[quote]So, I'm spending the same amount of money on a purchase (in the £30 - £40 price range) yet as the years have gone by I'm getting less for my actual money.[/quote] Of course. Because your money is worth less now. It's called "inflation". You can have it one of two ways: you pay the same for less than you used to, or you pay more for the same. £40 isn't what it used to be.
*ahem* HOW DID THIS DEVOLVE INTO POLITICS!!!!! STOP IT!!!!
Um, how did this thread devolve into Politics?
[quote]MS might get more and more aggressive about buying out games for the xbox series[/quote] How about you be concerned when this [i]actually happens[/i], rather than when it "might" happen. [quote]That's how they got to where they are now, they used strong arm tactics to push compitition out of business to assimalate or destroy (google Microsoft Vs Netscape for a good example of this).[/quote] Um, Netscape lost because Netscape 4.0 was a pile of festering crap and
[quote]Newell then says when they decrease the price by 75%, they are making 15% more than when they were charging at full price[/quote] That's great, mister "I'm selling on my own download service, so every dollar of my games sold is pure profit." If you were selling in stores, or even on someone else's service, there'd be fixed costs involved.
[quote]If you have a few good planets full of research tiles and good relations with most of the races, you can get to the tech victory before the negative diplo factor causes everyone to go after you. It's not impossible, or a once-in-a-lifetime freak incident.[/quote] I never said it was difficult; I said the AI was stupid for [i]allowing you to do it[/i]. No AI should stand idly by while you win the game, no matter how good relations you have with them. If the AI had half a brain,
[quote]A civ can retreat into a very tiny section of space and fortify itself by hyper-developintg what planets is does have, becomiong the most powerful (but isolationistic) player on the map and winning by tech or alliance victory even though it is not the physically largest.[/quote] Not for a tech victory. They would only win because the others are stupid or ignoring them. Further, you need a certain number of tiles and planets to be minimally functional. You won't be winni
[quote]My system makes the rest of the galaxy gang up and try to take down anyone who is a clear front-runner.[/quote] No, your system rewards people for losing. The fundamental paradox of the "Rich get Richer" problem is that you can't solve it. You're not allowed to. Because the moment that your competitors can get something for nothing, then the advantage of being the front-runner disappears, and no one has any reason to excel at anything. Winning is hard; it takes
[quote]wat does qft mean[/quote] Quoted For Truth. [quote]i dont understand y MS had to make a console in the end, this is just what i think. werent computers earning them enough!?!?[/quote] Why did Sony make the PlayStation? Weren't CD players and VCRs enough? You can ask that question about any company expanding into a new market. And the answer is always the same: [i]money[/i]. Either now or later.
[quote]How do you like the current Macro-management decisions at say, full blown setting options on Immense maps where you *must* handle 200+ planets simply to break even with the last opponent Influence wise?[/quote] I wouldn't know; I don't play on those kinds of maps. Furthermore, I would point out that this is partially an interface problem. CivIV's revolutionary idea of allowing you to do the common tasks to a city from the main screen really changed how I played the game
[quote]from a moral stand point, what reason could they have had for making a gaming console?[/quote] They have more "moral" reason than Sony or Nintendo. Sony made random consumer electronics, not videogames. Nintendo was a toy company. At least Microsoft had a game studio [b]before[/b] they made a console. And they were already software governors of a gaming platform (PCs), who spent time and effort seeing to the needs of PC game developers, providing them appropriate tools
[quote]Of course, Alf's cap is about as subtle as a brick, and there is no way to make it realistic in a game.[/quote] OK, it seems like everyone likes oversimplifying my idea, so I will restate it again. Buildings cost production. Techs cost research. Governments cost nothing. None of these things are available on the map. That is how things are now. My suggestion is to make more advanced structures cost more than just one thing. Planet boosting starbases cost bo
[quote]So you are saying MS's ability to pay any dev hundreds of millions (probably not that much, but maybe) to make the game exclusive or released before a sony or nintendo version has not and will not happen?[/quote] Um, when did I say that Microsoft has not paid for an exclusive? They certainly have. However, they are neither the first nor the last to do so. You don't think Nintendo dropped some cash on Capcom to have the REMake and RE4 exclusive to GC? And even the latter
[quote]imo, the real problem here is M$. They can do basically anything to any game and make it possibly xbox exclusive due to their billions.[/quote] If that were true, how is it that Sony has [i]any[/i] exclusives? I mean, if Microsoft were able to buy every Sony exclusive, wouldn't they have done so? Sorry, but mindless Microsoft hate isn't an argument. [quote]We would still be getting Rare games made for the GC and Wii (star fox and donkey kong ftw),[/quote]<
[quote]AT THE SAME COST, A civ that controls 1/3rd of the galaxy would be able to get the needed resources for MUCH MUCH MUCH faster than a civ that controls only 1/8th of the galaxy.[/quote] You're not understanding the concept here. Let's say we have two runners, A and B, running in a race. A runs at 10m/s. B runs at 5m/s. After 1 second, A will be 5 meters in front of B. Now, let's put a barrier in the way. 10 meters from the start of the race, we will force
dupe
[quote]The cost would HAVE to be relative to the civilization though.[/quote] No, it wouldn't. The point of having the greater cost is that it [i]slows them down[/i] for the moment. So you can (as an extreme example) match tech with them while they're busy investing in this weapon starbase. Yes, you'll have to go through the same slowdown if you go for that tech yourself. But you will have, for a time (before the bonuses from the new tech they're working on kick in), relative pairity
[quote]A true gamer wouldnt care what system he plays what on just so long as he gets to play the game.[/quote] So, a "true gamer" should pay a total of $950 just to have all of the current-gen consoles? Sorry, I'd rather be a regular old gamer who has money than a broke "true" gamer. And that means you buy what gives you the biggest bang for your buck. And buying both a PS3 and a 360 isn't that. [quote]sorry just seen way to many post go this way[/quote] I wou
[quote]Guys, I think I have a solution: Do not have a highest level.[/quote] That's not actually a solution. If the AI can't use its already incredible economic advantage on Suicidal, it won't be any better at using an econ advantage arbitrarily higher than that. The problem is that the AI doesn't know what to do with its resources. No amount of giving the AI more resources will help.
[quote]Unlike the GPU in the 360, the RSX is built on the traditional independent vertex/pixel shader architecture. Shaders are computer programs that determine the final look of what you see on the screen when you're looking at computer animation. All of this translates to a level of graphic detail never before seen on a video-game console. <!--The 2005 demo model could output 1080p HD signals at a resolution of 1920x1080. It could also send HD signals via two separate HDMI outputs,
[quote]If you look at the specs the PS3 is a duel core while the 360 is a tri core and has more rams too.[/quote] You obviously did not look at the specs. The 360 is a 3-core, where each core is a 2-way SMT chip. The PS3 is [i]single-core[/i], where each core is a 2-way SMT chip. It also has 7 SPU processors that can be used. The question of which is more powerful than which requires first answering the question, "at doing what?" [quote]In my comment ea
[QUOTE]If you've already pre-ordered, don't worry. You'll still get charged the correct amount.[/QUOTE] The correct amount being...?
[quote]To be entirely fair, you could also blame the un deterministic algorithms for the slightly weakened (current, that is) challenges available & even some aspects of the ruleset, Alfonse.[/quote] Not really. GC2's rules are not hard to figure out. It isn't that difficult to come up with a half-way decent algorithm for GC2's economy that allows a race to use its resources reasonably well. Even if you had to program it with specifi
[quote]Blu-ray disk formats do have something to do with 1080p gaming. In fact, most disk formats can output 1080p.[/quote] Maybe you don't understand the difference between movies and videogames. So let me explain. Movies are information. Data. They are read and interpreted by a program to display an image of a certain size and a certain framerate with certain audio samples. Videogames are [b]programs[/b]. The game itself decides what resolution to display at. J
[quote]The reason that the PS3 isn't way "out-performing" the xbox has been well documented everywhere[/quote] Yes: it's because the PS3 is $100 more expensive than 360. And in this economy, MGS4 isn't going to get people to shell out $400 over $300. [quote]You put the blu-ray (PS3) on a tv that can handle it (60" full 1080p) and the differences are amazing.[/quote] Shocking though it may be, but BluRays have nothing to do with 1080p [b]gaming[/b]. That is dominated so
