Drowsy Emperor

Ladies and gentlemen... Mothership has arrived sorta I nearly came from all the HW references. http://blackbirdinteractive.com/media/ And I give you: http://blackbirdinteractive.com/contact/beta/ beta signup - Major gameplay reveal coming "shortly" expected in june - Hardware IS Free-To-Play - Hardware is NOT a Facebook game. - Hardware is a stand-alone, that has a client-server architecture. - The social elements are clan support, leaderboards and in-game chat. - Hardware will bring a full 3D experience. - Blackbird have GRANDER plans with the IP than just a single f2p game. - Shipbreakers shares DNA from Homeworld but has no IP connection. - "Hardware to usher in the next era of RTS revolution" like homeworld did. - Hardware expected to arrive on both PC and MAC. - Closed beta to begin Q4 2013.

Nowadays the game would be praised for its claustrophobic atmosphere Well it is claustrophobic for sure. That's actually cute. That sort of spontaneous silliness is something newer games sorely lack because they're so occupied with providing masturbatory fantasies.

Ah it would seem the much vaunted British politeness has gone out of fashion. How touchy they grow when the horror is on their own cut lawns but oh so casually glossed over when people die in droves somewhere not so far away, written off as collateral damage. If you're incapable of showing sympathy, expect none in return. My last word on coexistence with the religion of peace: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_Tower Enjoy your ignorance.

Obviously this discussion was bout the so called "Islamic fundamentalist terrorists", the mere phenomenon of religious fundamentalism is blatantly older than that. The point of what I was saying is that the Iranian revolution was an inspiration to today's "terrorists" because it showed that an Islamic fundamentalist republic, not dominated by the west, could be exist even though the US opposed it. In short, it was a propaganda victory. This goes hand in hand with the downfall of the project of secularism in the middle eastern countries and the Islamization of all the major political figures, leading to a global revival of Islam as a political project. The transformation of Turkey from a very secular country to a heavily Islamized one in a single generation is enough proof. What Islam is, is open to interpretation. But to deny the existence and political aspirations of the major players in the Islamic world of which terrorism (while other acts are mere results of propaganda and individual activity) is just the visible manifestation is idiocy. I have seen with my own eyes how covert and over funding by Saudi Arabia and other muslim countries is turning non political muslims into fundamentalist sects in Bosnia and southern Serbia, implementing whole projects of indoctrination through (legal) religious universities serving to create a subversive populace out of a previously non radical one. They do this by essentially implementing a closed system of upbringing and education that goes around the standard methods of socialization (schools and public opinion) and by making them economically and politically dependant - which results in a generation, wholly divorced from its surroundings. To ignore that war... Besides, arguing over this is pointless. Your coexistence with Islam is going so well that there's a terrorist attack practically every month where there previously were none, or merely sporadic ones. Most of those terrorists were born in your system, but completely outside of your cultural paradigm. If you don't think that's a problem that can only grow in the long term, you're simply clueless.

Funny how in all those games it looks like the tunnels are 3 feet high.

That's all mentioned for debate purposes - everything I said before still stands. And its hard not to notice that Morgoth has a point. What's happening is practically Newtonian. Islamic fundamentalism was born when the US engineered the rule of the Iranian Shah Reza Pahlavi who was widely considered to be their puppet in Iran. Seen as an illegitimate marionette and subsequently overthrown by the masses led by Ayatollah Khomeini - the same masses who overwhelmingly accepted theocratic fundamentalism as an alternative to Pahlavi's rule. The rest as they, is history.

The interesting question here is - is it terrorism if the only victim is a combatant. In a war its not only legal to kill soldiers, it also doesn't matter how its done - as long as it doesn't include torture or killing of POW's. Obviously these are the rules that apply to a war zone, but since today's wars are no longer fought like classical ones - in defined places and with roughly symmetrical armies one can pretty much conclude that there is no reason to limit the area of war just for the convenience of one of the fighting sides. Secondly, the declaration of war is definitely there - xy Islamic groups have openly "declared war" on the west. What is forbidden is not being clearly marked as a fighter of the opposing side. But if one side can drop death from above without even a pretense of fighting a war on equal terms - in other words be not only an invisible, but an untouchable combatant in addition to being so vastly more powerful that its barely a war and more a one sided thrashing - then the other side really has no reason to accept fighting on terms that would lead to its wholesale slaughter. In other words, it adopts what meager means are at its disposal and as long as the victims aren't civilians then its actions can hardly be considered unjustified. So, someone may be appalled - but the fact is that west gave Islamic terrorists the legitimacy given to an opposing side in a war - the moment it actually declared the war on terror - and began to fight it as a "proper" war, not with the usual, internal means used against common criminals (police, intelligence).

At this rate you're going to blow through all the content before the game comes out of beta. Not that that's a bad idea.

You guys seem to be leveling very quickly. What's the level cap in the game?

I recommend FTL overall although there are some parts of it I don't like. There are too many combat encounters (in fact almost all encounters are combat encounters) and a difficulty curve that's actually a sheer cliff. What this means is that the game is rather similar on subsequent replays, the only different thing being the ship you use and a slight shift in tactics (of which only a few are really optimal in combat). It would have been much better if the writing was more colorful and if it included some humorous encounters - to break up the monotony of combat. It lacks personality which would have been easy to add with a few low cost touches like portraits for the crew or an image here and there. 7/10 Good idea opening this thread MW

I don't have the patience to play even very streamlined grind heavy games, which is why I'm not picking up any pre BG dungeon crawls, or anything designed in that style.

Just read some odd news. A man in a village in Serbia Montenegro strangled a bear with his bare hands. It attacked his flock of sheep and he charged it with an axe which was knocked out of his hands. He's in hospital now having suffered serious injuries to his hands and the rest of his body, but his life isn't in danger. His wife found him all bloody in the field. Apparently he held the bear's throat until it asphyxiated. That's some donkey balls for you.

No, they have in fact been confirmed as new Call of Duty installments.

Isn't there a couple out at this point? It is the first I pledged. It does seem to be the first big RPG, for sure. I wouldn't know. Its difficult to keep track of kickstarter since coverage is sporadic in standard gaming sites and some of the games are only represented on their own websites. The only kickstarter game I played so far is FTL.

Alpha Centauri Played as Morgan. I've improved my game, my final score was almost 400%. Played on Iron man (save restricted to exit) and with abundant native life setting. Difficulty level: Thinker, (second highest) I was fortunate to start on an island, really the ideal beginning for Morgan's weak first third of the game. By the time ships were prevalent my bases were already 10+ in size and I was making more money than anyone else on the planet. The first one to fall was Sister Miriam - but she was half destroyed by the time I got to her. Still I made her sign a pact to reap all the commerce bonuses. That was my policy throughout the game. Zakharov fell next even though he was in the lead according to the statistics. His 10 or so bases and my 10 were my core through most of the game. Everything else I conquered was a buffer zone between enemies, I didn't want to waste resources improving them unless I conquered even more so that they ended up deeper into my territory. I convinced Santiago to sign a pact that held for most of the game, held Deirdre off while focusing on the largest menace of all - Yang. The AI cheats like nobody's business in production - Yang had 10-15 troops per city much of the time. I had a bit of a conundrum as to how to beat him since he was very far away and had so many troops and his standard perimeter defense in every base. My troop transports couldn't get through to land and it was too far away for aircraft (thankfully so because I got so wrapped up in building that he could have made life difficult for me). The bastard signed a pact with Deirdre which led to a very irritating occasional use of her bases as staging grounds for air attacks. I didn't want to fight a war on two fronts so I let the attacks pass - he didn't have ground troops and planes can't hold bases... Then I made probably my best decision in the game. I let my bases stockpile energy (1500+ per turn) and I built Probe Foils. I used this to mind control, and essentially buy out his coastal bases and his sea bases (practically a third of all bases he had), since Probe Foils can move a lot and start the movement outside sight range of his needlejets. After a few turns he surrendered and I passed a dozen or so turns in peace after which I achieved transcendence victory.

Will this be the first released of the Kickstarter RPGs we're anticipating?

Not surprising given the difference in appeal in those two historical periods (I realise you were trying to say something else)

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=8971

I like it.

Its funny... because it might come true.

PC gaming may be dead as opposed to the sales of yogurt but that's a statistic you couldn't only wipe your bum with. In other words, you're wrong. Its still a multi-million dollar business and the only difference I see from the late 90's is that the costs have risen to the point that the gap between the AAA titles and the regular titles is now a gulf and that the consoles have eaten a part of the market. On the other hand, low budget titles have substantially grown in the last years. I used to maintain a list of all role playing games and strategy games released in the last 10 years with scores by a local magazine so I have actual evidence to prove my claim. As typical PC centric genres this is quite representative. I'll use only the RPG list to as proof. At the peak there were about 12 RPG titles per year and a bit more strategy games. At the lowest point, there were around 6-7. While there is a definite decline, its not either sharp or constant with significant spikes of up to 10 single player games per year. That is without taking into account the rise in MMORPG's. If I were to include MMO games and lower budget titles the genre would actually be producing more games per year than ever. The strategy genre has gone even lower in popularity so some games go under the radar but the overall production is also rising. What I will agree with is that the quality has dipped in general because some of the more innovative designers have been scooped up by the console industry or are busy making ****ty games for facebook. So yes, the PC is no longer the center of innovation and even the recent kickstarter revival is basically living on old glory but its nowhere near dead. Hyperproduction has taken its toll on experimentation and innovation across all platforms, not just the PC. The current generation of consoles doesn't even have a dozen truly innovative must play exclusive games to its name. A rather telling fact is that no new notable genres have been established on the consoles. In fact, two PC genres - FPS games (even if they are made primarily for consoles) and MMORPGs are the stars of this generation. I rest my case.

Its not that I'm particularly attached to base building mechanics (one of my favorite games of all time is Myth 2: Soulblighter), but I didn't like how small the armies were in DoW 2. It felt like Warcraft 3 where you basically lead a hero unit and his entourage and manipulate more with MMO like unit abilities than with the units themselves. The latter is also present in Starcraft II. The graphics lost some of the clarity of DoW I think, because they put too many details on the units and too many vibrant colors resulting in too much visual clutter. Way too much strain on my eyes, even on my 22 inch monitor. And yes, as Keyrock says, the campaigns were basically rigged to be won by the player. DoW3 is just a question of time and I hope they take take the opposite approach and make it like WH40K Epic in real time. I don't know how well DoW2 was balanced but DoW was problematic in that regard all the way to the last expansion with various races going from underpowered to overpowered and back. This is something that could be improved upon.

Except its doubtful that the new generation of consoles will explode the same way as the current one did (and even the one before that). I don' think they'll have as much appeal as the PS3, PS2 and XB360 had. People like novelty or at least they have to be convinced they're buying something new and the new generation doesn't have it. Just how many ways can the electronics industry sell "the new way to interact with your TV, Facebook and Skype" before it customers get weary of it. They'll still make heaps of money of course but saturation is bound to happen at some point. Of course, that doesn't mean people will flock to the PC magically.

News update. Taking into account Morgies warning not to take pre order prices seriously its nonetheless interesting that Zavvi has put a up a preorder for PS4 at 400 pounds. same as its preorder fo XBOne. Since Zavvi guarantees the price regardless of changes I suppose they do have some insider info. This means that the consoles will likely cost close to the same amount. This means everyone sensible will buy PS4. Case closed. :D

Turns out I have a 500W JVC power supply. I assume its more than enough to power the 7850. I've seen it reach 230W under heavy load on a hardware test so 500 should be enough to run it and the rest of the PC.