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Entries from April 21st, 2007

Explaining the Pause

April 21st, 2007 · 8 Comments · Board Games, MMO

The lack of updates in the last couple of days has been mostly because my gaming time has been consumed with two things. First, I puttered around with the Lord of the Rings Online open beta. It’s cute, but probably not cute enough to hold me any longer than World of Warcraft did. Which means […]

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Soren Johnson leaves Firaxis

April 18th, 2007 · 2 Comments · Firaxis, Industry, Maxis

First reported on Apolyton by webmaster Dan Quick, it has been confirmed by Firaxis programmer Scott Lewis that the big brain behind Civilization IV is moving on to work with EA/Maxis. I guess he likes companies that end in -axis. How big a blow this is to Firaxis fans like me depends on how seriously […]

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The Worst Thing About PBEM Civ

April 16th, 2007 · 5 Comments · Multiplayer

The early turns in PBEM Civilization are murder. You’ve given your workers orders, have your cities producing and decided what to research. Next turn. And it will be “next turn” for the next little while, too.

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World War I and Game Design

April 16th, 2007 · 12 Comments · Design, History, WW1

My homeland is going through another spasm of celebration of its grand nation building moment. For Canada, this isn’t the 1867 Confederation or even the completion of the transcontinental railway that linked East and West. Instead, the First World War is oft cited as the point when a Dominion with no independent foreign policy took […]

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Making Tough Choices

April 15th, 2007 · 1 Comment · WW2

I started playing Making History: The Calm and the Storm yesterday, and I’ll hold off on too detailed commentary until the review is done and published. These comments are based on a few starts and one extended play. But the game makes me appreciate the tough calls that grand strategy game developers have to make […]

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RTS Year Already Over

April 14th, 2007 · 9 Comments · RTS

Or at least that’s the impression I get from Jason Ocampo’s feature on 2007 real time strategy games.

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