Pnakotus

[quote]I would've preferred they kept mouse-based movement of the Aurora engine, like in NWN2[/quote] You can use standard point-and-click control in Witcher: press F3 or use the options. I have no idea why you'd want to play it that way, but they put the option in for blinkered purists to useif they want. You miss out on a lot of the intensity, and I don't see any reason at all to use the 'far' camera without a team, but hey, I don't see the point of the pause option either. <br/

In an unrelated note, WiC pub-play wasn't 'ruined' by patches. It was still very, very possible - sure, you got stacked teams, but if you looked for servers with a spread of players it was fun. I'm rubbish at RTSs, I have no interest in APM etc, but WiC was a refreshing change. I was able to beat clanners at their own game, since WiC has little scope for 'best pathing'. The 'arty noob' problem is way more annoying than any patch issues. I'm not a fan of the 1.006 nerfs to AA, howeve

Has anyone been able to introduce new player icons? They're used more ingame than the portraits, but they're all a bit rubbish. I'd like to introduce some of my own.

Pretend I don't know anything about models, meshes or formats for a moment. Is it possible or practical to move models available elsewhere into Sins format? The Ironclad converter is good for the last step, but is it possible to convert between model formats to get to that point? I'd like to try some model replacements, but I'm not sure what format these are in or if they're able to be converted to the right format without having 3DS or something.

Your ideas mirror my own, with regard to making combat more interesting. I hope you get something knocked together that you can post. :)

[quote]Huh what's that got to do with the game?[/quote] Let's see sherlock: maybe it's relevant to the idea that providing funding and weapons to militant insurgencies doesn't guarantee that they do what you want all the time, and can in fact be extremely dangerous?

[quote]Having no pirates at all requires 2 versions of the same map.. which is rather pointless.[/quote] Wow, that's amazing. Can you hand down some more wisdom from Mt Sinai, oh lord? I was also surprised that they're still there, just inactive. I'd imagined it would be done at the map level, where the presence of the Pirate Base node is dependent on the pirate bit being set to 1... and not 'do you want pirate AI y/n'. The Pirate screen isn't even 'broken' the way it would

'Selling the rights' is worthless when the odds of anyone actually making a 90s-style space shooter are almost zero. It'd become an FPS or RTS, or maybe a really dumbed-down shooter. Hooray? :)

I don't dislike the market because it interferes with strategies: simply that is doesn't make any sense. It's a magical bin of infinite, really cheap, instantly delivered resources. Player trade would add to the diplomacy side of the game (the most enjoyable aspect, in my opinion, much like Defcon) and remove the 'can have all the resources you can pay for'. I haven't played enough with the new patch to decide whether it's better, but I don't think it's any worse. It just makes the s

It amuses me that people are arguing with this guy. Assuming for the moment he isn't just a troll, taste is subjective. He doesn't like the game - so what? How does that affect anyone else? His hilarious grandstanding 'WOW IN PUBLIC I DON'T LIKE IT I WILL TOTALLY SELL IT SEE HOW MUCH I HATE IT' stuff is great comedy to post on the official forums, and I congratulate him for stirring up so much noise. I think Army of Poo sucks too. Anyone care? No? Of course not. Nor should you.<

[quote]Really? Perhaps you haven't played Kohan?[/quote] While it's good to see Kohan remembered, most public games of Kohan WERE optimised build-order rape. It was just as open to 'best path' stuff as any other game. Playing an RTS in pub games means you have to be playing at a certain competitive level, and not just horsing around with your buddies as in a private game.

Due to the 'magic bottomless black market', cash was already the most useful resource, and these changes haven't really changed this. Oh well, we can all edit the base market price to 2k or something and use the player-based market, which is more limited and more interesting. I mean, super-cheap resources (yeah, 300-600 for resources is super-cheap) was always a crazy idea. EDIT - Frankly, if the price goes DOWN as slow as it goes UP, it's better than the 102 system where it spiked in

With regard to the 'can't attack unbuilt structures' item, why can other players even SEE the 'blueprint' of a 0% structure? It doesn't even exist, it's just a note on a clipboard somewhere. It shouldn't even be visible until a constructor drives over and starts building it, which would prevent the enemy magically knowing as soon as you order buildings exactly were they'll be once completed.

[quote]That is not the case. Turret animations have negligible hardware drain even with thousands of ships.[/quote] Shh, don't bother the people repeating canned explanations. Hearing the same thing every time someone points out not having any model animation at all in 2008 is ridiculous makes me laugh. It's not just turrets: no model animation at all. The little wiggly cranes on constructors don't even move! :CONGRAT: As an aside, Bailknight, great work both making someth

[quote]They need a seperate version for singleplayer and multiplayer then if balancing singleplayer means making advent unplayable in competitive play.Oh but don't worry, now advent can make improved culture broadcasts while their homeworld is getting destroyed while there is nothing at all they can do about it. Maybe they'll drop a roids allegance by half before they die![/quote] This isn't unusual these days, but I'm not sure how popular it is with players. WiC has very different un

Fixing one instance of a problem caused by a poor concept (ie, bottomless black market) is missing the point. I wonder if you could mod the base price for resources to 3k-4k (to take it out of the game) and see what diplomacy comes from forcing players to deal with a closed economy.

To be honest, this seems like an unavoidable consequence of having a Magical Unlimited Marketplace that sells infinite resources at quickly-spiking and dropping prices. Slap in an option to disable the Magical Market and restrict it to the actual player-driven market and this would instantly go away. You also wouldn't be able to buy infinite quantities of resources from... Magical Land... which makes money and trade so important. The unlimited market could be made to work, but I think

Hard caps aren't a solution to anything: it's the equivalent of the devs throwing up their hands and saying 'we give up, we can't balance this'. I think the 'boringness' comes much more from other elements than unit selection, like the static, bland nature of the combat itself. Using Dawn of War as an example of how *any* RTS should handle balance issues is like using Counterstrike as an example of excellent FPS balance. Needs more nerf-cycles! :)

Everyone I know that owns Sins has been playing it since launch through downloads. You know that with the poor USD, it's about A$50 to buy it online AND pay the $5 more to get a box sent out if you feel the need for a printed manual? People who want to pay retail (for reference, retail for a regular game is A$100 here, although Sins will doubtless be cheaper by $20) for the priviledge to wait for months are quite amusing.

It's cute that people here (well, the 4-5 posters responsible for most of the thread) apparently believe a problem endemic to multiplayer games the world over can be easily solved by things that other games have already tried. I say again: people quit very short, ranked competitive multiplayer games. A very long game like Sins with ranking is hardly going to fare better. Ranked/unranked would at least let e-peen players pad out their profile without bothering new or casual players,

You can't. That's why many people dislike 'pub games'.

Any game with ranking has the option for the host/server to set a 'ranked' flag, to determine whether results are to count towards the e-peen stat record. However, expecting this to resolve this issue (which is based on the nature of the game and the nature of multiplayer itself) when it has never resolved it for any other multiplayer game is dreaming. Unranked games are still going to be full of people who have their Xtreme Build Orderz ruling over noobs who give up in disgust. This is just

[quote]People who leave when they start to lose shouldn't bother you. They obviously don't care about having fun playing they game, they just want to win. [/quote] You're INSANE. People leaving when the game is basically a fait accompli isn't related to people only wanting to win: it's often because the game will STILL take ages to play out, and there's no percieved way to turn it around. Some people just want a casual game, and they have no interest in spending 4 hours getting ruled

That anyone is stupid enough to think 'there shouldn't be a quit button' simply astounds me. Absolutely - lock people in a room and FORCE THEM TO PLAY UNTIL THE END! There can be only ONE! This is SERIOUS BUSINESS! :SURPRISED: There is certainly no other way to quit the game at all, right? Anyone who thinks 'ranked = no quitters' is horrificly ill-informed. You will ALWAYS, ALWAYS get quitters, for many reasons already mentioned in this very thread (ie, throwaway accounts, fact tha

Those examples are great reasons why this kind of forced bonus is daft. If he's looking for neat, global bonuses, too bad. The factions are quite distinct (right down to playschool stuff like 'TEC heavy armour' and 'Advent heavy shields'). The game has balance issues as it is, trying to force in more simplistic global bonuses isn't going to help.