posted 12-03-98 02:10 PM ET        

Here's my top three questions:
- How big is the manual going to be?
- What are the restrictions on the demo going to be?
- When playtesting a single-player game, what is the average length of time it takes to finish?

One other request: Baldur's Gate is doing a limited public beta and they recently got some of the beta testers to post their initial impressions of the game. Any chance of having some (possibly censored) initial impressions passed along to us?

posted 12-03-98 02:37 PM ET            

- Will the computer players move simultaneously with human player during the single player game?
- If not, what is the problem with implementing PBEM & hotseat? Is there any chance of reversing the decision not to implement those features?
- Will there be SMAC patches (not just bug fixes, but patches that add useful features, for example CivII patches introduced automated settlers)?

posted 12-03-98 05:17 PM ET            

1.) Will M-Player SMAC be capable of play over ICQ??
2.) Will there be an Easter Egg of anything involving NIM?
3.) Can Mindworms, Xenofungus or any other native life go extinct in the game?
4.) Will Gaians lose every game they play??

posted 12-03-98 07:46 PM ET            

And they have consistently stated that they won't do it. If you wanna try and get it in, um, I can't really think of much of a way. You could try a thread, and get signatories I s'pose...

RE: Firaxis reading messages.
I know they read some messages. One of them actually responded (privately) to a post of mine a while ago. No idea if they read them all, or if it were just the title of this one that grabbed their attention.

Just see my "The good old days, and the (current) Age of Silence" thread if you want to go over these issues of getting some feedback from Firaxis. I tried to get some feedback, and it didn't work. I think they're shooting themselves in the foot, but what can you do?

Re: Patches.
I guarantee they'll put in patches if they're required. As for stuff like Automated Settlers, I think it'd have to come down to how many people wnated it. If everyone was clammering for a feature in SMAC, I'd say there was a fair chance they'd get it. I believe Firaxis has doen similar for SMG.

Re: Feedback from the beta testers.
They've told me they will ungag the beta testers, though not when. I would hope before the demo, but that date is drawing near.

Re: ICQ.
ICQ? How can you play a game over ICQ? ICQ is a messaging and communications program, with a few servers. Do you mean using them as a matching service? That's about all the good it would make...

As for wiping out Mind Worms and XenoFungus - I can't sww why it would be impossible, though they may very well have a link to the sentient planet, in which case I'd say it would be very unlikely.

posted 12-03-98 07:52 PM ET            

That way we don't drag someone away from development, testing, atc, and we get some feedback. Or just allocate a certain number of hours per day for a person, where they MUST answer questions on the board. Rework their schedule around it.

I think not doing this is harming the game's reputation. I know if I came here, and saw all this off-topic stuff, I'd be put off at least a little.

Still, I tried for the good of the game, they didn't listen, so what can you do?

posted 12-03-98 08:34 PM ET            

Well, in the form of a question, here goes:

Will Firaxis implement a "save replay" feature in SMAC, for doing after the game is over? It was a smash hit in Myth: TFL, and would make any tournament validation much easier, and would also make legendary games downloadable over the Internet.

Will Firaxis implement a time limit option in SMAC multiplay, with several different methods on who is declared the winner at the end of the time (army, size, population, secret projects, technology, average of all below, score)? This would allow timed multiplayer matches to save their replays (since otherwise, you can't save your replay except at the end of the game (to prevent others from watching what you did at the beginning of the game and knowing everything about you) and the game won't recognize that it's over after a certain time.)

Will Firaxis tell us if they changed the colors yet? I'm pretty fanatic about the right colors on this, if you missed them here's the most popular list again (*=really feel stongly on):
*Gaia: Green (enviornment)
UoP: Navy Blue (a good science color)
Hive: Black (evil)
*Sparta: Red (revolution, blood)
Morgan Conglomerate: yellow (gold) (is this Morgan Industries now? I thought that was the founding base, originally...)
*Believers: White (purity, nigh-on-excessive)
*Peacekeepers: Sky Blue (holds true to the UN)

And hackable faction colors would be nice for the dissenters as well.

Will SMAC call nukes nukes, or planet busters? (I for one perfer plain old nukes.)

While on the topic, will we have units able to plant xenofungus on enemy territory?

posted 12-03-98 09:14 PM ET            

On the Time Limit Option:
Yes, you can definately limit the time the game lasts, and even the time per turn. No feedback from them on how final scores/rankings will be determined.

On Colours:
I just about guarantee they will be hackable, though I am not basing this on any feedback, just a hunch. Though whether or not you'll be able to put in custom colours, or just rearrange the seven I have no idea.

On Custom Factions in MP:
Once again, brought up ages ago, lots of arguments, no feedback from Firaxis (well, they said it hadn't been decided at the time).

Brother Greg.

posted 12-03-98 11:34 PM ET            

Thinking about this, I can see why hotseat is going to be impossible to implement.

1. Diplomacy - this needs to be a simultainious thing, or else it would become too simplistic.

posted 12-03-98 11:43 PM ET            

So, first in best dressed. Watch that mad rush to the western front at the begging of each player's turn.

posted 12-03-98 11:58 PM ET            

I heard it from Firaxis, though I can't remember if it was in a Diary, or on the old Firaxis.com boards.

No idea how many squares. They generally didn't give out those sort of details even way back then. May even depend on the movement of the unit(s) in question.

posted 12-04-98 12:06 AM ET            

But you'd still see units moving through your territory on screen - what happens if you select a unit on the probably path of that unit? Obviously they both remain active - damn this is going to be cool. I only hope single player works like this, too.

On this basis I can see how the 30 second turns come about - with the city unit queues/governor, unit stacks, and the need to move key units very quickly, you won't take much time at all.

posted 12-04-98 12:13 AM ET            

There's also an option for progressive timing - short at the start when there's nothing to do, then longer later on when you have lotsa stuff to do.

I do tend to think though that if a unit is moving anywhere in the proximity of one of your units (like within the enemy's movement range), yours won't be able to move until the enemy finishes. Imagine the standoffs when neither unit can quite make the distance to the enemy, and both are waiting for the opposition to move so they can attack.

posted 12-04-98 03:16 AM ET            

--------
*Gaia: Green (enviornment)
UoP: Navy Blue (a good science color)
Hive: Black (evil)
*Sparta: Red (revolution, blood)
Morgan Conglomerate: yellow (gold) (is this Morgan Industries now? I thought that was the
founding base, originally...)
*Believers: White (purity, nigh-on-excessive)
*Peacekeepers: Sky Blue (holds true to the UN)

The problem with some of these is that they're inaccurate. Firstly, the Hive is anything but evil - they're believers in discipline, not evil.
Second, red may represent blood and violence to western cultures, but it has very different meanings in eastern cultures. I don't recall what red represents to them, but on to the white
White: To westerners it's a color of purity, but in eastern interpretations white is the color of death.

posted 12-04-98 04:08 AM ET            

As much as making the Believers Christian represents a Western bias, it is reflective of most of the factions, as all of the ideologies of the factions are "Western" created concepts.

The Spartan Federation: The Spartans stand for Survivalism and total war, with strong influences from Machiavelli (The Prince) and Rouseau (Social Contract).

Morgan Industries: The Morganites stand for laise-faire capitalism, with strong influences from Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations. . .) and other 17th century economic philosophers. The represent the economic branch of classical liberalism.

The Human Hive: The Hive represents the society and values of socialism as forwarded throughout the 19th century by those such as Marx. The Hive then, to a very great extent, represents to socialistic sociesties that Aduous Huxley (Brave New World) and George Orwell (1984) saw as the next step for 19th century Socialism into the later periods of the 20th century. The Hive is also strongly influenced by Rouseau (Social Contract).

The Lord's Believers: Western Christianity. Quite specifically WESTERN Christianity and not Orthodox Christianity. Mariam, in particular, is a Baptist from the "Bible-belt" in the Southrn United States.

The University of Planet: The UofP has the values of the scientific method and skepticism as an ideology as its foundational center. The UofP's ideology, and yes it has one, is strongly influenced by the evolution of Western science, particularly the arguments of Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes during the years of the opening of the scientific revolution in the West.

The Peacekeepers: The Peacekeepers are heavily enfluenced by a particularly Western systems of ethics and values. The Peacekeepers are the most representative of the current value system in the West: individualism, liberty, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, other elements of political liberalism, humanist ethics, belief in international organizations and the enforcement of the protection of human rights, etc. More than any other faction, the peacekeepers seem to represent the current political values of the West. (many of the other factions represent other elements of the Western Worldview, or Weltanshaung (?), but mostly represent only elements of Western society which are less political in nature or represent strong Western views from the West's past).

The Stepdaughters of Gaia (the Gaians): The Gaians are the one faction which is the least Western in nature. This is because the Gaians hold values that are, in many respect, more traditional values of non-Western cultures than the Western one. However, the Gaians, as does today's environmentalist movement, have very strong routes in 19th century Western romanticism. This link is particularly strong for the environomentalist movement and it could be argued that the Gaians are just as Western as the other factions.

The overall Western slant of all of the factions makes sense because the game's designers wanted to have ideologies they felt crossed national lines and were capable of bridging the difference between separate cultures. Essentially, what Brian Reynolds has done is to say that in his future, humanity will no longer concern itself with cultural and national differences, but upon those of ideology. The fact that all of those ideologies are cast in Western terms is perhaps representative of Brian Reynold's view that for his version of the future (for SMAC), the Western Worldview (which is by no means a unified view and never has been. It's probably the most diverse of all the super-cultural worldviews) will be the basis for ideological difference in all cultures.

posted 12-04-98 08:05 AM ET            

I agree that if the turns in single player are simultaneous, it is impossible (see my first post). However, I hope Brother Greg is right and SMAC will have Civ style turns.

The remaining argument is the diplomacy... Hm, I can see the following cases:
1.) 1 human player negotiating with another wants to ask for a tech/treaty/etc. The negotiations can be easily done in real life, and once agreed upon, the actions can be carried out as if against the computer, only that all the requests would be agreed after a confirmation (all that is needed is a sound alert in case the other player isn't looking to avoid cheating, after which the other player can verify the deal and let the other player finish his/her turn).
2.) Voting in the council - that can be done in the same way - all is needed is some alert for the other player so that the player in the hotseat won't make a decision for him.

Alternatively, all the requests one makes will be presented to the other player in the next turn and he can either accept or reject them (This is required for PBEM). I don't think the diplomacy is going to be so complicated that this would be impossible.

I also don't think that these features would be that difficult to implement (assuming the turns are not taken simultaneously). All that is needed is to put in safeguards against cheating and implement the multi-turn diplomacy for PBEM. I really think that the problem is not in how long it would take, but in the Firaxis' assumption that these features will just not help to sell the game and thus there's no point to waste resources on them... which is of course a very valid reason.

I might be wrong, so if you can think of potential problems with hotseat/PBEM (still assuming non-simultaneous turns), please let me know.

posted 12-05-98 11:03 PM ET            

Gord, again I'm refering to what MOST of the people agreed on. Feel free to continue disagreeing, though.

Ggeorge, please examine the SMAC league thread for that. That would almost certainly be done outside Firaxis's control.

One more question: Will Zhakarov's faction quote ever be fixed? We've raised this issue before, check out the "Saratov's profile quote" thread for the entire debate. But electrons are, almost certainly, not made of quarks.

I had something better than that, but I forget what it was.