ls35a

Here is what is happening: The little bookstores are all closed and it's all Barnes and Noble. And Amazon. The little hi-fi stores are all closed and it's all BEST BUY and COSTCO. Littles games are gone and it's all 'World of Warcraft', 'Civilization' and 'Battlefield'. And Steam - the online equivalent of 'Amazon'. The big stuff gets bigger and the little stuff is gone. It's sad and I don't like it, but that's the future.&

It says 'on the scale of a massively multiplayer game'. Does that mean it IS a massively multiplayer game? Also...RTS Empire builder? I like turn-based, but will keep an open mind. The clutter on each screen is a concern. SO MANY little buttons and doo-dads. It's like a scene from a Star Wars prequel - 'lets put as much stuff on the screen as possible'. I'm 55 and even with reading glasses that will be hard to see. Adjustable font

What a great interview. And he used the magic word, 'X-Com', so that makes me VERY interested in this game (yes, I'm easy). I was also very encouraged by the comments about GALCIV2 and how this will be more accessible. I'm a big Stardock fan, but frankly I did not care for GALCIV2 that much. And it's not because I'm an RTS guy and never played a 4x before. Actually I'm a big 4X guy, and love CIV4, etc. I just found GALCIV2 so

[quote who="CraigHB" reply="5" id="2551026"]Interesting read, some comments; How do publishers really know how many illegit copies of a game were actually downloaded and used. Even if they could obtain a reasonable estimate, how can they have any idea of how many downloads actually resulted in lost sales. All of it is pure speculation. I think piracy is a paranoid obsession for the guys is suits managing the bills.

Great idea. I've always wanted a game mechanic where the AI would surrender where it's smart to do so. Nothing makes you feel like you're just running a program than having to hunt down the last enemy soldier.

Agreed. No more Ubisoft games for me. Period.

Thanks for the info. I really like the art design of this game and am looking forward to 'seeing it in action'. Maybe they'll post some videos when it's closer to release-time.

Now if we could just get a Falcon 5.0 I'd be set for the rest of my life for PC gaming......

Elemental has been on my radar for awhile, but I don't know much about it. It's a stylish fantasy turn-based game from Stardock, which seems like pretty good credentials right there. What is this 'cloth map' I hear talk about? I gather that is a graphics option with fewer textures for low-end PC's? Or am I just wrong about that? The screenies I've seen here....are those 'cloth map' or are those the 'full throttle, hi-end PC' versions?

If 2K does some 'steam' or 'Ubisoft' style DRM it would be pretty easy for me to decide which to buy.

Game screens should tell you things. And when you do something the game screen should show you (feedback) what you've just done. Sure, sometimes it's easy....you tell a character to move and you see him move. But when it comes to strategy games there is a lot more information than 'where is my guy'. Unfortunately some games (I'm looking at YOU, GALCIVII) aren't so good at this. One problem is the 'let's clutter up the screen with doo-dads and bobs