I agree with several other posters who said the EG wasn't something they really asked for in a feature list. I mean, yes, it would be fun to share stories of our games with people, and I certainly love reading the game examples, but if it's not going to work out, I will definitely survive. A

And to make you feel better about it, yes, the AI and actual gameplay is MUCH MUCH more important than the Epic Generator, which while really cool, is really just fluff. It doesn't make the GAMEPLAY any better and if it's taking resources away from gameplay, it must go. That's my feeling. But don't get me wrong, it would be sweet.

I'd vote to spend the time on it, even taking time away from the AI *shudder*, for the simple reason that it pushes the envelope of game development.

I second Burianek's take, including a shudder about the competition for scarce dev resources and the core importance of the AIs. I have no interest in being "scared" by the AI (stories are scary, software is just interesting), but I do want to be surprised now and then.

Re the repeat-play value of the feature, that will obviously vary widely, as do basic play styles. I am hung up on massive, very long games and would *always* value reading the epic afterwards.

I also heartily agree that this notion is the beginning of something with beautiful possibilities--in-game epic chapters at key points could be really fun, basically a really sophisticated version of the annual reports at the very least.

I think we could put in event logging or something. That part works pretty well.  The hard part is turnign that data into on the fly stories that are interesting.  Yea, in hindsight, having software generate works of fiction may have been a bridge too far.

It seems like the consensus is building - better to improve the AI than salvage the Epic generator. It's definitely a neat idea, but as SleekDD said, it's also quite an ambitious project, too ambitious, I would have to say for what you get out of it.

Unless you put more work into in than the entire GalCiv game it would necessarily be unnatural and repetitive (at best). But as other posters have said, the "event log" could still be salvaged, and more useful, in my opinion, than even the best epic generator. I want to tell MY story, with my own words - but I always forget to take notes on what happens as I play, and even if I remembered it'd be too much trouble. But if the game could give me a list of all the major events:
Planet colonisation,
Ship design,
War declared,
Space battles,
Planets conquered,
Peace declared,
Techs researched,
Alliances (and the new treaties),
and - events, mega and otherwise,

I could use that information to create my own epic story.

So I hope you keep in the log - however it is now! - and go back to making some kick-ass AI.

may have been a bridge too far

Not too far, just into unknown territory, and *sigh* maybe too ambitious for this exact moment. Software is already generating "stories" at the visual level--what else is the combat tactical viewer?

Part of what made me really hot to see this feature is the idea that *words* might finally be getting a better share of dev time. Re Gre_Magus' take on "my" story, I always assumed the system would be highly moddable, and figured that would be the first thing that got me into active modding.

On events, the choice made. As I am 100% evil, I'll never have to guess what option I chose but logging "evil, underwater domes emptied, 48% research bonus" would help.

Logging ship design would make the description section useful again. Many players eliminate all custom ships after each game so they can describe exactly why they designed a specific ship and have that appended to the log.

Come to think of it... let the players append the logs before and after each event. Just a tiny icon like so many on the UI.

Here's an example of what I'm thinking:

--I move several fleets to various mining bases to cripple an opposing empire in the opening moves of war.
--When the game says "attacking Yor Economy Resource base 232 will declare war, do you want to do this?", there would be a button somewhere in that window to append the declaration of war log with my reason for attacking this particular site.

*sigh* -- it may sound absurd, but the epic generator was my prime motivation for purchasing DA (i have pre-ordered it)

i know i know, that sounds crazy, but seriously, I am an amateur writer and there is nothing i love to read better than a good story, so when i heard that i would be able to play a freakishly awesome game and then read a story about that, that idea was just too cool to me - i am probably one in a million when it comes to how much i enjoy the concept of the epic generator -- seriously, frogboy, christmas break is coming up and if you needed any layman help, i would be happy to volunteer, anything to help this feature make it

but if it gets cut, i vote for some secondary logging system like the one mentioned already

and if it gets cut, could the code perhaps go on the backburner and be a pet project? something that gets released in a massive patch in the future? please?

i know i know, i'm a sad pathetic individual, but i am also a devoted fan of you guys, and i know that if it gets cut, its for the best and i will live with that decision, even if i don't like it.

Ugh... edit isn't working.

Anyway, ditto the log appending button for victory/defeat screens and any other place where an event occurs.

Players that don't care won't be bothered. Players that do care can take an extra moment to write a sentence or two about what they are doing.

ah edit is not working...

Come to think of it... let the players append the logs before and after each event. Just a tiny icon like so many on the UI.

i really like this idea, like, a lot

To be honest, it's a gimmick and not really needed.

To be honest, it's a gimmick and not really needed.

The original concept was definitely a gimmick but the event logging and appending can be _extremely_ useful to any player that would like to review their game.

Stardock would be modifying and expanding what they already do with debug.err.

Sounds like this should be an online poll.

I thought it was kind of neat ... but honestly? I have more fun making epic stories (i.e. playing the game) rather than reading about them. I don't need a story to tell me how the game went, after all, I was there. I probably would have used the feature once or twice and then forgot about it.

Just my 2 BC

Dano

While I agree that there is a case for shelving the EG in order to spend more time on other aspects of the game, I do feel that it has merit as a means of marketing the game. Think about the power of a tool that can tie together screenshots, data, narrative, and glorious battle scenes into an unfolding saga. It's beyond the scope of Dark Avatar and a February release to work in the full EG, but by implementing some rudimentary AI that captures certain key moments, that takes note of new innovations in starship design, and logs the essentials (planet names and so on) then there will be real data to actually feed into a storyboard generator later on. Obviously, it will be up to a player to edit things somewhat so that their history books read the way they want them to read.

There are other games (not in the 4X genre though) that have shown that people like stories, and even if they're not necessarily going to go out and buy the game to make their own stories, they still might be impressed enough to give the game a whirl.

Think about the power of a tool that can tie together screenshots, data, narrative, and glorious battle scenes into an unfolding saga. It's beyond the scope of Dark Avatar and a February release to work in the full EG, but by implementing some rudimentary AI that captures certain key moments, that takes note of new innovations in starship design, and logs the essentials (planet names and so on) then there will be real data to actually feed into a storyboard generator later on.

You don't need AI for any of this. Artificial intelligence is not going to suffice for the act of writing. Event logging can be easily done as described above with no AI programming whatsoever. I'll add to the event logging ideas with this:

On the main UI, have a tiny camera icon to take a screenshot of whatever you want. A png image gets filed away. Maybe they can date the image. GC2 players will be the only people around with files dated in 2230. Alternatively, the log can open yet again to record why you did it and the corresponding file name for the image.

Final thought:

Stardock creates the event file in a way that third party programmers can parse into, say, a flash application. Fields preceding each part of the log can say DATE, EVENT, DESCRIPTION with optional fields like SCREENSHOT.

Let the fans handle the story telling application. It can't be xml or it won't be efficiently read by humans.

i am probably one in a million when it comes to how much i enjoy the concept of the epic generator

There are at least two in a million of us

The EG is tied with the new environment stuff for 1st in my lists of reasons I've been drooling for DA.

It doesn't matter to me whether or not the Generator can create fully fledged stories. All I really look for is the groundwork or just some handy screenshots taken at crucial moments, I can flesh out the rest of the story on my own.

So don't worry if you have to get rid of it, yeah its dissappointing but it won't affect Dark Avatar for me one bit.

There are at least two in a million of us

okay okay, i'm 1 in 500,000

but anywhat, stardock, please take heed of some of the suggestions that have been made bareboning the EG -- i really like Wheeloffire's ideas concerning a screenshot capture system and a story append icon -- perhaps if you decided to implement this, to make things easier you could have the optional generator place the player created screenshots and files into a sub-directory of the players choice inside of the GCII file structure, something like c:\program files\stardock\GalcivII\Epics\[insert directory name here] or whatever the heck you wanted to name it so that players who enjoy reading/writing good stories could have a directory that contained everything from a single game - event logs with player note, screenshots with a player written caption, and... heck, even just those 2 features would make me happier than nothing

Definately though; make the automatic screenshooting an option though if done/possible

I'm in the cut it camp since I doubt I'd ever bother to look at it after the first one generated. I do think if you can salvage some of it to give people a game log of sorts that would make a lot of AARs more interesting.

Still it is a unique idea that would be interesting to accomplish if for no other reason than to say *yep SD did that*. Just maybe not now.

I would like to hear from the Stardock Dev who is working on this. Is it something he thinks can be 'dumbed down' or not? Is this something that can be shelved for this expansion in exchange for another feature.

I like the epic generator idea and would not like to see it go. However if it is going to cause a reduction in enjoyment in the rest of the game then it should be shelved immediately and the resources moved to a different part of the expansion pack.

Maybe it can be picked up on again for the next expansion or altered to just give us a list of the major occurrences in the game and maybe take a screenie or two of these events....

I am sure the decision you guys make will not be made lightly and fully support whichever decision you make!!

Drengin

Something that came to mind during this discussion is apparently you can have your Xbox 360 create it's own blog. Here's an example from someone I know:

http://www.360voice.com/blog.asp?tag=JLDeano

Tying this into the topic at hand- a lot of this topic is taking data (in this case from an Xbox) and applying AI to it. But, you can already see that it is repetitive quickly. I would imagine the Epic Generator would be that way, too. However, again, let the community take the data as deemed "epic" (hopefully configurable) and then throw it into a parser like this, or at least some sort of analyzer. Or, how about tie it into the Joe User website or another blog page? How cool would that be? Modders would love it.

Poor BoogieBac. Sorry you had such a giant undertaking- know the community appreciated all your hard work in this area, even if some (or all) of it is cut. I'm sure if you would have completed the project Sci-Fi publishers would be knocking down your door!

That's me...I'm the optimistic schmuck that insisted the task would be easier than it'd turn out to be   

The real problem comes down to resources, and how we want to divvy out our remaining time on the expansion pack. We have new events that we want to create, new United Planets issues that would be specific to the new game mechanics, and a load of little polish features that would drastically increase the quality of the game-part of DA.

We could also spend that time with the uphill battle that has become the Epic Generator, hopefully reaching the level of satisfaction that we're shooting for, but have to leave out some fun extras that we wanted to throw in for you guys.

My fear at this point is that the Epic Generator has been an resource hog every step of the way. With every required feature, we'd think "OK, here comes the easy part"...but that never came. It's like trudging through a unexplored swamp...you know where you're headed, but you don’t know the distance or how draining the trip will be.

IF we happen to pull it, know that it wouldn't be scrapped for good...with some tender love 'n care it could become a really great feature, but with the logic processing and content creation required, it's defiantly a game mechanic that will have to be put through the ringer.

As Brad said, we have the data to print out a list of key events, and if we have time perhaps even slip in some hot keys for screenshot grabs, so players wouldn't be left completely in the cold.

We'll see what we can pull of in the next few days...perhaps the swamp will dry up and we'll gain some nuch needed ground   

Till then...back to the compiler!

"He made some progress on Gears of War winning 4 achievements, and then the lightweight went to bed. Freakin' wuss."

Perhaps the epic generator needs to insult the player more    I also like how many of the posts are just the XBox complaining how the player hasn't been playing it.

Good stuff, thanks for the link L.Reliant!

I;m going to have to chime in as one of the people who would love to at least see the logging data stay in. While I would love to see the epic generator, the data could at least be usefull for community projects.