mkenyon

Pretty sweet giveaway going on right now, with a ton of stuff they are giving away. Thought I'd put this up here in case others were interested. Lock/delete if too whorish. 1337 Giveaway

You're still eligible to win stuff if you don't get 10 friends. It's like 3 giveaways in one. What I *didnt* notice when I posted this as well as had some of my other friends sign up, is that the basic giveaway is more or less some Razer tchotchkes. Sorry.

PC!

Don't forget the aircraft carrier which you fly in on proclaiming "Mission Accomplished!" when you're 2 turns into your 50 turn war for oil But seriously, I love that the came creates this sort of situation. You really feel the squeeze for strategic resources, which can direct your civ. My recent playthrough I've been blessed with multiples of each in my starting 4-5 city area, and as a result, haven't expanded at all. In fact, I've mostly been playing Global Police.

What map size are you playing on and what processor? The game is very processor heavy. Even with a 5870, I can barely play on the Huge map size because my AM2+ 9850 is bottlenecking my performance. From what I understand, if your proc isn't more or less brand new then the huge map size is right out as an option.

Luckily for me, I work M-F and my wife was out of town all last weekend. I woke up around 9am to make her some french press before she left, then sat down and played from 10:30am-1:30am. It was glorious.

I hadn't thought about this before. You are so right!!! **edit** 3/4 games under my belt so far. All on epic, large map, and all on prince save for the first game. 1st as Russians just learning the ropes on easier difficulty. Was a cake walk. Quit about 280 turns in because there was no challenge, and I learned what I wanted. 2nd as Russians playing on prince. I won with score, and wasn't focused at all. The Russian unique ability and the building are seriously powerful. I was in the modern era around 1800. Went Liberty + Patronage + Order, which is a great combination for a sprawling unfocused empire. 3rd as Greece playing for cultural victory (prince). I lost with only 12 turns to go to get my final social policy. I spent most of the game keeping Hiawatha and Washington off my butt. I hedged a bet and allied with Rome early, but they were wiped out by Hiawatha and Ramses about halfway through the game. Having to spend that many resources on units really limited my ability to go full bore. I really liked the Patronage synergy with their ability. I had all the city states in my pockets, except my military/wars kept my ability to purchase more city states down. 4th I'm about 170 turns in playing as Rome on the earth map. My capital is basically Korea, and I started out right next to marble. I added the civic which increases my wonder build rate by 30%, which has allowed me to build a ton of wonders. My goal starting it was to be a military powerhouse, but I don't really have any civs on my borders, alexander is as close as it gets, and he's basically in India/Pakistan, Siam is in the Balkans, and the Arabs are in Northeastern Europe. I do already have the Great Lighthouse, and a bunch of island chains. I'm thinking about going hard core naval with an expansive civ, and doing combat when it suits me. Just go for a score victory.

I think the idea behind the interface is to not overwhelm people. The information is there if you dig, and it really isn't much of a pain to go through an extra few clicks to get information. However, I'll agree that there is some important stuff I can't find such as detailed diplomatic standings for other countries. My biggest gripe so far is that I can't figure out how to custom name cities. A thing of mine for Civ 3 and 4 was calling my Civ "Democratic Republic of Cascadia", and naming my cities Olympia, Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, Whistler, Eugene, etc... Always loved that.

First thing to pull my away from Minecraft in 3 weeks. I spent 5 hours playing last night, and stayed up 2 hours past when I usually go to bed. Yep, it's Civ. Also, City States are about the coolest thing ever. Adds so much flavor to the game, I absolutely love it!

They are a serious pain in the rear. They multiply when you kill one. You *have* to use a bow and arrow or you are pretty much f'd.

Thats what you get from killing the slime monsters.

I've had plenty of goals. Creating a skybridge joining my two mines together so I dont have to go outside. Creating a giant cavern at the bottom of my mine that makes me feel accomplished. Having enough coal where I feel I can create some glass without feeling as though I'm wasting precious resources. Finding a treasure chest/spawn point (which I just recently did! I found a saddle!!). Just because the game isn't telling you what to do doesn't mean there aren't goals. It just means you aren't either OCD or creative enough to make your own goals.

The wiki for minecraft is almost a must as far as crafting goes. Also, I've had the most luck finding coal around cliffs or not too far underground.

You can use this server as the un"Official Idle Thumbs Minecraft Server" 24.18.60.138 or clanmcniel.net

I was so set on going to PAX this year. GFW Panel. Thumbs Panel. 3 days of games. It's only an hour drive from my house. Then I got my lottery permit to camp in the Enchantments, which I've applied for the past 5 years. This is my first permit. I'm so torn. Games, or...

I feel like I'm one of the only people that wasn't blown away by Bioshock. Granted, I've gone through that first intro a couple times because it's so damn amazing, and the atmosphere and art design are outstanding. I'm a guy that likes good game mechanics and more emergent design. I have yet to get further than maybe 2-3 hours into that game, despite trying numerous times. Between the sub-par gunplay, odd physics, and far too simple RPG elements I just don't find myself being pulled in at all. It's sad too, because as a socialist, I'd love to join in on any attempt to bash objectivism. Now the next part of the point I'm making is based on the assumption that the core gameplay is going to be more or less the same. The idea that the talent at Irrational, the company that has played a part in the destruction of my two most favorite media outlets (GFW Radio and Idle Thumbs), is going to be spending the next 2 years working on something that I am probably not going to play too much makes me sad. I wanted something else. I could end up eating my words and Infinite could end up blowing me away with it's open world, emergent gameplay, and addictive RPG elements. The rational side of me says that's not likely. But you know, it is Irrational. Har har.

Wings + Flight = TRIBES!!!!!! If only....

Interesting game. Gonna play a bit more when I get home. I can't seem to get out of a $4/5 job even with trade school/pre-engineer/engineer degrees. Then I get stuck with no clothes and no money. Game over.

Oh Anthony... how far you've fallen since your GFW days.

I don't think anyone will disagree that in most instances developing games has tried to reach a broader and broader audience. Back in the days of PC, NES, and Genesis, you had pretty much 3 sets of distinct games. Rarely would you see cross-platform development. Even in what I consider the heyday of PC gaming (1997-2000ish), most platforms had a ton of exclusives. On top of that, you had development costs that were pretty low compared to what they are today. It was okay to sell a game and have low gross revenue, as long as there was a profit of some sort. Publishers today have seemingly more or less abandoned this sort of thought. What you get is AAA release after AAA release where they put all their chips on a few select titles. In order to achieve maximum gross revenue, you've got to appeal to a very broad audience across as many platforms as possible. I'll put this into more tangible examples. In Q4 1998, you have Tribes released. This is an online-only FPS with an extremely high learning curve due to the nature of jetpack combat and the fast pace. This was a very risky venture at a time when dial-up reigned supreme. The only sales figure I could find said that Tribes 1 + 2 sold around 1 million copies, though I'd imagine 2 was the bulk of that. It makes a profit, and a pretty small community continued to support it. Gross revenue wasn't extremely high for either title, but there was buzz, excitement, and great publisher support for this. Today, you have games like MW2 and BFBC2 where millions were thrown into development, and both EA and ActBlizz were trying to gross (hopefully) hundreds of millions in sales. I think both of these games represent what Tribes did back in '98/'99, which is a competitive online shooter. However, there's nothing dangerous about MW2 or BFBC2, nor inventive. They're clearly designed to reach out to every last person they can both by being released across every platform (sans Wii, but Wii is an outlier for everything) and by being as accessible and gratifying as possible. To their credit, it says a lot about a game that sells me, my 15 year old cousin, dudebros in frats, and my 50 year old uncle a copy. Something like that didn't exist back then. Developing and publishing that AAA game ends up with a very broad yet specific type of design. It's the proverbial DudeBro:MSIFUSIGTS/SY2 (a moment of genius on GAF). That's where the money is, that's where the publishers will get the talent, and where the hype will develop from the gaming enthusiast press. The flock (being me and you) will follow, as that's where the community goes.

I'm really sensitive to this thinking as well. Having had a good run at TF, Tribes, Quake III, Warsow, etc.. it seems that there hasn't been a really good competitive shooter since CS:Source/CoD. Everything is so neutered (BF, TF2) or completely wacky (MW kill streak rewards). There isn't a lot out there to practice real FPS art while being fresh. Your choices are being raped in Quake Live or CS:Source. Not having something like that to constantly play seems like it has flipped some switch in my brain.

Lets see, started out really getting into Privateer, X-Wing/Tie Fighter, Civ, Warcraft/II, Quake, and MUDs. Most played games of the past two years were Hearts of Iron 3, Civ 4, Dawn of War II, APB, Champions Online, Modern Warfare 2 (friends gifted it to me on Steam because I was boycotting), Mount and Blade/Warbands, and Fry Cry 2. HoI3 + Civ 4 = Civ/X-Com ~APB, CO = MUDs MW2, ~APB = Quake The only thing missing is a good space sim, but that has a lot more to do with there being a lack of them. I will say that I no longer own a joystick, and that used to be one of the peripherals that I saved up random job $ for, and lusted after the newest tech. I do stick by the claim that no MMO has ever come even close to the amazing gameplay and immersive world of my favorite MUD, Dark and Shattered Lands. A good buddy of mine still plays it, and I get the itch every year or so and jump back in for a few weeks. I think the reason why I've shied away from the action-adventure/platforming type genres is that I played PC Games primarily growing up, so I never really experienced the genre or learned the ropes. I must be an odd duck if playing through Uncharted is like pulling teeth, but messing with sliders for 4 hours in Hearts of Iron tickles me.

PC for me as well. Like most kids, I had a NES, SNES, and Genesis, but those were games I was playing when I was 8-10. My first big delve into the gaming world was with X-Wing and Star Wars Chess. Then after meeting a kid who had an older brother that was into PC games, I had a flood of excellent titles. X-Com, Civ, Privateer, Tie Fighter, Doom, Sim City 2000 (I think, same time-frame, right?), and Warcraft. It boggles my mind that I was able to wade deep into these games at the tender age of 12. Right after this, I moved from Arizona (back to) the northwest in the middle of the school year. As a result, I delved deep into games and online gaming. Quake and the Team Fortress mod for Quake is where I was introduced to online FPS's. For the next 5 or so years, I didn't own a single console. It was all PC games all the time. At that point, I also got into MUDs big time which helped develop my typing skills to what they are today. My biggest obsession/dedication to a game was during my freshman/sophmore years of high school with Tribes and Counterstrike. To this day, Tribes is still my #1 game of all time ever, and it breaks my heart that people didn't play Vengeance more. I dipped in and out of consoles during my high school/college years, mostly playing racers, sports games, and Halo with buddies. Console gaming was always more of a social occasion than it was a serious gaming thing for me. When I wanted a gaming experience, it was to be found on the PC. Fortunately for me, I have a great group of friends that have built up since my Jr. High years that still play games together on vent close to every night. I'd say I'm about 90/10 on my PC/Console ratio. *edit* After reading some of the other posts, I'll say that my family didn't have a lot of money growing up. My introduction to PC games was on my mom's Pentium 90 which she purchased to do medical billing out of the house. Playing Quake and the like was all on a 486DX-10 running Win 95. As gaming was my only semi-expensive hobby, my folks would buy me a new computer about every 3 years for Christmas. I was also the first neighborhood in the first city to ever get cable internet back in '98 or '99, again to support my mom's growing medical billing business. It was called @home at the time which would eventually become Comcast. Having an unlocked cable internet connection, and being one of maybe 5 computers on the network, the world opened up to online gaming possibilities. I'm talking like 20-30 ping to most FPS servers, and a 4MB download rate. Oh those were the days....

Haven't seen a thread for this game yet. It's pretty awesome. It's Grand Theft Auto, in an instanced MMO format, with dynamic PvP missions. I tried playing the game solo for a bit, and it's quite frustrating. However, with a group of 3 or 4 guys, the game is spectacular. There's nothing that remains constant in the game. There's a number of standard actions that must be taken whether you are a Criminal or Enforcer, and then they are jumbled up during the mission. For example, we get a mission offer from our criminal contact to burn some buildings, then jack a car and some briefcases, then turn them in at a checkpoint. If an enforcer group gets APB'd against us during this mission, there will most likely be last stage in which we must evade them, or protect a selected VIP from the group. If they were APB'd earlier on, the group of enforcers would be required to stop us from completing each step. There's a ton of emergent things that can happen in this game, which is what makes it so amazing. For example, we were racing Enforcers to get to a checkpoint, and we decided to take a tunnel route in which we could drive faster in. It just so happens that someone decided to stack dozens of cars in the middle of this tunnel, making it impossible to get through. As we tried to go jump over the cars to get to the other side, the guy who was stacking them tossed some grenades in there causing the cars to explode and kill us. Sounds frustrating, but the fact that the game allows for this kind of player interaction in the game is absolutely fantastic. We were rolling with laughter after this set of events. Furthermore, this game doesn't have the same MMO problem of "your friends are higher level, therefore you can't play with them". To stress that even further, the upgrades that you earn through missions are helpful, but they don't make you automatically win. The game rewards solid tactics and team play above everything else. I wouldn't recommend this game to a casual player at all. This is definitely designed for the hardcore crowd who have friends to play with.

As I said, this game is definitely not for the feint of heart. The gameplay is really unforgiving, and amazingly competitive. I come from a CAL-CS and Tribes OGL background, my friends I play with were pro-gamers at one point. If you've been craving a really competitive shooter with interesting MMO elements, this is it. It's hardcore PC gaming at its finest. I can definitely see where reviewers would be frustrated or unhappy with the game, especially if they went it alone.