b0rsuk

I agree - money is not merit, it is a rough approximation of merit. It has many flaws, but I can't think of a beter system, unfortunately. -- There are two points that are rarely mentioned, but they're fundamental and worth mentioning. - people like to share with each other. They are taught from childhood that you should help each other, even if it's minor thing. Everyone ends up better this way. People also like to share experiences (going to a party together, eating

[quote who="Martok" reply="10" id="2179110"]Heh. Loved it when Brad's daughter walked in. Also, I believe Brad has now dubbed a new term: "Mordor-y". Hee! [/quote] That's what I thought when I saw the screens from Elemental. And when I showed them to my brother, he said he liked it because 'it looked like Ultima III'.

[quote who="Zaisha" reply="13" id="2177516"] And that reasoning would work fine for essentials like food and medicine etc. Computer games, however, are a luxury item. You don't need computer games. So if you can't afford them, you don't get them, simple as that. [/quote] [b]Why does it bother you that someone can get something for free without doing any harm to anyone or their property ?[/b] (remember, we're talking about people who can't afford games anyway). A lot of pe

[quote who="amitsaran" reply="1" id="2174779"]You can use both but I like Firefox more than IE 8 because there are [b]still[/b] more customization options in firefox.[/quote] (emphasis mine) I don't see this changing anytime soon. If anything, the gap is only going to widen. Firefox is free and open source and well documented. It's past critical mass, there are more people working on it. Internet Explorer is used by people who don't care or have no choice (e.g. i

Can anyone explain what's so good about podcasts ? It's like information, but slower, without ability to search, quote, and skip to interesting parts. It's like trying spread information with Flash. I have seen single isolated cases of Flash being useful.

Some people don't realize the extent of economic difference between US and some other countries. Let's consider Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity Graph: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/PPP2003.svg There's a strong correlation between piracy and wealth

[quote who="Ellestar" reply="19" id="2173172"] Isn't "evil" army more likely to plunder and rape than "good" army? And "evil" commanders are more likely to overlook it. [/quote] This is going to be low: how about American soldiers in Iraq ? The treatment of prisoners etc ? American soldiers were supposedly the good guys. It's certainly possible for a 'good leader' like G.W. Bush to not be able to keep army disciplined. Would things be different if there was harsh punishment

[quote who="Mandelik" reply="3" id="2113334"] We are talking about a computer game, not a board game. There shouldn't be any reason for the player to calculate how many moves he have. Just have an option (pressing a key) to light all squares where the selected unit can still go during its turn, taking also into account that he will walk on roads or swamps or forest, whatever. Would also be cool to have the option to draw from you unit to the destination you want and see the com

My main concern is that any kind of cutscene-like Triumph will get old fast. It's a cinematic you watch once and then proceed to skip it all the time. But from thematic point of view, it's ok. I liked MoM animations for researching a new spell etc. They were short enough that you'd like to see them once in a while.

[quote who="mickeko" reply="22" id="2162428"] Most viruses spread because of careless users. Once those careless users start to migrate to Linux, you can be darn sure viruses will also pop up along with them. Antivirus doesn't primarily stop viruses from infesting the OS, it prevents users from infesting their own computers.[/quote] Aren't you confusing viruses with trojans ? It is true that no good design or good code will make users safe from social engineering (only being smar

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="1" id="2151073"]Elemental: War of Magic at $5... Give me 10!!! *cough**cough* Sorry.[/quote] If Elemental was indeed $5, I wouldn't just buy it, I woud [i]preorder[/i] it, even risking that it won't run in wine. I would easily be able to sell it to somebody if I couldn't manage to run it on Linux.

I think not having a morale system detracts from the game. There are already enough fantasy/medieval games where units work like robots, react instantly to your orders etc. Why not spice up gameplay ? Even a limited approach like in Fantasy General would be interesting. If a unit is getting hit repeatedly, it becomes disordered for a while (or until you give 'rest') order, losing some combat stats temporarily. If a unit is being hit hard, it may become broken, severely lowering combat stats w

Ynglaur: You shouldn't praise Dominions3 in spell variety department, because it all boils down to who can throw biggest mass damage spell ! In multiplayer, it's not uncommon for some nation to not recruit any single mundane unit. They just use pretender, mages and summons. Dominions is what I had in mind when I said there are games where direct damage dominates and makes other types of magic obsolete. Why enchant your units if a mass damage spell will wipe everything out anyway ?

[quote who="Tamren" reply="17" id="2164093"]I dimly recall reading somewhere that hippos kill more people each year than lions, elephants, tigers etc combined. Hippo cavalry, imagine that....[/quote] That's true. A hippo can run 40 km/h on land. Hippos are very agressive, attack humans, boats and crocodiles. A male weights 1500-1800 kg on average, but can be as much as 4000 kg (4t).

Hi Responding to another thread got me thinking about variety of spelsl in Elemental. In most fantasy games, there's not that much variety in spells because a lot of them simply boil down to dealing X damage. Elemental is going to be a traditional 4X game so I have no reason it will handle things differently. I'm trying to get a response from developers. In Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Water has Cold Ray and Cold Ring, air Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning, earth Meteor Swarm

Point taken on the tactics I posted being not very research-like. I got a bit carried away :-). I'd like to point out that in many games you get those boring "+5% damage" upgrades in disguise. Spell X deals 20 damage per point of spell power. Spell Y looks and sounds totally different and deals 25 per point, and is otherwise identical. Having this kind of linear progression is often boring. MOM kept things more interesting, but in general offensive spells still made variety suffer. On

"Fierce mount fights after his master's death" is a solution that can work, but it's a bit cliched. Being able to issue a specific 'dismount' order is dependent on how abstract Elemental wants to be. On lower levels of abstraction, you can have a lot of specific orders (and micromanagement) and 'dismount' fits fine. On higher level of abstraction, there may be no specific order but the rules could still show a difference between heavy cavalry and dragoons. In that case dragoons could

[quote who="mickeko" reply="15" id="2162209"] We use windows, we need AV software. [b]Claiming an OS is antivirus software is silly[/b], as is claiming vista to be more secure than any linux distro. [/quote] (emphasis mine) No, it's not silly, it's called being educated. A good OS doesn't need an antivirus. Linux doesn't have viruses thanks to a couple of factors. 1. It's engineered better. Unix started as network operating system, rather than being str

[quote who="Alfonse" reply="24" id="2161264"] If they take time to make single player worth playing and add a feature to pause the game to issue commands during skirmish maps, I'll get it. Has it occurred to the people making similar comments to this one that maybe RTS games just aren't for you? RTS's are about time pressure. They're about you making decisions quickly that will affect the outcome of the game. Speed matters; if it doesn't, it's just a TBS game, regar

First computer game ? I can't remember, it was sooo long ago ! And it was my brother's computer. It was some kind of silly obscure platformer on Atari 65 XE. I played many 8bit games, including classics like Spy vs Spy (1,2,3), Spindizzy (Marble Madness clone), Colony, Archon (1,2), Ultima III Exodus (original, including box, cloth map and manuals - would you believe it, in 90' Poland ?), M.U.L.E., Gauntlet ... On first PC (it was 486 SX 33 MHz, 4 MB RAM, 170 MB HDD- the strongest CPU

[b]UPDATE[/b] [quote] STOCKHOLM -- A defense lawyer in the Pirate Bay file-sharing case said Thursday he will demand a retrial after [b]the judge admitted he was a member of copyright-protection organizations.[/b] (...) Judge Norstrom acknowledged to Swedish Radio that he was a member of The Swedish Association for Copyright, as well as a board member of the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property. He also said he has worked alongside Moni

[quote who="Psiborg" reply="21" id="2159375"]Personally, I really don't care about multiplayer for TBS. Multiplayer is very good and fun but I'll stick to genres that are more suited to it: FPS and RTS. As usual, just my $0.02. [/quote] Heresy. TBS games with simultaneous turns (NOT like in Aow:SM) have all the advantages of SP turn-based games, including ability to take your time planning moves. And they don't suffer from typical d

[quote who="Charvel1" reply="19" id="2158069"] This argument is so full of logic holes, assumptions, and faulty reasoning it's 'entertaining'.[/quote] Oh come on, don't be shy. Saying it's full of this and that doesn't make it so. Show us your master reasoning skills, we could learn from you. pedal2000: [quote]What sort of implication does this have?[/quote] That great majority of people don't understand technology enough to avoid bad analogies.

How about Dragoons ? Not strictly a type of cavalry. Actually infantry that used horses for deployment and fought on foot, and had infantry ranks. They were especially popular in XVII, XVIII centuries (they used firearms - but pre-gunpowder Elemental dragoons could use crossbows) in Europe, used for quick reaction, cracking down on smugglers, brigands, civil unrest etc. They were cheaper to recruit than cavalry, but were at a disadvantage against true cavalry when fighting on horseback.

I think I know what you mean. It's always more fun when your units, heroes etc gain new spells, abilities and options rather than damage modifiers. Examples: Archers: flaming arrows. Allows to set enemy ships or cities on fire from afar. Cavalry: 1:During a siege, throw heads of killed enemies over walls to lower enemy morale. 2: Breakneck ride - increases mobility but kills horses with exhaustion. 3: dismount (!!) to gain tactical advantages of infantry. In Poland, dragoon fo