Topic: Before Activision Took Over, What Was the Plan for the SFC Series?

[Desty_Nova]

WHY GOD WHY?!

You were actually making GaW...making my dream come true....

Dammit!!!

[Toasty0]

<Toasty0 sneaks into the room and inhales deeply filling his lungs to the fullest extent and SHOUTS>

IT COULD STILL HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

<out of breath he now exits the room>  

[David Ferrell]

Quote:
WHY GOD WHY?!

You were actually making GaW...making my dream come true....

Dammit!!!  

God had nothing to do with the failure of this project coming to fruition,
it was all due to decisions made by man.

Thanks,

Dave

[Mr. Hypergol]

Thanks for the further info Jester.

 

Quote:
 I thought it would really push our feeling of 2d over the top. For the record I was against them especially because we would need to use the sucky ships from Klingon Academy.

This line really ignites my curiosity at how web would have worked.  In my mind I picture a web graphic that looked something like the barrier Q placed in front of the Enterprise D in the pilot episode "Encounter at Farpoint".  This was a 2-D "waving" plane perpendicular to, and extending a ways above and below, the 2-D grid where the ships fly.  Or, perhaps the graphic could have been a cylinder shape with a diameter approximating the equivalent of one hex translated from the board game.  That would have looked pretty funky.

As for the Tholian ship models from KA, to me they weren't too bad, but that would be a non-issue for me if the stock models could be changed.  Brezgonne's SFB based Tholian models would have "tucked in" to this game nicely.

Oh the possibilities.  

[Strafer]

Quote:
...it was all due to decisions made by man.
 

It's Fluf's fault!

(oops, wrong forum)

[Klingon Fanatic]

I myself never played SFB. I became a follower of the Galaxies At War movement primarily because of the Klingon Academy Tholians. When I learned about the TRBs in OP and the TMP Andromedans by P81 and later DarkMatrix's kitbashes of them that's really when I felt the call to promote this idea for a SFC2/OP expansion or even a new game entirely. I love the idea that the TMP era Tholians and Andromedans would look different [better IMHO] than the stock SFB designs.

So Mr. Ferrell, let us see some of the proposed artwork for TMP Tholians and Andromedans, please.

KF

[Tumulorum Fossor]

I KNEW that there was some weird mojo going down between the SFC and KA camps!  I've never played KA, but based on the articles I was reading that were previewing the game at the time, so much of the KA game mechanic philosophy seemed to be SFB/C in origin!  I couldn't believe at the time that they were going to attach a joystick to an SFB/C type foundation (but I was reading to see if it would work).

And they were paranoid of YOU copying THEM?  Sheesh!  YOU were the programming team that actually had a blueprint for the game already (SFB)!  Ah, well.

I vaguely remember KA being plagued with rather hefty delays in release.  I wonder if that had something to do with the change in graphics? Hmm.  I HAD thought it was going to have to do with the insane task of trying to balance/reconcile a tactical-based set of decisions (the SFB/C stuff), with the reflex factor (the joystick stuff).

Well, if there is any good news to be had from all this, it is that PERHAPS the SFC2OP engine can be crowbarred into accomodating the Tholians and Andros if the source code ever gets released ("forever" is a LOOONG time).

Interesting stuff.  Thanks for the insight!

-TF

[Captain KoraH]

Some very interesting insight here about how the PC game development industry works. I'd love to see this artwork too. I feel like it's a piece of lost history that Dave and select others have stashed away in a closet somewhere and forgotten about. It would be great to have them see the light of day.  

[Lieutenant_Q]

Let's look on the bright side Korah, With the pending Activision lawsuit, Paramount will surely take the license from them.  Paramount will want to get a game out ASAP, Taldren already has the preliminary artwork done for a SFC involving the Tholians and the Andromedeans.  Paramount could turn to Taldren and say, here, we need a game done, do your thing, We will decide who will publish your game later, just get cracking on it.  I hope that it does happen, Id like to see what Taldren does to bring those races in.  

[Captain KoraH]

If I had a nickel for every time I thought or heard someone say "If only [corporation] would do [X]" around here....

[ActiveX]

Quote:
If I had a nickel for every time I thought or heard someone say "If only [corporation] would do [X]" around here....  

...I would have enough to be the [corporation] that would do [X]...

[FPF_TraceyG]

Hmmmm, I wonder if a certain ex-Taldren employee might be interested in taking up a hobby, say creating an expansion in the form of a patch for SFC:OP that might require the use of this lost artwork. Such a hobby might even be of interest to others that could help.

[Jester_OC]

Unfortunatly we don't OWN the source.  Quicksilver owns some of the low level engine stuff (QUILL ~shutter~..) that Interplay had the right to let anyone else use as long as it involved SFC in someway.  So if we tried to make a new patch out of the juristiction of Taldren, well  five groups could sue us(Cole,Taldren,Quicksilver,Paramount, and Activision).  Not something you want to do if you have a wife and kids.

Source code alone is not enough you need Director 5.0 (or is it 6.0) to use Quill(TO MAKE THE UI)  (~shutter~ bad memories MAKE IT STOP!) Which I don't have.

Anyway, I think that SFC is dead (sorry folks but is just my opinion)  I don't think SFC3 sold real well.  I THIINK SFC 1 sold the most then we got smaller and smaller (I always feel SFC was  like the Planet of the Apes movies First one had a descent budget and time and the rest the time and money got tighter and tighter).   It would be best to write a new game from scratch than try to make a new game on the old source.   That would prob. mean making a game people think they can market.  Which pushes you toward ACTION games rather than Strat games.


Just My 2 Cents,

Jester (Marc)

p.s. If anyone has any other questions that puzzeled you about SFC develeopment, just ask.

   

[FPF_TraceyG]

Quicksilver, wasnt that a software company who back in the 90s first attempted to make a computer game from SFB, but went belly up?

[SFC Bennie]

Quote:
Quicksilver, wasnt that a software company who back in the 90s first attempted to make a computer game from SFB, but went belly up?  

Nope. Quicksilver's still in business.

Scott Bennie  

[FPF_TraceyG]

Quote:

Quote:
Quicksilver, wasnt that a software company who back in the 90s first attempted to make a computer game from SFB, but went belly up?  

Nope. Quicksilver's still in business.

Scott Bennie  

Ok, so why did they not complete their version of SFB on computer?

[SFC Bennie]

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:
Quicksilver, wasnt that a software company who back in the 90s first attempted to make a computer game from SFB, but went belly up?  

Nope. Quicksilver's still in business.

Scott Bennie  

Ok, so why did they not complete their version of SFB on computer?  

I don't believe they were the company that was working on SFB on computer (aside from SFC 1, which they completed with Interplay),  but I'm not absolutely positive about this.

Scott Bennie  

[Mr. Hypergol]

 

Quote:
 That would prob. mean making a game people think they can market. Which pushes you toward ACTION games rather than Strat games.
 

I still don't understand what is so un-marketable about SFC!?  When I go to EB at the mall the shelves are full of strategy games.  Most of them utter crap.  Yet, are all these games losing money?  If strategy games don't sell, why are company's still making them?

I just don't buy the idea that SFC is unmarketable.  The SFC series is some of the best strategy games on the market today.  And, it is one of the few that focuses on "tactical" level strategy.  There are so many games that are utter crap that still sell well.

The problem is marketing.  Interplay did not do a good job of getting the SFC message out in my opinion because they were hurting financially.  Activision dumbed down the game and then tied it in to a mediocre Trek movie.  Considering all these factors that were working against SFC, I think it did pretty well.

If the SFC series were picked up by a publishing company that embraced it and put some real marketing power into it, the game would sell better.

There are rumors that Paramount is no longer going to split up the Trek liscense by "era", but will liscense Trek games by "type" of game...i.e. FPS, RTS, Sim, console.  If this is true then the next SFC could be done as an "all eras" game encompassing TOS, TMP, TNG, DS9, etc. all together.  I think if this idea was developed and a strong strategic element was added to the game for better campaigns this game would fly off the shelves.

There are so many possibilites.  All we need is a publisher with some vision.  

[starwolf3500]

An "all era" game with selectable eras (more advanced than the current SFC1 and 2 eras) and the ability to "add" races would be very cool.  Imagine a Campaign Setup Screen where you select era then select up to 9 races (but not required to select all 9), select their status (ie friendly, hostile, ect but would default based on era) and then have the ability to select map areas to start the races in.  Ahhh, to dream......  

[The_Infiltrator]

Quote:
 That would prob. mean making a game people think they can market. Which pushes you toward ACTION games rather than Strat games.
 

The one thing that really annoys me about the gaming industry is the total lemming mentality. Conventional wisdom rules the day. You can't do X because X won't sell. X won't sell because of reasons Y and Z - look at game A and B, for examples.

Except that the reason why A and B didn't sell has nothing to do with their style, or format usually. The main reason that they probabally didn't sell is that they, as games, were no good. As simple as that. The fact is that this has been shown time and time again. Take RPG's for example. A few years back, they were basically dead as a gaming genre. People were saying that the time of RPG's was dead. Then Baldur's Gate was released. Suddenly it's one of the hottest types of games around - just look at the good games you can get in this area. The reason was, of course, that Baldur's Gate rocked. It was great and was recognized with anyone with half a brain and about the same interest in the genre as great.

Again and again, you'll see this pattern. Before the release of Warcraft, Command and Conquer, and Total Annihilation, there were no such things as a real time game. After their release, so many companies decided that this was the next thing, that this was the only way of the future. The subsequent rush of RTS games were mostly crap and didn't sell very well - however, because of the first three that sold tons (again, because they were great or good games) the industry took the wrong lesson yet again and decided that this meant that you had to be a real time game in order to sell. Now turn based games are largely dead. I'll reveal yet another secret: turn based isn't bad. It's perfectly fine - as long as the game that it's in is a good one.

Why is this important? Because it seems that the wrong conclusions (IMO) about SFC are being drawn in the same way. I'll do a postmortem on the SFC series right here, and why they worked or didn't work:

SFC I: The first. Nothing quite like it had been seen before. It offered a different gaming experience than had been quite seen before. There are a few games that are possibly comparable (perhaps the great naval battles series that I was playing on my 486) but nothing with the exact combination of elements that had been seen before. And also it was good. Therefore, it hit 2 important elements - not only was it good, it was also different than what had come before. Not exactly what I would call revolutionary, but it had that element of the "gaming leap foward" that most great games seem to have. And people bought it, for those reasons.

SFC II: Basically, SFC II (EAW) is more of the same. It adds in a few things, but not enough to make the person who bought SFC I casually to invest more money into it. It added only 2 races and a few other weapons, plus fighters and PF's. It also added the D2. Now this was potentially a big step foward - except that the D2 has never worked well. In fact, when the game was first released (when casual fans would be paying attention) it did not work even at all (not Taldren's fault, but still). Even after it was enabled it worked very poorly, with costant bug issues and problems. These problems and facts combined meant that the appeal of the game was less than the original. Therefore, it sold less. Simple. In short, the More of the Same approach ensured that the game would be less sucessful than before, as it just didn't offer enough improvements to justify parting with hard earned gaming dollars from the casual supporter.

SFC III: SFC III is more of the same, and not more of the same. Which is it's problem. It's more of the same in areas where it should change, and quite different in the areas where it should have stayed the same. Summarizing SFC III can be done easily: It's not a very good game. The design decisions made make it feel like a fighter game, something akin to Decent: Freespace. Considering the subject matter, this ensures most of the people who previously bought SFC I or II feel somewhat alienated when considering SFC III. Not only that, but what really is advanced significantly over what was available before? Officers? Done in SFC I. Ship configurations? New, but does this justify in of itself a 40-50 dollar expense? SFC III it seems to me simultaneously alienated the previous core audience that had been buying the games of the series previously and failed to offer enough to convince completely new players to buy into the game to make up for this loss. Looking back at it you must wonder if Paramount/Activision just attempted to ride the coattails of a new star trek movie to sucess. When this movie however (like the game) wasn't very good, this sunk SFC III's chances. Combine all of the above with the patch snafu (still not resolved) and you have a game that no one really wants.

What does a new SFC game need to succeed to the level of the first? In short, risk. Risk, as in any business venture, the only way that true breakthroughs are made. Perhaps Taldren should be congratulated in the attempt with SFC III, as this was a risky move - the problem is that the wrong types of decisions were made on what should be risked. The main thing, however, that should be taken from the experience of history is that conventional wisdom is frequently wrong when it comes to computer games. The main key to success is to come up with a good idea, work on it until it is complete, and then release a great game. If this is done, people will buy it and it will sell.

Anyway, my 2c as Autolycus used to say.