I'd love to do a MOO 4. It would basically be MOO 2 with some elements from MOO 1 with a big graphics update, more streamlined multiplayer options (along the lines of Civ IV) and a campaign mode to reintroduce players to the mythos that Simtex created.

That would be so cool! Don't give up on this idea! There clearly is a market for such a game. Just look at the many posts trying to turn GalCiv2 into MoO4 (i.e., asking for MP, tactical combat, carriers, etc.) GalCiv and MoO are both great series I would like to continue.

A couple years ago some people at Atari approached us to do new versions of a series of Atari properties (MoM, Star Control, XCom, and even MOO) but other than talks on MoM not a lot has progressed and even there, things have come to a stand still. I'd love to do a MOO 4. It would basically be MOO 2 with some elements from MOO 1 with a big graphics update, more streamlined multiplayer options (along the lines of Civ IV) and a campaign mode to reintroduce players to the mythos that Simtex created.

Awesome, I hope you someday get the liscense!

10 things I would like to see in MoO 4:

1. Planetary management from MoO 1 (from the galaxy screen itself)

2. Galaxy layout from Galciv

3. The cool additions from MoO 2 (artificial planets, genetic manipulation, doom stars, custom races, world destroying weapons, etc.)

4. 3D tactical combat like in homeworld

5. Planetary invasions like in Star Legions

6. Evil/good alignment from Galciv

7. Ability to customize ship visuals like in Galciv, while still keeping the complexity from MoO 2 ship design.

8. A great AI

9. A huge tech tree, with race specific as well as random elements.

10. Multiplayer

Hey all,

That would be so sweet!!!!! Sign me up for the email campaign or whatever it takes !!  

I am sure Stardock has the money but with its current projects its hard to tell wheter it will have the manpower for something like this. Hopefully it does but its not for us to decide.

Great Emporer, I think you miss how some important points might be working even though you raised them. First, the MOO and MoM questions are very much about branding, at least if you are indiscrete enough to mention the "original" engines--and right now branding means significant intellectual property-based overhead.

More importantly, from a biz perspective, the *most* important thing Stardock can consider is how we paying customers think they should direct their limited develpoment resources.

p.s. I would pay more than I think reasonable for a good MoM sucessor.

Why do MOO4 when you can do GalCiv3? There's really not anything that you could do with MOO4 that you can't do with GalCiv3 [except call the aliens Klackon, Sakkra, etc., admittedly, but that doesn't stop you having similar races: bugs, lizards, fish, rocks, cats, etc (including something like the ithkul/aliens from the aliens movies would be pretty cool - and hopefully not too likely to draw a lawsuit)as all these races are staples of the science fiction genre, so Atari would have a hard time justifying a claim of copyright infringement], plus you won't have to put up with outside interference and get to keep all of the profits.

vince

Frogboy, I'd love to hear some details on y'all's

pretty good idea of the key points that made MoM so fun for us

I also think that

Why do MOO4 when you can do GalCiv3?

is a really good question, especially given my current concerns that the modern corporate approach to branding is an irrational drag on the overall economy. Why wait for a deal with owners of an apparently dead (if beloved to weirdos like me) "franchise" like MoM? Your crew appear perfectly capable of building "your own" software to both answer the call from us old-guard MoM fans and start up a base of fantasy 4X TBS fans.

Agreed, let the old franchises stay with atari and let them sit and watch as you rake in profits with "Dreadlord Masters"!!! lol

GalCiv is the descendant of Civilization, while MoO is the descendant of the pen and paper game Star Fleet Battles.

Pretty much every modern galactic conquest game is a descendant of MoO 1, Galciv included. MoO 1 itself is more of a descendant of Spaceward Ho! and Reach For The Stars than anything else.

I've never played MoM, but I would love to see a new XCom game. XCom Enforcer really killed the franchise and it would be great to see it make a comeback. I loved Enemy Unknown and Terror From the Deep as well as Interceptor. If you guys were to do a new one I would snatch it up in an instant.

I'm a bit leery of more X-Com PC games just from seeing how much it went wrong on UFO Aftermath. Then again, Aftermath was pretty much a remake of X-Com: Apocalypse, not Enemy Unknown. Whoever handles the next remake I hope would stay properly focused on good game mechanics, balance, and usability instead of devoting too much resources to being graphically competitive.

I said I'm leery of more PC games in that vein, since I actually do enjoy Rebelstar Tactical Command on the GBA. Not a true remake, it only does the tactical combat and it has you following a storyline, but an able adaptation of the general theme and feel. If I heard about a pure port of UFO: Enemy Unknown to the GB DS though, I'd go out and buy one right away(I mean the platform, not just the game itself). Pretty much anything Microprose made in the old days (MoO, MoM, etc) would sound worthwhile to me on a portable platform that can approximate mouse control.

A Master of Orion remake by Stardock sounds pretty pointless to me right now. Master of Magic is much more different than GalCiv, it's pretty much as different as GalCiv is compared to Civilization. It was much more advanced than any of the Heroes of Might & Magic games-- did those games even HAVE spells you could cast? Or research of any kind?

MoM had you choosing at the start of the game what schools of magic you would forevermore be good at, drastically increasing replayability by making you rely on different spells, PLUS special abilities like Warlord, Artificer, Channeler, etc, even letting you choose to start on an alternate, mana-rich 'mirror world'. Choosing your initial starting race was important, but you could conquer the towns of other races and thus open up new options for your armies, plus the option of using summoned creatures or powerful heroes with potentially customizable items; this meant you didn't feel oppressively restricted on one playthrough, even though you'd already picked what schools of magic you could use.

It wasn't a perfect game, the AI isn't great and I'm pretty positive it cheats, also it's lacking in build queues and other accessibility features.. but those were just problems of the times, I don't worry that a sequel by a good developer would leave those out. Just worried a lot of the complexity and features would be left out.

Pretty much every modern galactic conquest game is a descendant of MoO 1, Galciv included. MoO 1 itself is more of a descendant of Spaceward Ho! and Reach For The Stars than anything else.

Brad first made GalCiv for OS/2 when he was in college, and the first public version of it predated MoO1's release.

What would Galciv be the 'descendant of' in that case?

I suspect the Stardockers are being humble here. I'm not an industry expert, but if I recall rightly I was reading about Galciv on OS/2 when it was first released and wondering why there was nothing like it anywhere else. I worked in a mainframe shop back then and we had some sad little toy that thought it was a space empire game, but you could get more out of play-by-mail at that point.