Dewar

I've never tried it, but I am intrigued. Predicting future events based on current facts tends to start sliding away from science (you can't exactly run reproducable tests on such a large thing like climate change.) I like sci-fi, especially if they have some basic scientific grounding to stand on. My (half hearted) complaint is more about the simplification of science we already understand pretty well. What comes to mind for me at the moment (because I've been playing a lot) is Minecraft with the IC2 mod, which does a fair job of putting in a bunch of new machines including some chemistry equipment such as an Electrolyzer, but oversimplifies it all as a fire-and-forget process. At the same time, I realize that no one really wants to play a game where all that science is acurrately modeled (not even me really, I ended up in IT.

I played a bit of the single player last night. I don't expect the single player "story" to be that good as this seems to be a multiplayer focused game, but it felt like a very floaty and hard to control Terraria to me. Not giving up on it or anything, just stating my first impression of the controls.

I just wanted to point out that this is the sort of stuff I put up with every day as a scientist (if you call having a chemistry degree being a scientist at least.) When's the last time you saw a game accurately model science?

Ravenholm was very inconsistent with the rest of the game, and was the best part of the whole thing if you ask me. The feeling that I got out of HL2 that I haven't gotten out of any other game (well, maybe the original Halo) is a sense of wandering adventure, like you're traveling from one spot to another and you experience every step, instead of being randomly teleported to the start of each level. That being said, it didn't really do much for me either. I played it mabye a year after release when I bought it in a pack to get in on CS with a few friends.

I really really liked Star Control 3. I never played Star Control 2, so I went into it without any preconceptions, which probably helped. I also really used to like Stardock, though my opinion on them has soured a bit over the years. I'm hoping that combo turns to gold. Wargaming.net and Gaijin games are in a battle to make the best total war package out there. Having experienced both World of Tanks and Warthunder, they both have plusses and minuses, but neither company seems to have shown much promise in expanding beyond that sort of action MMO-ish type of game. It'll be interesting to see what they do with MOO and TA, but I hope they keep the eye on the ball and make the best Air/Land/Sea combat simulator they can.

I'm PST, and can generally do most days at 6pm PST or later. I know that makes it hard for east coasters though, so yeah, maybe weekend is best.

I've never played, but a couple of friends really like Eurotruck, if for no other reason than listening to European radio stations.

I like what you're thinking about technolgies. To start maybe have each country's techs vary like loot in Borderlands. Maybe civilization is under constant attack so they need to be able to build warriors fast, while another civilization is nomadic and needs warriors that have longer moves. Of course, at some point you're basically creating the ship builder from GalCiv in ancient times (Fallen Enchantress actually already does this.)

I went ahead and bit. I'll see if I can get my friends from my other forum top hop on board.

I'm interested, but the Indie Game Stand only lists Desura as a place to redeem the code. Are Steam codes coming soon? How much of a hassle is Desura?

Features 32 players realtime multiplayer Retro pixel graphics 2 teams 3 classes: builder, knight and archer Drivable catapults and battleships Bison taming Collapsible physics based on construction support Medieval sword duels Shark riding Building castles and traps Technology research and trading Dynamic 2D water and fire Wilhelm's scream Completely moddable via scripting Available on 3 platforms (Win,OSX,Linux) Full access to game's scripts and modding

This reminds me I need to go get my free copy of AC2 on XBL in the next few days.

Did you make sure to clear your old nodes? Do you have any fuel at all? I've noticed that burn estimates are sometimes off when you don't have the engines running at all. Maybe try and goose them a little bit to see if anything useful shows up? Edit: Worse comes to worse, watch some oribtal mechanics videos at http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/15652-Orbital-Mechanics-101-A-Kerbal-Space-Program-Tutorial and fly by the seat of your pants

That's kind of the definition of a game right? Regardless of context, any game you try to make is going to have set game rules, at least until we get an AI smart enough to make stuff up on the fly Table Top RPG style.

The Idle Thumbs Crusader Kings stream is a great way to see someone playing Crusader Kings badly, yet entertainingly, and you'll learn how to pull you butt out of the fire in a few crazy ways. I've had a lot of fun playing as the the Duke of Rostov on a few different starts. As long as you can nail down your power base before the Golden Horde shows up

Civ 5 is the first Civilization game where you can make a go of it having 4-5 really big awesome cities rather than spreading all over the globe. It is possible to get one of several victories this way (UN victory, Research victory, cultural victory.) If anything, the AI pushes imperialism as you typically have to defend your borders constantly if you run your country in this style. Edit: Wiped out all that other stuff, as it was pretty much rambling. Edit2: Is that original post basically saying we should never ever make history games?

Some friends started playing SS3 in 6 player co-op, so I bought it and downloaded it. By the time it finished downloading and I joined in, they were already in the second to last level. We beat it in about an hour, got a very unsatisfying ending (at least for someone who had never played a Serious Sam game before) and it's sat forlornly on my Steam list ever since.

Whoops, I missed the "in GTA4" part of that story.

Hmm, I ended up with: Dust: An Elysian Tale Dark Souls GTA 4 Complete (manly for the multi, I've already beaten it on xbox) Natural Selection x4 Monaco (gifted to me) Deus Ex: Human Revolution (gifted to me) Kinetic Void (buying this one for cheap now, hoping it turns into something special) Defiance System Shock 2 More than I really wanted to spend, and there's a couple of questionable choices on there, but oh well.

I crafted the first level of the Sumersale badge. I feel a little empty inside.

Co-op definitely makes it far more entertaining, but the underlying game is still the same.

As much as I want a day one console, they haven't given me enough information to choose one or the other yet.

Hmm, have you tried the trench with lots of guns and very few turrents? They make it pretty easy to avoid or rely on the turrets, depending on your play style. *shrug* No worries if it isn't for you, but I was really into it back when it was called Trenched. I think that I have un-quit Gratuitous Space Battles. I popped it open to idle for cards last night and ended up getting two missions farther in and kinda/sorta enjoying myself?

Really really tempted.

I imagine that Valve is working specifically with developers that have had good luck with Steam Sale sales in the past, so I'd guess the first more than the second. I would guess that games with cards are simply more likely to be idled in rather than played looking at my friends list.