17-07-2003 07:52									#1
	Was the original MOO3 concept better? Full PM-box? Change here!

I remember back when MOO3 was still in early development, I was really excited about the design concept. There was the Ethos system, a compex economic system, and the intriguing Imperial Focus Point idea, just to name a few.

Then these and other promising ideas were cut...

Now, I realize why they cut these ideas. But I was just wondering:

Would MOO3 have been better without the cuts?

	17-07-2003 11:13									#2
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I think that it would be hard to argue otherwise. The original talent was exceptional. They got rid of it and lost the vision.

--Woog

	17-07-2003 11:25									#3
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The Ethos system really had me hooked. I was very, very disappointed when I learned that was out.

	17-07-2003 13:35									#4
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Since we donot have the orginate idear in final computer codes and as than finish game it hard to answer this question. Sometime people have great idear on paper which sound great and look great but when trying to code then they donot look great.

	17-07-2003 13:41									#5
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Yep, I agree with CharlesBHoff.

The ideas they had sound great, especially the Ethos System. The big question would have been how it had been implemented.
And maybe difficulties with Implementation were just the reason why some of the great Ideas didn´t make it into the final game.

	17-07-2003 13:49									#6
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Seems pretty obvious that they cut them because the actual implementation wasn't working. That's the great strength of the kiss principle. If its a simple idea its not likely to fail at implementation stage, although the interface may be poor.

	17-07-2003 20:49									#7
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IFP wrecked the game. They took it out but its effects linger.

Now you have a game that simply runs itself with very little player interaction.

	18-07-2003 08:39									#8
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I know I would have hated IFPs and probably would be intrigued by ethos but the part I liked the most was when it had the extra huge map that was compared to a galactic simulator (I realize that makes me sound like a masochist ).

	18-07-2003 12:32									#9
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There are something that a computer role-playing games cannot do which paper and pencil one can do. The IFP sound
like a great idear but than computer system to handle it not available yet. The human brain is still the best to handle something over than computer.

	18-07-2003 16:03									#10
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I dunno. IFP would be pretty indistinguishable from just limiting yourself on how much you micromanage per turn in a normal game. I think they were right to take it out because most people prefer to micromanage all their ships or planets in one turn before sitting back and maybe letting 10 turns go past quickly. Trying to track which 10 planets and 2 ship designs to update per turn would just make it more cumbersome.

The D&D Birthright game effectively had IFP's, but it got on ok with that system because the amount needing managing was pretty small. Sure you might be limited to 3 of the 10 economic things you wanted to do in a turn, but the possibilities never reached the hundreds or thousands that a developed MOO game reaches.

	18-07-2003 17:58									#11
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IFP could have been really cool, I think. Makes for more challenging decisions when you can only touch so many projects directly.

	19-07-2003 08:44									#12
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I don't think they would have been able to give out enough IFPs to make up for the damage the AI causes.

	19-07-2003 09:06									#13
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I like the idea of limiting micromanaging. In the beginning when you have one settler, you are allowed to micromanage like crazy. When you have 200 cities, you have to use ques and strategy. Makes sense.

Oh...and stormdog and Alan screwd the project up.

	19-07-2003 10:23									#14
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quote: Oh...and stormdog and Alan screwd the project up.

StormHOUND. And you DO know that they basically WERE the project, right?

	19-07-2003 11:25									#15
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They were the part that had to be cut to save the project.

	20-07-2003 10:24									#16
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RRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTTT.

You must work for Infogrames. Nice to meet you. Where can I get some of what bottle youve been hitting?

	21-07-2003 01:15									#17
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The other guys saved the project. It was way hosed when they took over. Way overtime/overbudget. Can't run a project that way. You just can't. it's irresponsable.

	21-07-2003 01:22									#18
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But they didnt bring people in, they just let existing people (who had focus and direction) go. THATS no way to run a project. Then you get little groups of people who cant see the forest for their little patch of trees. Then you get a game that doesnt feel like it ever "comes together". MOO3 is the King Kong of that crowd.

And by what stretch of the imagination do you call this "saved"?

	21-07-2003 01:24									#19
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The previous team was missing milestones. The design was too ambitious for the time and dollars that were available. Piss poor. And the other guys saved the project.

	21-07-2003 03:04									#20
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I think it is not fair what you say and your statements are also inncorect, TCO.

The teams worked under different conditions. Exceptional personalities were in both involved.

It is useless to reduce such a long lasting story like the making of moo3 to some personal issues.

My respect is with all of them and I hope Alan, TheHound and many others which worked on the "old version" are going to find a frame to realize their ideas, because these were good ideas. I still believe it can be done. My respect goes also to Chantz and the crew at the end which realized a game under changed difficult conditions, which no one could have foreknown.

I think you're right talking about two different projects.

	21-07-2003 03:04									#21
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I think it is not fair what you say and your statements are also inncorect, TCO.

The teams worked under different conditions. Exceptional personalities were in both involved.

It is useless to reduce such a long lasting story like the making of moo3 to some personal issues.

My respect is with all of them and I hope Alan, TheHound and many others which worked on the "old version" are going to find a frame to realize their ideas, because these were good ideas. I still believe it can be done. My respect goes also to Chantz and the crew at the end which realized a game under changed difficult conditions, which no one could have foreknown.

I think you're right talking about two different projects.

	21-07-2003 03:57									#22
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quote: Originally posted by TCO The previous team was missing milestones. The design was too ambitious for the time and dollars that were available. Piss poor. And the other guys saved the project.

So you mean,
with a higher Budget we could have gotten the great game the original Concept seemed to promise?
(doesn´t go against the game in its current form [as I like it], but the orignal Concept with Ethos and the like was indeed somehow more epical )

	21-07-2003 03:58									#23
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I think you are trying to make IG the heavy when Alan screwed up the game. It was some dream that was not codable at a reasonable budget. So it was bad.

	21-07-2003 03:59									#24
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quote: Originally posted by Proteus_MST So you mean, with a higher Budget we could have gotten the great game the original Concept seemed to promise? (doesn´t go against the game in its current form [as I like it], but the orignal Concept with Ethos and the like was indeed somehow more epical )

Yes. but given the constraints which were already there, Alan's design was not feasible. So he designed poorly.

	21-07-2003 04:41									#25
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quote: Originally posted by 13Matt13 RRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTTT. You must work for Infogrames. Nice to meet you. Where can I get some of what bottle youve been hitting?

Actually, he's a friend of mine, who has worked as a management consultant, etc., etc. and every time he takes a dump, there is more knowledge lost about project management and business management than you're likely to acquire over the next decade or so.

	21-07-2003 04:50									#26
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quote: Originally posted by 13Matt13 And by what stretch of the imagination do you call this "saved"?

Game design is a business. Look at Stars! SuperNova Genesis - probably the greatest 4X game that likely will never get done.

If you have a choice between these two options, tell me which you'd pick: (and no cutesie BS about making up a third option)


Spending X dollars and Y hours, and never getting a product out the door, but it's a really cool design.

OR

Spending X + A dollars and Y + B hours, getting a product out the door which diehard fans ***** about, but enough people buy it so that you either (1) lose less than X dollars you were going to flush in the first option, or (2) actually make a profit.

Which do you pick?

You (any developer/publisher) have a lot of non-design related costs, you have shareholders, banks, or other financial types on your ass, and you have an upper limit in terms of price per unit and units you can sell, no matter how great the game is (or isn't). All of those things give you finite resources and constraints to work within.

	21-07-2003 05:42									#27
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quote: The previous team was missing milestones. The design was too ambitious for the time and dollars that were available. Piss poor. And the other guys saved the project.

So now youre faulting people for trying to create a great game? I bet you were the driving force behind the Deer Hunter games, werent you? Or maybe "Xtreme Paintbrawl"?

quote: I think you are trying to make IG the heavy when Alan screwed up the game. It was some dream that was not codable at a reasonable budget. So it was bad.

Again, faulting people for trying to go the extra mile. I bet people said the same thing about every game since "Pong". God forbid anyone try anything new.

quote: Yes. but given the constraints which were already there, Alan's design was not feasible. So he designed poorly.

Yes, he IS a poor designer. That why he got a job teaching Game Design at UC-Santa Barbara. Or was it UCLA? Which college do YOU teach game design or management at again? I thought so....

quote: Actually, he's a friend of mine, who has worked as a management consultant, etc., etc. and every time he takes a dump, there is more knowledge lost about project management and business management than you're likely to acquire over the next decade or so.

Good thing you threw in the wink, or someone might have thought that was a personal insult! Good thing we got around that! And youre probably right, since Im an engineer, and I do REAL work. Thats why business majors were refugees from other, REAL courses of study. Maybe you can tell me what college he teaches at, since he sure knows how to tell people they suck, when the facts point to otherwise. But I guess friends of the mods can act with impunity.

And just so you know, "saved != shipped". You assume that Alan's design would never have shipped, which you cannot make, since a HUGE part of the delays were in direct result of cutting HIS features, then having to re-work the game (IFPs, ethos, etc). Im sorry if i dont sympathize for all the hard work that had to be done b/c they decided to start chainsawing a game mid-way through development.

	21-07-2003 08:27									#28
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Here is an amusing business aphorism: At some point you have to shoot the engineers.

The point? Engineers will happily tweak and change a product to make it perfect, and in doing so neglect to realize that at some point a project has to get done. By comparison, MBAs understand schedules and budgets but have a disconnect where it relates to understanding the details and what is ‘right’, resulting in some spectacular flame outs. If one side gets out of control the result is a train wreck. Moo3 has some evidence of such a train wreck (over budget, behind schedule, scope creep). In my (limited) experience the best projects are those where the engineers (or scientists, in my case) and the project managers/MBAs come to and understanding of terms before the project starts. This requires communication, which is always the hardest portion of any endeavor.

Hydro

	21-07-2003 10:36									#29
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quote: Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat If you have a choice between these two options, tell me which you'd pick: (and no cutesie BS about making up a third option) Spending X dollars and Y hours, and never getting a product out the door, but it's a really cool design. OR Spending X + A dollars and Y + B hours, getting a product out the door which diehard fans ***** about, but enough people buy it so that you either (1) lose less than X dollars you were going to flush in the first option, or (2) actually make a profit. Which do you pick?

and here we have a PERFECT example of an either/or fallacy, also known as the False Dilemma. In this fallacy one suggests two (or more) possibilities as if they were the only ones. It is very easy to prove this sort of fallacy untrue. i can do it in three steps:

1. Either 1+1=4 or 1+1=12.
2. It is not the case that 1+1=4.
3. Therefore 1+1=12.

now the correct answer would be that neither are true, and that in fact there is a third possibility. for example, a game developer could get out the door a really cool design, or they could never get out the door a game "diehard fans ***** about". No doubt there are more than that as well.

oh, and please don't feel that i didn't notice your "(and no cutesie BS about making up a third option)". The fact that you told everybody not to point out your fallacy doesn't make it any less fallacious.

edit: and because i'm reasonably sure this will be nit-picked (not that it's likely i will come back and look, but for form's sake...) a False Dilemma fallacy only applies when not all options are represented. there are situations where there are in fact only two choices. for example:

1. Bill is alive or dead.
2. Bill is not alive.
3. Therefore Bill is dead.

and that is why i made sure to post up at least another option (in this case two).

	21-07-2003 13:44									#30
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>>I think you are trying to make IG the heavy when Alan screwed up the game. It was some dream that was not codable at a reasonable budget. So it was bad.<<

The following is strictly my tuppence ha'penny opinion and may be glaringly inaccurate in some areas. Since I don't work for IG or QSI I don't know what went on exactly, and have just pieced things together from the forums.

Let's not give Alan too much responsibility for the **** up. In retrospect, maybe he should've designed something simpler, but that wasn't what he was asked to do now was it?

Alan has said in interviews and forums that being a good designer isn't just about having ideas, it's about knowing how to make cuts and think of new ideas to replace them. He teaches this stuff at university for god's sakes! QS didn't give Alan the chance to make cuts or help in the redesign.

Alan is a designer. He comes up with ideas. He is not a coder.

It is up to the management to decide whether or not an idea should be committed to code. They should have said something like, 'Errr, I don't think we can get the AI good enough for this design', in which case Alan would have made some cuts and redesigned a less AI-intensive game.

But the management said yes, possibly because they wanted to make a milestone with IG. The game was coded to a pre-alpha and then it became clear that the AI wasn't good enough for the focus point idea and that the user interface was awful. At this point it should be noted that Alan didn't design the AI or UI. Alan said what he wanted and other people said, 'Yeah, we can do that', when in fact they couldn't.

At this point Alan and Stormhound were sacked. This was the very point at which the game most needed input from skilled designers, in order to create a game that would work well, despite the cuts. Instead, the art director took the designers chair, but didn't do much design (or much art).

The main faults of MOO3 are not in the design, they are in the implementation. There is not immersive atmosphere, the game is lifeless. The user interface is confusing, provides very little feedback and when it does provide feedback it often leaves you even more confused. Space combat is appaling.

Two areas in which some good designers would have helped is in deciding which values are/aren't needed in the user interface and sorting out the task force assembly/deployment to be less hassle.

Both of these were done after Alan and 'Hound were sacked. Both of these were done poorly.

You say the project was saved? Tell that to Amazon.com!