Introduction

For a long time now there is interest in the community that X-COM be raised from the dead. The objective of this thread is to open a discussion on the past, present and future of X-COM.

Obviously, a lot of us would like to see X-COM again, and for a good reason. The original game left a big trace in the video game industry. While it was never a game for the masses, those who played it hold it very dear. Furthermore, most similar games today are immediately compared to it, and it is in general an example of what an excellent game should look like. This is further reinforced by many "Top 100 games of all time" articles in which it was often somewhere in the top of those lists.

However, no matter how much we would like another game, we have to be realistic. Games have become a serious bussiness, a lot of money is rolling there, companies disappear from the scene faster than they appear. Thus, we can't be selfish and want a game which will ultimately burry itself and the team that makes it. We have to realize that it is possible that some things will be sacrificed, hopefully not much though. Also, for a number of reasons, X-COM games are very demanding as far as development goes especially with all of the things that exist now and didn't exist when the original was made (3D graphics, advanced physics etc.). The average development cycle today is 2-3 years, and the original was made in ~9 months (I think).

In order for an X-COM game to sell, we have to find a way to attract and make it appealing to a larger number of people. Of course, it will probably never sell like, for example, World of Warcraft, but it doesn't really have to, it just needs to sell enough.

Now, we must go through this one step at a time, from the more general things, to the more detailed ones. When we think we are satisfied with an answer, we move on.

So the first questions in this thread we must all answer are:

1.) Is there enough interest to even consider such a game at this point?
2.) What can be done to make it appealing to a wider array of gamers, with minimal loses?

To start things, I'll give my opinion first. Before we go any deeper into the subject, we must determine if there is any interest in this community. I suggest that we open a poll both in the forums and on the main site and see what the community thinks first. If not even the community cares, there's no point going further. I also think we should invite members from other parts from the SC community to voice their opinions (by commenting and/or voting), as well as those from other forums for such games (xcomufo.com comes to mind first). It would be good to pass it around to anyone else you can think of, talk to your friends etc. As for other gamers, if enough hype can be generated later, they will get interested. i suggest we concentrate on the 1st question for now.

It will take some time before more people notice, so don't expect people to just flood this thread. However, if you have anything to say on the matter, anything at all, be sure to do so. This community needs to wake up, and get some things rolling. We're all open to suggestions.

The last and the most important thing is:

In order for this to have any chance of succeeding at all we must be united and determined and we must show that to others.

With these words I declare the official discussion about the past, present and future of X-COM open to everybody.



Cheers,

Gimli

In terms of a traditional X-Com game: No.



Multiplayer. The ability to play a fast, say half or full hour game, with a bunch of people. A lot of the stuff that made up Alliance looked pretty cool in regards to that.

The trick is to try and make something new. X-Com was built around stereotypes to begin with, and a lot of games have been developed since then. It would be very, very hard to stick to the X-Com formula without ending up with a "seen it all before" feel.

I agree. Multiplayer is standard today in most games. Except maybe adventure games, and that genre isn't quite as popular as it used to be, because you can usually play it only once, every next time it will be the same. Of course there are rare exceptions like Blade Runner and the recently made Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy), but even they have a limited replayability.

Of course, a lot of us have been playing X-COM over and over again, the thing is though, most won't find it interesting to do that.

Multiplayer on the other side is like a whole new game. It has many posibilities, and those of you who have played some games in MP know that it's usually a lot more fun than SP. With X-COM, there can be a lot of different modes for multiplayer, from the standard Deathmatch, Teammatch, to Capture the flag, and lastly co-operative play of the SP campaign, but in Multiplayer with your friends. And with the ability to save/load in MP you can choose whether you'd like just a quick game or a longer campaign. Also, this isn't limited to just a strategy game, if one was made. It can also work for other genres like FPS or a space sim if the decision was to make those.



Hmmm, I haven't clarified that. The question wasn't about a specific game in the series, the question was do we want any X-COM game? At this point it doesn't matter what kind of a game it is. Personally I'd be happy to see any kind of an X-COM game, a remake of one of the old ones, or something completely new. Of course there's some I'd prefer more and some less, and the same goes for other people, but we'll get to that point later.

Right now we have to concentrate on determining whether there is enough interest in an X-COM game, both within and outside the community.

I suggest that someone from the staff opens two polls. One for the members of SC (in Offtopic --> Polling station) and one for people who are not members (that would go on the main page). The question should be in the lines of: "Would you like to see a game from the X-COM universe?" The one in the polling station should have a link to this thread, and you can make some kind of news item on the main page, which would also contain a link to this thread.

When those are out, try and drag as much people as possible here, both to vote and to discuss the future of X-COM here. It is best to get people who have played/liked X-COM, but haven't joined. I can already think of of a few persons who I could try and convince to join, and I'm sure you know some people as well. We need to create enough hype to convince Atari to do something, and we won't do that by sitting around. Remember, your award is an X-COM game. X-COM has a lot of potential, we have to make sure people realize that. It won't hurt us to try, now will it?

Let me add that today's technology allows very dynamic, realistic and interactive worlds. Graphicly games can now have a lot of detail, and the physics have started to really shine and will continue to develop quickly over the next few years. Those who have seen Ageia's demos know what I mean. Music and sounds can now also add to the atmosphere a lot better than with the old MIDI music. And if you remember, those had created quite an atmosphere - just think of how much better it would be now. All of the technical requirements are here, we now just need to be willing to use it.

I'm asking all of you, if you can write just 1 line, it would be of great help, afterall it requires just 10 seconds of typing; just help to get this thing finally going. Of course, the more you write, the better.

I have read a great deal about this subject on this and other sites and there is plenty to agree with and disagree with but there is very little mentioned about one particular point. When the game first came out, myself and several friends bought and played it and TFTD about the dame time. I was the only one out of about 8 of us that liked it enough to keep playing on until the end. When I asked why they didn't get on with it there were mixed answers. Some just didn't like it but three of four said they liked the game and the logistics but hated the battles they constantly had to fight. As there was no way to skip this they got bored.

Since that time I have come across this time and time again. I wonder if this had some reason to do with it not becoming big. Another nail in it's coffin was TFTD. Most people hated it for various reasons. I was ambivelant to it at first but grew to like it as it was harder to play.

The game has now probably become 'cult' whatever that means but cult followers seem not to be run of the mill types - maybe that's it.

Hmmm, yes, I noticed this and agree. And a lot of other people, too. I remember reading a review in some magazine for Apocalypse when it just came out, and one of the main minuses was the monotony of the missions. While I didn't feel that way, I can certainly see why a lot of people did. I think that UFO didn't have this problem because it was relatively short, and the research was what broke that monotony, by making you want to keep going long enough to finish the game. Apocalypse was longer though, so it showed. Then again, Apocalypse wasn't quite finished.

However, I don't think we should fear this. Whichever type of game was made it could have enough material to prevent it from being boring. We have to realize though, that it was popular for the way it completely immersed you into the story and the so called "UFO realism". That goes for all of them, from UFO and TFTD, through Apocalypse and Interceptor to Alliance and Genesis (what little we know of them). I think that when you look at them altogether, the story is pretty amazing, and they can be tied together well despite what some of you may think. If you want proof, I'll do it myself, just to show you that it's possible, even though others would probably do it better. And yes, that means Apocalypse, too. In fact, I'm very surprised Mr. Ellis didn't find a solution for that himself, he practically answered it in that interview with Cyke.

Then again, we can erase what parts of the story we don't like and build from there, or erase the whole story and make a new one. I don't really care, as long as it turns out OK, and keeps you glued to the computer for as long as necessary, and makes you not sleep well while you try to ponder your next strategy.

I agree that constantly making X-COM games isn't a good idea. Too many sequels in short periods of time usually don't work. Then again, not all of them have to be done by one team. id gives some of it's games to Raven (Quake 4, Return to Castle Wolfenstein), Blizzard has done the same thing with Starcraft: Ghost.

So you see, possiblities are virtually limitless. We just need to pick the ones we like best.

This is one of the things I liked the best about UFO: Aftermath, you could delegate missions. Of course there must have been some sort of penalty for making the AI take care of it, but it was good, it was excellent.

First of all I'll post here what I have earlier discussed with the staff at this site and XCOMUFO.com:

People here have one thing in common whether they are registered to the X-Com, Silent Storm or UFO:Aftermath boards - they love X-Com! Not all of them, but a substantial number. Thousands of people that do not register here have the same thing in common. All those people out there that love X-Com have one problem in common - there is no sequel coming! That is UNACCEPTABLE!

The e-mail:
Okay, I have the e-mail address of a guy a little up in the Atari system. My suggestion is that we send him an e-mail along these lines (who sends it doesn't matter, it should be whoever we elect "boss"):

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Mr. X

I am contacting you as an elected representative of the X-Com community. We have a suggestion for Atari, and we hope you will be so kind as to read it and provide us with Atari's reply.

We want a sequel to the X-Com brand of games. I realize that I am not the first person to contact you about this, but I think the suggestion we have for you is better than the previous ones, and I don't see what you have to loose. We wish to start a major campaign to wake the X-Com community, and show support for the games. X-Com is constantly brought up as one of the greatest games in history by every major game magazine, and it's not without reason.

So we'll make a site dedicated to this that has a petition, e-mail campaign, forum, fan-fiction, donation for a possible X-Com sequel, offer support banners, sites and magazines can register as supporters and so on. Then we'll set goals for how many sign and so on.

This has probably been tried before, but if you agree to our suggestion we'll have one thing that no one had before - Atari's support. We need an official statement from you saying something like "Atari is prepared to evaluate the X-Com license if the community can convince us there's proper interest for it". A press release, comment in a interview, blog entry from someone at Atari, anything will do. With that people will know that we have a chance this time, and it could be a success.

As for the support we currently have, it is two major fan-sites for the game:
- StrategyCore.co.uk (formerly X-Com.co.uk) is a major fan-site dedicated to X-Com and a few other games with about 3500 members.
- XComUFO.com is a major site dedicated to X-Com and a fan-made game inspired by X-Com with 5000 members.
Besides that there are countless of other sites and games inspired by X-Com that I'll list at the end of this mail.

So, question is, would Atari give us this statement? Even if this ends up as a great failure, it would promote Atari. We have nothing to loose from it, and neither do you. What is Atari's position?

As for our connection to the gaming press, most of us have been members of the game industry for quite a few years and have good connections. We know people with all the major news sites and magazines, and are confident that they will help us make this happen. Please give us this!

Greetings from the X-Com community represented by Mr. X

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, this is one suggestion for what we could do. I am sure you guys can help formulate the e-mail better, but you get the idea. Then, regardless of Atari's answer, we'll set up the website I mentioned.

The site:
Here's what I want on the site:
- X-Com: Resurrection petition, where we should set a main goal and some periodic goals.
- Forum: Where everyone can register and chatter about X-Com to show their support for X-Com.
- Possibility to send Atari (or us if they will not take it) mail where people explain why they want a new X-Com game.
- News sites (and the likes) can register themselves as supporters of X-Com: Resurrection, and have their logo added to the Supporters section.
- We'll have banners that people can put on their sites in all the standard sizes.
- With a little luck we'll have an official admission from Atari that they'll consider a sequel granted a proper show of interest.
- X-Com stories and fan-fiction will be added to the site.
- Any other relevant X-Com information we have on our sites.
- Anything else you or anyone suggests that sounds like a good idea.

To do this properly we need to use any contact we have, and be dedicated. If the interest in a sequel for X-Com is not as large as I think we'll fail miserably, and that may be the case anyway. But I say it's better to try and fail than not try at all.

As for making the site, we need to put a little money each into a fund that we use to pay hosting and domain, as well as other possible expenses. This shouldn't be much, but we need a little.

Spreading the word:
I know a good deal of people around the web. I have contacts with 3D Gamers, Gamer's Hell and a lot of other news sites. I have means to get in touch with IGN, GameSpy and so on. And I am sure there are a lot of well connected X-Com fans out there in general. If we get the statement from Atari I am 100% sure they'll throw in their support. Hopefully they'll do it even if we don't.

Final thoughts:
I want any suggestion you may have! This is a long shot to say the least, and we need good planning and luck. But it's either this or no new X-Com. Let's go into battle for the games we love! So, any thought and suggestion you have is welcome. We need dedication to pull this off.

EDIT: Pete just gave me a link to the site where we found out who owned the X-COM license. If you click "Trademark search" *ask to get the URL*, and write "X-COM", you'll see. The current owner is listed as Take2. Interestingly enough, they own Firaxis (Sid Meier's company). Don't know if this is good or bad news, but I still suggest we precede as normal.

Okay, then some thoughts on the questions you posted Gimli:


Yes. A game like Silent Storm, that is turn-based and was without a name, did fairly well in Europe and Russia. In the US it sold less than 20 000 copies, but this may be due to failure of advertising. We have to realize that the market for turn-based games is smaller than most other genres, but with a strong name like X-Com there still is a market.


- Strong 3d engine like the one in Silent Storm. In addition to looking very good, it has ragdoll and destructible terrain like you never saw it!
- Innovation like modifiable weapons (like UFO: Aftershock), delegating missions (like UFO: Aftermath), viewmodes (like UFO: Aftershock) and so on.
- More variation in the tactical missions to make it less repetitive.
- Better AI (yes, it sucked in UFO: EU). This would help make the tactical missions more interesting.
- Much stronger RPG system (like UFO: Aftershock).
- Stronger story integration with the game (this was no good in UFO: EU).
- Many other improvements.

There are a few things I would set as absolutes however:
- Small squad tactical combat and global scale strategy.
- Turn-based tactical system.

I will not support a project like this if that isn't a requirement. I'm willing to discuss other potential genres using the X-COM name, but not for the Resurrection game. People don't want a new Interceptor or Enforcer, they want a new UFO: EU.

Personnally I think all these things are good. Gimmli is right to bring this up in this way too because the interest and momentum needs to be kept up. I doubt I could run Aftermath - my computer would have kittens so I have no idea what it is like but I liked Appocalypse if only because I could damage the scenery.

Here's my story. When I found X-COM I immersed myself in it completely, too much really and then came TFTD and Apocalypse but I wasn't keen on Interceptor but it didn't matter as we were promised two new games and one would be similar to the original. I grew old waiting. I still have a poster for Genesis. I now know all the details (or as much are known) but after quite a few years I kind of forgot about it all playing all manner of other games until I tired of them. One day I thought about my old X-COM games (which I still had) after reading an old file on my computer that I used to keep my old saved games in. I then realised that my current machine would not be able to play them so I looked around the web and found this site. I still love the X-Com ganes, I think it comes from watching UFO on TV when I was a child. These games tasted just like the old TV series and I loved that which is why I am currently playing them again.

Long winded I know but the point is I didn't know the cult status that they had achieved and to be honest if there was me, then there must be others. Spread the word brothers and bring them to this place of worship.

I was reading an earlier string somewhere about several sites coming together to make SC, from the point of view of the X-Com games I think combining games waters down the impact of an individual genre and as you can see on the forums, UD and TFTD don't figure large at the moment. It needs more posts.

Well, the X-COM community at this site has diminished, that's for sure. I find it strange that combining X-COM with other very similar games should have that effect, but some seems to think so. No one ever has a good explanation however.

Anyway, if we start this campaign, I want a separate site for it as I said before. Up to the group of course, but for this campaign I agree that we need a pure X-COM site.

Edit: Gah, the quotes are broken.
Edit2: Fixed, thanks BB.

[quote]StrategyCore.co.uk (formerly X-Com.co.uk) is a major fan-site dedicated to X-Com and a few other games with about 3500 members.
- XComUFO.com is a major site dedicated to X-Com and a fan-made game inspired by X-Com with 5000 members.[/quote]

Last I checked SC has ~4100 and xcomufo ~8000. Or did you mean some members which are active on both sites?

[quote]Besides that there are countless of other sites and games inspired by X-Com that I'll list at the end of this mail.[/quote]

Err, you didn't list them. Did you forget or do you intend to do that for the final version of the mail? Sorry if I missed something, I've had a rough day and I'm quite tired.

As for the person who sends it, it should be someone who has done a lot for the community in the past years, to award his contribution.

[quote]Forum: Where everyone can register and chatter about X-Com to show their support for X-Com.[/quote]

I assume this would be open for guests to look at. Because some sections of xcomufo right now are closed for guests. This would also mean that they would have to open them for everyone to see, at least as long as this lasts (and if everything turns out OK, then they won't need to close it again).

[quote]Anything else you or anyone suggests that sounds like a good idea.[/quote]

Some kind of a contest or something? For fanart, fan stories and such.

As for the rest of the things mentioned under The Site... that is most awesome. A lot better than what I had in mind right now. Let me just say that you should mention in the mail exactly what contacts with the gaming magazines you have, and that you add that other forum members probably have other contacts as well. I could try with some local magazines/online sites, maybe I'll get some support.

The supporters section should be named something along the lines of "Wall of Support", and then put logos of them one under the other (probably best in alphabetical order so that, for example, IGN doesn't get mad that you put Gamespy above it, and so on). This should be on the main site.

Also, it would be nice if we could throw ads which could be cliches like: "We want you for the X-Com Army", and such, with pictures of course.

Interviews. That would definitely get a lot of interest. Starting with the Gollops, Dave Ellis and a lot of other past developers (and future if the game goes into development).

[quote]EDIT: Pete just gave me a link to the site where we found out who owned the X-COM license. If you click "Trademark search" here, and write "X-COM", you'll see. The current owner is listed as Take2. Interestingly enough, they own Firaxis (Sid Meier's company). Don't know if this is good or bad news, but I still suggest we precede as normal.[/quote]

What the? I was searching for ages for this kind of thing, but had no success. Good work.

[quote]Strong 3d engine like the one in Silent Storm. In addition to looking very good, it has ragdoll and destructible terrain like you never saw it![/quote]

Is there some kind of a movie where I could get an impression of what it can do with physics? I have a bad connection, but I'll probably be able to watch it from college tommorow. However, I'm afraid that we couldn't use that engine. The thing is, it's already "old", meaning that by the time it would get out, it wouldn't look very impressive. And with X-Com every one of the major components must be top-notch. So the engine would have to be made from scratch, which is a lot of work, but with the new Ageia chips coming out soon (if they're not out already) I think it would be better. Come to think of it, it would be a very good idea to get Ageia to be a sponsor.

This post has been edited by Gimli: 14th December 2005, 12:27pm

(Too many quote tags, and the forum software loses track. Try splitting the post in two).

Part 2:



1) Yes, definitely, I thought of that, too (before I played the demo) and was pleasantly surprised when I saw in the demo. That gives a lot more tactical options.
2) But only some, definitely not the story ones, and maybe add a monthly quota or some other kind of throwback (don't know how it was executed in AM).
3) By viewmodes, I assume you mean night vision and such things? That would definitely be useful (I think I'll have to kill ALTAR before they can steal all my ideas ), thermal and night vision and maybe something else.
4) Here's just a few of my own, these are just of the top of my head, I'll add more when I remember them again.

Weather: rain, snow, fog etc. which would affect the mission in some way. Example: for rain, it could make the jungle and grassland terrains wet, thus decreasing their speed, making some equipment malfunction/not usable etc. For snow, decreasing speed, lower accuracy (it's cold afterall) etc. Fog - decreases visibility depending on it's density.
Terrain: desert, jungle and arctic make you slower, and tired more quickly, maybe add limited time for being out in the open when in arctic/desert terrain (due to extreme heat/cold)
Different clothes depending on terrain (that normal suit doesn't look very warm in arctic, now does it ), also a more military look would be nice, especially since this was still the begining of the Alien Wars ™. Meaning that they'd have the military like uniforms such as these each for it's own type of terrain (white one for the arctic). The same goes for latter armors.
Giving more role for what was called Agents in UFO (though I'd prefer Spies, because I like to use Agents for X-Com soldiers, sounds cooler ), not only discovering bases, but collecting a lot of other information (mentioned in part later).
Giving you some more "athletic" abilities. Haven't you ever noticed that you have to waste a lot of TUs to walk around a fence or a wall, when you could simply jump over it. Climbing.
More weapons in general.
Night missions are a must, with the appropriate semi-horror atmosphere.
Also, I think that the original game was a little too hard for beginners, even on Beginner. Your men had almost no chance of survival in the beginning, and you were forced to reload often. So maybe give them a bit more of a fighting chance like these things:

Improving the automatic weapons. I mean, come on, the auto cannon can fire only 3 bullets in auto-shot. You know from FPS games that they can unload a lot of ammo in very short time (remember the one in Serious Sam? 800 bullets per minute). Of course that would mean adjusting the damage weapons do and the accuracy, otherwise they would be too strong.
And another thing. Dual wielding. When you have two pistols (or uzis), you can fire them both at the same time. I always thought that the pistol in UFO was pretty useless.
A sniper rifle. With being able to aim certain body parts.
Some basic protection like a standard military helmet, which isn't much protection, but could make a difference between life and death. And some kind of goggles.
Some melee combat weapons, like knives.

Would we go with the Skyranger being on the field? I am personally against it (though I wouldn't mind much if it was there), because it's kind of stupid that the aliens can blow away a lot of stuff with their grenades and blaster launchers, but couldn't even scratch the Skyranger. If it was there, I'd really like a side exit for the Avenger. Seriously, you'd think that they'd learn from having so many soldiers die when exiting, and it would decrease the time it takes you to get your soldiers out (especially with the Avenger being able to carry more units).

Of course this would require some rebalancing, so as not to make it too easy.

For tactical missions: more variety - aside from standard missions, there could be escorting missions, spying missions, hitman missions - taking out the alien mole in a government, missions in which you would "convince" the leaders of a country that recently resigned from funding to fund X-Com again by blackmailing them (this is where spies come in), or just taking them out or something else;
And then there's the "Critical Missions": now they would be quite interesting, probably story-based, anyway, you didn't have to go on all of these, but there would probably be heavy consequences, right now I can think of only having a mission where the aliens occupy a nuclear power plant and threaten with a nuclear meltdown if a country doesn't agree to resign from the funding (or some other threat), and then they would set a timebomb (to get out before it goes off), and then you'd have limited time to get to it. Then they could steal a nuclear weapon and fire it at some random city, and you'd have to use an interceptor to stop it (or maybe th craft that caries it). Or some kind of hostage situation (via corrupt governments or maybe even Cult of Sirius or it's predecessor). Protecting military convoys. Ruin alien research. Of course, if you finished them successfully you'd get a proper reward. Finally, some of these missions would be available only under specific circumstances, and may not appear in the game at all. This would make you want to play the game again, and try to discover them all. As you can see, there's a lot of options.



This is one field that hasn't been improved in games in YEARS. This is definitely something that X-Com should take an advantage of, and also to force other developers to make the AI in games better, rather then using cheats (like seeing the whole map and units, no delay on giving orders and making buildings etc.). But not necessarily better in every instance. For example you can divide them to stupid and smart aliens. Examples of first would be: Chrysallid and Reaper. We know the Chyssies advantages, though you could also add things to them like big strength (they look like they're very strong). Now imagine a scene like one from a horror, where you're in a dark place (X-Com or alien base), you spot a Chrissy and run and lock yourslef in a room (sturdy metal doors). But then you hear the Chrissy beating the door and as your soldier clutches his gun the Chrissy suddenly breaks in, and you're almost sure to die. And also a melee attack to them, which given their strength would pack quite a punch (litterally). And the reapers would be mindless, just run at you, but there's a problem, they can just run through normal would houses and similar obstacles. Would make for some very nice demolition scenes. Of course, they could get hurt that way, too. The cyberdiscs, could just fly into your guys if they're too tightly packed and just mow them down (or maybe add blades to cut them down). Floaters could get on top of buildings, prone and then try to snipe your team. Etc. etc. You could have some aliens go for numbers and some go for intelligence. The point is, each would require a different tactic. And there should be alien classes, like a medic (would give you a chance to get an advanced medikit), engineer (maybe for explosive weapons), and the other ones that were there, and they would each have a different tactic and purpose.



I don't know what exactly did you mean, I'd leave the basic system the way it is, but improve it a lot. So in order to get better accuracy you'd need to shoot more aliens, to increase throwing accuracy you'd need to throw more grenades and so on. This is more realistic than Aftershock, and that is a part of what made the game good. BUT, you'd have the ability to train your soldiers and make them specialize in a certain area like in AS. That's another thing I also thought of before seeing the demo. (I think I'll have to sue ALTAR, before they can steal more ) One of trainings you could have is for close/melee combat. Remember how you'd often walk into a room and the alien was standing right next to you, and you wouldn't have enough TUs to fire. Well now you could kick some of them, throwing them away, and giving you a chance to run away, or at least make some distance so that they have less chance to kill you.



Definitely, add more research, with more of it actually being useful, revealing more about the aliens (but not too much, to leave something for possible sequels). Also through story missions and cut sequences. Especially the cut-sequences, which would need to be top-notch and just make you anxious to play the game. Just imagine the intro sequence of the old one new and improved.



I think this is where we'll have the most problems. Do we go for turn-based, real-time (like the one in Apoc, but better) or both. I don't really know. Each option has many advantages and disadvantages, and if we miss there, it could mean the game not sell well enough.

Let's list the pros and cons for each and try to see what would be best. I personally don't remember all of those, which is why I'm asking. I'd be willing to go with any if we decide on one. Or maybe leave that decision for later.

Here's another question:

How much of the story should be changed, and where do you think we could go against what was written in the old ones?
I would personally like to see X-Com:UFO again first for a lot of reasons. The most important is this:

It would allow us to rewrite some parts of the story and add to it, giving us the ability to link the sequels better and getting a consistent universe. Also, a lot of younger players have never even heard of X-Com, putting them in the middle of one of the sequels (by this I primarily mean something like Genesis) might confuse them, as they wouldn't understand some of the things that are happening/have happened in previous games and wouldn't get properly attached to the story.

A separate site for this whole project is definitely neccessary.

Well, I'm done. For now. Just for the record, I was supposed to post this last night, but had the computer freeze, and almost lost 2 hours of typing. And it happened just as I was going to save it to a Word document, to prevent it from accidentally being lost. It took it ten minutes to unfreeze. Also, it has 4.5 pages in Word.

In the next post I'll give you my version of the remade intro, which won't be near as cool as it would have been if I could show you an animation of it. Hopefully you all have enough of imagination to picture it all yourselves.

Strangely, it's the human lack of capacity for change. I've run businesses for years and it's something we have to take into account when anything is changed. You can change things but it's how you do those changes.



I think you are correct but the problem may be 'alienation', forgive the pun - and by that I am conserned that the point above could reoccur. Not only that, the reason I like this site is that the people that post here do not seem the usual set of elitist dick heads that seem to congregate around other forums on the internet. It seems to me that even someone new to the site is as welcome as the old stagers and any change can alter that.

Another point is that a great deal of research needs to be done on how to approach it. Anuway theres no point in me banging on about this at the moment but I would wholeheartedly support anything to do with this subject.