Master of Orion release date slips

The link does not appear to work but my local store told me the same thing the new date of Dec 28.

This does not sound good. The slips of a product this close to release date sounds too much like a major bug problem.

I can't get to the link you provided, perhaps because I don't subscribe to gamespot news. I tried shortening the address and got a logon for members.

Also, I checked the "official site" for MOO3 and it still says their ship date is 12/4/2002. If this slip is true they have yet to post it on their own web site.

The following is from Rantz Hoseley about MOO3 release date. Taken from http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=367970d29ef6c7bf2cf2f77ded5a2a12&threadid=68677&perpage=20&pagenumber=2


To comment briefly.

I was as surprised as anyone when we didn't go gold on Friday. We had accepted that was pretty much a set deal and while there were a couple of lingering bugs, they were smallish ones, and ones that everyone felt we could ship with. You never want to ship with bugs, but the practical realities of the market tend to interject.

IG has done something I have honestly never seen, that is, delay release of a game, just because it could benefit from extra time to bug and double and triple check balance issues.

Conspiracists of course, love this because they can say 'aha! see! It's not ever coming out!' But I will tell you honestly that you could not be more wrong. The game is VERY playable and a lot of fun (both team members, and external players are losing sleep over playing it. Not because of bugs, but because it's FUN!)

There is NOTHING in the world we want more than to get the game into your hands, and like kids trying to keep a secret at christmas, it KILLS to not be able to hand it out yet, but at the same time, being able to take it 'up a notch' when we're already getting very positive feedback, says volumes about IG's commitment to this game. An unheard of thing, in this day and age


__________________
Rantz Hoseley
Art Director
Quicksilver Software, Inc.


*****-and the following is from Constantine, another MOO3 developer-*****

So from now on, not a peep about dates or gold status from me on these boards and we're going to firmly stand by this. When it goes gold, we'll let you know. Until then, we test, hone, balance and squash bugs.

Best,
Constantine

Constantine is actually with IG. He's in publishing, not developing.

I wanted it for christman though. Oh well. I have a feeling that while this game will be fun, it won't be MOO.

He is the link that should work

http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/news/0&2c;10870&2c;2899130&2c;00.html

not working (

Last try for a good link )

http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/news/0%2c10870%2c2899130%2c00.html

Success.

This is going to sound pretty weird, but I think Galciv(or something) has these guys spooked. Missing the christmas season is unheard of, and it has the feel of someone who saw something that made them think, 'We can't do a half job on this if this is our competition!'

As long as there is a couple months between MOO3 shipping and Galciv shipping it'll be ok. But definitely not at the same time!

As a gamer I'm happy to wait as the more time they have, the better the game will hpoefully be.

Of course, as a developer, can you imagine what GalCiv would be like if we had 3+ years to create it instead of 1+ years?

Speaking of which, when/if you guys come out with GalCiv 2, is it going to be a completely seperate game or just this game with so many more features/goodies that it qualifies as number 2?
That would be cool if you guys just kept adding on to this game up to GalCiv 7! By then I'm sure it would be the ULTIMATE space exploration game!

Nothing has these guys "spooked" other than the fact that they discovered some major bugs just before their expected gold date. Namely, some more MP crash bugs (and they insist on MP working right out of the box - blame the CivIII PTW fiasco) and a savegame corruption bug in the late game.

Never mind that the project manager in me is going "how the *hell* do you miss a save corruption bug until *now*?"

They've still got the Dec 4th date on their site. While we know that's crap, the latest "prediction" is the week before XMas. Chantz and Rantz have both said that they see the XMas season as something they can't afford to miss.

I'd like to have it by Christmas but January is good too.

As for future GalCiv's, they will created like we do applications where we keep buiding onto the code base. But that said, each new version will be significantly different. I.e. there will be a bunch of GalCiv 1.x's with a lot of new features but then GalCiv II would have a ton of new features not seen previously.

Of course, a lot depends on how GalCiv 1 does!

"But that said, each new version will be significantly different. I.e. there will be a bunch of GalCiv 1.x's with a lot of new features but then GalCiv II would have a ton of new features not seen previously"

Good to hear. I hope in Galciv II you will improve space combat
a fast further wish list if you allow:

- a real well designed trading system. I miss extensive trading rules in almost every empire building game, except Imperialism I and II. (anyone played these games?) I would love to have a lot of trading vessels crusing around (AI controlled maybe) and a lot of different trading contacts and trading sources.

- invading races from outer space

- nomads in space with moving asteroid cities (ok this was a joke :))

- building up the galaxy with several layers. eg like piling up boxes. Every box is a sector. You can go 2D to one of the 8 surrounding sectors. Or you can change your level and go to the sector above or directly below. Maybe going up and down a sector is just with a special "dimensional drive" technology.

- making the galaxy even bigger for an nearly everlasting game, but at the same time introduce an algorithm which connects galaxy size with technology costs. (bigger galaxy - more techcost)

- ability to design ships. How? Maybe in this way:
the technology just defines the max. attack/ defense/ Hitpoints /move value a ship in your empire can have. You can give everytime the max. Value to your new ship design. But the nearer you are at the max. ability number of your empire, the more credits the single ship will cost.
Eg: your current ability limits because of technology, race bonus etc. of your empire are 10 Attack, 6 Defense, 5 Hitpoints and 3 Movepoints. Of course you can design a cruiser blueprint which has 10 attack, 6 defense, 5 Hitpoints and 3 MPs and thus use the max. abilities of your empire. But if you do this, the ship will be cost much more, than if you design the follwing ship: 9 Attack, 5 Defense, 4 Hitpoints and 2 Move. The additional cost curve should be NOT linear it should be exponential. Designing ships which are very under your empire ability should be vice versa VERY cheap. Again an exponential cost curve should be valid for low level ships. The clou with this is that it gives the player a certain kind of "minituarization" and the option to produce either very expensive high tech ships or cheap but low level second class cruisers. Just an idea.

bye
KlausD

Klaus1416 said "- building up the galaxy with several layers."

But galaxies tend to be flattened out by their spin. I doubt the milky way is any more thick than 1/100th of its diameter.

Oh I think this is not really the problem. I did not suggest a simulation of the galaxy. All I suggested was to enrich the strategic movement options of a player by adding a layer. If you like it I can say that the layers present different dimensions or that one square of the galaxy represent just a cube of one lightyear. (a sector would then be a box of several lightyears in size) If the milky way is just 800 lightyears thick, then you could pile up 800 levels or sector boxes in the galaxies center (if you want...)

KlausD