 |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Do you like repetitive shit or just think there are no better alternatives? by stupid rookie 01/29/2014, 2:17pm PST | ||||
 |
 |
|||
| The SMAC interface doesn't make me want to claw my eyes out, but after playing SMAC enough to keep its accomplishments in memory I tired of it for a decade or more because interface design isn't just about eliminating minor blemishes like some fucked-up button. Interface design is about how the game leverages assets and what activity it encourages on the part of the player, and SMAC's activity of choice - clicking through hundreds of units and dozens of city screens every turn - is all stuff that should be handled by a computer. That's what computers are FOR. I could tell you about the uselessness of unit automation or confusing overlays and endless hotkeys but those things don't hardly matter as much as this.
There is no good reason for a strategic game to turn the player into a human abacus when they're sitting at a tool that was intended to remove burdensome repetitive calculation in the first place. An interface that tasks you with assigning job focus to drones and scientists every round when you're just waiting for the next cool secret project movie or wanting to take the fight to the enemy is bullshit. Macroscale social engineering was something SMAC got right with its policy system, there is no reason similar things couldn't be implemented to make these games about top level decisions instead of book-keeping. Why is there no beginning-of-turn overlay to show all movement at once? Why isn't there a button to prioritize labor to meet a project deadline in x turns? Instead of giving us global sliders they want our hands to cramp like Diablo. After a few playthroughs, this sort of workload is simply not balanced by getting to see some nice films and hear some acceptably poignant quotes into the middle of research selection. The core gameplay has to be something other than a chore. You know what killed Homeworld aside from the more annoying missions with dust corridors and radiation and shit? Knowing that you could be looking at tumbling fighters madly firing weapons at the enemy while the big ships struggled into position on a great technicolor background that could give a desert sunset a run for its money, decent music playing throughout, but that instead you'd have to spend your time staring at the goddamn sensor manager and its splash of blue with moving dots and tiny supership models. Playing mostly in overlay view is bullshit next to the rest of the game, but it caught on to the point where I now have to deal with it in every game that seeks to be strategic in scope from SupCom on down. How is the interface micromanagement these design decisions prompted leveraging assets? We barely get to see the units in action while in command, that's how. You hit pause and zoom in, the action stops, and you get your glimpses - then it's back to a map with icons. Games have gone from being forced to represent everything with 2d symbols of the unit to doing so because the units cannot be commanded any other way within this design framework. Majesty tried to streamline unit control as early as 2000 in a crude way that could still be called strategic. Imperialism tried it with economics in '97. That's before we get into all the ways this stuff has developed since, which we won't because I can't do that without raving like a moron, let alone mustering smug accusations of control-freak behavior qt3-style. Europa Universalis went in the opposite direction in 2000 and now we have its spin-off Victoria II with over a dozen ingame spreadsheets. You played Emperor of the Fading Suns so maybe you're just a glutton for punishment, but if the exploding scale of errands to do every turn in EFS is bad that's not a reason to laud the repetitive bullshit in SMAC or the way everyone stared at their sensor map in Homeworld. |
||||
 |
 |
|||
|
Damn by 01/28/2014, 5:27pm PST  , Mua'dib! NT by 01/28/2014, 5:52pm PST We're due for a Dune 4x, been a while since Emperor of the Fading Suns NT by 01/28/2014, 7:09pm PST Cryo's version of Dune was a prototype 4X by 01/28/2014, 8:48pm PST It's been awhile since DUNE 2000. Been ages since EFS. by 01/29/2014, 6:45am PST Is the interface that bad? I've enjoyed AC even after Civ5. by 01/29/2014, 6:44am PST The interface is shit, you just get used to it. by 01/29/2014, 6:48am PST Besides the individual city interface, the game is otherwise solid. by 01/29/2014, 10:16am PST Do you like repetitive shit or just think there are no better alternatives? by 01/29/2014, 2:17pm PST |
