Cauldyth

I guess EA and MS are examples of what happens when suits run game development companies. I'm sure many of the people making the decisions don't even play games period, let alone the games their company is making. It's all just numbers on a spreadsheet to them, trying to make quarterly deadlines to satisfy shareholders, doing market research to determine how to make the game appeal to as many potential customers as possible, and so on. That's a great recipe for a mediocre game. Sad. <br/

All that I'm saying is cut some slack to someone with a legitimate disability. No no, I wasn't criticizing. It's just that both you and Lordpinko mentioned you paste things into Word to check spelling, so I figured I'd mention an easier approach. <

Hmm, you guys should try Firefox 2.0. It has a built-in spellchecker which operates automatically on anything you type. No need to push any buttons or anything. (Amusingly, its spellchecker just complained about "spellchecker" - but I'm not fixing it!)

The final word in this discussion is: Spore. Well, OK, not the final word. But my point is that at least EA is willing to inovate. OK, its sports games are stagnant (what sport games aren't?) but games like the Sims and now Spore are demonstrations that they are willing to try new things Well, I wouldn't use that as evidence that EA is willing t

Welcome! There's an expansion pack in the works too! If you pre-order it, you can play the beta version of it beginning Nov 16th, otherwise the release should be early next year. Damn, there I go shilling again. I need a shower...

According to the press release on Blue's News: Stardock Entertainment is pleased to announce that the public beta test for Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar, the massive first expansion for the acclaimed space-based strategy game, will begin on November 16. So you only have to wait another 2 weeks until it turns into a completely di

Rarely does EA even make a game that interests me. Perhaps they should spend less time worrying about methods of distribution, and more time worrying about making something actually worth distributing in the first place.

There's also plenty of evidence that the more cerebral games can help with long term mental health as you get older. So they're good for you too! Twitch games just give you sore fingers.

I came to the realization today that StarDock has turned me into a shill. I was promoting SR2 among some friends, and spawned a couple more sales. I feel so dirty. But in a good way.

The problem with MP is that it can make it difficult to add new features to the game. If the proposed feature is perceived to be even slightly unbalancing in MP, then the vocal masses will often scream bloody murder. When it comes to a SP game, balance is less of an issue. A good example is the mega-event feature in DA. Brad has admitted upfront they will be grossly unfair. Sure, you can disable them, but there are more subtle things in the game which can't be disabled once they're

Don't make me sic my pet moose on you.

Editing posts seems to be a hit-or-miss affair lately. Dunno what's up.

And while it is a bummer that we couldn't run with the already established "MoM" franchise (too much pesky lawyer intervention for our liking), it'll be a blast to come up with our own lore and world to run with, as well as being able to have full control of the game without Big Brother coming to make us redo major chunks of the game they may not agree with. </tab

I've always disliked tech trading/stealing in 4X games for all the reasons mentioned above, and I turn it off whenever possible. However, I would prefer a "point" based approach. - If you conquer an enemy planet, instead of acquiring a given tech, you acquire points in a particular branch which simply advance your current understanding in that branch. The same goes for tech stealing. - Tech trading isn't so much trading of actual techs, but just a means of generating research

Sorry, the "go on, you know you want to" wasn't meant to goad it into happening, and in retrospect is sort of sounds that way I guess. I retract it. It was instead meant more as a commentary on his need to include insults in most of his posts.

Well, congratulations on reading way too much into what I was saying AND getting every conclusion you came to from doing so wrong. My post simply consisted of some observations as a scientist about the evolution of us as a social species, with no intention of drawing any political conclusions from them. I realize that these days it's unheard of for someone to post some objective observations about something political without having an agenda they're trying to push. However, that's what I was

You might wanna watch what you say. Based on his blog, I'd say Brad is leaning towards Libertarian. As for faith in our species, it all really boils down to one thing. We evolved to operate well in small, tribal units. In that sort of a setting, where everyone knows each other and most people are related in some way, all of these difficult questions don't really come up. People who physically can't work will be provided for by family and friends. People who simply don't want to work

"Mr. President, we must not allow a mine-shaft gap!" I think we've finally found a good use for this thread.

What you said about the game/Stardock would be equally true under a fundamentalist Christian, Jewish, or possibly even Hindu theocracy b/c the game clearly has a materialist orientation. Indeed, Greece (a mostly Orthodox Christian country) recently banned ALL video games. The EU wasn't too happy about that though.

*not getting involved this time* *whistles innocently*

Why do you feel the constant need to lash out at people who have done nothing against you, and were minding their own business? Just curious...

Around the time Brad posted a front page article about how he didn't feel DRM was necessary in GalCiv2, the admin on the official StarForce forums posted a link to a pirated copy of the game. He said he just wanted to point out that the game was being easily pirated. Whatever. Still a scummy thing to do. Here's one website that lists games using it: WWW Link Though there are plenty of others. Edit: Ju

If you want to see the opposite of that, go visit the Total War forums. Misspellings and such bother me too, but not because I'm a nitpicker. Most of us learn spelling by reading, and seeing the words in print over and over. Misspelled words then simply don't look right, without having to consciously know how to spell a given word. However, if we see a word spelled incorrectly enough times, i

Doh! Didn't notice that! 4 cents down the drain!

Heh, add me to the list of "heard good things about it, but the DRM prevented me from buying it." I think there's a post around here from me saying I wish I could play it, but my laptop has no CD drive, so I simply couldn't. What a great surprise to load up the GalCiv2 page and see that message. Well, time to go find my credit card. Take note, industry - no DRM just made a concrete sale (and more than one, judging by the previous responses). No wishy-washy stories about how "people