Orchomene

Do you imply that the those that voted for RTwP are just some blatant egoist that would consider their taste in some non important aspect of the game more important that the creativity of the developers ? That's a bit harsh, isn't it ? All in all, I like TB games, I like RTwP games and I'm just happy that the result is a game that corresponds to the creative vision of those that develop it. Whatever TB or RTwP.

In KBTL, I seem to remember that first islands armies like Archmages, Inquisitors, Royal snakes, Bowmen and Knight/Paladins/Cavalry rock. After that, find royal griffins. Next big step is Green dragon if you are a magic user, red dragon otherwise. Other good units are orc shamans, dwarf canoneers. If you have items like +X damage per unit (assassin dagger or other), a good bet is an elven army : dryads and faeries. I also remeber that moral is very important. At top moral, you will critical hit very often.

You mean, like in PST ? More seriously, the begining is far from the best part of the game. Also, putting you directly into action without getting used to the controls is not the best thing they have done in this game. I'm not fond of the controls myself, yet I find the game pleasing in the story. Hope you can get past the action part and enjoy the rest of the game.

To give my two cents... I'm not an online gamer. Thus, Steam offers me no advantage at all. For me, Steam offers a service not to the gamers but to the publishers. That's it. Before, I liked having physical copies of my games. Then, all of a sudden, games required to have always the cd in the driver to be able to play the game... Like when there was no hard disk. Thus, playing on a laptop and having to take all the CDs/DVDs of the games I may want to play when I travel is a burden. That's why I'm now into DD. A lot less of issues when travelling (at least in the same country). But now, there are also DRM issues with DD. Thus Steam. If I have the opportunity, I'd rather buy my games on GoG first, then on GamersGate. It's a lot easier, a lot less intrusive and often cheapier (generally, if there is a special offer on Steam, there is an equivalent one on gamersgate). But I can't always do that. sometimes it may be a Steam exclusivity. So, if the game requires Steamworks, it may be possible to buy it on Gamersgate, get a steam key and download it on Steam (that's what I do, often cheaper and I'd rather give my money to gamersgate than valve). In the end, I have nothing against Steam. I have something against the security-freaks-afraid-of-piracy that are the publishers (a good part of the publishers at least) that drove me from physical copy games (because of copy protections) and that oblige me to use Steam which is worse than most of the other DD oportunities.

I don't see many EA games on Gamersgate.

Might and Magic on a friend's Apple II. First I played at home should be Menzoberranzan, but it may be another SSI game too, I'm not quite sure. The first one I bought with my own money (and not my parents') is PST.

As far as I remember, even without SCS, he has most of the protections you've named. At least the globe and the mantle. I'm still playing FNV. I'm trying to go to all the locations this times. There are a lot of things to do if you want to do almost all.

Just finished Fallout 3. That gave me the desire to replay FNV which is so muh better. About M&B Warband, I understand it may not seem very well done for someone that didn't play the first one. The story behind it was that M&B was a middle age battle simulator. Most of the work was on the simulation aspect with very precise and close to reality system. So, for Warband, the developper tried to add a bit of background in the sandbox. The game becomes more interesting when you have a relatively important band with companions that can manage the utilitary skills. But the social aspect is pretty poor in the game. You can become a vassal, create somewhat a kingdom and marry the daughter of a noble, but it's not very impressive. About shortcuts to discut with villages and nobles, I think I remember there are more such menus in Warband than in the first M&B, but it's been a long time.

I'm replaying the Fallout series. Already replayed 1 and 2 and have just begun Fallout 3 yesterday.

I'll see when there will be more details. Using Torment name as a marketing tool is fine by me if they live with the potentiel backlashes. Double edged tool.

Played both Edna and Harvey games. Very good adventure games. Before that, I tried the Whispered World, but I feel it a bit one step below Edna and Harvey.

I'm still into Eador. This game is just great. The mix between Battle for Wesnoth and Homm is absolutly well done with enough complexity for a Paradox fan to enjoy the game. If you like turn based strategy with a touch of rpg mechanics, you will enjoy it too.

Just to add a bit on the limit of IP and copyright. I'm working in applied mathematics and computer science. Well, I can develop an algorythm and will never have any copyright on it. Mathematics are not subject to this kind of protections. Thus, a hard algorythm that needed monthes to be developped and can take only weeks to be coded will give money only to the one that codes it. In the end, since in Europe sciences labs get less and less money from governments, we need to shift from algo developpers to product developpers. Which is absolutly not our job (not that it is a bad job to do, just that there are a lot of people that do that better than scientists). In the entertainment industry, the same shift appears too : more and more artists are self publishing to have the possibility to earn money from their work. All in all, this copyright system, as it is done now is just reversing the industrialisation process that transformed artisanry into industry.

I've decided to try Eador. I'm pretty impressed for the moment. It's been a long time I've been so interested in a turn based strategy game. It's a very well done mix between heroes and Civ.

I don't multiplay. Thus, as you can imagine, I've stopped playing SR3... boring... Now, I'll try CoH now, the real reason I bought the bundle at first.

I'm playing Saints Row the third. Fun but nothing very exciting for the moment. It may just not be my kind of games (but it was in the pack). I tried playing Darksiders before. I pretty liked the second one (with Death) but this one, I stopped at the Tiamat battle. I found it too tedious to bother go on.

To Starwars : Having the licence 'Torment' is a communication tool. All that know PST would imagine what would be the essence of a game having this licence. It's the same for media. It's kind of a way to ease the advertisement of the product and touch the main target of the future game. That's the idea of brands and name licences.

Zeus is good. I've not tried Pharao, though. Both are on GOG. There is also an Atlantis somewhere, I don't remember the name, though.

About crowdfunding : no one said that a crowdfunding system should generate profit. In case the crowdfunding model is an economic viable alternative to the publisher/sale/copyright system, one may consider that a project that asked for 500K, funded at 2mil would in the end develop a 500K game and generate 1.5mil benefit. Piracy is bad, sure. Is DRM a good answer for it ? I don't think so. I've never seen a game, whatever the DRM system, that has not been cracked the first week. I've never seen an estimation of the percentage of people that would have bought the game if there was no cracked version of it. Is it 50%, 10%, 1%, 0.01% ? I have absolutly no idea. Maybe it's because I have enough money for it and don't pirate games, but I can't imagine downloading a cracked version of a game if I can buy it. And if I can't buy it, either I don't play it or pirate it, but in the end, the publisher/developers won't see my money. So the percentage discussed above is not apparently high. As said above, DRM system is a security system that seems to have mainly a psychological impact on shareholders. It's like security in airports (and I don't invent it, I've worked on reservation systems and discussed a lot with people involved in the airport security) : is security system in airport efficient to stop a terrorist from going in a plane and putting a bomb or having a ceramic knife ? OF course not. The security system in airport is there for customers to feel safe. Nothing more. After 9/11, airplane companies had a tough time, they had to find a way to stop the hemoragy of the decreasing of customers. Security system was the answer. But not because of an objective effect on decreasing risk, only decreasing fears. In the end, DRM ruined (really, not 'ruined like a bad game ending', you know what I mean) two or three games for me : constant crashes with the drm system, always online system with a bad internet onnection that meant I couldn't play the game without having it stoping every five minutes. Old games I can't play anymore because the drm system is not win7 64bits compatible. Economically, I am not sure that the cost of the drm system is lower that the cost of piracy (the real and uncomputable one). Nobody really knows because they don't care. They have DRM systems for psychological reasons, not for economical reasons.

About the intro, I agree with some above : they weren't particularly good even per 1998 standard. Now, if you want a good intro of this time, check the Fallout one : this is a very good intro that didn't aged.

I would say in this order : Crusader Kings II, A game of thrones rpg, X-com Enemy Unknown. Yet, XCom lacked a bit of replayability for a strategy game, I think.

I haven't all read so I'll comment only on the beginning. I'm not sure you should begin with your point of view about RPG as being the norm/standard and consider the other as invalid. I could argue with you by just saying that the coherence of the world is a quality of the RPG itself, but without being the essence of being an rpg. d&d had nothing like a coherent world at the beginning. Of course, it improved and delivered some different settings, one better than others. For me, a RPG is a set of rules that allow the player to have a "model" of a world. In this model (i.e. with the rules and backgrounds), they can incarnate a character that will interact with the world (pc, npc, environment,...). The model (with the help of the storyteller/dm/whatever is it called, arbiter) will define the outcomes of this interaction. If your rule sets are poor -- not simple, poor ; a simple system (like GURPS) can be rich --, then the interactions will be restrained to only few actions and the outcome will appear as arbitrary and may lead to frustration. Just to illustrate the point. If you begin your analysis with a personal definition presented as universal, you don't appear as being serious in your development.

It's funny that they spend so much time with this, but they can't finish a game they announced 6 years ago. Procrastination.

I've bought and tried Dungeon Gate. Actio RPG with a fun concept of playing a shapeshifter. All I have to say after 2 hours playing it : don't buy it. Gameplay is poor, controls are unresponsive, story is very bland, no storytelling, no dialogue choices, hero is somewhat manga style in a mmorpg style of world/quest design. On top of it, it's long to load and unstable (thanks to being a flashplayer game). Now I'm on a replay of Arcanum, it's been a long time I played it last time. Before that I tried and somewhat enjoyed Darksiders 2 and Dishonored.

Just above your list of games, there is a scrolling menu with "all your games" written on it. If you click on it, you will see the whole menu. Select "tools". The CK should be there and you can uninstall it by right clicking.