Immacolata

With a 2 ghz+ cpu, 1 gig of memory and a 6800 GT card I'd say you would be able to run several current generation fps games very well. Don't bother with the Ultra, its too expensive compared to the miniscule extra oomph it gives you. You could also see what ATI has up its sleeves coming next month. Or just wait for 2006 when CMx2 has shipped

There is art and there are freeloaders. You will not convince freeloaders to buy anything they can get for free. Remove c/p and have an excellent demo and they will opt for the "free" version. It is a fact of life. There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch it is claimed, however that doesn't prevent scores of pc users to try and get one. @Jhereg Yeah I see your point, on-the-go-gaming is where online validation is bad. Not much fun being stuck in some backwater or deepwater part of the world with nothing to do because your lil' pc games won't run without access to the intarweb. Well. This is a gordian knot isn't it?

I use Daemon-Tools for the same reason, however I never found that it conflicted with StarForce (I own SH3). It wouldn't run at the same time, but it would work if DTools is disabled. Yes, it is jumping hoops. And especially for simulation games it is a pain to have mandatory disc-in-drive copy protection. A good sim game is one you come back to many times over months, so having to find the disc every time you feel like playing is annoying. But I am playing the devil's advocate here. Make a game and remove copy protection, and most publishers wont take it. Release it yourself without c/p and see sales being miniscule. about 8 years ago BlueByte released a quite nice turn based tactical game called Incubation. Was released without c/p and sold a fair amount. Then they made an expansion pack which had physical C/P on the cd-rom to prevent copying. Sales were double IIRC. A bit peculiar considering you needed the original game to use the expansion right? That was before the advent of virtual drives and huge harddrives that can hold dozens of iso images. Today the only iso-defeating c/ps are online keycheking, which really only works for online based games, and StarForce. So if CMx2 should have any *meaningful* c/p it will be Steam or StarForce. Since Battlefront is using their special method to sell their games I would say the Steam method is the one that has least possibility for disrupting your system. And you can run your game off the harddisk without having to insert a disc, because the online validation will be the c/p. I'd prefer that, if Battlefront opts for a c/p.

Oi! No finger pointing! My ma always taught that was not polite I play with it off when I get my nose clobbered. Then I try again, see if I can best myself with FOG off, and then perhaps play again with fog on. I always have problems learning to know the terrain well, fog of war eliminates that. But when I was thinking newbie friendly I perhaps also was thinking a slight effort in the direction towards a sense of a greater cohesion. Big boys with stacks of greenbacks tends to afford cut scenes and dramatic interludes etc. That would be nice, but hardly adding anything to the core gameplay. But I guess I am inquiring if there will be something that gives you a bit more feeling a part of something bigger. The operations tend to do that already, but you still are presented with a huge list of scenarios that seems haphazardly thrown together (though they probably aren't, they do feel like that).

I see a few starforce haters here, but I believe they are the usual vocal minority of starforce haters that are 1:1000 or maybe even 1:10000 comapred to the people that use games with starforce and have no issues at all. Yes, it is intrusive compared to the regular ones, but what were you doing with Alcohol 120% and Daemon-tools anyways? And using Windows XP in the first place is accepting quite a lot of Microsoft intrusion wholesale You can disable Starforce drivers in a few minutes, there is a program that does it. Sure, it could be a lot prettier but I for one cannot take serious the few persons that are angry about it. You are too pouty lipped, that you can only see the issue from your side, claiming intrusion, suppression of rights etc. due to STarforce, instead of seeing it for the common good of gaming: namely that producers makes games that MOST people buy and FEW uses illegal copies of. Not because Starforce is impossible to break, but it is a bit harder than usual, and developers can even hassle pirates into "upgrading" for a pay-for version by making some post-release patches with new starforce drivers in. The PC is an open platform, and unfortunately that makes it open to piracy. So if you want to play games on the pc, live with the copy protections, and stop taking yourself so serious. Just unplug your pc from the internet and your so-called intrusion is mostly in your mind. As someone said, yes, there are issues with older versions, and to some extent newer versions. This usually happens with people that have unusual hardware configurations, and it IS a real problem for them, but their numbers are slim and growing slimmer Ive heard. The alternative is no games because everyone says "Nah, Ill let the others buy the game THIS time. I mean, I need a new kludge for my car anyways so Ill just "borrow it". Im all with the devs, spiritually, of course." That makes no food for the devs. So, unless CMx2 comes with a copy protection that requires of me to put my fingers into the mains socket or dial a phone number to "activate" it, Ill buy it. Provided that it is good of course!

Aye, that would be nice. One doesn't have to exclude the other, a sandbox for newbians with cherry picked operations and scenarios, then the full monty for veterans.

Single player games are where copy protection doesn't work well. BF2 and JO are both multiplayer heavy games. So if any kind of meaningful (read: working) copy protection for CMx2 should be implemented, it requires a server backend with a log of unique cd-keys, mandatory online validation etc. The closest thing Ive seen to a copy protection that works on pc (exluding online games) is Starforce. And even that isn't proof.

I find there is very little relation between Schwarzenegger and a game like Combat Mission. And its not like I view my games as lovers, I don't want to do foreplay

This could mean lots of things. There is a bit of a wargamer masochist hidden inside me, since I try many times to get to "love" a certain wargame, but somehow they always end up brutalizing me. It was first with Close Combat that I really got all passionate about those wargames because the games were both deep and damn sexy for their time. The fidelity of graphics and sound in CM games never impressed me, but I enjoyed both CMBO and CMBB SE for some time. But both games always felt overwhelming at first in a way that I didn't experience with CC. First I think the presentation is the biggest newbie hater. HEre. Menu. Play game. Select a mission. Or operation. Thats it. Now go out and play. Difference between this and CC was, that CC had a narrow focus for your actions. Win operation Market Garden, conquer Russia etc. CM is just a pile of completely unrelated battles presented for the player like a bin full of various toys for sale. I am not asking for cut-scenes and dramatic WW2-themede voice overs, but a tiny amount of hand holding in the beginning would probably help getting to enjoy the game out of the box even if you aren't great at playing them. A long list of scenarions, just sorted alphabetically, isn't always what Im looking for. Give a man a gun and a purpose and he will fight. Same with CM games. Put some kind of wrapper around the individual scenarios or a goal perhaps? I hope CMx2 will have a little more of that, because the underlying gameplay in CMBB and BO is good, and that I enjoy.

So this special edition is just vanilla CMAK with community created extras thrown in? Hmm. I just saw Combat Mission Anthology for sale, perhaps that is the cheapest way of getting it. Btw. is there any improvements between CMBB and CMAK that make you say "I will never go back" or is it minor improvements? And what is the difference between the EU CMAK SE and the USA CMAK SE that seems to be in the making too?

I'll concede to one point: The game is hard to get into, in a dull way. That doesn't mean I dont like to play it, but Atomic managed to make their lovely games quite approachable, where as I found myself a bit bewildered when I started CM the first time. Now I have figured most of it out and enjoy the attention to detail and complexity of the game. But I believe Battlefront wouldn't die from a few lessons at The Charming School to make a more endearing first date for their future games. No need to dumb down or simplify.

Darn, can't download a thing off Tom's pages. Anyone got some alternative sites for these DLs? [ October 09, 2002, 02:27 PM: Message edited by: Immacolata ]