2010: Odyssey Two

The next logical step after reading 2001 was to dive right into its direct sequel, 2010: Odyssey Two. I read that one once in the past when I was still in high-school so I still remembered big chunks of it, but to my great surprise, not as much as I thought. I forgot most of the second half of the story for some reason. I’m somehow glad I forgot that much, as it unexpectedly allowed me to pretty much enjoy it a second time, something that doesn’t happen often.

2010 is very similar to 2001 in terms of overall pace and story depth, although there’s much more action and stuff going on this time. That’s probably why I preferred it to 2001 back when I was a kid. Many of the unanswered questions from the first installment are tackled again in some form or another, some of which are partially answered. The mystery around the monolith remains mostly intact, or perhaps gets even bigger, as, by the end, we’re given a neat idea of what it’s capable of.

2010 is just as good as 2001. It does indeed have some elements to its story that might be even more compelling than what we can find in 2001… But nothing makes me put it before or after the original. It’s definitely on par with its 1968 counterpart. A great read!

eXplorminate: All That Glitters Is Not Gold

A lot of 4X strategy games released in the past couple of years had some major shortcomings at release... Why?

Fellow 4X gamer Oliver "Mezmorki" Kiley from Explorminate shares what kind of issues have been plaguing most 4X strategy titles released in the past 5 years.  He pretty much hits the nail right on the head for the most part.

Here's a quick teaser before you dive into the whole article.

With the release of Endless Space 2 (ES2), a wave in the space 4X ocean has crested. The “Big 4” space 4X games –  Master of Orion: Conquer the Stars (MoO:CTS), Galactic Civilizations III (GalCiv3), Stellaris and ES2 – have all landed within the past year along with major expansions for GalCiv3 and Stellaris amidst a host of other titles.

And yet I can’t help but feel let down by the collective state of 4X gaming – specifically the prolific bugs and unrefined mechanical systems – especially considering that the above games were released by major, established developers. What began as an era of unprecedented promise and excitement has given way to the malaise of an after party hangover.

Example #1: Development of MoO:CTS appears to have stalled shortly after release with the game failing to have a lasting appeal among the core 4X audience. Will we get any additional content? Probably not. Example #2: GalCiv3 was a buggy mess that under-delivered compared to the highly touted and respected Galactic Civilizations II. Example #3: Stellaris, the innovative darling has just recently, at the one-year mark started to feel polished – but it too has been plagued by bugs and mechanical systems that remain lackluster. Example # 4: ES2 was released as an unpolished beta – and despite the preview build being solid, the release version was riddled with new bugs and plenty of balance issues remain.

So what happened? 

Read the full article on eXplorminate: All That Glitters Is Not Gold - eXplorminate

How To Handle Troublemakers On Your Forum

Running a community has its downsides. One of them is that it requires moderation. During your journey toward success, you'll encounter a ton of great people, but also some trouble makers who want to harm your community. Since such bad individuals are a true poison to online communities like yours, let's see what are the best ways to handle them (get rid of them!) effectively.

Just to make it clear, we won't be talking about light moderation or how to ask someone to calm down a bit. We're talking giant trolls, serial posers and sock puppets. Brace yourselves!!

FreeOrion v0.4.7

The folks over at freeorion.org released a new stable a few days ago. I gave it a quick try tonight in order to see if it’s more stable and optimized than v0.4.6 and it definitely is. v0.4.6 felt sluggish during some games and turn processing was slow most of the time, even in a small galaxy. This one feels all right and seems to be properly optimized. 

Brood War Patch 1.18

If you’re a StarCraft fan, this is probably old news. Patch 1.18 makes Starcraft free to play and compatible with modern operating systems. You read it well! You don’t need your old scratched CDs or your old computer running Windows 98. That’s the biggest update since 1.08. (1.08 was released in May 2001 and thoroughly reworked the game balance)

1.18 also integrates a revamped Battle.net that works. It’s still being developed, so new features (like profiles) similar to what we can find on Battle.net for other Blizzard games are to be expected. We should be able to discover them between now and the time Remastered is released.