Killjaeden wrote:Beermachine wrote:Could also be some unforeseen complications. Games with truly dynamic simulation gameplay tend to have it as one of their core mechanics, rather than tacked on, to be exceptional.
I dont disagree. However - "truly dynamic" is pretty nebulous. It's certainly not wrong to say that a dynamic universe is pretty much one of the pillars of the X series from X2 onwards (not sure about earlier). Exactly how dynamic it is varies with dev ressources and tech, but their goal seems to be "as good as possible while 'safe' for gameplay stability", for X4 certainly. If they want to build ships and stations from ressources and economy, this is the foundation of a detailed dynamic simulation already - more than we ever had. And if the possibilities of all out wars are kept in mind when designing the dynamic universe mechanics, then adding a "war logic statemachine" (the one that makes AI decide to declare war and pool ships into fleets to send to attack, the one that makes peace/ceasefire decisions, ...) at a later point will not require a total overhaul of everything. It's just another layer on top of the already dynamic foundation that brings even more dynamic behaviour and therefore greater potential variety in gameplay.
ES do have to consider such war scenarios one way or another if they want to make the universe as dynamic as they said - because the player can do whatever he wants, and possible missions or random events might lead to war-like situations, where factions have to at least respond properly to bigger fleets of aggressors (by putting up a defense).
In X3 sometimes a Khaak invasion would happen in a sector and unless a NPC capital ship flew there by chance after several hours, the sector would remain forever lost. Zero reaction. I think TC improved this a bit, but response was extreeeemely slow and often inadequate to what was happening. In X4 this would be disastrous, if a single enemy capital could wreck entire swathes of space and it's traffic. It could have extreme impacts on economy around the area and possibly even globally.
Apologies for the late reply.
I don't disagree, truly dynamic is very nebulous
In my particular usage, it's specific to this thread, namely dynamism in relation to a warring factional game world simulation (be it military or economic), and subsequently how that simulation evolves naturally due to those interactions.
In that context, while X games have a detailed simulation that is dynamic in the short term on the individual level, at the grand strategy level they are very static, especially when compared to any good strategy game from the last 20 years. In almost every one, starting a game with 7 factions of equal strength on the same map, run it in observer mode and then look at the map at the end game. Every time it will be unique, with different factions destroyed, vastly different sizes of occupied territory, army / fleet numbers and compositions, resource stockpiles, etc. Do the same for X games, and apart from the distribution of economic stations (which is also very predictable, with the same stations being de-spawned), 500 or 5000 hours in it's all pretty much the same. Very little evolution at all, with only temporary or minor changes (in the grand scheme of things), like one or two destroyed sectors out of hundreds mostly unchanged. Faction military fleet strengths are the same, overall numbers of traders, etc. They may fluctuate on the short term, but long-term, not at all. Even the players actions have minimal long-term effects (other than stations), with the all powerful GOD maintaining the games status quo. The economic simulation in relation to the price of goods is the only thing that could be considered dynamic, but again GOD's no resource cost spawning and resource black holes ruins that in the long run. That's what I mean by a static vs dynamic simulation model.
Now, this isn't a problem in games that aren't in the strategy genre, or where it's not a core gameplay mechanic. If (and it's a big if) Egosoft is planning on making the endgame of X4 a more strategic factional warfare based gameplay, then not including the core game design principles of nearly every good strategic factional warfare game ever made, is a strange design decision indeed. One of the core gameplay experiences is to adapt to an ever evolving, unpredictable simulation, reactively and proactively, where the player and the AI factions share the same basic rules / mechanics (with varying degrees of abstraction for factional AI). While X games have done this reasonably well on a small scale, it's completely different when applied to a grand strategy format. Take that dynamic simulation away and replace it with a more static, predictable model while also limiting the AI's ability to conquer and the depth of strategic gameplay is vastly diminished.
I agree that having a resource based system, rather than spawning for free, is the very foundation of a grand strategy games dynamic simulation. Still, it's the very basic bare minimum, and a LOT more needs to layered on top of this to make a good simulation with enjoyable, proactive and reactive strategic gameplay. Basic diplomacy is another bare minimum, but from what I gather (could be wrong) it won't be included at release.
Don't get me wrong, I loved X2 and all the X3's, just not for the dynamism of their universe on the grand strategy level, which I've always considered to be a missed opportunity, making the endgame very flat (for me). Also, it's not the 90's or 2000's anymore, and player expectations, especially in terms of emergent gameplay, mechanics, simulation dynamism, depth, etc have advanced considerably (especially if the storyline, marketing and graphical budget aren't astronomical). If one man independent development studios can release games with in-depth, dynamic game world simulations (there are many recent examples), then professional game studios should be able to do the same.
As a pure speculation, I fear that just like XR where Egosoft didn't understand the complicated design and gameplay requirements to make a "GTA in space", they don't understand the same for a strategy based endgame (grand or RTS). I hope to be proven wrong.
) This way, one could hope to recover or reverse-engineer the secrets of some race-specific technology, for example - and then potentially becoming the sole provider of that (perhaps crucial) item to the whole universe. (It always annoyed me that if I wanted access to jumpdrives without jumping (pardon the pun) through hoops, I had to remain on good on certain very specific and very few factions, especially in pre-Terran days.)
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