Outpost 3 or remake/reboot ?

[Gemeaux333]

I wondered if there are any plans for a sequel or a remake, or a reboot...

I ask because recently Sierra have been brought back from the dead ! (the hole story of the editor prove than you should never deal with Vivendi, no matter on what)

[leeor_net]

Sierra's brand has been revived, sierra itself died a long time ago. Whoever is handling them now has taken the liberty of taking advantage of their best performing IP's.

There have been a couple of fan-based remake attempts but all of them have fallen through. I've thought about giving it another go but I just don't have the time for another project.

Another forum member, Zhall, came up with a[urlhttps://forum.outpost2.net/index.php/topic,5993.0.html] StarCraft 2 mod that looked pretty good[/url]. I never got around to trying it out and I don't think it's super refined but it seemed to work. The youtube video links appear to be dead now but maybe the rest is still available.

[Gemeaux333]

I wonder if those who worked on the first 2 games are still in the domain ?

Outpost 3 is the type of project that a crowdfunding campaign could give life (Kickstarter or Indiegogo), like all the project no editors believe in

p.S : Sierra died in 2005 if I remember...

[leeor_net]

There were a number of attempts in the past with only one or two projects providing anything more than speculation. It's not out of the question by any means, but it would require an amount of dedication that most people are not able to do. Crowd funding could help but it would require an experienced developer team with a solid foundation. The dev team doesn't need to be more than a hand full of people, three or four could make it happen.

I know I'm being a bit of a party pooper -- mostly I'm just speaking from experience. I would love to start just such a project but I also know what would be involved in it and even if I was dedicated to it, the project would still take at least two years to complete and that's assuming there are no hiccups. Given that there are very few games that are like Outpost and Outpost 2, the reason we haven't seen an Outpost 3 is probably because, financially speaking, there is little incentive. It's a niche product and would be difficult to get it to sell in enough quanity to make it worth the time of a developer team that knows what they're doing.

[Gemeaux333]

I would never suggest to approach Epic Game (Store) to finance such an entreprise, as it not only have bad reputation (it is not that clean either), although they offer a comfortable payoff to devs/editors (2.5 millions straight) in exchange of a 1 year exclusivity on their platform...

Firaxis managed to modernise their games (Civilization and X-Com) to fit the present days audience without loosing the essential, so the good approach would be to keep the micro-management but make it "automatic / properly balanced" so the regular player would not have to worry about and the experienced player could modify it, this way the player would only have to mind about the essential : building infrastructure, choosing the priorities in researches and some other decisions that will affect the gameplay (Civilization: Beyond Earth and Civilization 6 are great in the way they allow the player to make their civilization evolve the way they want to fit their gameplay)...
...if the game is appealing enough it would work, as there a several games lately that used the concept of space colonization, like "Surviving Mars" : https://store.steampowered.com/app/464920/Surviving_Mars/ ...

...would it still possible to take a Nasa's retired scientist as consultant, as I assume the one from Outpost 1 have long passed away and technology the Nasa is using is very different from what it was in the early 90s ?

Activision seems to be those who have the Sierra brand, I tried to send an email to https://www.sierragames.com/fr (contact @ sierra.com) to speak the issue, but it seems the adress is not used or unavailable... strange

[leeor_net]

Ew... Activision... the place IP's and brands go to die. >_<

I think the biggest challenge with an Outpost 3 would be coming up with a story that makes any sort of sense. It could take the approach that Outpost 2 did, just take the same sort of ideas and reboot the story. It could go back to its roots of a turn-based strategy game like Civilization and use a much improved graphics engine (everybody seems to be hell bent on 3D graphics these days... wonder what that's about?)

Anyway, I think that would be the biggest challenge. Building upon what the two games have given us so far and finding a new but familiar path.

[Vagabond]

Gemeaux333,

Welcome to the forums!

Leeor has to finish OutpostHD before starting a clone of Outpost 2 or some Outpost 3 game. 

I think rebooting the storyline or picking up with the launch of the spaceship for Eden/Plymouth in Outpost 2 would both be appropriate. Yeah, 3D graphics in a game like Outpost seems unnecessary to me.

If someone were to make an Outpost 3 as a RTS, there would be plenty of difficult programming challenges to go around in addition to writing a compelling storyline. Living up to the storytelling in Outpost 2 would be difficult.

-Brett

[Gemeaux333]

My idea was a new Outpost game based mostly on the first game with some elements of the second,
3D could give a good/impressive result without being hypra-realistic but I actually expect something better than what we got with the 3D transition from Imperium Galactica to Imperium Galactica 2,
Turn based is okay to me but I actually had the idea of a real-time in which you choose the speed according to the situation and/or your wishes and even pause it,
I was also thinking about a less circonvoluted way to build structures, like simply choosing were to build a structure and the computer do the rest (sending robo-dozer and begin construction once the work is done) and the possibility to queue construction orders

well, I actually think more about the way the first game is played with first steps (choosing initial equipement, crew and planet) and implatation phase included, things missing in the second game

[leeor_net]

Your ideas are good.

These sorts of projects have been discussed and attempted before. I think the biggest issues that doomed all of them were 1) lack of planning, 2) lack of discipline, 3) lack of experience and 4) massive feature creep.

Vagabond has said it -- I need to finish OutpostHD before I consider another large project and he's right. But with the right plan and goals set I can at least offer enthusiastic support.

[Gemeaux333]

I understand, there is no hurry ^^

Would Activision support the project under the hence of Sierra ?
After all, in the late 90s they worked on Sid Meier's Civilization games : Call to Power 1 and 2
I would rather blame Vivendi for their evolution... but the point is they never went better since they no longer have anything to do with Vivendi !

[leeor_net]

Probably not. It's a shame too because it was a great concept even if the execution wasn't great (2 is objectively better than 1 but it still has its issues too).

[Gemeaux333]

If Electronic Arts have begun to heavily support Command and Conquer (and its historical devs) again, everything is possible...

[leeor_net]

C&C had a huge following though. I mean, it's certainly not out of the realm of possibilities but Activision isn't exactly forward thinking.

[Sirbomber]

It's never going to happen.  The best you can hope for is a GOG re-release, or a fan-made spiritual successor.  End of story.

[Gemeaux333]

Never say never...

[Gemeaux333]

Now that activision belong to Microsoft, we may have better chances

[TechCor]

We have a better chance of seeing Starcraft 3 over Outpost 3.

What we really need is a wealthy guy willing to drop a bunch of money on a passion project. Finding developers is easy. Finding money to pay them, not so much...

I was just thinking what Outpost 3 by Blizzsoft would look like, with all the beautiful microtransactions and pay-to-win features. Mmm.. Yes. I can see it now.. a mobile release 'waiting' game. Like a Sci-Fi Elvenar or Forge of Empires.

[leeor_net]

... ew. Let's... let's never think of that again.

Agreed about funding. I'd be happy to spend all my time on it but I have a powerful need to eat and have a roof over my head so I kinda need to work a full time job and by the time I've spent 40+ hours a week on that job I don't really have the time or energy to dump even more into a massive project like a brand new game. It's why OPHD has taken nearly 10 years to get to where it is today.