lord_Davinator (edited May 10, 2001).]
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yin26
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This space reserved for Darkstar.
Apr 1999
time: 14:13
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I don't get it either. It's not "real" enough to satisfy one crowd and harldy sim enough to satisfy the other (or, I should say, stands against VERY stiff competition in this area already).
Even this "let your Joe Cool character play the course" sounds horribly shallow: You get to select how "aggressively" he hits the ball. So let me get this straight: You don't actually CONTROL him hitting the ball, you just select some static text option and see what happens?
So how do you improve? How do you judge the course? "Gee, next time I guess I'll click 'semi-aggressive.'" Zzzzzzzz Sid seems to be pulling another Covert Action: Trying to put two games in one...a sim course-builder and a golf game.
Like I said, I think it will be a good game for its genre. The problem, I guess, is what IS it's genre? And unless it's truly redefining something here, it would seem that the elements we've seen so far have been handled with much more experience and focus elsewhere.
What can I say? Firaxis is doing a Golf Sim!!! And only, mind you, because they decided NOT to do a Dino game first. My God...
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quote:
Originally posted by yin26 on 05-11-2001 12:04 AM
Like I said, I think it will be a good game for its genre. The problem, I guess, is what IS it's genre? And unless it's truly redefining something here, it would seem that the elements we've seen so far have been handled with much more experience and focus elsewhere.
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this is actually something new: simcity meets the sims!
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Certain pairs of golfers will become involved in stories relating to business, relationships, rivalries, and romance as they play your course. By selecting the players who will play together and by providing them with a fun experience you can guide these stories to happy (or unhappy?) endings. "Bob would have gotten that promotion if his boss hadn't hit his drive into the lake." "Billy felt so good after that cool foamy Coke that he proposed to Cindy!" Players can even create their own stories and share them through the SimGolf web site
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other games like Caesar 3 also had your people telling you what the needed, if they were happy, etc, but in SimGolf we are talking about the-sims-like characters
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tniem
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Hope College
Apr 2000
time: 00:13
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I think this could be a very good game with a huge fun factor which after all is what games are all about.
My biggest concern is not that it will hurt Civ III, because I don't think it will, but instead one of the things yin mentioned that Sid is putting two games in one. It sounds like playing the courses is kind of like riding the coasters you build in Rollercoaster Tycoon and then some. How much effort am I going to have to put in to learning how to play golf in Sid's Sim Golf just to suceed in building a fantastic course? I just wonder about this. Two games at one company isn't the worrisome thing, its two games in one game that is disturbing me.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:13
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quote:
Originally posted by yin26 on 05-11-2001 12:04 AM
I don't get it either. It's not "real" enough to satisfy one crowd and harldy sim enough to satisfy the other (or, I should say, stands against VERY stiff competition in this area already).
Even this "let your Joe Cool character play the course" sounds horribly shallow: You get to select how "aggressively" he hits the ball. So let me get this straight: You don't actually CONTROL him hitting the ball, you just select some static text option and see what happens?
So how do you improve? How do you judge the course? "Gee, next time I guess I'll click 'semi-aggressive.'" Zzzzzzzz Sid seems to be pulling another Covert Action: Trying to put two games in one...a sim course-builder and a golf game.
Like I said, I think it will be a good game for its genre. The problem, I guess, is what IS it's genre? And unless it's truly redefining something here, it would seem that the elements we've seen so far have been handled with much more experience and focus elsewhere.
What can I say? Firaxis is doing a Golf Sim!!! And only, mind you, because they decided NOT to do a Dino game first. My God...
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I dont see what the big deal is about 2 games in one. I have never played one of the roller coaster sims, but IIUC you both get to play it as a business sim (what to build, what to charge, etc) AND you get to actually ride (first person view) your custom designed coasters - as a treat. Not surprised that they would add a first person play through feature to what must essentially be a business sim, competing with Roller Coaster Tycoon and its ilk, NOT a sports game.
Have any of you looked at the sales lately for roller coaster tycoon? and its appeal to non hard core gamers? Seems like a perfect natural for Maxis, and if Sid wants to dabble in it, so be it.
Seems Sid's most important talent for the Civ series lately has been cultivating talent. Brian Reynolds obviously. The question now is whether Jeff Bridges et al can pick up where Brian left off, with Sid mainly ensuring that they keep to his vision of Civ3, not getting involved in the details. From what we have seem so far they are developing an excellent game though im sure none of us (myself included) likes everything we see.
LOTM
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Khan Singh
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By means of the Internet, I am all places at once
Mar 2000
time: 00:13
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I'll probably be buying it. Of course I'm a single-digit handicapper who also likes computer golf ( I have Golden Bear Challenge AND Links, and used to design courses, back when I had free time). Naturally I'll want to look at it first and read a review, but how bad can it be? After all it's about golf, the most elegant, subtle and perfect game ever devised.
While I'm no sure what Simgolf will be about exactly (hard to tell from the information provided so far) , I'm assuming that it will be an 3/4 view isomorphic golfing game with a course designer, and maybe some sort of management game. I'm certainly not enthusiastic about the idea of an 3/4 isomorphic golf game, and the Sims didn't interest me in the slightest, but there is probably some way to make such a combination interesting.
Maybe you could concentrate on strategic play choices (playing a draw or fade, using driver or iron off the tee, laying up or being a hero, etc) and add on a layer for betting, gamesmanship and player development. Or you could put the game in the Tour context where your strategic choices earn you money.
I don't know if such a game could become a classic, but it might be fun for a while. And it might have wider appeal to the "Wal-mart customer" than Civ.
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Khan Singh
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By means of the Internet, I am all places at once
Mar 2000
time: 00:13
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Tropico is very good and its interface has a lot of nice features, but I don't think the RR2 engine is really any better than the SMAC engine. There are stability questions, for one thing.
Also, the "walking" model (where the gameplay consists of building a city whose inhabitants don't have to walk very far, ie Caesar or Tropico) isn't, as a concept, getting any fresher or more original. It works very well in Tropico, mind you, and the game is fun and well designed, with a number of original features and a well streamlined economy. But I'm getting as tired of these games as I am of Civ's "empire" model.
Novelty is half of entertainment.
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11-05-2001 05:58
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