Spider

In Sweden, there is a bunch of people playing dice-less and rule-less. The call it free form. Personally I'm not a huge fan (although it can be fun at times) because I find that a character sheet help me define my character.

It's not sad, it's an excellent movie. I've must have seen it 40-50 times. I even have the soundtrack CD (the only soundtrack I've ever bought). Edit: And the comic is great as well.

It's already out on the PC. As for replayability and such, according to the Gamespot review, I doubt there's much. It's kinda open, but the reviewer felt that the non-story mission quickly became repetetive and nothing that kept you playing after you finished the campaign. It got a score of 7.4 if anyone cares. Don't know if there's any multiplayer.

I'm not sure I agree with this. True, there are more keys on a keyboard, but how many do games typically use? PS2 games frequently use all buttons (which is 8, plus two analogue sticks, plus the arrow buttons). PC games typically use the mouse, movement keys and only a couple more. Also, the more complex PC games tend to favor the mouse over the keyboard. Keyboard shortcuts are there, but they are hardly needed. I can play Civ 4 without ever touching the keyboard (although I do use the enter and space keys). Personally I think the main difference between PC and Consoles come from the mouse. The ability to move a pointer from one end of the screen to another in one swift movement allows for a lot more flexibility.

Yeah, I heard that as well. Main story ends in about 6 hours according to Gamespot.

VtM: Bloodlines is no more a shooter than Morrowind is. Personally I'd classify neither as a shooter, but that's just me. (haven't played DX so I have no opinion on that)

Civilization 4 and Arcanum

The developers don't get $30 for a game that sells for $50. According to Greg Costikyan, writing for the escapist: "If you are relying on publisher funding, you are highly unlikely to achieve a royalty rate of more than 15% (which is based on wholesale price less MDF - typically more like 7% of the actual consumer dollar)." 7% is a lot less. That's $3.50 per unit shipped. In the case of JE that would be $2,100,000. JE is a bad example to use with those numbers though, since Bioware financed the game themselves their take would be considerably higher. But for most independent developers (like Obsidian or the late Troika games) $3.50 per game is the reality. Edit: In response to alanschu in the post above, that article says this about the costs of games: "Today, if you want a title that will be taken seriously by the retailers - an A-level title - your minimum buy-in is $5m, and $10m for a triple-A title is common. With the next generation of console hardware, the talk is of $20m budgets - not as something that will be unusual, but typical." Note however that developers who rely on publisher funding will get the whole dev cycle paid for, they just won't make a profit until their negoitated share goes above their initial funding.

To each their own. Although I can't really argue the superiority of 3e since I've hardly ever played it. Nor have I played that much 2e. To be honest I think both systems are pretty much crap (this is from my perspective, based on how I play rpgs when I do). I do like the 3e rules better than 2e, but not enough to really want to use them.

As far as the plan with the d20 system goes, I'd agree with you. Killing diversity is a bad thing. But at the same time a product that allows other developers to focus on content rather than rules has positive effects as well. So I'm a little ambivalent when it comes to the whole d20 concept. However, when I said 3e rules was a step in the right direction I meant for the D&D franchise specifically. I think that the 3e rules are a vast improvement over 2e, if for nothing else they are much easier to get into.

In my opinion (if we overlook the frequent crashes that may not occur anymore) it's the best Civ game so far. The change I feared the most (no offense/defense, only power) actually wasn't a big deal and I think the game is better for it. Comparing to SMAC is harder for me because I didn't love that game the way I should. I think the mechanics in it were great, but I had some issues with the setting. So while I think Civ IV is a better game than SMAC as well (or will be when it's been patched a couple of times, at least in my case), I'm not the most qualified to make that comparison. The only issues I have with the game is that the fluff is kinda dull. One actor doing all tech voices is kinda monotone (and isn't made better given that Nimoy doesn't exactly do his best work) and the wonder movies are so boring that they I stopped watching them after the first five.

Have we seen the same movies? While Aliens is a really good movie, Alien is a great one. Generally speaking I'd agree with mkreku. Movie sequels tend to be dull and uninspiring (there are exceptions) while game sequels tend to improve on what was before.

It definitely seems to be a driver issue, at least for me. I rolled back to a previous driver and loaded a game that would suffer graphic lag and crash within 3-4 turns. The graphic lag was nowhere to be seen (except for the occasional stutter when the camera went from one side of the map to another, but that is so minor it's hardly worth mentioning). The game did crash though, but it took a lot longer for it to do so. The person with the same card as me (GF6600 256mb) rolled back even further than I did though, so I'm going to try with those drivers as well and see what happens. (for those interested, I am currently on 77.72 and the ones I'm trying next are 71.89. ATI-users with similar problems could try Catalyst 4.12, since people have reported similar progress with those drivers)

A lot of people have no problems at all. And for those I'm happy (and a bit jealous). I mostly wanted to prepare people for what can happen, because there are some issues. At this point it seems to me (without out doing a ton of research, but a little) like it's a driver issue with some cards, but I haven't been able to verify that yet. Will try a rollback during the weekend though. Eldar, just out of curiosity, the settler game you played how large was the map? I've only encountered problems on a huge map (10 players in my case) and only after a significant portion of the map has been revealed (I don't recall the exact year, but others with the problem mention that it started somewhere around 1600 or so).

I have 1 gb. It's possible doubling that takes care of the problem. If it is a RAM problem at all, could be the graphics card. I've been going to the tech support forum at civfanatics.com. Not official, but I think Firaxis people post there as well (and more importantly read). I just noticed someone who posted a solution for him that worked, rolling back to older drivers for his card. I'm going to try this sometime during the weekend. Hopefully it'll work for me too since I have the same card. Regardless, I just played a game on a small map and had no problems at all. Edit: I've looked a little more and found two more persons with similar experiences. Apparently older drivers work better with Civ 4. This for both ATI and Nvidia users.

There is another issue with this game, unfortunately. Later in a game when a lot of the map has been uncovered, the game starts crashing. Either CTD or a full system reboot. And I'm not the only one this is happening to (and it's affecting both ATI and Nvidia users). I've been trying to read up on it and as far as I can tell most people it happens to are playing on huge (in-game term) maps, or the second largest. The game uses a LOT of memory and that can be the cause of it. I tried shutting off animations and lowering the graphics settings and that seemed to help a little. This is just the sign of a buggy release though and by no means a deal-breaker (for me). It's still a great game and I managed to finish a game in spite of the crashes.

That's probably true in most cases, but not in this one. The main problem with ATI is a "failure to render" problem that people have. I haven't read up closely on it (since I don't have ATI myself) but from what I've seen it's happened to a significant amount of users and it makes the game unplayable (I think). The problem was so bad that a fix was released within days of the release (two at the most). Other issues people are ascribing to ATI I have no idea about though. In those cases you're probably right.

I may have put that wrong. I hadn't played for a few days (out of town) when I wrote it so my memory was a bit clouded. I'm not sure moving with the mouse is faster if you move square by square, but the right button works as the "go to" command of old. So if you tell a unit to move a few squares (roads etc) there will only be lag at the start of the move rather than for each square. Overall, moving with the mouse just feels more natural than the keyboard this time around (at least to me) although it does take some getting used to. It has. Diplomacy is a great tool. For instance, I wanted another civ to adopt my religion but he didn't like me enough so I simply gave him a tech as a gift and then all of a sudden we were real pals. Same goes for trade, there are times when you can get valuable resources through trade if you don't have them yourself (just don't trade away all your coal like I did, leaving me without the ability to build railroads without breaking the deal and upsetting an ally). Not all ATI-users are having problems, those that do have severe ones though. Not being able to start the game severe (although that is what's been fixed). The game is a bit unstable for me as well and crashes every now and then, but it's still loads of fun.

I think Civ 4 is excellent. It took me a lot of time to get it working (it had issues with my soundcard drivers of all things) but once that was out of the way it's been great. The release is somewhat buggy though. I spent some time on support forums due to my own issues and learned that ATI users are suffering greatly. There is a fix for the major problem though. There are also some issues with XML-implementation that can prevent some from playing the game without a few adjustments. The lag people are talking about when moving units is there for me as well and I think it has to do with the animation of units. I started using the to move units instead of the keyboard (just right-click where you want to go) and that moves the units MUCH faster without any lag (or animation I think). What I'm most impressed with is diplomacy. I'm playing a game that's reached 1800 and I haven't been in a war yet AND I am the leader in both points and research. Oh, and I'm sharing my continent with two other nations. That has never happened to me in a Civ-game before.

I think this is caused by a patch (I read a walkthrough that mentioned that medicine and engineering are worthless when playing with the latest patch). Not sure though since I haven't played unpatched. And this is fixed in the expansion, skills improve much faster. I thought the soldiers were pretty bad compared to the sniper which is almost invincible. Range and headshots are your friends. Panzerkleins are boring. Not only are they overpowered, they also move slower than anything, so just walking across maps takes ages. Both of these are also fixed in the expansion however (all of a sudden rocket launchers are scary). But I don't agree that snipers are useless against PKs. First, they have so much better shooting compared to anyone else which make them as good as anyone inside PKs (especially with the plasma weapon). And outside PKs there is always the plasma gun. It kinda sucks that it's one-shot only, but one or two shots with it takes out any PK you encounter.

Without the patch: Almost unplayable. With the official patches: Still kinda crappy but a lot better. With the official patches and fan-made patches from co8.org (note, only the bugfixes are taken into account, not the mods): Playable if you don't mind playing a game with horrible writing, even worse voice acting (forunately not all lines are acted) and with a story so shallow it may not even be there. The game (imo) is great when it comes to character development and combat. While combat could have been more difficult if the enemies had been smarter, I still think it was fun once you learned what all the options did. But if you don't like the combat, then the game has nothing to offer.

The thing is that civ isn't a combat simulator. It's long term strategy. A turns takes at the minimum a year to complete. Then how the battles take place is pretty much left to the imagination. There are many ways knights can defeat an attacking helicopter, it's not like the only thing they can do is charge with lances. Although it's a stupid argument to be having. It's not like realism is what's important in a game like Civ.

Much in the same ways Ewiks can beat AT-STs. Helicopters are much more powerful than knights, but sometimes bad things happen (the usual complaint from fans is spearmen defeating tanks though).

No, that's Canada. Edit: All we get are polar bears and penguins.