Leferd

Yup. Afterall, this could happen. You don't want to come back as a ghost.

Meier's approach in designing this game. http://www.gamespot.com/articles/sid-meier-s-starships-going-beyond-beyond-earth/1100-6424735/ "When I did Pirates and Civilization and Railroads, we spent a year on a game," says Meier, "and two-thirds of that time was actively designing the game. Changing it, playing it every day. These days, we might spend two or three years on a game, but there's only the same amount of actual game design time. So what I wanted to get back to was a method of making games that really focused on game design, that allowed us to spend most of our time designing and maybe a little less of our time on all the other stuff needed to make games." "We can do games on a shorter schedule," he continues, "but there's still the same amount of actual game design, the same amount of time spent iterating and evolving the game as with other games. For me, the fun part is the design and watching it grow and iterating, and this approach gives us the ability to kind of focus most of our time and energy on that part of what we're making." Which explains the relatively low production values we've seen so far. I like the idea behind auteur style game design. He's going back to his roots.

Voyager. It had to be Voyager. Never liked Voyager. But I can see the resemblance now.

Heh. Of course, the bane of all tablets and smartphone users are autocorrect and typo fails.

I consider myself well versed in Trek lore, but I am failing at this particular lore check.

Part of what makes me excited about this game is that this is one of Meier's pet projects --small team, lower budget, and freedom for him to to design and iterate based on his sensibilities. When you give a guy of his credentials and artistic vision the independence to make a game that he wants to make --these are the types of bets I can always get behind. And no, it's not an MMO. https://www.2k.com/games/sid-meiers-starships GAME INFO Take command of a fleet of powerful starships in this adventure-driven strategy game from legendary designer Sid Meier. Travel to new worlds, completing missions to help save and protect the planets and their people from dangerous Space Pirates, to powerful Marauders and other hostile factions. Build a planetary federation as you strengthen your fleet and secure your homeworld as you attempt to preserve intergalactic peace and your vision of humanity. Set in the universe of Civilization: Beyond Earth after the age of the Seeding, Sid Meier’s Starships offers sci-fi/strategy fans a full stand-alone game experience that also features cross-connectivity with Beyond Earth, expanding the depth of both games. See if you have what it takes to rule the universe! FEATURES • Tactical space combat: Encounter unique tactical challenges in every mission, with dynamically generated maps, victory conditions, and foes. • Fully customizable starships: Create an armada that fits your tactical plan with modular spaceship design. • Diplomacy, strategy, and Exploration: Expand the influence of your Federation and gain the trust of the citizens of new planets. Use the unique abilities of the each planet to enhance your fleet and Federation, and keep your opponents in check. Build improvements on worlds to increase the capabilities and resources of your Federation. • A galaxy of adventure: Explore the galaxy as you lead your fleet to distant worlds and complete missions to help the citizens of these planets. Fight pirates, protect colony ships, destroy rogue AI, and more. • Multiple paths to victory: Will you win by conquering the greatest threat to the galaxy? Or will you unite a plurality of worlds in your Federation? Perhaps you will lead your people to push the frontiers of science. Each choice you make carries consequences on your path to victory

Yep. How could Cleveland lose the NBA Championship Belt to Indiana?? Indiana! http://nbachampionshipbelt.com/

This is the type of succinct review I need.

It's a font ligature. *edit* You can enable/disable from the options menu.

I would say that themes that come out of the gate swinging can become tiresome in later date even if you love them first, like for example I loved Dragon Age: Origins theme when I heard it first time, but know it is bit tiring. Where some themes don't impress me much when I hear them first but latter after constant hearing they become some of my favorite themes of all time, like for example Civilization 4's theme. Yup. Civ IV's theme song, Baba Yetu, is brilliant.

Agreed.

O.k. but why go for a sequel? That is what we know from the AAA studios. Sequel after sequel. If they use kickstarter again it would be nice they would throw something new into the ring. They already have atleast one other idea/property they are working on in pre-production, but whether they use Kickstarter for this or an Eternity sequel is likely dependent on the sales success of PoE. I wouldn't mind something new, but it would be shame if they didn't immediately work on expanding this franchise as the background lore of this setting is really fascinating.

Moar combat! I'm liking the tactical depth shown in this demo. Very much like XCOM in space violence.

The cap is set at level 12.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8962/the-directx-12-performance-preview-amd-nvidia-star-swarm DirectX 12 looks pretty darn impressive. Exponential improvements over DX 11.

Me, I'd rather go back to the days when my cellphone can last 3 days before a charge rather than 3 hours.

Meanwhile, in Miami...

Discussion about what comes next for the Dungeons and Dragons spin-off franchise is already underway, he added. "We've had a ton of ideas," Urquhart said. "Obviously we could do something like Pillars of Eternity. Obviously we could do something like Neverwinter Nights 2. We're going through all of those things to figure out what would be the best thing to do. I'd of course vote for Pillars of Eternity style --isometric, party based, and tactical.

Curious if there are any vocals in the soundtrack, i.e., Gregorian style chants or background vocals?

IIRC, Obsidian originally was going to use their in-house Onyx Engine but ultimately made the decision to go with Unity instead due to the licensing costs for third party extensions and plug ins if they were to go the Onyx route. It would have been nice if they had gone that way as there would be less of a team-wide learning curve associated with starting from scratch with Unity. But it's all about the dollars and sense for a budget project.

Volo must be overjoyed now that a healthy Lebron has Cleveland on a 12 game streak. Sucks for him that he's not going to win anymore MVP's. PS. Whatever happened to his hairline? Left: Before David Blatt Right: Post David Blatt

I'm glad I got my magnet and t-shirt.

Adding my voice to the mob re: combat-only.

What's the source of the article?

There was. I mean, changelog? what was it? http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/70228-backer-beta-build-435-is-live/