Ambrosia Software Web Board: Why Did Ares Fail? - Ambrosia Software Web Board

Well its obvious that Ares didn't do near as good as say the EV series and my question is why. Was it because realitively nobody made plugins for it, or making plugins is too hard, or its followers didn't promote it enough, or because its not EV, or what?

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Ares plugin writer and all around helpful guy... Except possibly when it comes to certain people...

Hera was too little, too late perhaps?

I know a great many people from the old boards had given up waiting and left before it actually came out.

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Yeah, but its out now, how come they never came back?

To add on to my questions above: Is there any hope for Ares?

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Ares plugin writer and all around helpful guy... Except possibly when it comes to certain people...

Well, EV is a more addictive sort of game than Ares, and it's similarish, so it may have siphoned off some people.

Also, many people stopped playing Ares and paying attention to Hera before it came out because it took a long time.

After that, not enough people were left to make enough plugs to really get it to take off. It's a shame, though. Best computer game ever, and very few people play it.

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"Social lives are for the weak."

So, it was because there was no abality to make plugins when it was sorta popluar? And of course now there really isn't any reason to develope for Ares because nobody plays it, there is no reason to get involved in the community and the community doesn't try to get people involved because the community is one big joke.

So the reason Ares failed is because of a bad start a while ago and because of the horrible state the community is in now.

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Help save Ares, write a plugin!

Replay value. Ares doesn't have a lot of it until you start adding on plugins, and by the time Hera was announced, Ares was a little outdated (if still maddeningly addictive). Most people aren't looking for an upgraded version of yesterday's game, they're looking for tomorrow's game.

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"There are 10 kinds of people in this world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't."

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Yes, but many people seem to think that EV and EVO had better secnerios while EVN has a better engine. The Ares engine is very expandable and almost anything can be done with it. So why don't people do anything?

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Help save Ares, write a plugin!

Nowadays, it comes down to community size. There's not a large community to begin with, and 90% of people could probably turn out a higher quality plugin with EV* than they could with Hera, with less effort.

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"There are 10 kinds of people in this world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't."

I was looking at EVN's editors once, planning to learn how to make plugs and the like, and it was quite scary. Hera makes vastly more sense to me, and it even has tutorials.

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"Social lives are for the weak."

Eh, I haven't registered EVN, so I've had no experience with EVN plugins. But I think that making plugins in EV* and Hera require different mindsets, and Ambrosia's community is far too accustomed to EV*'s mindset.

In EV*, you're presented with very segmented classes of objects - ships, weapons, planets. The lines are all drawn for you, so you know precisely where everything should go, and how it should work.

In Hera, however, you're given base objects, which aren't very well defined. The lines between different objects are a little blurry, and in some cases, can be crossed. Part of Hera's power is in this ability to combine classes and create your own, but for someone who's used to coloring in the lines, it could be very hard to get used to.

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"There are 10 kinds of people in this world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't."

I would definitely agree on the replay value and plug-in issues people've brought up. Once you've beaten Ares, or a scenario for it, you're essentially done. And once you've played for a while, you get good, and that's it -- lots of scenarios become easy.

Plug-ins for Ares aren't much of a help because of many things -- yes, I'd say it was probably too little, too late, and yes, plug-in making isn't as straightforward. I see further limitations as well, including the difficulty of effective plot movement (which is brilliantly worked out within EV's mission scheme) and, well, the relatively few things you can do in Ares. I mean, generally, the base and external scenarios have levels that are either taking a planet or conducting some deep-space operation. Planet-taking can usually be done with slinging large numbers of forces to occupy the space over the planet, and deep-space operations can only go so far when you command some ships and blow stuff up. Granted, EV isn't much better, but at least there are easier and more creative options available in that area.

Some people have created great scenarios for Ares and they definitely deserve credit, but I'd say Ares, unfortunately, just wasn't structured in a way that lent itself to the kind of simplicity and easy-playability and easy-expandability that the EV series had. Ares is a great strategy game, but its depth only extended in certain directions, and it just can't compete. But hey, what the heck, we have both games provided nicely by Ambrosia, playing both is always a great thing.

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Mike Lee (Firebird)
Visit Cymltaneous Solutions: [url="http://"http://cs.paching.com/"]http://cs.paching.com/[/url]
(hosted by [url="http://"http://www.evula.org"]evula.org[/url])

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It can still be done, but we would need someone incredibly motivated and creative enough to come up with some revitalizing idea -- I would say a change of gameplay using the scenario may be necessary, but such a thing would require a tremendous amount of effort and time. There may be such people out there, but I guess we haven't seen any yet.

Sorry about the multiple posts, btw; I just saw this one and didn't want to add to my post w/an edit.

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Mike Lee (Firebird)
Visit Cymltaneous Solutions: [url="http://"http://cs.paching.com/"]http://cs.paching.com/[/url]
(hosted by [url="http://"http://www.evula.org"]evula.org[/url])

I think the main reason would have to be the fact that Ares never got the userbase required to keep it up. EV picked up a major userbase, that base has carried through to the current EVN. Ares, having been published first by a no-name developer. There were apparently quite a few bugs in the earlier versions and thus discouraged people from getting it.

All games die eventualy... Except for Starcraft, which will live forever...

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"Two things are certian in this life. The universe, and human stupidity. ...Though i'm not so sure about the universe."

Ares died faster.

In my opinion, it's because of all the bugs in Hera. People were terrified of using it.
Also, it's a lot more work than EV, because you have to worry about real programming issues (I could use Hera to teach pointer vs variable if I was a TA).
Finally, copying pieces frome one part to another is a nightmare. Hera sucked and still sucks. The reason MINV is taking forever is that using Hera is a painful and traumatic experience, especially after taking programming classes - it's the exact same thing, but implemented more poorly. I'd much rather have had an intelligible text-based file format where I could tell what the heck was going oh. At least simple text doesn't end up with 20 identical copies of something unrelated when I copy and paste something.

Not to insult Mr. Lamont in any way - it's not his fault Hera is messed up, he had no idea anyone would ever use it when it was designed.

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"In literature as in love we are astounded by what is chosen by others." Andre Maurois
Onii7/Frinkruds and his funky forums
macgamer.net

[This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 04-27-2003).]

Because it fills a different niche than EV.

People automatically subsidize 'niches' in their mind with computer games. Ares fulfills a strategy niche. This is a very very very heavily done niche. There are strategy games everywhere. It's easy to compare ares with a game like war 3. Which inevitably leads to the question, what do I want to play? ares or war 3?
People don't like playing games that have an easily recognisable better.

In EV the market hasn't yet been filled as extensively. Sure there are numerous games out there about roleplaying gladiators, but EV is set in space. There are very few effective space RPGs and none as popular as EV. To be sure, I'm actually a little surprised it isn't MORE popular. We can't compare EV (or atleast I can't) to anything similar, so EVN is still the top of the market for me

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There are only 3 kinds of people; those who can count, and those who can't.

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WarCraft 3 is not necessarily an "easily recognizable better," and given W3's age, it can hardly be attributed to the failure of Ares as a competitor. There are some things that W3 does better - graphics so good my computer can't handle them, multiplayer games so large I couldn't play them over my connection - and there are some things Ares does better - the fusion of strategy and personal combat, the near-unilimited expandibility. Personally, I don't get a lot of excitement from pointing and clicking.

I also don't get a lot of excitement from trading around the galaxy. Now, of course, most EV storylines lead into combat somewhere or other, but Ares does combat much better than EV does, if for no better reason than because it's designed for it. I can't imagine an EV mission that compared to the Shoplifters, or Ser, or the Gateship battles, or Into the Fire, or Yo Ho Ho... do you get my point here?

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"There are 10 kinds of people in this world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't."

Quote

Well, going along with the niche idea, I'd say my personal reason for preferring EV over Ares is because I enjoy "trading around the galaxy" (or doing missions, or exploring, or whatever) more than I do pure combat (though I'd agree the battles in Ares are more exciting), which is much more focused. There are just so many factors floating around, and Ares just hasn't been treated as well as it might deserve by those factors.

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Mike Lee (Firebird)
Visit Cymltaneous Solutions: [url="http://"http://cs.paching.com/"]http://cs.paching.com/[/url]
(hosted by [url="http://"http://www.evula.org"]evula.org[/url])

If someone worked long enough they could use multiple levels and a vast number of conditions to make an Ares EV complete with exploring money missions and of course battles... But my thought is who would want to? There already is a real EV and the amount of time needed to copy it in Ares is just way too much. I think the only way for Ares to separate its self from the EVs would be net play. I mean something like a story-line in which the players skills and resourcefulness decide in which way the story goes along. Think of Slug's The Iron Fist but with 4 times the branches and meant only for net play. And no, I'm not going to suggest another "Save Ares" project... Besides the fact I'm already sorta involved in one, all who have attempted something like that have after a few months given up. If Ares is to be saved it would almost have to be a single person working alone with no time limit to get in his way.

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Help save Ares, write a plugin!

Has anybody besides me realized that Hera is an unspeakable blight on its user comunity, and it still has reliability comparable to products Microsoft won't release?

I hate it because it is poorly specified and doesn't perform to its own spec, and it eats data and generates unwanted data as well.

I'd rather have something like Deus Ex (I think), where you can type out the Java-like code and not worry about your text editor developing "non-determinstic behavior" aka getting f***ed up.

Hera is pain. It's like programming, only worse. MInv will not be finished until I'm over my fear of pain. I hate using Hera.

Again, no disrespect to Mr. Lamont - he had no idea people would use Hera.

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"In literature as in love we are astounded by what is chosen by others." Andre Maurois
Onii7/Frinkruds and his funky forums
macgamer.net

Hmm yes. Hera is fairly tortuous to use. I have noticed that files I have been working on had become corrupted long (in terms of number of saves) before I noticed. This resulted in the dumping of an entire scenario on one occasion, very annoying.

However, I found that EV and EVO became very boring very quickly.
I gave em up years ago.
I vote for Ares as being the best space battle game.
Bein playin it since its Changeling Demo days, and I'll continue to play it until someting better comes along,
Zeus for example....
or Hypatea


...which doesn't seem likely.

I might even do another plug or two

Ares hasn't died..., as long as at least one player out there plays it,
or is that two players?


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Oh, so it is another bug hunt then...

[This message has been edited by Lord Commander Anic (edited 04-29-2003).]

[This message has been edited by Lord Commander Anic (edited 04-29-2003).]

Darkk, what do you mean he had no idea people would use it?

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Help save Ares, write a plugin!

Well letsee...

- Multiplayer was not all it could have been. 4 players with balanced races would have been sweet. Actually I'm really suprised the races were never balanced for multiplayer. One of the few things that really dissapointed me about Ares. (enough to even implement my own balanced races in a plug... that was never released...)
- With the above one, after the single player scenarios, there wasn't much to do
- Hera came way too late, and just wasnt what it could have been.

I feel bad critizing such an old game when I am using newer games as comparison, so I'm going to stop now.

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The leaves rustling.
When is the last time you heard
that in a city.

I disagree. I believe that Ares was hugely successful in its day. I remember back when the user base was tremendously large, there were weekly organized online tournaments and plenty of new people all the time. This lasted for over 2 years! For a game of an older OS, this is a tremendous accomplishment. When Hera came out there was a brief deluge of new plugs and scenarios that were very innovative and fun to play.

What it comes down to is that all good things must come to an end. Ares was a very good thing, and lasted long in its prime.

Of course, EV* is a little bit of a high bar to set as far as success goes. I don't think that ANY shareware game anywhere comes even remotely close to rivaling the success of EV*. Ares was at the top of the pile though, that's for sure.

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"That was quick."
"Well you know, when you don't do it right it doesn't take as long."

Funny, but I don't think of Ares as being that old,
but then I suppose it is in relative terms.
It doesn't seem old to me because I play it a lot. And there are still talented newbies appearing on GR. It's not dead yet.

It is a seriously good shareware game as are all of Ambrosia's offerings

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Oh, so it is another bug hunt then...

No, but it's dying. Then again, considering that Ambrosia didn't even pick up the game until '99, it's actually quite a long-lived game.

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"I'm one of those things you'll save forever / but never read / like an old newspaper / no one has time to read
This child has grown into a dead end / since I lost the power to pretend
But it's all right, that's who I am inside
Not much to say, on this non-toxic, ordinary day" -SR-17, "Non-Toxic" (now you see inside)