Vamphaery

Reply to Crusade 2.2 / 2.2.1 / 2.3 opt-in bugs in Galactic Civilizations III Stardock Forums

Not sure if this is a bug or not... a user on Steam informed me that this is a known issue, and I submitted a ticket with attached save files... but am posting here as well just to be on the safe side. Playing a custom civ, not at war with anyone, zero battles, haven't done anything to anyone via espionage, etc. Have only met two civs, neither of which are the Drengin. Suddenly, the Drengin inform me that my treachery has been unmasked, that I've assassinated their ambassador

Reply to Always on DRM *cough* Sim City *cough* in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="Savyg" reply="128" id="3330865"] doubt anyone here cares, but hey http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/15/eas-lucy-bradshaw-acknowledges-simcity-stumbled-out-of-the-gate-with-our-service-interview/[/quote] I do care. I will be the first to give them credit for the things they are doing (what I

Reply to Always on DRM *cough* Sim City *cough* in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="Savyg" reply="125" id="3330856"] Quoting Vamphaery, reply 124 all that would be required for a single player, offline version of this game - with regional play intact - would be for them to store this data locally rather than in the cloud, and allow local saves. Regional play for one player. Sure. Wasn't disputing that. That's what I meant by 'they could've made an entirely different game.' Any

Reply to Always on DRM *cough* Sim City *cough* in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="DsRaider" reply="122" id="3330832"] I really doubt they burst into your room while you were sleeping and forced you to play SimCity at gun point. If you don't like the game don't buy it. No one is forcing you. I hate always online games and will never buy this, but that's my choice. Maxis doesn't owe anyone anything. As others have said if you don't like the always online stuff play Simcity4. [/quote] Them owing people anything is n

Reply to Always on DRM *cough* Sim City *cough* in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]“With the way that the game works, we offload a significant amount of the calculations to our servers so that the computations are off the local PCs and are moved into the cloud. It wouldn’t be possible to make the game offline without a significant amount of engineering work by our team.”[/quote] And therein lies the bold faced lie and the tarnishing of integrity. If a modder can enable a debug mode in your code that makes the game run

Reply to You can keep only one RPG. All others go up in smoke. Which one? in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="klaxton499" reply="15" id="3330779"] Quoting Vamphaery, reply 13 Morrowind GOTY. I just wanted to LIVE in that game. Hell, I still do. Live in that game? No thanks. My luck I'd be the guy with a jump ring soon to be face down.[/quote] This may sound strange... but if I could live in a world where I knew for certain magic and gods really existed, I'd happily take that risk lol.

Reply to Always on DRM *cough* Sim City *cough* in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="mbar8" reply="110" id="3330642"] This latest lie of "needing calculations to be on the server" and having a modder prove them wrong within a couple of weeks is just absolute sweet karma. I'd like to say EA will suffer for this but they won't, They will spin this away and move on.[/quote] You know, at this point, I'm not even mad. I'm sad. I mean, genuinely sad. Now I know I'm kind of a depressive person to start with. And I know appeal

Reply to You can keep only one RPG. All others go up in smoke. Which one? in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

Morrowind GOTY. I just wanted to LIVE in that game. Hell, I still do.

Reply to Always on DRM *cough* Sim City *cough* in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="G_Bison" reply="104" id="3330491"] Quoting Vamphaery, reply 102 So what was that Maxis said about substantial engineering being required to make the game playable offline? All they had to do was what this modder did in a few days, and allow local saves instead of cloud saves. As I said before, shenanigans...Here's the vid said Modder/Hacker posted... Also, if you go to the full page. There is a link to said page for the hack/m

Reply to Always on DRM *cough* Sim City *cough* in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="G_Bison" reply="100" id="3330358"] Quoting G_Bison, reply 95 Hmm, after reading both articles at Kotaku and Rock, paper, shotgun. I'm calling shenanigans on EA and Maxis... Modder proves SimCity can run offline ( http://www.geek.com/articles/games/modder-proves-simcity-can-run-offline-indefinitely-20130314/ ) indef

Reply to Best computer RPG? in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

I once made a list of every game I've ever truly loved. You know, the games you'll remember (if you can still remember anything by then) when you're 90 and reminiscing about being young, hunched over your PC (or console) and experiencing virtual adventures. It was extremely difficult to narrow down the list and to decide between games in order to establish a favorite. But at the end of the day, I ended up having to concede that Morrowind was probably my most beloved game of all ti

Reply to Always on DRM *cough* Sim City *cough* in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

Personally I've given up the cause and am now happily playing Tropico 4. Definitely scratches the "every sim is followable and has needs and desires" itch (as did the old Tropicos.) But if and when the price of Sim City comes down to the sub twenty dollar range and if their servers are still up (and functional,) and especially if they ever implement an offline play patch, I would very reluctantly consider giving it a try. I'm not going to support a practice I have ethical qualms with

Reply to Does PC Gaming have a future? in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

I actually found a neat use for Windows 8. The metro interface, coupled with a touch monitor, coupled with some of Stardock's apps, allowed me to create a super user friendly first time PC for my aging and completely tech-illiterate (but loveable and sweet) mom. Now she can surf (somewhat,) check the news, get the weather, etc. and email her family without having to do much typing. That, to me at least, says Windows 8 is a much more accessible OS. And while we may scoff at that word (acce

Reply to Does PC Gaming have a future? in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

Yeah, here we have two options. AT&T (ADSL.) Comcast (Cable.) Comcast never gives me over 15Mbps (which sucks by global broadband standards but is the fastest service I can get here for the moment apparently) and imposes a bandwidth limit for their "unlimited" service. In fact, they even impose a bandwidth limit on my "unlimited" calling, which is also through them. They sent me a letter one day informing me that I had exceeded their 5000 minute per month "normal residential use" limit, a

Reply to Always on DRM *cough* Sim City *cough* in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="Glazunov1" reply="93" id="3330033"] Quoting Vamphaery, reply 91 Interesting piece from Kotaku about playing the game offline. Apparently they were able to play the game offline for nineteen minutes with no discernible loss of gameplay or performance. Some of the user comments under the piece suggest that claims that a great many essential calculations are handled server-side may not be entirely truthful, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to support that assertion pe

Reply to Does PC Gaming have a future? in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

The U.S. actually has quite good internet infrastructure. The problems are 1) Last mile infrastructure makes that largely moot (no glass to the curb; last mile is usually old copper everywhere I've ever lived,) and 2) Artificial (and largely arbitrary) bandwidth caps. I've always said I wouldn't mind always-online systems (nor streaming cloud-based systems) of any kind if they were reliable, and if there was some limited guarantee as to how long the servers

Reply to What is the best turn-based strategy game you've ever played? in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="klaxton499" reply="21" id="3329981"] I'm preparing for flames but... Jagged Alliance 2[/quote] If you're gonna get flamed for it, so will I. Jagged Alliance 2 was an awesome game for its time imo.

Reply to What is the best turn-based strategy game you've ever played? in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

For its time, probably Civ II. But in terms of an overall gameplay experience , including immersion and feeling like I was really running an empire and competing/communicating with other real empires, GalCiv2 takes the cake easily. By far the most immersive, engrossing 4x game I've ever played to date. Alpha Centauri is up there for its time, as well.

Reply to Always on DRM *cough* Sim City *cough* in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

Interesting piece from Kotaku about playing the game offline. Apparently they were able to play the game offline for nineteen minutes with no discernible loss of gameplay or performance. Some of the user comments under the piece suggest that claims that a great many essential calculations are handled server-side may not be entirely truthful, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to support that assertion personally. Interesting nonetheless. <a href="http://kotaku.com/5990165/my-simcity-city-th

Reply to Always on DRM *cough* Sim City *cough* in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

I actually agree that the game is well designed. A friend of mine has it and - when it works - it looks like a beautifully designed game. Engrossing, fun, and deep. I may or may not have found the cities-in-a-region dynamic a bit constraining, but I'd have to play to know personally. Some people love it, some people seem to think it's too limiting, even with 16 cities. I'd like to find out myself. Unfortunately, unless they ever release a demo (or I go

Reply to Tomb Raider killed by 'shaky cam'... at least for me in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

Hmm. My friend suffers from motion sickness when seeing films with shaky camera work, and could probably never play this game. That sucks, as it's one of few games she might actually want to check out.

Reply to Always on DRM *cough* Sim City *cough* in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

In the interest of trying to be as objective and fair as possible, I'd like to defuse some of the EA hate I've been seeing. Don't get me wrong, I disagree with plenty they do too. (Origin, emphasis on micro-transactions moving forward, although they claim to have backed off on that for now... we'll see.) But there seems to be a perception, both on the part of gamers and journalists, that EA forced these changes onto Sim City. I offer the following as evidence that thi

Reply to Always on DRM *cough* Sim City *cough* in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

This next story from Forbes is a bit more dubious and impossible to fact check (without doing some very underhanded things, anyhow.) So take it with a very large grain of salt. But I thought I'd post it here for those interested. http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/03/08/ea-employee-chastizes-company-over-simcity-in-public-letter/

Reply to Always on DRM *cough* Sim City *cough* in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

I know. I'm not trying to argue. I was just clarifying. [e digicons]:)[/e]

Reply to Always on DRM *cough* Sim City *cough* in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="Savyg" reply="61" id="3328558"] Quoting Vamphaery, reply 60 seriously, the number of people talking about losing ten to fifteen hours of progress makes my head hurt Seriously? I haven't seen anyone talking about that that actually experienced it. In fact I think I've only even heard about it once and that was third party. I question if that's even a legitimate complaint rather than anti-EA trolling.[/quote]<