dear sid meier: i hate you but i love you

[rone]

My copy of Civilization IV Special Edition arrived today.  This should keep me busy during the time where i would normally be working...

Comments

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Chris Taylor (Total Annihilation) stands a decent chance of having his name on "Supreme Commander," a giant-scale RTS that'll come out next year. He and Sid Meier are the two big names in RTS, with the third runnerup being a boring company name, Westwood. You could throw Peter Molyneux into that group, but his name usually indicates you'll be playing God rather than playing the CinC (Taylor) or the ruler (Meier).

Also, it is, now, as acceptable as it ever was to have violent killing games, which is to say that a number of people hate it because violent killing shouldn't be fun, a number of people embrace it because killing is fun, and the rest of us just play the damn games cuz games are fun.

What's weird is that, 2 years ago gamers were cautiously creeping into Viet Nam games, treading carefully because loads of gamers were in Viet Nam or are related to people who were. WWII was safe and cozy. Now more gamers have landed on Normandy, over and over, than Allied soldiers did in WWII, and WWII has been declared over, for want of original gameplay. Of course, there are too many Japanese gamers and too little acknowledgement by Japan of what they were up to back then for the Pacific Campaign to get its due.

[cheesetruck.livejournal.com]

That's bizzarre, I've _never_ heard of Chris Taylor before. And our gaming guild had a very, very active Total Annihilation section, and I worked next door to their ex-offices when I was at AT&T Wireless. And I know people who would drop everything and play that game again. Thing is, it was always the CaveDog game, not Chris Taylor.

Peter and Bullfrog, yes. That name of course is known. As is Yak Minter, who has the Xbox 360 thing going for him now. So yeah, there are more than Carmack, but a lot less than there used to be... But I've _never_ heard that guy's name before.

More referring to how in the early days, programmers of games had to fight for their recognition in games (ref: Tim Skelly, who happens to be rather vocal on the subject, but then he got screwed bigtime at Cinematronics, and then kinda even more screwed by M$... but anyway...)

Also, as a Starcraft person, I'd say he's small potatoes, and the 2nd big name is Blizzard. But that's me. (: Also, I think they'd prolly sue you just to get their name there, but that's their overactive legal department ):

This may also have a LOT to do with why I don't know Chris' name. But, really, as many developers as I know and speak with on a regular basis, many of whom are RTS fans - you'd have think I'd have heard it at least once. On the other hand, the name I hear MOST often happens to be Derek Smart, but only because Nameless LOVES to point out how pathetic he is. (Namey also loves to point out the holes in Anarchy Online that he pointed out when he worked at FunCom, that they said weren't important for him to fix, and still plague the game years after release... so he likes to bitch.)

I remember when I was beta testing a large company in a Northwestern State's new RTS game, and they were asking 200 questions about the cutscenes which were CRAP, and I pointed out repeatedly that it wans't about the cutscenes, it was about the GAME and the GAMEPLAY. They then made the cutscenes better, and the game flopped. Prolly available in a valuebin for $2 somewhere, with the original stickers 'new!' on it.