SMACX V2 BUG LIST FINISHED(FOR NOW)
(14 February 2000, 16:31 EST) The SMACX V2 bug list(shouldn't it be v3, since v2 is the first patch?) has reach a point where one can say that it's done. Five weeks and 190 reports since it started, it is really a great piece of work! Many thanks from all smacers should go to zsozso who put the list together and everyone who reported a bug with good descriptions and even saved games. Firaxis has been notified about it, we hope we see the results of all this work on the SMACX V3 patch. -MarkG
WIN2K COMPATIBILITY
(19 February 2000, 12:51 EST) Win2K users take note: some 40+ gaming titles may have difficulties running under Microsoft's newest OS, and SMAC is among them.
On Wednesday of this past week the software giant from Redmond, VA posted a small but critical 159K patch that corrects some compatability issues.
"During product compatibility testing prior to release, Microsoft focused on the top volume business applications (thousands of applications run out-of-the-box)", states a company press release. "With that testing complete, as you can see below, we are now broadening our original focus and have addressed some minor compatibility issues with a few of the more popular home/entertainment/gaming applications".
Other titles benefitting from this fix include Caesar III, Imperialism II, Tomb Raider III and some non-gaming titles as well, such as Frontpage 98.
Thanks to Pythagoras for pointing this out in our AC General forum. -DanQ
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Apolyton
News12-19 February
2000
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SMAC: TOP TBS OF 1999
TOP TBS OF 1999: SGO
(18 February 2000, 17:41 EST) After reading this story, some will agree that SMAC is finally getting some much needed recognition.
Strategy Gaming Online has named Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri as the top TBS (Turn Based Strategy) game of 1999.
"Equipped with talent the likes of Sid Meier himself, Brian Reynolds, and other very skilled and creative staff there was no doubt that Firaxis would produce at the minimum a "good game"", praised the writeup. "But seemingly rising above the feral snarlings over the "Civilization" moniker, Sid and crew produced the only true sequel to Civ2. And what a sequel it was --- they kept the basic turn-based gameplay, the city-building, and the technological tree structure that made Civ2 easy to grasp but hard to walk away from".
And if that wasn't enough, SGO also gave SMAC the award for best Storyline of any PC game of 1999.
Congratulations Firaxis! :) -DanQ
NOT TO BE
(16 February 2000, 15:28 EST) Once again, SMAC falls shorts of earning top honours in another round of gaming awards for 1999.
The reader's choice for the Best Strategy Game in the Gamer's Choice Awards 1999 was Homeworld, which then went on to defeat SMAC again and a number of heavy hitters from the other genres to receive the coveted Game Of The Year distinction.
No percentages/numbers were given to indicate just how close the nominees were to each other in the voting. -DanQ
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THIRD ON THE PODIUM
(14 February 2000, 19:32 EST) A little while ago we reported on the "Games Domain Review 1999 Readers Awards" accepting nominations and then voting for the top PC games of 1999. The readers' choices have been tabulated and SMAC has come in third in the Strategy Camp with 10.7% of the popular vote. Homeworld placed in second with 12.3% and, at 18.1% and earning the number one spot in the process, is Age of Empires 2.
GDR Strategy Editor Tim Chown had a mixed message in his take on SMAC's respectable placement.
"OK, so it was more Brian Reynolds than Sid Meier, but while a lot of Civ fans were turned off by the sci-fi setting and hard-to-relate-to technology items, enough of you voted for it to give it a clear berth of the fourth place game. Firaxis now move on to Civ 3 and Dinosaurs, which we can hope will be a little more innovative than SMAC".
Nonetheless, SMAC's stellar performance in a tough pool of competiton has earned it a spot in the Game Of The Year Knockout Poll.
Cross-town rival Civilization: Call To Power captured the #12 spot with 2.6% of the popular vote. -DanQ
SMAC SCREENSHOTS NEEDED
(14 February 2000, 18:48 EST) Jim, aka The Undertaker, is looking for some screenshots from SMACers, with a few minutes to spare, that detail what not to do during the course of a game; take, for example, before and aftershots of a planetbuster in action. He plans on using them in his upcoming updated strategy guide for SMAC. Those whose contributions are published will be credited.
If you can help out, email them to Jim (link above) as an attachment in JPG format. -DanQ
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APOLYTON
ALL WONDERFUL THINGS HAVE AN END... :)
(14 February 2000, 10:16 EST) Don't think any extremely bad though :) The... race of our weekly traffic numbers has come to an end(for the time being of course). After 6 consecutive weeks of increasing weekly traffic, we broke twice our all time record(lasting from the days of the release of CTP! :)) Still, our monthly average traffic is increasing for the 11th consecutive time, making a new record for the 8th consecutive time!
What do you mean with "vanity"? What does vanity have to do with this news item? ;) -MarkG
NEW LAYOUT CHOICE FOR FRONT PAGE
(12 February 2000, 8:34 EST) As of today, we have one more choice for the layout of the front page and the display of news headlines. Beyond the existing options for headlines, separated into sections(which is also the default display) and for no headlines, there is now an option to display headlines, not separate into sections. The new option displays the last 35 headlines of all sections, and should look better on a 800x600 resolution.
As always, you can set your choice from the HEADLINES box on the bottom half of each of these pages. Comments? -MarkG
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CALL TO POWER
JUST MISSED THE TOP TEN
(14 February 2000, 19:40 EST) A little while ago we reported on the "Games Domain Review 1999 Readers Awards" accepting nominations and then voting for the top PC games of 1999. The readers' choices have been tabulated and C:CTP ended up 12th with 2.6% of the popular vote in the Strategy Camp in the midst of some heavy competition. Age of Empires 2 came in first with 18.1% of the total votes.
Cross-town rival Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri came in third with 10.7% of the popular vote, a showing good enough to earn both a spot on the podium and in the Game Of The Year Knockout Poll. -DanQ
THE OUCH POLL
(13 February 2000, 17:58 EST) For Civilization: Call To Power fans, the latest poll posted at Strategy Gaming Online (SGO) may taste a little bitter.
SGO is conducting a "most disappointing game of 1999" poll of the gaming public, and C:CTP is one of the choices alongside Tiberian Sun and Braveheart.
At the time of this article's posting, C:CTP is in 2nd with 32.3% of the accumulated votes, with TS leading the way with 40.1%. -DanQ
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DINOSAURS
REWORKED INFO PAGE, NEW DIARIES PAGE
(17 February 2000, 15:13 EST) The information page has been heavily updated, with all the info we've known so far(if we missed something please send us a note). Also, there is a new page for the designer diaries, with a small summary and the related threads on our forum. Check them out! -MarkG
CIVILIZATION 3
THE ESSENTIAL CIV3
(15 February 2000, 14:49 EST) The last column has generated a lot of talk about a short list of things that should either be done or fixed in civ3. Instead of producing a 500 page document with every suggestion that ever came to a civers' mind(which is of course a great resource), the effort now is to give short list of what all civers consider the most important things to be done on civ. For more and better explanations, head over to the Essential Civ 3 - Guidelines thread in our List forum. -MarkG
ALTERNATIVE CIVS
MD`S LEAD PROGRAMMER SPEAKS
(16 February 2000, 16:13 EST) Ron Hiller, Lead Programmer of Manifest Destiny, got in touch with us today with a message he would like us to pass along to you, the gaming public, on behalf of the busy-as-beavers MD team:
First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for the enthusiastic support you've shown for Manifest Destiny. We had *tons* of downloads, and the suggestions, comments, and bug reports have been coming in in droves. I hope I've been able to keep up with everyone's mail, but if I don't respond to you right away, don't get discouraged. I read
everything that comes my way, and I will respond,
eventually. Just give me a bit of time to get out from the pile of e-mail I've gotten. And don't hesitate to send more, we *need* those reports, the more the better :)
Two comments have prevailed about the new release. The first involves the map tiles, and the fact that there is only land and water. Worry not! There will eventually be more than two tiles on the map. In fact, we have a whole mess of tiles planned. It *will* get more interesting.
The second comment is more serious, and has to do with the memory requirements of the game. We are aware that the game is a memory hog. A few people are unable to run the game at all, and others cannot run with texture resolutions greater than 50! Listening to your comments, it is increasingly obvious something needs to be done to resolve this problem. So, a patch will be released as of February 20th (or around there somewhere) which should ease the memory load quite a bit. We weren't going to release another version until the game was playable, but enough people have "asked" (heh) for this to be fixed sooner than
that, that I think it's worth doing now.
Ron Hiler
Lead Programmer
-DanQ
NEW MD DEMO: v0.3.5
(14 February 2000, 22:51 EST) Ron Hiler, Lead Programmer for Manifest Destiny (MD), contacted us today announcing that a new version of the game's demo had been released, v0.3.5. It is now available for download from our MD section, and that is where you will also find general information on the project. -DanQ
Also on this issue: Call to Power 2 is Coming!! , CTP For Mac Patch
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Apolyton&Friends News 5-11/Feb/00
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