Development To Begin Soon On New Star Control Game

In 1990, a development studio called Toys for Bob created a game called Star Control, a fun little space combat game with a bit of strategy added in. In 1992, they released Star Control 2, a full-blown space adventure RPG, which became one of the seminal works of early PC gaming. (Later open-sourced and released for modern systems.) After that, creators Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III lost control of the franchise to Accolade, who botched Star Control 3 and eventually abandoned the series. Last July, Stardock, the studio behind Sins of a Solar Empire, acquired the rights, and they're now discussing their plans to resurrect the classic series. They'll be using Star Control 2 as a template and an inspiration for all aspects of the game, though they won't be using any of the IP from Star Control I & II. They've also contacted Ford and Reiche and will try to hold true to their creative intentions. (The two currently run an Activision game studio, so they won't be involved with the new game.) Production will begin this winter.

Comments

The fog of time

[hubie]

It adds credibility to include them, but I wonder if Ford and Reiche can remember what their creative intentions were after 20 years.

Re:The fog of time

[Hatta]

It's easy enough to find out. Play Star Control 2, and Starflight, and do more of that. There are really no other comparable spacefaring adventure/RPGs in existance.

Re:The fog of time

[ZahrGnosis]

Agreed. This sub-genre is rather diminuitive and SC2 is, IMHO, the best iteration ever (I still play UrQuan masters semi-regularly). I think there are a few key design components that need to survive that are easy to pluck out by playing through. I hope they keep the openness of exploration, the simplicity (and necessity) of resource management, and the level of randomness that bantering about the universe can give you (will you meet the Shofixti early? Last? Before they are annihilated? etc).

I do worry that they'll have to dumb it down for a modern audience and that worries me. SC3 suffered from this a bit. For example, you really had to take notes to complete SC2 unless you'd played it a dozen times before -- someone would mention a planet and star system in the middle of the conversation and if you forgot it you may never be able to get back to it. I LOVED that aspect of old games, but with pop-up maps and waypoints listed in auto-populated journals, newer games put this aspect on auto pilot. That's fine for many games -- it puts you deeper into actual gameplay, but it's an aspect I would sorely miss in SC2 if it weren't there.

Mostly, though, I hope they find a way to keep the whimsy of the game married to a truly compelling story line. If anyone can do it, these guys can. I can hardly wait!

Re:The fog of time

[Anonymous Coward]

There are really no other comparable spacefaring adventure/RPGs in existance.

I would argue that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Saga belongs in that group.

Re:The fog of time

[ultranova]

I do worry that they'll have to dumb it down for a modern audience and that worries me. SC3 suffered from this a bit. For example, you really had to take notes to complete SC2 unless you'd played it a dozen times before -- someone would mention a planet and star system in the middle of the conversation and if you forgot it you may never be able to get back to it. I LOVED that aspect of old games, but with pop-up maps and waypoints listed in auto-populated journals, newer games put this aspect on auto pilot. That's fine for many games -- it puts you deeper into actual gameplay, but it's an aspect I would sorely miss in SC2 if it weren't there.

I wouldn't. Automatically log every conversation and mark any coordinates mentioned, with a link back to the log. Why in blazes shouldn't the computer handle a simple and, frankly, tedious bookkeeping task? Removing manual copy-pasting of text is not "dumbing down" a game.

Re:The fog of time

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't. Automatically log every conversation and mark any coordinates mentioned, with a link back to the log. Why in blazes shouldn't the computer handle a simple and, frankly, tedious bookkeeping task? Removing manual copy-pasting of text is not "dumbing down" a game.

Completely agreed; one should not be required to keep a separate Zim notebook just to play a game. If nothing else, provide a simple method of bookmarking information as it's given to you, so that it's easy to record information in-game yourself.

The problem is that there's a fine line between "convenient" and "mindless", and a lot of (perhaps most) games cross it. Automatically recording information about the general area of an important location: awesome. Giving you a reliable idea of which direction you should be looking, or some other way of limiting the scope of your search so it's not "needle in haystack" hunting: great. Showing you exactly where and what your target is and completely eliminating any need for exploration: bad. As an example of how to get it wrong in both ways, the game nearly everyone has played or at least knows exists: World of Warcraft. Over the years, Blizzard has managed to hit both extremes (too obtuse, too hand-holding) without getting anywhere near a good compromise.

At release and for a long time after, you had to find quest locations by reading the log and discovering the location yourself. Unfortunately, the directions tended to be vague, and were sometimes even completely useless or non-existent, so you spent a lot of time wandering aimlessly in a vaguely-worded "north" or "east" and hoped you found the right thing to stab. Eventually, the people that did the exploring made websites and addons that did the work for you, until they became the de facto standard for playing the game, at least for most players.

Years later, Blizzard overhauled the quest log system as a response to this third party ecosystem of quest assistants. Instead of making it more user friendly and accurate, they took out any sense of exploration at all. Big blue area markers on the map that show exactly the area you need to be in, with hover tooltips on every enemy and item that tell you which quest they belong to, and arrow son the minimap that point you toward where your "active" quest area is located. Click a quest, go toward arrow until blue appears, click enemies until you find one that is marked as quest-related, then kill and loot. No discovery, no explanation, and no reason to even glance at the quest text any more, except for a handful of particularly obtuse quests.

Re:The fog of time

[ZahrGnosis]

The problem is that there's a fine line between "convenient" and "mindless", and a lot of (perhaps most) games cross it.

I think this was a better way to state my point, so hat's off... I agree that a game shouldn't be tedious when something like automatic logging is implemented and doesn't detract from gameplay, but yes, my complaint is that too many games "cross the line". WoW is a great example, and I agree. I was mostly musing that since with SC2 the exploration was even more important since there's all but nothing nearby to get you started (the Spathi on the moon and a vacant star map was wildly less leading than the carefully crafted WoW story lines for each race), it is far more fragile to this sort of tuning. You could just wander into the stars, get lost, run out of gas, or fall afoul of an enemy you weren't prepared to defeat, lose the game and have to find a 20-gameplay-hour-old savegame to usefully recover. Games that have that sensation are few and far between (and many people prefer it that way), so I was mostly just musing about why I loved it and how difficult I think it is to find that balance.

Thanks for helping to clarify.

Re:The fog of time

[Hatta]

Thank you for the recommendation. I had long been eyeing that one to play on my IIgs, but other things have taken my time. Now that I know it's a starflight-alike it's very much worth my time.

Re:The fog of time

[Anonymous Coward]

You could just wander into the stars, get lost, run out of gas, or fall afoul of an enemy you weren't prepared to defeat, lose the game and have to find a 20-gameplay-hour-old savegame to usefully recover. Games that have that sensation are few and far between (and many people prefer it that way), so I was mostly just musing about why I loved it and how difficult I think it is to find that balance.

Yeah, that sort of thing is a pain in the ass to do without being frustrating to a lot of players, because nobody likes getting stuck, even if it's your own damn fault you got stuck. Especially if it's your fault you got stuck, because it feels like the game is mocking you for screwing up. It generally needs some sort of graceful fail condition for certain problems, such as distress beacons, or a bad-ass auto-save feature that snapshots your progress so you don't have to constantly muck about with multiple saves unless something goes massively wrong. Or maybe a difficulty selection along the lines of "treat me gently" -- some sort of punishment for failure without it being a game-over -- along with a hardcore mode that crushes you for failure.

Related: that sort of "you're screwed, start over" thing is why roguelikes are a niche thing despite being generally awesome. Hardcore-style "die and start over" is a hard sell. Though, there is one roguelike that lets you respawn: Elona. Every time you die, you respawn but lose stats. This means that fluke deaths are less rage-inducing, but if you just suck at the game you eventually end up in an unwinnable condition.

Back on the exploration/railroading topic:

My preference is somewhere in between the two extremes, leaning more toward avoiding hand-holding. I like having an idea of where to go to make the story move on, but that's so that I know where to avoid until I'm ready. I note the next place to progress and then try to go everywhere except that place. Still, I don't mind when it's a bit vague, like "go to this sector" or "go west", at least for the important stuff. Gives you a reason to find new things while you look, you know? The problem is when EVERY bit of progress is like that, it stops being about what you want to do and turns into the "needle in a haystack" problem I mentioned.

The first two Fallout games were good for that. For example, in F2, they directed you to the first town, to the east, with some plot and a lack of interesting things north and west, but there was no requirement to stop there, or anywhere else. If you followed the plot you generally leveled with the content, but you could skip as much as you were able to survive. I wandered south one day on a new character and, through sheer RNG luck, got to the last quest hub town without a single random encounter (which would have splattered me in one hit). Didn't even know it was there, hadn't beaten game before, so it was pure chance, and made that playthrough unique in a way fully linear games fail to do.

I also think it's important that, even if you decide to go off on your own and ignore the plot, it should be possible to pick back up where you left off with minimal difficulty. If the game doesn't provide a way to easily find where the storyline was, it can discourage someone from exploring, because they're afraid of losing the plot.

Thanks for helping to clarify.

No problem. It sounds like you and ultranova don't necessarily want different things, just that games don't balance it well, even when exploration is a key aspect of the game. That mention of using Zim for games is 100% personal experience: it's incredible for keeping track of things that games don't provide any automatic tracking mechanisms for. The Minecraft book got a lot of use for a while, though now it's the Starbound one that's getting filled up with coordinates and other useful information.

Starbound gets a pass for now, since it's early access, but Minecraft's lack of any worthwhile navigation tools is completely unacceptable in a game that's as much about finding cool scenery as it is about playing virtual legos.

(same AC as before)

Re:The fog of time

[hairyfeet]

Personally I liked SC 1 over SC 2, but maybe that's just me but I'd say a giant 50 foot flaming HELL YEAH! to another Starflight! That was a damned deep game and I'd LOVE to see it done with today's graphics if and ONLY IF they kept the depth! Sadly too many games lose a lot of the depth in favor of bling, a good example being Deus Ex HR which I still enjoyed but no way did it have the level of depth that the original had.

Now if we can only get somebody to buy the rights to the No One Lives forever franchise so I can have some funny in my FPS, please? I mean how could you not love a game that had kitten bombs and ninja chicks trading tips on how much poison to use to keep their man loyal?

Re:The fog of time

[Jonathan_S]

You could just wander into the stars, get lost, run out of gas, or fall afoul of an enemy you weren't prepared to defeat, lose the game and have to find a 20-gameplay-hour-old savegame to usefully recover.

You could certainly get taken out by an enemy you couldn't defeat; wander into Ur-Quan space with too slow a main ship, or those damned slylandro probes. (Doesn't do much good to emergency escape if you can't run clear in hyper)

But short of providing a fight with the traders, or in the very near end game (after they fled), it was virtually impossible to permanently run out of gas. The traders always come alone eventually and give you more. I once got bored and pushed it and I think I ran out my ship out of fuel five or six times in a row and they kept showing up like AAA (even if you have no resources or info to trade them you still get gas to get back to Earth)

Re:The fog of time

[Anonymous Coward]

The Traders come straight away - just activate the Caster in hyperspace.

Re:The fog of time

[ultranova]

Automatically recording information about the general area of an important location: awesome. Giving you a reliable idea of which direction you should be looking, or some other way of limiting the scope of your search so it's not "needle in haystack" hunting: great. Showing you exactly where and what your target is and completely eliminating any need for exploration: bad.

Yes, but automatically recording conversations and coordinates doesn't change this balance at all. All it means is that if some alien gives you an exact location - for example, if the Zog-Fot-Pik tell you the location of their homeworld - you don't need to play secretary and write it down. And once you have dozens of coordinates - and you will - you don't need to go through pages and pages of notes to see if any happen to be near, you see it right there on the map.

Exploration is fun. The details of cartography are not. So let the computer handle the latter.

Re:The fog of time

[Anonymous Coward]

Space Rangers 2 has the same feel but the combat is more turn based. (Not that Starflight had the combat of SC)

Re:The fog of time

[danlock4]

My first reaction to the news was, "Frungy!"

I hope the developers can keep it that way.

I am *expanding*!

[Anonymous Coward]

It is so *squishy* to make me a *happy camper*. I cannot wait to *smell* it.

Re:I am *expanding*!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget to *enjoy the sauce*!

Re:I am *expanding*!

[Anonymous Coward]

Happy days and jubilation!

Re:I am *expanding*!

[Stormalong]

You guys are so lame. Its just a video game.

Why don't you go outside and play some Frungy?

Re:I am *expanding*!

[Anonymous Coward]

Go! Go! Go!
*intruder*
Diu! Diu!
Bleagh!

Re:I am *expanding*!

[buswolley]

Indeed. My Two favorite games:

1. Star Control 2 (loved 1 as well). 2. Space Empires IV (a completely awesome turn based 4x space strategy game)

Re:I am *expanding*!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody likes a bully.

Re:I am *expanding*!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because without it, Frungy wouldn't exist. It's a Pkunk and Egg problem.

Re:I am *expanding*!

[BlueLightning]

I wanted to, but I was afraid of the Evil Ones. They're everywhere, don't you see them?

Re:I am *expanding*!

[cbhacking]

While in many ways 4 was the better game, I really do enjoy the combat system in SE5 more. It's not even just the real-time aspect of it (although that's huge; turn-based tactical combat is pretty exploitable if your ship is fast enough); it's things like needing time to turn and accelerate, having circular firing ranges (so you can skim an enemy fleet on a reciprocal course and unload on them without them being able to pursue, or send in a tightly clustered ball of fighters to kick the ass of a hostile ship without coming into the PD range of its wingmates). With that said, the research system in SE5 is bloody awful. The construction queues and intelligence operations are vaguely SE3-ish, which is good, but oh man the research system sucks.

Just checking: have you played Master of Orion 2? Much like SC2, it's easily the height of the series; MoO1 was good but too early and feels tech-demo-ish today, while MoO3 was boring and has little strategic depth left to the player. The SE series obviously draws heavily from MoO, but in some ways still falls short; despite being an old 16-bit game, MoO2 has things like shield arcs, weapon firing arcs, and ship maneuver (turning) costing movement points, plus a cleverly simple system for handling things like interstellar movement range.

Re:I am *expanding*!

[buswolley]

I looked into MoO2, but wanted a Play By Web option for multiplayer. Dosbox tunneling just seemed like a pain. I've had fond memories of playing SEIII and IV. I haven't played the tactical much however, as I played multiplayer mostly, so just went with strategic resolution.

Re:I am *expanding*!

[Kelbear]

Star Control 2 has long been in my top 5 games of all time. It holds up shockingly well after recent replays via Ur-Quan masters.

The universe they painted was amazingly detailed for the resources they had at the time. There was an immense amount of content in those races and their histories, amid a whole galaxy in which to explore and discover. I love the creativity they put into those races, not every race was just another boring palette-change antropomorph. In this regard this game didn't see any real competition until Mass Effect's trilogy (and SC2's races were still more interesting, despite not having time to go into as much dept as in ME1-3).

And the story kept moving on without you! If you don't visit certain parts of the galaxy, or fail to resolve certain quests, whole races can go extinct before you get there. You could watch the spheres of territory shift over time! It gave you a sense that this galaxy was alive, unlike most games where it feels like you're just running through a museum of animatronic exhibits that only move when you come by to trigger them. I could hardly believe it the first time I saw a race just disappear off the starmap.

At it's foundation, a followup to the game doesn't need to have crazy graphics or elaborate new gameplay mechanics just to keep up with the games that had come afterwards. The core gameplay still holds up perfectly well. They mainly need good writers and a polished interface.

Awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope this new instalment will be at least as much fun as SC2.

"Dribble-down economics."

Re:Awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Heck, if it's half as fun as SC2 it'll be Game-of-the-Year in my book.

No Faith

[Karna99]

I wish I could believe Stardock would do it some justice, but likely it will be a colossal cluster F like their attempt to redo Master of Magic as Elemental.

I think I will just go back and play the original. Still amazing what Fred & Paul did given the constrains they had. The music was the best part of SC2.

Re:No Faith

[binarylarry]

On the plus side, Stardock is owned by Brad Wardell. So maybe we'll be able to sexually harass the various characters and oppress lesser races.

Re:No Faith

[i kan reed]

Yeah, I got burned too. I even pre-purchased the collectors edition, dreaming of a competent turn-based fantasy strategy game. I played maybe an hour before I could take no more. What a waste.

Re:No Faith

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally want to play as the republican space rangers!

Re: No Faith

[Therad]

You should try out fallen enchantress: legendary heroes. It is quite good and it is free for those of us that bought elemental.

Re: No Faith

[i kan reed]

Actually, I bought(I COULD'VE GOTTEN IT FREE?!?!?!?) that on steam, not realizing it was the element engine, and I thought it was better, but not great.

Re: No Faith

[Karna99]

To be honest I am so bitter about the whole Element thing that Stardock could cure cancer, AIDS, and world hunger and I would still not play that game.

It was the whole Gamers’ Bill of Rights hypocrisy that burned me good. Previous to that point, I would buy most of their games and generally be ok with the value of the purchase.

At the time Element was announced, I wanted to support Stardock and paid upfront (pre-order) based on the things Brad Wardell was saying. The Gamers’ Bill of Rights was in stark contrast to where things were going with the industry and I wanted to support a company that would state that.

And I loved MoM, so how bad could they possibly screw it up given that they had that as model to follow.

Pretty much Stardock took a dump on the game and even worse the hypocrisy of the Gamers’ Bill of Rights.

So yeah F-you Brad Wardell.

Re: No Faith

[Belial6]

No... The tongueings the best part.

Re:No Faith

[Hatta]

For the MoM fan who wasn't aware of Elemental, what are the problems with it?

Re:No Faith

[firex726]

Well keep in mind in response to that incident, the woman ended up writing a letter of apology to Stardock and Wardell.

Seems she may have departed on bad terms and they had evidence she destroyed company property in the process, and were willing to drop it till she filed her harassment suit. In response Stardock countered with the property destruction, and as part of the settlement both cases were dropped and she apologized for causing the trouble.

One generally does not apologize for causing trouble if they are a legitimate victim of sexual harassment.

Re:No Faith

[binarylarry]

You do if the other party has a pile of cash and filed a lawsuit they can afford to drag on for years even if it's totally made up.

Re:No Faith

[geminidomino]

And that's why Stardock never should have settled. Not going to trial meant that the facts were never examined, and so there's a subset of people who will forever behave as if the allegations were, in fact, true.

Take a lesson from that, folks. You can't unring the bell, even if you do feel "vindicated", to use Wardell's word. If you're falsely accused, and you've got cause of counteraction, follow through and make sure your lawyers (metaphorically) nail her head to the wall, because even if you're "vindicated" and don't have to pay out, there's still plenty of permanent damage done.

Of course, if they are true, then you're fucked, and deservedly so.

Re: No Faith

[geminidomino]

What hypocrisy do you mean? I'm genuinely asking, since I never payed much attention to Stardock -- they talked a good game (no pun intended) about respecting their customers, but since all they seemed to make were RTS and sim games, I was never in their target market.

Re:No Faith

[Mashiki]

and so there's a subset of people who will forever behave as if the allegations were, in fact, true.

Doesn't matter, even if they'd won in court there's a whole subset of people including angry feminists who would say that Stardock bought the judges/court/etc. Simply because, any type of accusation as seen by one of the parent posters is enough to automatically assume guilt. And really, anyone with a brain already knows that no matter what, win or not any type of "sexual harassment" label will stick...because "women are never wrong" on that issue. Which of course goes back to angry feminists.

Re: No Faith

[Anonymous Coward]

Stardock released a game called Elemental: War of Magic that was really buggy on release and a big disappointment to fans who thought it was going to be like Master of Magic despite Stardock having gotten a lot of good will for their strong stance on never letting games be released buggy.

To be fair, they released the two follow-ons to it for free to people who bought War of Magic, Fallen Enchantress and Legendary Heroes both of which are pretty good with the latter being generally considered outstanding.

Re:No Faith

[geminidomino]

Entirely true, but the rational are always in a better position when they can "dismiss with documentation." Plus, if you're going to lose anyway (which, like you said, they are) why not take the lying little shit down hard anyway? :)

Re:No Faith

[Anonymous Coward]

That's ridiculous. She wrote her apology on the eve of trial. If her case had any merit at all she would have gone forward. Who's more collectable? A rich company or a disgruntled ex employee?

And have you or anyone ever heard of someone having to write a public apology for filing a lawsuit against someone? The only sane interpretation is that she had a frivolous case and she was guilty as sin.

Re:No Faith

[Anonymous Coward]

If they had gone through in court and presumably won on both accounts she would have just said she couldn't compete with their legal resources and Stardock wouldn't have gotten an apology letter out of her.

Re:No Faith

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem was that it was buggy and boring and nothing like MOM.

They made two followups, both well regarded. You can check out their latest at http://www.elementalgame.com.

Re:No Faith

[geminidomino]

True, but like was said above, it still really wouldn't make a difference to those who are convinced that women are inherently weak and doomed to always be "victims." Since you can't satisfy that lot, might as well crush her, and then follow up with a slander suit just to do it some more. Seems a fitting payment for perjury.

Re:No Faith

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like an apology letter which, as a lawyer of 25 years I've never seen, is about as compelling as you can get. I suspect she was facing perjury or worse. You don't write an apology letter, especially with no pay out, unless you have no other option.

Re:No Faith

[binarylarry]

Wardell had the made up lawsuit. He used his money to silence the marketing person's lawsuit.

Re:No Faith

[binarylarry]

If she wanted them to drop the fake counter case, they could dictate the terms.

Re: No Faith

[Anonymous Coward]

lol outstanding

What the weather like at Stardock right now? Sunny?

Re:No Faith

[geminidomino]

Prove it.

Re: No Faith

[Kalriath]

They created Impulse, then sold it to The Enemy of All PC Gaming, Gamestop. Then released all their future games on Steam, despite Steam being always online DRM which the Gamer's Bill of Rights was completely against.

Some musings

[Akratist]

I wouldn't necessarily agree that SC 3 was "botched," although 2 was a better game. A real botch job was Master of Orion 3... That said, it should be interesting to see what Stardock does with this, given their track record with Galactic Civilizations and Sins of a Solar Empire. They need to resist temptation to make the game too "heavy," too -- no real need to turn it into a cartoonish version of SFB or something.

Re:Some musings

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny that you mention Stardock's track record and you don't include their awful recent (past 6-7 years) games (Elemental, etc). But you include Sins of a Solar Empire, which they only published.

Re:Some musings

[DarthVain]

Agree. MOO3 was the first and last game I have ever pre-ordered. I was so excited that it was coming out. Then when I got it...

I think it can be best described as they took a really fun game and turned it into a tedious simulation.

Re:Some musings

[Desler]

Yeah me and a friend used to play SC 3 a ton and had plenty of fun with it. Didn't ever seem "botched" to us.

Re:Some musings

[Anonymous Coward]

>no real need to turn it into a cartoonish version of SFB or something.

I would pay enormous wads of cash for development of a new version of SFB, cartoonish or otherwise.

(Yes, I played the Starfleet Command series; thanks for asking.)

Re:Some musings

[Anonymous Coward]

I could have written your comment. That matches my experiences 100%.

Re:Some musings

[Anubis IV]

So true.

MOO2 remains to this day my favorite game of all time, and MOO3 was such a letdown. I followed most of its development since the developers were extremely open during the entire process, but the fact that colonization, development of infrastructure, and most other detail-oriented actions were fully automated took the fun out of playing. As you said, it felt like watching a simulation that we were just there to observe, since we had very little actual ability to influence things. That feeling was only reinforced the first time I lost the game without ever establishing contact with a single other race...the game had decided I lost the simulation before I had ever had a chance to even influence it in a meaningful way.

Utterly absurd.

Re:Some musings

[Anonymous Coward]

Same for me. Although I can find spreadsheets entertaining, I never find them fun. I too was burned on the pre-order. Never again.

Re:Some musings

[Akratist]

Yeah, don't take it as a slam on SFB -- I loved the pen and paper versions, and was thrilled when they came out with the computer game versions, and wish they would be updated (nice job of locking down your "IP," Paramount). I was more thinking that Star Command was always a "light" game and would suffer from an excess of detail and tactical decisions, though.

Re:Some musings

[Anonymous Coward]

SC3 was excellent for its time. Full voiced dialogues. Humor. Good story line. Some elements of planetary management. Exploration. And core Star Control combat system where you control each ship. For me it was Sega Genesis version of star control (just a battle simulator with a strategy game built in, pretty fun but no story), then I jumped into SC3, and even later played through SC2. All very good games, but today they seem too primitive. I tried Star Control Urquan Masters a few years ago, just couldn't get into it.

Re:Some musings

[firex726]

Similar for me, I traded in like 8 of my PC games for a pittance to be able to afford MOO3 when it was released. Some were at the time hard to find and became quite valuable in recent years, such as Total Annihilation.

Re:Some musings

[Anonymous Coward]

chiming in as i also found the "released" MoO3 to be a disappointment
i later found it was the unfortunate side-effect of the publisher pushing the deadline to get the game out
automation was to be very much a key part of the game had it been completed the way it was intended

micro-management can be a fun aspect, but there's a certain level where it becomes a job and not a game anymore
in 4x games, where players will jump in to vie for control over a "giant" galaxy, it's very easy to hit that level
MoO3 was to have had an action point system. you'd have a limited number of "actions" you could per turn
during the start of the game you could micro-manage to your hearts content without hitting the limit
as your expansion phase gets well under way "normally" you spend a lot of time organising plantary resources
(in the form of focusing on research, construction, mining, and keeping the populace happy and under control)
in a large galaxy with a LOT of planets, this micro-management very quickly becomes a job and sucks the fun out
so what they WANTED was a limit of what you could do per-turn to make you re-think what was important
why command a battle as a fleet you'll obliterate, when you need to rebuild a planet that survived a bombardment?

hence why automation was to be very key and possibly even deciding factor to the game
your automation rules, while not perfectly timed, are at least guided your empire building in the direction you want
your opponents have the exact same action limits applied to them as well so you're not at a disadvantage
which means whoever has the best "planning" of their empire is going to win out in the end
it's not "fully" automated though as your action points are used to fine tune the outcomes
noticing a sudden breakoff in attacks? adjust automation to ramp up defense. they're going for a big hit
and even if not, the resultant increased fleet you can push to your borders to prepare your own assault
just gotta make sure you've got enough going on to "afford" the fleet you're building

in this sense, setting up the right automation rules pushes the game deep into the "strategy" realm
(as opposed to the "tactics" realm most RTS & 4X games seem to fall into with their micro-management)
as a bonus, it meant that turns would be shorter due to the limited number of actions you had to do
which would have made multiplayer much more viable (why is yourturn taking 2 freaking hours?!?!?!)

of course, to get the game out the door, the action point limit mechanic was just plain removed
meaning you could do as much as you want to get a "perfect" turn, even if it took an hour to do so
as which point, most people did. which made the game stupidly boring

maybe someone should remake it with the action points in place and see how it goes...

Re:Some musings

[cbhacking]

Actually, TotalA is quite easy to get these days (if you don't mind a pure-digital version) as it is available on Good Old Games (http://gog.com). Along with, I should mention, the entire MoO series (I picked up the first two for a total of a few bucks during their last winter sale). DRM-free, patched and/or packaged (MoO runs in a pre-configured DOSBox) for modern systems, and dirt cheap with re-downloading allowed and patches provided where relevant.

Re:Some musings

[Anubis IV]

Exactly correct.

Imperial Focus Points is the name of the system you're thinking of. They were one of those ideas that sounded kinda lame when first explained, but made a great deal of sense once you actually thought about them, and they were going to be the defining feature of the game.

As you said, they'd have changed the game from being about micromanaging to being about strategy/meta-tactics. And, also as you said, for some reason the idea never came together, so they were forced to scrap it something like 6 months before the retail release, which, in retrospect, was a massive red flag. Things went downhill from there, since it became clear that they had allowed a massive amount of feature creep, which left them with loads of half-implemented features. I heard that they addressed quite a few of the UI and other superficial issues with an update several months after launch, but as far as I know the worst of the gameplay issues are still in place, so I've not gone back to check the game out.

But yeah, I'd actually be open and eager to seeing a game that relied on the IFP system. I still think it sounds like it has a lot of potential, but getting things balanced correctly is a tall order. If you allow too many actions, you end up with what shipped as MOO3 (in which you effectively have infinite actions per turn), where you either get bored micromanaging since they added WAY too much low-level detail, or else you feel like you have no control at all, since the low-level stuff is inscrutable, meaning you never touch it. If you allow too few actions, you end up with a galaxy simulation in which the player will feel powerless, since they'll be getting to move a few ships per turn while being responsible for the fate of an entire empire (i.e. it'd be like a game where you're the President in charge of governing the nation, and you have to do so by choosing a police officer to command around for the year...not very effective).

Not in Debian...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bizarrely Star Control 2 is not an apt-get away... At least not that I can find. Anyone got any ideas?

Re:Not in Debian...

[geminidomino]

Sure it is. Accolade still owns the name "Star Control 2", so the open source release was rebranded "The Ur-Quan Masters"

apt-get install uqm

Re:Not in Debian...

[geminidomino]

Okay, maybe I should have read the summary. Allow me to fix my statement.

Accolade still owned the name "Star Control", so the open source release was rebranded "The Ur-Quan Masters"

Re:Not in Debian...

[Anonymous Coward]

me@pc:~$ sudo apt-get install uqm
[sudo] password for me:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package uqm
me@pc:~$

Not in Ubuntu at any rate. Perhaps it's in Debian. But I'm surprised if it were in Debian, but not in Ubuntu...

Re:Not in Debian...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is on ubuntu, you need to enable the multiverse repo. http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/uqm

Re:Not in Debian...

[CronoCloud]

It wants to install an "autodownloader.noarch" package on Fedora. I take it the data files are not in the repos? Be nice to know how big they are...ah looks like about 150MB total.

Re:Not in Debian...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheers. But what "copyright or legal issues" prevents it from being in universe? Bizarre.

Awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

Starcon2 was epic way back in the day.

*Nerd* *Punk*

Have any modern resurrections been very good?

[jollyreaper]

The closest I can think of is Civilization Revolutions. It's streamlined for console play, hardcore fans will probably call it kiddified, but I think that they really cut to the heart of the game without larding it up with too much cruft.

Beloved game sequels usually fall into two categories:
1) True fans who love the game and want to make their mark but end up cluttering the clean and elegant design of the original with entirely too much crap that bogs things down. See Master of Orion 2 to Master of Orion 1, later Civilization games on PC, etc.
2) Franchises purchased for IP name recognition but fundamentally different games are built, equivalent to when studios buy a stand-alone script and beat on it until it can become yet another sequel. Max Payne 3 was an entirely different game that they then stuck the Max logo on, sharing none of the original's atmosphere, play mechanics, or fun.

I can at least respect the true fans even if their efforts turn out like caked shit on the hairy ass of gamedom. I heard the new X-Com kind of straddled the line by being made by true fans who also tried to shift the genre and failed.

Re:Have any modern resurrections been very good?

[Nemyst]

I don't know in what world you live in but most people agree that Civilization IV is the best Civ around, with some going as far as saying that V is even better with the expansions. Beloved game sequels fall into all sorts of categories, it's the fans which fall in a select few, one of which is the nostalgia-goggled fan who'll never ever accept that a sequel or reboot can actually be better than the original. The new XCOM is also a game that most people will say keeps the spirit of the original while managing to find its own style and doing so with excellent results.

Re:Have any modern resurrections been very good?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pirates Gold.

Re:Have any modern resurrections been very good?

[WuphonsReach]

MOO2 was a far better game then MOO1. The big issues with it was that late-game tech made the galaxy distances meaningless, late-game battles were tedious, and the AI was rudimentary and easy to trick/defeat. Combat, however, was far more balanced in MOO2 over MOO1 and you didn't have to build stacks of 65k ships in order to win.

CIV4 was mostly an improvement over CIV3, but CIV5 goofed it up because the developers threw out all of the lessons of Civ3 and Civ4. Hexes were a great idea. Limiting the stacks of doom was a great idea. 1UPT (one unit per tile) combined with hexes that were 2x-3x too large for that purpose was garbage and resulted in constant micro-management in order to keep your forces from tripping over their own feet.

Re:Have any modern resurrections been very good?

[Hatta]

X-Com succeeded brilliantly.

Re:Have any modern resurrections been very good?

[buswolley]

Space Empires IV is better than these IMHO

Re:Have any modern resurrections been very good?

[TangoMargarine]

Civ V has hexes. Heresy!

Also, no more Stacks of Doom :(

Re:Have any modern resurrections been very good?

[CronoCloud]

but I think that they really cut to the heart of the game without larding it up with too much cruft.

If you've ever read "The Princess Bride" you'll recognize the following reference. I call Civ: Rev, the "Good Parts" version of Civilization. All the fun without the tedium.

Re:Have any modern resurrections been very good?

[Anonymous Coward]

X-Com succeeded brilliantly.

I don't deny its popularity but X-Com was horribly, horribly dumbed down. (Getting new abilities by leveling up? Seriously?) Played it through once and left it to gather dust on the shelf.

Re:Have any modern resurrections been very good?

[Anonymous Coward]

True. On the plus side though, people love the game not for the gameplay (which is pretty basic and dull at this point) but for the story and dialogue. It's analogous to Planscape or Mass Effect instead of say Super Mario Bros or Sonic.

Impressed I am to see such a following

[ackthpt]

I have the Amiga game in a desk drawer, which I tried playing a couple times, but found it far more time consuming than I was willing to commit to. No idea how involved it is, but it did look like a serious time sink, after reading the manual and wondered how such a game would fare. Perhaps I should dig it out and have another look at it.

I was more interested in a freebie little c compiled game called Conquest, which had something like 20 stars, each with between 0 and 2 possible planets, which could be played in about an hour per session. Variations on that game included one where AI included certain personalities - Dwarf, which tended to colonize slowly but built heavy defences, something else which was aggressive as heck, but didn't defend itself much at all and at least one other which tended to throw a lot of resources at developing highest tech weaponry and starcraft.

I'm more of a casual gamer now and tend toward games I can play in less than 2 hours, but have had a soft spot for the old Trade and Conquest type games (such as Elite) since I played something on a mainframe in college.

Re:Impressed I am to see such a following

[Greyfox]

I played a game called Conquest on a DEC Vax running VMS, but it was written in fortran. I believe you can still find the code for it and someone might even be running a server for it out there on the Internet. It didn't have an AI but resembled a terminal-graphics version of xtrek. You'd fly around, blow up opponent team ships, bomb and colonize their planets.

Now Xtrek was really where it was at for all that. There was definitely something to be said for 20-30 players wrestling for control of the universe over the course of 2-3 hours or so.

Re:Impressed I am to see such a following

[Anonymous Coward]

that's nice. so is slashdot now your personal blog?
on the other hand, it might actually be an improvement with the way things are going...

Re:Impressed I am to see such a following

[hubie]

I played that on a VAX back in 1984. It was fun, but I never played it enough to build up a strong enough ship. Those sysadmin bastards (who were usually CS majors sitting at the terminal for their work/study job) would love to swoop in and pick off the newbies.

Re:Impressed I am to see such a following

[Anonymous Coward]

So wait, SC2 is too time consuming, but you played ELITE!? Are you legally insane?

Re:Impressed I am to see such a following

[Anonymous Coward]

I think people care more about Star Control 2 given that that had a story, problem solving, meeting aliens, and a large galaxy to explore.

The original Star Control is an okay battle sim I guess.

Ridiculous

[loonycyborg]

The very fact that Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III 'lost control' over their creation shows that copyright/trademark law is bullshit. There's no rational reason to prevent them from continuing their own game. It's preposterous that some other guys will only 'ask for input' from them. It's also nonsensical that a game not made by them can be called Star Control 3. It only leads to consumer confusion.

Re:Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't they hand over the IP to Crystal Dynamics who in turn got bought up by Interplay?

IP law is BS but then again handing over your creation to somebody else, probably not the best

Re:Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

The very fact that Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III 'lost control' over their creation shows that copyright/trademark law is bullshit. There's no rational reason to prevent them from continuing their own game. It's preposterous that some other guys will only 'ask for input' from them. It's also nonsensical that a game not made by them can be called Star Control 3. It only leads to consumer confusion.

LOL. Meanwhile, back in the real world, game developers need to eat. It's perfectly reasonable to sell off your rights if you need the money and preventing that abridges the freedom of contract the libertarian contingent here is so fond of.

Re:Ridiculous

[loonycyborg]

'handing over your creation' is only made possible by the law in the first place.

Re:Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they should be able to sign away the rights to their creation for a shitload of money, and then continue making derivative works after being paid for voluntarily giving up their exclusive rights to do so!

Idiot.

Re:Ridiculous

[Rakishi]

Yeah, I'd sure hate to be able to make money from my creations. What an awful system. How dare someone even think of giving me money for my hard earned work.

Re:Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should someone be disallowed from handing over something they own?

Re:Ridiculous

[firex726]

Also I assume they were compensated for it, so should people and organizations not be allowed to trade their work for money?

I have X, and want Y.
You have Y, and want X.
Let's trade...

Re:Ridiculous

[Culture20]

No, they sold the trademark and licensed the right to distribute the binaries, but P&F retained all ownership of the IP, art, stories, code, etc. That's why http://uqm.sf.net/ exists.

Re:Ridiculous

[Culture20]

DOH! that should be http://sc2.sf.net/


"It's been 1 minute since you last successfully posted a comment" I know, I'm posting a correction.

Re:Ridiculous

[loonycyborg]

How making money requires allowing other people to limit sequels and what not that you do?

Re:Ridiculous

[loonycyborg]

No. It's circular argument. You can't justify intellectual propertly by presupposing its existance. If it doesn't exist then they don't own anything.

Re:Ridiculous

[Rakishi]

How making money requires allowing other people to limit sequels and what not that you do?

That's up to me to choose based on how much money they offer me, now isn't it? Why should I not be allowed to sell my right to make sequels and what I can do with my creations?

Re:Ridiculous

[loonycyborg]

Because it doesn't make sense? In practice it only leads to cases like Star Control 3. What's the advantage of allowing large corporations to make such cash-ins employing unrelated dev teams? It only leads to consumer confusion. If there's no advantage for society at large it shouldn't be allowed.

To Begin Soon?

[CastrTroy]

Development To Begin Soon On New Star Control Game

Really? We're getting announcements before games are even started development now? Seems a little early to get everyone all excited about a product that hasn't even started development yet. Let m know when the product has a solid release date.

Re:To Begin Soon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well excuse us, your majesty. I didn't know there needed to be a full report with costings and work breakdown structures prepared by a project manager before anyone dare interrupt whatever the fuck it was you were doing.

Since the schedule and manner in which you personally are notified is so important, maybe we can drum up some support here to get you put on the steering committee. At least then your demands won't sound childish and petulant.

Liked SC1 better than SC2

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

I might be the minority, but I loved SC1...not so much SC2. The advantage of SC1 was that you could whoop on your friends for hours in 2D combat...or play a QUICK strategy game. By the time SC2 rolled around I was in high school...and just didn't want to invest in an RPG slog to build up my fleet.

Personally, I'm hoping they make the core like a space battle version of Super Smash Brothers with a little solo-play piece grafted on to allow you to unlock more ships. I'm also hoping that some kind of "can play in under an hour" PvP strategy game comes back.

Re:Liked SC1 better than SC2

[Anonymous Coward]

Star Control 2 came with the Super Melee option, which is pretty much what you are describing. It was just combat with pre-built fleets and no unlocking was required and no questing. It was pure combat, either against the AI or another human. The open source version has a network play option.

Re:Liked SC1 better than SC2

[Anonymous Coward]

It kinda lessens your credibility when it sounds like you never even found the melee-combat-only exe version of the game. I found SC2's combat far more fun because of the expanded roster of ships, and the strategy game of SC1 was as bone-dry as SC2's space-mining-and-exploration bits were to me.

Re:Liked SC1 better than SC2

[Cyrano de Maniac]

While overall I liked SC2 better than SC1, I too missed the strategy game aspect of SC1, for much the same reason -- it was a quick strategy game instead of a long RPG-like adventure. SC2's humor was spot-on, so that was a huge bonus.

I remember not having a code-wheel to use to start up SC1, but my college roommates and I knew that "PARTY" was one of the answers to the startup challenge screen, so whenever we'd want to play it was "cd \games\starcon", "starcon", followed by repetitions of "party", "party", "party", then F3, until the game let us in.

Also, the SC1 music emitted by the old Radio Shack "Game Blaster" was better than that from the Sound Blaster that I replaced it with -- I can still feel the melee music in my bones 23 years later.

Re:Liked SC1 better than SC2

[AdamThor]

I'm with you, bub!

Re:Liked SC1 better than SC2

[Anonymous Coward]

SC1 only had music on the title screen and the little ship spec/victory ditties. There was no music in melee. I'd say you were thinking of SC2, but then that didn't support Game Blaster as all of its music was MOD based.

SC2 Super Melee Wasn't Strategic

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> Star Control 2 came with the Super Melee option, which is pretty much what you are describing

Not really. SC1 came with a couple of different strategic scenarios built around a dozen or two stars. You'd move and use your fleets to secure star systems which offered benefits like extra citizens or mining. There was strategy in securing the right stars, using diversionary feints, building the right sets of ships to counter the enemy, etc.

When SC2 came out and replaced that part of the game with a grinding, probe-driving RPG (yippee, MORE aluminum)...I pretty much lost interest.

Re:SC2 Super Melee Wasn't Strategic

[Anonymous Coward]

In SC2 you didn't really need to do much mining. In fact, you could get almost all the resources you needed by engaging in a few fights early on and selling stuff you found. There was very little grind in the game.

Re:SC2 Super Melee Wasn't Strategic

[lpp]

xxxJonBoyxxx is describing the multiplayer aspect of SC1. You are describing the single player campaign. In the multiplayer aspect of SC1 there was the option to have a strategic element where you had star systems tied by star lanes. You secured star systems as choke points and for resources and when enemy fleets moved in there was combat which was like a single ship Super Melee mini-game between the two players. Something akin to Archon. There is nothing like that additional strategic layer in the SC2 multiplayer mode, though since we do have UQM I would love-love-love to see it added. :)

Oh we already knew about this

[NotSoHeavyD3]

I mean the younger people here might not have heard of this one but John Fogerty effectively got sued in the 80's because he sounded too much like himself. (No, I'm not making that up.)

Re:Oh we already knew about this

[UnknowingFool]

Fogerty v Fantasy did become significant in that it went to the Supreme Court. Being the prevailing party, Fogerty sought to have attorney's fees which the district court denied. The district court said that Fogerty as the defendant had to prove bad faith or frivolousness in order to get attorney's fees. The appeals courts agreed. SCOTUS reversed the lower courts noting it was a double standard in that if Fogerty was the prevailing plaintiff, he would have gotten attorney's fees. SCOTUS ruled that district courts still have discretion to award attorney's fees, but that the language of the statute did not treat plaintiffs differently than defendants.

Re:Ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

Stardock had to spend "vital time" leading up to Elemental's release "attempting to re-create" the marketing materials, "rather than programming, debugging, and otherwise readying Elemental for release."

That's the part I had trouble with, the most. I'm not saying Wardell's harassment or asshollery are any better, but that statement sounds like they're saying that programmers were tied up doing marketing. Programmers are not marketers. There are some programmers out there that also double as great PR people at conferences, etc but you can't expect a team of programmers to crank out a marketing campaign. That's not their job, it's not what they're trained to do, and their work will be slap-dash at best.

It also seems weird that they 'noticed' this years after the fact. I'd be interested in knowing the statute of limitations on such litigation(though, I wouldn't be surprised if it's 3-5 years...well over the 1-2 years in question).

I have to say, I like Sins of a Solar Empire, but learning this about Stardock makes me rethink supporting them.

Toys for Bob also did

[miller701]

the first two Skylanders games so I hope they made some bucks from that. Very clever idea with Skylanders- the character's levels are stored in the character, which also makes them cross platform.

Re:Toys for Bob also did

[CronoCloud]

what? You mean if a person levels their thingy on the PS3 and then takes their Flaming Dragon of Cuteness to someone who has the Wii version and puts it on their portal thingy, the Skylander still has it's levels?

That's nice, didn't know that. I figured the stats were stored on the regular game save and that the toy was just there to unlock the creature in the game.

I hate Stardock's writing.

[Sowelu]

The terrible 'sense of humor' they brought to GalCiv2's tech descriptions made it impossible for me to take that game seriously. I think they underestimated the importance of tech descriptions in, say, Civ IV.

Then again, I doubt they had dedicated writers at that point, or focused on that aspect at all...but that was a mistake. They had damn well better get it right for a Star Control game.

Holding out hope.

Re:I hate Stardock's writing.

[Sowelu]

(Specifically, Alpha Centauri's tech descriptions absolutely sold its setting.)

Re:I hate Stardock's writing.

[TangoMargarine]

From what I've seen of Civ IV's tech descriptions, they came off as rather pompous. All rambling about the destiny of the human race and stuff...read by Leonard Nimoy. Ack!

There's something to be said for just getting gunpowder and curb-stomping the AI instead of meditating on Hinduism.

Re:I hate Stardock's writing.

[firex726]

Same, for such games you do need to keep things like the descriptions rather serious, if the rest of the game is.

It's jarring when the game and campaign is designed as some space opera, but the tech tree is like something from KSP. The audio clips from AC were just golden and were great for making it seems like you were part of a functional world; like in real life, faction leaders will make PR comments about new technology or repeat famous quotes.

Star Flight 1 & 2

[LongearedBat]

I would really like to see Starflight (and Starflight 2) resurrected as well.

The various aliens and the story provided perspectives of human issues/problems with humorous ways. But they were fun! And they were inspirations for the Star Control games.

Please, pretty please, perhaps after they've revamped Star Control, could they revamp Starflight? Pleeease!

Re:Star Flight 1 & 2

[Sowelu]

Yes! Those were my favorite games growing up (aside from Zork). I'd love that.

Just...just as long as they make flux nexuses less of an exercise in confused terror.

Re:Star Flight 1 & 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Starflight was one of my all time favorite games. If you haven't played it, give the original Mass Effect a look. While no substitute, it shares more than a few similarities to the spirt of Starflight (and is an astounding game on its own.)

Re:Star Flight 1 & 2

[mark-t]

Ditto on the Starflight recommend. SF 1 had an amazingly detailed story that required some real-life skills with regards to problem solving and knowing how to take good notes from a conversation that isn't going to get recorded, with a climactic plot revelation that honestly made me gasp in total awe right where i was sitting when I discovered it shortly before the end of the game. I

Starflight 2 was equally compelling in terms of story, and shared many of Starflight 1's strengths, it's biggest flaw was in the endgame, which, in retrospect, felt more like a final boss fight than a carefully calculated set of actions chosen by the player to produce the intended conclusion. After the fight, the game was just over, with nothing more to do. The biggest "oh my god" moment (at least for me) in that game actually came as expository text after that battle, so I felt more disappointed with that game than the first. Overall still an excellent game though, and I would sorely love to see a continuation of the series that was true to the spirit of the originals, and especially had as much continuity with them as SF2 did with SF1.

Re:Star Flight 1 & 2

[pthisis]

I wouldn't even say they were "inspirations". Star Control 2 was a spirtual successor to Starflight, except for some cool arcade combat added in--aside from that, the game is mechanically pretty similar with the same kind of intergalactic maps, system maps, planet exploration, etc.

They're close enough that I'd almost say SC2 is a rip-off of Starflight, except that Paul Reiche was one of the lead designers on both and I'm not sure you can rip off yourself. But it's a much closer relationship than just "inspired by".

Reiche also the primary guy responsible for Archon (which is in some ways an inspiration for the combat arena part of Star Control 2, though very much more a loose inspiration than an obvious predecessor) and was one of the early TSR Dungeons and Dragons guys.

Re:Star Flight 1 & 2

[bored_engineer]

Ah, how many untold lost hours I spent on those two games. I filled notebooks with information about areas to avoid, resources, et c. I was a little more fond of the first than the second, but both were great.

Alas, though, I don't have the time to spend on these any more. I wonder how many people of an age to remember the games still enjoy gaming? I've bought Humble Bundles three times, intending to have a little fun, but still haven't even bother to install anything I bought. These days, I might spend a few minutes on Slashdot, but my kids, wife, work and chores all conspire to fill my waking hours.

Re:Star Flight 1 & 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah SF2, I can remember the great feelings I had when I found vital clues and when I was finishing the game...

But then I got the game from GOG, played it for 10 minutes and had my land rover ran out of fuel just short of getting back to the ship, then half of my crew died trying to walk back to the ship, and I remembered the game don't allow restores to previous saves...

Then I remembered all the pain with backing up the disk all the time just so I won't have to start from the beginning again if I made a mistake...

Then I deleted the game and no longer remember SF2 with nostalgia.

Re:Star Flight 1 & 2

[LongearedBat]

Archon... another one of my ol' favourites! :)

Re:Star Flight 1 & 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Toys for Bob also made a game for the PlayStation called Unholy War. It was sort of like an updated Archon.

FUCK

[Anonymous Coward]

YES! That is all I have to say about this. SC2 is still one of my favourites.

Not a good match

[Anonymous Coward]

Stardock makes soulless games, quite the opposite of Star Control 1&2. I know they're popular with some, but I haven't developed any fondness for them. This is not a good match IMHO.

Old Doesn't Mean Good

[Toad-san]

I'm sorry, but I've NEVER found a "resurrected" game that was any fun to play, no matter how much fun the first versions were Way Back When. DOOM was great .. but I wouldn't play it now, no matter HOW much it was updated, ported, massaged to take advantage of the new hardware and memory and speeds and video available. I don't see much better coming out of this endeavor (especially since I never heard of Star Control).

Re:Old Doesn't Mean Good

[an0nemus]

That's because games like Doom are pretty devoid of real game play. Put a new coat of paint on there and that's all you need. Strategy games are a different beast.

Re:Old Doesn't Mean Good

[Anonymous Coward]

If you haven't played the Star Control games, minus SC3, then you have sorely missed out. They are two of the best games ever made.

Re:Old Doesn't Mean Good

[CronoCloud]

I'm sorry, but I've NEVER found a "resurrected" game that was any fun to play, no matter how much fun the first versions were Way Back When.

Not even the new XCOM? (the turn based one, Enemy Unknown, not the shooter one)

(especially since I never heard of Star Control).

What? I'm a console gamer and even I have heard of Star Control, course there was the 3D0 port of SCII that Ur-Quan Masters is based on.

Re:Old Doesn't Mean Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Once I year, I replay Star Control 2 in the form of The Ur-Quan Masters. It may not appeal to you, but it certainly appeals to me. Take a whole different game, Bionic Commando on the Nintendo, I loved that game to death as a kid, and I certainly loved the remake that was Bionic Commando Rearmed. Just the same, once in a while, I'll replay Doom and I enjoy being able to do so in higher resolution and with a mouse.

Saying that "old doesn't mean good" doesn't mean anything. It's like saying that an "old-fashion cake doesn't mean a good cake". You're talking about a subjective topic, one of taste. You never heard of it, and it's a shame, but maybe it wouldn't be your type of game(and that is fine), but since you haven't played it, you don't even know if it was a good game to begin with, and you're trying to make an argument that a new version may be pointless. Basically, you're saying absolutely nothing positive about something you have no knowledge of, and saying that a new version of what you didn't knew existed will probably be as bad. Really?

Star Control 2 shines in the dialog department. You encounter a rich universe of weird and funny aliens. The Spathi, a race so focused on being cowardly and their own survival that they have a ship where the sole torpedo launcher is situated behind the ship for helping them escape. I remember reading Ring World, and wondering if the inspiration for the Spathi came from the Puppeteers.

"Attention big, mean, hostile alien vessel hovering overhead in an obvious attack posture: This is Spathi Captain Fwiffo. I know you are going to torture me, so let's just get this over with right now. The coordinates of my homeworld, Spathiwa, are 241.6 : 368.7 and the ultra-secret Spathi Cypher, which is known only by me and several billion other Spathi is `Huffi-Muffi-Guffi'"

The universe of Star Control 2 reminds me of Mass Effect. You have such a variety of aliens, so different from each other, and it's fun to learn about them. The gameplay is really old school, and it could be fun to see what they would do with a new Star Control game. Currently the game play as more of a rock paper scissor dynamic. You pick a bunch of different ship, and you try to counter the CPU or other player by picking the right ship for the job. Destroying an Ur-Quan ship with an Earthling ship? Doable, but it usually ends in disaster for the Earthling ship.

The game can be freely downloaded from: http://sc2.sourceforge.net/ . There is also an HD version that is still in alpha last I checked. For those thinking of playing it, be ready to have a notepad with a pencil. You'll want to start taking notes of star systems coordinate!

Re:Old Doesn't Mean Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding me? The Earthling Cruiser is death to an Ur-Quan vessel unless you start off close to each other. Gravity whips keep you away, point defense take out any autonomous fighters and long range, guided nukes pound the Dreadnought from afar.

I can beat any ship using any other ship, including taking out a Chmmr Avatar with a Pkunk Fury. It's not rock-paper-scissors, it's knowing how to play the game. For me, that's why I can still play melee mode 20 years later. The game is ingenious in its seeming simplicity layered over complex underpinnings. It's like Weiqi; easy to pick up, difficult to master.

Re:Old Doesn't Mean Good

[pthisis]

And they are basically Starflight "resurrected".

Re:Old Doesn't Mean Good

[VortexCortex]

DOOM was great .. but I wouldn't play it now, no matter HOW much it was updated, ported, massaged to take advantage of the new hardware and memory and speeds

What if it got a scripting language which allowed mods to do all kinds of cool stuff like class based FPS with RTS components against hordes of enemies, with base upgrading and defensive purchasing, deployable turrets and ammo-dispensers. Or a Combat + Mech variant. Tons of mods that keep the classic look of the game, but focus on gameplay, with new weapons and smarter enemies, etc. Doom is an engine with a few official map-packs for it. The gameplay is so varied now saying that you won't play Doom nowadays means nothing. I mean, they have a Clue clone and Monopoly, even a side scroller platforming game built atop the engine. That's like saying, I won't play Unreal Engine Games because Unreal sucks now, ignoring all the various non-FPS games built with the engine with new gameplay, new graphics, new control schemes, etc. I mean, really, base building and upgrade your Mech in Doom? I could say the same for Quake. These games have been "resurrected" with multiple Total Conversions -- complete new set of graphics and audio and gameplay. You're going to write off arguably one of the biggest free sources of user generated content? Your loss, you clearly don't know what you're talking about.

Considering that TFA is about a new game, you're basically saying: I wouldn't play any new FPS games because I've played Doom already. You sound like an idiot.

Re:Old Doesn't Mean Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you want to know how I know that you haven't played both games? I have and they only have a superficial similarity. The games are quite different from one another.

SC 3...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think most people I talk to agree that as far as gameplay goes, SC 3 wasn't fundamentally so bad. The issue was that the writing was so blatantly distinct from SC2. I was hoping for a solid, coherent continuation of the SC2 story addressing much of the open ended mysteries of SC2 (the arilou, orz, rainbow worlds, precursors, mark ii were notable examples of story elements in SC2 that SC3 provided 'an' answer for that just didn't satisfy). SC2 demonstrated that, within the game, a lot of things got set up and subsequently provided a nice answer, so I had some hope that SC3 would do it for the open questions.

Already disappointed

[duke_cheetah2003]

They'll be using Star Control 2 as a template and an inspiration for all aspects of the game, though they won't be using any of the IP from Star Control I & II.

Sorry, it just won't be Star Control without the Arilou, Yehat and Pkunk. No original IP means it's just not going to be Star Control. Just a totally new game hijacking the original name.

Re:Already disappointed

[Kelbear]

Part of what made Star Control 2 so special was the sense of discovery. I loved what was in SC2, but I don't want them to slavishly recreate the game (I can replay Ur-quan masters when I want that.)

I wouldn't mind if none of the old races made an appearance so long as they swing for the fences on making creative new races.

the IP from Star Control I & II

[Culture20]

they won't be using any of the IP from Star Control I & II

Then it's going to suck. *frumple*

Which they ruined with 5....

[Anonymous Coward]

And never bothered to come back to, now what, 10 years later?

An SC4+StarFury game could've been a particularly awesome game combo. (Well aware that StarFury was the basis of the SC5 assets however.)

I played the heck out of SC2, then SC3 (which I managed to get as a birthday present when I was little), then SC4, then played SC5, but between the abysmal performance (Even my 2008 era laptop couldn't handle SC5, while even my pentium ii era desktop/laptop could handle SC4), the design choices for SC5 (lack of a grid based system/tactical map, real-time vs turn based (same as Cyberstorm 2 in fact), and lack of certain mod customization features (inability to create warp-capable fighters for emulating certain other space games. Notably the Wing Commander series.) I bought SC5, but haven't even put 3 hours into it.

A good target for mobile platforms?

[Jon Abbott]

From the Ars Technica article it looks like they are targeting PCs, Macs and console platforms for the new release of Star Control. To me it seems like mobile platforms would also be well suited for this game, as it shouldn't need the latest and greatest graphics capabilities. When SC2 was released, it could actually run on an underpowered 286, even though 486s were popular at the time. At the time that seemed to help its popularity, as pretty much anyone with a PC could play it.

If you didn't like SC2....

[yorgasor]

If you didn't like the game, you clearly don't have a sense of humor. Here, watch these Monty Python vids and then come back and play the game again. It really will help.

Stardock isn't the studio behind Sins

[cjp]

They're the publisher. Ironclad games is the publisher.

Still, exciting!

Re:Stardock isn't the studio behind Sins

[Spathtastic]

Well to be fair, Stardock did write the expansions including Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.

Meh

[Urkki]

While SC2 played back at its own era was one of the best games ever (I think I shed tears when that red glow got removed from around the Earth), by today's standard it's just too tedious. I tried playing UQM a while back and, well... Tedious, almost boring. It's a game from a more civilized era, let it stay there. A modern remake is just going to rape the memory, insult old fans and still leave new players wondering what's so great about it.

90's games are still the best

[mikedrak]

In spite of all these recent games with real life-like looking graphics, i'd still prefer to play 80's and 90's classics!