Erkki

Exactly. That's why I didn't like it as well. I'm gonna try Sim 2 though, for a short time, to see if it has been improved, but even if has I don't see that I could play it for more than a day or two. Actually, I already downloaded it (hey, it was talk-like-a-pirate-day and I just took it one step further ).

So I downloaded the new Catalyst Control Center. They've messed up the color settings AGAIN. They work, but there's a few of bugs making the settings revert to defaults in certains situations. And they've totally screwed up the shortcut keys. Previously, you could assign any key you want, but now only the letter keys work (and only the standard latin ones). And besides, they don't work in games any more. Those shortcut keys were my only option of running most games with normal brightness. Now there are profiles you can create for each game, but THEY DON'T WORK EITHER (seem to work somewhat, but not completely). The only way I can run Doom 3 now so that I can see something when the flashlight is ON is by making a separate profile for it, activating a profile, and then QUICKLY tap the brightness shortcut key during the first loading screen (that's where it works). I wonder when I'll learn never to update graphics drivers unless I have a big problem. What made me do it this time was curiosity for the new "Control Center" and ca 10% performance increase for Doom 3 (said so in the release not). Sorry for ranting, had to get it out of me.

Does what I think of the demo count?

Thanx, I'll check it out. At the moment I won't have time to learn enough to evaluate which engine would suit me best, though; I'll probably stick with experimenting with Ogre for the moment.

But the Unreal engine has to have (relatevily small) levels, right? You couldn't make a game like GTA3 or Gothic with it, I think. And the geometry must be fixed, so no Sims 2 / Singles either. Or is the 3.0 engine more flexible? I'm kind of making a game (very slowly, and I'll probably never finish it) and one of the key features would be that there would be one big world, no levels. At most only indoor parts would require loading. I recently got UT2004 (takes up 7 GB with a few of mods installed!) and was thinking of the possibility to make the game as a mod for it, but I guess I can't. I'm looking to build my own engine based on Ogre, or maybe Crystal Space. But maybe I'll start with a prototype using UT2004...

I have 4 partitions in Windows, each about 30GB. I had my old hard disk connected while installing XP and the new Windows partition ended up on G: I also use C: practically only for games (but a few other things too). Oh, and then I have the rest of the space for Mandrake Linux, but I actually don't use it. I've been meaning to, but everything is so much easier in Windows.

Actually, there is adjustable speed. I didn't notice it at first, but you can either change it from the options menu, or use the + and - keys of the keypad. I've used it now depending on the situation -- slow when I have lots of things to manage and fast when i want the battle to go quicker. I also played the demo of the expansion pack - Thrones and Patriots and that seems to make it even better, but actually playing those two demos was enough for me. Sure, for RTS fans Rise of Nations may be an awesome game, but I've tired of the standard RTS formula years ago and although the 'novelties' of RoN make it a bit different, it's still too much the same old for me. I think I'll try a Total War game instead. Which one is the best so far?

I've been ill now for almost a week and have not had much to do. I haven't even actually played games much, but during the last two days I downloaded 12 game demos (some old, some brand new), while I had about 3 demos already installed, but not played. I doubt I'll play 1/3 of them though, usually it ends up that way. The last I downloaded was the Seven Kingdoms Demo, which is still amazingly fun 7 years later. I played the tutorial level for 4 hours after completing the tutorial tasks without even noticing that much time went by. Next I think I'll play the Seven Kingdoms II demo, then Rise of Nations.

Oooh... I'm jealous.

Baldur's Gate 2 wasn't that bad for me, but pretty close.

It seems sensible that they finished their icecreams though. Melted icecreams and cars don't go together. Glad you're ok.

You think it would be better if I lost the entire Program Files folder instead? One of the reasons actually is to keep the Program Files folder uncluttered, as sometimes I have to access it and it's full of crap even without games. Often uninstalled things still leave their empty folders behind etc. Anyway, I'm done lamenting, it wasn't that bad really (except for the DeusEx stuff). I was just initially pretty shocked.

I'm just used to having all my games in C:Games. It's always been so since I had my first computer. Although yeah, in Windows that is not as important, but I'd rather not bother with explaining the small reasons why I still do it. Many mushrooms are not poisonous

Damn. It's even worse. I was making a Deus Ex mod and all my developement stuff was deleted as well. I had the compiled packages backed up and I can probably extract most things from there, but some of my work was still lost. The developement had halted anyway though, several months ago. But some really weird shit is happening when I run the uninstallers of the games that got deleted. Some say that the uninstaller can't be found, some finish normally, but some uninstallers actually RECREATE some of the files. WTF? When the True Crime uninstaller finished, it had recreated the save files and truecrime.ini.

I just played another medieval strategy game demo -- Medieval Lords. It seems pretty unique. Mostly it seems to be about building villages and towns, and expanding them by conquering neighbouring territories and towns. In the demo, there was only one map, consisting of small islands where you had to repair a lighthouse to win. But you started off on a different island than the lighthouse, with just a few buildings and most of the building types disabled. You have to build a stone bridge to the island but you need a mason for that, which you don't have. I built a huge number of farms, towers, walls, houses and such things to increase my population until I could seize two other islands step by step. On the second island I conquered a town that had a mason and was finally able to build the bridge to the lighthouse island. The combat is fully automatic. You just have to move your troops (which are usually garnisoned in towers and dungeons) to your neighbour's territory and when your first troop arrives there, a timer starts counting down to the moment when your troops will start attacking the enemy. They don't always seem to pick the smartest way to attack, but it's not too bad -- during combat you don't have control of them; and they either win or die. Which is not too bad because new troops are trained pretty fast. Building the cities is similar to Sim City in the way that you'll have to see that all the houses have water, healthcare, security and some other things available (each house has a few needs meters a la The Sims). The game seems quite fun, and looks really nice, but the gameplay and the interface lacks a layer or two of polish. And there was no tutorial in the demo, I had to figure out everything by myself, which wasn't too difficult. Took an hour or so to get used to the system. A link

I just played the tutorial of Rise of Nations' demo and I think I was beginning to see that even after 1 hour of playing. Well, from my perspective anyway. It seems that the importance of fast mouse clicking has been reduced, but there is still a whole lot of micro-management. I didn't notice if the game speed was adjustable, but at the default speed I didn't really feel like I had time (unless I'd pause the game) to make choices and just upgraded everything I could as fast as I could. And I think it's a bit ridiculous how fast you can advance from one age to the next and generally how fast things are built and researched. It was probably about the same in Age of Empires though? I suspect that in multiplayer, vitory would still go to the player who would be able to click fastest and has a good memory -- to not forget to always upgrade things and create more troops etc.

Yeah, I don't know if it's quite my style either. I mean, the graphics in the demo are gorgeous: (screenshot of the main menu) but not really my style. And I haven't got past the menu yet. [edit]Nevermind, it was myATI's fault. The installation modified system files and required a restart, but after that I installed new ati drivers which made windows crash during start up etc jadajada. After reinstalling the demo it's fine.

Hmm... actually it's not ok. The hotkeys at least work now, but the brightness is still reset to default (gamma=1) when exiting from a game to desktop. ATI, please make up your minds! You fix things in one version, then break them a few versions later.

Decided to get rid of the "control center" finally and downloaded the new (4.9) version with the old control panel (how fucking often do they release these things?). Seems to be ok now.

Actually, I do that a lot. But I haven't really thought about it much. In a few cases, I can remember back almost 10 years ago. For example maybe 8-9 years ago I was playing Mordor in the evenings after doing repairs in our old apartement. There wasn't much furniture there, and I think I sat on a tall stack of pillows. I got really addicted to the game and I think I played more than I worked. Afterwards it was never the same because I had a pirated version which couldn't be reinstalled (just copied) and somehow the sound got screwed up after I installed Windows 95.

I guess I'll wait for your review to hear what Rise of Nations did wrong... I just read GameSpot's review of it and they seem to think it did everything right (9.3 and an editor's choice too). Now I got interested in that game as well... Damn the internet, I say! What was strange about the review is that it mentioned some features as novelties ("new concepts it introduces" was the exact quote), which I think I've seen in more than one strategy game of the few that I've sampled (but not played much) over the years. Some I think have been in games from 7-8 years ago. Like caravans, cities and national borders etc.. Or maybe he spoke of the application of those features to today's typical RTS game. Anyway, I think most of those 'new concepts' were in Trevor Chan's Seven Kingdoms which was released in 1997 (I must buy that game again, I've lost it).

the end sequence? no, I think there was sound. What bothered me most about the demo is that there was only a limited number of character types and whenever you spoke to a char of that type you'd get the same reply. And they had so little to say too. It's worse than the Elder Scrolls games. If the full game is like this, I think it will be a big turn-off for me.

I love your new avatar

You're welcome. And may your itch be scratched.

Didn't you read this? I just downloaded it too, and played it. Seems really promising, but it feels really incomplete. And probably that's why it was retracted. I fear the final game may still end up a bit incomplete though (if they're planning on releasing this year), but I hope not.