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Author Topic: UFOpaedia  (Read 22786 times)

Offline Jack Burton

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UFOpaedia
« on: June 26, 2013, 08:17:26 am »
I recently discovered UFO:Alien Invasion quite by accident.

 Having played "All the Xcoms that matter" I was pleased to find open Xcom & it's changes; but was on the hunt for a TFTD remake. 
I found Xenonauts on Steam & decided it was worth the $20 even at it's stage of progression; as it is modifiable & the like. I immediately ran into a personal issue with the creator's "take" on the UFOpaedia.

 Perhaps I could have been less obtuse, but I suggested on the forums that it sounded rather plebeian; favoring the Brent Spiner sort of character for all of their reports & documentation.

 (The unfinished UFOpaedia is rife with misspellings & personal anecdotal observations, including ut not limited to the scientist's observations on the 'neanderthal'  technician's inability to even understand their findings...I've found historically many agree such things are best left to addendum & the like.)
 
 The reception to my input was...cool...to say the least from the projects creator (Chris)

 ..& I get that, as I explained to him in IM's; "It is HIS Bar-B-Que, & it tastes GOOD...but..."

 I was told "You are honestly the first person to have said this, most people are refreshed by the lack of technical-babble..etc.." 

 To which I responded with a raised eyebrow & by moving on... I know when someone has already made their mind up in a subject, as well as how to pick my battles.

 My point with this is that I recently discovered your efforts in the genre, & have been playing UFo:AI for several days now... Long enough to say

"Wow..."

Everything else aside (which is pretty awesome so far btw!) Your attention to detail & eloquence in writing up your quasi-scientific reports; combined with your use of modern day technologies & their applications to show the curve of progress is, in my opinion, astoundingly well rounded.

Hats OFF to the technical crew who has obviously put many-many hours into creating the UFOpaedia & its entries. You make each proposal SOUND like it should, & each explanation plausible in a science-fiction genre.

Nicely done, & thank you.

~Jack Burton (Me!)

Offline H-Hour

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Re: UFOpaedia
« Reply #1 on: June 26, 2013, 10:44:34 am »
This was mostly the work of Winter, who has left the project. Yes, many of our players seem to love the verbose technical descriptions. Personally, I hate them. I'm playing a game, not reading a book, and finding the tactically useful bits buried in a sea of words is a pain. But to each his own. And since the thick description is part of our "niche" I think it's here to stay.

But I wouldn't begrudge Chris his decision. If you're actually the first person to complain to him about technical descriptions, then he's probably right to leave them out.

Offline Denthar

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Re: UFOpaedia
« Reply #2 on: June 26, 2013, 11:24:30 pm »
But I wouldn't begrudge Chris his decision. If you're actually the first person to complain to him about technical descriptions, then he's probably right to leave them out.

I've been part of the Xenonauts forum since early alpha, well before they had their KS, and Jack/Jim's post was the first time I'd seen anyone complain that the reports were not verbose enough or didn't follow a more military or scientific prose on that forum.

Plently of complaints about spelling and the lack of articles though!

Personally, my happy medium is actually between this UFO:AI and Xenonauts. Not massively dry and report-like with enough "flavour" to make it an interesting read, but with a decent structure and not too much hyperbole.

Offline gugand

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Re: UFOpaedia
« Reply #3 on: August 03, 2013, 11:46:33 am »
Hi folks!
I write here to not open a new thread just for one answer.
I played UFO:AI when was in 2.2 version. At the time, research tree was not complete. I just check on the wiki, but it's far to be complete, so i must ask here: the research tree is complete now? The single player campain can be finished?

Offline Mattn

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Re: UFOpaedia
« Reply #4 on: August 03, 2013, 01:53:37 pm »
Hi folks!
I write here to not open a new thread just for one answer.
I played UFO:AI when was in 2.2 version. At the time, research tree was not complete. I just check on the wiki, but it's far to be complete, so i must ask here: the research tree is complete now? The single player campain can be finished?

in fact these are two different questions ;)

check our roadmap to see the tech tree state.
the game can be finished in singleplayer (speaking of 2.5-dev) - but it's still not the final end that we would like to have. (again see our roadmap)