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Interview with Brad Wardell

Amasius

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Kieron Gillen has interviewed Stardocks Brad Wardell and it's well worth reading. The part about RPGs:

What game would you make if you had limitless time?

Wardell: We'd be doing an RPG right now. A Baldur's Gate style RPG or an Ultima V style RPG. I'm not talking about Oblivion, but a traditional, top-down party sort of game. Because I don't see them - Neverwinter Nights has that, but there hasn't been that many. I don't understand it, because I think there's still a market.

Ultimately, it comes down to how much it'll cost you to make the game and how many do you think you can realistically sell.

If you made a Baldur's Gate with good graphics and story, that's well produced.... well, I don't think it'll be very hard to sell 200-300,000 units worldwide. If a turn-based strategy game could do that, certainly a well produced RPG could.

How much money that translates to? Six to eight million dollars. And it just becomes a matter of "Can I produce a game with that?" And unfortunately, a lot of studios can't any more.
My accentuation. Let's hope that the right people read this and start thinking. Listen to this man! I'd love to play a traditional, turn-based RPG by Stardock even if I doubt that it would be heavy on c&c.
 

Raapys

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Well, the Stardock guys are alot brighter than the average bunch.
 

Gragt

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In a few interviews I read Wardell praise Baldur's Gate II and wish Bioware kept making games like that instead of going the console way. Right now they are working on their fantasy strategy game and the last expansion to Galciv2 but I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to make an rpg later.
 

Jeff Graw

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If only Stardock was as good at making games as they are at business. Wardell would make a great CFO, but he's no game designer.
 

Disconnected

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Jeff Graw said:
If only Stardock was as good at making games as they are at business. Wardell would make a great CFO, but he's no game designer.
Does he design games at all?

Also, what do you mean exactly? GalCiv 1 was a very good game. GalCiv2 is arguably the best 4x game made so far. I'm not familiar with Political Machine, but I gather it's pretty funny.

I think it would be more fair to say that if Stardock was as good at business as they are at making games, we'd all be their property.
 

Lumpy

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Another Baldur's Gate game? For real?
This is like a dream come true.
 

Gragt

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Exactly, I wonder what's wrong about the Stardock games especially their flagship, GalCiv2? Not talking about the games they distribute but those they created. I'd like to know your opinion on the matter because it's a bit vague like this.
 

VonVentrue

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I'm beginning to truly love these guys...

And yes, GC 2 rocked in my opinion (not the best 4x game ever, but hardly a "shitty" one).
 

Krancor

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Disconnected said:
Jeff Graw said:
If only Stardock was as good at making games as they are at business. Wardell would make a great CFO, but he's no game designer.
Does he design games at all?

Also, what do you mean exactly? GalCiv 1 was a very good game. GalCiv2 is arguably the best 4x game made so far..

I guess that's arguable by people who have never played anything before 2005 or have severe brain issues.

I think it's interesting that they are saying this now after previously saying 'RPGs mean first person and that's too expensive to make'.

I want to like stardock more, but none of their games so far has grabbed me in spite of a couple almost very good games.
 

fastpunk

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I've bumped into these guys a couple of times on the net lately: interviews, game reviews etc. They look like a decent bunch with good ideas. Thanks for pointing out this interview, it was interesting.
 

Jeff Graw

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Disconnected said:
Also, what do you mean exactly? GalCiv 1 was a very good game. GalCiv2 is arguably the best 4x game made so far. I'm not familiar with Political Machine, but I gather it's pretty funny.

Galciv 2 sucks, plain and simple.

-The techtree is horribly (Laser 1 -> laser 2 -> laser 3 -> laser 4 -> laser 5 anybody?) although the latest expansion helps with that somewhat. Compare to MoO1 where you could allocate research points into different fields and the techtree was semi-random Galciv 2 epic fails.

-Ship design is horrible. You have a purely rock paper scissors approach to ship design. Compared to MoO where you have cool specials, can customize specific ship components, and the different weapons have multiple strategic attributes Galciv 2 flops.

-Lack of tactical combat puts Galciv 2 at a serious disadvantage to basically every 4X space empire simulation ever created.

-Government system is broken. Supposedly more advanced forms of government give the empire economic advantages, but also decentralize power. In reality, you just drop taxes for the one turn before an election and you'll be fine.

-Planetary management sucks. Having to manage every tile on a every planet slows down gameplay. The MoO 1 slider system was a million times faster, didn't require a departure from the main screen, and gave the user more control on how they wanted to allot planetary resources.

-You can't bomb planets. Why not? Because Brad Wardell never liked the idea of bombing planets. The entire point of playing a 4X space empire game is to be emperor, and that means choices. When your choices are so severely limited you are no longer emperor, you're just Joe Schmoe playing a game.

-Logistic points: Worst idea ever. An arbitrary number for how many ships you can command in a fleet. The main thing that this accomplishes is to break up ships into more fleets and make things slower, more confusing, and harder to manage. In reality there would be no limits to the size of a fleet. Better logistics should allow for ships to be coordinated better, but shouldn't put an upper limit on fleet size.

-The grid system: By moving units on a grid (like in Civ games) instead of on a point-to-point system (like most space based 4X games) Brad Wardell has managed to both make the AI excessively stupid on larger maps (it's a lot harder to compute probabilities on a grip than on point to point, and the larger the grid the harder it gets) and make everything harder to manage at the same time. The grid system also means that it's a lot harder to spot enemies that are coming in to your territory to attack.

-Minor races: What should have been a good idea was completely mismanaged to the point where, if Galciv 2 wasn't already horribly broken, it would have broken the games. Minor races get awesome planets, but they don't really do anything, and they're giant pushovers. A minor race = a free high quality planet. It's also pretty retarded how, if you kill a minor race, another one will eventually pop up and a previously uninhabitable world will become a paradise waiting to be conquered by whomever is closest.

-Espionage sucks: Espionage amounts to building spies and placing them on enemy structures to neutralize them. Counter espionage is sacrificing one of your spies to neutralize an enemy spy who is causing trouble. Not only does it get highly annoying to have to house clean spies all of the time (and just placing spies on enemy structures is pretty boring to boot) but the entire system is broken. Brad Wardell arbitrarily decided that the bigger empire you have and the more spies you've trained the more it will cost to train a spy. This is, of course, bullshit and highly annoying when puny little empires mass produce spies that you constantly need to spend more and more money on to clean up.

-The lack of strategy. Because your options are limited to what Wardell wants you to do, because the tech tree is linear and boring, and because the entire game amounts to technology + economy + getting people to declare war against each other and picking off the survivors = teh win, Galciv 2 has a distinct lack of strategy. Expand fast at the start of the game, choose the right techs, get the right diplomatic bonuses, build the right structures (and of course as many economy star bases as you can) and you win the game. Doesn't matter what difficulty either. Back when I was playing I could win on suicidial 100% of the time just by doing the same thing every game.

There, a nice long post. As usual when I denounce this piece of shit I doubt anyone will bother responding to it.
 

JarlFrank

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Good points, Jeff. I never really enjoyed GalCiv2 either, had some minor fun with it but it got too repetitive, shitty planet management, 90% of planets aren't even habitable, not even with high technologies [why are they even there? I often found whole solar systems with only worthless planets, what's the point of those when you can't do anything with them?], and strategy wasn't really required either. There's simply not much to do in that game except waiting until something happens and clicking "next turn" over and over again. At least that's what happened to me in most of my games. Heck, making most of those planets habitable would solve a lot already.
 

Jeff Graw

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Yeah... I find it pretty interesting how most Codexians can recognize a bad RPG from a mile away, but give them one of the shittiest 4X games in years and it's the second coming.
 

JarlFrank

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Maybe because space 4x games are even rarer than RPGs nowadays. I haven't played a *really* good space 4x game for a long time. Had some fun with Lost Empire: Immortals, and enjoyed Sins of a Solar Empire, but that one isn't really a 4x. I want a proper MOO4.
 

Annonchinil

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I don't care for JG points since I go for non combat options, that's what makes the game unique. Trying to create a strategy where you become the principal trading nation in the galaxy and than having to keep the peace between the other races is a lot of fun. I suppose if you try to play the game like MOO than it will not be as fun as MOO.
 

JarlFrank

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I always played MOO2 in a peaceful way and had lots of fun with it... planet management is better, colonization is better, research is better, diplomacy is about on par with GalCiv2. I don't see how GalCiv2 is better in playing the peaceful way than other space 4x games.

Actually, in GalCiv2 I start going to wars late in the game just because I don't have anything else to do.
 

Jeff Graw

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@Annonchinil

Epic fail.

Most of my points don't have to do with combat, and if I did try to play the game like MoO 2 I wouldn't be able to win at suicidal, now would I?

And just to show you how much you sound like a Gamespy tard I took the liberty of rewording your post to an equally stupid defense of Oblivion

Annonchinil said:
I don't care for Vault Dweller's review since I never cared for choices and dialog, that's what makes Oblivion unique. Getting to explore the landscape, cities, and the oblivion gates and than having to kill everything is a lot of fun. I suppose if you try to play the game like Fallout than it will not be as fun as Fallout.

Feel the shame.

@JarlFrank

Nothing is worse than the planetary management in MoO2. Even Galciv 2 fares better. Just to get to the build queue you need to go past three screens, and the "here's a huge list of buildings" system is the exact opposite of streamlined. You spend a lot of time struggling with a bad interface instead of actually playing the game. MoO 2 had four main flaws: The techtree system was a step back from MoO 1, the planetary interface was a turd, ship combat was broken at higher tech levels and fleet sizes as whomever got first move gained a massive advantage, and last but not least is the infamous creative trait for reasons that should be obvious. Moo 2 took some steps forward, and some steps back from MoO 1. Personally, I prefer the original since even though MoO 2 did make some advances, MoO 1 didn't actually do anything bad. My perfect 4X game would have the best aspects of MoO 1 combined with the best aspects of MoO 2.
 

Raapys

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Space Empires is the only real 4x series left. Space Empires 5, the newest one, isn't too bad when played with mods, but Space Empires 4 is really great( although this one too should be played with a mod installed ).

Master of Orion 3 is acceptable with the last patch and one of the huge mod packages installed. It takes a little different approach to the genre, concentrating on macro-management and not just micro, but it's great when you get into it. Combat still sucks though, but so it does in most 4x games.
 

Raapys

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Well, there's basically two popular ones, The Balance Mod( basically much-improved stock with better balance and alot better AI ) and then there's the 'Unnamed Mod', which I haven't tried myself. Here's a link for the Balance Mod.
 

Zhirzzh

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JarlFrank said:
and enjoyed Sins of a Solar Empire.

I honestly prefer SotS as far as 4X games designed to be played mostly in MP.

Anyway, Gal Civ 2 is fun for a while, but the first two MoO games are so much better, that Gal Civ 2 mostly gives me an urge to play them.
 

Gragt

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You make some good points and to be honest I'm not that knowledgeable in 4x space games and never played the MoO games though I heard a lot of good things about them. Maybe if I did I could understand you better but things being as they are I admit I am happy with GalCiv2. If I were a better player I could see the flaws like you do.

Still the techtree while not very imaginative did not disturb me that much. From what I could see the last expansion will fix it with unique trees per civ. Same for the ship design but again you mention MoO which I did not play so I can't compare. As for bombing planet I regret it too but we'll have death stars in the expansion.

Well I could reply the same to the other points, fact is I do not have the same experience as it seems you have. Still thanks for taking the time of typing your list.
 

Raapys

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If you haven't, download Master of Orion 2 and give it a spin Gragt. It really is an excellent game, and the graphics are of such style that it ages very well. Probably the best ambient soundtrack I've ever heard, too. Only real downside to the game is the balance.
 

Jeff Graw

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The original MoO should be easier to find and, although MoO 2 made some advances, it also had some major flaws. MoO 1 has no major flaw and has the best pacing you'll ever experience in a 4X.
 

Zhirzzh

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Hint: Use the Unification government.
 

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