Sid Meier just wants to make one thing clear to Civilization fans: the upcoming Civ World game for Facebook is a real Civilization game.
"We really weren't looking to make a quote-unquote 'Facebook game'," he said. "We were looking at what does Facebook bring us that is unique, that we can leverage and take advantage of with 'Civilization'-style game play."
Firaxis has been hard at work on Civ World and Meier finds developing the title to be “intriguing.” The game leverages the social aspects of Facebook to create a team-oriented experience.
"What was really intriguing to us was being able to emphasize cooperative game play, which was something that really hadn't been a major part of 'Civilization' up to now," Meier said. "A lot of our design in 'Civ World' was taking advantage and using these opportunities for players to work together -- teamwork, communication, planning. Those are all the things that become really important to 'Civ World.'"
Bringing players together is the name of the game for Civ World. Up to 200 players can fight it out for dominance on a virtual map, making or breaking alliances with others.
"You have your own city to manage and you can do all kinds of stuff (on your own)," Meier said. "However, the most successful players will be those that can also work together with other players. You'll be most effective if a couple of people are researching the same technology then that technology will be discovered more quickly and you can all use it."
Meier also explained the challenges of adapting the Civilization game model to the way players interact with Facebook games.
“If you are not there at the same time as other players, there needs to be ways of leaving messages, ways of communicating Things have to happen at a pace where everybody can be included. So that fundamentally changes the pacing and the mechanisms of the game,” he stressed.
Meier ultimately believes that social gaming is just another step in bringing gaming to the whole world.
"The future is really out there, but I think we are at the very beginning of exploring the possibilities of social gaming," he said. "It is not like I can see the end and know where this is going. It's just one more place to experience games. Games are really taking over the world."
Civ World is expected to launch sometime this summer.
[Via CNN]
