Messages posted by: Turlow

plastereddragon wrote:The only way micropayments work is in a PvP environment. People will pay for the latest advantage because they are going to be defeated by other people if they don't. Which is essentially a big scam but people are fool enough to pay anyway... see Wizards of the Coast and Magic Online for an example.

I disagree. Micropayments in a free to play, multiplayer, PvE environment can also work. Scott Jennings has described a micropayments system he was working on at NCSoft that also dealt a blow to gold sellers. Here's the link. http://brokentoys.org/2008/09/25/how-to-stop-gold-farming/ The system he describes is already being used successfully by Puzzle Pirates.

I'm on easy because I've managed to get a sizable space empire and I currently don't feel like building up another space empire. Once I get the urge to start a new empire I will try hard.

poetry wrote:

Ok 2001 for the tribal bit. The cross between mission to the moon and flash gordon for the rocket launch.

The born free moment when the herd moves it's nest.
The beast that is very like the Clash Of The titans Kraken in the water and scaring the fish.
There are a lot more. I'm forgetting.

I found a planet named Rutan. In Dr Who (Tom Baker years, "Terror of Fang Rock") the Doctor faces off with an alien from Rutan.

Have you used any cheat codes in your game? From what I've read, after using a cheat, you can no longer gain badges from the game you cheated in.

Here are my Ozca buildings.

City Hall

House

Entertainment

Factory

sporemastershardsofblue wrote:

sikyanakotik wrote:I blame the fact that the Civ stage slams you right at the beginning by asking you to make four buildings, one-or-two vehicles, a new outfit, and an anthem. No other stage has that much front-loaded creative demand. Heck, I'm practically an artist, and even I tend to make only the City Hall and take everything else from my downloaded material.

I've noticed that with myself too. Sometimes I can really get into it, and then at other times I just go ugh and toss something together to be edited up later. I always at least paint them, though.

~Shards

I don't know about you but when later finally gets here I'm going to have a whole lot to do.

I leave most of my planets the color I find them since a lot of them are colors I can't seem to duplicate. I do prefer green or blue seas when I do color a planet.

thunderchild177 wrote:Made it to space. Got to the next planet to investigate, and my own invention is the security drone. That wasn't quite the checking out I had in mind, let alone three of them at once.

LOL!! I had the same sort of problem with a species I promoted to space age with a monolith. They were so appreciative they copied my ship design. Apparently though, they wanted more attention then I gave them because before long they attacked me. It ticked me off to be attacked by my own ship design and now they don't exist.

tyger42 wrote:

turlow wrote:The computer games industry has survived the last 30 years on box sales alone, what has changed in the business model that they suddenly can't make money anymore?

A dramatic increase in piracy, watchdog groups dragging them into court every time they find out some kid who played Half Life shot his buddy, increased advertising costs, etc, etc.

turlow wrote:I for one will not be buying any parts via micropayments. I see this as nothing more than an attempt by EA to squeeze every dime they can from their customer base.

And what about an expansion?

I don't buy your argument because there has also been a dramatic increase in sales. When this industry is described as multi-billion dollar you do understand that is profits, right? And you know that profit is money made above all your costs including advertising, lawsuits, etc, etc.? Did you know EA made $236,000,000 in profits last year (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2007/snapshots/465.html)? How many games does EA have running curently that involve microtransactions?

As for an expansion, that depends on what is being expanded. If it nothing more than thousands of new parts, then no, I won't buy it. If there is a significant change in game play then I will consider it depending on what is added.

trulyalone wrote:1. I want to take the war back to them, but I don't understand how to win over their planet. Also, it is costing way too much to send in fleets (like it has gone up to 500,000 for some reason) from allied systems. What are some good ways to capture planets?

Fly to the system you want to capture then to the enemy planet in the system. Fly down to the planet level. Move to the first (if there are more than one) enemy city. Use your laser, pulse cannon, and/or any bombs you may have on the city hall of the enemy city. Before long, the city with either 'asplode' (T0 planets) or raise the white flag (literally, a small white flag appears above the city) and surrender. Once you have done this to all the enemy cities, the planet will either be empty and colonizable (the cities 'asploded') or you can hit the capture system button (top center of screen once all existing cities have surrendered) and it is yours.

Hope this helps.

sagittary wrote:On one hand, I do agree that it's a very tricky slope to walk. On the other hand, I also disagree because at some point, developers need money to make new stuff - they can't survive on box sales forever; they need to make new stuff and pay off expenses like loans and creditors and all that fun stuff. Digging a business into a big financial hole really isn't a good way to keep a business alive and making new stuff.

The computer games industry has survived the last 30 years on box sales alone, what has changed in the business model that they suddenly can't make money anymore? The electronic game industry (computer and console games) is a multi-billion dollar sector of the economy and when you exclude MMO subscriptions, the only significant income source left are the box sales.

I for one will not be buying any parts via micropayments. I see this as nothing more than an attempt by EA to squeeze every dime they can from their customer base.

flame707 wrote:

orionstyles wrote:I've noticed that some stars are actually moving

This is, oddly enough, true.

Why is this odd? I doubt there is an astronomer alive who believes stars are stationary. nor do astronomers believe stars are moving at the same speed in similar directions. I think it's cool Maxis included some fast moving stars.

hystrix wrote:I'm not trying for a bull's eye, just to hit the next zone. I've no way to increase the temp either. my home planet won't give me any more terraforming missions either. I've no tools with which to use other than more air which does no good.

It sounds like you will need to unlock other terraforming tools before you can get this planet to T2. You can unlock them by working on your Terra-Wrangler Badge which is kind of a catch-22. To get the badge to unlock terraforming tools you need to terraform planets which, most of the time, will require tools you need to unlock. You should be able to find some planets that only need atmosphere changes to get to the next T level. Terraform those as far as you can with the tools you have until you unlock the other tools.

When I first started space and I wanted to unlock my terraforming tools, I worked on every planet I could whether I planned to colonize it or not. Some people don't like this method because often alien empires will take the planets you terraform but leave unowned. They don;t want to feed other empires. I took a longer view while doing this. I knew that sooner or later I would own these systems be it by colonization, capture or buying the system. Eventually I did take all of these systems and now the terraformed planets are under my control.

I have been storing some of my artifacts in colonies on my home world and I've noticed a couple oddities I thought I'd share.

First, the citizens of the colonies don't seem to like where I put the arties in the colonies. I've watched them drag the arties around town and put them where they want. I find it cool that the colonists take what I give them and decorate their city with it.

The other thing I've noticed is after the citizens move an artie (always to a deco hot spot), they like to build fountains and other town deco on the same spot. My arties are still there, just under deco. I verified this when my radar kept pointing at a fountain. I entered the city editor, deleted the fountain and low and behold, there was an artie sitting there I had dropped off before.

Perhaps these help to explain the vanishing arties others have experienced. I know other players have reported arties being stolen by pirates. I personally have never had this happen but I haven't had pirate raids near my home world in about a week.

I bought the download version so this may be a dumb question (feel free to laugh at me if it is) but did you buy the Mac version on accident?