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Hi Malstrom,
I read your post about Endless Space, and felt the need to immediately email you back… I’m actually sorry I didn’t read your post earlier.
I will not make the claim that MoO2’s legacy will (or could ever, maybe,) be overshadowed. It is one of my top 5 favorite games of all time, and I still play it very very regularly, via DOSbox emulator (such a pain, but tooootally worth it). What I will claim, however, is that Endless Space is the first game I have encountered since MoO2 so long ago, that, if you don’t mind me stealing your phrase, “does MoO2’s job” very very well, while being modern and with the potential for content updates, bugfixes, etc.
Please understand that I am a DIE HARD MoO and MoO2 fan with very high expectations for a turn-based 4x space sim. I have owned Endless Space for about a week now, and have put just over 50 hours in to it– That should tell you something.
- The music is excellent, like MoO2s music was, and does not play all the time
- The “space lanes” are simply a restriction until you develop the technology to ignore them and fly wherever you want
- The “approval” system is simply a modifier for production/science/farming/etc, meaning, if your people are unhappy in a system, they simply produce less. You discover techs, build buildings, and/or hire “heroes”, that raise the approval ratings on your planets, and it is actually a very cool system
- Ship creation is awesome, and while the UI is different than MoO2, the “feeling” and end result is very similar
- I am not the type to play complicated games: I’m old school like you. ES is more complicated than MoO2, but truly, not by much
- The AI on “Normal mode” whooped my ass, and I have reverted back to “Easy mode”. I cannot comment much on it, but in my experience so far, it’s pretty good
The game is still under development, and here are some notable omissions/annoyances so far:
- Diplomacy has little “leverage”. I cannot make demands or threaten other races as I’d like to. This is huuuge, and I hope they make a change here as the game comes out of “beta”
- There is currently, though it is announced as planned, no way to create a custom race for yourself
- There is currently, though it is announced as planned, no spying/sabotage/espionage system
- There are not enough, in my opinion, interesting races. Of the 8 races that exist, only a couple really stand out as something truly different (ie the Gnolam or the Elerian)
- There are enough ship “classes” (sizes) I believe, but only one physical/graphical design per race per class
- There is not enough character/flavor in the races themselves yet. For example, the text when they “reject” a diplomatic deal you propose is boring
- There is no ability to turn off various “victory types”. To make an example in MoO2 terms, you could not “turn off” the ability to lose the game by being voted out by the Space Council (although you could just be strong enough to control it ;D)
- There is no option to control ship battles manually– they are automated, with the player choosing “tactics” with various buffs/debuffs as an overlord/strategist instead. This does not bother me at all, as I have never enjoyed manual combat in MoO2
It is obvious once you play the game that MoO2 was a huge influence on these developers. I sincerely hope this email gives you enough information to decide to try Endless Space out for yourself. If the price is an object, I am so confident that you will enjoy the game that I am willing to purchase it for you on Steam: If you enjoy it, you can pay me back if you wish, or buy me a game back :) Let me know!But if I let you purchase the game for me (or have anyone give me a game for free), how would I truly know its value?
Endless Space clearly isn’t done. I’ll give it some time to bake more. Also, great games remain great. If people are still raving about Endless Space a year or two from now, we’ll see. But I’ve seen too many ‘Next Master of Orion’ games with hype come and go.
I’m also one of those who prefer MoO 1 over MoO 2. MoO 2 felt, to me, to have too much micromanagement. When I first played it, I exclaimed: “Who put Master of Magic features into Master of Orion?” Oh, if only a proper Master of Magic II came out!
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