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Origins 2007

July 9th, 2007 by Troy Goodfellow · Me

I have returned from my hiatus, which was, in fact, four days in Columbus, Ohio for the Origins Convention. I was, with a handful of other strategy and war game journalists, a guest of Matrix Games, so I have every opportunity to talk to designers whose work I admired and designers whose work needs more work. I hope to get some previews sold later this week.

Origins is like Walmart for nerds – stall after stall of people selling RPGs, board games, dice, foam weapons, shirts with stupid gaming slogans on them, etc. The electronic side of the wargame/RPG market was largely absent, limited to Matrix demo-ing the titles it has released in the last year or so, Longbow Digital Arts showing off Hegemony (Jim McNally even remembered who I was) and EA/Mythic running a horde of attendees through areas of Warhammer: Online. Given how many miniatures people are there, as well as the whole War College Seminar series, I was sort of surprised to not see other wargame publishers at the con. If the activity at the Matrix and LDA booths are any indication, this is a good place to expand your audience.

The highlights?

1) Seeing Mark Walker’s Lock and Load computer game in action. This is going on the list.
2) Finally meeting Bruce Geryk and Wargamer head-honcho Jim Zabek.
3) An amazing steak dinner at a local steak house.
4) Learning three or four new games and coming home hooked on Blue Moon.

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Hiatus

July 3rd, 2007 by Troy Goodfellow · Me

Just a note that with the holiday coming up and some work on my schedule, there won’t be much time for blogging until early next week. So go read someone else for a few days.

In the meantime, I have disabled comments, more to prevent me from logging in and checking things than anything else. Happy Independence Day.

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Shall we go again, your Majesty?

July 3rd, 2007 by Troy Goodfellow · Paradox, RTS

I just got an email from Paradox PR stating that they have acquired the IP rights to Majesty, the creative but underperforming 1998 RTS from Cyberlore. In Majesty, you controlled your kingdom indirectly, giving incentives for many units to take actions but not necessarily giving orders.

Apparently, Paradox has an interest in reviving this franchise, or at least that’s what a Cyberloe exec thinks.

“We strongly feel that Majesty deserves to be revitalized and there are few gaming companies out there capable of taking this franchise to the next level”, said Lester Humphreys, Founder of Cyberlore Studios. “There is no question in our minds that Paradox Interactive is the right company to do just that.”

Now, I ask this as an admirer of Majesty. For the love of God, why?

Majesty is one of those games that has earned more retrospective respect than actual love. It is not a success story. It is not a recognizable name to masses of gamers. It is not a license to print money.

So why acquire a name that you can’t do a lot with anyway? I guess you could call Majesty a cult hit, but this isn’t Fallout we’re talking about. This isn’t even Sacrifice. And nothing could keep Paradox from developing a game similar to Majesty without owning the title; this is an industry full of clones, derivatives and “spiritual successors”.

It could be that Paradox wants to do more than make historical simulations, though that’s where there audience is. Their adaptation of the boardgame Diplomacy was a train wreck. So, for design credibility, they need a credible name. I’m sure Majesty wasn’t expensive and it has that geeky insider thing going for it. You know what I mean. The whole “You can’t call yourself a gamer until…”

Watch this space for more news as it becomes available.

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Too Pretty For Its Own Good?

July 3rd, 2007 by Troy Goodfellow · Battlefront

My review copy of Combat Mission: Shock Force arrived yesterday, and, of course, I had to install it immediately. Naturally, it arrived without a paper manual, but I have a nice big PDF to print out once the rage subsides. Thanks Paradox!

It’s really a pretty game, even though there’s a lot of desert terrain. Vehicles and men look great and the muzzle fire from a tank cannon has just the right WHOOMP effect. I think Battlefront has overrated the capability of the Syrian Army, but it is set in the near future. Maybe an Arab army will finally become a viable fighting force by 2010. So, Shock Force requires all the tactical foresight of the games that have preceded it. This will be a very nice distraction for a while.

But, my God, it’s slow. Very slow. Zooming in and out isn’t smooth at all. The camera lurches from spot to spot like an aging lion with one foot in a bear trap. If you turn down some of the graphics, it gets a little better but then, what’s the point? If you are going to make a game that looks this good, it should be remotely playable with tanks that don’t look like leftovers from Operation Fortitude.

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July Strategy Preview

July 2nd, 2007 by Troy Goodfellow · Preview

Only three titles, but two of them are high on my must have list.

July 5Seven Kingdoms: Conquest (Enlight)

July 23Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword (Firaxis/2k)

July 27Combat Mission: Shock Force (Battlefront)

Despite my great love of Civilization, I think I’m looking forward to Combat Mission most. We haven’t had a new entry in the series in a while, and no one else has really captured what makes it, to my mind, the most significant wargame series in the history of the genre. I had a few initial misgivings about the movement to modern asymmetrical warfare, but I’m getting a little more excited as the days count down.

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Bi-annual Search Engine Round-up

July 1st, 2007 by Troy Goodfellow · Blogs

When a blogger has little to say, but feels compelled to post, he/she will occasionally fall back on the search engine survey to find out how people get their corner of the internet. This summary will include the usual list of perversions, mistakes and stupidities that typify that portion of humanity that uses the search engine for everything.

I could do that. Once you’ve had someone come to your blog looking for Rise of Legends porn or nude patches for Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War, it’s easy to have a low opinion of the world. My two favorite searches were someone looking for Games For Windows Podcast Fanfic and another looking for confirmation that, indeed, Flash of Steel Sucks.

What’s more disturbing, though, is how many people have no idea where to look for answers to their homework questions. As incomplete and subtlety free Wikipedia is, doing a random Google search for historical answers will generally not yield efficient results unless you have some clue what you are looking for. And don’t people have books anymore? Or libraries?

Anyway, I have decided to forgo the documentation of deviation this time around so that I can provide a useful service and actually answer some of the homework questions that have brought people here. I’m here to help.

I’ll try for a real update tomorrow, but this is Canada Day so that means a barbecue. Moreso since I’ll be on the road on July 4.

where is Phrygia – East of Asia Minor in Anatolia. Which means Turkey.
cool facts about aztecs weapons – They were no match for Spanish steel
reasons for the slave revolt in 73 – Wrong question; the real curiosity is why there weren’t more slave revolts
why did the romans hold regular games in the arena – Games weren’t “regular” so much as extended holidays at specific times. It’s not like they had a 162 game schedule. But the reasons were the same as today – money and entertainment.
why did the french get along with the indians better than any other colonial power – It’s not clear they did, Their settlement colonies were mostly failures, which makes it easier for the people being invaded to like you.
convoy routes atlantic ww2Look here. You get better results searching “Battle of the Atlantic”
Philip II’s domestic policy – Of Macedon? Making Macedon as Attic as possible while maintaining a large standing army. Of Spain? Strong central authority, avoiding calls to use the assemblies more frequently. Economic mismanagement leading to high inflation. Powerful church.
why did steel become important – Steel is alloyed iron, and is easier to work. So once manufacturing became efficient, larger structures became economically viable.
Theseus have a superpower? – Unless abandoning a princess you seduced without a second thought counts as a superpower, no. Just the usual stronger/smarter/luckier stuff you get when your father is Zeus.
Why didn’t Native Indians kill early Europeans? – Some did. But mostly it was live and let live. And don’t forget that the natives were as divided among themselves as Europe was. Having strong foreigners show up on your side could tip the balance in your own local wars. See Tlaxcalans/Aztecs, Huron/Iroquois.
why was ww2 trying to be prevented instead of going to war – Because they remembered World War I
why was the bazooka so good for ww2 – It kills tanks and is considerably lighter than a tactical bomber.
oliver said Alexander would do good in Europe – He also made Jim Garrison a hero. You figure it out.
the portugese were even more cruel and vicious than the Spanish – It’s stuff like this that makes me hate search engines. Find a book on Portuguese imperialism and Spanish imperialism and then compare, damn it.
what major thing happen in the year 1588 – Defeat of the Spanish Armada
The english civil war:Why Charles didn’t think he was wrong – It’s almost hard to imagine a time when leaders actually thought they were divinely chosen to rule, and therefore could make no mistake. Then you think of the President.
did herodotus make a board game – No.
were there any female conquerors? – Though there were many female military leaders, and many female monarchs who oversaw national expansion, I can think of no real female equivalents of Cyrus, Alexander, Charlemagne or Napoleon.
axis heroes of the WW2Stauffenberg.
Was the Cold War a case of good versus evil or something else – Both. Much of the time it was manipulative power versus manipulative power. But no reasonable person can disagree that we’re better off than we would have been had the Soviets won.
reasons for avoiding the American Civil War – There are 600,000 reasons lying in cemeteries across the country. But the war had to be fought to preserve the principle of democratic rule – you don’t get to quit just because you don’t like how an election turned out.
Benefits of nazis conquering Britain – None. Unless you mean in purely strategic terms. In which case it would have made Hitler’s war much easier.
has there ever been someone how died in a black hole – What are you? Some kind of idiot? Of course not.
You can trace the destructive warfare of the twentieth century back to Napoleon – Only if you want to give Nappy credit for exporting nationalism and mass armies. The Thirty Year’s War was much more destructive.

But this being a game blog, I should do some game stuff, too.

battle for middle earth laughable – No, you are.
de bellis antiquitatis babylon 5 – I have no idea what this would look like. Are the Narn Warband units?
“deal or no deal” DVD hints cheats – Deal or No Deal is the stupidest game on television and you want cheats. Think about this.
empire earth II, setup failure – The only way to win is not to play, so you’re already doing fine.
europa universalis 2 “get a general” – They appear historically in EU2, so if you’re playing Brunei, you’re screwed.
“medieval II” “civilization IV” +”which is better” – Civ IV and, even though I like Medieval II a lot, this isn’t even close.
thurn und taxis game is really complicated – It’s not really.
are there any games like rome total war except modern warfare?Theatre of War is as close you’ll get until the new Combat Mission shows up.
who is the medieval total war babe – There is one?
criticisms of jessica chobot – Just one of many mediocre writers at IGN, she gets singled out a lot because she licked a PSP once.
strategic games blogHere.
rise of legends why didn’t it sell well – My guess is the setting. New IP is always a hard sell.
“master of orion” “difference between” “space empires v” – MOO is more transparent, which generally means better.
morgan webb obsession – I don’t know which perfume she wears.
steve bauman blogHere.
A game where you can play as god bossing around people – Your choices are The Sims and Black and White. Go with The Sims.
Supreme Commander rts clickfest cant tell fanboy – Yes. Come here for all your internet debating tips.
has the war game zulu total war been cancelled – I had no idea such a game was being made.

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