Sectiplave wrote: Yeah I don't disagree that the 'steamlining' side of things in general just suck (I'm looking at YOU Mass Effect!) I'm personally hoping for a community mod that brings back energy and time units etc. That can run off the base game they are making here, it looks to be a fairly decent base level 're-imagining' of XCOM:EU. Maybe I'm too optimistic but I'm sure some modders will grab this and make some 'traditional' mods

Don't remind me of Mass Effect - I haven't even been able to bring myself to go through ME2 yet, and its not like ME1 was that complicated to start with!

For Xcom though - am I alone in just using the 'reserve time units' all the time anyway? I've seen some people using rookies as scouts but I always used to like to play pretty cautiously - well apart from where I nuked the general area of anywhere I though there might be an alien

So when I looked at the time unit and energy changes, it just seemed effectively like what I did anyway - move my teams only as far as still allowed me a shot at the end or a reaction and energy tends to run out slowly that way. Their designers may have eliminated the stats for that reason?

Nah, I had reserve TUs on permanently. Overwatch ftw

yup, you either played conservatively and carefully, saving APs, using over-watch, multiple over-watch angles overlapping covering field of fire. Make one mistake tho and poof all that time and hard work just went down the drain.

the alternative was to nuke the crap out of everything, with destructible terrain, High Explosives, grenades you simply just went Postal on the environment . The tactic was limited to your supplies, cost and any civilian casualties you will incur. not to mention fewer salvage.

2 ways to play, most players did a mix of both. Removing ammo, removing APs etc just dilutes the tactical aspect of the game. Love the graphics but i will not trade graphics for console gameplay. Here's hoping Xenonauts comes good and we will have both XCOM type games and the players can decide which is worth your time more.

Or tactic 3: get flying powered body armour and watch the whole game become a joke...

Excellent RockPaperShotgun interview with Lead Designer Jake Solomon, covering a variety of topics including:

-design approach/history
-fan response to the announcement
-game difficulty
-narrative
-new/removed enemies
-reasons for dumping the time unit system
-mod support
-game saving (incl Iron Man Mode)

Part 1, part 2, part 3.


Game Informer have also posted a 'Special Edition Podcast' where they speak with the aforementioned Jake and Producer Garth DeAngelis.

Here (haven't listened to it yet so can't comment on its content).

UncleGeb wrote: Excellent RockPaperShotgun interview with Lead Designer Jake Solomon, covering a variety of topics including: -design approach/history -fan response to the announcement -game difficulty -narrative -new/removed enemies -reasons for dumping the time unit system -mod support -game saving (incl Iron Man Mode) Part 1, part 2, part 3. Game Informer have also posted a 'Special Edition Podcast' where they speak with the aforementioned Jake and Producer Garth DeAngelis. Here (haven't listened to it yet so can't comment on its content).

Cheers the RPS interview was epic, and pretty much confirmed that I must have this game.

Interactive Ant Farm of the XCOM base.

Very cool, but as mentioned in RPS no sign of Alien Containment which is concerning. Also not sure how base incursions will be handled either.

Interview with the lead designer, Jake Solomon.

Sounds bloody great. True choices and consequences, no modern audience mollycoddling, skill needed to succeed... f*ck yes!

The "zoomed action" footage really reminds me of Valkyria Chronicles. Being as that's the most recent turn-based tactical game that today's gamers know, it's not bad idea at all to take some inspiration from it.

EDIT:-
An official dev diary featurette

lol . I cannot believe folk still fall for the same line " we took away the headspace for the player and improved it for them " translation console players are dumber and so we had to simplify things or they will get confused . " we decided that cover was to be used more often and so we made things more tactical " translation gear of wars was our favourite shooter so we used the same cover mechanic. " there will be real consequences for the players actions " Really REALLY ?????

Bloody wrote: lol . I cannot believe folk still fall for the same line " we took away the headspace for the player and improved it for them " translation console players are dumber and so we had to simplify things or they will get confused . "

That comment was in reference to the removal of the time units system. They were fiddly in the original - replacing them with a system that is simpler might mean the player can spend more time thinking about broader tactical considerations than how many TUs moving a grenade from belt to hand might cost. I won't miss them.

Bloody wrote: we decided that cover was to be used more often and so we made things more tactical " translation gear of wars was our favourite shooter so we used the same cover mechanic.

You're saying you don't think cover should be an important part of a tactical combat system? Implementing it in a way which makes moving into/out of cover relatively straightforward sounds like it might be an improvement over the slightly clunky stand/crouch/move out/move back approach that is typical of this genre.

I'm not trying to pick an argument here but I think it's a little unfair to attribute such design decisions to some sort of 'appeal to the lowest common denominator' marketing-driven money grab. The interviews I've seen seem to suggest that the devs are genuine fans of the original game so until I have a chance to play it myself I'm going to assume their choices are the result of a desire to improve aspects of the original (it wasn't perfect) rather than a blatant attempt to appeal to the console crowd.

It's worth remembering that this game has been positioned as a re-imagining, not a remake. Henry Ford once said "if I'd asked people what they wanted they would have said 'a faster horse'". Xenonauts is your 'faster horse'. Me? I look forward to seeing where Firaxis takes this genre over the coming years...

Bloody wrote: lol . I cannot believe folk still fall for the same line " we took away the headspace for the player and improved it for them " translation console players are dumber and so we had to simplify things or they will get confused . " we decided that cover was to be used more often and so we made things more tactical " translation gear of wars was our favourite shooter so we used the same cover mechanic. " there will be real consequences for the players actions " Really REALLY ?????

Initially I was really pissed about the removal of TUs but based on all the info I've read and the observations made by the devs I begrudgingly have to agree with the removal. Focusing on your TU actually does make you focus on them rather than an overall strategy losing them will open up a more tactical approach from players. I replay the originals fairly often and only recently completed XCom:TFTD and its totally true that the TUs actually limit your tactical options.
I love XCOM/UFO:EU and think its one of the best if not THE best PC game ever made, but it can be improved and I think the TU removal is a good move although probably the most controversial one Firaxis could have made short of forgoing TB all together.

As for the cover mechanic. Are you deranged? Giving more tactical options in the game is a good thing. Hell its basically just an upping of the line of sight mechanic from the original.
The comparison to GoW is daft as a 3rd person shooter and a tactical turn based strategy game are vastly different. I say give me as many tactical options as possible.
Shit the was almost a cover system in Xcom anyway or at least as close to one as you could get. It was called crouching, harder to see, harder to hit, and better hit percentages for the player.

As UncleGeb stated the Devs are fans of the original and the lead designer is a full on Xcom uber fan. So I am not too worried at this point.

i must ask how does TUs limit your tactical options? Because tactics is achieving an immediate aim with the greatest value with your current limitations. Tactics is not removing those limitations just because without those limitations then clearly your your options are different.

Bloody wrote: i must ask how does TUs limit your tactical options? Because tactics is achieving an immediate aim with the greatest value with your current limitations. Tactics is not removing those limitations just because without those limitations then clearly your your options are different.

I thought exactly the same thing, but here is Jake Solomon's take on it. After replaying TFTD after reading this I agree 100% There is a video somewhere that explains it better but I cant be bothered finding it atm.

Quote: Jake Solomon, Lead Designer on XCOM:EU, answers fan questions Hey XCOM fans! As I'm sure many of you noticed, there are a few topics about the game design of XCOM:EU that have been coming up on these forums repeatedly. I went through the forums and picked out some common questions and asked Jake Solomon, lead designer on XCOM:EU at Firaxis, to share with us the through process behind these design decisions. He was happy to give a peek inside his and his team's minds to give you some insight in to how and why game design decisions like these get made. Without further ado, here are the answers! No more Time Units? We’re not saying Time Units are “too hard” to understand. They aren’t. But TUs are a “fuzzy” design mechanic. With Time Units, players weren’t considering the squad as a whole and how their abilities related to each other. Time Units actually made it less fun to consider how these abilities were going to combine and interact because players wanted to optimize the use of their time units, but it often wasn’t clear what an optimum use of time units was. Some actions had a fixed TU cost, but others were a percentage of your TUs. No player could look at his TU numbers and make a perfect prediction of what that number means. Faced with that, players said “I’m just going to let this play out and see what happens,” which wasn’t a very interesting decision to make. We’ve added a lot of new elements to the combat in XCOM in terms of the abilities of your soldiers and the aliens’ abilities. Those abilities come from the classes, weapons, and equipment you choose to bring with you on your mission. The joy of a tactical game is looking at the battlefield, evaluating the position of your men and the enemy, and then planning out your move. You’d say: “Okay, I’m going to have my guy with the machine gun go into overwatch so he can cover those enemies, and in the meantime I’m going to have those other guys move up so they can throw grenades into the enemy position.” Your planning at that point considers the entire squad as a squad, and how their abilities combine in awesome ways. Once we had a system where players could think of their abilities as discrete events, then players found it easier and more engaging to make a plan, force it on the enemy, and beat the opponent through superior tactics. In the end, you get all of the excitement and joy of carrying out that well-executed plan without having to break the immersion to think in terms of these abstracted Time Units. It’s also worth mentioning that we didn’t just make a decision to get rid of Time Units. We started making our prototypes with Time Units and we found the action/move-action system to be far more engaging. You still have those classic XCOM moments where you decide to go for broke and it doesn’t quite work for you Maybe you make a break for it, and you suddenly find yourself staring at a group of aliens you didn’t plan (or want!) to meet. Or taking your best shot at a crowd of Thin Men, failing to take them out, and realizing that when your turn ends, they’re going to be very, very angry with you. Now, you might say that you prefer the old method of TUs and individual tactics. That’s perfectly fair. But we’re as hardcore as it gets here at Firaxis, and we truly prefer the move/action system. Give it a chance, and you might, too. Scan for UFOs? What does that button do? “Scan For UFOs” is a way to tell HQ that you’re ready to continue scanning for enemy threats in the world, and it un-pauses the game and starts time moving again. An experienced X-com player knows that pausing the geoscape between missions is the best way to set up your next research and construction projects, re-equipping your soldiers, and so forth. At some point you’ve done everything you can to prepare, and now you need time for research and construction to finish. At that point you’d press the “Scan for UFOs” button, and watch the days and hours count down until your projects complete, or until the next threat materializes. Squad size? You do begin the game with a 4-man squad size, and you can expand that over the course of the game. We found that small squads with our turn-based combat actually made the game more interesting. When we had large squads, then players had a considerable ability to inflict their will on their opponent before that opponent could respond. That meant that combat became less interesting, especially as combat progressed, because you ended up with more and more soldiers with nothing to do. We haven’t backed off the lethality of the weapons involved, so it’s easy to make a sloppy mistake with positioning soldiers so they get flanked and killed by aliens. The small squad also means that losses are proportionally worse. If you have one guy die, you’re down 25% of your strength. If you have two die, you’ve lost half the soldiers you brought. It’s hard, but it’s fair. In the course of the game you will lose soldiers, and you will lose soldiers who were important parts of your tactics. What really hurts is when you lose a soldier who’s survived multiple missions, and is now a one-man machine of alien disintegration, and he gets pinned down by Mutons and then killed by an alien grenade. That hurts a lot. Or maybe this morning’s test game is still affecting me a little bit. Rest in peace, Winston Wallace. Visible enemy health? The important thing to keep in mind is that our interface isn’t finalized yet. We’re still trying to make the game as awesome as people expect, and so we’re playing with ideas still. Right now alien health is visible and that makes sense to us. That may or may not change between now and release.

fair enuf and good explanation. We will just have to wait and play it for ourselves.

Bloody wrote: fair enuf and good explanation. We will just have to wait and play it for ourselves.

Indeed. I usually am very hesitant of remakes/re-imaginings/reboots but thus far this seems to be looking great. Hopefully we'll get a decent in game video soon that shows us a lot more of the game in action.

http://ir.take2games.com/phoenix.zh...&highlight=

Link to those wanting to know the kind of stuff in the special editions and pre-order exclusive junk.

Comes out October 9, 2012.

I haven't cared for special editions of late but xcom special edition = why not since I still play the original after all these years.

And http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/201...-enemy-unknown/

New Article on RPS.

New Gameplay Video



New Deco Video

E3 interview with Jake Solomon (discusses gameplay footage):
http://e3.gamespot.com/video/638087...2012-stage-demo

Sid Meier as an unlockable character?

A nice meaty interview with the lead designer and lead producer. A good watch, IMO.

I have a tongue in cheek hope that the game engine is mod friendly and someone remakes Chaos gate

^ yes please! Chaos Gate was fantastic!

claxer wrote: I have a tongue in cheek hope that the game engine is mod friendly and someone remakes Chaos gate

I've been waiting for GOG to release this but it never happens

Beaten by cyrocore XD

Looking forward to it even more, multiplayer in turn based games has always been enjoyable for me.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...-shouldnt-worry

And a video preview

http://www.ign.com/videos/2012/08/1...video-preview-2

hmm only 6 max, damn, would been nice to run a alot of low cost zerg army

Looking good, is a shame it's only a team of 6 though, a few more would have been nice.