Peter Molyneaux - your opinions?

[stefanstr]

Godus is crap. I played it on iOS and it was the most boring experience of my life.

I think Peter could learn a lot from Tynan. Instead of getting hung up on a grandiose idea, Tynan tested several small projects, until he found something that worked. And he develops alongside real users, getting inspired from their comments and needs. Peter spends years developing an idea, only to discover at the end that it wasn’t such a great idea in the first place. If I was a shrink, I would diagnose him with narcissism but I am not so I wil just say he doesn’t seem to have a very firm grip on reality...

[Shinzy]

You might as well play farmville on facebook.

This, so very much. Godus has the stench of free to play about it yet they made me shell out something like $20 to get it. Building a house takes 15 minutes? F that!

I'm sure he can blame it all on that bloke in england who 'won' the curiosity what's in molyneux' cube thing, no? =P

[Bruvvy]

I don't mind it

[gnugfur]

Lets take a look at Peter's marvels the last years.

The man who promised abit too much with fable III
http://kotaku.com/the-man-who-promised-too-much-1537352493

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/fable-3-was-a-trainwreck-says-lead-designer-molyneux/1100-6417959/

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/927246-fable-ii/45397720?page=1

Back to Godus
http://www.handytips.info/1669/1669molyneux-angers-godus-kickstarter-backers/

http://www.geek.com/games/peter-molyneuxs-godus-pretends-to-be-something-its-not-1601778/


I actually gave this game another shot this last week. And im infuriated. Gems are now a part of the game for real. You have the party loving Astari as your enemy. Not only to they party all day long, even if their village is reduced to a burning swampland they still outmatch your happiness. Even if all of your land is beutified with expensive trees ALL OVER.

So, you need fountains to increase happiness when the festivals go on a rampage. These are insanely expensive ofcourse. But hey, there should be more than enough gems to find ingame. Just need to dig for them.
After playing 15 hours i managed to unlock the deep sea sculpting. Joy! Lets get those chests! I cant? well fuck that. Since they removed the ability to dig/heighten wherever you want. YOu need to find a slot lower than the point you want to dig out. Wich makes it insanely expensive.

Even sculpting mountainsides and digging out temples will take you several days of collecting belief.

I currently have 4 astari left on the map. None are in their village so im guessing they are camping out on the last beacon i need to reach, only 11 more hours now and i can expand. But they party hard and are happy as ever. So when i go to bed and wake up again i expect to have lost at least 60 followers over to the astari, wich i need to nuke with meteorites again.

Collecting belief was improving in the version i played 6 months ago. Where you could build statues to collect belief in its surroundings. Made it less of a cow clicker. Now this option is gone. Now instead you have to cluster together abodes to form "cities". This ofcourse lowers the amount of belief you gather in total. Compared to just leaving those buildings unclustered.

Timers and cards are the main reason why i compare this directly to facebook games. Buildings take ages to build when you level up abit and the cards you need to progress further get really hard to get stickers to unlock from. I usually complete the "voyages" within a short amount of time and have to wait another day before i can do more. The chests are usually unreachable and taunting me at the seafloor.

Im utterly shocked of the direction this game is going. Its going right down the tunnel while the train is coming at full speed.

[keylocke]

my most "molyneaux" experience is on the Black&White franchise.

i think he had grand ideas. like the giant avatars and the enjoyable city building mechanics and the influence casting-range mechanics.

but then he got "gimmicky" with most of the game controls and features like the magic casting, the avatar "petting/leash/combat" system, the wonders, disciples, etc.. i think the controls for those things could've been made more streamlined and less of a hassle (with more graphs/charts/sliders for easier control and monitoring). but what he did, feels like playing with a bunch of crayons and clay. as if it's controls have been designed for a 10 year old kid with an attention deficit disorder. so much wasted potential.

then the god + devil slapstick comedy duo is also annoying. i wish there was an option to turn those critters off.. who the heck wants to stare at the devil's red hairy man-boobs?? wtf?!

most of the "side-quests" have juvenile comedy, and takes away the attention of just playing the game normally. it's an annoying distraction that's hard to ignore since you get nifty rewards for completion.

the soldier combat system isn't very fleshed out completely as well. too much hassle replenishing and retraining lost troops, when it's so much easier to captivate new immigrants.. i would've preferred beating the crap out of them into submission first. but the process of making my city awesome has the automatic side-effect of luring neighboring towns to join us.. annoying.

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the reason why i brought this up is 'coz i think Godus is like the dumbed-down version of Black&White.


i think if molyneaux just focused on the giant Avatars + city-building + RTS combat + sandbox + multiplayer, instead of wasting development time on crappy juvenile features. Black & White would've been a crazy awesome game.

either that or i think molyneaux should just focus on building kid's games..
he doesn't seem to have a "badass" streak to his body, since judging from Fable 3's half-assed morality system.. molyneaux's "badassery" is sooOoo PG-13..