Theres a guy making a moo1 clone in Java. Not done yet, just renamed to Remnants of the Precursors to avoid copyright infringement. My only fear for this project (besides that Wargaming or he could still decide to stop) was that he would mess something up. Not a fan of the new name, remnants of precursors is a terrible pun but maybe I’ll just rename it to Master of Orion
http://www.pretendstudios.com/faq.html
I still play MOOII a few times a year. Getting that game running has been progressively harder as technology changes, and the Mac OS9 version is so annoyingly buggy and difficult to make work even ignoring the random crashing. Have tried MoO after hearing you praise it a while back, I freely admit it was better than moo2, had less compatibility problems too, but I stopped playing because of poor graphics and couldn’t figure out how to make the DOS version work with a mouse. (So I used the Mac version, which means hours of work with crappy emulators or really old hardware). I just hate how all these old games take HOURS to get running every time I want to play
Whenever I complain about a game, it is nothing but that. YOU choose what you like. When I started this site nearly a decade ago, too many people would let Gaming Message Forums or Reviewers tell them what they ‘ought to like’ and, conversely, what they ‘ought to hate’. “That Zelda 2 is the ‘black sheep’ of the Zelda series. Bad!” Says who? Certainly not the people who bought the game and enjoyed it. “That Mario 2 game is not a real Mario game. It is a Doki Doki Panic game!” Dude, it’s a Mario game now. The Game Industry, even developers, try to influence the market with their stupid hype as well as trying to steer gamers to like what they want to develop.
I think MOO 2 is great. I LOVE the artwork, the sound, the music, the fleshed out combat, the Antarans, and all. What I do not like is the building spam. I do not like ‘food’. The ‘colony building’ reminds me too much of Civilization with the ‘city improvements’.
Now, MOO 1 has many problems. I just got done playing a game for days. The game does random shit like, Hey!, this race has suddenly decided to declare war on you for no reason at all! You have to keep saving periodically. You reload the save and you get a different random result. Too many random things happen with the computer player behavior.
MOO 1 feels like Go in space while MOO 2 feels like Civilization In Space. MOO 1, though, has a beautiful simple game design that I am constantly amazed at. There are like, what, nine screens total?
My reaction to MOO 2 isn’t uncommon. This is from MOO 2’s wikipedia entry:
Reviews shortly after publication were generally very favorable,[16] and the game won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1996.[17] However, reviewers’ detailed comments on aspects of the game differed, especially in comparisons with its predecessor Master of Orion. Some liked the additional gameplay features in Master of Orion II, while others preferred the simpler approach of Master of Orion.[18] Some reviewers criticized the level of micromanagement needed in Master of Orion II, [18] but Tom Chick found it fairly easy to control.[6] Opinions also varied about the single-player AI,[5][6] tactical combat,[2][5][18] warship design facility[5][18] and custom races.[2][18] However, reviewers appreciated the replay value provided by the wide range of galaxy, race and other options.[2][11]
About the JAVA MOO…. when it is playable, we will see. Until then, it is nothing but vaporware as far as I’m concerned.
People’s reactions to MOO 4 have been what I thought they would be. Great production work, crappy gameplay. Stupid space lanes. Stupid real time combat. I mean, I can understand the real time combat, but how can you screw up by putting in space lanes? Did the designers ever play Master of Orion 1 or 2?
I’m telling you: the reason for the space lanes is because the programmers are LAZY. MOO 1 is a very simple game graphically and audio, but beneath the hood is a monster of an engine which is the game design. Being able to go ANYWHERE because it was space and limited only due to your colonies or reserve tanks is freedom. We do not want civilization in space. No space lanes!
And how did they fuck up MOO 3? The people who developed it, aside from being amateurs, thought they were geniuses. I shit you not.
When you think you are a genius = Bad, shitty output.
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