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Great show this week. Any episode with Bruce is bound to be interesting and this one had the added bonus of inflating my reading list. I'm also about to hit Impulse for Achtung Panzer. Game sounds pretty excellent.
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Three Moves Ahead Strategy Podcast Thread
- Thread starter eznark
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Great show this week. Any episode with Bruce is bound to be interesting and this one had the added bonus of inflating my reading list. I'm also about to hit Impulse for Achtung Panzer. Game sounds pretty excellent.
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This was an excellent episode. I love hearing designers on relatively small projects talk about their games. This has the added bonus of featuring a Civil War buff! If you're kind of broke though, don't listen because yet again this podcast sold me on a game I had been previously unaware of.
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I'm warming to Rob but the podcast just isn't the same without Tom or Bruce. Frozen Synapse sounds interesting, but just does not seem like a $30 game to me.
I did go out and buy Warhammer 40k Squad Command for my PSP though, since the thing was just collecting dust and I'm sadly getting into the universe after DoW II Chaos Rising. So far Julian, I am unimpressed.
Peronthious
Member
I played a bit of squad command a while back and found it a bit clunky. The mechanics were ok, but they didn't fit that well with the PSP interface.
I've been having a lot of fun with Frozen Synapse. It's another one of those games you fire up for a minute, start up a few games, then pop it open again when you get an email about the next turn. Until earlier today it was 20% off for the UK election, but even at full price you can split the cost with someone else and come out at $12.98 per person.
I've been having a lot of fun with Frozen Synapse. It's another one of those games you fire up for a minute, start up a few games, then pop it open again when you get an email about the next turn. Until earlier today it was 20% off for the UK election, but even at full price you can split the cost with someone else and come out at $12.98 per person.
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Haven't listened yet, waiting for the Brewers game to end (and holding out hope Hoffman kills himself on the mound).
I didn't post last weeks because for me (I'm using Google Listen) the episode was only 30 minutes long and seemed like it started half way through. It also was not the greatest episode in the world.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
I wish RTS games embraced puzzles. They're common in chess and they're a great teaching tool. I don't consider moving some units to a waypoint and rotating the camera to be a tutorial.eznark said:
Really fantastic episode this week.
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The discussion about adding a robust feedback system to strategy games is something every designer needs to listen to. A number of these companies churn out games based on the same engine. Instead of working on a new era skin or subtly tweaking interfaces, it would be great to see someone like Paradox work on something like the feedback system discussed.
I'd also love to see the RPG+Strategy elements Rob brought up. Being a commander, interacting with officers of higher and lower rank but then still getting a Total War style tactical battle. That sounds fantastic. Is that what King Arthur strategy rpg does?
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The discussion about adding a robust feedback system to strategy games is something every designer needs to listen to. A number of these companies churn out games based on the same engine. Instead of working on a new era skin or subtly tweaking interfaces, it would be great to see someone like Paradox work on something like the feedback system discussed.
I'd also love to see the RPG+Strategy elements Rob brought up. Being a commander, interacting with officers of higher and lower rank but then still getting a Total War style tactical battle. That sounds fantastic. Is that what King Arthur strategy rpg does?
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Sound quality is bad due to Stephanie's poor connection and Joe's insanely loud inhaling at time. Also I found the topic mostly uninteresting. So....yeah.
I didn't know this thread existed. Thanks for fighting the good fight, eznark.
Tom's lame jokes, Bruce's vile personality, Julian's fatherly honesty, Troy's silent dissent and Rob's argumentative compliance -- these are the qualities that rekindled my interest in strategy games.
I sought out Solium Infernum right after I listened to the corresponding episode of Three Moves Ahead. The game blew me away. Despite its many faults, it's become one of my favorite games of the past few years.
I had forgot: I love strategy games, even if I'm miserable at them.
Tom's lame jokes, Bruce's vile personality, Julian's fatherly honesty, Troy's silent dissent and Rob's argumentative compliance -- these are the qualities that rekindled my interest in strategy games.
I sought out Solium Infernum right after I listened to the corresponding episode of Three Moves Ahead. The game blew me away. Despite its many faults, it's become one of my favorite games of the past few years.
I had forgot: I love strategy games, even if I'm miserable at them.
ElectricThunder
Member
First topc that has jumped out to me in awhile, good on ta for the thread as I think I'll listen to this one tonight.
Don't let the lonely threads get ya down! :solidarity fist bump with the Triangle Wizard thread: :lol
Don't let the lonely threads get ya down! :solidarity fist bump with the Triangle Wizard thread: :lol
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Short but sweet. Seriously, this is probably the best interview with Shafer to come out of this week just for the religion part.
Excellent, excellent episode. Love when Bruce is on there trolling everyone. "Ugh, dwarves and elves were not in that time period"
Would have really loved to hear his impressions on new XCOM. Bruce is good, hope Troy has him on more often when the show regulars flake out.
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I actually just started playing HOMM V again this week, just to check it out as I wait out the Steam sale to see if King's Bounty Gold drops at all. Man I really love those kinds of games. I know what Rob is saying, that maybe they are too simple from a strategy standpoint, but they do blend my favorite game elements; story and strategy. If only more bad-ass strat games tried harder.
Would have really loved to hear his impressions on new XCOM. Bruce is good, hope Troy has him on more often when the show regulars flake out.
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I actually just started playing HOMM V again this week, just to check it out as I wait out the Steam sale to see if King's Bounty Gold drops at all. Man I really love those kinds of games. I know what Rob is saying, that maybe they are too simple from a strategy standpoint, but they do blend my favorite game elements; story and strategy. If only more bad-ass strat games tried harder.
chicken_ramen
Member
I didn't know this thread existed. I've been listening to 3 moves ahead for ages. A few months ago I completely caught up with everything from ep2. Julian and Rob have been very good replacements for Tom and Bruce, I think. Their tastes aren't as rounded as Tom's, but much broader than Bruce's and they provide enough interesting commentary to keep me coming back.
I don't really miss Bruce when he's not on the show, he brings very particular viewpoint and narrow perspective that I don't always find very good. Usually his rants seem like half finished thoughts than anything insightful. Yet, when he is on, it's always interesting to listen to, especially his sense of humour. He also turned me onto the Republic of Rome, which is a fascinating beast of a board game. I do miss Tom 'anything ever made is a strategy game' Chick more, but the show has done just fine without the two of them.
I don't really miss Bruce when he's not on the show, he brings very particular viewpoint and narrow perspective that I don't always find very good. Usually his rants seem like half finished thoughts than anything insightful. Yet, when he is on, it's always interesting to listen to, especially his sense of humour. He also turned me onto the Republic of Rome, which is a fascinating beast of a board game. I do miss Tom 'anything ever made is a strategy game' Chick more, but the show has done just fine without the two of them.
Joseph Merrick
Member
yeah julian is awful.
this latest one was great. bruce and billabner
this latest one was great. bruce and billabner
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Guess what Julian talks about? Some of these episodes, where Facebook and Apple are sort of naturally on the periphery...we need a vuvuzuela-like Julian filter. He was also a strange stickler early about this only having to do with innovations that affect solely strategy games. Like patches, when Rob brought it up Julian got all huffy about how it affects all games so it shouldn't be discussed. His thoughts on graphics...also kind of asinine, especially since he spent time on GWJ talking about how pretty Civ V looks.
Honestly, the discussion is a little disjointed and stalls in spots but all in all it is a good show. I really wish some of the board games on XBLA would come to PSN and the PC (and Android!)
Yet another week and Tom is MIA. If you want to hear him though, he is on this weeks Jumping the Shark (so is Bill Abner) which is steadily becoming a decent podcast in its own right. The web site itself is a fucking atrocity though. If you can find a link to the podcast on the site, let me know because I cannot.
bigdaddygamebot
Member
Such a puzzling podcast for me.
I hate/love it all at the same time.
I can't quite pin down what I love about it...or hate about it but for the moment, the love keeps pulling me through.
I hate/love it all at the same time.
I can't quite pin down what I love about it...or hate about it but for the moment, the love keeps pulling me through.
Joseph Merrick
Member
rule of thumb is to skip all the episodes where the description talks about concepts, like the technology one. or where they're leaning exclusively on themselves for the content with the previous one before that http://flashofsteel.com/index.php/2010/07/14/three-moves-ahead-episode-73-what-made-you/ those are awful, especially with julian on. dull to the extreme.bigdaddygamebot said:
the best ones are where they're talking specifically about one game, especially of there's a guy from the dev team on
Joseph Merrick
Member
hehe the fuck. last podcast now is just julian and rob. bu. why even bother having a podcast anymore
edit: with no tom or bruce anymore. and not even troy now. time to cancel this podcast completely? seems so
edit: with no tom or bruce anymore. and not even troy now. time to cancel this podcast completely? seems so
Joseph Merrick
Member
I'm not going to trust you this one is any good :lol sounds like a trap
Joseph Merrick
Member
completely unrelated to tma, but here's a funny writeup on sc2 and rts genre to mock/laugh at http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/64925
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It's worth listening to, really. Well, kind of.
Sounds like next week might be DoTA? (Popular mod of a strategy game was the foreshadowing I think). I hope so, I'm knee deep in LoL and loved Demigod.
Also, if you are jonesing for Tom, he was on this weeks Jumping the Shark talking about StarCraft II. And no, it is impossible to get enough SC II talk.
Also, screw you guys. Troy posted his traffic data from the first half of the year and GAF didn't make the top ten. On GAF, strategy PC gaming truly is dead!
Steve Youngblood
Member
Since eznark is slacking it seems, some people might care to know that this week's podcast features Idle Thumbs' Chris Remo in a discussion about Starcraft 2. I haven't listened yet (downloading now), but I figured this might generate a little more interest than some of the previous 'casts.
Listen Here.
Listen Here.
Like Tom Chick, I am a busy man and sometimes forget about this show. I listened to it this morning and it was one of the better ones in a long while. I don't think I disagreed with any of them at any point.
I was also disheartened by their site traffic that Troy posted. Small blogs were better referrers than this thread on the force that is GAF. So sad.
I was also disheartened by their site traffic that Troy posted. Small blogs were better referrers than this thread on the force that is GAF. So sad.
Steve Youngblood
Member
Yes, in hindsight, I suppose a simple quotation of the episode synopsis from the site should have been included. However, I thought "Chris Remo!" and "Starcraft 2!" would be attention-grabbing enough.eznark said:
It seemed to me they were a little too down on StarCraft 2. I suspect partly because they couldn't resist the temptation to flaunt how 'Elite Strategy and RTS gamers' there feel they are.
Fact is, its the best resource-gathering RTS since, well, StarCraft. It is the uncontested king of that particular species of RTS, so of course its not going to try to be like the CoH and DoW games.
And thank god for that - we already have those. Now after all these years we finally get a high budget RTS of the resource kind.
Story is cheese, so was the first game. Of course there is an element of handholding to the SP campaign. They want new players to get into SC.
Fact is, its the best resource-gathering RTS since, well, StarCraft. It is the uncontested king of that particular species of RTS, so of course its not going to try to be like the CoH and DoW games.
And thank god for that - we already have those. Now after all these years we finally get a high budget RTS of the resource kind.
Story is cheese, so was the first game. Of course there is an element of handholding to the SP campaign. They want new players to get into SC.
Steve Youngblood
Member
Very well. I will just sit back, relax, and await the deluge of discussion that will surely occur in this incredibly popular thread.eznark said:
DennisK4 said:
It was almost all incredibly positive. Aside from the story, they only said good things about it. The only time they were negative was when discussing if it would be universally appealing or if it was innovative (that it isn't particularly innovative wasn't considered bad, as Rob said a number of times).
Hari Seldon
Member
I dig this podcast, but I am like 10 behind.
Did you read Tom's review? It was pretty glowing. And his appearances on both this and Jumping the Shark he has used "loved" "absolutely love" and "adore" numerous times to describe how he feels about StarCraft II.
Wait, just remembered Tom said he didn't like the Challenges, which I thought was crazy talk.
Wait, just remembered Tom said he didn't like the Challenges, which I thought was crazy talk.
Steve Youngblood
Member
Having listened to it, I kind of see it going either way. You can tell that the regular panelists are struggling to some degree to reconcile their admiration for what Starcraft is and what it represents vs. their resentment that wantonly ignores a lot of innovation that's occurred since the first came out. And that really isn't surprising since these guys (Remo aside) represent the hardcore strategy sector, and as such I imagine for them that there has to be this internal polarization in terms of weighing that Starcraft is still a great system, and the interest it generates for the genre is great, but that it's somewhat disheartening that innovation other games over an entire decade can somewhat be ignored because they're not from Blizzard.
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I love the topic. I think there are tons of bad games with excellent design ideas that just don't quite get there. Tom's favorite Brutal Legend comes to mind. As does AssCreed.
An obvious strategy choice is Demigod. Amazing game but killed by release month bugs and server issues as well as poor post launch support. However the idea (DoTA for the masses) has caught on like wild fire.
In terms of pure strategy one that immediately comes to mind is Mosby's Confederacy. Awesome idea, excellent premise but the game play was pretty terrible.
Oh oh! They just keep coming to me. Helldorado was an ATROCIOUS game, but a Western themed Jagged Alliance is an idea that I hope someone else gets right.
Now to actually listen to the show and see what they come up with.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
There have been some great refinements (order queuing, strategic zoom, drop in multiplayer, etc.) but the truly innovative strategy games end up being grouped into other sub-genres. The RTS frameworks from the 90s are still being closely followed even today. Modern tactical RTS games like World in Conflict, Company of Heroes and Dawn of War II owe a lot to games like Z and Myth.Steve Youngblood said:
I understand what you're saying though. There are a lot of recent RTS releases that deserved to sell far better than what they did.
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so, so excited to listen to this one!
I didn't post the last couple because 1. I was in Yosemite and 2. the audio quality was really, really rough.
Joseph Merrick
Member
I would have posted, but I thought they were boringeznark said:
this one sounds good
This was probably the single best episode of any podcast I have heard this year. When the PR woman was introduced I was a little wary, but she did not cut of Brad once.
Interesting that they have not cut any Elemental staff, only staff that was working on an upcoming game. Way to run with a totally non-credible anonymous source, Joystiq.
Interesting that they have not cut any Elemental staff, only staff that was working on an upcoming game. Way to run with a totally non-credible anonymous source, Joystiq.
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Great follow-up to Wardell. You could tell King was getting a little more flustered as the discussion went on. I hope he also came away with some new ideas, at least in terms of how to think about game design. Seemed like there were some fundamental questions they asked that he had no idea how to answer.
Alex Connolly
Member
Got this on the pod ready for a listen. Funny, though, I thought Troy mentioned they were going to do RUSE. Anyway, an enjoyable, if technically-iffy, podcast.
Alex Connolly
Member
eznark said:
Thanks for the heads-up, Ez. You're a good man for tending this thread.
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