I just finished reading up on
Galatic Civilizations, over at
Game Spot
The produce of this game have what I think is a very novel idea when it comes to keeping a game alive over time. Here, you can read it for yourself.
quote:
As an indie, we know we can't compete with the marketing and distribution of the major publishers. But we can hopefully make up for that by keeping the game fresh. As a gamer, you probably know the feeling of seeing a good game not get purchased because it's no longer "new enough." We are hoping that if we keep the game always new, we can keep it fresh for players to stay interested in it. So we actually anticipate making many changes to the game over time.
Oh it gets better.
quote:
To this end, we're designing it so that Users themselves can expand the game in unprecedented ways. We're not talking about including some editor. We mean that you will actually be able to create technologies, improvements, events, United Planet Issues, etc. and just drop them into your Galactic Civilizations directory. We are creating a library on the Galactic Civilizations Web site (which we'll be relaunching in the third week of February with an all newdesign and database), where Users can share and trade these things. Those that are approved by the admins become "canon," which means that Users with those modules installed will have their scores counted in the metaverse (this is to prevent people from making things that allow them to get incredibly high scores unfairly).
Isn't this
exacatly what Malfador is and HAS been doing all along? Seems to me that someone else is now trying to steal the very thunder that is keeping SEIV in rythm. Just look at it this way, Malfador has steadily supported SEIV since its beta days, and even now, is still on the ball and keeping things alive with the up coming release of SEIV Gold.
If Malfador can keep supporting SEIV as it has been, and keep it "new" with player suggested improvements and such, I'll bet SEIV will still be an actively placed game 2 years from now. Question is, will it still be selling? I would hope so as it is one of the finest 4x games I have had the pleasure of playing.
[ 20 February 2002: Message edited by: Atrocities ]