Well, I found a nice article/news piece from my email. A representative in the House has introduced a new bill that would pretty much make file-sharing illegeal. Yeah, most of you are probably saying what else is new? But it does have some interesting ideas in it including allowing copyright owners to use any means to block or delete illegeal material long as it doesn't fry your computer. Lot of lawyer talk in there, but you can see it here. I'm still wondering what happen to that Violent Game Rental/Buying Bill.......what a bunch of great news after 12 hours and finally returning home.
One of the 'hot' issues addressed in the new v1.10 patch was the amount of damage a unit did. Many people felt that all too often, powerful creatures did only 1-2 points of damage per strike. After the patch, units now typically inflict an "average" amount of damage, with minimum and maximum damage amounts a rarity. Programmer Josh Farley has several posts in this thread explaining the new damage calculation formula:
"There is no "formula" exactly, since the code generates a table and rolls randomly within it. The basic gist is that the random numbers form a bell curve where the min/max are exactly 1/2 as likely as the average value. BTW, it should be noted that this change has absolutely no effect on the actual value of different units, since the average damage (median) of any attack in the game was totally unchanged. In v1.00 it was MaxDAM/2 , and in v1.10 it is MaxDAM/2. The changes simply reduce the number of results that fall in the extremes."
Josh Farley also has some comments in this excellent discussion about balancing the Haste spell and flying units:
"Note that Healing Showers will give 5hp as often as 3, and 4hp most often of all, so it's value becomes greater than Healing if you can target 2 units with it. This seems fair to me. Geyser is still quite powerful. It always hits. That's a very nice feature, and boosts it's average damage a great deal. We're looking at a few balance tweaks for v1.20 (ahem, haste, ahem), but I don't see much reason to mess with either of these."
There are a lot of great discussions going on right now about changes instituted in the new v1.10 patch. Toss in your two cents!
Some of you are probably wondering why the Blacksmith has not been updated yet. Here's your answer, once again Heaven Games is in the process of moving servers. And this move has disabled any additional updates to the Blacksmith. We will most defiantly get AoKH and the Blacksmith back to working order ASAP.
Thanks to Angel Park, a news update on the server move is available.
"Well, Chooch already posted a little about this, but due to recent news, I think I should stress it more. HG is currently moving everything from our old server to our new one. Hopefully it'll give less blackouts during peak times. Most important though is that is very possible that the fansites, forums, and whatever HG related could go down during the move. Not exactly sure how long this will take or what real impact it'll have, but really sorry if anything does go wrong. Our two HG techs. are working as hard as they can to make sure the website doesn't fall.
Either way, we'll be back if anything does go wrong. It isn't that we just ran away or anything "
I've been waiting for them to release something new for over half a month now, the wait is finally over. I look forward to each and every new thing that Electrofiction has on Shadows of Winter.
Their latest is a screenshot of an Elurai, a race of legend and myth.
This week DSHeaven's Weekly Spotlight digs further into Dungeon Siege Studio. Once again, we would like to thank Bsimer for giving up his time to fill us in on Dungeon Siege Studio, thank you.
"What is Dungeon Siege Studio? Well according to the lead programmer of the utility Bsimer, "Dungeon Siege Studio (DSS) is an integrated development environment (IDE) for writing mods for Gas Powered Games' hit title, Dungeon Siege. The program lets you create, manage, and edit Skrit, Gas and other project files.""
I spotted this post at MFO "Age of Mythology Icons". Timan, a forumer from MFO has taken the time to create some AoM icons based on some orginal art from ES.
There is a total of 10 icons: Anubite, Avenger, Chimera, Colossus, Cyclops, Giant, Pegasus, Scarab, Troll and Valkyrie. These icons are only workable with Windows XP.
To use these icons:
Extract to a new folder (I named my Icon)
Right mouse on any file folder you may have on your desktop
Go to "Properties"
Click to "Customize" tab
Click to "Change Icon" at the bottom of the Properties Box
Browse to your folder "Icons" and slected the desired AoM Icon
This is the cutest and funniest thing I've seen from DS fans in a while. Stardust and his friends have a page Capricious DS dedicated to skins and other things DS related. You'll be able to see skins such as Spider-man, Green Goblin, Japanese cartoon characters and .... umm....a nude skin of Farmgirl. Go check it out for yourself, it's hilarious.
We'd like to welcome the newest member to join the AoMH staff, Zhaz. Zhaz was the Swedish champion in the conquerors MS tournament and the World Cyber games, and hopefully he'll be passing some of his wisdom on to us when AoM comes out ;) but for now, he's going to help moderate the upcoming Alpha forum.
Head over to this thread in the forums to congratulate him.
Well, Chooch already posted a little about this, but due to recent news, I think I should stress it more. HG is currently moving everything from our old server to our new one. Hopefully it'll give less blackouts during peak times. Most important though is that is very possible that the fansites, forums, and whatever HG related could go down during the move. Not exactly sure how long this will take or what real impact it'll have, but really sorry if anything does go wrong. Our two HG techs. are working as hard as they can to make sure the website doesn't fall.
Either way, we'll be back if anything does go wrong. It isn't that we just ran away or anything
Another review at The Wargamer. There is no score, but the author has high praise for the game. A wonderfully thorough review!
Age of Wonders II adds many features to the original game but these features are not merely chrome thrown into the pot. Magic, cities, resources and combat are woven into a comprehensive thread that demands equal attention to all four elements. In some systems, so many balls in the air could lead to micromanagement nightmares. So skillfully are they intertwined that players are absorbed and challenged, instead of being drained. To say that this game begs for "one more turn" is an understatement; it begs for "one more week." - John Cobb
As you might or might not know, HeavenGames is currently in the process of moving to another set of servers. Because of this, there might be some problems viewing pages and downloading files over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully you won't have any problems at all, but if you do, you should know that we are aware of the problems and in the process of fixing them, and you should try again a bit later.
If we are really unfortunate, some data might also be lost in the server move. So if you have any file or information on a HG server and no copy of it, you might want to save a copy of it to somewhere else just in case the worst will happen.
We apologize to everyone for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
The following Announcement has information of importance to those who use the HG Downloads sections frequently. Also note that this Server move may have impact on other aspects of the Heavengames site(s).
Heavengames is busy moving servers, and have encountered some problems of varying severity. The Downloads Sections may be working intermittently. Uploading files is almost certain to fail, so it's best to wait with uploading until we successfully have everything working perfectly once more.
To make matters worse, even the sites themselves may be down intermittently. We are aware of these possibilities and doing our utmost in getting everything in working order as soon and as smoothly as possible.
We apologize to everyone for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
You will (or should) have seen yesterday's message about the Downloads Section being temporarily off line. I promised to tell you when it got better.
Well, the news is, it may get worse.
We are busy moving servers, and have run in some problems of varying severity. The Downloads Sections may be working intermittently. Uploading files is almost certain to fail, so it's best to wait with uploading until we get everything working perfectly once more.
Worse, even the sites themselves may be down intermittently. We are aware of this and doing out utmost to get everything working as soon and as smoothly as possible.
We apologize to everyone for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
AGE OF KINGS HEAVEN Congratulations: A Noble Cause HG's Latest Staff Member Posted 7/30/2002 @ 1:40 AM EST by Theta
A Noble Cause has agreed to join the staff here at HG. He will be responsible for the ladder programs and whatever else we can talk him in to doing ( hehe ). His AOKH Ladder program has been a huge hit here with all the ladder players and has saved us hours if not days in updating time.
A great guy loved by all. He is a valuable addition to the HG team. We are thrilled to have him as a member of our gang!
The European patch has now been released for AoW2. You can grab it from Take2 right here. Please Note! This patch is incompatible with the Polish version of Age of Wonders 2. If you have the Polish version of the game DO NOT use this patch as it will break the game.
Well, the information from EE France while very good was also early and not 100% confirmed news. But got confirmation that there'll be a large tournament and information shall arrive whenever they polish all the details out.
I'm pleased to announce my first (and probably only) new review of the classic original, Age of Wonders. Just-RPG has recently posted its review of AoW giving it a stunning A-, and yes, there are some screenshots!
Consider for a moment that the role-playing genre, turn-based strategy genre, and The Lord of the Rings series by Tolkien were thrown into a blender set on puree. What would come of this unusual recipe? The resulting amalgam would be Age of Wonders, and it would be (and is) superb. Why? Age of Wonders manages to mix an absorbing plot (rare in the strategy genre), well-paced and entertaining gameplay, and almost limitless replay value into an admirable product that should be greatly considered by all fans of either the RPG or turn-based strategy genre.
I must admit I found this review of my favorite game of all-time refreshing and it's a strong statement about how good the game still is after 3 years of near-constant play. A true classic. You can read the full-review here!
As promised by Mike "Archangel" McCart, we've received a new screenshot of AoM! This one shows an impressive naval battle going on, with four naval myth units including the elusive 'giant crab' Thunder mentioned in his E3 preview.
"UOS: We all know that work for the remake has only just began, now that DS and the Dungeon Siege editor have been released, but how's the team doing so far and what's your overall progress?
Tiberius: Work in areas like music and design has been going on for nearly two years, so we've made tons of progress in those areas. :)
As you said, though, we've only recently been able to begin work on the more "core" areas of development: coding and worldbuilding. The single biggest thing that we're working on right now is what we call the LazGUI (Lazarus Graphical User Interface). The LazGUI is our own system, entirely replacing the default user interface in Dungeon Siege. We have our own controls, our own ruleset, our own dialogue system (which is very similar to the system in Ultima VII, for you vets), and much, much more."
The total convertion "StarWars Asylum" has been reopened and also updated with some more information. Here is what the team has to say about it themselves.
"Hi. My name is Krynus, and I am the Project Leader for Asylum. I have spoken to some of you before through emails, and some of you are new to me. We just finished redoing the site for our mod, and got it hosted, so I wanted to publicize it a bit on the Dungeon Siege community site.
Asylum is a Star Wars themed total conversion, situated in the time around Episode 2. Along with the site launch, a lot of new content has been released, and more is on its way! We have a small team at the moment, but are actively looking for more people to join the team, in every department.
The URL for the new site is http://www.siegenetwork.com/asylum. I would really appreciate it if you could put something about our mod up on your site."
Downloads will be down sometime today as the downloads are moved over to the new server. Thanks for your patience with this matter, they ought to be back up soon.
While perhaps there hasn't been a lot of AoM news this week, it's sure been busy here at AoM Heaven! This week we farewelled Angel Thunder after three years with Heaven...he's off to help Big Huge Games as community relations manager for their upcoming RTS Rise of Nations. With Thunder's departure we welcomed our new Seraph Angel Theta of Dungeon Siege Heaven who's taking over Thunder's duties here at AoMH and at Age of Kings Heaven.
If things were a bit slow this week, coming up we have promise of a new screenshot from the crew at Ensemble Studios tomorrow, and the Hades showcase at Gamespot this Friday. The tantalising alpha test is also crawling closer each day, (a truly grueling experience for some impatient gamers, I know!) but hopefully sometime soon we'll know when we'll be playing AoM for the first time.
This week's poll asked Have you ever been a member of a clan? 33% of people said they'd never been part of one, while 30% (and a close second) said they were in one right now! The current poll will be staying as is for the time being, but don't fret - we'll have a new question up soon enough. For now you can check out the full results of the current poll.
Well, that's all for this week. ...remember to call in sick on Friday...you don't want to miss the Hades showcase, now do you? ; )
Game Over Online has posted a new preview of Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom. It's based on a early build of the game and has 20 new screen shots for your viewing pleasure. Here's a snippet:
Control of the military is often the Achilles heel of the Impressions city-builders. Emperor lets you wield a good amount of troops, provided you have the economic base and the revenue in city profits to support it. That's an important issue because in Emperor, you'll be exposed to more cities than before. You can trade, demand goods, give goods, attack and spy on neighboring cities. If your city is stronger or more powerful in military terms, you can extract tribute, thereby bolstering your economy without really developing it. During the course of the campaign, you'll play a part in forging imperial dynasties. So it follows that rivals or leaders, like the emperor himself, will make wanton demands. This feature was so necessary in the Caesar games that it's astonishing to see it implemented to its fullest extent here. In truth, that's what killed a lot of the Roman governors; unreasonable random demands from Rome. Suffice to say, the empire map is something you will definitely make use of in Emperor. It expands the overall scope of the game irrevocably.
You can read the full preview here, then discuss the new screen shots in our Emperor Forums.
Lead designer Lennart Sas reflects on the highs and lows of the development process of Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne in a new article, Age of Wonders II: Postmortem, posted at Gamespy. Looks like there is some good news for the "random map cultists" out there:
"Just like when AoW was released, we have gone back to the fan forums [for what they'd like to see improved]. Work on the random scenario generator has been picked up again, due to threats from the "Random Map Cult." Unless the game is outsold by Panty Raider 2: The Quickening, it is unlikely that this second incarnation in the series will be the last.
Back In the USSR, an article written by Ueriah, has been selected as the next EEH Strategy of the Week. It is an article concerning the USSR civilization and its economy, infrastructure, military, and ability to play against other atomic civilizations. It currently has a rating of 5.0, as it is a highly satisfactory article.
Good news for those of you who are interested in role playing in the Age of Wonders universe. I am please to announce that Bethgael's site The Unicorn's Rest - Guild Information is now officially opened. The site contains information about the exisiting guilds and characters. You might like to browse the libraries for interesting read-ups on the characters as well as to see what all the past roleplaying on the boards have produced. The site also contains friendly advice and tips for newbies who would like to join in the fun, and you don't have to join a guild to do so. If you have any questions regarding roleplaying on the forums or about the guilds feel free to post at The Unicorn's Rest Forum. If you like to post your stories or start roleplaying there, you are welcomed to do so as well.
Take note, my friends, that there are two main places (the busiest) for you to roleplay at: The Lifeline Guild Forum and our ownAoWH Hall of Wonders Forum. If you like to play it extreme, such as using multiple characters, The Lifeline Guild Forum allows you to have multiple accounts for playing each of your own characters. Have fun.
COSSACKS HEAVEN New American Conquest Screenshots Posted 7/27/2002 @ 1:37 PM EST by TNK
GamespyDaily has posted some more American Conquest screenshots, including a couple nice ones showing off some desert terrain.
Sorry for the delay in this week's Blacksmith Feature, stuck in Seattle attending a wedding till Monday. Without further ado ...drum roll please:
Welcome to another week's Feature of the Week, this week from the horde's of designs in the Blacksmith I set my eyes upon The Story of The Templars-I.
The gameplay is of a Mix style, nothing like variety. The story is based around the Knights of the Order Templar, an Order established during the crusades and much myth and legend lies around them, I happen to be a fan of their history and such, and so this became a download without another word uttered.
The author, xavill of Woad Creations, has written an interesting description, which can be found here. Here is an extract: -
"The Knight Templar were founded by Hugues de Payen and eight knights more that arrived in 1118 to Jerusalem in order to stablish a base to protect the pilgrims in their way to Jerusalem. After nine years they travelled back to Europe to recruit more knights to their cause. How is possible that a nine knights order became the most powerful organisation of their times? This campaign will give a historical-fictional point of view of this fact. "
Still wondering whether to download this campaign or not? Well it got a huge 6 reviews! All reviews scores range between 4.6 to 3.2 however, the general consensus is that this is definitely Best of AoK material. It averages out at a 4.0 out of a possible 5.0
A worthy download and if you’re interested in the Crusades and the various Christian invaders a must download.
Planet Dungeon Siege has posted an interview with Evan Pongress, a designer at Gas Powered Games.
"PDS: Give us a little insight into the technical side of making NIS's with the Siege Editor - what are some pitfalls that us newbie's need to watch out for when making our NIS's?
EP: Luckily, a lot of pitfalls I ran into when making NIS's aren't there anymore, because the codebase isn't changing every single day. Three of us had to test NIS's every day for several months to make sure nothing broke in the latest build, and we discovered new and interesting ways to break them all the time.
Today, all the main problems are fixed or at least handled with judicious use of gizmos. For a good introduction to how NIS's work and what to watch out for, check out the Siege University tutorial on NIS's posted here: Siege U 207: NIS."
The Nefarious TFS has posted a Dungeon Siege Modding tutorial concerning how to edit the enemies in the DSH forums, namely here.
"Ok, now for the fun thing. Lets change the inventory to drop 3 rings, 3 amulets, 3 armors, and 3 weapons, one spell, and transmute spell AND 80,000 gold."
Triumph Studios' Josh AoW announced the long await Aow2 Vsion 1.10 patch has been released for the U.S. version only International version to follow shortly. His post, "Patchy Time" can be found in the AoW2 General Discussion Forum. Any cooment or questions about the patch should be posted there as well.
The official link given for the download is the distibtor's main site at http://www.ageofwonders2.com and the download page itself can be accessesed via this Direct Link.
There is a readme file, and a long list of changes. The patch itsel is a 7.2MB exe file that can be installed from any directory.
Among the changes:
A New "Beginner" Difficulty setting has been added to the Campaign.
Buttons are now provided to display the Scenario Objectives, and to Surrender [Lose] a Custom or Campaign Scenario.
The Tutorial Map has been changed to make the "Leave Merlin at Home" message clearer.
The Campaign maps Fire1 [Initiation], Water1 [Initiation], and Life3 [Special] have been updated to correct small problems.
The Custom Maps Centralaeon, Broken Circle, Passion & Poison, Belendor's Expedition, and Asteroid on Asrakan have been updated, and a new map Let Sleeping Gods Lie has been added.
Tomorrow is Saturday. If tomorrow is Saturday, then we'll have a Forum Party. If we have a Forum Party, then we will (hopefully) have fun. So tomorrow is Saturday, we'll have fun. I still remember Geometry proofs, nice hehe. Anyways, you get the point. Join us in our weekly Forum Party. Check the Forum Party Thread for full details and whatever rants you would say before you lose to me . Im feeling my ego comming on. I can take on ten people. Prove me wrong .
Ensemble designer Greg "Deathshrimp" Street has dropped by the forums to comment on some discussions about how AoM's gameplay is shaping up.
AOM is a fast game, and on average, a shorter game than AOK (insert standard caveat that we do have larger and more defensive maps if that suits your playstyle better).
Combat can happen early, but even a well-executed rush [doesn't] determine the game right then and there. It can give you an advantage, however, that with a couple of other well-planned strategies could win the game for you. Booming has a real risk of being hit by an early attack, but rushing someone with good defenses can also really slow you down. Advancing through the Ages is always a good thing, but that doesn't mean you need to do it in order to win.
Just the fact that pop cap is determined by number of players ( = number of Settlements) means that everyone plays the same game and we don't have to worry about balancing the game at 75 (in order to be honest about or min hardware requirements) just to have everyone really play at 175-200.
It's fun, and it is pretty hard for any of us to play AOK these days.
Sounds good, eh? I know a lot of people are hoping for a game that gets going faster so they can get more games and more fun in.
Deathshrimp also dropped in to redcoat219's discussion on the campaign to comment on how AoM's new singleplayer campaign is shaping up:
I think you will be happy with the AOM campaign. It is like nothing we have ever done before. For a little perspective, virtually all of our scenarios from ROR onward were done by one person (me, as it turns out).
The AOM campaign has no less than 6 (!) designers working on it full time, as well as a few more of us who pitch in as needed. There isn't a single campaign map that so much as resembles a random map. Every scenario has an interesting game mechanic that you won't see in a random map game. There is probably a new piece of art on every map. And the cinematics help to stitch together the story better than any RTS story I have ever seen. The characters are interesting, recognizeable, and fun, and you don't just garrison them in your castle right away for fear of losing the scenario if they die. Really.
We haven't talked about the campaign much, because we are trying to keep some things under wraps, but the AOM story could very well be the killer feature of the entire game.
Age of Wonders 2 received 4 out of 5 stars in a recent review from the Adrenalin Vault! Reviewer Gavin Carter heaped tons of praise upon AoW2 in his three-page review. Here's how he sums up the "Difficulty/Intelligence" rating:
"The A.I. of Age of Wonders II is some of the most aggressive I've ever squared off against in a strategy game. Directly from the start, it's not content to just sit and wait for its defeat. It will toss armies at you from the beginning of the mission. You can also see the effects of the A.I.'s advancement as the match wears on. Later, the computer will begin dumping more and more of its mana into bigger and bigger magically summoned creatures. The net effect is that Age of Wonders II is a challenge from the very beginning. It's unfortunate that there are no difficulty settings, as newcomers to the genre may well find it far too difficult for their tastes."
This week's is a rather famous castle, which stars in various movies.
The pictures of Alnwick Castle in Northumberland may look very familiar to you as it has frequently been used as a film set, most recently as the external view of Hogwarts in Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone. It also featured prominently in Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves, Blackadder I and The Fast Show. However, as well as being a film set, it is also the family home of the Percy family who have been important throughout English history and it is the second largest inhabited castle in England after Windsor.
A few days back, Thunder had posted about some neat tricks with the SCN editor. Today BrandNewCar alerted me that he and another designer, Philip Dunscombe have found a couple more.
Post 85 from BrandNewCar explains just how this trick works with Invisible farms.
Second trick, shows a villager standing in a castle! Here's the thread that tells how to do it and a nice screenie to prove it.
And finally, New Terrain Discoveries, mix and match the different types of terrains in AoK. Here's an image of proof!
Great find BrandNewCar and excellent work Philip Dunscombe!
If so, here's one for you to read. PC Tech Zone has posted a review of Dungeon Siege, giving the score of 7 out of 10.
"The Dungeon Siege interface is one to be praised. It makes the game so easy to play. Instead of having to churn your way through stats and numbers. Everything is onscreen and is at the click of a button. This makes changing gear and swapping items between your party very easy to do. It also doesn't have you messing with having to add character points to different stats. If your character uses a bow mainly the bow skill will increase and your class will become a ranger, The same goes with the fighter classes and the mage character classes. The more you specialise in a skill area the better and more refined your characters become."
"Overall 7/10 Looks fantastic, but very linear and doesn't run very well unless you have a really high end system."
FireFly's Darren Thompson dropped a little something in my mailbox the other day. A hefty tome gathering together some of the wisdom he's distributed over the months since Stronghold was released.
Our buds from Through the Ages send along a note that are looking for some help with their Age site.
If you are interested or have any questions, send an email to Orge to enquire. Volunteering for a site is the best place to start if you've got any interests in pursuing a career in the gaming industry, take Archangel, Vidguy and Thunder for example, all were past Age webmasters. You just never know what may happen.
Here's the note:
7/24/02 -----------
Ogre recently has been working on a lot of things. He can sense the site has been suffering due to this. Right now he needs someone who can pretty much run the show. Though he'll never of course go away from the site, he still needs a webmaster that can run Through The Ages for the most part without his day to day presence.
If your interested please drop Ogre an email on your web experience at his ogresnet address. You don't have to be super experienced. You just have to have a basic understanding of web site operations.
Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would end up being the Seraph for an Age game. I started playing the Age series back in ’98. It was in these very forums where I learned, and exchanged strategies and thoughts with other Forumers.
I have watched the Age sites on HeavenGames grow, grow and grow, just as many of you have as well. Filling the immense shoes that Thunder left behind is no easy task. I'm trying to add some weight to my lower appendages in order to fit into those shoes more comfortably though.
Well, Zen's covered most of the bases. So here I am, and I'm looking forward to continuing the HeavenGames tradition.
Good luck at BHG Thunder, We’ll all miss you LOTS!
First, we’d like to extend our congratulations to Thunder, who has been hired as the Community Relations Manager for Big Huge Games, following in the footsteps of other former Angels that have gone on to work in community-related positions at gaming companies. For those that don’t follow the RTS scene, Big Huge Games, a company based in Baltimore, Maryland, is the developer for one of MS’s next RTS games, “Rise of Nations”.
As a result, Thunder has stepped down from his roles at Age of Kings Heaven and Age of Mythology Heaven to focus on his new job. Thunder joined HeavenGames three years ago and has excelled at his duties at HG. So Thunder, we’d like to take this moment to say a big “Thank You” for all the work you have done for us, as well as doing a great job representing HeavenGames. This one's for ya!
And now, please give a warm welcome to your new interim Age of Kings Heaven / Age of Mythology Heaven seraph, “Angel Theta”, also known as “Angel Farmgirl” on Dungeon Siege Heaven. Theta is well known in the Age community, a great friend of HeavenGames, as well as a proficient RTS player. Welcome aboard!
There have been several hints dropped over the past few days about what will be added/changed in the forthcoming v1.10 patch for AoW2. Here area few confirmed changes so far:
Walled Siege AI has been improved for the patch (full thread).
Arnout on why the Draconian Flyer is more expensive and the Haste spell has more upkeep (full thread):
The Draconian flyer has one of the best stats for a 3rd level flying units. In combination with the race base sphere Air, the flyer be comes deadly, especially a whole stack. This tactic: flyer and air sphere haste and explorer skill outbalances the multiplayer game. That is why we tweaked the flyer and the spell.
Josh on game features vs. editor enhancements making it into the patch (full thread):
Seriously, we've seen these suggestions, and while I don't think any of them made it into the v1.10 patch, it doesn't hurt to keep tossing the ideas around, as there may yet be more work done on this AoW thingy before we're through... btw, editor options are much more likely to be considered than big chunks of additional engine work... just in case you wanna focus your energies.
It's a good life making games for a living, but it's not all fun and games. Chris "Swinger" Rupp shared an article that outlines what sorts of things he does during a given day with MFO, and a fairly lengthy day at that:
"First, a little background. I work as a playtester for Ensemble, Ive been here for close to a year now. Our job is a mixture between standard core QA testing and play-balance. We work closely with the designers and each other every day, looking for potential "screws" in the game, imbalances that the hard-core players could exploit once the game is out, and a lot of the little parts of the design that go into the entire multiplayer experience. We also are expected to do standard QA work, finding and entering bugs, and helping to make the game as polished as we can.
There are currently 6 playtesters working at Ensemble - Maimin' Matty, Gx_Iron, Gx_Bear, REDLlNE, The_Sheriff, and me, Swinger. Anyway, without further adieu, here is what the average day as a playtester at Ensemble Studios is like..." - Chris Rupp
That's quite the talented team of testers that they have assembled at the studios. They have quite the task, making sure things are balanced and crazy 3 minute rushes don't give you a win all the time. Make sure you check out the write-up for this great look into what the QA guys are up to. ...A Day In The Life of a fly on the wall at ES article would just fine with me too... ; )
While launching into a discussion on the art of balancing gameplay in scenarios, BrandNewCar took the opportunity to interview a very talented designer and long long time Ager, Ingo Van Thiel:
"Question 2 : Playtesters is generally used by many, many designers now, however what do you test for in your "in house" testing, before anyone else sees your work?
Answer 2: There are countless things that can go wrong, especially when many triggers are involved. Most of my time is spent on searching for obvious trigger mistakes. The other important things are balancing the game. First, I play the challenges through and try to play smartly - that is, I use the method I think is right to solve the challenge. The next thing I do is test what happens if I deliberately slip up - like, "is it possible to lose if I don't send out my knights to destroy that trebuchet?" Then I always check if the game is entertaining for myself. When I have kicked out the most obvious flaws and got the overall balance right, I usually ask others for help. And there has not been an AoK scenario where people didn't find any unexpected bugs or loopholes."
It is a very nice chat that they have, covering a wide range of design related topics. Thanks for your time Ingo! Check out this post for the full interview and to join the discussion on game balance, a tricky bit of design. ...I rather enjoy scenarios that are easy to beat...makes me feel like I know what I'm doing... ; )
We, the staff of DSHeaven are thrilled and excited to inform you that we will be featuring a spotlight on something DS-related weekly. It might be a Siegelet, mod, skin, or an incredible break-through in skriting.
First up, is Xaa's Siegelet; The Lands of Hyperborea. The Lands of Hyperborea is a Siegelet with a very interesting story that breaks away from Dungeon Siege's story of the hero farmer. This Siegelet promises many elements of gameplay that we did not see in our adventures in the land of Ehb. The player can choose from two different main characters, one a male and the other a female. You play the role of an escaped prisoner who was imprisoned for a crime which you did not commit.
I hope everyone will join me in wishing Angel Zen —aka Unkie Zen— a very happy birthday! Today he is getting another year older, but he sure doesn't seem to be slowing down despite his now ancient age. Happy Birthday old timer!
You can extend your birthday greetings to Zen via this post in the HG forums. ...as a gift...maybe we should let him win a game...naaaah... ; )
Freelancer has done a Q&A session with Ken Davis, the producer over at Mad Doc.
[Yurg] Please give our readers a summary of Art of Conquest and its main features or points of interest. With respect to the design concept, what are your overall goals?
[Ken] The overall goal was to give Empire Earth fans more of what they love about the game. More units, more Epochs, more campaigns, and easier/more user-friendly multiplayer.
While you're at it, you can check out 4 new screenies over at Gamers Pulse.
None other than Mike "Archangel" McCart, webmaster type guy at Ensemble Studios, dropped in for a brief visit. He provided us with an update on the impending civilization showcase and a bit of other eye candy heading our way:
"Hades showcase on Gamespot August 2nd.
Will throw up a Screenshot next Monday." - Mike McCart
Brief, and to the point. You've got to like that. Thanks for the update Archangel! ...throw up a Screenshot = post a Screenshot...he's been sick, but hopefully not that sick... ; )
There are many folks who spend countless hours behind the scenes at HeavenGames, one of those is Chief Technology Officer Zen (not his real name of course). He's the one of the guys who everyone turns to when...well, when something happens unexpectedly.
Many of HeavenGames visitors know of the staff members who run each site daily. But do they know the folks who work behind the scenes making sure that each time our adddress link is selected it works? Probably not.
I would like to take this time and say "thank you" to Zen for all the help and effort he has put into HeavenGames. Zen, you just never never get enough credit and pats on the back for all the wonderful work you do. Thank you.
Game-Editing has released another tool to Dungeon Siege modders, their Dungeon Siege Color Picker. Here's what they have to say about it:
"Dungeon Siege Color Picker (DSCP) is a small utility that lets you choose a color based on a variety of options. The color value is calculated and presented in "Dungeon Siege" format. You can easily copy this value to paste into a .gas or .skrit file for easy use."
You just might wanna grab something to drink before you start reading, its going to be a long one. Ready? Good.
Our good friend Adam (aka SierraPRGuy on our forums) stopped by to let our forummers know that Gamespot has posted a Preview for Empire Earth: Age of Conquest. The preview goes over the new additions to AoC, including gameplay elements, a whole new epoch, and even additional editor tools. Gamespot also mentions the new campaigns that Mad Doc has been working on for the expansion.
Next, we watched the Pacific Rim campaign in action. According to the developers, the campaign should follow the conflict all the way to the battle of Iwo Jima, and players will actually be able to construct the famous Marine Corps War Memorial--in which a group of Marines is depicted raising the American flag on Iwo Jima--as a wonder of the world. As you might expect from a campaign set in the Pacific theater of WWII, you'll be able to play land, air, and sea missions using fighter planes, battleships, cruisers, and submarines. You'll also be able to take some new infantry units out into the field. The Art of Conquest will include several new infantry units, including the SAS demolitions expert, an amphibious infantry unit with the ability to set successive charges on enemy buildings to blow them up. More-sadistic players will want to make use of flamethrower troops, which tend to make short, messy work of opposing infantry. You'll also be able to drop paratroopers behind enemy lines to wreak havoc on an enemy's production queues, but you'll need a radioman to call in those air strikes, and you'll need to keep him alive long enough to make the call.
Thanks for the heads up Adam!
...you didn't think he was going to get away that easily did you?
Longtime forummer iNtRePiD asked about supporting multiplayer scenarios and recorded games in the expansion to EE. To this SierraPRGuy replied:
I'd like to put some speculation to rest once and for all. There will be no recorded games or multiplayer scenarios in Empire Earth: The Art of Conquest.
Unfortunately these two features seem to have entered Empire Earth lore as two things that were supposed to be in the game. To my knowledge we never promised either feature, though as you all probably know, sometimes the reality of game design changes things even after you think you've got a handle on them.
To put it bluntly, these two features were not implemented because they have no market viability. While there are probably a bunch of people who actively read this board who would use them avidly, we estimated that, overall, no more than 2% of Empire Earth owners would partake in multiplayer scenarios or recorded games. This is from our vast experience with other online games like Half-Life, SWAT, and Tribes.
When you get down to it, we have to be profitable to keep making games, and spending money on features that only 2% of our users would use just doesn't make financial sense. It also takes time from the dev team which would mean no expansion this year (which in turn again affects our profitability).
So let's just put these issues to rest. I understand how important these features are to some of you - you can bet they will stay on the "wish list" for future Empire Earth games, but for now that is where they remain.
iNtRePiD responded to Adam, asking him more about the lack of these features in EE and its expansion pack:
So the profitability of the product and the least amount of time needed till the product is released is more important than the actually quality of the finished product? That is what that sounds like to me. That is not very good marketing, you have basically told us, right to our faces (not literally), that the profitability of the Empire Earth expansion Art of Conquest is more important than the quality of the overall game. Not a very good way to advertise a product to its potential customers.
And finally, Adam responded with this reply which I believe sums up Sierra's stance on recorded games, and multiplayer scenarios:
I'm not sure what you're getting at. Of course quality of the game is absolutely the most important thing. If the game sucked nobody would buy it and thus we wouldn't make any money. Hopefully you would agree that Empire Earth is a great game even without these two features. Over a million people have agreed that they can live without these two features.
I'm being very up front with you guys. We run a business here and every game has to make a return on its investment to be made. The second it costs more money to make Empire Earth than we get in revenue from selling it is the second the game is cancelled.
A lot of very smart people have done a lot of research and determined that a very small number of people actually use recorded games or would use multiplayer scenarios. Too small, in fact, to spend the time and money to include them in the game. For some of you it probably seems like everyone in the world wants these features, but let me tell you that it's not the case.
We already spend a ton of time and money supporting features that the majority of our owners don't or will never use. Multiplayer in general is only utilized by about 10% of our playerbase (albeit a VERY vocal 10%) and yet we have spent a tremendous amount of effort to upgrade the multiplayer experience in AOC (which will be available as a free download for EE owners). MODability is another area in which even less than 5% of owners are interested, and yet we were adamant that the scenerio builder be as full featured as possible.
So I'm not going to let you get away with accusing us of not addressing our player base. In these two cases we are unable to give you what you want RIGHT NOW. The lack of these two features doesn't make Empire Earth a bad game - it's still the awesome game it was before. You may be disappointed that the expansion pack won't have these features, but you'd probably be even more upset if we didn't do any expansion pack at all because it didn't make financial sense for us (which it wouldn't if we added in the time/cost of recorded games/multiplayer scenarios).
So again, sorry to disappoint some of you, but you're going to have to trust me that EE: AOC is going to kick *** - definitely watch the movies on GameSpot if you want to get a taste of how the Space Epoch is going to work.
I'll see if we can't get the Mad Doc folks online for a chat some time soon to talk to you guys.
I especially like the part about getting some Mad Doc people in a chat, that would be sweet! You can check out the rest of that thread right here in the forums. Thanks for taking the time to answer questions on the forum Adam, and thanks to all the readers who have actually read through this newspost... ;)
She's back from her vacation and evidently gave her eyes a rest. Forumer Hell spotted the May preview of AOM from Computer Games magazine has finally been posted for viewing online! Naturally we know the information that it revealed, thanks to the issues we bought, but the many images the article included have also been posted. There are a great many fantastic screenshots, showing some known and unknown units and buildings. If you aren't able to get this magazine in your area, or weren't around for the preview, make sure you check this out. ...it definitely contains some of the better screenies we've seen... ; )
A lengthy but worthwhile post has been made in the forum by ME_Count_Rahl, which makes several good points about having good goals in your games instead of just a handful of strategies in your arsenal. Here is a little from the introduction which spells out Rahl's thinking:
"The strategies in AoC are as we all know rather stagnant, they are stuck in a rut with very few options being available to players especially on the arabia map, which of course is the most popular map and will continue to be so until the game is not played anymore. So now it comes down to having your priorities in order, and having goals within the game that you must try to reach. But what exactly are these goals and how should you set them is the big question."
Arabia and Medi maps are the two that are covered, but many of the tips can translate over to other maps. The basic strategies are outlined, and the goals that you should be trying to achieve are covered in some detail for 1v1 and team games. Thanks for the repost Rahl! ...tons of good advice in there...never too late to get your priorities straight! ; )
I am starting this thread in the hopes that by the time I complete it, we will have created an entry-level document on the language of skrit, and the elements of templates which call skrit into operation. My real life at the moment is incredibly busy, however. I make no promises that I will be able to make daily posts, I make no promises that it will actually take us 30 days to get through this (though I think it probably will), nor do I make any promises that we will even be able to complete this document. However, given that there is a need for this in the community, I am certainly going to make the attempt. My plan is to devote 1 hour a day to creating a new lesson which I will post to this thread, and God willing, at the end of it, we'll have something people can actually put to use."
So if you are wanting to learn skrit but don't know how, this might be a way. You'll have a lot to do thought, just to read up on the days already posted. It's a long read, but informative and intresting.
Age of Wonders 2 just began what is sure to be an impressive run on Gone Gold's "Now Playing" list, and has been awarded GG's "Must Have" award. The original AoW1 enjoyed an extremely long run on GG's "Now Playing" list in 1999 and won its "Game of the Year" award.
Nope the Castle of the Week wasn't late again, this time it's just me that was late. GillB and Wraith deliver another castle for you to read about and play with, this time it's Bodiam Castle in Sussex.
Bodiam Castle stands on the borders of Kent and Sussex in south-east England. It was originally built as an extremely fortified manor house and is a symmetrical square stone castle surrounded by an artificial lake fed by underground springs.
There was a Saxon hall on the site, but the castle of today was built by Sir Edward Dalyngrygge. He was a veteran of Edward III's wars with France and one of the most powerful men in Sussex who, in 1385, was given permission to fortify his house against a possible French invasion. He chose to build the castle rather than make alterations to his house.
Some of the images, like the above, have been provided by my Dad, who was also kind enough to take a lot more pictures when he was in the UK a few weeks ago, some of which have been added to Bamburgh Castle. You'll see the others in some of the upcoming Castles of the Week.
We've got one more bit of news...a rather...smelly subject. Our angel cum historian GillB has been delving into medieval loos. So click the link and smell the...well, you know what I mean.
The Atomic Epochs has been named the next of EEH's strategies of the week. Written by Ueriah, it is an overview of the Atomic Epochs. It describes the way an Atomic Epoch civilization's economy would generally work. It also goes over the buildings and units of the Atomic Epochs. It is a very well-written article, with a current rating of 4.5.
The latest poll being run over at Firing Squad involves quite the line-up of games. There is a long list of upcoming games, including some sure fire FPS favourites as well as MMORPGs. The question they are asking is What PC game are you most looking forward to? As forumer Jus pointed out, Age of Mythology has been near the bottom of the list and could use a helping hand. Drop in on Firing Squad and cast a vote! ...not sure how long we have to turn things around... ; )
Far more to come. Special commendations to Vult for starting and Lance for closing on this one. Way to go guys. Always Be Closing.
Also, in the spirit of kicking ass, iRoNic has somehow managed to figure out a way to a) call in-engine functions and b) trap engine function calls. w00t! More on the significance of this shortly.
As you can imagine shit is about to get hectic up in here. Stay tuned.
Wonderful randomness, which gives us so much variety and replayability! There is no question that it is one of the main reasons that there are so many long time players of the Age series still around. Join our latest Ladder festival celebrating all that is uncertain with super random settings from July 22-26. If you play a ladder game with the following settings you will earn yourself a bonus ladder point regardless of winning or losing the game:
"- Random Civ - Blind Random - Hardest Difficulty (Subject to change) - Standard Resources - 200 Pop - Teams locked, game recorded, no cheats, etc. - Reveal Map : Normal - Starting Age : Dark - Victory : Standard - Teams (If applicable): Random"
In true ladder festival fashion, you will have to mention when you report your games during the festival that you played with the above settings in order to earn your bonus points. Be sure to stop in on the Randomness Festival Post for complete details on this event! ...all we need now are random resource and random game type settings... ; )
They have done battle with some serious server issues over the last while, but AoM Gamer is back up and running now at 100%. This milestone has been marked by the opening of their new forums, which you'll find located at: http://www.aomgamer.com/forums/
Most sites have to deal with server issues now and then, and it's great to see people fight through tough times like that. Welcome back fellers! ...servers...can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em... ; )
Well Mike from Chrono Echelon sent me a pigeon letter that their clan is hosting a large EE clan tournament. An interesting idea having clans fight each other out, but first they'll need to sign up. You can find all the information you need at their site. Guess its a good thing there's no really expert-like clans...at least I hope
COSSACKS HEAVEN CDV Forums Back Online Posted 7/19/2002 @ 9:58 PM EST by TNK
Jeremy Snook the Project Coordinator at GPG takes a few minutes to tell us more about DS and SiegeMax:
"DSH: What kind of documentation/ tutorials will come with SiegeMax?
JS: Expect it to be similar to the Siege Editor: a detailed manual covering technical specifications, installation, known issues, and version notes. Tutorials will be posted on DungeonSiege.com as a part of Siege U."
If your unfamiliar with SiegeMax, I've pulled a short description from ds.com:
Siege Max is a game pack plug in for the freely available gmax™ 3D modeling and animation tool created by Discreet®. Siege Max will give you the freedom to create new creatures, items, terrain, and animations that can be brought directly into your Dungeon Siege worlds.
Below are some of the features packed into Siege Max:
Create your own meshes so that you can add new weapons, monsters, items and armor to the game.
Add new animations to characters, giving them new actions to perform.
Create new siege nodes and add customized terrain to your maps.
Siege Max also includes a custom viewer that allows you to quickly preview meshes and animations as they will appear in the game.
Guttyr from ds.com sends word that Siege University 100 and 203B have undergone significant revisions. Siege University 100 now contains more detailed descriptions, new example images, and appendices for tips and Siege Editor preferences.
Forumer Ballistix is organizing a 32 team 2v2 all american tournament. That is, you'll only be able to choose one of the two new world civilizations! Ready your Eagle Warriors and check out the full list of settings:
"Civs available: Aztecs and Mayans 2v2 Map: Yucatan Map size: Medium (4 player) Difficulty: easiest Resources: Standard Pop Limit: 200 Reveal Map: Normal Starting Age: Dark Victory: Standard Teams locked, game recorded, no cheats, etc "
Yucatan...not the most popular map, but appropriate for this tournament. You will have to grab yourself a partner and sign-up fairly soon! Visit the Tournament Post for the full list of rules and deadlines. ...only ladder players need apply... ; )
Mah! Sorry for messing up the date on the Forum Party Thread. Its all Microsoft's fault! Those handy auto fill-ins are all out to mess you up one day! Anyways, if you got some time this Saturday, join us at the Forum Party. Last week the turn out was pretty small, I hope this week will be better. Eggman thought maybe we can get Hank to test out his Sniper scenario online. Maybe we can!
With the topic of Age of Mythology's music popping up in the forum once again, Stephen "Big Al" Rippy took the opportunity to let us know how that part of the game is progressing. It is still on track to be dynamic, so our actions will effect what kind of tunes are played. Here is a little more from Stephen on what the music department has been up to:
"Without getting too specific: yes, the current plan is to have a dynamic score in AoM. Most of the game sounds like the sort of thing you've been hearing in the movies we've released, but under certain conditions it will change to something either more or less intense.
There will not be a separate soundtrack for every culture in the game, but there may well be some differences...
We recorded 95% of the music here at ES in Dallas (on Cakewalk, Evil Dragon) but we were lucky enough to get to do some of it with a 70 piece orchestra in Seattle. That was, well...kinda cool.
Anyway, it's almost time for you guys to hear all this stuff. I'm pretty excited about that!
-Stephen Rippy
P.S. I wish I could go into more detail, but McCart would yell at me ;-)"
A 70 piece orchestra backing up all sorts of death and destruction. Sounds like a movie score doesn't it? Our thanks to Stephen for dropping in and sharing that update with us! ...he'd be lucky to get away with just a yelling if he told more...McCart is a big fan of launching people with catapults from what I hear... ; )
There have been a good number of new Emperor screen shots posted around the Internet lately. BAChuck from Breakaway Games stopped by our forums recently to comment on some of the questions surrounding some of the mysterious buildings. Here's just a little bit of what he had to say:
As mentioned before, the clay pit does need to be inspected, as do all other industry-type buildings. I'll agree with you that the buildings on that look in screen three appear to be cut off, and all but the farm ones need to be inspected -- or collapse/fire will be inevitable.
You can read all of Chuck's comments in the Moats & Junks? thread of HeavenGames' Emperor forum: Forbidden City.
Locust99 sends word that he has started a Dungeon Siege Players Gallery at Frag-Me. Everyone is welcomed. It's chance for DS players to meet each other.
Frag-Me! is also looking for new admins for the gallery. If and of you are interested email Locust99@fragged.net
Garry Gaber left a post in our forums this Friday saying that LucasArts is currently working on the zone problems that are troubling people who play there. He gave a zone name, I really don’t know if he will be using it often, but I think so as he gave
And look who remains as the Champ!
This is the cutest and funniest thing I've seen from DS fans in a while. Stardust and his friends have a page 
. Im feeling my ego comming on. I can take on ten people. Prove me wrong 
.
The pictures of 
Age of Wonders 2 just began what is sure to be an impressive run on 
