DraekAlmasy

Reply to Elemental Poll is up: How do you like the game? in War of Magic Stardock Forums

Love it. It's not perfect, needs some balance work here and there and a nice, long bug-squashing session, but what we do have is simply incredible.

Reply to Now that Elemental: War of Magic is out, who is playing it? What do you think of it? in Everything Else Stardock Forums

You do know there's an Elemental subforum, right? anyways, I'm loving it, great game so far. I do have performance issues, but considering I get them with nearly every game I have, I'm not blaming Stardock for it.

Reply to Elemental will EVENTUALLY be a really great game. in War of Magic Stardock Forums

Huh, I'm an university student so I most definitely do not have "a good amount of time on [my] hands" and I agree with him, I'd rather have an unpolished game now than wait for the ultra-polished version in a year. It's simply a drawback of Stardock's open development policies, it's far easier to take your time and "release it when it's done" when nobody knows what you're doing until you make a big press release about it ala Blizzard, but with Elemental where a lot </

Reply to Sunday Morning has come and Gone, "Midday" is just about over? Update Please? in War of Magic Stardock Forums

[quote who="long_fella" reply="156" id="2721423"]I've just finished the last episode of Firefly .[/quote] Now watch Serenity, the one and only movie I've considered buying a Blu-Ray player for. In fact, I think I'll go watch it now,for the...sixth time? hard to keep count ;) And Elemental, I was expecting it the 24th anyways so no complains here.

Reply to Elemental Game Review(s) Thread in War of Magic Stardock Forums

To clarify the 'percentage' debate a bit further, this is what Elemental (as well as every RPG on the planet) is doing. Say,for instance, you have two +25% bonuses and one +30% stacking up, and let X be the base value: S = X + (X * 0.25) S = S + (S * 0.25) S = S + (S * 0.30) And then it uses S as the final value. Easy to compute, logical, and consistent with the Mathematic definition of percentage, win for all involved. And before you ask, no, the final result

Reply to In-Depth Magic in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

Guild Wars, particularly as a Mesmer.

Reply to Favorite Laptop Game in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

Battle for Wesnoth and Civilizations: Alpha Centauri. There's plenty more I'd love to play such as GalCiv 2, but my laptop's specs suck :( I also have HoMM3 around here somewhere, but I could never really get into it. And before you say "but GalCiv 2 runs fine on my netbook!", yes, my laptop is far worse spec-wise than even the cheapest netbook. Incredible keyboard though which is why I'm not replacing it any time soon.

Reply to Am I The Only One Who Can't Stand Bioware? in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

Times are a' changing if people are bringing up Neverwinter Nights as an example of "deep, engrossing" RPG experiences by jaded teenagers. I still remember NWN's release day, I still remember the hordes of Baldur's Gate fanboys denouncing it as "dumbed down, kid-oriented trash" and complaining of how you couldn't have any tactical depth controlling a single character in a party of two, how 3D meant NWN was just a fantasy-themed Quake mod and how the D&D3 rules had ruined RPG gaming foreve

Reply to Commander: Conquest of the Americas - first impressions? in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

I have, it seems I'm the only one in this forum without problems. First impressions are good, the Tactical battles are just as incredible as they were in EIC but with up to 15 ships per side rather than the old 5, while in Strategic mode the game is about twice as fast which is compensated by the new 0.5x speed so everybody can be happy. The gameplay itself feels a bit unusual but nice, kind of Settlers done with ships rather than people, if that makes any sense ;) people on Paradox forums ar

Reply to Blizzard did it again in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

[quote who="aeortar" reply="8" id="2597731"]What's the issue? If you're spending hours each day playing on WoW, then $25 for something that will enhance your experience may well be decent value. I personally wouldn't pay it (unless I had huge amounts of money to spend) but I can see why others might. I don't get all the WoW hate though. It's a great game - just because you might not like that sort of a game doesn't mean you should hate the game. There are plenty of worthier candida

Reply to What was the last game that got you this way? in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

I haven't played it that much yet (it was released less than a week ago), but Lead & Gold would fit. I saw a couple people on forums talking about buying Lead and Gold and thought "WTF? I understand gold, but why the hell are they buying lead as well?". A bit later I finally realized what they had meant ;) saw screenshots, noticed its price and voila! new item on my CC bill. Pity I haven't had much time to explore it, too busy with classes yet but what little I've played of it has been gr

Reply to Pirating/emulators, and all that good stuff. in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

[quote who="Twilight_Storm" reply="58" id="2577883"]I'm just curious: How is this a discussion? THe law is pretty clear on the facts here. If you didn't buy it, or someone did not buy a copy for you, then it is stolen.[/quote] Wrong. That's why it's called "copyright infringement" and not "theft". [quote who="ZehDon" reply="62" id="2577956"]Incorrect, sorry. Piracy, in context and in its most common definition, is the illegal reproduction of intell

Reply to Pirating/emulators, and all that good stuff. in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

[quote who="SwerydAss" reply="19" id="2575289"]Its definitely not the same as copying someone's homework.. Your friend lets you copy it for one thing. Also it might seem ok to you because you see the big faceless corporation but you dont see the programmers that are making 25-30 grand a year that end up losing theyre job because the game they made didnt gross enough because of pirating .. then they cant afford health insurance for theyre kid and when they catch something rea

Reply to Pirating/emulators, and all that good stuff. in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

Copyright infringement = illegal/unethical does not => copyright infringement = theft and Copyright infringement != theft does not => copyright infringement = legal/ethical Personally, for the most part(1) I respect copyright of any work under 15 years (2), but anything older than that and screw them, legalities be damned. Though I don't really care for NES games and such, and most of the good DOS games are freeware anyways (OMF:2097 <3) so in practice I don't

Reply to Should Impulse have games with truly excessive DRM on Impulse? in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

[quote who="cynicalP" reply="13" id="2574838"]It is as if Ubisoft it setting themselves up for failure so that they can said "Well we tried to the PC market but the teaming masses of souless pirates stole any incentive for us to make anymore PC games. We are now a console exclusive publisher no more PC games". Either that or Ubi's management is truely that stupid. [/quote] It's probably the former. With the newest Prince of Persia, they released it with no DRM whatsoe

Reply to Munchkins on the net? in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

As far as I knew, a "munchkin" was a tabletop RPG player who only plays to kill stuff rather than, well, roleplay (think Diablo except with pen & paper), while the paid campaigners were called "astroturfers" after a brand of artificial grass (in reference to the term "grassroot", which denotes a fan-based effort to publicize a given product). As for the topic at hand, name *any* technology and I'll find you a loud, obsessive and grammar-impaired hater for it with ease. I mean, eve

Reply to Mass Effect Doesn't Have Spells, it has Biotics in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="11" id="2564978"]Photographs are magic. Airplanes are magic. Guns are magic. Even men riding horses can appear as mythological creatures to some. Depends on the point of view and knowledge of the viewer.[/quote] And the author in question. Compare for instance the technologies of Asimov's Foundation series or the Alpha Centauri games, which are so well explained and grounded in our current knowledge some scientists have even claimed they'd be possible to

Reply to ATI or Nvida in Personal Computing Stardock Forums

ATI. Their drivers suck (only thing ever to crash my Linux system other than faulty hardware), but they offer the best 'bang for the buck' by far, and I've had excellent experiences with their reliability. Wish I could say the same for NVidia though, my 8800GT's and my brother's 7200's deaths still hurt me (my brother's because the cheapskate replaced it with one of my own rather than buy another card).

Reply to I'll trade my Fans for your Fans: Smart business or Developer folly? in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

TR Legends changed the *controls*, which had been virtually unchanged for the past 6 games. And it's not an improvement, as that implies it was somehow based on the old one, it was a complete redesign from the ground up. And thankfully, because as much as I liked the older games (err, for the most part), the run-stop-turn-run pattern was already growing old by TR2 and only became worse as the series went on. And 'fun' is, as this very thread demonstrates, completely subjective. I foun

Reply to I'll trade my Fans for your Fans: Smart business or Developer folly? in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

Every single Final Fantasy game since at least IV has been called "the worst ever" at some point of its history, and I say "at least" because that's when I got into it, I doubt it was any different before then. Typically it lasts only until the next one is released, but for some (VII, IX, XII) it tends to linger for a bit longer. Now, I'd say it wasn't to *extend* their appeal so much as, well, appeal to the hardcore. FFXII's plot was very much in line with the previous Ivalice instal

Reply to Are you worried about the sudden popularity drop of PC games? in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

[quote]It takes a dedicated person to maintain a gaming rig. Regularly upgrading RAM, graphics cards, CPU, operating sytem, etc. requires a certain kind of mentality and commitment (and finances!), unlikely simply owning a console that requires no such upkeep. And this is aside from all of the other stuff that PC gamers have to deal with as "normal" occurrences, such as crashes, freezes, incompatibility issues, multiplayer lag, and the occasional virus or malware. [/quote] On the con

Reply to iTampon will destroy netbooks due to 'magic', according to Apple. in Personal Computing Stardock Forums

The I, Robot movie ain't that bad once you realize it was meant to be a completely separate story and only got the name of Asimov's book by executive meddling a couple weeks before release, who were trying to take advantage of their newly-acquired "IP". As for the topic at hand, it's clear Apple realizes their sales highly depend on the Reality Distortion Field they're able to project, and this is nothing but a (failed) attempt to increase its range. The loyalists continue to be loyal

Reply to Mass Effect Doesn't Have Spells, it has Biotics in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

As the lead guy of UT3 put it with regards to the game's Field Lattice Generators: "if it looks like a flag and waves like a flag, it's a flag". So yes, Mass Effect's biotics are spells, Left 4 Dead's infected are zombies and Torchlight's Alchemist is a freaking wizard. Just accept it and move on.

Reply to Are you worried about the sudden popularity drop of PC games? in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

No, I'm not worried. Do you really think there's *ANY* overlap between console gamers and fans of turn-based strategy games such as Elemental? srsly? RTSs are hard due to its input problems, but there's no reason not to have an Europa Universalis on the PS3 or an X3: Reunion on the Xbox360 other than the fact that knowledgeable people have looked at the market and determined it simply would not sell. Particularly the latter is telling, as there *is* a Linux version available: in other words,

Reply to Is anyone interested in Diablo 3? in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

Is anyone interested? most certainly. Am *I* interested? not in the least. Blizzard is the most Jerkass of all gaming companies currently in existence and I'll be damned if I give them another single penny. Plus I've already got Torchlight (and Titan Quest as well, in case I ever get hardcore enough to enjoy it).