Talk:X-COM (series)

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Contents

[edit] X-COM: Genesis

I just wrote the X-COM: Genesis article. For those interested, hop on over and take a look. —Frecklefoot 18:25, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] UFOpedia

Maybe it is wroth a mention on the X-COM page that the in-game description of objects is called "UFOpedia" - another "-pedia" like WikiPedia :) If enough UFO/X-COM fans get here the UFOpedia can be "replicated" here and in addition it will have the personal opinions of the people about the usability of weapons, smartness of different alien types, etc. Also the pictures of the UFOpedia in X-COM3 (Appocalypse) were in a regular viewable format (JPG or whatever), so they can be easily used here (depending on copyright conditions, etc.) --Alinor

First off, please sign your posts. You can do this with 3 or 4 tildes (~~~ or ~~~~). The second form is preferred, as it adds a timestamp.
Next, the UFOpedia is not a "-pedia" like wikipedia. It isn't editable, it is just for reference. Wikipedia can be edited by anyone at anytime. That is what makes it so unique and compelling.
Next, we don't want personal opinions about usuability of weapons and smartness of aliens. POV--or "point of view"--and opinion is something wikipedians work hard to prevent in articles. Quoting from Dragnet "Just the facts, ma'am." In fact, the things you mentioned are already documented in several online websites devoted specifically to the X-COM universe.
If you want to start a wiki on X-COM, go ahead. The Wiki software is free and downloadable. You can create your own UFOpedia hosting your own site. But, please, don't do it here. Peace. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:28, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)
OK :) Alinor 19:20, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] X-COM: Alliance

I just wrote the X-COM: Alliance article. For those interested, hop on over and take a look. But whatever you do, don't edit it at all! Just kidding ;-) Of course, edit as much as you like. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 19:06, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why is there a description here?

Doesn't seem to make much sense that there's a description on the first game in the series, since there's already an article for the aforementioned first game? Hell, its copy-pasted from that one (well, before I removed the fanboi praise and put in some criticisms that have been around since forever). I'll be editing it to remove first-game specific praise, and modify the rest so it focuses on the series-wide specifics. Scumbag 20:33, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

My fault, I think. I originally added the description way back when before there was a separate article for the first game, and when I saw that it had been duplicated I was at a loss of what to do and went on my way. --Kizor 02:32, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Tips for the game"

Is this really necessary? I've not seen anything like thisd on other game entries...

It borders on Fancruft, but I didn't delete it because it does border. It might be more appropriate for an X-COM Wikibook Strategy Guide, but I don't think there is one right now. If one does spring up, we should move it to there and link to the WikiBook from here. — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:48, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
How do I create a wikibook? Marco 10:33, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
And if the tips bug you, see this discussion about the alien ship images in the X-COM: UFO Defense article! — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:51, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
On examination, those are quite vital clues. I'd say their usefulness makes them appropriate. --Kizor 14:13, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Useful or not, these would seem to be original research. Wikipedia isn't supposed to be a strategy guide. I think they should be moved here. --Misterwindupbird 05:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I have 3 Tips then:

  • Go the OTHER way around.
  • Never be satisfied with your current financial and equipment status.
  • Always plunder and sell Alien technology.Remember,you are the low-tech guerilla,they are the slow,fat imperialist army--Turkish Legacy 19:49, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

That's all.And I slap Sectoids like monkeys.

Independent research carried out by a bunch of fat hairy geeks I know suggest that in Apocalypse it's best to wait and stockpile alien tech because a) the gangs and cops will use them once you sell them b) the price will go down by 50% after you sell for the first time and c) you don't really need to except on expert level. Rolinator 07:23, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dedicated Wiki

Thought I might throw in a quick note - a dedicated UFO-wiki-pedia has been built, as well as a more "classic" UFOpedia.

- Bomb Bloke

[edit] "Playing Under Windows XP"?

I'm not overly sure that this should be included in this article. It's very specifically referring to Enemy Unknown, and possibly should be merged with that article instead. I'm considering putting a merge tag up.

Any thoughs? Mouse Nightshirt 22:57, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's not exactly encyclopedic. Wikipedia is not an instruction manual, but that section is just a how-to. Furthermore, it would appear to be original research. The links to downloads and further instructions are unnecessary. Additionally, as you pointed out, it does appear to only be to the Collector's Edition of the first game. -- User:Rasd
Agreed, pull it. This would be better placed in a wiki dedicated to the game, like the doom wiki is for doom-related info not suitable here. -- Jon Dowland 22:37, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reasons X-Com was Discontinued

What happened?

Well, while not really an authority, I was a programmer for X-COM: Genesis and senior staff at the Chapel Hills Hasbro Interactive (HI) studio. What happened was that Hasbro decided they didn't want to be a video game developer. Several theories exist for this:
  1. Hasbro felt there were too many video games on the market and didn't feel they could compete (while they totally dominate the board game market, they were a rather small presence in the video game market).
  2. Hasbro was horrified to find that a video game could take from 18 to 36 months to develop. They're accustomed to bringing a game from the brainstorm stage to on the shelf in ~six months.
  3. An accounting scandal left HI bankrupt and Hasbro shut it down rather than pull them out of the red.
All of these are unsourced, but a letter from the then-head of HI lends the most credit to the first theory. But that's what happened to HI, not X-COM.
There were two X-COM games in development when HI was shut down: X-COM: Genesis and X-COM: Alliance. Both were cancelled when HI was shut down. HI sold the X-COM property to Atari (who was Infogrames at the time), along with the rest of their properties, including computer game versions of Clue for example. They acquired all the source code for the games and other assets, such as concept art.
Now Infogrames was within its rights to continue (or, actually, ressurect) development on these games, but chose not to. Theories abound on this as well, but the most popular theories are that:
  1. Infogrames, at the time, didn't have the money to develop a new game on the scope of the X-COM games. They were contacting a lot of small developers to do cheap upgrades to existing games (in fact, a producer from Infogrames contacted me about doing a 3D remake of Clue (which I was lead programmer for) using existing assets).
  2. Infogrames thought the property was too old to create a splash in the marketplace. While a big game in '95, it wasn't on anyone's radar in '99.
Several theories exist that someone actually purchased the X-COM IP and is planning to create a new game in the series, someday. I shouldn't say who I heard might've purchased it. I, in fact, tried to buy it, but was told it wasn't for sale at the time (they hadn't sold it, but had promised it to someone).
So, the X-COM IP is in a state of limbo right now, and there's no telling whether it will ever be ressurected. — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

According to an interview with Dave Ellis:

"When Hasbro Interactive bought MicroProse, our studio head in Chapel Hill (Mike Denman) told all of us that we should read a book called Toy Wars by G. Wayne Miller. The book is a fascinating history of Hasbro, and concentrates on its rivalry with Mattel. When Mike read the book, he was impressed with the business skills of Hasbro and came away thinking that we were in good hands.

When I read the book, I knew we were doomed.

Among other things, the book talks about how Hasbro had tried to enter the software/video game business twice prior to the formation of Hasbro Interactive. In each case, tens of millions of dollars were poured into the effort and, when the software division didn’t turn a profit in a year or two, it was shut down.

Hasbro Interactive had had great success with the translation of Hasbro board and family games to electronic form, but these games had development cycles of 3-6 months. MicroProse games had average development cycles of 18-24 months. I knew from the start that Hasbro wasn’t prepared for these long cycles, and I knew that they’d get impatient when the profits didn’t start flowing.

In other words, I saw it coming from a long way off. I said so at the time, but not a lot of people bought it at the time.

Fast-forward to December 7, 1999. I was in my office working on the Genesis design document when Wayne Harvey, Eric Peterson, and Marc Racine walked into my office and shut the door behind them. They said, “Dave, you were right! The IS guys from Hunt Valley are here, and so is Tony Parks (vice-president of Hasbro Interactive). They’re shutting us down!”

And that, as they say, was that. We hung around to shut down (and play Quake) for another month or so and, on January 17, 2000, the doors to the Chapel Hill office were locked forever."

From http://www.thelastoutpost.co.uk/games/dave-ellis-genesis Geoff B 05:32, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gollop Brothers interview

The interview with the Gollop brothers and Microsoft can be found in the "Ancient Games Unleashed" issue of PC Gamer that came out in 1998. I can't recall the specific issue and I don't have it with me. TFX 23:53, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spiritual successors

Thre was a turn based squad game that came out in the 90s that very much resembled the combat part of UFO, but with nice graphics. At the time everyone commented on the resemblance. Good game, damned if I can remember the name - anybody? Greglocock 22:11, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

-JaggedAlliance2? -Fallout Tactics? -Spelcross? --ManoloKosh 22:22, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that games of the same genre are necessarily "spiritual successors". Perhaps you (Greglocock) were talking about "Laser Squad"? Chronolegion 10:48, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Incubation - it is more of a puzzle game, but the feeling as you play is very similar to the tactical game in UFO, and the atmosphere is great. BTW, this article inspired me to get Dosbox and replay UFO, on my shiny new laptop. Let's burn some sectoid ass. Greglocock 12:00, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I have been trying to play the Gold Edition on my Vista-powered laptop, but no luck - I can't disable DirectX because Vista requires it, and the patches do not do anything. This is not helped by the fact that the Gold Edition has problems with LCD screens. Chronolegion 12:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A possible Wikipedia project?

I'm thinking of starting up a Wikipedia project page for X-COM - the game is under-represented in the encyclopaedia considering the original's impact on the genre. Articles are reasonably messy too and need some maintenance and referencing done.

If you think this project could work, give me a shout on my talk page and I'll fire up the burners! Mouse Nightshirt | talk 16:54, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fan games

I scanned though the article, but I didn't see anything mentioning fan remakes of the games. I was wondering if that would be an appropriate thing to add. --Eruhildo 22:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hacking

I was wondering if a section on hacking the games would be appropriate since I know there is a lot about it and it's pretty popular to do so. --Eruhildo 22:24, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Maybe in a game book wiki, but not here. It's not encyclopedic. Most games can be hacked. — Frecklefoot | Talk 13:55, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok, that makes sense. Thanks --Eruhildo 18:25, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] X-COM races merging?

Came across it by chance, but for what it's worth, pretty much all the articles in {{XCOMRaces}} look ripe for a merge into one big page called "Races of X-COM" or the like, in keeping with recent trends about consolidating such articles into lists. SnowFire 19:52, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree, they should be merged. Though I think it would be best to have 3 separate articles (one for UFO Defense, one for TFTD, and one for Apocalypse). --Eruhildo 19:44, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I've merged the races for the first two games into List of X-COM: UFO Defense races and List of X-COM: Terror from the Deep races respectively. I'll work on Apocalypse's soon. Also the X-COM1 races page is missing a lot of pictures, but I'll upload those soon. --Eruhildo 00:40, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I've finished merging the races for Apocalypse into List of X-COM: Apocalypse races and I've uploaded the pictures for X-COM1 races. Now we just need the articles to link to them... --Eruhildo 18:22, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] X-COM by Levine?

There's a rumor that Kev Levine is working on a x-com game. Take2 has the license, Levine is a big fan and there was some good 'evidence' (for the internet' sake) on Shacknews I believe. Let's see.. http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/45797

And then there was this quote http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=26603 from the irrational site.


Anyway, might be worth adding? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.164.12.77 (talk) 18:10, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

While it appears Take-Two owns the rights to X-COM per United States Patent and Trademark Office, I saw no reliable evidence that they are planning to make a sequel. It may be true, but we can't prove it. By the way, forums generally are not considered good sources. Thanks for bringing this up though. --Eruhildo (talk) 23:05, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] IP Ownership

I see that there is a section about the rights to X-COM, but I'm not satisfied with how it looks. Right now the text is incorrect (I'll try to fix it, if internet stops nagging me finally and starts working properly again) but I think that if there is a section called Rights that it would be better if there was a kind of historical breakdown of how it exchanged hands. It's all written on USPTO. The section would then be named "X-COM IP Ownership History" or something like that. --Gibly (talk) 14:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with that, but what's "IP" stand for? I think it would be better to spell that out. When I see "IP" I think "Internet Protocol". --Eruhildo (talk) 22:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I forgot about this in the meantime. IP stands for Intellectual Property in this case. In case you're wondering about USPTO, that's the United States Patent and Trademark Office. I'll get on it then, but I have to admit that I'm fresh to Wikipedia editing so fixing may be in order. -- Gibly (talk) 14:53, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I copyedited the section. Not bad, but some information wasn't 100% correct. Hasbro Interactive never changed its name to Atari, but they did own several Atari IPs (Combat, for example). Infogrames got these when the bought all of HI's stuff. Then they changed their name to Atari. When Infogrames bought all of HI's stuff, HI was disbanded. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 17:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Well that was sooner than I expected. Thanks for clearing (and cleaning) things up. Just for the sake of completeness, there's a few things that may be worth further attention, which I wrote before I saw your edit.
I made a paragraph for each company in order to separate events. The references I used are mostly within Wikipedia articles that are linked to from the section itself. For the events concerning the transfer of the IP itself there is only one reference, the one at the end of the section. I did not know how to present it better, so I just left it like that, all of the information from the section is written there. I feel I should also add a few things to clear some things up. You will note that I did not list all the dates. This is because I think that the only important ones are transfers between companies. The rest are there because they relate to legal processes of the companies. As far as I understand, when a company changes name (for example Infogrames Interactive to Atari Interactive in 2001) all of its properties have to be bound to that new name. The same goes for mergers and other similar events. One other event that should be explained is the assignment to an entity "as agent". Unless I am mistaken, this in fact means that the owner of the trademark has given the "power" to the said agent, which is actually a law firm, to take care of the legal side of the trademark.
Furthermore, if you go to the USPTO web pages and search for the X-COM trademark, you will find the trademarks for each of the games in the series and two trademarks for X-COM. One of them is the one that is externally linked in the section and the other one was registered by Take Two. I do not know why Take Two registered a new one and do not see any difference between them, but both are valid. Should someone require a bit more detailed explanation on what is what on the USPTO pages for X-COM, I can write down what I know about it. --Gibly (talk) 17:56, 4 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] X-COM on Steam

I corrected a bit of text about Terror From the Deep not being available through Steam, however I can't provide direct proof of what I wrote. The reason is that I got this information via a private message sent to one of the 2K Games representatives on the official forum (http://forums.2kgames.com/forums). Unfortunately the message also contains private parts so I can't even post it publicly. Still, what I wrote is about as official as you can get, and you can confirm it the same way I did. --Gibly (talk) 17:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

That's good enough for me. Thanks for doing that. --Eruhildo (talk) 17:51, 24 April 2008 (UTC)