Mr. Subversive's Master of Orion Q&A
posted at 6:40 PM on Wednesday, December 20th, 2000
| Publisher |
| Quicksilver Software |
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| Did You Know... |
| In MOO2 if you used a bio/chem weapon to devastate a colony, it incurred massive diplomatic penalties from the other races. On the other hand, you could bombard a colony into the stone age from orbit with conventional weapons and not even get a slap on the wrist. |
A week ago I was tooling around Blue's
News when I noticed a small news post about Quicksilver Software's
progress on Master of Orion 3, or
MOO3 as it's known to the fans. Instantly this had my full attention. You
see, MOO is one of the great SF game series of our age. I rank
it up there with Sid Meyer's Alpha Centauri in terms of playability and
enjoyment. The concept is simple enough: start with a planet, build up
wealth and technology, build up a fleet of starships, and crush your
opponents under your thumb. Working in a place like The Corporation, where
such thinking is generally discouraged with hot pokers, I'm sure you can
imagine how this appealed to my sense of escapism.
MOO2 first got me interested in the series, where you could develop such
tasty little tidbits as a Stellar Converter that let you destroy planets,
and was mounted on Death Star-like vessels powerful enough to crush your
opponents into goo. Granted, there were some problems with the game, like
how the Creative racial trait allowed a race to research the entire
technical advancement tree instead of just a third of it, and was the single
most unbalancing factor in the game. Or how ground combat basically
consisted of a few seconds of the tiny sprite army on one site killing the
tiny sprite army on the other side. Or how colonized planets never had more
then one city and populations that couldn't grow beyond a few dozen million.
But damn it, this series was fun, and its innovations can be found in some
notable games, the aforementioned Alpha Centauri being one. That's why I
was ecstatic when Will Fisher, president of Quicksilver, agreed to answer
some questions about the game. It wasn't easy to come up with anything that
hadn't been covered already. Their website and FAQ page are, in a word,
complete. However, after long grueling minutes of thought, and a few
letter bombs to Poppinfresh's house, I managed to come up with some
inquiries that didn't make Will put me in his mail filter.
Yet.
Thusly presented for your immediate consumption:
- - -
Mr. Subversive: If it would please the Court, tell me a little bit about yourself and
your team. There's a lot about this on the website, but we're always
interested in knowing more.
Will Fisher: I've been making games for nearly 20 years now. Started out writing
games on punch cards for the IBM 1130 in high school, back when
"color" meant that you got both red _and_ black ink on the typewriter
ribbon. Then I went to Mattel Electronics, where I co-developed three
Intellivision titles, hired the team for the Taiwan subsidiary, and
led the creation of all our IBM PC and Apple II games.
When Mattel Electronics folded in 1984, I got together with a couple of the other folks and started Quicksilver Software (originally
intended to be Blue Sky Software, after the "Blue Sky Rangers"
moniker given to us by TV Guide magazine, but that was already
taken). We've been working ever since to create games that stand out
from the crowd, and have a number now to our credit, including
Castles, Castles II, Conquest of the New World, Star Trek: Starfleet
Command, and lots more.
Sub: Now then, could you give a brief summary of the Master Of Orion series
for those in the ignorant louts that have never heard of it?
WF: MOO and MOO2 are classic "Space Empire Builder" games, part of the
larger class of games commonly known as "4X" games (a term invented
by our co-designer, Alan, which means "Explore, Expand, Exploit,
Exterminate"). In these games, you take control of the destiny of a
spacefaring race and seek to dominate the known galaxy through a
combination of politics, scientific research, trade, exploration,
and, of course, combat. Along the way, there are numerous levels of
technology to discover and highly customized spaceships to design.
Sub: How you intend MOO3 to improve upon that which has come before it?
WF: Our goal in MOO3 is to take strategy gaming to a new level in every
area, and then add a "fifth X" -- Experience -- to the traditional
four. The galaxy is bigger, and players can colonize not only the
planets but also their moons. There are radically new races with
gorgeous 3D art and a common back story to unite all of them with the
story line of the first two games. Planets are modeled in much
greater detail, and can be developed in highly player-specific ways,
so what's good for one is not at all good for another. Combat is now
real-time, though retaining the careful planning and strategizing
that is the hallmark of this series (it's not a simple click-fest).
Finally, there's the fifth X. There are people in this empire of
yours, from the Leader all the way down to the Planetary Viceroys on
every world and the commanders of every fleet. Each is a part of the
empire, but may also have various agendas or links to others that
affect the decision-making process along the way. These people are
the AIs of the empire, making decisions and recommending actions that
you can either accept or modify, at your discretion. Your empire is a
living thing, and you're the caretaker.
Sub: Getting into more specific questions now: in your FAQ, you describe
something called Focus Points, where your emperor has a limited number of
orders he can issue every turn. This is a fascinating idea, both because it
reduces the burden of oppressive micromanagement and it forces you to
economize on your activities. However, can you set general objectives for
your entire empire? I.E.: wartime economy, capitalistic economy, etc.
WF: This builds right on top of the last question. Imperial Focus points
are the means by which you exert influence in the empire. Your
minions take care of all of the basics for you. Your main purpose is
to set the high-level policies that will govern their actions, and
then watch over them to ensure that they're doing what you want.
Although the final list of policies isn't yet in place, we're
certainly moving along the lines you suggest, with various styles for
the economy, trade, military, and so on.
Sub: Now you've stated that space combat will occur real-time, with you
issuing orders prior to battle and then managing your forces as the fight
progresses. You've said that your ships will organize themselves into
fleets and taskforces, and that there will be two levels of viewing:
tactical, which represents fleets as single icons, and strategic. Can you
elaborate? Will it be possible to view every ship in the full battle *at
once*? Will this give my computer a blue screen of death? Will my simple
monkey brain overload on the attempt, leaving me a quivering mass of goo on
my chair? How detailed is the management of 1000+ ship battle?
WF: Everything in this game is designed around a "need-based"
orientation. What this means is that you don't simply pile together a
bunch of ships and call it a Task Force. Instead, you define a
mission, and build the Task Force to meet the demands of that
mission. For example, you might have a Bombardment Task Force or an
Interdiction Task Force.
Each Task Force's mission determines the types and numbers of ships
it should contain, and into which rings they should go (ships have
missions too, of course, and those help determine what components go
on the ship). Because it knows what it's designed to do, each Task
Force can operate relatively intelligently with only minimal input
from the player. This is a fairly sophisticated way of "giving
advance orders."
Before a battle begins, you have another level of control. You can
decide where your Task Forces will enter a system, and which targets
they will attack. Both players lay out their plans, and then the
battle begins. You'll manage the scene at two levels: a strategic
overview of an entire planetary system, and a closeup 3D view of a
single conflict. In order to keep things from getting too crazy, your
view at any given time is of one set of Task Forces fighting another
in a particular spot, though there may be several battles going on at
once in the system. And your control is at the level of the Task
Force, not the individual ship, so your thinking processes and your
actions are at a fairly high level. As I mentioned before, this isn't
a click-fest.
Sub: While we're talking about space battles, can you elaborate on planetary defenses a little? Will lunar and planetary defenses both be taken into account for a single fight?
WF: Yes. [You can pinpoint the exact moment Midget Mud Wrestling came on ESPN 9 at Mr. Fisher's house by the length of his answers- ed]
Sub: Furthermore, you've mentioned that reinforcements will have the potential to arrive in a battle. Does this mean solar system conflicts will be expanded upon? Will you be able to maneuver inside a solar system?
WF: A single conflict will occur within one planetary system, though reinforcements are able to arrive in that specific area during the battle. You won't deal with the entire solar system in a single real-time battle.
Sub: Are there defined borders? Will two non-warring races be able to have outpost/colonies in a system at the same time?
WF: Borders are fluid and defined by treaties and practical aspects of governance. You can certainly share planets in a system, or even moons of a planet, though of course you'd better get along. Alliances are encouraged, and are not simple "go/no go" affairs; there are several levels of cooperation (or warfare, for that matter).
Sub: Regarding ground combat: can planets be contested for a lengthened period of time? Will you be able to multitask between planetary and space operations? It always seemed to me that a planet shouldn't fall in a single strike. Fleet reinforcements should have the potential to arrive and support either side of the battle, or if that's not the case, there should actually be an effective fifth column/resistance on a conquered planet when the space marines come in to take it back.
WF: Planets can be contested for multiple turns. But planetary combat is not part of the real-time space combat, so it's not a problem for this to take a while. You'll get a progress report on each turn that tells you how the battle is going.
Sub: Well that's all for now, I suppose. Oh, and please tell Irene that I wish her good luck at Quicksilver.
WF: She's great, and we're very pleased to have her working with us.
And with that, he told me "this interview is over," punched me in the face, tied me up, and sold me to Ebay. On the brighter side, literal slavery should be a step up from working at The Corporation.
Keep an eye out for Master of Orion 3. Quicksilver is also working another project as well; Cosmic Encounter Online, a multiplayer war sim based around the board game. It's set for release next summer.
Join our Master of Orion yakity-yak thread, already in progress.
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