Annatar11

Reply to Online strategy games in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

You can also try Ministry of War . It's a free to play browser strategy MMO. You pick a civilization (Egypt, Rome, etc), and build up your cities. There's PvE (roaming monsters, lairs with bosses for loot), and 2 kinds of PvP: arenas, where you can sign up your hero (heroes command armies, level up, have skills, equipment, stats, etc) and get exp and fame for winning and you can get some equipment from that. Then there are contested zo

Reply to Stardock’s best but most unappreciated apps in Personal Computing Elemental Forums

I used DeskScapes until it started making games run screwy. Back when we were testing Demigod it kept crashing and I couldn't figure out why. Turned off DeskScapes and it stopped crashing. Between games and animated wallpaper that I rarely see, games will win.. stopped using it after that. Maybe I'll give it another shot.

Reply to Discussion: Should we move our mods away from Wincustomize? in WOM Mods Elemental Forums

WinCustomize does have a download limit for non-subscription accounts. This is mostly for the app side of things (skins, themes, etc). I'm guessing they just forgot to exclude Elemental mods from what contributes to the limit.. AFAIK, I've never heard anyone hitting the DL limit on Sins mods/maps.

Reply to Help Us Laugh! in Everything Else Sins Forums

Amazingly awesome site.. keep in mind some things turn out a little NSFW-ish (but text only obviously).

Reply to Anyone else getting excited for DCUO? in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

I stand corrected on post-creation customization :) But in essence, I wasn't entirely wrong.. each piece of gear still has its own set, so you have to collect every "slot" type from that set if you want it completed, and the initial costume options are pretty lacking in comparison to CO/CoH.. so unless you have collected gear for a whole costume set, you're still going to be mismatched, you just don't have to show it. :P

Reply to Fallen Enchantress, a new game in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

[quote who="BlackRainZ" reply="127" id="2867205"] So your concerns are not necessary. You will not have to worry about EWOM having something FE doesn't. FE will have all that EWOM has and more. Hence, you only need to play FE. I am pretty sure that this is what the game is going to be. If it isn't, then I will let one of the Devs correct me, but I can't see them taking any approach but this one.[/quote] I like how you speak so authoritatively in the first 3 sentences, and t

Reply to Space Mines and More in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]As Brad and Brian mentioned, Ironclad and Stardock have a fair bit of new stuff coming for Sins in the way of updates, patches and so forth. One area of concern is the memory and CPU eaten up by Space Mines. I'd like to hear some suggestions on how we can keep mines in the game without consuming so many resources (and if we can make them more fun that'd be great too). Keep in mind that they need to be racially distinct. If you have any ideas, let me know in this thread

Reply to Anyone else getting excited for DCUO? in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

[quote who="Lord Xia" reply="26" id="2865254"]I loved CoH, the only MMO I played for a long time, and I played it for 5 years. But yea, there wasn't really crap to do at level 50, other than help others levels and make new alts. But, man, I loved that game so much. Thinking about getting back into it still. But I know it wouldn't keep my attention for all that long any more, yea, I think it's sunset for CoH. I would just sit for hours playing with the character c

Reply to Anyone else getting excited for DCUO? in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

[quote who="Savyg" reply="23" id="2864880"] Quoting Annatar11, reply 21Compared to Champions Online, the power particle effects are junk. I still don't know what to think of CO. It seemed like too much of the design was a little iffy. I was a great fan of CoH in its day but its day is past.[/quote] CO was great fun to play when you were leveling. Cryptic's main problem is that there's nothing to do after you reach the level cap, this is present in ever

Reply to Anyone else getting excited for DCUO? in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

I got in on the PC beta for a bit, and couldn't stand it. The controls for PC are terrible. They didn't bother doing anything to make it work well on PC. You still have to go through layers of menus that were obviously designed with console controllers. On the PC at higher resolutions, the game also looks pretty terrible. It's also obvious they didn't try to much for PC graphics-wise. Compared to Champions Online, the power particle effects are junk. I made a guy with Fire powers, and it look

Reply to Stardock hires Civ 5 lead designer Jon Shafer in War of Magic Elemental Forums

[quote who="Mtn_Man" reply="148" id="2861514"] Quoting Sir_Linque, reply 82 Quoting Mtn_Man, reply 80I'm not surprised you're an atheist given your lack of coherent thought. That's the weirdest correlation I've read in a while. Not so weird if you know anything about the atheist mindset. [/quote] Which you obviously don't, so stop pretending like you do ;)

Reply to “I Resolve To Make My Computer Safer” in Personal Computing Elemental Forums

[quote] "helicopter grandparent” [/quote] You keep saying that word. I don't think it means what you think it means ;) "Helicopter" parenting is a pretty specific definition, you basically have to not leave them alone.. ever. And it applies more to the middle/high school crowd who are getting to that rebellious age, because their parents basically always "hover" above them and not giving them any independence at all. In most cases, the parents mean well, but t

Reply to The PC platform evolves in 2011 in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

Given the sheer number of indy games on Steam, I think it's a bit weird to say that Steam is not a good indy platform. Impulse may not be, but then Impulse doesn't doesn't have a comprehensive free package offering for indy developers that includes all the bells and whistles that are popular these days (achievements, mp, etc). I'm not a Steam fanboy (before I get flamed :P), but really, facts are facts. XBLA has its own SDK that might make development easier, but as far as publishing?

Reply to Steam Christmas Sale in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

War for Cybertron is a well done game if you like Transformers.. but as fun as the multiplayer is (and it is), the PC MP population would be pretty negligible :( The campaign is pretty epic, but it doesn't last over 10 hours or so.

Reply to Steam Christmas Sale in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

Hope you enjoy it! I tried it, but the shooter mechanics of it seemed kinda bland and uninteresting so I couldn't really get into it.

Reply to Free Expansion? in WOM Support Elemental Forums

You'll most likely automatically get them registered to your account when they come out.

Reply to Steam Christmas Sale in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

[quote who="OMG_pacov" reply="95" id="2855538"]hmm... might give global agenda a go. Thanks for posting the list. [/quote] Global Agenda has a free trial, by the way ;)

Reply to What's a reliable firewall? (free and not-so-free) in Personal Computing Elemental Forums

[quote]But isn't Windows' firewall basic and thus somewhat risky? I've never heard/read someone actually praise Windows Firewall![/quote] That's the perception. And prior to the Security Essentials suite, the perception was quite correct. But ever since it was released, Microsoft has caught up quite well with the rest of the AV market. If you google up reviews, you'll see they're pretty much all positive. Of course it's free so it might not offer all the bells and whistles, and keep i

Reply to What's a reliable firewall? (free and not-so-free) in Personal Computing Elemental Forums

Microsoft Security Essentials includes the Windows Firewall, and the suite itself is pretty good and free.

Deals4Downloads.com is a great site in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

Okay, so I just found this site off a Kotaku link for a DD sale on Amazon (ArmA II: Arrowhead for $10 is pretty good!). Never heard of this site before, and it's labeled in Beta. It's basically a huge compile of all the Digital Download providers and the sales they are running, constantly updated. It includes some basic filtering categories (by shop, latest, most popular, etc), and it also allows you to search for a specific title. Then it shows you all the shops the title is sold at (or shou

Reply to Steam Christmas Sale in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

Depending on the popularity of the game, those big sales might not come for a long time. A lot of people don't want to wait another year for the game they've really really wanted for a long time because it might have a sale. I would guess the majority of gamers still buy a lot of games at release or shortly after, before the sales start. The sales are for the "oh I'm kinda curious about this game and it's cheap so why not" crowd, more than anyone else.

Reply to Steam Christmas Sale in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

Well gee, I guess if we're comparing companies' non-game development/publishing activities that might be somehow relevant. But we aren't :) It's not like SD doesn't try to do its own share of cash milking by using a subscription model for Object Desktop, download limits on Wincustomize without a premium account, and charging for premium skins (of course, in many cases the premium skins come from users and not SD). If you consider that, at least the silly toys are a 100% optional accessory, un

Reply to Steam Christmas Sale in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

That's an odd statement since both Valve and Stardock make their own stuff, and both companies sell other people's stuff. :P

Reply to Steam Christmas Sale in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

I hate to disappoint you, Shocker, but Steam had a Thanksgiving sale where the 3 Kings Bounty games were $7.50 combined. :P Steam can afford to do crazy sales like this just because they move a massive amount of games. They offset the very low sale price just by the sheer number of copies they sell and come out on top. Impulse doesn't have nearly the amount of buyers to be able to do these kinds of sales, so it can never compete.

Reply to Be Secure With Your Online Shopping in Personal Computing Elemental Forums

Pretty much every major online store has good safeguards in place when processing payments. It's much more likely that your card number will get "intercepted" because you have a keylogger you picked up from somewhere than snatched up from network traffic. You have to remember that credit card fraud is worse for the card companies because they foot the bill, so it's in their best interest to prevent it. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Card_Industry_Data_Secu