3101

I played 2 custom games, both til around turn 200+ on normal difficulty.

No crash, there are slowdown even on my new machine, But if someone ask me if there are AI present in the game, my answer would have been no.

So at end both game boil down to research to max, build to max, battle against some wolf and spider and do some random quest, then one unit of archer demolish my opponent’s village, yes a 10 pop village at turn 150…

The UI/Control got some serious flaws, half of the time the damage from attack doesn’t show up, I don’t see missile in combat either. For some reason it will auto resolve battle without giving me the option of tactic battle or not, that probably is a setting somewhere or as designed.

3102

I think the lines are a bit blurred these days. Didn’t Starcraft 2 have a day 0 update?

3103

Why are you so protective of Brad here? Stop at that sentence and we’re in complete agreement.

But it’s not newsworthy

And yet, it was so not news worthy, that other sites posted links to it. Heck, with the wealth of info, I considered coming out of retirement and posting some Stardock knockings for my five readers on my site…

and lifting it out of my forum to make a provocative post demonstrates a real lack of regard for this forum. Which, I suppose, I shouldn’t expect from whoever the fuck Quintin Smith is. What does he care about Qt3? But Tom Francis/Pentadact is a member of this community. What kind of asshole treats his community that way? Tom Francis. That’s what kind of asshole.

-Tom

See, you start with the right idea then jumped off the deep end into crazy land. It’s a public forum. We all know that. If you post things on a public forum, dumb things in particular, you should expect to have them linked, posted, shown, talked about elsewhere.

Calling out people for doing their job, the exact same job you are involved in, is pretty silly to me.

3104

Tom, I get that. And I’m certainly not trying to excuse RPS / PCG here. I’m just not sure about a few posts that have been made suggesting that taken in context, Brad’s post takes on a different meaning. I feel that isn’t true.

With you 100% though on forum posts being taken as news. If it was his own forum I could see it, but one where he has a personal history - good and bad - and all that comes with it is unfair.

I’m just still a little miffed that I was told to never buy another Stardock game. :)

3105

Because when you go “true indie” that means you have unlimited magical funds to pay the salaries of the people working on your game?

I’m not excusing the apparent messy state that Elemental seems to be in – if Brad really had a viable choice between August launch dates and one in February 2011, it looks like the latter would have been a better choice. I think it’s naive to assume that anyone besides Blizzard gets to work under a “when it’s done” creed.

3106

Your bar for whether something is “news worthy” is pretty low.

Fair enough, when you’re talking about jackasses with nothing better to do like Quintin Smith at RPS. But Tom Francis at PC Gamer, who regularly participates in this community under the username Pentadact? That I don’t expect.

You and I have very different opinions on what my job is.

 -Tom
3107

Maybe they will. Businessmen aren’t gods, and they learn some lessons along the way.

After the dust settles, I’m curious to see if Brad has changed his mind on anything.

3108

I was little surprised to see it end up on RPS myself and while I didn’t have Tom’s visceral reaction, I thought it was kind of sensationalist, particularly the bit about the gamer’s Bill of Rights. Many people in this thread handled the issue more tastefully and with more nuance than RPS’s attempt at actual gotcha journalism.

3109

There’s doing the job, and then there’s doing the job wrong.

3110

One thing that sucks is that even if journalists are willing to treat their articles like glorified forum rants, the majority of the news reading public will still gobble it up like so much juicy gossip. At least the bleak future of gaming (games? game?) journalists scaling walls to nab nude shots of notable game developers is far, far off.

3111

Is that common knowledge around here who Pentadact is? It probably is, but unless he explicitly outed himself, it’s a little worrying that you would over this. Again, though, I don’t know what the status of his anonymity is… well was.

3112

The way everyone freaks out when Brad gets attacked for talking shit is absurd, and I strongly disagree that there was anything innapropriate about Brad’s quote being taken from this forum.

Brad’s involvement in the gamer community is a cornerstone of the Stardock PR image. He sells games by coming into forums like this one and talking to people. It seems only fair that this involvement cuts both ways.

I think his statement was newsworthy (it also brought me back to these forums, which I have not read in months). I know Brad, and I doubt he would have apologized if he hadn’t been quoted. The guy is delusional, and needs to be called on bullshit statements like the one he made. Bravo to RPS for taking him to task.

3113

I think you added 2 too many “fars”.

He has. I think he has linked or at least mentioned some of his reviews.

3114

Remember when another famous developer mouthed off on a public forum a few years back? It’s a good thing that wasn’t reported on!

Apropos of nothing Tom, I liked your K&L2 review. Very fair.

3115

Whew. Thanks. :)

3116

I guess that’s what I mean by context. Do you really believe Brad didn’t want you – or Ben, or Jason, or me, all of whom are largely in agreement about Elemental – to buy his games?

Look, the situation with Elemental is going to get worse before it gets better. If Stardock thought it was bad after Demigod, I’d argue they haven’t seen anything yet. This is going to be tough for them, and I sympathize, mostly because I know Brad, but partly because I like Stardock as a developer, and partly because I really want to play Elemental in the shape it likely won’t be in for another several months.

But I don’t for a minute believe Brad doesn’t want you to buy his games. We all know Brad, for better and for worse. That’s not the case with the people reading those entries at RPS and PC Gamer, and the guys who wrote those posts know that. Just go look at the comments section on those blog entries. Many of those readers don’t know anything about Brad, or Stardock, or the history of GalCiv, or Impulse, or the Gamers’ Bill of Rights. What they now know is a single comment lifted out of any context: “If you don’t like the state of our game, don’t buy any more of our games”. Brad did say that, but I don’t think he meant it, and I think that’s a really unfair way to represent him and his company.

  -Tom
3117

I’m just glad Argot is back to reading the forums.

3118

Sr. Adree fue implacable, como un hombre verdadero.

3119

I was going to actually explain the distinction between that and what’s happened here. But I have a feeling you really don’t care, so I’ll just leave you with this:

And thanks for the comment on Kane and Lynch 2. I keep meaning to track down our thread on it – we have one somewhere, I think – but haven’t gotten around to it. I suspect I’m going to find it and you’ll be in there talking about how the game is awful, at which point I’ll realize I’ve been punk’d by thinking you were being sincere. :(

-Tom
3120

But it’s because I “know” Brad from on here that I know he can be seriously pigheaded when people are telling him there’s a problem. Remember whatever game it was that had a bugged patch on Impulse, and the pages and pages of him repeating that it was fine and ignoring what was actually being said?

It’s not out of character for him to refuse to see what’s in front of him, though I can’t remember him lashing out like this before.