metadigital

I will buy the sequel once it has been successfully reviewed as a Must Buy. :D

news.com.

Yeah, it's hard to get too excited about a technology to penalize gameplay ... but I am confident it will add more (realism) than it loses (line of sight). I have just been overclocking my processor, and added Catalyst 5.9 Omega drivers, and Half-Life: Source looks almost as good as Half-Life 2 ...

I have it done, actually ... it's all the admin surrounding the actual map that takes the time ... also it is 5am and I should be getting to bed ...

I have consoled myself by finishing Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell and bonus missions, as well as almost all of Tombraider 3 and the first couple of missions of Deus Ex in preparation for Zodiac ...

Somnoposting ...

Bloody Amazon have taken over a week to send me a spanking new Netgear WGR614UK Wireless 54G Cable/DSL Router, complete with built-in Stateful Packet Inspection and traditional hardware firewalls ... (no more spybots and viruses).

If my understanding of neonatal care is remotely accurate, I doubt Mr Ender will have much spare time, after sleep, for the next six to twelve weeks (sprog-dependant).

Not from me ... "

Now I have visions of Baley as Jar-Jar ...

The way I see it, it that Austria lost Trieste to Italy in the Spring...but managed to recover ti in the Fall. Am I wrong to assume "ownership" is only transferred if you retain the SC by the end of the year? Edit: Ah, I see it - when Italy took Trieste, Mets must have killed one of Bok's d00ds. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The Romans will prevail! "

I am here again. And gone again. Many apologies for your begged understanding; I am still awaiting a replacement for my broadband wireless router, so I have limited access to the internets ... also I am in the process of moving house ... (I'll tell you about my neighbours' neighbour's suicide, and my neighbour's arson attack later ... ) I shall be back by Wednesday, I estimate. (And I'll fix everything. :D)

New Lost Coast info: http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2005/09/14/..._screens/1.html

Hello brave and patient people once again (and a special hellooooooooooooooo to you, Nartwak!). I will be trawling through the fifty email messages I have in order to configure the game status. Nart, let me know wht you're doing as your orders supercede Jags, even though he's been running your team in your absence ... might be a little Return of the King to Gondor type situation, there ...

There was a guy at work, of Iranian extraction, whose name was Karen (pronounced Car-En). Nice guy, too.

Well at least I don't feel so bad about my broken-connectivity-enforced absence.

Hi everyone; I am having a nightmare with my internet connectivity, so I have been spending all my free time troubleshooting my lovely router instead of more fun things. I'll be back with a vengence soon, and I appreciate your flexibility.

Pretty much none of those is a requirement for the CRPG genre, much less traditional elements. If you go with tradition you'll find nearly the opposite of what you pine for in some of the first CRPGs out there. Back then turnbased shared the same space as realtime and phasebased; isometric, firstperson and 'bird's eye view' were all contemporary; and a "good story" often translated into subtle variations of Doom's "kill thing, find key, kill big thingie, you win". Also, much as I like turnbased it isn't required for a CRPG. You only need a combat system that, like turnbased, allows a distinct enough separation between character and gamer; otherwise we enter the usual situation of not playing a character but instead playing myself (ye olde character skill vs. player reflex). Turnbased, phasebased and some implementations of realtime manage that. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ah, the olde "kill thing, find key, kill big thingie, you win" strategy ... they don't make them like that, anymore!

Greg Costikyan has designed more than 30 commercially published games in various genres and platforms. He has written about the game industry for publications including the New York Times, Salon, and Game Developer magazine. At present, he works for Nokia Research Center's Multimedia Technologies lab as a games researcher. ... But Sales are Up! Yes, they are; the games industry is the fastest-growing entertainment industry on the globe and unit sales increase year by year. There was a time that a million-seller was considered extraordinary, and now there are several every year. And if you believe, say, Michael Pachter at Wedbush Morgan, we can anticipate soaring growth for decades to come; surely all is for the best, in this best of all possible worlds? Why is it that sales are up? The answer is very simple: Demography. Fifteen years ago, almost nobody over 20 (and almost nobody not male) played games. These days, almost nobody over 35 plays games. In other words, a much larger percentage of the population as a whole plays games. Not because more people have become gamers, exactly - rather, because people's leisure time activities tend to be set in their teenage years, and they pursue the same activities as they get older. Thirty-five year-olds play games because they've been playing them since they were teens. Fifteen years from now, 50 will be the cut-off - and 30 years from now, the demographics of game players will match the demographics of the population as a whole. (And, by the way, we won't have idiot senators attacking games any more - everyone, regardless of age, will know how dumb that is.) So the growth in game sales is driven by two factors: The growing portion of the population that was exposed to games when young - and, of course, the growth of the population. But what we're talking about, when you get down to it, is growth on the order of 7-10% annually. Compare that to Moore's Law: 100% growth in processing power over 18 months.In other words, the growth in processing power, which drives the cost of game development, is enormously faster than the growth in the population of gamers - and while technically both are exponential curves (at least until the global population levels off), the disparity is so great that you can treat the growth in sales as a linear curve, and the growth in cost as an exponential one. And what's the upshot of that? The result is that the average game (not the industry as a whole) loses more and more money. The publishers make up the losses on the few games that hit. In other words: There is no room in this industry for niche product. There is no room for creativity or quirky vision. It's hit big, or don't try. Implications for Publishers The field becomes more and more hit-driven. There is no mid-list. You only want home runs. And those home runs have to cover the losses on everything else. ... part 1 part 2 Ultimas.

Also read The Escapist Magazine, Greg Costykian and part 2 for more editorial. I am completely happy with paying for a game and then paying more for extended content, as I cannot see another way out of the current mess of marketing-controlled gameplay-independant games being produced based on the requirements of people who never have nor ever will play a game.

Have you tried actually writing to someone like Mike Gallo? A written correspondence usually gets more recognition than a random email that's sent to a random Lucasarts email account. In any case, even if your theory is correct, I doubt you're going to get a response from a higher up at Lucasarts saying "yeah, actually, we are trying to sabotage Obsidian. But pinky swear you won't repeat this, okay?". <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Everyone knows that pinkie swearing doesn't work over the internets.

So ... you're mother is a bionic cyber-mother?

Hi, apologies for the delay in transmission. I think the rules are pretty clear on the particular matter, but I will agree that it is non-trivial interpreting them. I have adopted the practice of asking the players to check my adjudications when I post them. This is a no-blame process, whereby the posted moves are auditable and available for everyone to see. It is just a matter of checking the interpretation. Archie, try not to get too hung up on the adjudication process, because none of us has played Diplomacy for long; we're all learning this together. I had an interesting problem which didn't eventuate in a previous move in OBS-2 (fortunately there was an additional support order which obviated the difficult question); I shall try to dig it up and post it to see what everyone thinks (over in OBS-2, after I adjudicate the latest moves).

Hi guys. Aplogies for the delay: normal services will be resumed shortly. (Insert unnecessary adjectival clause regarding circumstances beyond my control as and wherever necessary.)