The spiritual succession of X-Com?

[rezaf]

You are correct, but the term "clone" would result into a lot of stuff I already know about (Long War, Xenonauts and so on), whereas "spiritual successor" allows people to get more creative. Higher chance for me to find "new" cool stuff to play next that way. :D

Makes sense. Anybody remotely enthusiastic about X-Com probably knows all the remakes and stuff anyway.
I'm just not sure which games would fit that definition.

The main problem is that "replayability" is not financially rewarded. Not, at least, in a distinguishable way.

That is not QUITE correct. The obvious solution: X-COM F2P. Wanna hire a new soldier? $0.99. Wanna revive a soldier? $1.99 plus $0.99 per rank achieved.
Alien autopsies take a month (real-time) unless you pay an autopsy kit for $2.99.
Don't miss our Blaster Bomb special: get 25 shots for the low price of $4.99 - limited time offer only!

Thankfully X-Com hasn't been raped like this (yet)...

 

[Eyestabber]

The main problem is that "replayability" is not financially rewarded. Not, at least, in a distinguishable way.

That is not QUITE correct. The obvious solution: X-COM F2P. Wanna hire a new soldier? $0.99. Wanna revive a soldier? $1.99 plus $0.99 per rank achieved.
Alien autopsies take a month (real-time) unless you pay an autopsy kit for $2.99.
Don't miss our Blaster Bomb special: get 25 shots for the low price of $4.99 - limited time offer only!

Thankfully X-Com hasn't been raped like this (yet)...

WOW, "Freemium Xcom". Really!? Thanks for fueling my nightmares, dude. Now I will never be able to open the Play Store without fear of finding such an abomination. I picture a "Freemium xcom" like a huge monster composed of multiple corpses sewn together. One of them is Julian Gollop moaning a low, but distinguishable "kill me, please. Set. Me. Freeeeee".

 

[rezaf]

WOW, "Freemium Xcom". Really!? Thanks for fueling my nightmares, dude.

The other game you mentioned in your original post, Jagged Alliance, unfortunately already received these unfortunate honors.
Mechanically, it was the best of all the remakes, better by miles than Back in Action or Flashback. It was good old fully turn based JA.

Needless to say, the F2P mechanics utterly ruined what could otherwise have been a totally decent entry in the JA franchise.

 

[rezaf]

Jagged alliance was freemium? Uh...

Naturally, I was talking about Jagged Alliance Online. Though you are right, I should have linked to it right away.

 

[Eyestabber]

Jagged alliance was freemium? Uh...

Naturally, I was talking about Jagged Alliance Online. Though you are right, I should have linked to it right away.

Linking to JAO would turn this thread into NSFW. Explicit rape content.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

That is not QUITE correct. The obvious solution: X-COM F2P. Wanna hire a new soldier? $0.99. Wanna revive a soldier? $1.99 plus $0.99 per rank achieved.

This one in particular is deliciously evil.

 

[Eyestabber]

I know I'm risking a lot of flak by saying this, but I'm gonna say it: Paradox DLC-fest is the best way developers have come up to reward replayability yet. HEAR ME OUT.

I know DLC is currently a synonym for "bullshit". Capcom is probably one of the worst offenders with their "Disk-Locked-Content" bs. But when I look at Europa Universalis/Crusader Kings I honestly can't call their DLCs bullshit. I can't. Sure, you have your typical "virtual hat" (unit packs), but stuff like "Wealth of Nations", "Conquest of Paradise" actually add worthwhile content and are great incentives for "just one more playthrough".

Being able to restore the fucking Roman Empire on Crusader Kings??!

Anyway, imagine having this model on Xcom. Microprose would STILL be making tons of money on Xcom, 20+ years after the game was originally released. Games with a lot of replayability potential would be seen as a long term investment, rather than as a franchise starter at best and as a pointless waste of time at worst. Just my two cents.

 

[Dayyālu]

Sure, you have your typical "virtual hat" (unit packs), but stuff like "Wealth of Nations", "Conquest of Paradise" actually add worthwhile content and are great incentives for "just one more playthrough".

Anyway, imagine having this model on Xcom. Microprose would STILL be making tons of money on Xcom, 20+ years after the game was originally released. Games with a lot of replayability potential would be seen as a long term investment, rather than as a franchise starter at best and as a pointless waste of time at worst. Just my two cents.

I'll ignore that I bought CK2 years ago and I'm still waiting for a bug-free experience because every fucking time I reinstall there is some random crash in the first ten minutes due to retarded DLC, sum that with mechanics that are incredibly bloated and just plain unfun (I freely admit that the only match I ever finished with Ck2 was with the base game because every other time the game just exploded due to DLC/bugs/patches).

Best paradox game of the last generation is Vicky2 because they stopped adding crap to it and it almost works well, almost

I'm not the guy to say that everything is shit, but I pray that no retard will ever try to apply that to Xcom, imagine the nightmare of unfinished and buggy mechanics costantly implemented just to churn out content, imagine the sheer unbalance of DLC weaponry and the nightmares for modding and compatibility.The horror, the endless horror

Build a solid base game and then we can discuss about "expansions". I don't know, being slaved to a single product usually kills a company, see UO for Origin as an example.

 

[Baron Dupek]

UFO - Aftershock with ACM 2.0 mod have potential.
Add ton of items (guns, ammo, utility), retweak techtree, boost AI (cultists in vanillia = weapons stash, not in ACM, especially when you still don't have good - or any - firearms) and
RTwP pause combat shouldn't be an issue on this site, with all these people that played Baldur's Gate and consider it good.

Spoiler

Spoiler

No seriously, give it a try.

 

[Eyestabber]

the only match I ever finished with Ck2 was with the base game because every other time the game just exploded due to DLC/bugs/patches).

Not my experience AT ALL. Never found neither CK2 nor EU4 to be buggy and never had them CTD. I'd say your computer is to blame, man...

 

[Average Manatee]

UFO - Aftershock with ACM 2.0 mod have potential.
Add ton of items (guns, ammo, utility), retweak techtree, boost AI (cultists in vanillia = weapons stash, not in ACM, especially when you still don't have good - or any - firearms) and
RTwP pause combat shouldn't be an issue on this site, with all these people that played Baldur's Gate and consider it good.

Spoiler

Spoiler

No seriously, give it a try.

Does it fix the bugs? The thing I remember about Aftershock is that half of the abilities didn't work and other bugs were everywhere.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

Only one I enjoyed was UFO: Extraterrestrials, but lot of people seem to hate it for some reason, if they know about it at all.
A sequel should be coming, but it has been delayed like 458 times already, so i smell vapourvare.

 

[Dayyālu]

the only match I ever finished with Ck2 was with the base game because every other time the game just exploded due to DLC/bugs/patches).

Not my experience AT ALL. Never found neither CK2 nor EU4 to be buggy and never had them CTD. I'd say your computer is to blame, man...

+ Random crashes while playing with Pagans, I've never completed a Viking playthrough. Scratch that, I've never reached year 1000 with pagans.
+ A 500+ years game burned due to inheritance of rebel titles (I'm still angry about that)
+ Muslims and rebel doomstacks spawning everywhere for reasons beyond my understanding. How can I plan a military campaign if suddenly oh gosh muslims/rebels/whatever got a 100k due to some inane DLC event and goddammit why I'm doing this to me. Not even starting about adventurers and the retarded situations they caused.
+ Crashes, crashes everywhere. Rebellion? Crash. Marriage? Crash. Adventurers? Crash. What the heck
+ the stock CK2 experience is: DLC - buggy mess - patch - less bugs - new DLC - tons of bugs - patch - somewhat less bugs - New DLC - more bugs than a early Zerg rush - rinse and repeat

I'm willing to think that I've been unlucky, but baseline CK2 (a removed from inventory version nonetheless!) Vicky2, EU3, HoI3 and Darkest Hour work quite well on my rig (occasional crash, but nothing continuous as CK2) I rest my case: CK2+DLC is a bloated and unfun mess of half-baked mechanics and badly implemented DLCs, and if the DLC scheme stays the fuck away from squad-level turn based games i will be only happy about that. I'm praying that the Battle Brothers team will go the old way about fully fledged "expansions" instead of a trickle of Ck2-like DLC scams. I'm not dreaming of a Dominions 4-like situation where the developers give us patches and new factions gratis et amore dei because they are awesome, but at least some quality control!

 

[sser]

Personally, I've never really had any issues with CK2 or EUIV, though CK2 definitely starts to run worse the longer you get into a game. People say CK2 goes to shit for awhile after big updates/patches, but I'm never playing it when those go down so I can't really speak to them.

 

[Eyestabber]

Tried to show EU4 to my brother and the game CTD'ed without even making to the menus. This thread broke my game.

 

[Latro]

Tis just the nature of capitalism. Even indie darling Notch, who now has enough money to fill a money bin 'ala Scrooge McDuck, went for "villa with pool and hookers" instead of "fund promising indie games for all eternity".
The nature of men.

When you consider it, if notch instantly backed and fully funded all the great kickstarters of our time, we would have to owe an generation of indie games exclusively to Notch. He can afford it as easily as we could afford a dollar burger...

He could be solely responsible for the resurgence of all those tiny CRPG/tacticool/whatever projects that try to relive the past, and maybe at least one of them could actually succeed in doing so, thus validating all of kickstarter and making RPGCodex happy for all time. But he won't.

 

[Delbaeth]

Do you really want to have a big "THANKS TO MINECRAFT" with a Notch picture during the first loading of each Kickstarted game instead ?

 

[Latro]

Do you really want to have a big "THANKS TO MINECRAFT" with a Notch picture during the first loading of each Kickstarted game instead ?

as long as it includes an ASCII notch portrait, yes