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Well, I'm more worried about lack of sales and negative reviews. The game is 3 years old, and whereas they may not be still working on it, that doesn't really mean much. It's nice when developers continue to improve a game, but many don't.
The developers here got a lot of bad reviews, some justified many were not. They were criticised for being too much like the original and not innovating and also criticised for not being the same as the original.
Same thing happened with all the attempts to reboot jagged alliance. It's tough to relaunch a franchise.
Their major fault in my opinion is they released a game that wasn't fully fixed and ready. Because of that they got bad reviews and because of the bad reviews they had poor sales.
I hope that hasn't put them off because with a little more depth, a little more testing... They could have a good product here for a rebooted MOO sequel. There is potential here.
It is doubtful they will do another MOO.
anyways they sold 200 to 500k copies on steam. let's pretend thats 300k
game is 30 bucks they get 70% of that so they get 21 bucks per sale
21 x 300k = 6.3 million bucks. thats not horrible .. but how much did it cost to develop?
each developer is easily 100k / year each same with good designers. and they also lhired a bunch of celebrity voice actors. how long did development take etc.. they may have actually lost money on this
its too bad because even with the space lanes /(reeeee) this game is excellent and the community patches have made it incredibly fun.
I don't think we can blame NGD Studios for this. After all, they were being told what to do with and how to do it from their publisher. Forget their name at the moment, but their boss I believe wanted a game that could be played with their kids. So I believe he wanted a simplified version of the game and since combat does seem like a simplified version of War or Warships (or what ever that game was called) is why the game was the state it was in.
Lots of promised features that were said would be in the game are not in the game because I believe the publisher didn't want it in the game since it would make it more complicated. Adding depth is not adding complication sadly but the publisher didn't see it that way.
:(
the sequel is using the 5X ultimate balance mod and UCP.
All races are properly balanced and could pose a threat with a skillful player.
Try Vanilla MOO as Mrsshan. LMAO
It is sad, really, that that lead developer did not actually study what made the earlier MOO games, and MOO2 in particular that names used in this game were taken from, great. There are still groups of hundreds or thousands of MOO2 masters who, including many young players, are comparable to chess masters and play versions of the game regularly against each other, still, in spite of its original 1996 release date.
Those players and millions of other players do not want to play a 23 year old game. What they want is a current game that is equivalently strategic. So many things were done in the current game to make it, to some degree, a "spectator sport" rather than a strategy game. Yes the real time battles was a horrible and very arrogant decision, but there are many, many other mismanaged features and changes. Like breaking research down into tiny pieces that are so non-strategic to manage that a second grader could do it without a learning curve.
Unlike the current game (and unlike MOO1) in MOO2 the choice of a research topic was a major strategic decision. Going for Plasma Cannons, Autolab or Terraforming first, for example, was a major decision, depending upon the situation physically, demeanor and momentum of opponents and each (human) opponent's racial features and style of play to determine though all of those complexities the best path to follow at that time in that game with that single decision, one of many almost every turn once the game got rolling. Those big research categories were broken up into smaller pieces here in this MOO making it much easier, to the detriment of the actual strategic value of the game.
I would love it if a sequel was actually made by developers, and particularly a lead developer who understood a little bit about strategy and what makes an excellent, strategic game. I do not care if it is called a MOO game or is even in space. I only wish someone who actually understands strategy would make a game or two. The closest I have found to a strategy game after MOO2 on Steam is a game called "Warlock" which is promising but incomplete and too long. Hint: if it takes 4 hours or more to implement one strategic decision, before the next strategic decision in the game that is poor strategic design.
There should be major strategic decisions to make and the potential to fail utterly or brilliantly make major progress towards a win at least every ten to twenty minutes of game play time. Hopefully that can clarify actual criteria to judge various 4x games that claim to be strategic. They are strategic... but barely so.
What you said is exactly what I believe the owner of WG Labs wanted. He wanted a game his kids could play with him. Sadly the developers had to do what the publishers said. Basically make a game that the boss wants, not what the people wanted.
As for Warlock, never played the first one since people said to go with the second one and I LOVE that game. Sadly again the publisher stuck it's nose in how the game is to be released and ruined what could have been one of the most fun ever 4X strategy fantasy games. Still a great game with a mod included.
With MOO, I don't think it was suppose to make money. At one time I read somewhere it was suppose to be free. For what ever reason it is not, but still cheap at $30 compared to other games that were $60 at the time.
Funny games usually get ruined because of the publishers. In Warlocks case it was Paradox who ruined the game by forcing it's release early and DLC policy to squeeze more money out of their games. For MOO, it wasn't greed per say, ($30 is not greed) but what the publisher's owner wanted instead of what gamers wanted.
So the developers had to do what the bosses said. Basically it wasn't a game to be made for people but for the boss and his kids.
That said, still not a bad game. If a sequel will ever be made, hopefully WG Labs or who ever will own the license and let the developers make a game for the strategy gamers instead of just making a quick buck (like MOO3) or what the owner wants.
Apparently the publishers are not interested in making any money because a real strategy game, perhaps in the MOO2 style and not just stealing words from it, would sell a ton, with an economical marketing budget based heavily on word of mouth.
Eventually executives will come along who genuinely know how to make excellent strategy games. The toy companies have been a very bad influence and many new companies hire "experienced" executive "talent" from those. Smarter would be to hire top graduates from the Mathematics Game Theory department, along with artists and story writers with the overall goal of actual strategy and fun.
I think I like Warlock One better than two because the focus of "revision" is on Two rather than one. Companies and design teams are absolutely idiots (I wish I could state that stronger) when it comes to revision and, in particular, rebalancing a game. The reigning method is eliminating anything that turns out to be strong by weakening it so it is then only becomes only mediocre. This type of revision is guaranteed to achieve boredom and ho-hum play. There are many examples of it in the revision for this MOO game, but perhaps Paradox is the worst.
One of the key criteria for any excellent strategy game is how many widely divergent methodologies and focuses are extremely powerful to play within that game. Every time a strength is nerfed to create so-called balance one of those methodologies is destroyed. Some day perhaps current day revision and rebalancing will be used in college classes to show "how to make a halfway decent game utterly pointless", one change at a time.
I would love to be a guest speaker in a meeting of executives at one of those companies... dream on.
It does not need to be a sequel, but needs to be deep rich, dynamic (lots of very powerful ways to play viably), and not at all easy to master. The money is in the surrounding products and non-balance-changing add-ons, like different scenarios or worlds of play in which to activate ones strategic designs.
Stability of the product is key... not allowing well-meaning, balance changing, changes. The other key is exciting... as in not boring.
There is a veil of laziness that first reactions are disappointed when a game is deep and involved, so it cannot be mastered at a glance before even starting it. That veil is thin and honest promotion of the game being very clear about what it is can bust through even that.
A well designed game should take years to master with (powerful) new methods and strategies being discovered all the time.
Making such a game rich, beautiful and very, very difficult is a winning combination, like a winning lottery ticket just laying there waiting to be picked up.
It is so obvious and so easy...
What is the money making potential in games like master of orion? You sell the game and then? Some race dlc and people already hate you.
Compare that to Warframe. Free game, you release new content from time to time which includes cosmetic stuff. You can unlock everything by farming it or pay to have it immediately. And people give you money just to have things in a game that don't actually do anything regarding gameplay.