OT: Do Not Buy Alert

[Growltigger]

My personal bugbear, games that are released way too early (normally for the Xmas rush) and havnt got all the bugs worked out of them..

Patches? simply a modified form of product recall for the computer game industry

Bastards the lot of them (except Malfador and Shrapnel of course)

[Baron Munchausen]

Yep, yep... sounds like the rule still holds. The first release of anything is a public beta. Don't buy until it has been patched. I just got Civ 3 Last fall when the 1.29f patch came out. It's still got balance problems (as many have complained, the combat system is much too simple and needs to be better designed) but it's playable. Unlike the original release. I'm considering whether to get PTW with some further changes. I waited for SC 3K Unlimited before upgrading from SC 2k (which I bought on a 'Special Edition' CD after it had been out for years). Now I will plan to get SC 4 sometime next Fall or maybe next Spring.

And actually, I disagree on SE IV. It was also incomplete when originally released. It was a patch to Gold that finally fixed several interface problems -- like 'escape' and 'enter' working like button clicks, the help said they worked but they did not -- and the ridiculously simple feature of filtering ships without cargo out of the cargo transfer window or ships without unit launch/recover out of the unit launch/recover window. Granted, SE IV didn't have the kind of nasty glaring crash bugs that SC 4 seems to have, but SE IV was also a far less demanding program. No real time, no 3D graphics, etc.

Since Moo 3 finally has a release date we can now prepare to hear about this public beta...

[ January 25, 2003, 00:25: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Instar]

well, I am a serious hardcore SimCity fanatic, so I had to buy it first day. if you can wait, well, that is cool (I usually don't buy games the first day, but for me SC4 is different)

When I say SimCity fanatic, I mean I have played every Version of SimCity (and the streets and copter games too)

Honestly, I feel that SC4 is one of the more complete games that I have played (but I do not experience any crashes at all, my opinion would certainly be different, if say, I was in Atrocities shoes)

[couslee]

LOL. I played transport tycoon because in came on a 4-game cd i got. I loved it, I went out and bought 4 different "sim" games, and can't stand the lot of them. Granted, I only paid 10-15 a piece for them, but they became shelf-ware faster than my attempt at a flight sim. I like the 4x TBS genre'. anything else is frown, IMO. Maybe I will give them another look, maybe not. They might not even run on my new computer. lol

Interested in a nearly new sim set? (tower,city,isle,farm)

[ January 25, 2003, 02:57: Message edited by: couslee ]

[Atrocities]

Instar what are you PC specs?

[Instar]

my full specs:
P4 1.8 ghz
512 MB DDR RAM
GF4 Ti 4400
Audigy 1 Platinum
MSI mobo
80 gig HD
DVD and CDRW drives
WinXP with every patch I can apply
Thats about it, I guess

Edit:
Oh yeah, I get lags as well, but only after a lot of people or more, or if other major events are going on.

[ January 25, 2003, 05:20: Message edited by: Instar ]

[Atrocities]

I installed the game on my other PC, the one that seldom if ever works, and it seems to work fine with minor slow downs. The problem is the PC won't run for more than an hour before making odd silonoid clicking sounds and locking up. (Heat issue I think.)

I may upgrade my ram on this PC, it is SDRam, and not DDR Ram like my other AMD. I can up the SDRam to over a gig, and that should help. Too bad I can not convert it to DDR Ram.

The point is, the game seems to like memory, and lots of it.

[ January 26, 2003, 07:19: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

[Instar]

Yeah, I can understand that, there is a TON of data that needs stored and rapidly recalled
Video RAM especially, Ill bet. All of those 3d rendered buildings is hard to keep updated.
My PC has 5 fans in it, so I dont worry about heat too much. May eventually OC the whole rig, but I dont think I will anytime soon

[Dobian]

Originally posted by Instar:
well, I am a serious hardcore SimCity fanatic, so I had to buy it first day. if you can wait, well, that is cool (I usually don't buy games the first day, but for me SC4 is different)

Do you play other city building games? I have SC3K, but don't play it anymore. It was fun for awhile, but gets repetitive. For my money, the best city builders are the Impressions city building games (Caesar 3, Pharaoh, Cleopara, Zeus, Poseidon...and Emperor - which I haven't played yet). These games are great because they're strategy games and not just sims. Every building has a purpose and isn't just window dressing, and you really have to put a lot of thought into the design and layout of you city. Same with the people in your city - they're actually doing something that impacts the game. The trade and commerce model in these games is terrific, and I find them to be really challenging most of the time.

[Baron Munchausen]

Aha! Here you've hit on my pet peeve. We have 'simulations' and we have 'strategy games' and there's not much cross-over. Do any of those 'ruler' series feature actual opponents? I played Ceasar 2 once and though you had to fight the locals to conquer a province there was no organized opposition. That's why I am hoping SE V will move in the direction of 'simulation' by adding lots of environment details (planet features like gravity, radiation levels, etc. More detailed racial characteristics that are retained when conquered. Stars with varying levels of output, etc.)

SimCity is nice but gets boring because there's no possibility of conflict. 4X games are designed for war and nothing else, which also gets boring. The design of MOO 3 was leaning towards simulation but Emrich did it wrong (not allowing the player to control things) and they had to revamp it. I'm anxious to see how much of the 'simulation' aspect has been preserved.