Xyvik

I'm saddened that so few are keeping any interest on Supreme Commander. It will finally be a true real time STRATEGY game, not the tactical stuff that WC3 made popular. Medieval 2 I am looking forward to, but that is not an RTS, it is a Turn Based Strategy game with a few RTS elements thrown in, and those aren't as good as its TBS part. I hated the morale issue of R:TW. Roman Soldiers did not run away while they were anywhere near the italian penisula, otherwise they would never be able to show their faces near anybody who had anything to do with Rome. Morale buckled under far too easily, even for the Gaul. They would fight to the last man, regardless of who was coming at them, because of their fierce pride of their country, and similarly the romans. Meh. I hope M:TW2 fixes a bit of that problem. SupCom is definitely going to be the RTS to get, I just hope it doesn't suffer the fate that TA did: IE not very many people knew about it, but it was way better than the alternatives, including CNC and StarCraft.

You're over-simplying and putting the blame where it does not belong. While I do not think Gamespy are angels, they are not to blame for the problem. The problem lies with people in general, mostly young teens with attitudes who think it's cool to abuse other people or cheat. If a gaming network tried to censor every possible abuse, we wouldn't be able to chat to anybody. Ever play Generals? The chat filter for generals was HILARIOUS because it bleeped out words that are not anywhere near insulting. The end result was that half of the time, my message never even made it across. So the question has nothing to do with Gamespy, it has to do with people. You either censor everything or you censor nothing, and I for one beleive in the right of all people to say what they want. The core issues with the MP are not just the people, although they are a large part of the reason why I don't play ANY game online except with people I know. The simple fact of the matter is that the FPS problem can be fixed very simply by several methods. The first was mentioned in the first post, a level indicator of how well your FPS is and the ability to screen out players of lower-end systems. Another problem that leads to low game performance is dial-up, and that can be simply changed to allow a filter which blocks all 56kers. I'm of the beleif that 56kers shouldn't be playing online anyway, but I digress. This was all a very roundabout way of saying: stop digging on GameSpy. They aren't even remotely the major problem.

DX10 is also an overhyped MicroShaft creation, which will in no way pull of what it claims. A good card for the price is the X1600XT, preferably by PowerColor. Nvidia cards are power hogs and overheat too much, but if you've got the cooling they are, generally, a tad bit cheaper, albeit you get what wou pay for with lower quality. The X600 is definitely low-end, but still a fairly good card.

Such is, unfortunately, the state of affairs of just about every online game these days. The online scene is too littered with (usually) young punks who think it's fun to 'haxxor' or aren't mature enough to face defeat as easily as winning. If I could ever send a message out to those kind of people, there are two things I'd want to say, first to the cheaters and second to the poor sports: One) Get a life Two) You learn more from defeat than from victory. That's why I only play online with people I know, which is a startling low number.

True, very true. However, there are two things animals are good for: one, they are cheaper than anything mechanical, and two, they break down a lot less. So yeah, pretty much cannon fodder. But cannon fodder makes for very excellent strategies, if you just know how to use it...

I'm talking about skirmish battles, not GC battles. In a skirmish battle, the tactical depth was increased at the sacrafice of the strategic gameplay. In GC mode, yes, I agree the land battles are tactical but even on a planetary battle strategy should not be sacraficed -completely- for the tactical considerations. It's not as important because we have the giant chess board, but it feels like its almost non-existant. I beleive that we could leave GC mode as it is and not suffer needlessly, but the skirmish battles need a bit of a rewrite in my opinion. Actually, the first prophecy involving the Messiah is approximately 6000 years old, being the first prophecy in the Bible (he will bruise you in the head and he will bruise you in the heal.) The later prophecies, involving the lack of a human father and what not, were uttered in the Psalms as well as the Prophets, which are approximately 4000 years old. The Messiah being born and fulfilling those prophecies is 2000 years old, so it is the fulfillment of the prophecies that is only 2k old. The actual prophecies are much older To Rust_Lord: It was the Hebrews who had the original prophecies, and the Hebrews gave way to the TRUE Christians once Jesus came to earth. Most of the doctrines taught in today's churches are actually Babylonian in origin, but the prophecies regarding the birth of Christ are genuine. And that comes from my past 8 years of studying theology

I will not be dragged into the same argument that has already faded, but I will make a comment on this. If you consider an unimaginative retread of a 4000 year old story to be exceptional, you really have no idea what a good story is. The whole "born with no father", "prophecies", and all that are found somewhere else. It's called the Bible, which is the most widely distrubuted book in the world. So instead of coming up with something good and original, Lucas steals an idea from the world's most popular book. Yeah. That's exceptional all right. Where's my rolling eyes smilie? On to the other debate: Once again, lukeiamyourdad, we find ourselves on the same side of an argument . I like the idea of the landing ping. Put that in there with the ability to land anywhere, according to ship size, and you have an excellent way of doing things. For instance, Slave I and any of the other smaller hero ships are famous for being able to land anywhere, they don't need a huge cleared area. Troop transports are a little bigger and therefore would need a little more room, but not that much. It's only the big barges that would require quite a bit of clear space. Keep that, the Guidance Beacons to hasten your own transports down, and you have a good way. But keep in mind that with the way landing zones are now, you know where your enemy is coming from. You also know where your enemy base is. That removes the absolute -need- of scouting forces. Back in the day you had to search a map before you found your opponent, and the first person to figure out where the other was had an advantage of information. That's the way it should be. Fight to keep your forces secret, fight to know where your enemy is. That's part of warfare.

At the sacrafice of strategy. But anyway, you missed the point. In a Galactic Conquest mode, yes the idea of a beachhead makes sense, get the troops on the ground in one spot, far away from the enemy base. But once down there, no-holds-barred we can drop anywhere we want, as long as our troops can see it. Or did you miss that part? Which means you'd have to get your troops to the other side of the map before you could drop something in, and with the exception of speeder bikes you aren't going anywhere fast. And even in that case, let's say that certain units are excluded from the "spotter" list, kind of like how now you have to have troops take the areas. Make troops line-of-sight the indicator, but don't restrict us to landing on just a few spots on the map. It turns everything into a map of little more than decorated chokepoints. In skirmish, however, where both sides already have bases and beachheads and usually shields, the idea has no merit whatsoever. Beef up defenses a bit to compensate (which they should be anyway)and voila...you have an awesome way of playing.

We're not talking about WW2 where people are limited to ground, sea, or even air-based transports. We're talking about Star Wars, where gigantic capital ships rule from orbit. They can drop their barges anywhere they *%&$ well please. I agree, in a normal RTS the idea holds merit, but when you have a Star Destroyer sitting in orbit, the guys above aren't going to worry about "oh, we can only land our guys in two places on this planet, because of some unseen force that keeps us out." It makes no sense at all. The idea of a guidance beacon, however, makes sense. Or restricting landing vehicles to areas where your troops can see. That makes sense as well. But limiting them to weird icons that can be lost is...well...strange. 'sides, the land troop limits are -far- too small. This is STAR WARS, not star dance-around-with-a-few-guys. While I hate the prequals, at least they had battles. Battle for Geonosis, anybody? I didn't see no pop cap there. My idea for the guidance beacon is this: remove the landing zones completely. Barges and whatever can land wherever they want. These are atmospheric craft coming in from orbit, there's nothing that's going to stop them from dropping in. Instead, however, troops can build Guidance Beacons a certain distance away from theirs or the enemy base. These Guidance Beacons allow barges and transports to land -faster-, more coordinated attacks. These Beacons can be destroyed or upgraded, and they -slow- down enemy transports. Dunno, just my ideas

Yay, we agree on something! Let's continue this trend I think I counted the time it takes for the logos at 20 or so seconds. That's 1/3 of a minute. So let's say that you (like me) needed to constantly move in and out of the game over and over again, and let's say you did it once a minute. In an hour, you would have wasted 20 minutes just looking at logo screens that should be skippable (is that a word?) One of the few good things I can say about M$ is that even they let you skip the logo screens. Seriously, if the monopolizing *expletive deleted* M$ people can let you skip logos, LucasArts should be able to as well. To Wedge- I always thought the landing zones idea was stupid anyway, so one of my first plans for TSW is to remove them. Or at the very least, let the sides be able to "build" their own landing sites. The idea of a guidance beacon comes to mind, something that you have to build, that can be destroyed, but allows extra landing precision...I dunno.

Now see, I have the opposite viewpoint and yeah, the B-Wings do carry more warheads. I concede the point

I sincerely hope the devs are reading this! In addition to side vs side (empire fighting empire etc.) it would be in the best interests of everybody if there was some way, a shortcut modifier or whatever, to skip past all the logos. Honestly, Petro, yours was awesome because we could skip it, but apparently Lucasarts has too much of an ego and we're forced to sit through at least 10 seconds of worthless logos about stuff we already know. We already know it's Star Wars Empire at War and that it is rated teen for fantasy violence. We already know that it's made by lucasarts. As a map tester, I am constantly moving in and out of the game, and that 10 wasted seconds adds up a lot over time. I wasted over 15 minutes out of an hour one time (I actually timed it) because of that. Please, Petro and Lucasarts, do something about this!

Based on the X-Wing series, which I always liked to a certain extent but always thought they made capital ships a bit too weak, a squadron of X-Wings alll launching torps could severely damage a capital ship, and X-wings could carry 12 torps. So that means that B-Wings and Defenders are on par in actual missile capacity, but the B-Wings extra ion cannons meant they do a bit more damage to a capital ship (just a bit) whereas a defender can outmaneuver any fightercraft and still damage capital ships... they best make that thing bloody expensive! lol

Yeah yeah, I know, I get too mad at all the stuff sometimes. My apologies if I offended anybody...I'm a die-hard purist sometimes As for the hyperspace...I'm not sure, I think they can fight back the instant they come in, but it always seems that either the ships are more vulnerable or something, because my Acclamators always have no shields left after hyping them into a battle scene, and by the time I can give them movement orders they are almost dead (and this is with very little fire actually being directed against them). Maybe it's just me.

definetely smaller than corvettes. Perhaps they are one of the new fighters? Can't really tell =/