Since I bought Moo3 for 10 bux, I can hardly be disgruntled. I'd have never known Galciv or SE existed without it. So. I suppose it was 10 bux well spent even though it's sitting on the shelf gathering dust.

I got it for free.
One of my friends got the game along with $2.

The value of the game went through the floor after everyone realized how rushed to release the game was.

>And since you seem to be a MOO3 fanboy, why don't you >stop bothering us "bitter" Galciv players and go to >the flamefest MOO3 forums?

Wow, feel the love on this forum...

In the words of an immortal pacifist who probably got shot 5 secs after saying this, "Can't we all just get along?"

*Bang!*

There goes the neighbourhood...

Moo2 is probably the game I played most. I was still playing it sometimes right until Moo3 came out.

I played Moo3 for a weekend, and kept trying to convince myself that I liked it. Fortunately in my case, the brainwashing never took hold. It did on some people, everybody that says it's a GOOD GAME.

The ONLY thing they did right was having very cool animations for diplomacy. Unfortunately diplomacy itself, like almost everythign else, did not actually work properly.

The combat graphics were ridiculous. The ship design was awful. (you had legions of disposable ships, most wit names like Lng Str Flt 1). Everytime I invaded a planet, my entire transport fleet would vanish into the reserves.. even though all the soldiers were left.

My LEAST favorite thing about Moo2 was the planetary building queue. Having to tell every single planet to build supercomputers or whatever was such a pain.

So at first, the Moo3 AI seemed like a good idea. It does'nt make you do that... or does it?

Galciv solved the queue problem in a much easier way, planetary governors.

I have Moo3 tied with Heroes of Might and Magic IV as the most disappointing sequel EVER.

I think the game companies today have no shame. Even when they came out with that X-Com Terror From the Deep crap trying to milk us, they stil released a WORKING game.
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I was actually hurt by Moo3. Something is wrong when you spend half your time figuring out to tell the AI, "Enough transports already..."

At the core of Moo 3 is a good game.

GalCiv is a GREAT game and will probably be played for years. Because of GalCiv, both Moo2 and Moo3 are no longer on my HD.

HEHE I'd put those up there, along with these.

Pool of Radience 2. That thing actually wrecked a bunch of computers, literally. I'd have to give it the all time title.

Star Control 3. Anyone who saw the Vux ships mate with their long lost cousins ships would just have to puke.

Ceaser2. It was so bad the first reviews of ceasar 3 started out with "For those that did not learn their lesson with caeser 2........" Happily, Ceasar 3 is far better.

I'm gonna be trashed for this but Civ3. I'm dissapointed with this one, not because it was bad, but because it could have been the best of all time. Instead, we got something that merely flirted at being as good as its predecessor.

PC Gamer gave galaxy civ I think an 83 or 87 ... witch is a pretty good rating ,,,

HEHE the transport bug. My fave was ye olde I have your planet surrounded. Resistance is futile, because we'll just sit here and not invade a totally invadable planet.

How did this thread get drug back up? Sheesh. Well, either way, the vitriol in this thread, from BOTH sides, just about makes me sick. GalCiv is a good game. MOO3 was not, on release. With the beta patch it's much better, and with a few key mods it becomes about half of what people were hoping for. Perhaps if we are incredibly lucky another patch will come out and increase that to 60%.

But GalCiv wasn't perfect on release either, tho it was probably a lot better. And the patches have come out frequently, and the free expansion means it wins the 'quality of support' award hands down. But not everybody is going to love GalCiv, just like not everybody is going to hate MOO3.

So, please, those of you who have nothing better than to post vitriolic flames of either side, just go away. Both games have strengths and weaknesses. Some people will find ones weaknesses endearing, others will hate them. If you hate one and love the other, just go play it and please don't waste our time spewing hateful flames at those who disagree with you.

Normally I'd agree with you Robert, free speech and all, but everytime I read a GOOD review about Moo3 I secretly wonder to myself if the person works for Quicksilver.

I'm sure they don't, but the thought crosses my head.

I was a Die-Hard Moo fan, and they killed me.

I can't believe anybody could be happy with that game no matter what patches they do to it.

Moo3 just seems so fundamentally flawed. I played Heroes of Might and Magic IV for a good many hours before I realized that they didn't bother to program the AI. I still felt betrayed, but it took me a minute to notice because it was the only missing essential to what could have been a fantastic game.

Moo3 -- the only good & working thing in the game were the diplomacy animations.



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HEHE true story. My wife is an accountant. She came home, took one look at it and said "I look at this kind of stuff all day at work. Why do I need it in a video game?"

I think all the warning signs were there for awhile on this one. Three different bosses (Microprose, Hasbro, then IG (now Atari)) A parting of the ways among the staff, Dates continually missed and finally the clues posted that yes qs was being pressured to release it before it was ready. I said so on the moo boards at the time and was blasted. Too many were of the mindset "But it was moo. It was going to be good. More than that, it was going to be another one for the ages." And then when reality hit them, it hit like a ton of bricks. A recipe for flames if I ever saw one.

I'm in the middle. I think it's an ok game patched, but there are far more games I'd rather play. Then again if I paid the full 50bux when it first came out I might not think this way.

PBB: Oh, why did you have to bring up Star Control 3? After the brilliance that was SC2, I took SC3 off my hard drive two hours after I started playing it.

I guess that's what happens when you sack Reiche and Ford. It's a real shame the forces behind SC2 couldn't even work on the SC3 project.

SC3 was the end of a good genre too. I loved SC2. The best thing about sc3 was twirling the 3d galaxy map.

Moo3 broke my heart Wait so long for something that sucks worse than my Hoover quick-broom. I wish Quicksilver made vacuums.

Actually I should probably say it sucks better :/

Let it die, already! Forgive and forget.

I was one of the first to purchase Moo3 off the shelf, and after putting it through its paces, I was not angry, nor did I feel cheated... I felt a great sense of loss and disappointment.
MOO has been a hallmark franchise in the strategy game arena, but in the dog eat dog world of computer games, Where it costs about $2 million to produce a AAA title, there is simply no margin for error. Everyone remember the Logic Factory and thier space hit Ascendancy way back when? Well their next game Tone Rebellion did not sell as well and... well no more Logic Factory. (too bad I liked Tone as did my WIFE which is a huge shocker). I guess what worries me most is that the MOO line may die with MOO3.
The 5th X concept to add an ongoing story element that develops as the game unfolds was wonderful. Sadly this great idea seemed to be executed ineffectively. I have played 3 games of MOO3 and I don't know any more about the antarans now, than I did before I started. Where are the cinematic cut scenes that take you deeper into the game as you progress? Where is the story? All I seemed to do in MOO3 was click sliders around in the planet view and watch messages in a giant spread sheet. When I invented something I got no cool graphic like in MOO2, just a bit of text with no accurate description of what the tech actually does. This robbed me of a sense of accomplishment. Also when you build something... no graphics or sound either... just a blob of text. Now that is no big deal if you are playing a play-by-mail game, as you do not use such gizmos. But if your medium is the computer should you not take advantage of its unique graphics/sound capabilities? The battles... well was great to see task forces, great move on their part, but the graphics and sound were worse than MOO2 IMHO. Sid Meyer not so long ago trashed a Dinosaur game they had sunk a ton of money into developing because in his own words "He could not find the fun". I guess thats how I felt about MOO3.
MOO3 did do one good thing for me though, and for that I am grateful. When I logged onto their forum to see if the other fans were as disappointed as I was, I not only learned that they were, but that they were playing some game I never heard of called GalCiv
I think it is important for us to not throw blame or critizize too harshly the fine people involved in the MOO3 team. Unfortunately there are market realities in this business that make it very difficult for artists to put out their best work. One of the reasons is that the cost of marketing to prime the channel tends to run as much as development, and has to be locked in 6 months in advance. There is a critical window that has to be hit, between that expensive advertising, and the release of the product. If you do not release a product within 3 months of your expensive advertising you lose about a million dollars these days. Wow why is advertising a computer game soo expensive you ask? Well thats because it is not entirely advertising. Most people do not know this, but if you develop a great game, stores will not carry it. you have to BUY shelf space. Yes thats right, as in BRIBE them. The subtle way this is done is like the following... Call up COMP USA and say you have the world's greatest game and want them to carry it. They say well if you run XYZ full color add in or magazine for 10K we will consider it, but if you want your game on an end cap display you have to pay 50k in prepaid advertising. Computer stores can do this because for every spot they have on their shelf for a game, there are 10 games trying to vi for that spot. It might also interest you to know that computer stores like COMP USA do not make a profit selling computer games. Industry statistics show that they take a loss on average for each game they sell. So how do they stay in business you ask? BY SELLING SHELF SPACE. Yup the shelf the game sits on is more valuable than the game. This is why not so long ago all the boxes switched over to the smaller size. And you thought that was because it had better crush weight and was easier and less costly to package to ship? WRONG. it was because the computer stores could then fit more games on their shelf and thus SELL THEIR SHELVES to more publishers. Hopefully this gives you guys a better idea of the frustration and pressures that game developers such as the MOO team have to contend with. Lets cross our fingers, I for one hope there is a MOO4.

ThelebK, is it just me or is the Marketing scheme bass-ackwards.

The way it should be:

You have a great game that's ready. You decide you want more than magazine reviews and word of mouth, so you buy ad space. The game is selling well and you get all the store space you need.

The way you accurately describe it:

You have a game that you want to sell well.
You buy lots of ad space and store space.
You release the game to coincide with the money you have spent marketing the product, regardless of whether the product is ready.


Sure, game companies are out to make money -- that's fine. But instead of making money by a good game, the approach is to make money by marketing the idea of a good game -- even if the game sucks and the Elerians have been removed.

Which is why this industry needs more developers like StarDock, Miquel.

If a company can produce a product solely off retained earnings, and accomplish the no turnover virtual miracle StarDock did, they have a much better chance of producing a quality product, than if they are working for a publisher house that is fronting the cash in anticipation of a return later. Oh there's a TON more to it than that, but I feel that that is one of the biggest and most important 'first steps' the industry needs to take as it seeks to rebuild itself from the ashes of its own complacency. Assuming, of course, they realize their mistakes before the industry completely collapses from the weight of its 500-mistakes-per-day record over the last 5 years...

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Why are all this MOO3 fanboys here? Have we been playing Galciv waiting for "The Patch" for your already "perfect" LOL game?

I own a copy of MOO3 and frequently visit/post on their boards too. MOO3 and GalCiv are completely different games. The patch for MOO3 made the game playable and the user mods do help out quite a bit. But for me, there is just something missing. I just don't have that "one more turn before I go to sleep" thing going for MOO3 like I do for GalCiv and the older games like MOO, MOO2, and Civ.

I believe that Moo3 was compelling in its own way. With user created mods, I could even see a cult of highly devoted Moo3 fans forming, enjoying the game based on its merits. But I think a person has to have the right attitude while they're playing it, that they're gonna try and tinker with it until they find something enjoyable.

The main reason Galciv is a better game than Moo3, is its superior interface.

~SDC~

I own both games and they are very different.

I think MOO3 died under the weight of its own expectations. Pontius's wife's crack put a major smile on my face. And NunoPedro is right - most of us here are disgruntled MOO fans. Salamander - free speech allows us to bash the game here. Just face the fact some people don't like a game that you do.

Both games have their good points and bad. I actually like the combat scenes in MOO3 - take admiral's view of battle (I didn't get to invasion part though - gave up on game early on). But that and pretty diplomacy screens do not a game make. I agree with bruinb77 i I dreaded hitting the next turn screen to look at a sitrep that had a lot of stuff I could care less about.

Gal Civ does have its flaws too. I was terribly disappointed in the manual and stated so in a flame right after Frogboy announced a newer online manual. (real smooth move on my part :P) There is a lot to this game that is right if you can figure out where it is. I'm sorry but I can be really dense and sometimes need things spelled out - like the diplomacy screen - I totally missed the down arrow as the way to bring items in the discussion for trades.

I can actually live without ship design and multiplayer (for now), though I do miss it. The varied victory conditions and player alignment options are very interesting. The governor option is well executed - micromanagement be gone!

But there have been tremendous strides in the GalCiv game in support. JavaScout's tech tree certainly eased my pain - I hope they have him help in GalCiv 2. I have not downloaded the new update but it seems like rally points have improved game play from the posts I've been reading.

I'll keep MOO2 on my hard drive and will continue to play GalCiv as I get better. I think the team at Stardock are committed to keeping this game fresh as time goes on.