Gamespot Review

[Spruce]

Originally posted by Dinsdale
MOO3 was patched once. It was released in an unplayable state, and even now, without MODs it would be barely playable.

However, that's the extreme, QSI are probably the worst development company I've ever experienced, combined with the worst publisher on earth; Infogrammes (cunningly now disguised as Atari.)

There are other strategy games out there at the moment. Glad you mentioned Adnac, probably the only developer of operational level Napoleonics.

Don't forget Matrix, they have a bunch of new releases scheduled, including Empires In Arms.

well it was that worse because they had to revamp the whole game some half year before release and still the game flunked. The problem was that the game was that nice but would turn into a nightmare before you even noticed,

I really love Sumter to Appotomax! Especially the way generals behave,

 

[HolisticGod]

As a beta who thinks Victoria has a great deal of potential, especially as an MP game, and is presently trying to work out Brazilian coffee exports in the 1830's because it has just that much potential, I have to say this is the most cogent, complete review of the game yet.

And absolutely, 100% fair.

 

[Nabatam]

MOO3 = Master of Orion 3, which was anticipated as the best new thing after sliced bread only to become one of the biggest disappointments in gaming history. It had a lot of potential but it wasn't finished to start with and as Spruce said, it never got resources after the launch to fix it.

 

[daedalus]

I too agree with some of the point of the reviewer, they are valid, not matter how he obtained it.
The thing I cannot agree on is the glaring omission of the good things this game have, like the military AI, the depth, the scope, etc, etc, etc. Even more from a site that always tends to go the opposite way, i.e. sucumb to the hype, and ignore the shortcomings. The reason for the unbalanced review, I dont know. Lazyness may be? Low IQ? need to sound smart? He might, to the unexperience newbie, who has not got pass the learning curve. But to those who have played the game, we know is more that an unbalanced woroldmarket and the problems in the pop grow.

 

[unmerged(17324)]

Don't say it doesn't deserve to be paid for at this moment,
{SPRUCE}

Sorry, but, that's exactly how I feel and that's what I tell people that ask me about the game in my community. My opinion is just as valid as yours Spruce and to tell people what they can and cannot say is "dictorial". It's not worthy of my $50, maybe $15 or $10 when it fianlly is fixed.

I'm standing on my principles just as you stand on yours. I agree with another poster, if they can't build what I want, too bad if they lose their job. Burn me once (HOI), but, they won't ever burn me again.

Also this being a "fan" based board, I wouldn't expect less than some flames, but, I notice the majority are more mature, even when they don't agree with me or others that find the game lacking and not worthy of full price.

 

[unmerged(22920)]

Even though personally I really love and enjoy playing Victoria (it’s so addictive ), I have to agree with the review by Gamespot. In order to receive better rating, Paradox needs to rethink their user interface design in the future.

Originally posted by Jack Frost in “Gamespot Review” thread
I think its a pretty fair review. Most of his issues with the game are with the UI, and its the same reason that although I really like the game, I wouldn't even try to convince my friends to play it.

Someone really needs to go over the engine and really spend some time thinking about the UI, and how to seriously streamline it.

The truth is this isn't a game that requires a grognard. There is very little reason this game couldn't sell equally to civ3, well, very little reason aside from the UI.

If the Civ team redesigned the menus dropdowns, ledgers, etc. Vicky could be very accessable, and would have a chance at mainstream success, I guarentee.

PS: I don't mean to criticise Paradox. Compare the difference in funding behind Paradox and behind Maxis or whatever mega company mades Civ, and you will see a different world. More my focus is that a paradox game like Vicky COULD sell big, could cross over to the mainstream, and still retain everything you all love about it. If only the UI/player feedback system was really redesigned instead of tweeked.

That's a very constructive criticism by Jack Frost. I couldn't have agreed more. UI design should not be an afterthought, rather it should an integral part of game play design (I know some game designers would strongly disagree with this).

Don’t even need to mention the initial steep learning curve, any fun and deep grand strategic games like Vicky or Civ would turn “fun” into a terrible state more like "hard work" than "joyful flow" near a huge end game, if the User Interface (UI) isn't capable or designed properly to adapt to different phases of game play during the course of the game.

To illustrate a point:

I’ve kept following an excellent and exciting AAR by Dark_Teuton (Conquest of the Old World, a Prussian AAR). In chapter 17, he describes the near endgame of Germany against Austria in the Central Europe Theater:

Originally posted by Dark_Teuton

…
And deploying all the troops I had trained took me over 25 minutes
…

Due to the fact Dark_Teuton is a very patient and dedicated player. He is still able to manage to “enjoy” that part of the game. I’m sure average players won’t stand for such a time-consuming chore just to deploy his troops. [well just being sarcastic; I don’t really think he really “enjoy” that, otherwise he won’t even bother to mention that in the AAR, “endure” is probably a better term.]

I strongly agree with Jack Frost that the real solution to the poor review of Paradox’s otherwise excellent Victoria is to rethink the whole UI design in order to appeal to wider audience.

I know redesigning the whole UI is not a simple task to undertake lightly and Paradox probably won’t have enough resource dedicated to the issue, nevertheless I do see a gradual progression of improvement of UI from Heart of Iron to Victoria, I applaud their good effort to improve the excellent game engine and game play.

BTW about humanizing UI to make the game even more playable, I believe it should need a set of stronger Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistants in carryout common essential tasks. Program-By-Example (PBE) machine learning technique or hierarchical Goal-Directed-Planning may be used to assist human players to focus more on the strategic aspect of the game (not everyone enjoy micro-management per se).

A good example of a fine balance between fun and work is that _Airborne Assault_ (an innovative strategy war game) where the human player can choose to issue general command in a higher chain-of-command: all the subordinates AI automatically try to plan and coordinate units to fulfill the higher command; or if he really wants to, he can assume control at a lower level in the command chain and micro-manage the troop tactic.

Similarly, instead of choosing military or political leaders just for modifiers purpose in HoI or Vicky, it would be great that the leaders mean competent AI assistants/agents who really help in carrying out larger strategic commands or directives

I know the AI-assisted UI is not as simple to implement, however it is the right track to manage complex games such as Victoria and other Paradox’s excellent and deep historical strategy classics such as EU2 and HoI.

We all already enjoy the game, let’s hope Paradox can broaden the intrinsic fun of historical grand strategy game to general audience by improve the UI design.

 

[Nabatam]

I know the AI-assisted UI is not as simple to implement, however it is the right track to manage complex games such as Victoria and other Paradox’s excellent and deep historical strategy classics such as EU2 and HoI.

Pacifist:

I totally concur with you. However, to illustrate the difficulty of adding more AI to a game to reduce the micromanagement, I would like to point how M003 went so far in that direction that all the player was left was "click" to get to the next turn (yes, yes, you could fine tune things but overall it was way too heavily geared towards relying on the AI). Even if you did want to take full control that was not so easily achieved.

 

[marshman]

Look I don't want to sounds like a "fanboi" or whatever the term is..and heck maybe I am. But I couldn't believe the score gamespot gave. When evaluating whether the review is fair or not you have to think why do people read the reviews--its to figure out if the game is worth buying.

If I had read that review without preording, I may not have bought the game. A piece of code which, in terms of how it deals with evolving population and demographics, is nothing short of revolionary and brilliant. There is zero out there that even comes close to that kind of detail. If they went back and added these demographis to universalis, I think u'd easily have EU III on ur hands with potentially as many interesting what ifs.

That said, the article did have some valid points. i.e I agree the interface needs a minor usuability overhaul particularly when so much attention to detail is needed. Granted, there are ways to keep track of things that you only learn after playing the game for about 3 days (lol), but the reviewer has a point that it should be easier.

One pet request of mine is ...I love the new province concept, just wish there was a way to shade them more obviously when selecting them.

So I'd guess to be balanced, i'd say I don't object so much to all the reviewers points, it's just his overall score was just plain wrong. If I had worked on this game, I'd feel materially jipped. With that in mind, I tried to submit my own review but for some reason they rejected it. I have convinced they rejected my review/score to censor me.

CENSORSHIP!!

My militant score just went up by +3. GRR.

 

[Spruce]

MOO3 was revamped to improve on UI. Imho, they improved on UI - still the game flunked,

so UI is not the most important. What's most important, and some of you guys will roll with their eyes :wacko: is that the patches are coming our way,

I find it totally normal for these kind of games that they are not perfect, perhaps the work on the games can start a little earlier so that they meet Xmas with more ease,

but on the other hand Johan and the dev.'s were still busy at patching up the earlier games.

so besides from the extreme hard days of work, would you guys rather pay double for the game (to overcome the extra time needed for getting this game right) or ...

, ok I'm still thinking the review is unbalanced and doesn't take any references into consideration. My conclusion is the guy should be chased away,

anyhow, about the remark about deploying troops, the button "deploy all to home" gives me a good feeling, the troops gather in one province and then they can be "organised" in different armies,

 

[Porcius]

A reviewer can't base his opinion of a game based on what patches might or might not come. Yes, all the Paradox games have been patched extensively, which to some people may seem the epitome of customer service. To other people it is a bloody nuisance. I am somewhere in the middle on this myself...

When a reviewer gets a game, he reviews what he gets. If any patches are out, he downloads them and installs them. He does not ignore bugs or errors simply because they *might* get fixed in the future. This is a gross disservice to people who depend on reviews to guide purchasing decisions. How would he know what will get fixed when? Should he just tell readers to buy them game and then keep patching it?

Paradox has a great rep for making its patches more than simpy bug fixes. And most experienced game reviewers (like Brett Todd - he's been doing this for years) know that. But the rule is simple. You review what arrives. Not what you think the game will look like in eight months.

 

[marshman]

I agree with the statement that Brett Todd is supposed to review only the game in hand. It's not that he didnt have points, it was that the overallscore was not balanced by the elements of the game that are great.

And the only reason the UI needs more work here is that the old paradox engine is not used to this much fine detail and complexity.

The litmus test is will this guy dissuade people from buying what is otherwise a great game...I think a lot of people who would have enjoyed the game won't buy it because his review was so unbalanced.

The only other element that might be in play is this guy is used to reviewing games like Halo and Doom 8 or whatever.. very different type of game and he may just not have the horepower to evaluate this. I've played all the paradox games, and Vic is by far the best and the others got far higher reviews than Vic did by Brett.

 

[Porcius]

FWIW, Brett Todd has written a lot of reviews in a lot of genres.

Most of his stuff is on sports games. Next is strategy.

 

[marshman]

yeah not an overhwleming amount of intelectual depth in sports games.

WRT strategy reviews, a lot of things make it into that category that are very different. i.e reviewing Risk II is a different exercise than HOI or Vic.

that said, I probably couldn;t do a decent review of Tony Hakwkes skateboarding fantasma.

 

[unmerged(22920)]

Pacifist:

I totally concur with you. However, to illustrate the difficulty of adding more AI to a game to reduce the micromanagement, I would like to point how M003 went so far in that direction that all the player was left was "click" to get to the next turn (yes, yes, you could fine tune things but overall it was way too heavily geared towards relying on the AI). Even if you did want to take full control that was not so easily achieved.

Nabatam: Yes, thanks for giving an excellent counter example of how a inconceived AI/UI could fail (such as in MOO3), I haven't played the game personally, however heard a lot of similar complains from people who enjoyed MOO and MOO2 about the new game.

That's why I think the UI should be adaptive and evolving around players' level of focus: e.g., early phase vs late phase; higher grand strategic planning or micromanagement for optimal efficency.

Even though, a better AI/UI intergration is not the perfect solution to assist players to deal with complex low-level chores. However I still believe it's worth the attempt.

 

[Dinsdale]

MOO3 was revamped to improve on UI. Imho, they improved on UI - still the game flunked,

so UI is not the most important.

That is a massive leap toward the wrong conclusion. Moo3 flunked therefore UI is not important

If UI is unimportant then the game could be played using a command line interface with reports generated instead of a map

The Victoria UI is it's greatest weakness. Economy, army size, etc can all be tweaked, but the UI is unworkable for multiplayer, and a serious hinderance to single player, especially in the late game.

It's time for strategy games to get out of the dark ages and realize that ease of use is important. When I have to spend exponentially more time trying to communicate my instructions to the game than making strategic decisions then IMHO something is wrong.

but on the other hand Johan and the dev.'s were still busy at patching up the earlier games.

That might be fine for you and I as existing customers, but for new customers this is irrelevant. People are not interested in excuses. When money is paid for a game then some level of quality is expected from that purchase. If it's missing then we can only hope that people are patient, but please don't stretch to excuses.

so besides from the extreme hard days of work, would you guys rather pay double for the game (to overcome the extra time needed for getting this game right) or ...

Yes I would pay double for a game like this. There aren't many of them, I still play EU2, I expect I'll be playing Victoria for some time to come as well. I wouldn't see a problem in paying a premium for a superior product.

anyhow, about the remark about deploying troops, the button "deploy all to home" gives me a good feeling, the troops gather in one province and then they can be "organised" in different armies,

Have you tried to do that with the 200 divisions you'll need to fight in 1910?

It also assumes that "home" is a convenient place to the front, often it isn't, but I certainly can't be bothered to go through each army and place it individually. I find myself making these kinds of compromises all through the game. Fighting the interface is harder than fighting the AI.

 

[Spruce]

Dinsdale,

I said that UI wasn't the most important. You are turning my words upside down like a magician. I've played and enjoyed games with very poor UI,

I would also like to pay double and get a perfect game, but on the other hand this hypothesis was rethorical question that you answered. How on earth can you judge this knowing that HOI would still be under development and Victoria merely an idea? I think marketing and business have the high impact here,

I agree with you on the 200 divisions in the WWI scenario,

 

[unmerged(10426)]

I can't fault the review.

 

[Soulitaire]

The reviewer must be missing something...

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/victoria/index.html

Gameplay 6
Graphics 7
Sound 6
Value 7
Tilt 6

huaah!

 

[Syt]

Merged a new thread with the old one.

 

[Soulitaire]

Ah.. thanks... I must have missed the other one. But that's what we have you here for, eh?