Nenjin

Yeah, I'm not making any claims as the quality or fun of the game itself....but man, the RAGE I felt when I saw what they expected you to do to get away from their default WASD configuration, or to remap the mouse, or the fact that there are like 4 different modes you need to remap ALL keys for....was instantaneous. Gamers often say that PC versions feel like an after thought....but in the case of DR2, it really seems true. The keymap files look like they were dumped straight from a compiler

AC2 is a great game, almost a masterpiece. But the DRM Ubi foisted on legitimate users totally deserved to bring down the game's overall score. You can't separate the game from the DRM when the DRM prevents legitimate users from playing. Ubi earned every lost point AC2 suffered for that decision.

I was absolutely appalled at the job they did porting this. Completely, utterly fucking appalled. Want to remap your keyboard keys? Prepare to open two text documents and decode the completely not-straight forward file formating. There's so much shit wrong with this game as a PC release, I didn't even have the patience to "preview" a copy, that's how poorly they did. I've heard it's fun, but this game is an example of the WORST parts of the console/PC porting debacle. I'm not paying f

Just popping in to say... This game will be nothing like Dungeon Keeper. I've already talked quite a bit with the devs and it's doing its own thing. It's much closer to a Dungeon Tycoon game. Me, I could care less either way. I'm just happy someone is making another go of a dungeon building/dungeon designing game, because there are NOT enough of those on the market, nor has there ever been. Anyways, yeah, quit thinking of this as a DKII clone, because it's not going to

Congrats on your new employment. I've never played FFH, but people speak so highly of it, I'm encouraged to see you'll be helping manage Elemental's many coming updates.

Eh. In Elemental's case, the popular opinion preceded the reviewers opinion. And Elemental was one game I immediately sunk 8 hours into because of things like needing to see the tech and adventure trees maxed out to appreciate everything....So while I know this will be an unpopular opinion, the reviews on Elemental were (generally) on point...even if some reviews went a little farther than just reviewing in the course of being negative.

[quote]I find it's a lack of "shit happens".[/quote] "Shit happens", it's just the annoying kind that makes you want to reload your save. Heroes dying in autobattles. Ugly, unmoddable children. Heroes you can't redesign visually. Occasionally the AI has gotten the drop on me, and taken a city, but that again becomes more of a "ah, reload it" situation because it's a problem you created through movement only 1 to 2 turns ago.

Probably, some time a while after 1.1, once the whole initiative-based tactical combat in SP is worked out. It may be a while though.

Elemental is not that far removed at all from Gal Civ 2's way of envisioning factions. It's just got an added split between Kingdom/Faction. So I guess I wasn't too surprised (though I was slightly disappointed.) Gal Civ 2 at least had the freedom to give you alien races, so you could have some varied flavor. Elemental has stuck itself with all humanoid races. That, plus the art aesthetic, the model variety and the AI. There are too few faction traits (and sovereign traits), and the c

Time counts and keeps countin', and we knows now finding the trick of what's been and lost ain't no easy ride. But that's our trek, we gotta' travel it. And there ain't nobody knows where it's gonna' lead. (I've never seen a Drota Citadel. Nor a Drota for that matter. : * ( )

Game reviewing is much like other media. They crave access. They crave dev interviews before release. They crave priority notice on what's going on. They crave early preview builds, exclusive interviews, and all that stuff. Sure, they can just report what is out there....but that's not what media perceives as a competitive edge. At best, gaming media tones down the criticism where a fan would call it like they see it. (And probably exaggerate a great deal.) At worst, g

Yeah, there was always something about this game that rubbed me wrong, and I LOVE city builders. It ran ok...but some of the mechanics were just shite. The aforementioned trading system basically tried to force you into MP by not giving you enough of the basic stuff, and the trade ratios were, shall we say, predatory? That and I remember some micro aspects of that just made me go "ugh, i do not want to **** with this in an advanced game." Don't get me wrong, some of it was bea

[quote]Also, I like playing Tarth, its a swamp thing, don't ask. I used to be able to create female soldiers, but now when I choose design, I only have the option for men. Was this one of those mysterious undocumented enhancements?[/quote] You have to click the little arrows at the top right of the stat card, on unit design screen. That will regenerate the sex and features of the model, giving you a female.

What a lovely semantic debate about....stuff that doesn't pertain to game. What makes prestige tripley broken is that it's an open-ended research tech. Want more prestige? Why, keep researching it. There's no concievable reason you'd want that capped, right?

These changes sound like they're going to bring the game much closer toward what people expected at release. Can't wait.

I've yet to hear someone say what makes the game good, or at least worth playing over the other two titles that it's clearly trying to compete with. So it was developed in consultation with SFs. That's like, the only selling point I've heard or seen, and it's not even described what that does for the game. Now where's that pic of MW2, BC2 and MoH side by side.....

There's one key thing Elemental does that kind of throws a monkey wrench in everyone's perception and approach to the game. And that's research. Research basically says, on all fronts "whatever limitations are inherent in the system can be completely broken with enough research." That's why in current game, someone who maximizes food research never worries about food. They just forewent all the other goodies for the time being. But they had enough food to expand rapidl

Whatever happens with the mechanics, I"m hoping the AI appreciates them the way players do. For example, if the AI doesn't care that outposts cost one food, they're going to build outposts to claim resources just as they are now, to their own detriment. I have no problem dialing back my force multiplication because the AI can't deal. I don't expect the AI to play at that level, and self-imposed challenges can often be fun. But when the AI's only discernible strategy is gather

This would probably also be my biggest turn off. There's this really nice period of exploration at the start of the game, but it immediately ends once you find the first AI, because it instantly becomes a land grab from there on out. By the time the land grab is over, you've probably killed one AI and seriously hurt another one. Then the rest of the game is just killing the AI at your leisure...but by then the exploration has kind of lost its zing because you've got so much other crap going o

I don't like the free unit idea. Kids inherit some of their parents traits, which means finding a good spouse is supposed to be important. There just needs to be a way to access a lot of heroes at once rather than being forced to deal with the ones wandering around. Like a tavern that has one random, rotating NPC every few turns. Wait for the right match, hire them, boom.

[quote]Sovereigns have painfully low hitpoints, they are glass cannons. It's like early European combat, you just agree not to attack the other guys leaders out of respect for nobility. However in my mind the AI Sovereigns should never venture out to be attacked, should run from any threat and so on.. or have 3 times the hitpoint potentials. Or have spell resistance or something.. I can't list how many times I've wiped out a kingdom by virtue of popping their Sovereign on a cheap shot..

So in my first game 1.09, large world, 5 normal AIs. By turn 175 I meet New Pariden first. Their cities are growing at a rate of _5_ per turn from prestige. Myself? 1. The next empire I meet? 1. This no doubt comes from royalty, and the fact that children who inherit royalty, plus a few champions, all stack. Right now Royalty is one of those traits that you basically can't live without, were the AI playing with a full deck of cards. In MP, Prestige would be the mandated

There is next to no control over graphic functions within the game. That makes it "ok" port in my book. A half of their tool tips are thrown in there too, some don't even report the correct button for the action they're describing. I see a lot of places this feels rushed, but by and large it performs pretty well. It's not a flawless port by any imagination though.

Been into DF for a year or so. Despite the UI and the fact you need a wiki to play the game to the fullest, I sort of use DF as a litmus test of how hardcore people are about RPGs, SIMs and stuff like that. Because it truly is a thing of beauty, and the graphic tile sets people have made for it make it playable by most anyone that has a willingness to explore mechanics instead of just having simple ones fed to you, and has an active imagination and a love of the game NARRATIVE as much

Are city tiles going the way of the dinosaurs then, or will it be a combination of city/tiles and specialist slots?