Akavit
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Posts posted by Akavit
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From what I've read on OpenCongress.org it definitely looks like it and the PIPA bill won't get passed as quickly as the supporters hoped. Here's the latest article from that site.
I suspect that Reid just delayed the vote because he's hoping to wait until he can win back some of the support the bill has lost. Apparently SOPA is indefinitely delayed but PIPA is still being moved through the works however possible.
The very first line in the bill is enough to give someone misgivings about the rest of the bill.
"To prevent online threats to economic creativity and theft of intellectual property, and for other purposes[emphasis mine]."
Speaking about broad language...
" (1) IN GENERAL- On application of a qualifying plaintiff following the commencement of an action under this section, the court may issue a temporary restraining order, a preliminary injunction, or an injunction, in accordance with rule 65 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, against the domain name used by an Internet site dedicated to infringing activities, or against a registrant of such domain name, or the owner or operator of such Internet site dedicated to infringing activities, to cease and desist from undertaking any further activity as an Internet site dedicated to infringing activities, if--
(A) the domain name is registered or assigned by a domain name registrar or domain name registry that located or doing business in the United States; or
(B)(i) the domain name is used within the United States to access such Internet site; and
(ii) the Internet site--
(I) conducts business directed to residents of the United States; and
(II) harms holders of United States intellectual property rights."[emphasis mine]
That last section indicates that theft of intellectual property isn't even necessary to be hit with a court order. I can imagine some corporation obtaining court orders to shut down sites that give negative reviews of their products.
Even though SOPA is now indefinitely delayed I thought that some of those people who thought it would not affect people in other countries might be interested in knowing that they were in fact targets of the bill. Some government officials even tried to claim that foreign sites were the primary target in an attempt to dissuade Americans from protesting.
Here's a brief snippet from SOPA:
"SEC. 102. ACTION BY ATTORNEY GENERAL TO PROTECT U.S. CUSTOMERS AND PREVENT U.S. SUPPORT OF FOREIGN INFRINGING SITES.
(a) Definition- For purposes of this section, a foreign Internet site or portion thereof is a `foreign infringing site' if--
(1) the Internet site or portion thereof is a U.S.-directed site and is used by users in the United States;
(2) the owner or operator of such Internet site is committing or facilitating the commission of criminal violations punishable under section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90, of title 18, United States Code; and
(3) the Internet site would, by reason of acts described in paragraph (1), be subject to seizure in the United States in an action brought by the Attorney General if such site were a domestic Internet site.
(b) Action by the Attorney General-
(1) IN PERSONAM- The Attorney General may commence an in personam action against--
(A) a registrant of a domain name used by a foreign infringing site; or
(B) an owner or operator of a foreign infringing site."
I haven't found any clauses or bills mentioning it yet but there's been some talk on the internet regarding expatriation laws being considered to help enforce SOPA. Either those reports were false alarms or the legislation is better disguised.
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But can you imagine what would happen if these giants, and lets be honest most of the American Giants have somehting to do with technology (Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc.) all up and shifted to Europe, or anywhere that promised them this would never happen?
More than half of Apple's employees are already in China if memory serves correct so a lot of them are elsewhere already. I'm also not clinging to any hopes that Europe is going to provide a safe haven for the internet. Censorship is as high there as it is in the US and Europe's leaders are probably hoping that the USA succeeds this attempt so they can make similar laws without having to be the bad guys that dip their hands first. Money may equal power but historically communication and transportation have always been stronger forces than any monetary system since money is only useful insofar as it permits control of such things. If leadership ends up involving the United Nations the arguments will likely end up being over who gets to do the censoring.
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I guess I've seldom used the AP reserve myself. If I were to use it more I'd probably prefer a simple percentage system. With that a player would just choose the percent of AP to reserve each turn for a soldier. Since shooting costs are probably determined by percentages it should balance nicely.
But someone who rarely uses the feature probably isn't the best one to think of ways to implement it.
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If SOPA passes it will definitely affect the internet across the world. For starters, the US still has plenty of economic and military bargaining power. Even if the leaders of other countries don't wish for their own version of SOPA and resist the idea, they will at the very least agree to talk over possible international cooperation. However, I rather expect that many other governments would jump at the chance to do the same if the US government is successful at the attempt.
Secondly, in order for businesses in other countries to sell goods and services to us Americans (Goldhawk for instance) they would have to abide by US law to maintain an internet presence over here. Faced with that situation many businesses would choose to adapt rather than lose a large customer base. It's sort of like the way industries that produce toxic chemicals tend to make their products to California's standards. It's easier for them to model their business after the most strict laws (California has enormous economic power) and just sell the same stuff in the other states.
As a side note, I find it amusing that the Obama administration was accused (however indirectly) of attemping to setup Christianity as an official state religion. It would be even funnier to see the look on Obama's face if someone were to mention it to him in a press conference.
The near future should be interesting if nothing else. While governments around the world are becoming more fanatical with regulations and power plays it seems that the counter-reaction has finally started to show. Ten years ago if I told people that the US government was trying to gain complete dominance over citizens I'd have been laughed off. Nowadays most people will agree at least partially with me on the matter. The fact that Ron Paul is making such a strong showing in the polls after years of being blacklisted by the media might have sparked the SOPA debacle. Network news broadcasts, radio and newspapers don't have the sort of influence they once did. Imagine what horrors would arise if people no longer voted for the hand-picked candidates presented before voters?
I know who I'll be voting for but to be honest I don't believe the voting booths are going to provide any real solutions for anyone. I don't trust the officials that count votes and declare winners. I doubt any politician that wants to pass SOPA would have any qualms about rigging software for the voting machines.
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I'm not too fond of UFO ET in it's unaltered form. Technically it's X-Com and has slightly improved graphics plus a few nice features X-Com never had. It's not very refined though and is missing important features such as soldiers that can die.
Bman made a nice mod that made the game fun for most X-Com fans and it was later incorporated into the gold version of the game which STX got on Steam. I bought a used copy of the game at a local store since I planned to just install BMan's mod and get the same thing plus the addition of the X-Com aliens. What I ended up doing was installing Greyfiend's mod since he took up Bman's project where it left off and expanded the gameplay hugely. Here's a list of some features that are in the modded game (including Bman's and Greyfiend's work).
Soldiers can die (the vanilla game had immortal soldiers but the gold edition fixed that)
UFO swarms fly over earth and players get extra cash for each UFO they destroy.
Rare chance for a boss monster in bases and a few other mission types.
Two new weapon types
Random map generator
Option settings and toggles that allow customization of most aspects of gameplay
It is true that transports can only be operated from one base but Greyfiend does have plans to fix that in later versions of the mod. I don't know how long it will take to get to that point. It's also not yet possible to pick up soldier bodies to carry the wounded back to the dropship. The mod will fix this issue eventually too.
As the mod stands right now, I prefer playing UFO ET over X-Com in every aspect except for two. One is that ET doesn't have spreadable fire mechanics (destructible terrain is in and can be customized with the mods installed). The second issue is that too many of the aliens are highly damage resistant and capable of extreme accuracy at long ranges. This makes the game difficult which I like but I'd prefer more variety in the type of difficulty. Also, due to some bugs, you'll need to get an additional mod to fix the psionic attacks which can make some missions impossible to complete early in the game.
Some reasons why I like it more than X-Com are:
The interception system requires good strategy. The geoscape is always in real time and all dogfighting is done right on the landscape. This means coordination is super important. Bad decisions can result in the interceptors facing multiple UFOs whereas good strategies make it possible for many inferior fighters to hit a large UFO from all sides.
Superior AI results in some hairy situations. Unlike X-Com, when you see the first enemy the rest are probably close by and rushing to attack. This also means less time is spent hunting the last hidden alien. These AI settings are customizable as well.
There are many more weapon, armor and equipment options to research. Unlike X-Com, you won't end up just equipping everyone with the best stuff (heavy plasma and flying suits). Different armors and weapons have different strengths vs different aliens.
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If anyone here owns UFO:ET then they may be interested in Greyfiend's latest hotfix for his mod (more like game overhaul).
His latest release fixes an AI issue that previously made the game nearly unplayable. His previous updates had removed an exploit that was needed to fix the AI issue that allowed them to shoot and kill players at distances exceeding the effective range of the player's weaponry.
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I don't have enough time in my budget for the torrent option either.
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It's hard to believe how many times people can post without mentioning the word X-Com in here. It ought to be a rule that every argument and counter-argument has to be accompanied with at least one mention of the XCom game.
Luckily I don't have to worry about anything since I've already decided that my budget doesn't include Firaxis new XCom regardless of how great it turns out to be.
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My system was infected by vista antispyware 2012 virus this week so I had to fork out on my mcafee renewal.
I'd have recommended Avira or AVG as free alternatives for anti-virus so you could have put the money towards Xenonauts. Add Malwarebytes and Spybot Search and Destroy scanners on top of that and you'd have a good anti-virus setup for zero dollars.
Regarding the new updates, farm maps were my favorite to destroy. Hopefully there will be some dry wheat fields.
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Hmm. Well I don't have time to play three XCom games anyhow. I'm going to stick with Xenonauts and UFO:ET2.
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To be honest I was mostly having fun seeing how many times I could work the words "X-Com" in a single thread while still making posts that were well-formulated in their own right. These Firaxis vs. Goldhawk threads have a far greater "X-Com" density than nearly any other thread in the entire forum. Keyword density is good so long as it doesn't fall into the black hat SEO realm.
In retrospect that probably doesn't reflect any better upon me than making attempts to knock Firaxis would have. hehe
The fact that someone quoted one of my posts gives me twice the X-Com goodness with a single post!
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I got a crash today but didn't attemp to duplicate it yet.
Near the end of the mission I was at the door of the UFO looking at what I thought to be the last alien. One soldier had died going in. A second threw a grenade inside and injured the alien.
I selected a third soldier standing a few tiles away from the ship's door, went to inventory, selected a grenade and placed the grenade on the shotgun to equip it. Instant crash.
I don't remember for certain if there was enough room left in the backpack to accept the shotgun or not. If I had a medkit there wouldn't have been but I don't remember if I did or not. I do know I had the belt full of grenades and about 4 more in the backpack along with the flares.
I used no medkits during the mission.
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Just got a chance to try out this build. It's far enough along to be fun to play though a bit unstable. I mostly like tossing grenades and shooting rockets.
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Might as well give a brief intro.
Long time member of the old forums, recently active member on these new boards and a long time player of X-Com. I'd heard about the first PC Gamer review of X-Com:UFO Defense and later tried out the demo. Didn't really get into it until a relative bought the game later and I had a chance to play it in earnest. It was a hard game to play for me at the time but I did finish it with many save/loads.
A few years later I revisited the game with a new strategy: Level everything with explosives, fire and laser blasts. That made everything so much easier but best of all, the destruction was great fun. Nothing like rescuing hapless citizens from the alien menace by destroying their homestead then flying off into the night.
Played UFO: ET for awhile using Greyfiend's mods and found it even more fun than the original X-Com. Unfortunately Greyfiend is in the middle of doing the balancing portion of his complete game overhaul and his current mod release makes missions so hard they aren't much fun (enemies are killing soldiers from off the screen and can only be killed easily by short-ranged flamethrower type weaponry). Hopefully he'll finish up the last portion of the project soon but if not, there's always Xenonauts in the works.
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UFO ET 2 shouldn't be affected much by competition since I don't expect them to release anytime soon. Plus, that game will use the same game engine as the original I believe and will therefore be a modder's treat to work with.
It's just too bad they aren't as savvy in marketing as Firaxis or Goldhawk. You really have to work to discover their existence.
Of course last year when I found Xenonauts I had been scouring the web for weeks looking for every X-Com project with a shred of potential before uncovering one link to the old website. I think it was the one buried at the end of a wikipedia article about X-Com. It's somewhat easier now but still not super easy. Most searches of X-Com are filled with reports of the ones by 2K and Firaxis. There are a few links to Xenonauts buried in a few of the articles about Enemy Unknown but that's not quite good enough. When I'm researching games I tend to look for names that I can later run a search on. That means that I'd likely miss links buried in comments.
Perhaps there are some lists of X-Com games out there that need updating with Xenonauts.
On a side note, I did notice that these forums have 10 new members since I logged out last night. Either this is just normal growth or all the buzz regarding XCom is starting to pay off.
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The stories about aliens abducting and mutilating cattle are actually a coverup by Food Inc. In reality the cattle are specially bred to be self-mutilating for the purpose of reducing meat processing costs. Occasionally the cattle don't wait to get to the secret processing facilities and they inevitably die before finishing the job.
The real danger lies in all the lawyer universities and Post Office academies being built on Mars by Snakemen. They plan to secretly abduct and re-educate every human over the course of the next century.
How is it that you could find alien ships in X-Com filled with bloody cattle? Thought you caught them in the act? Wrong. The sectoids were actually trying to learn the secrets used to create the cattle when X-Com operatives came along and messed up the experiments by blowing up the scientists.
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I'm afraid the last time I played X-Com I purposefully sent my troops on night missions just for the sake of seeing the fire effects at night as I burnt down the entire area with incendiary rounds.
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Just enough doom and gloom to initiate action is a good thing. Debating also serves to generate enormous amounts of traffic from everyone interested in X-Com remakes. That alone has value since people interested in XCOM may stumble onto this scene by reading these XCOM vs Xenonauts threads.
I seriously doubt Goldhawk is going to give up but as mentioned earlier, the marketing approach is sure to shift. Firaxis is certainly aware of the existence of Xenonauts but its unlikely they are taking any special measures to market against it. I wouldn't doubt that the rising hopes of success for this game might have prompted them to announce their own sooner though.
For competitors there's also Extraterrestrials 2 on the horizon but I don't expect to see them release until at least next year so there's no reason to factor them into the current situation (they are also not so great at marketing). ET2 is actually the game I look forward to the most due to the likelihood if its having unlimited modding capabilities.
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I actually don't have any interest in Firaxis' new X-Com myself since I'm more of a hobbyist developer than a game player. I just tend to support companies if I like their overall business model, philosophy, public image and end-product. Truth be told it's likely I'll never finish Xenonauts but instead put it in my collection of other partially played games (most are picked up cheap via GoG or used).
Though some may be hopeful that extra competition will result in better products I'm actually a little concerned that the opposite is more likely. Nearly all of the really big, competitive companies compete on price and marketing hype. Few attempt to compete on the quality basis since the average consumer rarely thinks beyond the immediate gratification. Names like McDonalds, Wal-Mart, K-Mart and Taco Bell spring to mind. I'll avoid mentioning software-related companies.
Ultimately a software company has to make a profit to stay afloat and in the case of two games with similar release dates timing and media hype may very well prove to be more important for sales than the fit and finish of the product.
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I think Goldhawk has a pretty decent chance of coming out in good shape despite the new XCom competition judging by the popularity of this thread. The large amount of views and posts this thread is getting indicate a lot of interest in both the new Enemy Unknown and Xenonauts. I don't have access to web analytics data for this site but I bet if Chris is using some sort of analytics program he'll see a spike in X-Com related traffic coming here over the next few months.
It still very important that the players keep spreading the news and links to Xenonauts in whichever gaming forums they frequent. Don't spam but if it's permitted on the particular forum it wouldn't hurt to put clickable links to the various X-Com projects (with Xenonauts included of course) in the signature. Just be certain that forum or blog policy allows it first.
On a side note, over 3,000 views in two days is incredible on a forum where topics seldom reach 1000 in a week.
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I'm no expert on either system. I just know they are proven models for increasing traffic. On Facebook comments, links to Xenonauts and lots of friends would likely be key factors to attract more people.
Unless I'm mistaken, recommending a website on Google+ can actually cause the Google search engine to start ranking a website higher on the list(assuming there are enough recommendations). Higher rankings means a greater chance of showing up on the all-important first page of a search.
Since search engines are getting more and more savvy about ranking sites it's important to advertise naturally so that's why I would only encourage people to use Facebook and Google+ to help Xenonauts if they already use those social networking tools. If I were to sign up for Facebook right now and click the "like" button and post a few comments it might very well be dismissed as spam (it would be spam too).
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My opinion on grenades:
They should be quick use buttons as suggested by a few others, not quick slots for equipping grenades. One slot with toggle arrows that jump between grenade types. There should also be a number showing how many of the currently selected grenade type the soldier has.
The rational behind quick use slots instead of quick-equip slots is simplicity. When the player uses the slot it is assumed that the soldier is using one hand to grab the grenade, throw it then take his weapon back in hand. Thus using the quick grenade button should cost a few more AP than using a grenade already in hand but perhaps not quite as much as juggling stuff around in inventory.
In regards to soldier portraits perhaps they could have the soldier's initials at the bottom of the portrait?
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That would be a good start. The professional looking videos are most important for something going onto Goldhawk's site since people will tend to assume that a hastily slapped together video indicates sloppy game development. For other people's video sites basic screen captures would suffice.
Near-professional level editing for something as simple as gameplay videos only requires basic video software like premiere for those with the skills. I've got a little of the knowledge myself but no software or practice at it.
I'm sure there are several folks that frequent these boards that can do it.
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For what it's worth here are a more ideas on marketing tactics that should help Xenonauts without taking too much resources on their part.
More videos for the YouTube Channel: Players with good video editing skills can create footage of gameplay, LP's and even trailers. These need to be of the highest quality and look professional. This would mean doing music, bumpers and lots of edits so there are many scenes showing off the animations. People could submit them to Chris and he could pick the best ones to put on GoldHawk's channel. It would be nice to get a few dozen or so videos up there. I refer to professional-quality videos and not simple screen captures uploaded and slapped onto YouTube.
Currently the YouTube channel has this for a description:
Xenonauts is a re-imagining of the classic X-Com strategy games, in production by Goldhawk Interactive. Visit the official site at http://www.xenonauts.com
Perhaps it could be updated to include links to the Facebook landing page and to these forums as well.
Players that have a Facebook account need to immediately go to Goldhawk's Facebook account and hit the "like" button. Perhaps a favorable comment on their page that mentions something along the lines of looking forward to the X-Com spiritual successor that Xenonauts is.
If Goldhawk gets the Google Plus button on their site then everyone who has one of those accounts should immediately recommend this site.
Anyone that frequents a gaming board should make mention of Xenonauts at every logical opportunity. No spam though. Make sure every post is fitting. Also be sure to put a clickable link to the Xenonauts site in the post.
Get a mention of Xenonauts in the online articles about the new X-Com game. Don't spam or make comparisons to Firaxis' new game. Those who frequent such articles can post a comment like, "Now we have two great successors to the original X-Com! Until now there was only Goldhawk's Xenonauts for us X-Com fans." This is the piggybacking that folks have mentioned earlier. Use Firaxis' SEO power to promote Xenonauts. It would be best to get some clickable links to Xenonauts in there as well but I'm not sure how to do it without making it look like overt spamming.
[V8.0 Air Combat] Suicide MIG
in Xenonauts Bug Reports / Troubleshooting
Posted
I'd suggest using settings like those in X-Com or UFO:ET for speed. You just choose flying modes and the planes will do their best to keep a predetermined distance from the UFO.
Perhaps afterburner, normal and engagement settings. The engagement setting would have the fighter attempt to maintain the proper distance based upon the range of its weaponry.