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[MisterAnderson]

Anyone have any idea why EUIII demo won't load on my computer? Before clicking the purchase button I was compelled to try the demo out first, luckily I did since it might not even run on my computer for some reason if the demo is any indication...

After it finished downloading, I clicked it, and it showed a series of still pictures while loading things, after the third picture or so, the screen flashes green a couple times and brings me back to the desktop. I've done this many times and the same thing happens every time. I've even tried running in XP compatibility mode.

Im using W7 RC 64-bit, is this a known issue and is there a known fix?

 

[Kipe]

Anyone have any idea why EUIII demo won't load on my computer? Before clicking the purchase button I was compelled to try the demo out first, luckily I did since it might not even run on my computer for some reason if the demo is any indication...

After it finished downloading, I clicked it, and it showed a series of still pictures while loading things, after the third picture or so, the screen flashes green a couple times and brings me back to the desktop. I've done this many times and the same thing happens every time. I've even tried running in XP computability mode.

Im using W7 RC 64-bit, is this a known issue and is there a known fix?

Windows 7 64bit RC user here, I played the demo last night and it worked fine.

 

[legend166]

I downloaded the Hearts of Iron II demo.

It was my first ever taste of a game like that. I guess the closest I've played is the Total War series, but that seems to pale in complexity.

Anyway, despite getting absolutely raped by the Germans in the demo scenario, the game intrigues me. Does it make any attempt to teach the player the mechanics? I mean, I'm not expecting hand holding, since it's clearly a hardcore strategy game. But if I get the full game, will I be as lost as I was during the demo? Is there a way to hand off combat to my generals and just let me focus on the resources and diplomacy?

For $12, it's so tempting, even though chances are I'll play it for a couple of hours, be completely overwhelmed and then stop playing.

 

[Kabouter]

I downloaded the Hearts of Iron II demo.

It was my first ever taste of a game like that. I guess the closest I've played is the Total War series, but that seems to pale in complexity.

Anyway, despite getting absolutely raped by the Germans in the demo scenario, the game intrigues me. Does it make any attempt to teach the player the mechanics? I mean, I'm not expecting hand holding, since it's clearly a hardcore strategy game. But if I get the full game, will I be as lost as I was during the demo? Is there a way to hand off combat to my generals and just let me focus on the resources and diplomacy?

For $12, it's so tempting, even though chances are I'll play it for a couple of hours, be completely overwhelmed and then stop playing.

Not in Hearts of Iron 2. In Hearts of Iron 3 you will be able to delegate the handling of certain fronts to the AI. As well as preparation for an attack on a certain front.

 

[legend166]

Should I just wait for HoI 3?

I dunno, I did just get my tax return so I've got some cash to splurge. $12 isn't that much. I'm gonna buy it.

 

[Kabouter]

Should I just wait for HoI 3?

I dunno, I did just get my tax return so I've got some cash to splurge. $12 isn't that much. I'm gonna buy it.

Nah, you'll probably pick up on the combat mechanics for Hearts of Iron 2 pretty quickly. Just give yourself some time to get used to everything, play as the USA. And if you need help, you can always create a Hearts of Iron 2 thread .

 

[legend166]

It's downloading now.

Trust me, I'll be making a thread after I play as the US and am invaded by Chile or something

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

I would definitely recommend to order Mount and Blade, myself I will definitely pick up King's Bounty and possibly Sword of the Stars but I don't know about that one.

I picked up Sword of the Stars last time it was on sale on Steam (must have been about a month ago) and have thoroughly enjoyed it;

+ very nice species differentiation with the 'fluff' matching their playstyles, and each race getting its own FTL engine style directly influencing how they play (protip: to learn the game, don't play human first as you might expect, play Tarka instead)
+ Lots of depth and replayability in colony management
+ Vehicle customisations, and lots of them
+ The tech tree you get at the start of the game is randomised outside of certain core techs, so you can't rely on always getting your fave techs, so theres quite a lot of tactical thinking in how you have to play from what you get (you also get the 'ooh, what does THAT do?' factor)
+ pretty nice ship designs

- tutorial is horrible / nearly non existent; you have to puzzle a bunch of shit out for yourself and don't know what techs necessarily lead to other techs due to the way the tech three works
- the 2D character designs are horrible imo - theres a lot of inconsistency even within the same species, and although technically there's nothing wrong with it they're pretty bland and come off looking like clipart. Luckily the 2D stuff is almost irrelevant.

So yeah, its a solid and fun 4X game thats lacking a bit of polish. Worth it's asking price imo.

 

[MisterAnderson]

Windows 7 64bit RC user here, I played the demo last night and it worked fine.

Well what the hell... I have no idea what the problem is as it leaves me no indication of what could possibly be wrong. All that happens is the screen will flicker green, then suddenly I'll be back to my desktop with the program closed out. No "not responding" error or anything. I tried redownloading the demo and it didn't change anything. Doubt I will buy it now since the full game will probably behave the same, unless a patch addresses this issue.

I picked up Sword of the Stars last time it was on sale on Steam (must have been about a month ago) and have thoroughly enjoyed it;

+ very nice species differentiation with the 'fluff' matching their playstyles, and each race getting its own FTL engine style directly influencing how they play (protip: to learn the game, don't play human first as you might expect, play Tarka instead)
+ Lots of depth and replayability in colony management
+ Vehicle customisations, and lots of them
+ The tech tree you get at the start of the game is randomised outside of certain core techs, so you can't rely on always getting your fave techs, so theres quite a lot of tactical thinking in how you have to play from what you get (you also get the 'ooh, what does THAT do?' factor)
+ pretty nice ship designs

- tutorial is horrible / nearly non existent; you have to puzzle a bunch of shit out for yourself and don't know what techs necessarily lead to other techs due to the way the tech three works
- the 2D character designs are horrible imo - theres a lot of inconsistency even within the same species, and although technically there's nothing wrong with it they're pretty bland and come off looking like clipart. Luckily the 2D stuff is almost irrelevant.

So yeah, its a solid and fun 4X game thats lacking a bit of polish. Worth it's asking price imo.

Sounds very fun indeed... but a little put off on lack of descent tutorial. Have you played Sins of a Solar Empire? I haven't yet... but it's only $19.99 on amazon and seems to have gotten pretty good reviews; was planning on picking it up. If anyone has played both, if you could provide some insight on whether or not I would be better off only picking up one (if it's clearly superior) then I'd really appreciate saving a few bucks.

 

[MisterAnderson]

I just played some of the Mount&Blade Demo. It seemed very promising yet bland at the same time. I feel like Gamespot's review nailed it for me... the lack of story made me feel completely aimless. I admire the fact that it gives you the freedom to do what you want, it's just that (from the admittedly short time playing) the only fun thing about the game was combat. Towns feel bland, NPCs feel bland, it all seemed repetitive, and the only quest I could find was to bring back 8 heads of cattle and I had no idea how to even do that.

Despite that list of negatives, I would very much like to see what the devs of this game could pull off with a bigger budget. It seems like it has a lot of potential, and the combat is very fun, but the rest feels underdeveloped.

Every time my followers and I would charge into battle I couldn't help but think how awesome the combat system would be in a Battlefield-esque medieval style multiplayer game with no AI, only real players.

I also hear there are a ton of mods for this game, are there any that would make me reconsider and purchase?

 

[brain_stew]

I downloaded the Hearts of Iron II demo.

It was my first ever taste of a game like that. I guess the closest I've played is the Total War series, but that seems to pale in complexity.

Anyway, despite getting absolutely raped by the Germans in the demo scenario, the game intrigues me. Does it make any attempt to teach the player the mechanics? I mean, I'm not expecting hand holding, since it's clearly a hardcore strategy game. But if I get the full game, will I be as lost as I was during the demo? Is there a way to hand off combat to my generals and just let me focus on the resources and diplomacy?

For $12, it's so tempting, even though chances are I'll play it for a couple of hours, be completely overwhelmed and then stop playing.

I used the EU3 guide here to get me started and it was excellent, so probably a good place to start for a HOI2 newbie:

http://www.paradoxian.org/hoi2wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Well what the hell... I have no idea what the problem is as it leaves me no indication of what could possibly be wrong. All that happens is the screen will flicker green, then suddenly I'll be back to my desktop with the program closed out. No "not responding" error or anything. I tried redownloading the demo and it didn't change anything. Doubt I will buy it now since the full game will probably behave the same, unless a patch addresses this issue.

Well EU3 has had dozens of patches, and two large expansion packs since it was released (included with the Steam bundle), so there's a very good chance the issue has been solved. The Paradox forums are great, bound to be someone to help you out over there.

 

[TouchMyBox]

Pre-Purchase Bionic Commando for $35.99

Hmm...

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I just played some of the Mount&Blade Demo. It seemed very promising yet bland at the same time. I feel like Gamespot's review nailed it for me... the lack of story made me feel completely aimless. I admire the fact that it gives you the freedom to do what you want, it's just that (from the admittedly short time playing) the only fun thing about the game was combat. Towns feel bland, NPCs feel bland, it all seemed repetitive, and the only quest I could find was to bring back 8 heads of cattle and I had no idea how to even do that.

Despite that list of negatives, I would very much like to see what the devs of this game could pull off with a bigger budget. It seems like it has a lot of potential, and the combat is very fun, but the rest feels underdeveloped.

Every time my followers and I would charge into battle I couldn't help but think how awesome the combat system would be in a Battlefield-esque medieval style multiplayer game with no AI, only real players.

I also hear there are a ton of mods for this game, are there any that would make me reconsider and purchase?

The game definitely feels aimless. It is just a little bit too unfocused. However, I still got a good 10 - 15 hours out of it and I will probably come back to it at some point. Building up a small army and just roaming the country side to fight other armies is quite a lot of fun. The combat is just extremely satisfying. If only these guys got a bigger team and a larger budget to expand on their concept.

 

[Grayman]

Pre-Purchase Bionic Commando for $35.99

Hmm...

It will eventually be 5 dollars like lost planet was

 

[Grayman]

I just played some of the Mount&Blade Demo. It seemed very promising yet bland at the same time. I feel like Gamespot's review nailed it for me... the lack of story made me feel completely aimless. I admire the fact that it gives you the freedom to do what you want, it's just that (from the admittedly short time playing) the only fun thing about the game was combat. Towns feel bland, NPCs feel bland, it all seemed repetitive, and the only quest I could find was to bring back 8 heads of cattle and I had no idea how to even do that.

Despite that list of negatives, I would very much like to see what the devs of this game could pull off with a bigger budget. It seems like it has a lot of potential, and the combat is very fun, but the rest feels underdeveloped.

Every time my followers and I would charge into battle I couldn't help but think how awesome the combat system would be in a Battlefield-esque medieval style multiplayer game with no AI, only real players.

I also hear there are a ton of mods for this game, are there any that would make me reconsider and purchase?

Mount and Blade is getting a multiplayer expansion at some point. I think that will be pretty interesting for group fights.

 

[Doytch]

Mount and Blade is getting a multiplayer expansion at some point. I think that will be pretty interesting for group fights.

Pretty sure it's an expandalone, like CoH and OpFor right?

 

[Lothars]

Pretty sure it's an expandalone, like CoH and OpFor right?

I don't know, I thought it was an expansion pack that required the game but it very well might be standalone.

 

[mrgone]

Nothing's been said about it being standalone or not (I've been trying to find that out too)
It does sound like it's going to require the original game from everything they've released so far, but it hasn't been specified one way or the other.

It's supposed to be out in September though, so we'll find out soon enough

 

[Grayman]

Shack called it an expansion but it is only in a blurb so I would not read too much into that http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/59012

 

[Visualante]

$40 = £25, Capcom. Not £30. Will bomba for sure.

 

[Haden]

This is slightly unrelated but I was wondering if any of you guys could recommend a external usb hardrive? I love Steam but sadly all the Steam deals have clogged up my pitiful 80gb hardrive. Amazon reviews are slightly confusing as people tend to rate the same hardrive with either 5 and massive praise or 1 and contempt. Any guaranteed quiet reliable ones out there?

 

[BeeDog]

This is slightly unrelated but I was wondering if any of you guys could recommend a external usb hardrive? I love Steam but sadly all the Steam deals have clogged up my pitiful 80gb hardrive. Amazon reviews are slightly confusing as people tend to rate hardrives with either 5 and massive praise or 1 and contempt. Any guaranteed quiet reliable ones out there?

The Western Digital MyBooks (Home/Essential Editions) are pretty reliable, and they're not noisy (at least my Home Edition 1TB isn't).

 

[brain_stew]

This is slightly unrelated but I was wondering if any of you guys could recommend a external usb hardrive? I love Steam but sadly all the Steam deals have clogged up my pitiful 80gb hardrive. Amazon reviews are slightly confusing as people tend to rate the same hardrive with either 5 and massive praise or 1 and contempt. Any guaranteed quiet reliable ones out there?

Get a larger internal, seriously. You sure as shit don't want to be running any programs off an external USB HDD.

 

[Almak]

A quick question about steam backups. When backing up a game is it saved in the state it was in when backed up? As in do the updates one downloaded for it get backed up as well? Or are only essential files backed up leaving it in need of updating when re-installed?
Also which one of the two formats is the most secure to backup in if I am saving to a HDD (CD/DVD)? The reason I'm asking is since I recently tried re-installing Warhammer 40K Soulstorm from a DVD backup it appears to not have saved entirely (it asked me for a second disc, where it was in fact only saved as one DVD partition).

 

[Haden]

Get a larger internal, seriously. You sure as shit don't want to be running any programs off an external USB HDD.

Really? Would games run worse or something?

 

[Almak]

Really? Would games run worse or something?

In my personal experience yeah they would. I recently bought a 1TB HDD for backup and trying to run anything actively off of it is borderline impossible (despite it being a 2.0 USB output).
Bottom line is you don't want any interferences between the information, especially as far as gaming is concerned. So if you want to play games get an internal HDD (there's no contest there). Purely for backup purposes however an external one is just as good (if not better for its mobility).

 

[Jefklak]

$40 = £25, Capcom. Not £30. Will bomba for sure.

€40, preorder bonus: €35.99
Fuck off Steam

 

[krzy123]

Yeah Mount&Blade needs a slightly larger budget to be great, I think i've done most of the quests in the game (played probably 20 hrs total). The cattle quests are the worst, especially when you're with the king's army. My problem was that the faction I was in was totally retarded. They had declared war on two fronts. I got myself up to some sort of vassal in my kingdom. Joining up in the large scale battles is fun.

The easiest way to start up is to do the daily free for fall tourneys, and then win a couple of weekly ones, then start hunting small bandit armies.

 

[commissar]

Get a larger internal, seriously. You sure as shit don't want to be running any programs off an external USB HDD.

Or get an external which has eSATA. Best of both worlds :>

 

[zoku88]

Or get an external which has eSATA. Best of both worlds :>

This is how I run EUIII on my main computer

 

[vazel]

Really? Would games run worse or something?

Transfer rates will take a hit on an external usb hdd.

 

[Almak]

Or get an external which has eSATA. Best of both worlds :>

Is it significantly better than USB2.0? Are the games playable or does the performance still take a hit?

 

[cbox]

I believe it's as fast as an internal connection.

 

[commissar]

Yeah esata is just a sata port on the outside of your case for convenience. Most external hdds which have esata should have USB too. Which is useful for compatibility when out and about
Seriously consider going internal though. You get waaay more for your money, though you lose convenience

 

[Vorador]

eSATA is just a solution than combines a SATA port and a power plug in one. The performance is exactly the same than a internal HDD, so is the fastest solution for external hard disks.

 

[TheExodu5]

Is there a reason you need an external? You'd save a fair bit of money going internal.

 

[ClovingWestbrook]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/10110/

Spacequest- 25% off until 7/30- $14.99

http://store.steampowered.com/app/10100/

Kingsquest Collection- 25% off until 7/30- $14.99

http://store.steampowered.com/app/10130/

Timeshift- 25% off until 7/30- $14.99

 

[Haden]

Not wanting to derail the Steam topic with my HDD worries, but I am a complete PC novice and fear opening it up. Would this cable allow a SATA type HDD be external? http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0021X4ASM/
or would I need this? http://www.amazon.co.uk/USB-SATA-Adaptor-Cable-Power/dp/B000R18ZNQ/ref=pd_cp_ce_2

Maybe I will just ask someone to install a new HDD for me.

I just read that the Hardrive will run as fast as the slowest connection. Sorry to waste your time guys I will just go to a computer shop and ask if they will install it for me I think.

 

[TheExodu5]

The first option will still be limited by USB 2.0. It's not a good option, especially considering most external HDDs come with USB 2.0.

Same goes for the second option.

You need a straight eSATA cable, as long as your motherboard/PC has an eSATA out.

Seriously though, you can install the HDD yourself. It's ridiculously easy. Open the panel, screw your HDD in (cases often have little plastic or metal tabs you can screw onto your HDD so you can just slide it into the case). Then, just connect your HDD to the motherboard with a SATA cable and connect your power supply to your HDD as well.

You'll save yourself $40 on the external/enclosure part, at least.

 

[Oreoleo]

I just read that the Hardrive will run as fast as the slowest connection. Sorry to waste your time guys I will just go to a computer shop and ask if they will install it for me I think.

Oh God don't do that. Installing an HD is soooo easy, surely you have at least one friend who has opened up a PC case. It is seriously a 5 minute job and any computer shop you go to will laugh at you behind your back and charge you $50 or more to install it.

 

[AstroLad]

As long as you use the Geek Squad, you should be in good shape.

 

[TheExodu5]

As long as you use the Geek Squad, you should be in good shape.

I'd rather go with the Greek Squad myself.

 

[Shard]

I was right, I was right, now that Sierra is in the hands of Activision their games are now on Steam. For those who don't remember, Sierra/Vivindi, they were never coming to Steam thanks to that falling out/lawsuit.

 

[Proc]

those packages are priced pretty nicely...damn tempting

 

[Agent Ironside]

As long as you use the Geek Squad, you should be in good shape.

:lol

 

[Musashi Wins!]

As long as you use the Geek Squad, you should be in good shape.

haha, you are the master.

 

[brain_stew]

Not wanting to derail the Steam topic with my HDD worries, but I am a complete PC novice and fear opening it up. Would this cable allow a SATA type HDD be external? http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0021X4ASM/
or would I need this? http://www.amazon.co.uk/USB-SATA-Adaptor-Cable-Power/dp/B000R18ZNQ/ref=pd_cp_ce_2

Maybe I will just ask someone to install a new HDD for me.

I just read that the Hardrive will run as fast as the slowest connection. Sorry to waste your time guys I will just go to a computer shop and ask if they will install it for me I think.

Do you know how to use a screw driver and plug a wire into a socket?

Congratulations, you have all the skills required to install a HDD.

 

[Haden]

Do you know how to use a screw driver and plug a wire into a socket?

Congratulations, you have all the skills required to install a HDD.

:lol ok I get the point. Guess I will give it a go then.

 

[Kosma]

It will eventually be 5 dollars like lost planet was

Lost Planet is still 20 euro here.

 

[tmaynard]

:lol ok I get the point. Guess I will give it a go then.

Also, make sure you ground yourself by touching a metal part of the PC case before you start working inside of a PC. Static electricity could damage something if you aren't careful.