AG3

Reply to 2.0 update must be made available on Stardock Central in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

As much as one might dislike the change from SDC to Impulse, sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and move along with the times. I mean, I didn't like Impulse much at first either, being slower and more "cluttered" than SDC, but then again I was also a person who cursed Windows 95 and all games that required it instead of my trusty MS-DOS 6.2, and likewise when Windows XP came and I was all snug and comfortable with my 98 SE. At some point the old system, despite how well it works for i

Reply to What would be viable copy protection? in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

My beef with DRM is a bit dependent on which DRM scheme it is, and what company employs it. Mainly though, DRM doesn't stop piracy. It barely even slows it. This much is proven, it's a completely irrefutable fact. Hence, the only explanation for still using DRM, especially a DRM scheme that is cracked very early, is (as mentioned earlier) that it is not in place to hinder piracy, but to limit a legitimate user's use of the program. This sits very badly with me, as I refuse to pay a co

Reply to EU to Ban Pirates from the Internet? in Personal Computing GalCiv2 Forums

And the irony of it all is that if piracy was made impossible, the amount of physical game, movie and music thefts from shops would probably rise dramatically (though of course not as much as the reduction in illegal downloading) >_>

Reply to EU to Ban Pirates from the Internet? in Personal Computing GalCiv2 Forums

My beef with calling piracy "theft" is the fact that while it may be immoral and potentially harmful to the owner of the IP, it's far too different from physical theft to be directly comparable. Physical theft is very straight forward; you take something from someone, they no longer have it and you do. But if you pirate, say a movie, what exactly has the pirate "stolen"? The main issue for me when it comes to calling downloading of media theft is the fact that there are multiple LEGAL w

Reply to Brad's thoughts on Digital Distribution (a work in progress) in Personal Computing GalCiv2 Forums

Blizzard has very recently started a service on their website where you can register your games (the ones that have a serial key) and get access to download them whenever you want, in a version that does not require a CD to play (if you own Starcraft you will get Brood Wars for free after registering, since it had no serial itself). This is entirely website based though, and their web shop is also getting updated with these digital versions of their games so that you no longer have to buy hard c

Reply to Brad's life philosophy, for what it's worth in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

If only there were more CEOs like you and companies like Stardock... :) Sadly, there are too many people who believe that having bought a product or service from a company entitles them to treat the employees of that company like trash every time they have a minor complaint, and sadly there are way too many businesses that let them get away with that. Maybe if enough businesses would tell people who act like arseholes to just bugger off, they'd get a clue and start acting more civil, at

Reply to New copy protection comming for Spore and Mass Effect (EA) in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

I'm still not entirely happy about the DRM, but the incarnation just posted there I could probably live with. Authenticate once, and then only authenticate again when accessing online content or patches. I'm not entirely happy about the "3 installs" thing, as it means a long trek through customer support (EA's customer support... bleh) if something goes wrong, if they'll even listen to you. But it's a step in the right direction. If anything, it moved me from "no way in hell" to "maybe, dependin

Reply to The existence of for-pay stuff doesn't hurt you in Personal Computing GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]There's more to it than that. First, units of content are not "hours". I've spent far more time with GC2 than with, say, Super Mario Galaxy, but Galaxy is the superior game. A 4 hour movie is not better than a 2 hour movie because it's 2 hours longer.[/quote] Maybe not, but if you've spent far more hours with GC2 than with Galaxy, it undoubtedly has more hours of enjoyable content than Galaxy per dollar you paid, unless you for some odd reason play GC2 despite not really

Reply to New copy protection comming for Spore and Mass Effect (EA) in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

Sadly, this means that I will not be buying Mass Effect and Spore, both games which I have been anticipating for a long time and looked forward to getting. Same thing happened with Bioshock; after reading about a few people having problems with the DRM and the developer/publisher being unwilling to do much to help, I decided to give it a miss. Maybe I'm in a minority here, but all the same I am another example of DRM costing a company sales as opposed to earning them due to DRM. There's

Reply to The existence of for-pay stuff doesn't hurt you in Personal Computing GalCiv2 Forums

"Whether the game contains 10 hours or 100 hours of playtime is of little consequence, nor does it matter whether it cost $5.000 or $5.000.000 to develop. People WILL react to a game that costs more than its peers, regardless of the number of hours of content it provides." A clarification of what I wrote above (as I can't edit): This is assuming that both products are a "complete" experience, basically that both the 10 hour and 100 hour game feel complete and whole at what they tried to

Reply to The existence of for-pay stuff doesn't hurt you in Personal Computing GalCiv2 Forums

I'd pay for addon modules if they affected an area of the game I cared enough about in such a way that it would improve my enjoyment of the game as a whole. Provided it wasn't just a "bug-fix" or something that had been obviously left underdeveloped with the intention of earning money on "improving" it later. Not that I have any reason to believe Stardock would do that, previous track record considering :) . I think part of the outcry against addon packs costing a set amount of money s

Reply to World of Warcraft: Is it worth it? in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

I've played WoW since summer 2005, and I'm still actively playing it, though I'm no longer clocking 12+ hours a day on it like I did at the worst when I was still in school. I was pretty much addicted to it I'd say. Like most character building RPGs the basic point is to develop a character of your choosing, through leveling and getting better gear, and as you reach max level you develop solely through gear, reputation and various titles. As far as MMORPGs go, WoW probably is the most

Reply to Anyone else take serious issue with this game? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

To be honest, I don't really like this game all that much. There's something about the pacing and somewhat shallow tech tree that doesn't appeal to me. Then again, I guess I'm more of a TBS person. Oddly enough though, every time I start it up to "give the game another chance", I can't stop playing it until I beat the AI (or it beats me), even if it takes me 5 hours+ and I should be fast asleep due to work in the morning. Yeah, I'm not quite sure what's going on there...

Reply to Which Ethical Alignment? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

[quote] Of course, this assumes that there's just no benefit from doing good acts, and this isn't so. Of course, there can be a penalty as you pass up lucrative possibilities, but the intangible benefits you receive for doing good works are already quantified in GalCiv as influence, morale, and loyalty, which makes them tangible in game terms, assuming the game gives you any reward for choosing good. Are you saying that a civilization that consistently chooses to respe

Reply to Arcean Slowpokes in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I haven't played Arceans yet, but they do sound like the ultimate turtlers. Which sounds like a great survivalist trait, at least until terror stars and spore ships come knocking on your door... I think I'll make my next game Arceans and try them out.

Reply to Which Ethical Alignment? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I always thought that taking the Good options was by design meant to be materialistically less rewarding than evil, because in a sense that's how the world works. If you've played role playing games where you can pick whether to do good or evil, you'll find that in most games it is ultimately doing good that rewards the most money/XP/reputation, while picking the evil options is usually something you do for kicks or for roleplaying purposes. Personally I thought the way Galciv and Galci

Reply to Galactic Civilizations: The case for no multiplayer in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I think the Master of Magic comparison is very apt. That game was immensely unbalanced in so many ways, the races, units, spells, everything. Human (High Men) Paladins who were completely immune to magic were the most overpowered normal units in the game, as well as some spells like Time Stop, Cruel Unminding (permanently lower enemy wizard casting skill), Armageddon/Raise Volcano (vs a non-nature wizard who can't use Change Terrain to make the volcanos/mountains back to other terrain), etc etc

Reply to Ten New Years Resolutions for the Game Industry in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

[quote] Hardware wise it's not as bad as Starforce was (which ruined several of my CD/DVD drives before I found out how bad it was) SecuROM didn't ruin my drives, but it did ruin my drivers for DVD combo. I bough a new DVD drive, thinking that was a hardware problem. It ruined new drivers too. "Fortunately", it only affects DVDs with SecuROM. My PC doesn't see them. At all. No files, nothing.[/quote] I was thinking less o

Reply to Ten New Years Resolutions for the Game Industry in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

I can only agree with all of it, but particularly #1. When I first read about Bioshock coming out, I was really looking forward to it. Then I got to know that it required a fairly new video card with pixel shader 3.0 support, which was a bummer, but I thought it would be a decent excuse to upgrade. Then the release came, and I started reading about the DRM system on it.... ... Hardware wise it's not as bad as Starforce was (which ruined several of my CD/DVD drives before I foun

Reply to Jagged Knife Double Whammy in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I wouldn't mind the Jagged Knife event so much if it wasn't for the bug that makes them gain all the technologies that the current civilizations are able to research, not just the ones already finished. Had the event happen to me, thought "oh well, I'll just have to start taking my planets back through invasion", only to discover that they had max soldiering (around 110 or so?) far to early in the game, and I had no chance at all to take my planets back from them, nor did any of the oth

Reply to Creative too powerful for points? in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

It can be insanely powerful IF it triggers often enough and at points where it saves you a lot of time. For me it often triggers when there's only like 1 or 2 turns left to completion anyway, thus doing very little, although when it does trigger that way it seems like the research points you had spent thus far gets transferred over to the next tech you pick. At least that's what it has looked like to me so far.

Reply to Early Access to Advanced Techs by AI in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

In a game today I got a message saying that "The Pirates" had achieved a technology that allowed them to transcend mortality or something like that, but that they wouldn't share it with me... They weren't a minor race or anything either.

Reply to Game Lock in Gigantic Map in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Yep, I get the same too after a couple of hours. When I save and reload it comes back, then after a couple of more turns the entire game crashes on me, which has happened on 2 or 3 games now. Ah well, such is playing beta.

Reply to Space Rangers 2 is now on TotalGaming.net in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

No Starforce anymore? Starforce was the reason I didn't buy this game way back when I first heard of it (SF messed up my system on several occasions, so I never buy any games with it anymore). Consider me sold!