Innovative Ideas for the Next MOO

[Matthew]

I thought that I would post some ideas for the next generation of MOO.

1)Have an RTS battle option so that the tactical combat part of the game plays in real-time, which should help reduce wait times in multi-player games.

2)Use a top notch 3D graphics and physics system instead of just rolling dice.

3)Make the single player AI more realistic and smarter.

4)Allow better team play options, especially combined forces.

[Time]

I just want a similar map style.
Look at Civ 3 and Civ 4. They improved Civ 1 and Civ 2, with adding animation and better graphics without changing the basic concept (of it being a chess piece on a tile, moving from square to square) style of play.

Any sequel would have to keep the basic elements that make it MOO, or you are not building MOO, you are building something else, and giving it a MOO name.

That part is forgotten alot by most who try to "Improve" upon an earlier version of anything, not just games. The movies "Wild, Wild West", and "Starsky and Hutch" come to mind. Both did horrible at the box office.

[Matthew]

I just want a similar map style.
Look at Civ 3 and Civ 4. They improved Civ 1 and Civ 2, with adding animation and better graphics without changing the basic concept (of it being a chess piece on a tile, moving from square to square) style of play.

Any sequel would have to keep the basic elements that make it MOO, or you are not building MOO, you are building something else, and giving it a MOO name.

That part is forgotten alot by most who try to "Improve" upon an earlier version of anything, not just games. The movies "Wild, Wild West", and "Starsky and Hutch" come to mind. Both did horrible at the box office.

Actually, Civ 4 is a big change from Civ 3. You have to look under the hood or play it a lot to notice it. It's still a turn-based game but the game play is is different in many ways. While it is nice to retain the basic characteristics of the game, it's also import to be innovative enough to make the new version more interesting. If they only slapped new graphics on Civ 3 and called in Civ 4, it wouldn't have sold as well because most people were happy enough with the graphics from Civ 3. It's the advances in the game play that helped it to be among the best selling games.

[Spartanius]

I think moo could be great if it was just reintroduced to the world today with very little changes.

The one thing i can think of that would scare people off from playing it today is the micromanagement. In this generation of mainstream gaming people are lazy and want simple and fast. If you made it so managing population for growth was much easier and faster(the main time consumer in playing the game online) then the game would be opened to a bigger audience.

[Overlord2]

I think moo could be great if it was just reintroduced to the world today with very little changes.

The one thing i can think of that would scare people off from playing it today is the micromanagement. In this generation of mainstream gaming people are lazy and want simple and fast. If you made it so managing population for growth was much easier and faster(the main time consumer in playing the game online) then the game would be opened to a bigger audience.

Micromanagement is part of this game. If you remove this feature then it would be other game, not moo.

[RedChico]

I thought that I would post some ideas for the next generation of MOO.

1)Have an RTS battle option so that the tactical combat part of the game plays in real-time, which should help reduce wait times in multi-player games.

2)Use a top notch 3D graphics and physics system instead of just rolling dice.

3)Make the single player AI more realistic and smarter.

4)Allow better team play options, especially combined forces.

1) Checked.

2) programming top notch 3D is time consuming. And about physics, well... i also like rolling dice, no problem there.

3) er... your average Joe will find it dificult to do, but not a dedicated team, yet there are games that lack a decent AI.

4) more than 2 sides per battle?

[RedChico]

Next:

1) C++ books & GFX books V

2) builders, compiler, whatever

3) Ideas 50%

4) last but not least: free time V

[Spartanius]

I think moo could be great if it was just reintroduced to the world today with very little changes.

The one thing i can think of that would scare people off from playing it today is the micromanagement. In this generation of mainstream gaming people are lazy and want simple and fast. If you made it so managing population for growth was much easier and faster(the main time consumer in playing the game online) then the game would be opened to a bigger audience.

Micromanagement is part of this game. If you remove this feature then it would be other game, not moo.

But micromanagement would need to be easier. So you can know what you want to change at a quick glance rather than looking at each different planet per turn.

[RedChico]

I think moo could be great if it was just reintroduced to the world today with very little changes.

The one thing i can think of that would scare people off from playing it today is the micromanagement. In this generation of mainstream gaming people are lazy and want simple and fast. If you made it so managing population for growth was much easier and faster(the main time consumer in playing the game online) then the game would be opened to a bigger audience.

Micromanagement is part of this game. If you remove this feature then it would be other game, not moo.

But micromanagement would need to be easier. So you can know what you want to change at a quick glance rather than looking at each different planet per turn.

A one time micromanagement?

[ix-ir]

There are ways of making micromanagement more elegant without removing depth such as allowing you to apply build order templates to new planets (at a given tech level my builds in single player are almost always the same so baby-sitting 20 planets through it is pointless).

The Quake 3 engine is open source and would support everything needed to make an MOO game. There are so many sources of new SF ideas and unused concepts that could fit very well into MOO3 (a real MOO3), working from the base of MOO/MOO2's resource system.