jmarke jmarke

An "old fart" gamer says...."thanks"

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An "old fart" gamer says...."thanks"

from Elemental Forums

Yep...old dude here.  47 is ancient in the computer gaming world!  I simply broke my normal lurking silence to say "thanks" to Frogboy and the Stardock team for Elemental.  Yes, I've had a few crash to desktops, but each patch cuts down on 'em.  What I'm thankful for is the FUN I've had...It's been a long, long time since any company has had the guts to release a turn-based strategy game.  They are not the most popular thing out there these days!  However, a long and fun strategy game that can take hours is blissful heaven for some of us.  Elemental fits the bill...and judging from Stardocks track record, it will do nothing but get better over time.

 

By the way, I purchased this at the local Wal-mart...they only had 2 copies and both were in the stockroom!  They hadn't even bothered to put it out by Thursday of last week.  PC gaming is a dying art, I'm afraid.

 

Thanks again,

 

"Old fart" jmarke

elemental
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Reply #51 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting gunnergoz, reply 36
Actually, the first Avalon Hill game I bought was the boardgame Nieuchess around 1961, followed by Tactics II right afterwards.  Both games started a fire that has yet to go out...I bought many, many board games but the problem was always finding the time and buddy to play with.  Then later there were the monster board games that were fun to buy and lay out but the cats or dogs in the house invariably ended those experiments.  PC TBS games proved to be just what I was looking for but their heyday seems to have passed except for Elemental and Civ and a few others from Matrix.
End of gunnergoz's quote

 

Played War in the East AND War in Europe right through.  We even set up Campaign for North Africa the SPI game that needed spreadsheets to have any hope of getting anywhere and played a few turns.  It ended badly when the Logistics commander ran out of ammo for the Italians - they surrendered quickly - so at least that part was historical.

Reply #52 from Elemental Forums Top

(with a remote -- the 4 button ones with the 4 rods in them)
End of quote

Dear god I remember  these as well .. they were freaking huge and weighed a ton... On a side note they made great pretend Phasor's :D

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #53 from Elemental Forums Top

Lots of cane waving here!

Thanks for making me feel young again. =P

 

Kinda explains the number of posts that actually have punctuation...

Reply #54 from Stardock Forums Top

ZK Spectrum you say? I got three words for you: Lords of Midnight.

Ring a bell? Yes? Now that was an amazing bit of programming. 4000 areas (With 3D terrain view in 8 directions from each one for 32000 (nearly) unique views), several factions, over a hundred recruitable NPC's with armies - including some monsters, like Farflame the Dragonlord and so on.... all in 48k!

That is the first truly epic game I played, and a huge inspiration later. (This was before Elite). Doomdark's revenge was several times larger.... and still just 48k (!). Think about that... 32000 views, in a machine where you can only store 48000 Bytes. (A byte is enough to store one ascii letter, or a number up to 255.

Remakes are still being made... one of the better seems to be this one: http://www.frozenempire.net/remakes/lom/lom.htm

It was made by Mike Singleton, who is currently a 'bug hitman' over at Codemasters, I've been led to believe.

But yeah, I'm a youngster, almot, by these standards. (Just 39.).

There was a game... I don't remember its name, but it was a star trek game, in basic, on the C64. That was my first modding project.... good times. :)

 

Reply #55 from Elemental Forums Top

Heck, I remember standing in line to play Space Invaders!  People were blown away at arcades by these "new fangled" video games... I even stood in line to play Pong at a local Mack's store while in Middle School... Then, a few years later I'm hooked on Wizards of Wor and Gauntlet.  I hate to even think about how much of my meager cash-flow was dropped into coin slots!

Reply #56 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting jmarke, reply 55
Heck, I remember standing in line to play Space Invaders!  People were blown away at arcades by these "new fangled" video games... I even stood in line to play Pong at a local Mack's store while in Middle School... Then, a few years later I'm hooked on Wizards of Wor and Gauntlet.  I hate to even think about how much of my meager cash-flow was dropped into coin slots!
End of jmarke's quote

heh, I remeber the table top arcade games, I think it was asteroids where you sat across from each other...

Reply #57 from Elemental Forums Top

52 here... grown up with boardgames (Avalon Hill etc), still playing them. 

 

Thanks to Stardock for this new TBS. Played GalCiv I&II for years and I think Elemental might share its longevity. Stardock games more often zhan not live longer than the computers they are played on...  :grin:

Reply #58 from Elemental Forums Top

Hmmm....*note for future Sovereign accessories*  Cane, Walker, Geritol, chain-mail Depends undergarments

Reply #59 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Sathar, reply 11
The Internet used to be green and black TEXT, none of this fancy-schmancy streaming media.  No Instant anything.  We had to upload at 150 bits per second in the video snow every day.  Both ways!
End of Sathar's quote

ok, just spewed my orange juice... thanks for the laugh! :)

Reply #60 from Elemental Forums Top

39 here.  In a few decades I should be just about ready for my midlife crisis. :hot:

Anyway, am I the only one who thinks that the gaming hobby has become increasingly cynical over the last decade?  It boggles my mind the number of actually very good games that are brutally ripped to shreds by the gaming press and "fans".  It's as though a game can only be "Awesome!" or "Utter crap!" and nothing in between.

Reply #61 from Elemental Forums Top

I don't think it was clearly stated here, but the Commodore VIC 20 was the machine that used tape before the C64. C64 COULD use it, but most everyone used the 1541 drive on the 64. I still own my 64 with the 1702 monitor and the 1541 drive. (all in original boxes too.....**cuts another notch in the geek pole**)

 

Anybody recall the Coleco Adam?

 

Talk about nightmares.....

Reply #62 from Elemental Forums Top

44 here....and someone earlier mentioned nursing homes...

I can't wait!!!  3 hots and a cot...and nothing to do but play TBS games on my PC allllll day!!!!  :thumbsup:

Reply #63 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm 28 and and I still remember growing up with the classic PC games. My friend James had a very expanive computer while we were growing up. I remember he had a sleep over and we all started to play Contra trying to beat it for nintendo (very fun game).

Anyway while wiating for my turn I wandered over to his computer (his Dad's actually) and fired it up (after asking if it was okay). I remember playing mech warrior, Master of Magic, Pools of Radiance and later on, in high school Daggerfall. I have never looked back since. This game, Elemental makes me think about the days of old. I'm a mixed gamer though. I'm not sure why people only stick to one console? Income maybe?

Either way I enjoy almost all types of games (expect cell phone and social network games haven't tried those yet) One of my favorite board games is Descent from fantasy flight games. I just beat Mafia and played through Dragon Age for the 3rd time. I Play games all over the place and in the end I think I win because I do.

Reply #64 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting searro, reply 18
Ok next thread : what is your age,so we know a bit more about this turn based fantasy game market

Mine 36.
End of searro's quote

 

33 here.

Reply #65 from Elemental Forums Top

Glad to see that there is at least one guy here older than me.

I'm 59 and I'm happy to say tell all you youngsters that those gaming desires just never go away. I also started playing games with AH and others. My favorite game was War in the Pacific, a game that had two 5'x5' maps and perhaps 2500 various counters for ships, air units and land units. Incrediable game. I still have a 60's copy of Blitzkrieg up in my attic.

My first computer was a 1970 Apple ][ (or Integer Apple as they were called because they couldn't do floating point math). The serial number was 245. Unfortunately I sold it 20 years ago to a friend of mine that now has it as the heart of his 'computer' collection. I still have my old original 'Wizardry' box though, although the disk is missing.

Anyway, I too offer a word of 'Thanks' to Stardock for Elemental.

Reply #66 from Elemental Forums Top

Ok so now, 30+ was wrong, i will go for 40ish :p

A bunch of grandpas here ! :thumbsup:

 

I just want to say thanks Brad and SD team to enternain the old gamers ! :jafo:

Reply #67 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm 45, and my first exposure to computers at all was with my Dad, who repaired IBM mainframes.  All the programs were put onto punchcards, and we fed them through one at a time to run diagnostics.  It was a big deal when we moved to 9 in tapes (similiar to reel to reel tapes).  A 10 MB hardrive was a metal platter bigger than ourfamilies Thanksgiving turkey platter.

When I was in the Navy, in the early 80's we had a guy in the barracks with a C64, and we'd sit there all weekend, drinking beers and typing in numbers from magazine listings to create games.

When I got out of the service my first personal PC was an Amstrad 8088, available exclusively through Sears, and I used GEnie and Compuserve for my online interactions. My first real video game was Infocomm's text based game Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe and Leather Goddess of Phobos.  I was also big into Carmen San Diego games and Roger Wilco games.  Oh, and Zork... I loved Zork.

Now I work as a software developer, specializing in C# and .NET although throughout my years of programming I have used ASM, Clipper, Force, C, C++, Java, Pascal, Delphi.

Reply #69 from Elemental Forums Top

I remember playing War at Sea, which I believe was a predecessor to War in the Pacific and much easier to play (it had only sea units). 

I very much remember Wizardry.   I spent many summer days off of school where I would get up, play Wizardry, go to bed.   I've still got virtually all the spells burned in my brain:   Halito, Katino, Mahalito, Lahalito, Tiltowait, Malikto, Matu, Di, Madi, Kadalto....  Loved Proving Grounds, killed Werdna.  Knight of Diamonds was okay.  Legacy of Llylgamyn I like a little better.  Never did finish Return of Werdna.   Never started Bane of the Cosmic Forge.

Reply #70 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting tetleytea, reply 69
I remember playing War at Sea, which I believe was a predecessor to War in the Pacific and much easier to play (it had only sea units).
End of tetleytea's quote

I played Victory in the Pacific which was published a couple of years after War at Sea.  One summer my best friend and I played that game every chance we could.  Of course over time we added more counters representing different ships we wanted in the game.  Still nothing like the beast that was War in the Pacific.  I never played it myself but from the stories and what I've seen about it, it truly was an epic game.

So do any of you board gamers get into any of the Fantasy Flight games?

Reply #71 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting tetleytea, reply 10
Early 80's were 5 1/4" floppy disks.   3.5"s were out by 1984 when the Mac came out.
End of tetleytea's quote

Hehe, just because they were out doesn't mean we got to use them.  I did my first computing on a TRS-80 in high school with a regular tape cassette.  I was sooo amazed when the school got it's first floppy drive and I didn't have to press the "play and record" buttons when I wanted to save my data any longer.  It was MANY years after that before I saw my first 3.5 inch floppy.

Ahh, the bad old days :grin:

 

 

Reply #72 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Wizaerd, reply 67
When I was in the Navy, in the early 80's we had a guy in the barracks with a C64, and we'd sit there all weekend, drinking beers and typing in numbers from magazine listings to create games.
End of Wizaerd's quote

I can't even begin to guess how many hours I spent doing that.  There were actually a lot of really cool games listed in the back pages of COMPUTE!'s Gazette.  For that matter, SpeedScript 128 got me through college!  It still boggles my mind that I was writing college level term papers on a word processor that I typed in from the back pages of a magazine.

Reply #73 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Gravedancer, reply 70



Quoting tetleytea,
reply 69
I remember playing War at Sea, which I believe was a predecessor to War in the Pacific and much easier to play (it had only sea units).


I played Victory in the Pacific which was published a couple of years after War at Sea.  One summer my best friend and I played that game every chance we could.  Of course over time we added more counters representing different ships we wanted in the game.  Still nothing like the beast that was War in the Pacific.  I never played it myself but from the stories and what I've seen about it, it truly was an epic game.

So do any of you board gamers get into any of the Fantasy Flight games?
End of Gravedancer's quote

 

Yeah just bought Arkham horror and had talisman already.

Reply #74 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting gunnergoz, reply 27
At 62, I have socks and underwear older than most of you tykes...  Started with Avalon Hill board games in the 1960's and bought my first computer in '84 (a Mac) and PC in '88.  TBS games were abundant then.  The good old days.  Crude graphics, but lots of new ideas and energy.
End of gunnergoz's quote

 

Well gunner, you beat me by one year. Only 61 here. Guys were being escorted off of high school grounds for sporting Beatle hair cuts. Thats right, come to school with a Beatle cut and you were sent home--so if you guessed mid 60's you got it. Watched the original Star Trek when i was in high school--Wild Wild West came on before ST . My family had an original Pong tv game, my father hated it and thought video games useless and would go no where. Ran a lot of old DOS games and had to write special boot routines to get them to run.

Have fun  young ones.