Philocthetes

Now I don't feel like quite such a fool...

[quote]It made me wonder if it'd not be better if series should have all less episodes (and therefore less filler, at least for some because for other series there are no fillers like in the X-Files) and focus more in the main storyline. [/quote] I watch some DVD extras and read a bit of stuff from showrunners like Joss Whedon online. What you're vexed by here seems to be a 'normal' thing for episodic TV series, at least for SF shows. The excecs are cross-pressured between kno

I never expect to see real budget numbers posted in public; that's business stuff. But I'd be intersted to know if a percentage of the music budget is aimed at designing a dynamic music scheme. No matter how good a fixed sound track is, familiarity will almost inevitably breed contempt, or at least disinterest...

For now, Stardock appear to be a pure Windows shop. Maybe Windows emulation on Macs will eventually be able to handle a game like Elemental, but the chatter I've seen so far makes it sound like there's no short-term hope on a Mac at all. But I don't follow Mac news closely and it's been a while since I last saw this question go by. Virtualization is getting stronger all the time, so maybe...

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="3" id="2512933"]We should make Germany (and Austrailia) illegal for overdoing the "citizen protection" thingy.[/quote] Does Australia also have some sort of ban on marketing Nazi memorabilia or exceptions to free speech rules that let cops shut down neo-Nazi marches and rallys? I've always tended to think of Aussies as rowdier than us U.S. folks, and we certainly have 'liberal' Jewish lawyers defending the free speech rights of neo-Nazis. Re the

[quote who="LEADER MkII" reply="32" id="2512863"]... Plus it's harder to plug in some love story or some 'girl talk' moments, or product placement when you're telling a tale that's happening in the far future, another world, or whatever.[/quote] Pish and tosh. All the modern Trek shows have plenty of 'girl talk' moments, including ones for the guys (Enterprise's Commander Tucker got freakin' pregnant !). SCC and Dollhouse are almost worth calling 'chick sci-fi' because the tou

Tastes definitely vary; the new BSG was one of my favorites in many, many years. Many things on xGhost's list don't count as sci-fi at all for me, e.g. Supernatural, True Blood, and Being Human. (Dislike Supernatural despite the pretty leads, love True Blood, haven't seen Being Human.) I finally let myself finish the Sara Connor Chronicles this week. It's really sad to see what happens to a good series when the showrunners need to wrap up because they got cancelled, not because they'v

Well, I know how to copy & paste embed tags from YouTube, but that doesn't seem to work on these boards via FireFox.

[quote]... I'm not a poweruser, so maybe I say a nonsense, but there seem to be several views in Word (print, reading, web, outline and draft), aren't those the ones you are referring to?[/quote] Nope, Normal view is gone. It was the default view for 11 versions of Word, but now the default is Print Layout. The new Draft view is almost as good as Normal was, but it's odd-feeling and I have to do so much twiddling of headers and footers these days that I hardly ever use it. [qu

[quote]kicks the code that suddenly wants to trade MANA between cities. Certain things can be hauled via wagon...tapped mysical energies aint one.[/quote] That really depends on the metaphysics for Elemental, and y'all are still being extremely terse on that subject. I played way too much MoM back when downloading game patches took hours on a 2400 baud modem, so I also tend to assume that a mana source is more like an oil well than it is like a coal mine. But I'm pretty sure t

If by "integrated patrols," you mean something more-or-less automatic, I don't want that. I'd like to be able to assign units to patrol either a specific roadway or a set of waypoints and I'd like to be able to build forts along isolated stretches of roadway. Having roadway security automated would remove a fun set of strategic decisions and possibly force a needless budget burden on players by making them pay for patrols on roads that are very unlikely to be attacked.

Maybe the 'secret' dev plan is to have plenty of interesting, non-humanoid units in the game but to make players gain them all through recruitment, allliances, quests, and whatnot rather than building them factory-style. At least until we got to something like some late-game, worldwrecking necromancy that could field massive undead armies...

[quote who="BoogieBac" reply="61" id="2511063"]... I find your sweet vs. savory take on the matter truly refreshing I shall steal it and call it my own.[/quote] Chocolate isn't just for sweets; I still kinda want a way to have a mole poblano experience in Elemental...

I'm pretty sure nytimes.com is not widely-admired by you JU folks, but they just posted a very thoughtful, moving piece about some NYFD & NYPD folks who worked the 9/11 site and are now down in Haiti. [quote]“At least in 9/11, you had a place to go to get away from the hole,” he said. “This is like 9/11 on the whole island of Manhattan. There’s nothing left. How are they going to c

Martha Wells: City of Bones Wheel of the Infinite The Element of Fire The Death of the Necromancer

I heard about it via the GC2 boards also, although I vaguely recall some folks sharing links to Brad typing somewhere like QuarterToThree and maybe an interview at some game magazine site. This project is the main reason I bought TGN tokens (RIP TotalGaming.net). I wanted to 'invest' long before pre-orders became available.

[quote]Reliable and respectable news stations have died, not science.[/quote] That's fancy-talk. The real critter in question is Trust. It ain't dead yet, but it sure could use some supernaturally skilled trauma surgeons.

[Stupid double-posting forum burps...]

[quote who="MatBerryman2" reply="25" id="2510000"]... Are there still plans for a 64 bit version?[/quote] See dev replies in this thread for some recent info on the 64-bit question. The short answer is, "Yes, but they might not work out."

I can't find the threads easily just now, but back a year or so ago (well before the dynasty system announcement), there was some talk about being able to assign heroes/champions to civilian duty as town administrators or perhaps to roles in a royal cabinet/council. I still think that inlcuding things like administrator and councilor roles for champions (and royal offpsring) would make for fun and interesting tradeoffs, especially when you found yourself with a particluarly well-round

[quote]I have a thread or two about something similar here (floating somewhere) [/quote] This thread made me almost immediately think of your Dude, where are my Women thread. I'm not holding my breath for rich social modeling in Elemental, but I still kinda hope the genre evolves enough to include stuff like that eventually. My real hope for some rocking-chair gaming in a few decades is that I'll be able to play 'TBS' titles that h

Very nice job of balancing ambition with caution in the OP wording. Two questions: 1) Will multiplayer include some sort of RPG-oriented, cooperative context where a 'player' acts as host/game-master with the ability to assume control of AI civs and add creatures/objects to a live game map? 2) What do the Fallen call themselves? (I'm thinking of distinctions like rebel vs. freedom fighter or the Forsaken vs. the Chosen in the Wheel of Time, with a perhaps mistaken expectation

[quote who="astrath" reply="1" id="2509155"]well there's this picture[/quote] A few months back, Scorpiana shared a screenshot find that looked to me like it might be possible to build and garrison something like Hardian's Wall.

[quote who="BoogieBac" reply="9" id="2508967"]... Just to implement a streamlined solution before making anything too complicated We're goign to let people play out the current implementation and see where we go from there, opposed to implementing an overly complex soultion that gets scaled back later on (it's harder to rip stuff out than you'd imagine).[/quote] I'm very pleased to see VT's tidy list of questions and your prompt, clear responses. This last bit is at least sort of enc

I'd just like to see Joss Whedon & crew get to do another show until they & that batch of fans were ready to call it finished. I'm more or less over the Stupid Cancellation of Firefly. Dollhouse is the fresher short-sighted exec decision that's left me feeling sorely show-teased. Besides, Whedon needs something solid to hold his attention or he might end up just making more Dr. Horrible sing-alongs for the next decade. W