Thoughts And Musings On Civilization Online's Information Reveal

Jason Winter
By Jason Winter, News Editor
Share:

Civilization Online is a tasty carrot, tantalizingly dangled in front of fans of Sid Meier's classic series like a defenseless city on your nation's borders. In the wake of G-Star, there's a nice write-up/interview on Games in Asia that sheds some light on some of XLGames' plans for the MMORPG.

“Uh oh,” you're thinking. “The same XLGames that really messed up ArcheAge?” Maybe so, but there are a couple of reasons to be more optimistic about Civilization Online. First, as the interview states, it's been “developed with the free-to-play model as a foundation.” ArcheAge was primarily developed as a subscription game and was hastily – or should I say “barely” – converted to a free-to-play model during development. The conversion was less than ideal, giving the game a distinct pay-to-win, or at least, “free players are scrubs” air. Going free-to-play from the start should help provide for a better overall game.

Also, unlike with ArcheAge, XLGames is working on someone else's baby here. 2K Games owns Civilization and can theoretically veto any decisions XLGames makes, from gameplay to monetization. Knowing that an American game company is effectively “in charge” of the project grants me a little more peace of mind that it won't be a strictly Korean-style game.

civ_online_1

The game is scheduled for a launch in South Korea “next year soon,” and there are currently no solid plans to bring it to the West, but you'd have to imagine that's being heavily discussed. Again, if you were put off by ArcheAge, there's at least a little reason for hope, in the sense that XLGames is probably learning from its experience with that game and with Trion and will adjust its plans for Civilization Online accordingly.

(The more pessimistic view, however, is that XLGames feels that ArcheAge is doing just fine in North America – after all, look at how many people pre-ordered and all the queues! – and that all the negative feedback is just the typical whining that happens with any game launch and they don't need to change a thing.)

If you're looking for more specifics on how the game will work, that's covered too. In short, each player will be a member of one of four civilizations, rather than the omnipotent god-king of a single civ, and players will have to work together to build up their empire. Rather than the typical perpetual nature of an MMO, each “game” of Civilization Online will exist in sessions of about a week. You'll retain some of what your character learned between sessions, but each civilization will have to start from scratch.

The notion of weeklong game sessions was really the only way they could have done things, I think. Otherwise, the way people play, you'd have nukes and giant death robots within the first few days of the game's launch, and that's what people would use for years. A Civilization game needs to spend some time in each “era,” so that managing an army of spearmen is just as important as managing a platoon of tanks.

I'd wonder, though, if one week is too short a time frame. Granted, few people would want to be stuck in a “losing” civilization for weeks, but some might appreciate a longer game and the challenges that come with it. You'll get more rewards for contributing greatly to a losing civ than you will for barely helping a winning civ, so there are incentives to stick it out until the end, no matter how bad things are. Even the single-player Civilization offers different game speeds, so it would be nice to see the same out of the online version.

civ_online_2

The collective nature of the game will be quite a bit harder to pull off, I think. A few strong guilds might be able to influence chunks of the population, but people will still be individuals, wanting to do their own things. And guilds within the same civilization, each with its own city, might have vastly different goals. More and more, I've started to think that the reason MOBA players can be so toxic is because they have the feeling that their “teammates” aren't doing what they're supposed to do to help their team win. We've all been in raids like that, and I've seen it in big open-world events, too. It will probably be like that in this game, too, when some cities don't do what others want them to do.

In a way, though, this seems appropriate and realistic. People in Massachusetts often want something different for the United States than what people in Texas want, for instance. The difference is, that if Texas always gets its way, Massachusetts can't just decide to “quit” the U.S. the way you quit a video game (well, not easily, at least).

It'll be a while – probably at least two or three years – before we see Civilization Online in the States, so XLGames and 2K Games have a lot of time to polish up the experience. As a long-time fan of the Civilization series, I'm hoping they can build a winner!

Share this Article:

In this article: XL Games, Civilization Online.

About the Author

Jason Winter
Jason Winter, News Editor

Jason Winter is a veteran gaming journalist, he brings a wide range of experience to MMOBomb, including two years with Beckett Media where he served as the editor of the leading gaming magazine Massive Online Gamer. He has also written professionally for several gaming websites.

More Stories by Jason Winter

Discussion (13)

Nine 9 years ago
Looks interesting and the graphics are nice :) I would try it if it comes to NA.

TheSecondJoker 9 years ago
This looks like AoEO and I definetely want to test this game but I am just not sure about how good it will be...

Kuruo 9 years ago
The people who say they don't trust XL games probably the same people who play the most boring games and took a shot with archage and think it's completely XL games fault the game is like that or the same people who think of all the stereo types of Asian games and think its just going to be bad just because its asian.

Unlike with your typical game companies, Asian companies are trying to make something new and bigger than your average WoW.

Curst 9 years ago
Only four playable civilizations? That's odd. I wonder what's the fourth one. There's Asian/Chinese civilization, European/Roman civilization, I'd assume there's also middle-eastern/Persian-themed civilization... and what else? Egypt? India?

Eddie 9 years ago
Anyone know the song at the end??

Lol, XL games 9 years ago
^^^^^

huehuehuehue

iklone 9 years ago
Why do gamesites like this publish sh!t Devs like XL games. F sake man. Must be getting paid under the table...... Anyone remember ZQ games .... biggest asian cons. Lets not forget 6 waves that stirred up one of the biggest controversies on fb along with Game Insight....

PandaStick 9 years ago
It's XL game, AA fail v2.0

asdasd 9 years ago
i dont speak china man

Merideus 9 years ago
Not gonna see Lork Ark cuz its 1 1/2-2 years before release in korea so wont see it here for 4-5years. Lineage Eternal at 1st said it was gonna have a world wide release but just recently said they where gonna "focus" on korea & china. so wont see that for 3-4years.

Now this. wont see civ online for 4-5years. why do the west get punished so hard when it comes 2 MMOs?

View 1 reply
hovsep56 9 years ago
i seriously don't trust this game since its from XL games


Read Next

You May Enjoy