Incline Remnants of the Precursors - Merry Christmas, bitches

[RayF]

Yeah, I was just checking if the names themselves were a potential point of contention: They obviously can't stop you from making lizard and dinosaur aliens.

Dunno. There are no trademarks for them. Wargaming did not complain when I engaged in a conversation over email about avoiding IP infringement.

You have to wonder.. when Atari went bankrupt and their IP assets were auctioned off, what exactly did Wargaming purchase? I mean specifically. You can't just buy an idea or a concept. There was obviously a legal transfer of ownership of various IP assets. What were those, specifically? Trademarks and patents are all searchable; we shouldn't have to guess. Copyrights are nebulous but require much more specificity.

 

[RayF]

I'd like to hear more about this line of reasoning.

Animals that the aliens are based off of are known to be scientifically possible. Silicoids? MOO3 races living in gas giants? Pure sci-fi fantasy.

Cats? Reptiles? Bears? Birds? Ants? Scientifically plausible.

Would the Mrrshan be biologically related to Earth cats? Of course not. But is it possible for furry cat-like predators to evolve on other worlds? Absolutely.

 

[Norfleet]

I have never met Bruce Geryk but he and I agree on a lot of things related to gaming. Animal aliens are better both from a scientific-realism perspective and a gaming perspective.

I'm not sure if it's all that scientifically realistic, but it definitely makes it easy to tell at a glance what you're dealing with.

It's another one of the accidental genius moments of MOO1.

Animal-men far predates MOO. Animal-men have been a thing since before writing was even invented, let alone computers.

 

[TigerKnee]

You can't copyright "Ant People" as a general concept, but couldn't you do it for specifically for "Ant People also using the name Klackons"?

Yes I know it's a moot point because the lawyers has already given it a pass but I'm just curious

 

[Norfleet]

You can't copyright "Ant People" as a general concept, but couldn't you do it for specifically for "Ant People also using the name Klackons"?

You could trademark Klackons, but apparently they did not, and it's just up for grabs.

 

[RayF]

Animal-men far predates MOO. Animal-men have been a thing since before writing was even invented, let alone computers.

True, but it's one thing for something smart to exist and another for people to use it.

What's the attributes of any of the weird races in MOO3? Give me some time and I can go look that up because it's all contrived. But what about the Mrrshan? Hmmm, fast reflexes so better at tactical combat. And they hate birds. Alkari? Better pilots because THEY ARE BIRDS. Sakkra? Oh they're lizards so they lay eggs. Fast growth rate. etc

Animal-based races exploit of our innate understanding of animals outside of MOO1 so they are easier to remember and relate to. That makes them feel more real. And once you get past the Sagan-esque "billions and billions" of worlds arguments and realize both that physics, chemistry and biology still work the same everywhere and that "cat-like" creatures have already independently evolved on Earth multiple times, then of course animal races make more sense.

 

[Nutria]

Animal-based races exploit of our innate understanding of animals outside of MOO1

So many games fail on this. Don't try to invent a brand new world and dump me into it with no knowledge of it. It's not going to be more interesting than reality, it's just gonna make me memorize the name of your kind of elf.

Even the Silicoids are obviously just from that really bad episode of Star Trek where they got Abraham Lincoln throwing spears or something and no doubt that was stolen from something earlier. I'm pretty sure that every idea in sci-fi was already printed in a magazine in the 1950s, and I wouldn't be surprised if half of them were already in the 1001 Nights a thousand years ago.

 

[RayF]

So many games fail on this. Don't try to invent a brand new world and dump me into it with no knowledge of it. It's not going to be more interesting than reality, it's just gonna make me memorize the name of your kind of elf.

Too many futuristic sci-fi games (i.e. space 4X games) fall into the trap of "wouldn't it be cool if..." and then proceed to equate infinite unpredictable diversity with depth and complexity. No, Paradox, having alien races be nothing but a randomly-generated set of attributes with a random alien image attached to it is not interesting. At all. It's just lipstick on an RNG pig.

Players need rivals to compete with and, in the absence of multiplayer capability, those rivals must be the AI empires. And to make them feel like true rivals, they need to be consistent and detailed, and the player needs to keep running into them game after game.

 

[RayF]

This guy likes the game. https://togameforlife.wordpress.com/2020/01/27/remnants-of-the-precursors/

 

[RayF]

Live stream in 2 hours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSqsoFnt1us

 

[RayF]

Here are mockups of the upcoming Galactic Council voting UI changes: https://old.reddit.com/r/rotp/comments/ewiba9/here_are_the_mockups_for_the_galactic_council/

 

[RayF]

This is the type of sabotage animation effect we want to create in the game: https://old.reddit.com/r/rotp/comments/excyp8/the_goal_for_the_sabotage_explosion_animations/

 

[Comte]

I started playing this. I like what I see so far. I noticed there is no art when you discover tech but I am guessing this will be added later. Also Sean Connery apparently is no longer running the science department. I am playing the humans.

 

[RayF]

I started playing this. I like what I see so far. I noticed there is no art when you discover tech but I am guessing this will be added later. Also Sean Connery apparently is no longer running the science department. I am playing the humans.

You are correct. The technology discovery artwork is not yet in the game as there have been higher priorities for the illustrator.

The human scientist is specifically modeled after planetary scientist Sara Seager, with her permission. Sean Connery was not available.

 

[Grotesque]

I hope the game gets finished

 

[RayF]

I hope the game gets finished

?

You don't need to hope. It's literally 99% finished now and available for download. For free. The feature-complete beta is about 2 months away, depending on how fast I get the last of the writing and UI updates back from the writer and the graphic designer. I've already invested over $40K into this project so I'm not just going to stop working on it.

 

[Nutria]

This isn't like the Archmage Rises guy who keeps expanding the scope of the project or Cleve Blakemoore where he takes 20 years to deliver. He's been making steady and consistent progress for years on a very specific plan and is getting near to finishing it now.

 

[RayF]

Yeah, but in fairness it has taken far longer than I expected. It was about 2 years into the project when I realized that, if I was really going to do this right, that I needed a professional graphic designer to redo all of the UIs. Fortunately the plans for the artwork were already so ambitious that doing that didn't really affect the deadline.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Hey Crispy Why hasn't this been moved to the new SPACE sub-forum? And good luck RayF during this final stretch!

 

[Crispy]

Hey Crispy Why hasn't this been moved to the new SPACE sub-forum?

Because MoO is more of a strategy game than it is a space game.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Hey Crispy Why hasn't this been moved to the new SPACE sub-forum?

Because MoO is more of a strategy game than it is a space game.

Tell that to Dark Underlord then, because:

 

[Norfleet]

And they hate birds.

Cats don't hate birds. Cats love birds, birds are delicious. Birds, on the other hand, are somewhat less fond of cats.

Cats should get a diplomacy bonus, though, on account of infecting you with a parasite that makes you like cats.

 

[RayF]

Cats don't hate birds. Cats love birds, birds are delicious. Birds, on the other hand, are somewhat less fond of cats.

Cats should get a diplomacy bonus, though, on account of infecting you with a parasite that makes you like cats.

At least for humans

 

[RayF]

Changes made since the last Alpha 5.18 release as I finish up work for the beta:

https://www.reddit.com/r/rotp/comments/f1x69t/update_current_change_log_since_alpha_518_for_the/

 

[RayF]

Public beta starts on Easter. Details here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/rotp/comments/f8hvqf/remnants_of_the_precursors_open_beta_scheduled/