Alfonse

[quote]If they had the IQ to find out what the best price/performance computerparts are (which is very easy, just go to your local hardwaresite and see what the sites staff recommends) and either learned to puzzle the computerparts together or asked someone that know how to do it then they will get monsterperformance cheap![/quote] [i]This[/i] is the problem with the Hardcore. They don't understand this one simple fact: People don't want to be bothered. People who can'

[quote]None of the major publishers and developers will survive.[/quote] Nonsense. So long as there are computers, people will play games on them. And so long as Valve and Blizzard make great games, people will play them.

[quote]Many people say that PC gaming is dying, and I agree with them entirely. From a commercial sense. The independent gaming community for PC is better than ever.[/quote] Why is StarDock, for example "indie" rather than "commercial"? Because they don't produce several games a year? Well, neither does Valve or Blizzard; does that make them "indie"? Unless you're talking about non-profit gaming, it's hard to draw a real demarcation line between "indie" developers who get paid

[quote]I'm hoping Brad is holding something back for the 4/23 release because so far I find it plays much like previous interations (which isn't a bad thing). I guess I was hoping for a little more WOW factor.[/quote] Well, it is ultimately an expansion, not a new game. Which means that, despite the new tech trees, the game can't introduce fundamentally new concepts to the game. So you're still talking about needing research, production, money, etc. It's merely a matter of changing and

[quote]it never occurred to me that a game out there would not run smoothly on that hardware.[/quote] Before you purchased Crysis, did you read [i]anything[/i] that was ever written about the game? Because I doubt you could find a single article that didn't mentioned that the game would bring anything less than the ultimate God-Box with SLI'd GPUs to its knees, and even that couldn't run it at full settings. I think that the CryTek guys were pretty sloppy to make a game that's

[quote]The buildup, tactical/strategic planning and eventual conflict is far more fun than the inevitable cleanup phase of the game.[/quote] Oddly, this game was originally advertised as having a substantially shorter cleanup phase than other similar titles. Unfortunately, that was never born out in the actual game. It's funny. The game has 4 ways of winning, but only 2 of them are basically the same. An influence victory almost always requires military dominance unless you're

[quote]What kind of system would you envision and would you even want to see your favorite games continue to evolve?[/quote] Basically, what you're asking for is a way to improve your return on investment (making add-ons/expansions/etc is more economical than making a new game) while providing some benefit to the consumer. Let us call this "revenue enhancement". Personally, I'm not a big fan of this kind of thing. There are many different kinds of games, and precious few are ca

[quote]I guess the majority of people disagreed with you[/quote] No, he's just flat-out wrong. His 1-word portrayal of the races is simply inaccurate to anyone who understands the game on a deep level. The Terrans are not "all-around". The Zerg can rush, but the Protoss tend to have a more powerful rush. And the Protoss aren't about "strength".

[quote]And the text dialogue, who wrote them...it doesn't sound threatening enough or serious enough.[/quote] For whatever reason (ie: lack of will/artists/etc), GalCiv2 is ultimately not a very serious game. In terms of its universe, background, and flavor text.

[quote]A complete redesign, on the other hand,(and especially a complete redesign that includes multiplayer) has the potential to be a complete disaster.[/quote] I prefer taking risks, attempting to achieve greatness, than just settling for mediocrity (or, in this case, very good). I'd rather they apply what they've learned about game design from this game to another, rather than just slapping on more and more features.

[quote]You wouldn't think this would take massive programming hours to fix[/quote] Having done Windows UI programming before (not that GC2 uses Windows for its GUI, nor that GC2's GUI system is anywhere near as terrible as Win32), I can say that the difficulty of UI coding should [i]never[/i] be underestimated.

[quote]*cough* bump[/quote] If I may be frank for a moment, I don't think there is any reason to bump this thread. While your suggestions are for the better (somewhat. I would argue that truly major events demand a specialized pop-up, like researching a tech), I'm fairly certain they're falling on deaf ears. It's ironic in a way; StarDock is, fundamentally, a company built around UI enhancements. Yet, their own game has perhaps the most infuriating UI for a 4x since the origina

[quote]Which one has the bigger tech tree?[/quote] Why does it matter? A large tech tree doesn't make the game better. [quote]When you fight, do you actually see the space battles, or just get the results?[/quote] You can elect to see them, but you can't change the outcome in any way. And the animation of the battle isn't terribly interesting. [quote]Do you only fight in space or also on the planets?[/quote] Yes, you fight on planets. But it's not a v

[quote]The game is great,the company is great,i like the game being complete when released, BUT there is a big difference in making preorder available in august with release date in november then moving it in christmas,then on the grounds of a poll in january, then to add more content in end of march, and then not be able to answer the question with certainty about the release date.Someone paying in August and promised to have full content in November is surely pissed off,and don't tell me about

1: Civilization design is how you fix this. Focus on population growth, economy, and morale. NEVER raise your tax rate to the point where any world other than your capital is less than 100% happy. Your capital is probably going to have to live with relatively low approval, since 16-B people are hard to keep happy on one world. The key to understanding how this works is as follows. You get money per-planet based on the tax rate and the number of people there. When you build a world in th

Evolution of Gameplay. It's not the most important thing, but it is one of those things that separates good games from great games. Alpha Centauri (AC) is a prime example of this. In AC, the gameplay changes. Technology doesn't merely give you "bigger numbers" (Factory 2, which is better than Factory 1, etc). Certain technologies fundamentally change how you play the game. Take the basic economic model of land improvement, for example. In the early part of the game, th

[quote]I once completed a turn, decided to restart the game and got *all* the way to the loading screen for the next game before that research thing was done.[/quote] Well, clearly that's a bug. When you start loading a game, should first dump the current game and all its threads. They need to fix it, but to avoid it, you shouldn't start loading a game when you're still processing a turn. [quote]So, SD whadda'ya say[/quote] Considering that the stack selection

[quote]However, I was more interested in hearing if "the value" was comparable to Starcraft, which from what I've read, is one of the most replayable games ever made. When you spend ~$50 on a game, you'd like to know if it's a good investment.[/quote] You can't really measure the longevity of a game like Starcraft to, really, anything. Understand, Starcraft is effectively the [i]sport[/i] of choice for an entire [B]nation[/B] (South Korea). That is, people actually go to studios to watc

Mega events are good in theory, but there are too many Mega events that just stop the game from being enjoyable. The one that comes to mind immediately is the "limit all speed to 5 forever". It isn't just that I tend towards using high warp speeds as an advantage. But it just makes the game incredibly boring to play, even on smaller maps. Constructors take longer to get to starbases, transports take longer to get to their targets, etc. I'd be willing to put up with it if there was some

So, I downloaded the 1.2Beta. And I played a medium game on Tough with abundent planets and 5 (total) races. And now I think I'm done with the game. Forever, regardless of expansions. So, perhaps I should review it. Was it $40+ dollars well spent? In all fairness, I'd have to say yes; I've played it longer than Rome: Total War (though since I'm going back to R:TW, that may not be the case forever ). I was introduced to

Um, 1.2 is in beta . Is there still a link to the 1.11 version?

The fact remains that it's there to keep people from setting the tax rate over %80. Oh, I didn't mean to imply that it was a good or viable tactic to go beyond 81%; merely that it was actually possible to do so and keep something vaguely resembling a healthy morale. <TABLE cellpadding=8 width="95%" align=center bgColor=#FFF394 class=

If they're gonna do that, at least do it professionally and cap the tax slider at 80%. Excuse me, but were you not paying attention? 81% does not drop your morale to 0. Well, it does for [i]yours[/i], but that's because you don't have enough morale buildings. You can maintain a tax rate > 80% if you have enough morale. The 80-81 dis

Diplomacy and SCC are all, in my mind, really stupid ideas. From a game design perspective. They're like exploits, except that they're built into the game. It's explicitly designed to make it possible to take advantage of the AI. And I can't really call an AI advanced if it can be tricked by a building and a few fake ships.

It's a beta. It isn't the full 1.2.