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Decline Evil Farmer Online

Space Satan

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34fq.jpg
Oxford, 8 th August 2013ndash; Independent UK game developer Rebellion today announced it is developing Evil Genius Online for launch on Facebook and Zynga in 2013.

Rebellion is now accepting registrations from gamers who want to be part of the closed beta planned for early autumn and help in the gamersquo;s development. Players can register atnbsp; http://goo.gl/m3RufE

Staying true to the originalrs's rewarding world domination simulation and super-villain humour, players will be able to construct an underground lair, launch nefarious deeds across the globe, thwart the Forces of Justice, and become the worldrsquo;s most notorious criminal mastermind.

Gamers will also be able to take advantage of the integrated social features available on Facebook and Zynga.com to form evil syndicates, send spies to rival lairs and or share rare and crucial items in the form of bribes.

Rebellion CEO and Creative Director Jason Kingsley explained how the project came about:

ldquo;As an independent developer, itrsquo;s crucial that we really explore free-to-play beyond mobile games. We challenged a small team here in our Oxford studio to create a social game that was not only compelling, but technically impressive and we just kept coming back to Evil Geniusndash; the lair construction, the strategy, the humour - it was just a perfect fit.
KEY FACTS

  • Evil Genius Online is intended to launch simultaneously on Facebook and Zynga.com in 2013.
  • Players can sign up for the beta at http://goo.gl/m3RufE
  • Players will build sprawling underground lairs and command an army of minions to carry out their evil plans as they plot to achieve ultimate global power.
  • Features new social interactions including sharing of items and spying on rival lairs.
  • Uses cutting-edge web browser technology, fully modelled 3D environments and a full 360deg; controllable camera.
********************
Evil Genius.
Facebook.
Online
F2P
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Borelli

Arcane
Joined
Dec 5, 2012
Messages
1,261
Transforming single player games by making them online only and integrating facebook and zynga in them must have been thought up by ...

an evil genius.

:yeah:
 

KoolNoodles

Arcane
Joined
Apr 28, 2012
Messages
3,545
Thought Evil Genius kind of sucked ass anyways. At least, that was my impression(so buggy).
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,382
Man, I really liked Evil Genius. Shame.
Even though it was more of a "lie back and watch the animations" screensaver. The game didn't have too much going for it except the spoof, but it was an enjoyable spoof nonetheless.
 

Space Satan

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EG lacked crucial AI functions. You could make trap synergies that may wipe away invading agents but traps will kill your own minions as well and while good in theory turned into shit in practice. Should they change the logic behind traps game will be already much better. Observation camera handling, alarm handling, economy handling. A lot of bad implementation of great ideas.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
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Messages
12,250
EG lacked crucial AI functions. You could make trap synergies that may wipe away invading agents but traps will kill your own minions as well and while good in theory turned into shit in practice.
Nah, the key to making traps that had next to no effect on your own minions was to exploit the general nosiness of enemy agents: Enemy agents absolutely could NOT resist locked doors, even doors that led into dead ends to nowhere. With the doors locked against "everyone", enemy agents would pick these locks and walk inside to their doom. Your own minions wouldn't even want to go there because there was nothing to see. In fact, these rooms could be constructed very simply, like the "WALL OF FLAMETHROWERS" trap: A simple 9-tile-wide sideroom attached directly to the corridor, that would suck in and incinerate everyone who stepped in. This in turn would leave behind bodies that would draw enemy agents to investigate, whereupon they, too, would be sucked in and incinerated. Your own minions had no reason to go off this path and thus practically never did.

The most insidious combination of this was the Room of Unending Torment. A chamber located parallel to the entrance corridors that would trap enemy agents in there, non-lethally, forever, until such time as you chose to empty it, forming an endless fountain of cash.
 

spectre

Arcane
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Messages
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Yep, abusing the AIs tendency to beeline into locked doors was a must if you wanted to have any sort of fun with traps. Or if you wanted to make anyting remotely resembling an efficient hideout. The biggest design derp, imo, was how useless the hotels were.
 

Space Satan

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Your minios WILl go there to grab body bags and since doors open before you minions agents will pour through, activate the trap and toast along with your minions. All this minor dumbfuckery annoyed players to no end.
And yeah, hotels and resorts never earned you any money.
 

Horus

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Istanbul-Constantinople-Byzantium-Piece of land.
EG lacked crucial AI functions. You could make trap synergies that may wipe away invading agents but traps will kill your own minions as well and while good in theory turned into shit in practice.
Nah, the key to making traps that had next to no effect on your own minions was to exploit the general nosiness of enemy agents: Enemy agents absolutely could NOT resist locked doors, even doors that led into dead ends to nowhere. With the doors locked against "everyone", enemy agents would pick these locks and walk inside to their doom. Your own minions wouldn't even want to go there because there was nothing to see. In fact, these rooms could be constructed very simply, like the "WALL OF FLAMETHROWERS" trap: A simple 9-tile-wide sideroom attached directly to the corridor, that would suck in and incinerate everyone who stepped in. This in turn would leave behind bodies that would draw enemy agents to investigate, whereupon they, too, would be sucked in and incinerated. Your own minions had no reason to go off this path and thus practically never did.

The most insidious combination of this was the Room of Unending Torment. A chamber located parallel to the entrance corridors that would trap enemy agents in there, non-lethally, forever, until such time as you chose to empty it, forming an endless fountain of cash.
That is until the sabetours came to the island and blow up your traps or anything you own. They even blew hotels and people in it.

Your minios WILl go there to grab body bags and since doors open before you minions agents will pour through, activate the trap and toast along with your minions. All this minor dumbfuckery annoyed players to no end.
And yeah, hotels and resorts never earned you any money.
You could have switched the doors safety levels to third one and made it impossible for them to come inside.They won't bother with it if they can't come inside.
 
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Norfleet

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Messages
12,250
That is until the sabetours came to the island and blow up your traps or anything you own. They even blew hotels and people in it.
Yeah, don't build hotels, they basically just get blown to shit for absolutely no reason, even when absolutely nothing shady is going on, plus they keep your minions outside, and thus unprotected.

Also: Agents never attack traps. They attack trap triggers, but not the traps themselves. But the triggers are not located anywhere they can access: They're safely inside your base, in the Freak Room.

Your minios WILl go there to grab body bags and since doors open before you minions agents will pour through, activate the trap and toast along with your minions. All this minor dumbfuckery annoyed players to no end.
Lay the trap rooms as freezer. Then the body bags are already properly stowed and minions will leave them alone. They also function as agent-bait, giving them something to immediately run over and investigate upon opening the door, whereupon they are blasted to the back end of the room and burninated.
 

Space Satan

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You could have switched the doors safety levels to third one and made it impossible for them to come inside.They won't bother with it if they can't come inside.
That worked only for outsidetrap rooms. Useless for your main base.

Lay the trap rooms as freezer. Then the body bags are already properly stowed and minions will leave them alone. They also function as agent-bait, giving them something to immediately run over and investigate upon opening the door, whereupon they are blasted to the back end of the room and burninated.
That is exactly why EG shunned a lot of people - because players had to invent schemes to make game features work, instead of just using them normally.
 

Dr Tomo

Learned
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In a library near you
This is a bit of a surprise, so can someone explain the logic of trying to run the studio into the ground? You would have figured that the studio would take their chances with the volatile mobile games market over the sinking titanic of social games.
 

Space Satan

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Evil Genius to get “fully featured PC follow-up”, also, erm, a Facebook game
Turning a well-regarded PC game into a Facebook/Zynga game is something I can well imagine an evil genius doing – I can almost see them now, stroking a cat and cackling malevolently as the microtransactions roll in. Which is not to say that Evil Genius Online – a free-to-play social game heading to Facebook and Zynga.com – will be such a game, but rather that I’m much more excited about the “fully featured” Evil Genius 2, which has just been outed on the Rebellion blog.

Evil Genius, you will probably remember, is a Dungeon Keeper-esque strategy game putting you in the role of a James Bond-style supervillain – we gave it 84% (UK mag), and 88% (US mag) back in the day. Rebellion bought the series from the defunct Elixir Studios back in 2006, and they’ve been sitting on it since then, at least until the reveal of Evil Genius Online earlier this month. Now, the Sniper Elite devs have revealed their plans to make a proper follow-up, which is going to happen “soon”.

An open letter to the Evil Genius community gave the following details. “We’ve always wanted to make a fully-featured PC follow-up. We’ve taken concepts for an Evil Genius sequel to publishers before but we weren’t able to secure the funding we needed. However since then, we’ve looked into alternative ways to get this game funded and created. We are going to make this happen. And it’s going to be soon.

“We’ve been watching the Evil Genius community for some time now, and we’re sorry that we couldn’t tell you earlier about our plans. If anything, your enthusiasm over the last couple of weeks has galvanized our efforts.

“In the next few days a key member from our Oxford studio will be in touch. They want to engage with the EG community and get you involved in the first steps we take towards the next Evil Genius game on PC.”

If you consider yourself a member of the Evil Genius community, you might want to make your presence known.
 

DragoFireheart

all caps, rainbow colors, SOMETHING.
Joined
Jun 16, 2007
Messages
23,731
I FUCKING HATE THIS FACEBOOK/ZYNGA PHASE.

Seriously, the end of this phase and the crashing of all businesses that do this can't come soon enough.
 

Fens

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1,899
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pitcairn
mildly interested in the new game (not the facebook rip/spinoff), because i enjoyed the first one despite its flaws

also mildly interested in how badly facebook's casual approach to gaming will fail in the asian market, that they're trying to tap to compensate for the oversaturation of the NA/EU markets

here's a depressing infographic for you:
behind-the-numbers.png


and they said the nigerian scammers were bad
 

Space Satan

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Full letter here:
Dear Evil Genius 2 Facebook group members and Evil Genius gamers everywhere,

Thank you for taking the time to prepare your open letter on behalf of the community.

We were overwhelmed by the response to the announcement of Evil Genius Online (EGO). Not only were all the closed beta slots taken in less than 24 hours, but we saw the Evil Genius community spring into action. Whether it was through emails, tweets, the online petition, in forums or through your open letter, you made the effort to let us know what Evil Genius means to you as gamers. We wanted to reply to you directly, and although we don’t have time to cover all your questions hopefully this letter will leave you a lot clearer about the future of Evil Genius!

So why did we make Evil Genius Online?

For independent studios like Rebellion to survive it’s important that we look beyond the console, PC and mobile platforms we know so well. Zynga and Facebook are hubs with millions of gamers who can start playing any game in just a couple of clicks. There are almost no barriers. This is why free-to-play is so exciting for both developers and gamers, and yes, it means we can bring Evil Genius to a new audience too.

But hasn’t Evil Genius been on Facebook before?

Yes - Evil Genius: WMD - and it wasn’t up to scratch. We know fans and gamers deserved better. Evil Genius Online is a completely different game and we’ve learned some invaluable lessons since then.

Will social mechanics undermine the traditional Evil Genius gameplay?

While EGO will obviously attract a free-to-play audience, we wanted to create an experience that could be enjoyed by many types of gamers, including Evil Genius fans. Crucially the game doesn’t feature an ‘energy’ mechanic which would limit your play time each day. EGO is firmly mission based, with an open ended story that evolves as the gamer progresses. Yes, each mission takes time to complete and objectives can be accelerated with the use of virtual currency (no pressure applied), but gamers can play for as long as they want and completely redesign their lair to their heart’s content at any time. We honestly believe many of you will really enjoy EGO, but we also understand that we’ll still be disappointing some of you too.

So is this the ‘sequel’ that has been rumoured on Twitter?

When Jason – Rebellion’s CEO and co-founder - tweeted earlier in the year about a potential follow up to Evil Genius, he wasn’t talking about Evil Genius Online, which was already in development by a small team here in our Oxford studio.

We’ve always wanted to make a fully-featured PC follow-up. We’ve taken concepts for an Evil Genius sequel to publishers before but we weren’t able to secure the funding we needed. However since then, we’ve looked into alternative ways to get this game funded and created. We are going to make this happen. And it’s going to be soon.

We’ve been watching the Evil Genius community for some time now, and we’re sorry that we couldn’t tell you earlier about our plans. If anything, your enthusiasm over the last couple of weeks has galvanized our efforts!

In the next few days a key member from our Oxford studio will be in touch. They want to engage with the EG community and get you involved in the first steps we take towards the next Evil Genius game on PC.

Please make them welcome, and don’t be scared to share your ideas!

Yours Forever Evily

The Rebellion team
 

Space Satan

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Rebellion had surprisingly good sales with nazi zombie army so my bet is that they are going to make a quick buck for the sake of quick buck.
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