http://making-history.com/blog/post/443877
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"Making History: The Great War" in development - due later this year!
We are happy to announce that we are in development on the next title in the Making History series. "The Great War" will focus on the events leading up to and through World War I and it's aftermath. One of the major additions to the game will be the need to develop a strategy for governing your conquests. The colony and puppet system will be expanded, and governing policies added. People don't like to be subjugated, and you will have to strike the right balance between the carrot and the stick to keep everyone in line. We'll also be bringing you all the cool military technology of the day such as Artillery (the Paris Gun, Trench Mortars), Warplanes (Fokker Triplane, Sopwith Camel), Submarines, Poison Gas and Chemicals, and more. World War I is a great period for Making History - diplomacy was fluid and mostly non-ideological, fighting varied across the fronts from static trench warfare in France to wide open maneuvering in the Arabian desert, and several key nations were available to the highest bidder. The game will ship with a fully functional editor and LAN and web based mutliplayer. More to come as we progress and as always we appreciate your input and continued support!
This is big news. I'd like to see them get more publicity and support.
Yay! It's not WW2! ;D
MH2 has been improved quite a bit after some of the latest updates. Hopefully The Great War won't be starting from zero again.
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on March 30, 2012, 05:29:10 AM
This is big news. I'd like to see them get more publicity and support.
I'd like to see them produce something that plays more like a fun game and less like a classroom learning tool.
Quote from: tgb on March 30, 2012, 08:22:49 AM
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on March 30, 2012, 05:29:10 AM
This is big news. I'd like to see them get more publicity and support.
I'd like to see them produce something that plays more like a fun game and less like a classroom learning tool.
Have you really given the games a chance? I find them to be a lot of fun and do not get a "class room" feel from them at all...not any more than Hearts of Iron, anyway.
Cool. I'll be keeping an eye on this one.
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on March 30, 2012, 08:29:38 AM
Quote from: tgb on March 30, 2012, 08:22:49 AM
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on March 30, 2012, 05:29:10 AM
This is big news. I'd like to see them get more publicity and support.
I'd like to see them produce something that plays more like a fun game and less like a classroom learning tool.
Have you really given the games a chance? I find them to be a lot of fun and do not get a "class room" feel from them at all...not any more than Hearts of Iron, anyway.
I played the first one a lot. In fact, I was in the beta. I found it dry and not particularly interesting. I looked at the demo for the second, but that's as far as I got.
Did not play the first games at all but I will definitely be buying this one sight unseen. I actually like the description of it being like a classroom tool and I also like the "events leading up to" WWI...not enough games include that time period.
Great idea, but hope they significantly rework the mechanics to fit the period.
.
Good news, looking forward to it...
Thanks, guys! So far it's been a blast developing this game. WWI it a very cool time period, and while perhaps not well suited to a tactical wargame because of the static trench warfare, it is perfect for a grand strategy game, where you'll be having to develop new tech to get an offensive edge before you run out of cash. This will be much less of a sandbox game compared to our last games. We want players to get the feeling that there is a lot of stuff going on around them in the world and what they do will affect that. Plus, while WWII was pretty clearly settled into good guys/bad guys, Axis and Allies, WWI was not like that at all. People changed sides, manipulated allies, had to deal with internal revolutions, all kinds of cool stuff. And WWI combat lends itself well to grand strategy. Getting the right troops and materiel to the right locations to prevent breakthroughs early on, getting artillery in place to bombard adjacent regions, destroying rail to slow movements, WWI is perfect for that style of gameplay.
I would say right now the game is in better shape than MHII was when we released it. In fact, as we've developed TGW, we've back-ported what we could into MHII. This last update, for example, is using the new map we created for TGW!
We also plan on doing early access on Steam and pre-release beta at other locations, so we can get it in front of as many eyes as possible and get feedback before official release.
Chris--
Chris,
I noticed that the original announcement was around 2 years ago next month. Any word on the upcoming early access release dates or a projection of what quarter the final release can be expected?
I have always wanted to find a way to use this game in the classroom. Eventually, my "grand strategy" is to create an upper-level history methodology course that focuses on history in gaming, and use the Muzzy Lane games as one of our semester's examples.
Quote from: son_of_montfort on February 04, 2014, 03:05:11 PM
I noticed that the original announcement was around 2 years ago next month.
Yeah, that's what I thought too. I was a bit confused by the 'announcement' that this was in development. I was hoping this was a month away release date along with the announcement of
Making History: The Civil War. 8)
We started developing the game two years ago. It's taken a while because, unlike earlier times, we are developing a lot of games now! So our MH team was obviously smaller than when we were just working on one game. Plus, we really iterated a lot on design before settling on the direction we wanted. Something that worked for the period and combined the best elements of previous games. So far, it's looking pretty good!
We will be doing Steam early access, and a pre-order beta. I'm sure I'll be letting folks here know when it happens!
Chris--
Quote from: MuzzyDev on February 05, 2014, 01:36:59 PM
We started developing the game two years ago. It's taken a while because, unlike earlier times, we are developing a lot of games now! So our MH team was obviously smaller than when we were just working on one game. Plus, we really iterated a lot on design before settling on the direction we wanted. Something that worked for the period and combined the best elements of previous games. So far, it's looking pretty good!
We will be doing Steam early access, and a pre-order beta. I'm sure I'll be letting folks here know when it happens!
Chris--
What are the other games?
^
http://muzzylane.com/projects
http://muzzylane.com/sandstone
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on February 05, 2014, 06:01:30 PM
What are the other games?
We've got a number of current games for education, business, and healthcare, including "Government in Action", a game we developed for college students taking American Government classes where you play a member of Congress! That's gotten a lot of national media attention. The first MH game was aimed at high schools and colleges, then adapted to the commercial market. The Great War will get teacher materials to support informal learning (instructor guides, handouts, that sort of thing), but it's designed as a commercial strategy game first and foremost.
Some first-time screenshots have been posted at Strategy Informer:
http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/makinghistorythegreatwar/screenshots.html
Chris--
Quote from: MuzzyDev on February 04, 2014, 02:46:52 PM
WWI (is) a very cool time period, and while perhaps not well suited to a tactical wargame because of the static trench warfare
I understand your focus may be at the higher operational or strategic levels, but I did want to respond to this. I agree with your opening that 1914-1918 is an interesting historical period, and I would also suggest that it is a very good era suited to tactical games. It was an incredibly dynamic period, where armies went from literally Napoleonic era tactics to Second World War era tactics in the space of four years. In 1914, armies used infantry companies as the basic unit of maneuver, and deployed artillery in the front lines firing over open sights. By 1918, the norm was indirect fire, small assault groups, and many of the same techniques of combined arms that the German Army was later credited with "inventing" in 1939. The period is perhaps one of the least understood in military history, probably because so much happened in the space of four years it is very difficult to grasp just how it happened, or who should get credit. Complicating things is the fact that the war was such a colossal and ghastly waste in terms of human lives that every other facet of it seems beside the point, almost to the point of ghoulishness to try and point out that anything positive may have come from it.
Quote from: MuzzyDev on February 06, 2014, 08:49:21 AM
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on February 05, 2014, 06:01:30 PM
What are the other games?
We've got a number of current games for education, business, and healthcare, including "Government in Action", a game we developed for college students taking American Government classes where you play a member of Congress! That's gotten a lot of national media attention. The first MH game was aimed at high schools and colleges, then adapted to the commercial market. The Great War will get teacher materials to support informal learning (instructor guides, handouts, that sort of thing), but it's designed as a commercial strategy game first and foremost.
Some first-time screenshots have been posted at Strategy Informer:
http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/makinghistorythegreatwar/screenshots.html
Chris--
I'm interested, Chris, how does one get the instructor material when they buy MH:The Great War and will that be at an extra cost?
Quote from: Michael Dorosh on February 06, 2014, 11:26:27 AM
Quote from: MuzzyDev on February 04, 2014, 02:46:52 PM
WWI (is) a very cool time period, and while perhaps not well suited to a tactical wargame because of the static trench warfare
I understand your focus may be at the higher operational or strategic levels, but I did want to respond to this. I agree with your opening that 1914-1918 is an interesting historical period, and I would also suggest that it is a very good era suited to tactical games. It was an incredibly dynamic period, where armies went from literally Napoleonic era tactics to Second World War era tactics in the space of four years. In 1914, armies used infantry companies as the basic unit of maneuver, and deployed artillery in the front lines firing over open sights. By 1918, the norm was indirect fire, small assault groups, and many of the same techniques of combined arms that the German Army was later credited with "inventing" in 1939. The period is perhaps one of the least understood in military history, probably because so much happened in the space of four years it is very difficult to grasp just how it happened, or who should get credit. Complicating things is the fact that the war was such a colossal and ghastly waste in terms of human lives that every other facet of it seems beside the point, almost to the point of ghoulishness to try and point out that anything positive may have come from it.
You're right, of course. I was referring to the early part of the war, when defense was, in general, far superior to offense. As you've pointed out, the evolution of strategy throughout the war--driven by new doctrines, tactics and inventions like tanks, as well as pure attrition--gradually shifted to give offense the advantage. This will be modeled in the game.
And yeah, winning the war in this game won't mean you come out smelling like a rose. You will probably be much weaker, and there is a good chance you will be broke.
Quote from: son_of_montfort on February 06, 2014, 02:41:13 PM
Quote from: MuzzyDev on February 06, 2014, 08:49:21 AM
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on February 05, 2014, 06:01:30 PM
What are the other games?
We've got a number of current games for education, business, and healthcare, including "Government in Action", a game we developed for college students taking American Government classes where you play a member of Congress! That's gotten a lot of national media attention. The first MH game was aimed at high schools and colleges, then adapted to the commercial market. The Great War will get teacher materials to support informal learning (instructor guides, handouts, that sort of thing), but it's designed as a commercial strategy game first and foremost.
Some first-time screenshots have been posted at Strategy Informer:
http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/makinghistorythegreatwar/screenshots.html
Chris--
I'm interested, Chris, how does one get the instructor material when they buy MH:The Great War and will that be at an extra cost?
In the past we've supplied them as free downloads. I have not heard that this will change for TGW.