Thanks, Stardock! Your support and attention to community has made a solid supporter out of me. I didn't get Demigod (not really into the DOTA thing) and I'm very sorry about the pirate activity on the servers. Hope you work that out satisfactorily. That said, you have my interest in Elemental. If that approaches GalCiv2 in terms of quality gameplay and support, you will most certainly have my money.
I think it's rather fortunate that this game was leaked - it may even have been leaked on purpose. Much of the projected demographic for this game aren't "women" but, for lack of a better word, "more demanding gamers." Such gamers are the type who would prefer console games if they liked the fare console games offered (like the Wii) - that is, they want to buy tha game, plug it, and play it. Such a demographic doesn't pirate games because for them, the cost of piracy is
If you give the AI weapons technology that surpasses their own, they will adopt it. If you have the defenses for that technology and they don't...
DRM CAN work, but only if it's honestly about DRM and there's no underlying motives to make it about extending copyright law and milking the fiction for all it is worth. In terms of what I said, the money you fork over at point of sale is not the only cost. Reliability and product support are benefits that go along with an original copy. If you can sell the product within reach of the target market and also provide additional value, you get the sale. T
The best way to destroy pirates is to outcompete them - make THEIR products expensive, yours cheap. It's that simple.
It's actually true - books are all over the internet. If you accept that the essential part of a book is its intellectual content, then books quite simply "suffer" much more piracy than software, for the simple reason that few books become obsolete, there's more books to be had, and they're easier to upload and spread. The last time I tried looking to download a book I couldn't even find the book I wanted because the sea of information out there is just so vast.
Jonnan001: I think you understand what I'm talking about, but you didn't get my point. Whether or not insurance premiums for legal protections are financially justified is immaterial. Each minor case you file against MDs increases the collective fear of MDs that their own number is up. It's not the fiscal sense of it that drives the premiums up - it's the fear and annoyance, and those are hardly ever consoled by reason. If the entire popula
The US healthcare system is in trouble because you pay way too much to middle men and because your financial penalties for the most ridiculous of medical transgressions is unrealistic. All medical malpractice settlements and decisions should have been kept private - or if public, kept to a reasonable minimum. Granting someone a million dollars, or jailing the MD for an understandable mistake (according to standard of care) means that YOU pay for it. MDs will seek the shelt
Roller123: It is pointless to persecute individual pirates in Asia because game developers do not have the power to make it painful enough for them to desist given the rewards they get. It is NOT pointless for game developers to pay attention to market forces and fight piracy by competing with it directly.
If they care about stamping out piracy, then they care about markets that spawn pirates. It's that simple.
More likely, the [i]parents[/i] of most little girls who patronize Sims2 fall into 2 categories: 1. Don't know enough about computers to pirate it 2. Want to spend money to feel good about pampering their little girl Or both. Heck, if a pirate forced them to accept a pirated copy, they would probably shove 50 bucks at him just to be rid of the money. The Philippine and Chinese software market is relevant because I believe that many of the m
I use chains of stripped-down military starbases in key locations for the following modules: Warp Disrupter Inverse Tractor Beam Stellar Wake Sector Surveillance Module This ties in with my policy of keeping Smalls and Tinies as individual garrison forces on planets, plus a substantial system-fleet garrison defense. These modules slow down enemy ships and speed mine up, slowing invasion and speeding reinforcements to the front, as w
Intellectual property is something that's really a weird concept to many Asians. If I think up a great story, it's my obligation to make sure as many people as possible hear it. I owe them thanks for deigning to hear my story, and I can make money off of mass market economics. It's always been that way, for hundreds of years now. The influx of Western copyright ideas has changed many minds about that, but hearts are difficult to change. A lot o
Here's another look at the Asian market for PC games: As far as I know, Asian game developers are the only developers in the world to offer MMOPRG software [i]for free[/i]. In fact, a substantial number of Asian games [i]can be played ALSO FOR FREE[/i]. When your system software is free for everyone, it can't be pirated. Simple and effective. In fact, you WANT pirates to host your software platform on their servers so you can approach as close to 100% gamer sat
News flash, people: console games DO get pirated. In the Philippines, the only reason the PS and the Xbox sell at all is because pirated game are available - otherwise they would be high-end luxury items with very low volume. That doesn't mean that legit games don't sell here, but they cater to a different market altogether. I stand by what I say because I see it everyday in practice. When you make a good game, people will want to buy it legit, even at a small premiu
I would rate them similarly. It's harder to do graphics for fantasy animation because it has to look organic. Ships and planets are much easier to skin and animate - just turn them around and zoom them off. In terms of technical skill for graphical rendering, I have to say that even ToA is no great accomplishment. It wouldn't surprise me to see something along the same (basement) level of graphical rendering. World of Goo is an excellent game, but it's not a grap
Sole Soul: I wasn't referring to you in particular, which is why I didn't direct my post to you. I was speaking in general. We are of like mind in putting gameplay above graphics. If you have to put it in a 16 bit shell to make it amazing, do that. Of course, one hopes for better. That said, have you actually looked at a DL screen lately? I assure you that the ToA graphics and the DL graphics are worlds apart. Elemental's sc
Stardock is a small company. It doesn't have dozens and dozens of coders whose only function is supply eye candy. For my part, I don't mind low-graphics philosophy, as long as it's done well. If you can't do an Ironman, stick to a half-triathlon and finish that. I would prefer a good 2D sprite-based graphic engine that's fabulous rather than a badly rendered 3D. That said, I don't mind graphics at all, really. As long as it has good aesthetic sense, I'm g
Torgamous: You would be wrong there. I can say with considerable confidence that most pirates exist in developing countries because there's more people in developing countries, there's a absurd number of tech people in these countries with nothing better to do, and they get paid to pirate software and hardware by people they can sell these copies to. Given that there's more pirates in the developing world because of these factors, I would venture to gues
Nintendo is abandoning core gamers? That's news to me.
tetleytea: I play at normal research Speed and only Large Galaxy. With Abundant Anomalies setting, there's maybe 10-15% left anomalies by the time you get to the point where you can research and build Galactic Guide Book. By that time, you could probably more usefully sweep the remainder with what early Sensor ships you've had built. For scouting purposes, Eyes is more useful, but it's something of a mid to late game development. So
Bodyless: That's not entirely true. Depending on what copyright laws are, how they're enforced or upheld, and what they're actually doing to your society, they may or may not be beneficial. Certainly, Renaissance Italy needed no copyright laws to develop some of the most enduring pieces of artistic endeavor known to man.
Everyone enjoys different things. The colonization is the early part of the game and it does seem sort of repetitive, but it is also very challenging to do well. You need to build up your economy with an end in mind - not just execute it without thinking. It requires "tweaking" in every game. Ship design and upgraading can be done automatically based on automatic computer suggestions. You can design your own ships, but there are basic templates you can use, ins
Regarding Eyes: I usually research up to about Sensors 2 and then start putting an odd Sensor on my Small ships when the space warrants it - odd little spaces that don't get used anyway. I need Sensors 2 to get Survey Ships up and running, so that's little cost as well. Eyes is significantly further down the Sensors line and requires significant resources to acquire. I would perhaps build about 10 or so of the Smalls in the relevant time frame. The added IP c
I've played DA, too, and the cheaper defenses there meant that invulnerable ships made even more sense, rather than less. What didn't always make sense was fleeting attack ships with them, particularly when the advantages you gained would be marginal at best. That still makes more sense than just throwing away Defense ships against targets that don't suit them. Of course, I always try to get 100% max attack coverage with Defense when I can, but that isn't always possible.&
