The Elerians were added as a new race in MOO2. So no, MoO 1 didn’t have the space elves.
They were definitely aiming that art at a certain demographic, weren’t they? About as subtle as an atom bomb.
Another point in Ascendancy’s favor, the aliens were actually alien. There weren’t any humans in that game, and I think the nearest thing to a humanoid was a six-limbed reptile.
Moo1 had a lot less planet fiddling. It was straight forward. The “tiles” system or Moo2 left a little to be desired, even though some mechanics were superior to Moo1.
Such as…? I cannot think of any. The combat, maybe?
I think combat was better in MoO2, but I hated the way planets were treated.
Yeah, the city model doesn’t work at all in MOO2. But for some reason, everybody keeps doing it that way, instead of the superior method from MOO1…
MoO 2 got a lot right though, it just people copy the wrong things verbatim.
One thing that I enjoyed was being Uncreative in MoO2. You never knew what kind of techs you might end up with.
I took Uncreative a few times. Sometimes I got really screwed by it, but I did enjoy having to work around it.
God, you guys are going to end up making me re-install it again. Such a great game, MOO2. I definitely haven’t played enough of it. That’s why whenever I play a game similar to it, I can’t shake the feeling that I should be playing more MOO2 instead, which is what I end up doing.
I think it is a perceived need for additional complexity/ depth. MoO is, at core, a fairly simple game. Not a ton of interactions and actions. MoO2 has a lot more going on.
Sales in the market, however, favored games with more going on. And sometimes that is great, and exactly what is warranted. However there is a time and place for simple.
Europa Universalis 4 and Unity of Command are both top 10 games for me, and both represent this dichotomy. However if you go simpler and streamlined, you really need to nail the polish and balance of it. As any jank is more easily discovered/ ruinous to the experience.
Tiles on the planets, too much fiddling.
The limitation on fleet size.
To name a few.
Well, just found out that Redout: Space Assault will debut on Apple Arcade, with a PC version to “come later.”
Pretty much how I feel about it:
Ugh. Frankly, I wish they’d just made a proper Redout sequel (love that game), but this is just adding insult to injury.
So many developers don’t want my money these days. It would be a real problem if I weren’t absolutely buried in stuff I want to play already.
I have to admit, this kind of sucks. Unlike the Epic Game Store, I can’t just install an Apple store on my PC and play it through that.
Excepting my understanding is the Apple arcade exclusivity thing only covers phones. The choice of not releasing a PC version is probably over other concerns.
You could install an iOS emulator…
Sorry, LOL.
Why do you say it doesn’t “work at all”. Seems to work fine for me and many others.
“Doesn’t work at all” is a bit of hyperbole. But the design choice does have downsides, downsides that people have become increasingly tired of after 20+ years. E.g. as the game goes on and empires become larger, it means more and more planets where you have to do essentially the same, simple mini-game of building mines, then hydroponics farms, then research lab, etc. etc. So as the game progresses managing your empire gets progressively more unwieldy and less interesting. There is an undeniable dopamine hint from slightly growing each settlement with new buildings and tiles, but it’s often a sort of flabby, just-kind-of-sufficient enjoyment.
As a counterpoint to this design choice, look at some of the most beloved strategy games of the last few decades: MOO1, Sword of the Stars, and Imperialism II. These games all take the approach of radically simplifying the per-settlement management. In MOO1 and SoTS they reduce each planet to a few simple sliders. In Imperialism II, you essentially have one giant settlement. Each of these games holds up well even after decades, and I think part of that is because they have removed busy-work and so have excellent pacing.
Unrelated note: the Space Elves got their own fan comic!
https://well-of-souls.com/outsider/
I checked it a few years ago and kind of liked it?
Oh, I agree it has it’s downsides as I much prefer the way the economy works in MOO1 or SOTS. Just didn’t think that the term “didn’t work” was very accurate.
Hello my wonderful friends, and welcome to another week of spacey gaming! This week, in our game of the week, we’ll return to Descent: Freespace, specifically Silent Threat Reborn, because I was basically begged to. With nothing really new having coming out, I couldn’t say no. ;) We also have a preview of Undercrewed, and more videos coming throughout the week.
Moving on from pre-recorded content, here’s this week’s streaming schedule (please remember all times are Pacific). As you can see, we’ve moved things around a bit, with a 9 AM starting time for the mornings and a 4 PM start time for the evenings. You can read all about why I’m making this change here. Now here’s the schedule:
- Monday - 9:00 AM-12:00 PM, Tachyon: The Fringe stream.
- Tuesday - 9:00 AM-12:00 PM, Close Combat: The Bloody First stream. 6:00 PM - Everspace 2 podcast!
- Wednesday - 9:00 AM-12:00 PM, Encased stream.
- Thursday - 9:00 AM-12:00 PM, EF2000 stream. 4:00 PM, Deep Rock Galactic LAN Party broadcast.
- Friday - 9:00 AM-12:00 PM, 3030 Deathwar Redux stream.[/list]
You can see all of our planned upcoming streams and events on our calendar, as always!
You can watch any of these streams on Twitch, YouTube, Mixer and Steam.
Finally, in terms of written content, this week’s discussion topic is the list of best starting space games I came up with for those new to the space game genre. This week’s gaming check-in has me gushing about an old, yet amazing flight sim. Finally, last week’s news digest was a pretty busy one.
That’ll do it for what’s coming up this week, my friends. I hope to see ya in a stream or in a comment. Thanks for being awesome!