VicenteCartas

One thing to take into account about city spamming, is that right now you can't use Essence for anything else than city spamming. As soon as Essence can be used for something else, we will see less cities in general. About governors, I like the idea of them, but as an idea, not as a second mechanic to avoid city spamming because the first mechanic we thought doesn't work... (and again, hard to know if it works until we get more uses for Essence).

Would be nice if we could see the autoresolved battles if we want (to see what happened exactly there, how are units armed,...).

[quote who="lazear" reply="68" id="2544864"] Quoting VicenteC, reply 66 About the consoles doomed joke, consoles produce much more money than PCs in game sales, and it doesn't seem things are going to change any time soon... Pardon me, but have you heard of OnLive? There is a good chance that the service (and eventually others like it) could grab a pretty huge chunk of the console market share. If the service really works, I do indeed see things changing, very soon.

[quote who="Aractain" reply="63" id="2544278"]Yeah PCs do FPS and third person action better than consoles. Sorry.[/quote] Probably one of the best shooters ever done is Goldeneye 007, and it was on N64. About the consoles doomed joke, consoles produce much more money than PCs in game sales, and it doesn't seem things are going to change any time soon...

Well, I know I'm going to buy both of them (I bought Elemental already ages ago :p), but I can see them competing in some market segment, and also for the "recognition" as best TBS game of 2010 and some of those consumer awards.

Civilization 5 has just been announced, the screenshots look pretty nice. It seems 2010 is going to be a really interesting year for TBS gamers :D More info on Gamasutra too: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27292/Firaxis_Announces_FullScale_Civilization_V_For_PC.php

The correct name is Windows Phone 7 Series, not Windows Mobile 7 ;) And it looks really interesting, let's hope we get more info soon...

Units with different numbers of figures (and that been important in combat calculations). Small pool of heroes, but each one was charismatic and with its own set of abilities. Wizard creation (books and abilities picks). Magic schools and how they had really lots of non-direct damage spells. Races and their units, each one with a different feeling.

Please don't make new words just for the shake of it. Tolkien was an exceptional person, not everyone can pull that. XKCD joke is really good about this one: http://xkcd.com/483/

[quote who="-RAISTLIN-" reply="35" id="2527344"] well, I would argue that this is a difference between casual and hardcore gamers, rather than gender. Women may constitute a larger % of casual gamers, but in the days of PSPs DSs & Wiis I would hardly call them a maligned section of the gaming consumer base.[/quote] And why you think women are a larger % of casual gamers? Maybe because most games that are done aren't appealing to them? Sex and age are a big deal when crea

[quote who="-RAISTLIN-" reply="29" id="2526749"] You’re just proving my point…Women gamers are no different to men; they enjoy games based on personal preference, not some weird biological determinism. First you would have to identify the fundamental differences between the gaming sexes before you argue that developers should pay attention or treat gamers as two distinct groups based on gender.[/quote] Just check many of the Wii and DS slides from Nintendo last confe

Try Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 after Dragon Age ;)

[quote who="Nesrie" reply="15" id="2526007"] As for expensive to develop. Last I heard Stardock games didn't require a 200 million dollar advertising budget. There are some indie developers who seem to be doing very well and who knows, maybe in the future they'll shift to more mainstream stuff, hopefully not loosing the creativity in their wake. Heck most the games I play aren't considered "mainstream" whichi is not entirely surprising since the mainstream typically could care less if wo

[quote who="-RAISTLIN-" reply="8" id="2525818"]if its such a good time to be a PC gamer, why are we being subjected to cross-platform titles that reek of consolitis?[/quote] Because games have become too expensive to develop, so if you can launch it in another platform with minimal cost (compared to the cost of developing the game), you'll probably do it. But I can't understand the console hate, there are great games in both platforms in all the genres. I was remembering the F

I think MS tried this idea with CardSpace and it hasn't earned any traction at all...

[quote who="Splitshadow" reply="39" id="2524750"]Linux is no threat to anyone, it is deplorably difficult for users who have no experience with it. You need a little user-friendliness, but it's important that you don't sacrifice capability for it (COUGH, COUGH MAC)[/quote] Agreed, they always say: this year is the year of the Linux desktop, and it just doesn't happen. Linux has lots of problems on its own that stop it from gaining more market share, appart that MS does a lot of good t

Yes they have, at least XBLA: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/marketplace/dealoftheweek/

Brad, have you tried W7 with a TabletPC, because honestly, Windows XP Tablet Edition wasn't really polished... I have had nearly zero problems with handwritting recognition in W7 so far.

[quote who="Leauki" reply="55" id="2520774"] And the smartphone market was already owned by cheaper and/or with more functionality phones and PDAs with phone functionality. Just like the MP3 player market was already owned by all those MP3 player companies. Apple are particularly good at redefining and taking over existing markets, especially those that already have a clear pecking order. [/quote] In the case of phones, they haven't taken over anything.

[quote who="Leauki" reply="46" id="2520604"] I think Frogboy is right: http://frogboy.joeuser.com/article/374565/The_iPad_Who_names_these_things One, I currently use my iPhone to browse the net in the evening and its tiny screen is a bit of a bummer at times. I have my beloved ThinkPad T400 but it is a bit too heavy to just have sitting on my lap to surf the net and its form factor doesn’t lend itself to reading. Two, I use my iPhone for watching mo

Why not instead of shards giving mana (discarded) or spells needing X shards to be able to cast them, shards work as magic amplifiers? The more shards you control, the better your spells work (or they gain extra effects or whatever).

No multitasking, no "normal" apps, limited storage (and no usb and no card reader), limited specs,... It fails as a PC because technical limitations, it fails as a ebook reader because no e-ink, it fails as a serious media device because limited storage, it fails as a portable device because of the size,... Honestly, I don't see clearly where this product is aimed. If this succeeds, it will because of Apple great marketing machine, but the iPad failed to deliver in all fronts.

[quote who="Moussu" reply="25" id="2514590"]Yes you're right. Before optimizing you have to measure and figure out what to optimize. My point about giving a size is when knowing how many items will be inserted (forgot to specify it, my bad), like after getting back some data from a database. So at that time you may initialize the dictionary with the size of the query result, before inserting items. It's simple, efficient and does not take 1 month to measure it or t

[quote who="Moussu" reply="16" id="2512685"]Thanks... Thanks... Thanks.... I'm working in software development in industrial environment (C#) and you may not believe how many "young" developers forgot this important point: performance! They could talk for hours about last Microsoft techs, but almost doesn't know , for example, that giving a size when initializing a dictionary divide the time to add elements in it by 2... [/quote] This is an example of what I

For the people having problems to learn the Office UI, Office Labs have released "Ribbon Hero", a game to learn how to use the Ribbon UI: http://lostgarden.com/2010/01/ribbon-hero-turns-learning-office-into.html Very interesting post for people who work on UI and usability :)