They are bashing Gary Grigsby!

[McNaughton]

What is being said here is more opinion than fact. The facts are, both Matrix and Paradox are very successful, and they go about making products with different focus'. Is one better than the other? No, they are too different to compare when basing it objectively. However, too many people here assume that everyone in the world thinks like them, and make opinions as facts, when they are just opinions. I have spent more hours playing Paradox games than Gary Grigby games, but do I state that Paradox games are better? No, just that Paradox games are more interesting TO ME, in subjective terms, based upon their ability to play a historic game beyond a limited timeframe, as well as its highly moddable engine. In objective terms, both provide products that suit their genre, and are extremely popular, individually we each decide which we perfer, but don't DARE tell me that I am wrong for perferring what I do, just because you don't share the same feelings.

Also, outside reviews are misleading. You can find extremely positive reviews for the worst things out there (from music, movies to computer games). Someone may say that Brittney Spears is way better than Audioslave, I mean, look at the reviews, look at the products sold, and according to a lot of logic here, everyone should admit that Brittney Spears is the superior musician. However, it is all a matter of opinion. IMO, Brittney Spears makes poor music, but that is not a fact, but an opinion. I am not going to belittle others because they like something I don't.

I have never been able to finish a GGPW campaign, solo or PBEM, and can find it in the $9.00 bin, does that mean that this game is utter crap?

[McNaughton]

dp

[Koper]

ORIGINAL: Didz
(...)Having said that I wouldn't class EU as a wargame anyway in my book its an RTS, and a rather poor one at that.

Blasphemy! [;)]

Sorry, but that exactly what I was saying about the difference of design approach... Not a single product of Paradox is turn based. Even if they make impressive and bug-free-right-from-the-box-game (now that would be the feat!), it will be still RTS for most of the hardcore GG fans... [:'(]

Pity, really.

[Pippin]

IMO, Brittney Spears makes poor music, but that is not a fact, but an opinion.

PHEW!! Glad I found someone who has the same opinion as me!

I started to think I was a major world-outcast.

[dinsdale]

ORIGINAL: Didz
No. I'm seeking to explore the practically of your assertion that you played an entire EU campaign online with four players.

You need to double check, I didn't make that assertion. However, there are reports and AARs all over the PE fora, so perhaps you could peruse and satisfy your morbid curiosity.

Personally, I've found it difficult to complete a single battle lasting less than 60 minutes online with four players.

A battle? Perhaps you need to explain, battles are fought automatically when two hostile armies enter the same province, no further input needed from the player. That must have been some battle to last an hour, or are you confusing EU with another game.

Having said that I wouldn't class EU as a wargame anyway in my book its an RTS, and a rather poor one at that.

Of course you would [8|] That entire hour you claimed to play the game must have been enough to form such a clear, concise and open-minded evaluation of the game.

[elmo3]

If there were only some way to harness the passion that we wargamers have for our games and redirect it. We would surely solve all the world's problems with energy to spare! [:D]

[dinsdale]

ORIGINAL: elmo3

If there were only some way to harness the passion that we wargamers have for our games and redirect it. We would surely solve all the world's problems with energy to spare! [:D]

Not a chance.

1) No one would agree what energy really was.
2) The confines of The World would have to be defined as The World In 1974
3) We'd have to do it all without technology, or fancy graphics
4) It would take hours to decide on a turn, only to discover that the world moves in real time

[:D]

[ravinhood]

only to discover that the world moves in real time

And what is "real time" anyway, is this some higher elitist time than "regular time" or "Past time"?? Is the speed of time really 60 seconds equals one minute? Or is that time based merely on the revolving of the earth? RTS games in no way no fashion play out in "real time", it's a fallacy to even suggest such a thing, if they did, it would take days, weeks, months and years to play out a really "real time" battle situation. It would take 6 years of real human life time to play out a WWII RTS game.

IMHO RTS should be renamed to FFS games Fast Forward Strategy game.

Grab your joysick an doe see doe
rush that grunt and destory your foe
hit that barracks, kill that fiend
plow those peaseants, crush that field
raise 10000 catapults and chariots with wheels
real time has changed, it's much faster now
you'll finish a game yesterday, whatdoyah mean how?
RTS is a wargame, no it's not
yes it is, you're full of snot.

lol

[dinsdale]

ORIGINAL: ravinhood

And what is "real time" anyway, is this some higher elitist time than "regular time" or "Past time"?? Is the speed of time really 60 seconds equals one minute? Or is that time based merely on the revolving of the earth? RTS games in no way no fashion play out in "real time", it's a fallacy to even suggest such a thing, if they did, it would take days, weeks, months and years to play out a really "real time" battle situation. It would take 6 years of real human life time to play out a WWII RTS game.

IMHO RTS should be renamed to FFS games Fast Forward Strategy game.

There's an amazing concept in HTTR and EU.......the pause button.

Continuous time is neither better nor worse than any other paradigm, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but at least I'm open minded enough to try it and not reject it out of hand because it's new and "fancy"

I wonder what the reaction was when they went from plastic to cardboard counters, must have been a grognards revolt [8|]

[ravinhood]

Nah, it was the CAT that revolted against board wargames. Sneaky lil bassurds. And I still blew my plastic soldiers up in the sandbox just like always with firecrackers, board wargaming sort of took the fun out of that, cardboard pieces blown up with a firecracker just didn't have the same feeling to it.

[Lucifuge]

In the immortal words of one of the greatest thinkers of our time (kidding!)...can't we all just get along? Two different types of games you are guys are arguing about, both of which I happen to like alot and own. If you dont like one or the other why bother running it down? Fact of matter is we are a small 'niche' group as far as software releases go and any successes like EU2 (with the patches!) and UV do nothing but help fund our future games. Has Paradox released buggy games? You bet..but they have also supported the games to death after purchase where they could have just took the money and ran but likely they realize the types of games they are making and good will/customer loyalty is important. Ok my mini rant off now back to staring at Matrix webpage waiting for the WiTP now on sale announcement...even if it takes another week or two.

[ravinhood]

WiTP??? Man that game suks (j/k), BIN is the game of games that I'm waiting for "now on sale" hehe

[Juba]

ORIGINAL: Didz

ORIGINAL: dinsdale
What's your point? Is there some time expiration which renders a game invalid as a wargame according to your criteria?

No. I'm seeking to explore the practically of your assertion that you played an entire EU campaign online with four players.

Personally, I've found it difficult to complete a single battle lasting less than 60 minutes online with four players. But I would assume that a 400 hundred year campaign would take at least 10 if not 20 times that duration. I'm curious how you managed it.

Having said that I wouldn't class EU as a wargame anyway in my book its an RTS, and a rather poor one at that.

FYI they've played through the 400 (or was it the 300) year campaign with an average of around 18 players online. It's a great event, there have been 2 so far. Usually the game is played on the weekends and if someone can't make it a substitute is assigned to cover his position.

The best multiplayer games are either with IRL friends or ones that have been organised on the forum to be a continous game instead of a fairly pointless "one night stand". Playing just one night would be like just playing the firs 5 turns of a PBEM game of 60 turns. Just going on VNET and playing against some random people will mean you'll have a random experience.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

I'll maybe take Paradox serious when I don't have to buy the same game twice with different names with fixes then wait a year to collect all the required patches to actually be able to play once. Paradox is firmly on the "do not buy" list until such time as someone tells me they actually released a game that is functional out of the box. Everything has bugs, we accept that, but you have to draw the line at functional. I'm not paying for HOI2, I already paid for EU2 (the bug patch for EU).

My exact sentiments! Forum would not allow me to post either. I activated an account but no access. Perhaps my nic "pinkstink" was unacceptable.[8D]

[Didz]

ORIGINAL: Reiryc
I've completed one over a period of about 3 weeks playing nightly for the longest campaign, 1419 - 1821. Could have taken longer but each of us were able to play for a good chunk of time each night.

Right! So it took 21 days to complete playing every night with the same four players.

I assume therefore than somehow the online game can be saved?

Did you arrange a set time to log on every night or just hang around until everyone logged onto the internet?

Sorry for the 3rd degree I'm just interested to know how this worked becuase it doesn't sound very practical to me.

[Didz]

ORIGINAL: dinsdale

ORIGINAL: Didz
No. I'm seeking to explore the practically of your assertion that you played an entire EU campaign online with four players.

You need to double check, I didn't make that assertion. However, there are reports and AARs all over the PE fora, so perhaps you could peruse and satisfy your morbid curiosity.

Its not morbid curiosity. Its a critical feature of any serious wargame that it can be played against human opponents.

Complex wargames cannot be played in real time against human opponents over the net becuase they take too long to play. Thus PBEM capability is essential.

You claimed that was 'Pap' and you had successfully played EU against four human opponents. You subsequenlty stated it took 21 evenings of play to complete and I'm curious how four people managed that over the internet.

If you are now claiming that isn't what you said and that you didn't play this game with four people over the internet. Then we are back to square one and you seem to be proving my assertion that RTS style wargames aren't capable of being played online with multiple human opponents.

ORIGINAL: dinsdale

ORIGINAL: Didz
Personally, I've found it difficult to complete a single battle lasting less than 60 minutes online with four players.

A battle? Perhaps you need to explain, battles are fought automatically when two hostile armies enter the same province, no further input needed from the player. That must have been some battle to last an hour, or are you confusing EU with another game.

We are dealing with general concepts of feasibility here. The game in question was actually MTW which allows real-time battles to be fought on-line between multiple armies each commanded by a different human player. The battles are about an hour long, which is historically far too short and yet its very rare for all the players to still be connected and playing by the end.

To me the concept that four or more players could remain on-line long enough to complete a real-time wargame is ludicrous and yet we still get wargame designers producing games that can only be played this way. Immediately limiting their appeal.

ORIGINAL: dinsdale

Having said that I wouldn't class EU as a wargame anyway in my book its an RTS, and a rather poor one at that.

Of course you would [8|] That entire hour you claimed to play the game must have been enough to form such a clear, concise and open-minded evaluation of the game.

I played it somewhat longer than that, having wasted good money on it in the first place. Unfortunately, it didn't get any better.

I like RTS games and I like Wargames but in my opinion EU is neither and I won't be wasting any more money on the series.

[dinsdale]

ORIGINAL: Didz

Its not morbid curiosity. Its a critical feature of any serious wargame that it can be played against human opponents.

Complex wargames cannot be played in real time against human opponents over the net becuase they take too long to play. Thus PBEM capability is essential.

No, that's your opinion. It is possible to play without PBEM, as I have done so with HTTR. Many players have done the same with EU, so apparently that would contradict your announcement about what is possible with a game.

You claimed that was 'Pap' and you had successfully played EU against four human opponents. You subsequenlty stated it took 21 evenings of play to complete and I'm curious how four people managed that over the internet.

No, I did not. That would have been someone else, I've already asked you to double check, which you obviously did not do.

We are dealing with general concepts of feasibility here. The game in question was actually MTW which allows real-time battles to be fought on-line between multiple armies each commanded by a different human player. The battles are about an hour long, which is historically far too short and yet its very rare for all the players to still be connected and playing by the end.

So your claims about EU are actually based on M T/W [8|] Why stop there, why play several other games and use them as evidence that EU's no good.

To me the concept that four or more players could remain in-line long enough to complete a real-time wargame is ludicrous and yet we still get wargame designers producing games that can only be played this way. Immediately limiting their appeal.

Obviously it's not ludicrous as enough people are able to do it. Just because you can't or don't want to, doesn't mean it's not feasible.

[Reiryc]

ORIGINAL: Didz

ORIGINAL: Reiryc
I've completed one over a period of about 3 weeks playing nightly for the longest campaign, 1419 - 1821. Could have taken longer but each of us were able to play for a good chunk of time each night.

Right! So it took 21 days to complete playing every night with the same four players.

I assume therefore than somehow the online game can be saved?

Did you arrange a set time to log on every night or just hang around until everyone logged onto the internet?

Sorry for the 3rd degree I'm just interested to know how this worked becuase it doesn't sound very practical to me.

Yep, we all basically logged in around the same time. They have a server setup to meet other players. We just all agreed to show up around the same time. Sometimes someone would show up late, but it was no big deal, we'd just chit chat while waiting.

Yes the online game can be saved, you assumed correctly. We also had the auto save feature enabled to save every game year in case of any problems.

This was very practical. Just like pbem campaigns with UV or Panzer Campaigns, sometimes I find someone that plays to completion, sometimes I don't. My experience was that finding someone who stuck the game out in both instances were about equal.

[tiredoftryingnames]

Gary Grisby games require patches to fix hard to find issues after release in a game filled with complex formulas and lots of detail.

Paradox games require overhauls to get them from beta to playable in step 1 after release. In step 2 all those overhauls leads to a new version of the same game with fixes for most of the bugs and adds a few new additions that they charge you for in a new part 2 game.

[Reiryc]

ORIGINAL: Didz

ORIGINAL: dinsdale

ORIGINAL: Didz
No. I'm seeking to explore the practically of your assertion that you played an entire EU campaign online with four players.

You need to double check, I didn't make that assertion. However, there are reports and AARs all over the PE fora, so perhaps you could peruse and satisfy your morbid curiosity.

Its not morbid curiosity. Its a critical feature of any serious wargame that it can be played against human opponents.

Complex wargames cannot be played in real time against human opponents over the net becuase they take too long to play. Thus PBEM capability is essential.

You claimed that was 'Pap' and you had successfully played EU against four human opponents. You subsequenlty stated it took 21 evenings of play to complete and I'm curious how four people managed that over the internet.

That would be me and it's not a claim, it's a stated fact.

Additionally, I've played a couple Napoleon in Russia campaigns online. We'd just chit chat while the other person made his moves. Wasn't a big deal and both of us preferred it to pbem.

If you are now claiming that isn't what you said and that you didn't play this game with four people over the internet. Then we are back to square one and you seem to be proving my assertion that RTS style wargames aren't capable of being played online with multiple human opponents.

No, the problem is you seem to be having difficulty in being able to distinguish between the name dinsdale and Reiryc when something is said to you.