KickStarter Phoenix Point - the new game from X-COM creator Julian Gollop

[Grotesque]

So if you played 2012 xcom, you know the "genre"?

First, xcom is not a genre despite whatever Gollop may fancy and second if you played only xcom and you're perturbed by a different UI type, you know shit.

 

[Grotesque]

also it is out of context.

They only had to introduce "TUs" for you to start sound more and more like a retarded apologist?

The context is all there, it's not like I took out only the underlined text.

 

[ArchAngel]

also it is out of context.

They only had to introduce "TUs" for you to start sound more and more like a retarded apologist?

The context is all there, it's not like I took out only the underlined text.

He beats you as you sound just like a retard.

 

[PanteraNera]

They only had to introduce "TUs" for you to start sound more and more like a retarded apologist?

Well that is the thing everyone assumes so much, I did the same and stated so and try to correct now what my very assumptions started. I try to get facts that is all I want and all I care for. Also I am still saying it again and again, I don't know if I will like the "end-result" there are way to many question marks left (which I also state regularly).

If that makes me an apologist, well feel free to ignore me and bitch about stuff that was bitched about two months ago. I am sure that it will be way more productive this time

 

[cvv]

Seems Juliian Gollop is not doing that bad after all.

 

[Alienman]

The hell, Gollops private yacht?

 

[cvv]

The hell, Gollops private yacht?

To be fair there are luxury yachts for 500 million and for 100k. That's one. And second, it's not clear it's HIS yacht. Have Gollop made any super successful mobile games?

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

I keep flip floping on whether I like PP or not based on the shit being revealed by the devs. I will say that I found the original X-Com interface to be pretty fucking awful. I like not having to go through several menus in order to throw a fucking grenade. From what I recall 10 years back when I played Jagged Alliance 2 for the first and only time, it had a more intuitive interface in that you could click on one of your dudes, then click on the enemy and that was it. Cool. Loads of menus littered about the place like it's a Windows 98 come back party isn't depth. It's autism.

 

[UnstableVoltage]

The hell, Gollops private yacht?

Not sure whose yacht, but it isn't Julian's. He's pictured there with Daniel Vavra - co-founder of Warhorse Studios.

 

[Grotesque]

well feel free to ignore me and bitch about stuff that was bitched about two months ago

It's funny this coming from someone that was compared to a broken record around here and your "bitching" via walls of text really pushed the envelope.
So stop brown-nosing yourself by stressing what is old news and what part you had in that because you become a "productive" caricature.

 

[Shog-goth]

The meme is funny but I doubt it has anything to do in this thread, it should be rather posted on Facebook. Doesn't seem to be many ADHD gamers around here.

 

[PanteraNera]

Old Meets New in Phoenix Point
APRIL 20TH, 2018 ALEX MCHUGH FEATURES

Phoenix Point is the next game from Julian Gollop. Julian Gollop is a name that you might not have heard, especially if you’re younger, but his legacy is huge in the PC Gaming world. He is behind great games such as Chaos, Laser Squad, but most importantly: XCOM.

Hopefully you’ve heard of XCOM, or rather, X-Com as it originally was when Julian Gollop was designing and developing these landmark strategy games. Well he’s back with Phoenix Point and it looks like it’ll mix together the absolute best of old-school X-Com and new-school XCOM.

We got a chance to chat to Julian Gollop at Rezzed, held in London earlier this week. We sent X-Com Veteran Alex Mchugh who is old as time and has been playing X-Coms since they came out, and XCOM Youngster Oliver Paul who has only played the reboots, but absolutely loves them.

Here’s what these two different people had to say about it:

Golden Oldie – Alex Mchugh

What stuck out to me was that it feels like a return to some of the best ideas of the original X-Com series. The reboots are marvellous games, but for me they stripped out some of the complexity of the older titles, and I’m incredibly pleased to see Phoenix Point walk the tightrope between accessibility and depth.

Factions, similar to how they worked in X-Com Apocalypse are back, and you’ll be balancing these factions against each other, endorsing some and alienating others as you work to save the world from an alien threat, and from the threat of each other.

Action points are back too, meaning that your actions and movements throughout the game are more fluid and the possibility space that your squad operates in is much larger. You’re not going to be stuck doing two moves a turn, instead you can hunker down and fire off a few shots, or you can sprint like the wind, or mix it up however you choose. As long as you have the action points for it, you can do it.

With the theme of the aliens being a riff on aquatic mergings between alien and submarine life, at least at the start of the campaign, it feels in many ways an homage to X-Com Terror from the Deep, the absolute bastard-hard sequel to the original Enemy Unknown. Seeing these creatures, especially the crab ones, took me right back to the days of fleeing from awful Lobster Men back in the 90s. Except now they’ve been updated, they’re smarter, they’re tougher, and they have different evolutionary variations which means you might have to adapt your tactics suddenly at the start of a new battle.

Anyway, as an old, old man, it brings me great joy to see some of the ideas from great games I grew up with refined and used again today. I’m incredibly excited for Phoenix Point, plug it into my veins already.

Young Buck – Oliver Paul

So I’ve always heard that the new XCOM games were much more linear than the older ones. You get one base, normally just one squad that can go on one mission, on one planet, against one alien race. I’d heard stories about multiple squads doing things at different times, X-com bases stretching across the globe, and stuff going on IN SPAAACE and underwater too. Now with Pheonix Point, I feel like I’m finally going to get what every younger gamer wants: the chance to play an old gem, but with a usable UI and no CD-ROMs.

Something that Julian Gollop said got my attention in a big way. He said that the game was comparable to Stellaris. Stellaris?! The 4x game?! He talked about you just being one faction out of a handful, fighting over resources and against the alien menace encroaching across the land in a oppressive fog. Take the campaign map of a 4X game and the battles of XCOM and I’m sold. I like the idea that enemy factions change depending on what you do, so no two play-throughs are the same. Even with the XCOM expansions, I felt like it was just playing the campaign, and the same main missions, again. After day 3 everyone knows the best squad combo, the best build order for your base and the exploitable tactics. Opening up the game to more variables means not everyone plays the same game. And embarking on another play-through becomes like starting another game of Civ – something you do all the damn time.

On the battle side of things, you could almost mistake it for new XCOM, it’s incredibly similar. I don’t think myself or any other XCOM fans will have trouble adjusting to Phoenix Point, and there’s plenty of new mechanics to explore that don’t feel very new-XCOM at all. It feels more nitty-gritty because you can free aim, you can target specific parts of enemies and there are mid-game objectives like securing watch towers to help clear out a base. It feels like a military game rather than a team of sort-of super heroes like in XCOM. Recurring bosses will come back, genetically altered to be stronger based on how you took it down last time. Even the alien race will adapt to your favourite strategies. A team of 3 snipers may not stay effective for ever. These big boss units will actually feel like they deserve the name, having lots of health for different body parts, unlike in XCOM where a few rockets can take out anything.

Overall I’m looking forward to trying out Phoenix Point, probably more-so than an XCOM 3. It looks and feels different and gives you more tools to change the outcome of the game. Not to mention that because it’s more 4X, there are other ways to win, it deals with the issue of XCOMs negative feedback loop. At least, here’s hoping.

https://www.greenmangaming.com/blog/old-meets-new-in-phoenix-point/

 

[PanteraNera]

well feel free to ignore me and bitch about stuff that was bitched about two months ago

It's funny this coming from someone that was compared to a broken record around here and your "bitching" via walls of text really pushed the envelope.
So stop brown-nosing yourself by stressing what is old news and what part you had in that because you become a "productive" caricature.

Well surprise surprise I am still the same guy.
So yeah bring up assumptions (that I have made in the first place) and I will clarify why they were wrong, like a broken record.

But hey be creative and make assumptions on your own, I know you can do it as I had genuinely enjoyed them in the past.
For starters talk about the redesign of New Jericho, that they won't release on Q4 2018, or that they show to little progress.

So your advice is: do not act mature and responsible, do not clear up confusions you created? Sorry can't do. Not my style.

 

[Shog-goth]

He is behind great games such as Chaos, Laser Squad, but most importantly: XCOM. Hopefully you’ve heard of XCOM, or rather, X-Com as it originally was when Julian Gollop was designing and developing these landmark strategy games.

The Game Formerly Known As X-Com.

I feel like I’m finally going to get what every younger gamer wants: the chance to play an old gem, but with a usable UI and no CD-ROMs.

Damn! That's the real issue that prevented younger ones to play X-Com, I can't believe I forgot that.

 

[Grotesque]

Not my style

Your style is to suck your own dick, grandstanding and failing to stay on point during an argument.
If this keeps up any longer soon I'll find out what you had for lunch on your first day of school.
So spare me.

 

[PanteraNera]

Your style is to suck your own dick, grandstanding and failing to stay on point during an argument.
If this keeps up any longer soon I'll find out what you had for lunch on your first day of school.
So spare me.

Like I said, just ignore me, easy, just a click.
But looks like that you rather suck my dick and support me on my big grandstanding-scheme!

And yes you are much better to stay on point than me.

"carbon copy"

And still, I think you are a very funny and entertaining guy, but right now you are way to butthurt over me changing my point of view.

 

[LESS T_T]

Gollop's "Time Units vs 2 Action Points" talk is in 14 hours. Hopefully someone writes report about it.

 

[Mustawd]

First, xcom is not a genre despite whatever Gollop may fancy

*looks at tons of XCOM clones*

 

[Galdred]

1. Dead Man's Switch. Turn any of your rookie scouts into a walking landmine.
2. Grenade relay. Guy in front doesn't have the right kind of grenade? Not enough time to prime and throw? Don't worry, the guys at the rear got you.
3. Precise timing. End of your turn, end of their turn, end of your next turn...
4. Any combination of the above! A relay over several turns to produce a DMS at the front.

1,3 are great, but 2 is gamey and unrealistic:
handing off a grenade does not give you any more extra time before detonation (or end of turn or whatever). The whole point of TU is to make the game a better simulation. I don't think handing off a primed grenade (up to 13 times in the same turn) is a good exemple of that.
This issue is easier to solve with AP, though: just set the AP of the receiver to min of (his TUs, TUs of the guy doing the hand off)

 

[Grotesque]

First, xcom is not a genre despite whatever Gollop may fancy

*looks at tons of XCOM clones*

Is Diablo a genre also?
OK then!

But looks like that you rather suck my dick and support me on my big grandstanding-scheme!

you are retarded indeed

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

First, xcom is not a genre despite whatever Gollop may fancy

*looks at tons of XCOM clones*

Is Diablo a genre also?
OK then!

But looks like that you rather suck my dick and support me on my big grandstanding-scheme!

you are retarded indeed

Actually, yeah. Considering all the diablo clones hanging about. Loot based Action RPGs are a dime a dozen. Diablo clone is an easy term to say for them.

 

[Shog-goth]

https://www.reddit.com/r/PhoenixPoi...enix_point_egx_rezzed_demo_build_over_1_hour/

At this point I think we can consider officially confirmed multiple shots per turn. Right, UnstableVoltage?

 

[Grotesque]

Loot based Action RPGs are a dime a dozen

I like how you invalidate your own attempt to make a point.

"Considering all the diablo clones hanging about"
thank you for pointing the obvious that I used as a rebuttal.

So the "quality" of a game being unoriginal and an attempt to a cashgrab to be named someone's clone" is a reason by itself to name an entire genre after that successful game?

X-com was a game that mixed genres in a unique and successful way.
To say the 2012 xcom started a genre by itself when it nearly abandoned some features that made the predecessor a hybrid, is more insulting and stupid.

LoL at that one that asks about fire rates for automatic weapons.
If this would be in, this feature would have to be represented in the UI and so, in no time you'll have a a complex "jumble of confusing mouse-driven buttons" very hard to make it also controller friendly.

But of course they will make different UI design for PC and console with all the extra cash!

 

[Shog-goth]

LoL at that one that asks about fire rates for automatic weapons.
If this would be in, this feature would have to be represented in the UI and so, in no time you'll have a a complex "jumble of confusing mouse-driven buttons" very hard to make it also controller friendly.

Following their line of thinking I'd place the option "fire mode" in the center of the selection wheel, together with "swap".

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

Loot based Action RPGs are a dime a dozen

I like how you invalidate your own attempt to make a point.

"Considering all the diablo clones hanging about"
thank you for pointing the obvious that I used as a rebuttal.

So the "quality" of a game being unoriginal and an attempt to a cashgrab to be named someone's clone" is a reason by itself to name an entire genre after that successful game?

X-com was a game that mixed genres in a unique and successful way.
To say the 2012 xcom started a genre by itself when it nearly abandoned some features that made the predecessor a hybrid, is more insulting and stupid.

LoL at that one that asks about fire rates for automatic weapons.
If this would be in, this feature would have to be represented in the UI and so, in no time you'll have a a complex "jumble of confusing mouse-driven buttons" very hard to make it also controller friendly.

But of course they will make different UI design for PC and console with all the extra cash!

Jesus christ on a very homosexual bike, you are a microcosm of the RPG Codex. You must be the most anal retentive person I've ever met on any forum. Does it even really matter if Jullian Gollop wants to call a genre X-Com? What does that really change? Back in my day we had Doom clones before we thought up the term FPS. We had the term Shooter or Shoot'um ups but that most often described side scrollers or bullet hell stuff. Doom Clone worked. it was convenient and much less of a mouthful than Real Time Shooting Game From the First Person Perspective Originated in Wolfenstein 3D. Then came the actual genre term FPS. Cool that's the genre. It's much easier to say Phoenix Point is an X-com style game. Until we figure out the proper terminology. Just calling it a TBS implies less. In the same way it's much easier to say Path of Exile or Torchlight are Diablo style games. It beats saying It's an Action RPG Except Actually It Doesn't Have Very Many RPG Elements Other Than Looting. But what do I know? I'm not hard at work trying to dissect the words of an overworked and underpaid community manager who has to deal with your shit. It's not actually going to change the game. Jullian Gollop isn't coming all the way from Bulgaria to touch your penis dude.