1721

If I had a mic and the appropriate software I’d just re-record it with my own voice and repost it for praise. Maybe someone could bribe Jon Rowe, he’s into that kind of shit.

1722

wow… yeah the voice over was bad. :(

the art style used for the animation reminds me of Sins of Solar Empire , its effective and unique in its own way and I can imagine its vastly cheaper to produce than full scale 3D cgi , and I am ok with that.

hopefully the game itself gets better , beta 4 as it stands is alright, my main issue being I am just not having a lot of fun… it is missing something for me, that being the “just one more turn feeling” that I know CIV 5 guarantees out of the box.

the tile and map editor is decent, more so than most other dev’s would provide.

since it is still in beta it has time to improve, and I know Stardock loves to patch a game to near perfection looking at the track record of Gal Civ 2 and Sins :)

1723

FYI, the voice over is stand in.

1724

phew.

1725

Woah, it totally is Torgo. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0s9OC6rzAA

Do any of the races have giant knees?

(Sorry Brad, I know a placeholder VO is the last thing you want people going on about).

1726

Ah, should have had more faith in stardock !

Once the game is out, how do you manage the risk of somebody looking for information on the final, released game but coming across a mix of assets belonging to beta x,y,z and final game?

Some of the later beta assets could possibly be seen as a final version of the game but look pretty bad (obviously). Same for that video …

I remember somebody arguing a while ago based on some statements made in a beta/early days discussion about the multiplayer in demigod (let’s not revisit this here please)

1727

Ah, who cares about the voiceover of an intro cinematic?

I was encouraged by the gametrailers walkthroughs – project looks like it’s coming together. Tactical battles are still… rough-looking, but the modtools look solid and the cloth map is sweet.

1728

Heh, it’s kinda funny you say “who cares about the voiceover of the intro” but shortly thereafter proclaim “the cloth map is sweet”.

rezaf

1729

Good to hear, Brad. My offer of free voice work still stands ;)

1730

Still puzzling over how this is “kinda funny” though, how is one related to the other?

1731

Because both sentiments have dick all to do with the gameplay. It is funny because it is ironic.

1732

Sure the cloth map affects game play. It’s the strategic zoom, and it’s a new way of presenting that information. I reinstalled Civ and their globe view doesn’t do a great job of providing that.

1733

My chief complaint of Civ4 (just started playing recently) is that it’s hard to identify the units amid all that lush terrain, and when you zoom out none of the units are shown at all. I really wish it had something like the Elemental cloth map.

1734

Not to go too far off topic, but it looks like the Civ V strategic view is something like that.

1735

I hope that’s true. If it is I may consider making the switch from Civ 4.

1736

Erik, I misunderstood you.
I figured you were refering to the cloth map that comes with the CE, which - I’m sure you’ll agree - is just as irrelevant to the gameplay itself as a horrible intro narrator would be.
I agree that the clothmap style zoom level is another matter entirely.

rezaf

1737

It’s just the nature of being an indie versus a public company.

Indies like us release games when they can safely be released (and not a moment later <g>) whereas most public companies release games based on the needs of shareholder value.

So we end up with beta assets and place holders in until literally days before we ship.

Beta 4, for instance, doesn’t even have the finalized terrain and environments in (it’s all that plain blah green). So visually even the game will look dramatically different from beta 4 because the art assets come in right till the last possible moment because they’re “art” (as opposed to code).

Same for voice overs.

Another example, the tactical battles are painful in beta 4 (and the video) [at least IMO] because they’re so boring and lifeless.

Heck, I think beta 4 still has names like “Book of Charisma” and other such place holder names. The Random House writing didn’t even start getting integrated until this past week.

In an ideal world, I’d have had all this stuff in June. But even if our release date was next February, I still wouldn’t have gotten this stuff until January 29. :)

1738

I know I care about voice overs. It’s one of those things that budget isn’t an issue on. I agree, it sounds like Torgo to me too.

1739

I can just imagine the placeholder voiceover guy reading this discussion and feeling sad, not only because the fans don’t like him but neither does his boss =(

1740

If the game sucks I’m going to tell Gamasutra this is why.