Drowsy Emperor

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.

I played through all the single player Dawn of War 2 stuff and it was the most boring gameplay I've played in a long time. The original campaign was just a series of generic battles that shuffled a few similar locations and enemies every few missions. The expansions had better stories, but the overall game was too easy and the whole concept of sorta having a base in multiplayer but not really coupled with only a handful of units didn't stick with me. For no reason at all Relic tinkered with what wasn't broken, instead of improving the core gameplay of DoW. But then, they generally have a problem with sequels. Homeworld 2 wasn't very good overall, even though it had some great ideas and jaw dropping visual design.

No it doesnt. It means that I haven't heard of any of their games make a splash which considering how much time I spend on this hobby means that they're either garbage or not featured in any of the more popular publications. OK, it probably means that you regard CoD/ BF or MoW/ CoH as wargames if you think you like them but have never heard of Matrix/ Slitherine. They'd be the biggest maker/ publisher of computer wargames (as opposed to fps/ rts using war as a setting) by a fair margin. I know what wargames are, its just that they used to be featured alongside other turn based games in reviews until the genre became so obscure and low budget compared to the games that make serious money that many websites and magazines stopped covering them. RTS and the standard pc turn based games appeal to me more. Wargames are too much (or exactly like) board games for my tastes.

Not to rain on your parade but the website of said company doesn't exactly feature a selection of top notch games. Which translates to "I don't like wargames" basically, as their games are niche, but they are quality niche in the vast majority of cases. It'll be expensive, it won't go on sale much- and it won't be on Steam unless GW specified it had to be. But it will, very likely, be good. They know what they're doing, and it isn't just making ludicrous SS Panzergrenadier vs Roman Legionnaire, who would win and why??? Discuss! simulations for SpoikeTV No it doesnt. It means that I haven't heard of any of their games make a splash which considering how much time I spend on this hobby means that they're either garbage or not featured in any of the more popular publications. If you say they're good I'll take your word for it.

Goddamn it Serrano don't intrude on a man's attempt to be a know-it-all.

I don't know what the idea is but I can tell you who its "stolen" from. This is a prime example of HR Giger's biomechanical style from over 30 years ago - the most famous representative being the Xenomorph from the Alien movies and the ship and its captain from the first film in particular. Its exactly the same only Giger preferred a different color palette.

Not to rain on your parade but the website of said company doesn't exactly feature a selection of top notch games.

Sweet. The list of PC games I want to play grows by the day.

It entirely depends on what they mean by "You will be able to trade and sell your Xbox games online." MS looks to be pushing heavily into digital, and have effectively resorted physical media to be simply a delivery device, not what is necessary to play the game. I'm curious if people are still as upset if they can do the things they want, but digitially. Want to lend a game to a friend, "trade" it with him for free (or some game you want to play). Licenses are swapped and people have access to the other game. It sounds like you just won't be able to lend with physical media anymore. But if it works that way then you can theoretically go back and forth between your entire collections and play all his games for free and then exchange everything back to what it was. A dozen people would buy one game that way and play twelve. I don't think that's going to happen.

Spend money. Would't we all like his job

And since he left, Civ V improved considerably. Or so I heard with the release of the first expansion pack. From what I understand his major "failing" was that he implemented the hex system without enough foresight as to how difficult AI is to program in that system (supposedly very difficult) and the scope of changes that system would bring to Civ even in trivial things like map size (necessity of having many more hexes to strategize with single unit armies than square grids in Civ stacks), leading to permanent congestion of the world map. I like the single unit per hex idea but most fanatical players argue that the implementation was poor. There is a new upcoming expansion (most likely the last one) and that will probably be the last version of the game and better opportunity to see what the final product is like.

He was leading up some Kickstarter project relatively recently: At the Gates Developer churn is still a fairly regular thing. It doesn't mean that there's bad blood or anything. Would be strange not to have the lead designer around for the expansion packs? Rumor is that he was fired (but this may just be wishful thinking on CivFanatics forums)

Yes, it's a plain old Steam key generally. Amazon only do a check against the billing address by the way, so if you put in a fake one you can buy it yourself. Though "legally" yeah, safer to get someone in the US to buy from you - and yeah, it's trivial to send cash to other people through PayPal. A fake US address did it! You're a genius Humanoid Of course, now I have both a physical copy of Civ IV and a steam one but I think the package was too good to pass up at that price.

US only sale of XCOM, CIV IV complete and CIV V gold for 20$. (steam codes) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CPBZDPE/ref=s9_newr_gw_d55_g367_ir03?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_r=0YX4VJM24EJKWF7S442E&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938811&pf_rd_i=507846 If I can get someone from the US to buy this for me will I be able to activate these games over steam? I'd obviously send the 20 bucks to someone (can I send money to regular people through paypal?).

Old news but still interesting: two months after Civ V was released, lead designer Jon Shafer "left" Firaxis. http://flashofsteel.com/index.php/2010/12/21/jon-shafer-leaves-firaxis/

Burn the heretic!

/

I see the changing taste thing. Of course we change. But for me personally I think that while my tastes have changed, Between Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm they probably haven't changed all that much. Then again, I never thought that the original Starcraft had any worthwhile story to begin with It didn't, but by RTS standards it was pretty good. Not in the same league as Homeworld though.

Eh, I hate when that happens, it makes me feel old and jaded. I grew up on Myth, Homeworld, Wing Commander, Baldur's Gate and Broken Sword. For years now, I didn't have anything to take me back to those years. Now I'm waiting for PE and Wasteland, the new BS, Star Citizen and hoping I'm not too burnt out to enjoy them for what they are.