Senor Barborito wrote:

Fullofkittens wrote:

arbit wrote:

Mischief Maker wrote:

Senor Barborito wrote:

Top Post on this guy's site right now.

Good read. Essentially it's MOO2 + a lot of complexity, a shitload of new options, broken diplomacy and a terrible UI from the sound of it. Fun but in some ways frustrating.

Let us all pray that mods in some fashion are possible.

--SB

Sounds like a buggier version of Space Empires 4. About the only thing I was expecting MOO3 to have over SE4 was graphics, but if they suck, why even bother with the new game?

The Mischief Maker liked "Spaceward Ho!"

http://www.apolyton.net/moo3/preview/part1_screenshots.php

Speaking of questionable graphics - Psilons: physically weak because of low-g enviroment, NOW JUST REALLY FAT??!?!
-arbit

So, the two races that didn't make the cut: the Bulrathi and the Mrrshans. Does anybody else think that they got nixed because the developers couldn't figure out how to draw hair? Noe of the current races have any hair, except the nasty-ass crew cut on the human (who looks kind of like Logan Whitehurst , though not in any of his online pix).

Doing good hair that doesn't require physical modeling (fur is an example of this type) in Maya is, if you're a professional, not a huge problem. I'm assuming - and from the look of the game I would bet my life - that all those race shots are pre-rendered CGI.

The problem is if you want to move hair into the game engine. If you want it to look at all not like shit, it's going to take a good amount of work and will seriously hamper a) potential users due to video card requirements and b) overall framerate (takes a lot to draw GOOD and CONVINCING grass/hair - that's why I gave Stalker: Oblivion Lost's video clips so much props). Long hair inside a game engine will either a) definitely look like shit or b) require tons upon tons of polys for rendering, CPU time for physics, and development time for both.

With today's technology hair only makes sense when you're in the position MOO3s developers are in. Why on Earth they didn't do it is a good question, but maybe they had some limitation we don't know about - there are a lot of those on any gaming project. Trespasser is the perfect example of what happens when you attempt to break every limitation.

--SB