Alfonse

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=161570&site=pcg&skip=yes There you go.

[quote]Should they really stop developing new features because there are bugs? They are not a single person: They have multiple developers. They are perfectly capable of having some people hunt the bogs while others add new features to the game. Would you have them shut down the entire development process every time a bug is found?[/quote] Well, considering that there are bugs that have been in the game since day 1, and have survived to ToA's releases and patches, and will likely surv

[quote]Sounds like just a pubicity stunt, if a company really believes this then they don't need to state it.[/quote] I don't buy that. I mean, I buy the part about it being a publicity stunt, but not your reasoning for it. A company should be free to make a declaration of principles (Google's "Do No Evil" and such). It may be a publicity stunt, but it's still valuable information. And even moreso when you can hold them accountable when they don't measure up. What

[quote]For another thing, there are lots of games I love from the 95/98 and even Windows 3.11 era that were great games, but I can't play them anymore due to incompatibilities with modern OSes.[/quote] If a game developer wants to spend the time and effort to keep an old game running, they're certainly free to do so. But they certainly have no [i]obligation[/i] to do so. The obligation is on the player; if they want to keep playing the game, then they need to keep a Win95/98 or whatev

[quote]... actually I am struggling to come up with a clause that covers this. Where do you draw the line - when do "meaningful updates" become "expansion packs".[/quote] Exactly. Who is StarDock to say that all games [i]ought[/i] to have expansions or free updates or whatever? It's one thing to say that games should be released reasonbly bug-free; it's quite another to say that game developers should continue developing a game after they've finished making it. As far as I'm con

Well, it's nice to see that StarDock's marketing people are out in full force. It's not all marketing drivel, but there's far more of that than necessary. [quote]Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.[/quote] You... you're kidding, right? Considering the state of GalCiv2's initial release, you guys have some nerve. But I guess it's easier to tell others what to do than to do it yourselves... Then again, I notice that it is "ha

The unfortunately stupid part of this is: 1: Regardless of what this clearly stock response says, it's still the only effective way to attack someone. Even in the real world: you mass up forces as close as you can, then you all charge in at the same time. 2: I have never [i]ever[/i] had an enemy in this game properly react to a buildup of forces. Generally, I've had enemies react entirely incorrectly (declaring war on me when I'm massing for an attack on someone else) or not at

[quote]This kind of goes along with the OP, but my idea is to make it so that planets must be conquered one improvement at a time. This would obviously make it so that planetary invasions would be more realistic time-wise, make it so that more than one faction could control a planet.[/quote] That sounds incredibly tedious, and not a particularly useful thing. It may be more realistic, but nobody cares about that. Do you really want to conquer a race that has 100 worlds one planetary imp

[quote]Religeons have good and evil to try and control your motives, "Stay away from evil! You MUST obey what we say or you will go to hell and forever be tortured by satin himself" (I do not mean disrespect to those who believe this is true, but remember it was your choice to read on). Religeon is man's opinion on the meaning of life.[/quote] It's interesting how you not only consistently misspell "Religion," but you equate "Religion" with "Judeo-Christian-Islamic" faith. There are a l

[quote]The game is already 3d.[/quote] No, the game [i]renders[/i] in 3D. 3D gameplay and 3D rendering are two entirely separate things. The Doom engine is basically 2D gameplay with 3D rendering. New Super Mario Bros is 3D rendering with 2D gameplay. When people say they want the map to be 3D, they're usually saying that they want 3-dimensional movement.

[quote]Alfonse, thanks for raining on my parade with your mediocre conventional wisdom.[/quote] You suggested that someone who was not StarDock be commissioned to make GC3. While I don't agree with every decision they made in GC2, it's still an incredibly rude suggestion. [quote]Bottom line, to be worth another sequel and more $$.$$, it better be better than the last.[/quote] Yes, but the definition of "better" is up for debate. For example, I would prefer that they no

[quote]Maybe the makers, Lighthouse, could be contracted even.[/quote] Hey, while we're at it, why don't we just have Lighthouse make Sword of the Stars 2 and let StarDock make Galactic Civilizations III? :p I understand wanting to incorporate elements from other games, but there's a big difference between incorporating a few elements and saying you want someone else to make the game just because you liked a previous game of theirs.

[quote]I'd like to be able to look at my map in simplified 2D terms, but I'd also like the underlying math and the deep zoom-in (full graphics) level to reflect the fact that stars share a 3D space.[/quote] Unless the 3D position of planets and stars has an actual [i]gameplay[/i] effect, there's no point in rendering it.

[quote]a question of scale here my friend, yes they are thin compared to their diameter BUT their depth is still millions of stars ![/quote] Actually, the thickness of the Milky-Way is only about [link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way"]1,000 light years.[/link] Hardly enough room for "millions" of stars. [quote]- The Tactical management of planet and space battles is the single largest area GC2 has room for expansion on[/quote] Nonsense. A complete overhaul of h

[quote]I'm saying have the option to control battles in real time, like in the total war series[/quote] Did you not read my post? I've played some of the Total War games, and they do not give you the [i]option[/i] to have realtime battles. You either fight the battle in real time or you [i]lose[/i]. If you go real-time, you will do far better than their simulation suggested. If you don't, then you will lose more units than if you controlled it and possibly the battle. If simula

[quote]I like SoaSE, but I'm not sure that making a galciv game more like SoaSE is necessarily a good step.[/quote] I would go farther and say that it is [i]necessarily[/i] a bad step. TBS is just a different kind of game, with its own unique needs. [quote]Besides, can you imagine managing a hundred battles a turn?[/quote] That's really the key to any tactical battle system in an epic scale TBS game. How do you handle a turn where you engage in 4-10 battles? E

It sucks, but what are you going to do? StarDock was dodging taxes by exploiting a loophole. It was legal, so I'm not saying that it was a bad thing. But the loophole was plugged. SD was happy playing the game when they were coming out winners, but now that the game changed, it's a little disingenuous to cry foul now. [quote]In practice, when a business gets hit with an unplanned expense of this size, it usually means that some employees or contractors get fired.[/quote] Oh wel

[quote]i dont feel like reading[/quote] Then you can't speak intelligently about the post, can you? I mean, if you're not going to bother to actually read it, why would you bother to respond in ignorance?

Hmmm. I find it... ironic that you're advocating PC games, yet your screenname "Phazon88" is the same name as a substance from the Metroid Prime games. As in made by [i]Nintendo[/i]. I suspect it's just a coincidence, but it is an ironic one ;)

[quote]The problem is where is the line.[/quote] You misunderstand. We [i]already[/i] have a game ratings system. Stores [i]already[/i] prohibit selling of games to those who aren't old enough based on the ratings. Granted, they're not nearly as consistent about it as they should be, but it's ultimately their responsibility. Jack Thompson wanted to outright ban certain games.

[quote]Another pc is dead topic, time to shut the fuck up and use some real logic.[/quote] Pay attention; this is about CPUs, not PCs. Perhaps you should take your own advice. [quote]i think the launch of the GTX 200 series shows just how much hot air nVidia is full of. i'm not saying the HD 4k series is the best thing to ever grace this earth, but for all its talk, nVidia pull a very large citrus fruit out of its back side, put green stickers on it, and tried to tell us it's g

[quote]plus if you add a dedicated physic's processor that probably going to work alot better the closer it is to the GPU. [/quote] Um, no. There are two uses for physics in a game. One use is for something that is [i]entirely[/i] graphical. Particle systems that don't affect gameplay (outside of obscuring the screen in some way), exploding bits of stuff that don't affect gameplay, etc. That can be done through GPUs entirely, especially now with write-back in GPUs thanks to geo

[quote]You may wonder why more resourceintensive games don't crash. They are programmed to take RAM from the videocard instead. That's a workaround which drives up the graphiccard system req a bit.[/quote] Nonsense. Videocard memory cannot be directly accessed by the CPU; it has to go through a DMA operation, which takes a rather long time. Also, for any graphically intensive game, videocard memory is too precious to use up main memory for. You don't want to tell your modelers to half t

[quote]Well... for that to happen, you're implying that various national governments have the right to control access and content on-line.[/quote] Um, they do. Not necessarily content, but certainly access. If the government has the right to deny you access to your [i]children[/i] should you be found abusing them (let alone your very freedom, by throwing you in jail), they certainly can deny you the right to access the internet if you are found committing crimes on it. The Inte

[quote]I would agree - I do think it may be possible with multicore becoming the norm that some cores can be specialized. In fact, I think that's the path AMD, who now owns ATI, intends to take.[/quote] Intends to take? They're going to ship one by the end of the year. [quote]Isn't much of what comes on a graphics card there because it has to be duplicated for the gpu? Just place the gpu in the same chip as the cpu and suddenly you can remove most of the hardware on the graphic