Tropico Multi-Player means? [answered]

[el_malo]

I think the developer touted MP, before having figured out how to do it.

Now, they are scaling back on MP, because it was more difficult than they expected.

Plus, I suspect that suntzu got it right, when he stated the following:

this rework of Tropico is likely to be little more than an upgrade of the graphics with the token addition of auto and trucks

T3 is looking to be beyond the capabilities of Haemimont.


 

[Coconut Kid]

... So what this means for Tropico 3 and any multiplayer mechanics it may have, we still have yet to see, but I would have to agree in that we should not get our hopes up. My honest prediction is that we will get a graphically pretty game with a mere husk of the original's gameplay.

Is this necessarily a bad thing though? think about the problems PopTop as well had with bringing together everything they put into T1. It might do some good to simplify the mechanics a bit to a point where they at least work predictably so that we can get to, you know, playing the game, instead of chasing wandering dockworkers and college educated farmers all over the island hoping to get them to do what you want them to do.

That is certainly an interesting concept. One certainly suspects that Frog City struggled with most of those issues --- path-finding, moving goods, work vs play (actually the clock/calendar scale), etc. Unfortunately their game story was a misfit upon which to build.

In any case, none of the "fans" has suggested eliminating any element of game play. Indeed - all they do is suggest more elaboration, bigger maps, higher mountains, invasion armies, --- Oopps! I forget, they want/demand that bad weather be eliminated.

 

[Servant Corps]

Bad weather seems rather annoying. You go in, build up an island, and then get hated because appernatly, Hurricane Bob decides to wander onto Tropico instead of Cuba. You are hated because of the Hurricane, but you have no control over the Hurricane. That's stupid. In SimCity, if your city gets destroyed, it's okay because you are Mayor-For-Eternity, but in Tropico? Never mind the fact that as the game continues, it becomes harder and harder to manitan power, and now you add this in?

The worst enemy in Tropico should not be not Mother Nature. It should be Man.

And, why do you guys think "a glorified chatroom" is somehow bad? In many MMORPGs, that usually what happens! People go to a lobby in order to talk and learn about how to defeat the dunegon, and then maybe they trade with each other. Then they each leave the lobby and go onto defeating dunegons by themselves. In T3, it could be Presidentes going over to the League of Dictators, talking to each other about how to suppress the peasentry, giving each other aid and valuable resources in order to defeat the rebels, and then leaving the League and returning back home so that they can go out and play by themselves on their own island dicatorship, only going back to the lobby to resupply.

There are other features of MMORPGs too, such as raiding (instead of completing a quest solo, you complete a quest with a team), and PvP (players fight each other instead of NPCs). The idea of having many players rule over one island can be seen as "raiding", and the idea of islands invading each other or supporting rebellions could also be seen as PvP. But the "glorified chatroom" model is alright, as that's what many MMORPGs usually are. It doesn't have to be anything more spectaular.

[el_malo]

Hurricanes, in the Caribbean, are part of life... there

They frequently devastate the island(s) they hit.

[Servant Corps]

True. But this is also a game, and hurricanes aren't really fun.

[el_malo]

Since I primarily play random maps, if I'm not in the mood for hurricanes... I just turn them off.

Leaving the option up to the player is the proper course of action for a developer.

[Coconut Kid]

... Leaving the option up to the player is the proper course of action for a developer.

The developer should, in any case, provide a complete Sandbox Mode so that the player can just "play in the sandbox" without any irritation at all.

Even the sand should feel like talcum powder.

 

[Coconut Kid]

Kalypso Media Forum

Developer Interview Part I, Question #4:

snip - There are no trade alliances between players.

http://forum.kalypsomedia.com/showthread.php?tid=1350

[Coconut Kid]

True. But this is also a game, and hurricanes aren't really fun.

His real questions?

Questions for the developers
I have some questions:
1) Will the political parts of Tropico1 carry over to Tropico3, and be more fleshed out?
2) How will international politics play a role in T3? For example, will the Cold War carry over from Tropico1 to Tropico3? Will there only be the USA and the USSR, or will there be more superpowers you can deal with?
3) Will you be able to invade other countries with an army, or be able defend your country from a Superpower Invasion?
04-23-09, 01:27 PM
http://forum.kalypsomedia.com/showthread.php?tid=1180&pid=8462#pid8462

Why do I bother with this? It's just connecting the dots. He simply doesn't get what the games can encapsulate. He did a big thread (elsewhere) on "Let's Horribly Break 'Hidden Agenda'" because he either couldn't accept or didn't understand the premise.

Not that he is alone. In fact so many 'players' have asked the same questions that Kalypso \ Haemimont have taken the "Tropico" name into a fantasy world with T4. But they are making money.

[Servant Corps]

Would you mind explaining to me what Tropico is?

I assumed both Tropico and Hidden Agenda were about running a country, staying in power as long as possible, fighting off or bribing off internal enemies, and (possibly?) improve the country you're running. If that is not the purpose of those games, then I'd wish to know what they are.

Please forgive me for my bluntness, but you already attempted to cast aspirations on me based on old posts and an LP...aspirations I'm not sure I'm willing to claim is at all accurate or even corresponding to who I am today.

EDIT: If you appear to oppose "feature creep" (on the basis that new features will be broken or just plain dumb in implementation) and "increased complexity" (on the basis that a more complex machine is more easier to break and mess up) and instead call for simplifying, fixing, or improving already existing gameplay features...I think I can understand that sort of sentiment. But I think such fixing could (and should) be done via a patch or an expansion pack, rather than outright releasing a brand new game.

[Coconut Kid]

Welcome Back
Servant Corps!
It's good to have someone tear down the cobwebs
and counter my hollow echos.

While I don't know what the acronym "LP" means, I assure you I did not intend any aspersion, but rather a rather intense sarcasm. I suppose the two may be too similar without a lot of additional verbage. I'm sure we have both changed since the older posts which may be involved.

You present a rather complex series of questions. If I may choose, let's go to the issues mentioned in the edit first.

Yes, I opposed "feature creep" and "increased complexity" for T3 because there are plenty of "refinements" in addition to plain bugs in T1 which could sell a reasonable number of games after all these years. The major justification for a new game rather than some sort of an upgrade of T1 consisted of three items:

• Recoding to a new game engine to use the newly available hardware, especially 3D graphics.
• For the city builders, changing from a sliding, flexible scale to a fixed, constant (realistic if you will) scale for the buildings.
• For game players in general, changing from cartoonish avatars for the NPCs to realistic avatars to match the improved building renditions and the 3D graphics.

The developers obviously believed that they had to go well beyond a "clean-up" and those three graphics elements to make a new game saleable.

Whether they undertook too much or had other (QC) problems, T3 had major problems but boomed anyway -- leading to T4.

(continued in my next post)

[Coconut Kid]

Would you mind explaining to me what Tropico is?

I assumed both Tropico and Hidden Agenda were about running a country, staying in power as long as possible, fighting off or bribing off internal enemies, and (possibly?) improve the country you're running. If that is not the purpose of those games, then I'd wish to know what they are. [about aspirations or aspersions snipped] ...

There is a problem with the assumption. Consider the: Definition of market niche: A small but profitable segment of a market suitable for focused attention by a marketer. They were intended for very different purpose niches, and came at different times in the development of computer games. Additionally, "running a country, staying in power as long as possible, fighting off or bribing off internal enemies, and (possibly?) improve the country you're running" are NOT actually commonalities of the two games. Hidden Agenda, along with Junta and other games were sources for the 'PopTop' developers. Tropico is a mixed genre PC game using a number of inspirations to create a game which uses a very elaborated NPC individuality format. The development team leader was no doubt using this game as a test for his concept for RRT3 which elaborated stations and train loads. (unfortunately "Trainz" hit the jackpot with model RR fans)

Hidden Agenda was developed as a "teaching tool" rather than an amusement game. The player is cast very specifically as a figurehead with some power, but limited by the members of the "junta" which control segments of the legislature. He has to select from among the members of the "junta" to form the executive government. He is "type cast" at the start so the student player can express a personal political opinion (yes, rather crude - but good for the computer era). Then the student player falls into a decision tree (based on three) which tests his ability to learn on his feet and reach his political goals while also reaching the game's goal.  Oh? The game's goal for the player? You inherit a true crisis. While the people are exhausted from the tumultuous insurrectionary period, the country is not devastated physically. Yet it will take at least three years, the Junta has declared, to bring the country back to some degree of normalcy. They have granted you the power to rule largely by decree, though it is understood that the other members of the Junta are your peers and will serve as spokesmen for the National Assembly. You will select from among them to form your cabinet and largely follow their advice. For the time being, you have the support of the Junta of the Insurrection, the Reconciliation Army, and the people. But as an old Spanish proverb says, "throw a bone to two friendly dogs and you have two enemies." The country waits to see what you will do with their support—while it lasts. You are not anything like the "dictator" player of "Tropico" who is not beholden to anyone, but may be turned out by several means by the NPCs.

A Junta game is multiplayer which involves the players compeating to be the "dictator" as head of the junta with lying, cheating, etc. with the country as a mere background. It may have inspired the "factions" in Tropico.

Tropico seems to be a somewhat different mix of things for the player to do. I think it is unique in its use of complex NPCs. The story line you suggest seems a little thin.

T4 seems to claim to leap beyond the 1950's Cold War into the current day of the 21st Century.

IMHO they did a piss poor job of it.

[Coconut Kid]

Servant Corps' brief outline of game elements annotated for Tropico and Hidden Agenda:

• running a country
  • Tropico: requires planning and placing buildings to implement an economy; at the same time, the population must be controlled to provide the workers
  • Hidden Agenda: mostly limited to yes/no reactions; some initiative may be shown by selection of contacts
• staying in power as long as possible
  • Tropico: Heart of the Game
    • variable length to "win" ; may be thrown out of office (exile) at any time by the NPCs
    • election, army coup, rebel attack, general uprising\rebellion
  • Hidden Agenda: You have 81 moves\decisions - including the infamous "deciding not to decide" - if you live to the end of your three year term.
• fighting off internal enemies
  • Tropico: a unified army which may hatch a coup; a very elementary group of invisible rebels
    • police may combat coup
  • Hidden Agenda: the Reconciliation Army is an unwilling consolidation of the former dictator's army and the insurrection rebel army; death squads
• bribing off internal enemies
  • Tropico: NPCs must be kept happy or oppressed; very complex set of means of which money bribe is a minor one
  • Hidden Agenda: I don't recall that "bribery" is a choice; it's to whom you say 'yes' that counts
• (possibly?) improve the country
  • Tropico: a very simplistic economic system which has a wide variety of environmental impacts; NPC "needs" may impact the ability of the workforce to operate the economy
  • Hidden Agenda: Heart of the Game
    • a very broad view of the economy with only indirect impacts available

I hope that clarifies the differences a bit more.

It is fairly easy to deconstruct the Hidden Agenda decision tree, but I haven't done so. As a game intended to teach while entertaining, it has paradoxes intended to illustrate the "unintended consequences" of ideologically driven simplistic decisions in the real world. Some can get you killed.

It is practically impossible to deconstruct Tropico without an extensive computer software skills kit. It has so many interactive algorithms that I doubt that more than two or three of the development team really understood the whole game. It has the flavor of a simulation, but that simulation exists with so many real world elements subsumed deeply in the code that the hint of flavor misleads the player. The NPCs do NOT think -- particularly, they do NOT look ahead (imagine the future). That so many players imagine that the NPCs do act like thinking people is a giant vote of approval for the skills of the developers.

[Coconut Kid]

If you wish to read an old discussion about getting the "real world" into Tropico, look here:
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=1874.0