Repaying for Replaying

If I want to read again a bestseller book from 1991, like Tom Clancy's Sum of All Fears, provided I still have the book, it is still perfectly useable. If I want to play again a 1991 bestselling computer game, like Sid Meier's Civilization (the first one), I'm in trouble. My latest computer doesn't even have a 3.5" disk drive any more. And if I get the data transferred to it somehow, it isn't sure that this old DOS game will run without problems under Windows XP. And if I manage to overcome all these problems, I will find that the graphics are so horrible as to make the game virtually unplayable. Compare this screenshot of Civ1 (DOS) with this screenshot of Civ4 (Win XP)



Obviously a lot has happened in computer graphics in the last 14 years. And even people like me who say that gameplay is more important than graphics, have problems going back that far in technology. Some time ago I found back old disks from one of my favorite games, Master of Magic (1994), and managed to install it. But the game I remembered as being so great turns out to have units looking like this: (this is a halfling, in case you didn't recognize it). At a resolution of 320x240 with 256 colors it just looks awful, because we got used to much better looking games.

I'm still waiting for Civ4 to arrive in my mailbox. But I was already thinking that even if Civ4 is very much like Civ1, Civ2, and Civ3, I wouldn't be disappointed. I'm basically paying for a "major patch", an "update", which brings a classic game I loved graphically into the year 2005, and does some minor gameplay improvements. And if somebody made a 2005 graphics version of Master of Magic, I'd buy it as well (there are only some freeware clones with the old graphics around).

Paying for a new version of Civilization every 5 years is somewhat similar to paying a monthly fee for a MMORPG. If I came back to an old MMORPG like Ultima Online or Everquest, I would find them much changed over the last 5 years. But EQ in 2005, in spite of graphical improvements, still doesn't look half a pretty as a modern game. Making a sequel has the advantage that you can start with a fresh graphics engine, and throw overboard some old legacy stuff. You just need to be careful to not change too much, otherwise your "sequel" becomes a totally new game, which doesn't have enough in common with the old classic to build on its success. Everquest 2 strayed maybe a bit too much from the original, and the upcoming Vanguard Saga of Heroes risks to be closer to the original EQ than SOE's own sequel.

I have no idea what improvements the next couple of years will bring. But I doubt that the development will stop. I guess in 2010 Civ4 will look old-fashioned to me, and I will buy Civ5.
- posted by Tobold @ 7:52 AM Permanent Link