SirNuke

How many people (even in Texas) would have even heard of this guy if it hadn't been for this controversy? I am willing to bet that is one of the main reasons he claims he wants the tax. Regardless, I wouldn't worry about the government restricting gaming (outside restricting it to under 18 year olds). The main reason the broadcast flag hasn't passed is because no politician wants to get between their voters and their TVs (the broadcast flag would allow each show to decide how often/much the content can be copied). Sooner or later the amount of gamers who are eligible to vote will be great enough that no politician will want to get between their voters and their video games.

"Can we get along here? Can we all get along?" Would 3D mode be desirable if it was created simply because it was more realistic than 2D? Petroglyph has lots of experience doing 2D RTSes, and I don't think a studio would want to deviate from that for their first game (especially when they have so much experience with 2d). I was joking about the movie thing, but I do have a point. Simulations create experiences and environments (and situations, and etc), that for various reasons (physics for one) cannot exist in real life. Star Wars movies show the user a universe that cannot exist in real life. Therefore Star wars movies are simulations Whether or not they can be controlled by the end user is irrelevant, though it may [and does in the case of computer games] have a positive effect on the desirability of the simulations.

I might, post college graduation (3 more years). But the decision for me is a lot different, being a flat footed geek I know what I would be doing. I would note that people don't have much influence over what they do in the military.

All this probably means that an early test of the game was flavored like WWII. They are developing a game engine that will probably stick around for a while, and probably was in development before they decided to make EaW. Though if you are interested in random trivia, in GameConstants.xml there is a MOTD [message of the day] link to www.gmclemon.com/temp/MOTD_ENG.txt Apparently Steve Hall. apparently one of the devs, had a dead gmc, decided to make a web site about it, and then offered to temperally host EaW's MOTD. There are a lot of references to planets being 'aligned' with a side of the force. I wonder if/what part it will play in the final game.

You need a model for each hitpoint plus the overall unit. I think the unit entries are generic enough that they can be applied to ground units. I am also fairly certain that if the Corvettes use hard points, they are defined in a completely different way than large capital ships.

Civilization 4: This isn't at all impressive, but since I don't own the game (play it on my roommate's computer), I don't play it a whole lot. Great game though. -France, Napoleon, What ever the level where the AI plays at the same restrictions as the player does, a huge inland lake map. Weeeeeee!

I was just thinking about this game, are there any Stars! players on this forum? Stars! Wikipedia Page for the undoubtedly many of you who haven't heard of the game.

Let's see... UT2k7 Civilization IV (I don't have any good reason why I haven't gotten it yet. Amazing game). EaW Company of Heroes Supreme Commander (maybe) Stars! 3 (there be rumours on the Internets....) I feel like my list is really short. Regardless, anyone who enjoys 4X games (such as rebellion) should check out Stars!. It is, in my opinion, the absolute best 4X game to ever grace the Internet.

Wow, this thread is getting ugly. Regardless, I want to make a few comments about voice acting (DISCLAIMER: I'm not a voice actor, this is stuff I've been told and some conclusions that I have come to) The best voice actors are rarely, if ever, good screen actors (apparently is one of their major complaints is how movie studios pick big name actors to do voice parts in movies [obviously the studios want the big name actors for advertising]), and vice versa. That is often why games won't pick casts full of screen actors. Then consider that going from screen acting to voice acting is a huge step down pay wise and status wise [it is a excellent way to be typecasted with Sci Fi/geekhood], hence the reason why screen actors rarely take voice acting jobs. Hence the reason why Harrison Ford has never done any computer game voice acting, and never will (almost none of his career has been sci fi, only Blade runner and Star Wars. Kind of sad since he is good at it), even if it meant a fairly large pay for only a couple a week (if that) in a recording studio. With original games/characters, it doesn't matter who you pick as the voice actor since there isn't anything in the mind of the players. You get the best voice actors that fit the style you want. With established characters, you have to roll with the punches on voice acting. That means getting someone who is a more than capable voice actor who sounds close enough to the real actor that you can tell who they are supposed to be with out visual cues. I thought the Han Solo voice actor was a fairly good voice actor (the key to voice acting is displaying emotion, a lot harder to do audio only. Though to be fair, I have heard a lot better), though yes, he probably doesn't have a future as a Harrison Ford voice clone. Some people are mentioning actors in other games that sound close to Harrison Ford. There are plenty of possible reasons why they can be used (perhaps they have figured out their worth and are asking too much from a studio in its first game), or perhaps they have gotten some screen acting jobs and want to stay away from voice acting. My Point: You can't do a whole lot about voice acting closeness. But I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Hmmm, a Star Wars simulator... wouldn't that be called... a movie ?

What power supply do you have? Before I got a quality power supply, my computer would restart when ever I entered games (in particular with Dawn of War). Also try running with the lowest settings, both detail and screen resolution.

Changing the GameData\Data\.txt is the only way. I recall reading a forum thread (I think of the official lucasarts forum) saying that the Developers did not finish that feature, and therefore it didn't make it's way into the game.

The Rebels don't have the Venator. That was Bryant's mod (and derivatives) have it enabled for the Rebels. In the final game, or so it would appear from the comments in the XML code, no side has it.

A-wings are also tech level 5 (the last level). You won't see them until fairly late in the game if you start from tech level 1 (that's a lot of research to steal to get to that level). Au Contair, I think having the TIE Interceptors would debalance the game, since the strength of the Rebel fighters is one of their strong points. And, as stated before, if your opponent builds lots of fighters use Tartens, not TIE fighters, to counter it.

I voted, "Not Sure", but I should have picked "No". The better solution is to increase the hero respawn time by a lot. For the Falcon, I am 100% sure that Petro is still tweaking the unit balance (in fact it has probably changed significantly between when the demo was made and when it was released). Red Squadron gets eaten alive by Tartens, so permanent loose would be a disaster for the Rebels. People wouldn't use the heroes often if they were lost permanently. The same thing goes with Boba Fett, since he is the only one that can 'neutralize' major heroes (the purchasable bounty hunters can only go after minor heroes).

There is a decompiler for Lua (search for LuaDoc), written for Linux. There is also a Windows binary, but it crashes before finishing the decompile. Someone who has access to a Linux box needs to decompile and upload the scripts.

No suprise, since the game design doesn't start and end the same. Though Wedge is still in the game as a part of Red Squadron.

In my mod I replaced the Pirate frigate with the "Jedi Cruiser" model (aka Venator), since the game doesn't include the Pirate frigate model. Judging by the differences in hardpoints, the Pirate frigate isn't the Venator. Judging by the comments in the code, the Venator isn't going to be used in the game either (there are multiple Episode 3 units included). Which, yes, still allows modders to add it it quite easily.

Oh I see, the administrator gets to make an announcement for his mods

There is both a health bar representing the over all health of the squad, and health bars for each unit.

While that certainly has happened to me several times, I think I personally perfer there being no 'stop fleet' command. One reason is the following scenario: 1. Your enemy sends a fleet of only ships (leaving his transports behind and protected). 2. He destroys your space station. 3. You, upon hearing that another enemy fleet is inbound for your planet (the one that the enemy just took the space of), send your fleet to take back the space field. 4. Assuming you win that battle, the enemy's ground force is going right into your clutches. Of course, that's just a possible scenario. A better reason is because the no stop fleet command forces you to be really careful in your decisions, which I also like.

SirNuke's Mod v 1.9 is released Base of Operations Download from RapidShare Backup link (Please RapidShare if possible) Extract the included xml folder to the \Program Files\LucasArts\Star Wars Empire at War Demo\GameData\Data directory. This version has no game stopping bugs (to my knowledge). The goal is to mod the demo so that plays as close to a real campaign in the full version of EaW, as possible. This release fixes all models, mostly fixes the technology tree, and removes the hypervelocity gun The enabled campaign will take multiple hours to complete (I so far have not completely beaten it), since it starts from only a few planets, at tech level 1, with few credits (8000) and with almost all of the planets controlled by pirates. Please email me with any bugs. Thanks to Bryant for the legal method of getting around the Demo's unit restrictions, and for the people who have emailed me bug reports.

I use Firefox and Opera, both coupled with a free download manager called.... "Free Download Mangaer" (yeah, they aren't very creative). Has as many features as virtually every other commerical download manager, but completely free and has no ads. http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/

I am quite sure it's much less than 15% that read these forums. Although I can't speak for him, I don't think JediIgor voted for "It sucked".

The hyperspace speed is apparently a lot slower in the actual game. I've also noticed that the AI usually doesn't keep it's assault fleet on planets that border enemy planets (so that they cannot be easily scouted). Assuming this becomes a typical tactic, imagine if the enemy waits for you to send your transports and then sends his waiting fleet to attack your fleet (he will know when you send the transports since there is an audio signal when an enemy fleet is approaching). If he wins that battle, your ground force will be on its way right into the enemy fleet. Yeah, I wouldn't send a ton of transports into a battle that I am unsure if I am going to win, but it may just as dangerous to send a lot of transports afterward. I also hope this is an excellent example of why EaW is not as simplistic as the demo makes the game seem.