Rescue an old game

[JuntaJoe]

One of the big reasons my forum became a fan forum for COTN was because the game has many similarities to another game that my forum members love.

Unfortunately, the creators of Tropico seem to rather play with their train games and dismissed the idea of a remake because they have no interest regardless of the game's enduring fan base.

Like COTN, it was a civilization building game that included the aspects of economy, citizen response, security, and playing "god" with your charges over a long period of time.

So everytime I see a game of a similar nature, I always drop the hint that getting a licensing agreement with Poptop should be rather easy and would definitely generate a strong interest in a large diehard crowd.

Just some food for thought for when you consider your next project. ;)

[Keith]

One of the big reasons my forum became a fan forum for COTN was because the game has many similarities to another game that my forum members love.

Unfortunately, the creators of Tropico seem to rather play with their train games and dismissed the idea of a remake because they have no interest regardless of the game's enduring fan base.

Like COTN, it was a civilization building game that included the aspects of economy, citizen response, security, and playing "god" with your charges over a long period of time.

So everytime I see a game of a similar nature, I always drop the hint that getting a licensing agreement with Poptop should be rather easy and would definitely generate a strong interest in a large diehard crowd.

Just some food for thought for when you consider your next project. ;)
I'm not too sure that rival game companies would be willing to license out their work to each other. They may decide to do something with it in the future.

I would suspect that most developers would rather work on their own projects than be required to update someone elses code.

[JuntaJoe]

Poptop has said publicly several times that they have no interest in reviving it if they have to do the work.

The only xpac for the original game was farmed out to Breakaway, Poptop signed off and collected their royalty check.

When Frog Studios approached them concerning a derivative remake involving pirates, again Poptop just signed off and collected a check.

Yeah, Poptop holds the rights, but only as a way to collect a check so they can keep toying with their Railroad Tycoon.

So if that fine game ever will see the light of a remake, it will be another company's effort.

And yet, copies of the original game keeps selling at discount prices from store shelves after all these years.

[Eddy]

I agree with Joe. Tropico would be well suited for the CotN engine I bet. The theme is different and original enough as opposed to yet another Roman game. I suspect Poptop wouldn't charge much.

[vovan]

Heh, Tropico? An old game? Surely you jest! It's only three years old. Still brand-new, as far as I'm concerned. ;) People are still trying in vain to have games like Fallout (7 years old) and Colonization (10 years old) resurrected. :) So I'm thinking Tropico is in a looooong line to resurrection.

Besides, I might be wrong, but it seems to me that Tilted Mill is a company entirely different from Breakaway. Breakaway specializes mostly in developing existing franchises. Just look at their games: Sid Meier's Antietam - sequel to Gettysburg; Cleopatra - x-pack to Pharaoh; Waterloo - still working on Gettsyburg success; Emperor - continuing Interplay citybuilding franchise; Topico: Mucho Macho - x-pack to Tropico; Civ3: Conquests - x-pack to Civilization 3.

As you can see, all of their games are either x-packs or sequels. That's just what they do. :)

Tilted Mill, on the other hand, it seems to me, is trying to create a whole new franchise with Immortal Cities, hence I'm guessing they wouldn't be interested in continuing with Tropico even if they were looking for something to do.

Just my speculation of course. I may be waaaaay wrong here.

That having been said, I still think, Tropico is a great game, and in no way old. Still quite juicy to play every now and then. ;)

[EmperorJay]

IThe theme is different and original enough as opposed to yet another Roman game.
Blasphemy! ;)

Anyway, I enjoyed the demo of Tropico but never got around to actually buying it. I just might one day.

Vovan is right about BA, AFAIK, they have only made expansion packs yet. Emperor was a standalone game (from the Impressions citybuilding franchise, I believe) but they were hired for it.

I also agree about the fact that Tropico is not old yet. Anyone remember Theme Park? It took quite a while before Theme Park world was released! So there's still hope.

[JuntaJoe]

Oh, I doubt Breakaway would handle a totally new version of Tropico. As mentioned before, they tend to handle xpacs. But you have to give them credit where it is due. They are pretty darn good at doing those xpacs.

I expect true Tropico version 2 would come from a developer of new games in the same way Frog City did the pirate abomination. Sorry boys, but the Tropico Purist Society is still going strong. ;)

I just figured I'd mention the idea here as the COTN format seems like a fine starting point for a totally revamped Tropico 2nd Generation. You never know what might interest a developer and it never hurts to toss them ideas.

In the meantime, I'll play my old version until COTN comes out and hope we can generate the same loyal following based on player made scenarios that has kept Tropico alive all this time.

[EmperorJay]

HAHA! If you'd take a look at www.heavengames.com (http://www.heavengames.com/), you'll notice 4 Heavens, for C3, Pharaoh/Cleo, Zeus/Poseidon and Emperor. Tons of scenarios to find. Regular contests for those games are still held at www.citybuildingcontests.net (http://www.citybuildingcontests.net/) and before it closed at I Challenge U as well. So all in all, I don't think you'll ever have the time to play all fanmade scenarios for CotN :)

[Jayhawk]

Oy!
We're still doing (irregular) contest over at Heavengames too. ;)

[EmperorJay]

I stand corrected ;) .

[vovan]

So all in all, I don't think you'll ever have the time to play all fanmade scenarios for CotN.

Hopefully, that will, indeed, be the case. That's not always so, unfortunately. Compare Civ2 and Civ3, for instance. There are thousands of fan-made scenarios for Civ2. People still make them to this day, and the community for it is quite large. Civ3, on the other hand, has almost no fanmade scenarios - good ones especially can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Hopefully, CotN will not follow this kind of pattern and we will have all kinds of cool editor features. :) Pretty, please, with scripting on top. :D

[JuntaJoe]

Speaking of player made scenarios, my site has the absolutely definitive manual for generating both maps and scenarios for your Tropico game.

One of my fine moderators took a couple weeks of his time and created a masterpiece of easy instruction on how to code your own events and design maps.

A true "Dummy's Guide...." on how to do it.

I've always wanted to start contests, but like all suffering ProBoards forum users, we can't add attachments to our posts until the mythical Version 4 arrives. Of course we've been waiting almost a year for that. I only pray it finally arrives before COTN drops. :(

[Afterburner]

Compare Civ2 and Civ3, for instance. There are thousands of fan-made scenarios for Civ2. People still make them to this day, and the community for it is quite large. Civ3, on the other hand, has almost no fanmade scenarios - good ones especially can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

That's because Civ2 is a far superior game to Civ3 in nearly every respect.

If you build a good game, the players will be inspired to make their own scenarios. Heck, people are still making Doom level maps.

[Anguille]

Wasn't Tropico 2 published last year?

[Cironir]

Yeah, Poptop holds the rights, but only as a way to collect a check so they can keep toying with their Railroad Tycoon.

If you read the official Railroad Tycoon boards, you'll notice that whatever Poptop is currently working on, it certainly isn't RRT, and also hasn't been RRT in the past six or so months. A beta patch was released a few months ago, but there's no final version of it.

I believe Tropico II came out significantly after Railroad Tycoon II, so I don't agree that it's unfair that they released a sequal after five years. RRT has a fan base also. :)

[Rnett]

Wasn't Tropico 2 published last year?

Yes, it came last year :)

[Jayhawk]

Hopefully, CotN will not follow this kind of pattern and we will have all kinds of cool editor features. Pretty, please, with scripting on top.
We're still getting scenarios submitted for the various olde City Builder games, so age of a game is not really the controlling factor. What is clear, though, is that the games with the more (too?) complex editors tend to get fewer scenarios submitted, if only because it takes longer to make a good scenario/campaign, but also because less people are able (or willing) to figure out the editor.

So what you need, is something simple enough to create a simple scenario with, but complex enough to go deep and create complex scenarios.

[GillB]

We're still getting scenarios submitted for the various olde City Builder games, so age of a game is not really the controlling factor. What is clear, though, is that the games with the more (too?) complex editors tend to get fewer scenarios submitted, if only because it takes longer to make a good scenario/campaign, but also because less people are able (or willing) to figure out the editor.

So what you need, is something simple enough to create a simple scenario with, but complex enough to go deep and create complex scenarios.

That's true - for example we get far more Stronghold scenarios uploaded than Emperor (which came out after SH) as Emperor gets far more complicated to design for with colonies etc

[vovan]

Well, I never used the Stronghold editor, but I did give the Emperor one w whirl or two. And I must say that the interface for it wasn't the greatest. That being said, the editor was still a little limited. It wasn't complex at all. It was complicated.

As a contrast, take a look at the Civilization 2 editor, if you get a chance. It offers you incredible power - that far beyong what Emperor editor could ever dream of - and yet, it is really easy to use.

[EmperorJay]

Personally, I'd rather have a powerful but hard to learn editor than a less powerful one for the sake of keeping it simple.

Of course a powerful and easy to use one is best, but please don't make the editor less powerful because you want it to be easier to use.

[Cironir]

A really good example of an excellent (if not wonderful) editor/toolkit is the one that comes with Neverwinter Nights. Players who do not want to learn the full potential of the editor can just use the wizards and decorate the maps, and others who wish to make very complex "maps" (well, entire campaigns, really) are supplied with a powerful scripting language. The Aurora Tookit is really a masterpiece in this regard, though it's a bit of a different genre.

[Azeem]

The tutorials for the Aurora Toolset aren't all that helpful. I'm still trying to figure it out.

As far as editors go, I much prefer simplicity.