Supreme Cmdr

Jack's under investigation. Again. GameSpot weighs in [ 10-20-2005, 02:58 PM: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

That idiot who created the DS poll on the Egosoft forums.

I just opened a topic on AVAULT

quote: Originally posted by Ben Zwycky: (I went and grabbed a zodiac early on in the campaign The campaign locks the type of craft you can use. So, uhm, how were you able to change it? quote: Docking with stations wasn't annoying, but I found that if I timed my repairs wrong, docking with a station or MFB 1 minute into the mission rather than 1 minute before mission start, then when I redeploy the mission would be over. This only seemed to happen in TOD's 2 and 3, but I'd have to go back and run them again to make sure which missions it was happening in. Is that deliberate, or is that something I should look into more closely?It depends on how long the repairs take. If the scenario runs for 30 mins. And it takes that long to repair, well, guess what happens when you undock. This should be obvious I think. Which is why it is always a good idea to check the scenario times in the VDD/ACM display. quote: I also noticed some formatting errors in some of the scripted messages in commlink (individual words spread across several lines). You want a list of those? I am aware of that. Its non-destructive and only happens if the text (in the script) flows past a certain character count depending on the type of font used.

My open letter to PCG quote: Hi Andy, Saw your review the other day; and quite frankly, I had no idea what to say or than what I posted here. Until today. I'm not certain what you were expecting from UCAWA. You were critical on features (e.g. planetfall, ship maintenance etc) which have been in the series since day one and which you weren't critical of in the past. e.g. the planets are HUGE, as a result, thats why only certain mission zones are populated. So why is that a waste of time? I'm 100% certain that if I populated every sq. mile of a planet, that no computer on the planet - let alone yours or mine - will run the game. As for the maintenance; if not text based, how else did you exactly expect it to be handled? Which game - let alone a sim with such a feature - uses any other method for this type of task. The answer would be none. I am quite astonished that you would call the planets "lifeless, vacant bits of real estate with zero tourism value." Thats just not even funny. Especially when you consider that - on Earth alone - there are no less than 387 mzones containing a total of 3,104 scenes. Each using a series (112 to be exact) of templates and hundreds (317 unique ones) of objects. In fact, all it takes is to fire up Tacops and observe Earth, then use the menu to see the list. Thats just *one* planet. This is primarily - and predominantly - a COMBAT - game. Always has been. So where 'tourism' comes into play is quite puzzling to me. Is it surprising that the planet surface comprises of starbases, military bases and the occasional city? You being [primarily] a sim reviewer, how is this different from, say, MSFS (tourist sim), Falcon4 (combat sim) etc? Other games such as the X series, are predominantly about tourism, accumulating wealth, trading etc. And in the case of X, excels at it, bar none. Then again, X is lacking in combat, AI and plethora of other features which would otherwise make it a worthy 'space combat sim'. As for the 'vapid scripted campaigns....with minimal direction, action or rewards"....what on Earth are you going on about? Lets see.... Minimal direction: How can anyone not understand something as simple as "....hey you, go here, blow shit up" or "....while you're at it, there's this transport you need to protect"? Each campaign scenario has *detailed* instructions on what you need to do. In fact, the orders system is no different from what you would find in *any* sim. Action: eh? Unless you took a wrong turn at Albuquerque on your way to the water cooler and ended up at the ass end of Alpha Cygni when you were clearly *told* to go to Tau Ceti, how could you miss the action? And speaking of action, you can't breathe, let alone stare at the scenery without getting shot at. So I have no clue what you're talking about there. Rewards: Well, if you suck at following orders, what sort of rewards would you expect? There are missions that give Experience Points (in addition to those awarded by the game engine itself at the lower level and which are not scripted), medals etc. Heck, even the Commander campaign has scenarios in which you can obtain a variety of items (via cargo pods) from destroyed hostile crafts. But hey, don't take my word for it. Here, go read how 'gamers' play the campaign and are rewarded for same. As to the "the integrated fps game is so horrible, it can barely shoot itself in the foot". Nice try. The game is not - and never has been - focused on fps. The necessity of sending combat troops to a planet and directing their orders from Tacops, necessitated the need for 3D models of those troops. Once that was in - like ALL games - it entered the "...wouldn't it be cool if..." scenario. Thats how come that mode was built into the game, allowing the player to take on the role of one of those - already created - 3D models. It allowed the gamer to not only (as the Commander) fight alongside his troops, but also direct them in combat using a variety of advanced features and options. You don't have to do it and it is not a pre-requisite for 'playing' the game. Whats the *point* of investing in technology (e.g. planetfall, fully modeled characters) if you can't put them to good use? And if there was no ability to enter a planet, land etc (which *no* other game in history has allowed a gamer to do. And no, that rubbish copycat, Parkan doesn't count) how different then would the series be from others which - so far - have only helped stagnate the space sim genre by not offering anything tangible since, well, Wing Commander? You know what? There is a damn good reason why this series continues to sell. Its called a dedicated fanbase who like them just the way they are. Nevertheless, I'm sort of satisfied that you only got half a page to do the review. Otherwise, this email would have run longer than normal. Even the fact that your PCG 'bosses' didn't want to review the game in the first place because - without even *seeing* it - they automatically assumed (in emails that have since gone back and forth) that it "was not different enough from UC", is itself suspect. The notion itself is purely rubbish. Even to a blind gerbil on acid. This business of you guys just running through games and reviewing them not for what they are, but what you want them to be, has reached epidemic proportions. Yet, you all wonder why gamers in general don't care about reviews any more. Its like every other cycle, you guys pick a game (or publisher or developer) to trash and turn the whole affair into nothing short of high school tomfoolery. As I said, I don't - and never have - cared about [arbitrary and rubbish] review scores. I'm more concerned about the reviewer's ability to *play* the game they way it was meant to be played, to review it for what *it is* not what said reviewer wants it to be and the reviewer's command of the English language enough to actually write a 'review' worth reading. In case it wasn't already obvious, I was quite disappointed in the review because I found it to be uninformative, highly inaccurate and categorically unfair. cheers DS

quote: Originally posted by Ben Zwycky: I found the invincibility tags on some of the scripted characters a little annoying (especially with the station and the cloaked carrier on the first planet), Yeah, it is annoying but I had no choice because I didn't want people who use the cheats, to break my script and then come running here to report a 'bug'. quote: but a very fun experience overall.I like the EFP version better because its more challenging. How did you handle not have an abundance of weapons? Doing repairs (at stations) etc in between assignments? I was a bit worried that some gamers would get frustrated at having to run to a station. Or that some wouldn't even remember that they had this option to go to a station for repairs and weapons. quote: My report card:heh, on a scale of 1-10, thats about a 5 I think.

quote: Originally posted by Cruis.In: why the silly mommy talk. How about we forget him and never mention his name again, because he can no longer bother us here in our domain. Indeed.

He's one of the idiots banned from here.

The X3 forums are just like the game's inhabitants. Lawless. Ludicrous. Loudmouths. Seriously, can you imagine me waking up one morning and checking our forum to find half the crap topics seen over there, over here. I'd have a nervous breakdown and probably ban everyone. Don't take my word for it. Try this.

Which is why you should buy games you want before they go out of print? No, that couldn't possibly be a sensible thing to do.

GameStop, which now owns EB, will stop selling used PC games once their current stock runs out. About goddamn time. Ganged from here. quote: Interesting, whoever told you we stopped taking PC Games a few days ago misread the email. We stop taking them tomorrow, wednesday. We've been taking them all the way through the end of today. This is because GameStop has more stores than EB and doesn't do preowned PC. After the merger is complete (it hasn't even really starte dyet, we're just preparing) we would end up with 2500 stores that don't have preowned PC, and 1800 stores that do... we opted to stop taking them as they are usually a disaster (nobody keeps the boxes and the cd cases break and are hard to display) and not a huge portion of our business.

Use the game Updater to download and apply the patch. The online VCF has also been updated. NOTES: If you use the game's Updater, the process will go like this: If you have any version lower than 1.00.07, it will download the 35MB 1.00.07 update first. After applying this, you need to run Updater again so that it can download the 25MB incremental update to 1.00.08. If you already have 1.00.07 installed, it will download the smaller (25MB) incremental update to 1.00.08. Also, you can now view the VCF directly from the Updater (once it has self-updated itself to the newer version which supports this). If you don't want to use the Updater, then you have to check one of the public mirrors for a link to the full 44MB v1.00.08 patch; which you should then copy into the game's folder and execute from there.

Use the game Updater to download and apply the patch. Or check one of the public servers for the download version. The online VCF has also been updated.

PSPonTV!!! I'm so getting one of these!!!

Jack's an idiot. As an 'attorney', he should know that he has no case. But since when did that stop attorneys from doing legally stupid - and foolish - things?

You should know better than to rely on rumors. Especially the rubbish posted on the Egosoft boards.

OK, this is getting a wee bit out of hand. Apparently crazy ol' Jack has gone and faxed the Seattle PD asking them to arrest the Penny Arcade guys. Here is the fax itself and the furor that started it all this week that got the PA guys on Jack's [hairy] back as described here.

quote: Originally posted by LB: sorry to be the bringer of bad news but the X3 release date is now the 25th apparently because the cockpits needed to be cut due to too high resolution. Where did you find this particular piece of rubbish? They always knew - and stated - that there would be no cockpits in the game. So since when was it the cockpits that caused a one week delay because they had to be removed? Thats rubbish.

IGN weighs in. From reading the review, you'd never guess that on the second page, they give it a 3/5. As for me; day one, I'm there. Screw the reviewers!

Somewhat, yeah. But is a tad overdone in this.

quote: Originally posted by Eclipse: I'm finding the egosoft forums slightly strange... people canceling preorders because the cockpit models were cut... very odd. Don't believe everything you read. Some people are just saying that to get attention. It is (ludicrous to say the least) that any sane gamer who is a fan of the X series, would cancel pre-orders (or not buy the game) because of that. See post #49 over here for my take on it.

quote: Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: Just click Wow! How depressing is the BO these days?

Did you miss the part where they said they wanted a darker (not as in complexion mind you) Bond? I think he fits the bill perfectly.

Creative acknowledges problems with AMD chipset For more info, go to their forums

Yeah, I heard that EB here in the US would be getting it on the 18th.