Questions about the game?

[StormcloudCreations]

geoschmo: You read my mind (in a way)! At some point, I plan on having a contest where people send in their best records as a manager (using a screenshot at first, and maybe some built in Online function later on) or their warrior with the best overall record for some type of contest held by me.

Total MP functionality probably won't be included with this release, but may be considered in a patch later on. Right now the game is mainly tuned for SP; as are most of my games, if you've tried them.

I certainly hope you consider trying out the game or pre-ordering it to get in on the fun!

[DennisS]

I came across this game on the Wargamer website.

This game really does look exceptional.

Is there an estimated date of release?

Thanks, and best wishes for this game!

[txwarrior_54]

i know it will be mainly text battles and stuff, but if this game is a big hit would u consider making the battle slightly controllable to the user and u can actually watch the battle take place in 3d, i think that would be the best game ever then, u could customize ur gladiators armor and choose weapons, if u went all out i know all of my friends would buy it, i think u would have a really great game if u came out with a Coliseum II with those options it would like be one of the best games of the year probably if u did a good job!

[StormcloudCreations]

DennisS: Thanks for the kind words! I certainly hope you consider pre-ordering the game.
Estimated date of release is around December 10th or so.

txwarrior_54: If it was a big hit? A big, big, hit? Maybe, but then if it were a big hit, I might be alienating my audience by making such a radical change in "Coliseum II". The primary audience I think of Coliseum are those who prefer the planning and management of these type of games, and aren't wowed or swayed by 3D graphics (or at least not as much so).

It would depend on how big a hit it is. If YOU pre-ordered it for instance, I would consider it a smash hit right away!

[Brian White]

Derek first I'd like to say congrats and thanks for making a game I've always wanted to play. I have preordered and am eagerly awaiting it's release!

Could you give just a sample of what the text will look like in a given battle? I'm not a veteran of text based games, but I'd imagine each match would have quite varied, descriptive depictions of the action. Is that a correct assumption? Also on the website (either Shrapnel Games or the Wargamer) I read a "mission" would take 1 to 2 hours. Does that mean a fight takes that long to complete? If so what elements cause a match to take that amount of time? I'm curious about it since it seems as a manager you have limited input to the battle at hand.

I do think adding multiplay capability at a later stage would be a welcomed addition. I have a great number of friends I'd like to compete with in a game like this.

In the past I've done some "design docs" on a gladiator game, and I was hoping to making it graphical in nature. I've seen others on these forums asking if that were possible for Coliseum, but unless a very robust graphical combat system were in place I personally don't think it would add enough to justify it. I mean most graphical games only have a limited set of attacking and defending animations where your text system sounds to have a very large number of possibilites and variables. If these various things weren't accounted for by the graphical interface I think the game would be less deep, but this is all a guess since I've yet to see what you've done.

Again thanks for putting together a game I've been wanting to play for quite some time, and good luck!

[StormcloudCreations]

Thanks, Brian! I've had a fair number of people tell me that, which surprised me a bit: This is a game that's either crossed their mind, or always wanted to play. I even had a few people write me to tell me they created design docs for similar games years ago, but never followed through with it for whatever reasons. 2 of them even e-mailed me their design docs and their blessings on the project, which was very cool. Too weird though! Yay for procrastination!

The text will be quite intricate, yes, which is why I shyed away from the "3D graphic" approach to the fights early on. It would require huge resources to create graphics that would mirror all the text i've created (over 1,000 individual lines of text, with about 20 variances or variations of each, plus 10 more different variations of each of the 20 earlier variances that can happen based the warrior's stats; that's a lotta stuff!). It's written in a very Robert E. Howard (author of Conan, if you've heard of him) type style, maybe a tad bit graphic in some spots, but hey, these fights can be gruesome and I wanted to portray that.

Oh no...fights take around 2-5 minutes each or so, depending on the evenness of the stats and what happens. Some can be as quick as 1 minute or so. You can set the speed of the combat text as well, so that matters as well.

Your input to the battle comes right before the match, as you can set your fighter's "attitude" during the match (as well as matching-up one of your fighters against the upcoming opponent, something i've made easier with a match-up screen). You can set your fighter to be: Aggressive (try to get him quickly), Normal (tells the warrior to use his own judgement) and Defensive (try to win, but first try not to get hit). Each is useful in different situations.

Thanks, Brian! If you (or anyone) has any other questions, please feel free to post them!

[Brian White]

Very interesting stuff. Thanks for the info. I've come up with a few more questions as well so thanks for being so open to the prospect!

What things must you do in a typical game session? I'd imagine you have a season going, and you enter your fighters in the contest(s), but I've read that your fighters can get in trouble outside the arena. What types of activities do you do when not actively engaged in fights?

Are the fights always 1 on 1 or are there various types of fights to be entered?

In Roman times gladiator fights rarely ended in deaths (so I've read/seen). I realize the game is loosely based on this era, so can you expect one of the combatants to die in each fight or every now and then? I assume they not only can die in the arena, but also days later as a result of their wounds?

Regarding seasons and the final tournament, is the choice regarding which fighters get to fight in the championship based on your "school" (ie all 3 of your fighters results for the season), or an individual fighters performance over the season? It seems like injuries will force you to play a couple if not all of your fighters to make it through a season so I'm curious how this will work out.

Thanks again for answering questions about the game. If you don't want to answer something it's ok. I'm just trying to learn about the fun we'll soon be having when it ships!

[ November 09, 2003, 23:33: Message edited by: Brian White ]