OT - What was your first TBS/War game?

[Fyron]

Like most of the EULA, it is rubbish and not really enforceable.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

does that mean it's illegal, though? that part of the eula?

[ January 27, 2004, 05:26: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Puke]

not to completely derail the topic, but if there is no longer a company arround to be the second party in the EULA, then its not really a contract. you cant have a contract between yourself and nobody. In addition, EULAs have fallen down in court several times. They tend to be about as binding as the tags you're not supposed to cut off your mattress. Its copyright law that is enforceable, not the EULA.

As a case-in-point related to the general discussion, condider the works of HP Lovecraft. for a long time, the copyrights had expired and although compilations were published - the works were in the public domain. you could download them all for free, over the web (in several places). Now, the rights to the estate are being defended again, the copyrights have been renewed, and it is no longer legal to freely distribute the literature. Granted, literature falls under slightly different laws then software (it is currently still impossible to claim ownership of the works of Shakespear or Tennyson or somebody) but the concept is similar.

Back on topic, I had totally forgotten about Blance of Power. I lost countless hours to that game, in fierce two player hotseat matches.

Speaking of hotseat, anyone remember RoboWars? God that was a great game! tactical combat controlling squads of robots, but simultanious resolution. Combat happened real time, and you would break it up to give orders. You could set it for 1 second to 60 seconds turns, so you would pile up a bunch of orders like "move HERE, crouch low, look NORTH, scan for 2 seconds (and engage enemies), stand up, move THERE, look WEST, stand TALL (to fire from behind large cover), scan for 10 seconds (and engage targets).

It was great. depending on how long you configured turns to be, you had more or less granularity of controll over combat. You could fire at point targets or spots on the ground with rockets or grenades, so that it might be possible to take out robots behind cover, or create distractions. Covering fire and bounding overwatch was very important. you could have bots firing at suspected enemy locations to draw attention from another bot that you were going to have run out from cover. the leg elevation of your Bots was very important not only for hiding behind and looking over cover, but your speed depended on how long your legs were at the moment. It also obviously affected how hard you were to hit - and since rockets and grenades took time to fly through the air and detonate (and combat resolution was realtime, after you gave your orders for the turn), it was very hard to hit a running bot without guns. It was also a good idea to run slightly PAST something you wanted to take cover behind, and then move back, just in case some splash damage from a missile was on the way.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

ok, so i can download abandonware? weee!

(that's good, i already grabbed some before you posted. )

[Wardad]

Originally posted by PvK:
First? Probably Trek, on mainframe computers. Oh no! My photon torpedoes caused a stellar nova chain reaction again!

PvK

OMG, your right!
I played Star Trek, written in basic, on the offline training IC test system. The IBM PC wasn't born yet.

[Puke]

Originally posted by Gryphin:
"Balence of Power" by Chris Crawford,
That was great even solo. I did find a way to wind everytime.
Do Nothing

Really? It was actually a bit more difficult in my Version on the Atari ST (i think there were at least three iterations of the game). You actually had to have both sides withdraw all of their influence from smaller countries, stop funding other governments or insurgents, and basically mind your own business.

I was once able to extend my influence across the entire globe, and didnt win (you know how hard that is?!) and so in frustration I started up a multiplayer game against myself to figure out what the hell the victory conditions were. Dominating with one power while withdrawing with the other power did not end the game. you had to withdraw all forces and funding on both sides.

There was no victory screen, either. It simply disabled the end-turn function, and other commands. You could still browse around the globe and look at all the screens, you just could not give orders or advance the clock. Even without a fanfair ending, that was probably the best and most ominous end game that I have ever seen. certainly one of the most memorable. While Syndicate's lack of a victory screen was the most disapointing ending to one of the best games ever, I think the non-ending to BOP was one of the greatest.

The there is a defeat screen if you initiate a nuclear war, but no screen if you avoid one. you simply disarm, and the world goes about its business. nothing to see, move along. You're not a superpower with your claws in everything anymore - just another nation, albiet a large one.

now if you tell me your Version had an endgame screen.. well..

[Puke]

Anyone remember a text based adventure game, where you played an AI? you were a large computer with artificial inteligence.

You could look around the laboratory that you were in, by interfacing with the cameras and microphones, and spy on doctors and technicians and things. that was about half the game

the other half, was inside a simulation that was being run on you. you (the AI) were a simulated man, in an artificial world. you interact with the world and go about your daily business, as the events develop and bad things start to happen to you and your family.

The goal of the game, was to decipher the purpose of the simulation, and to figure out how it related to events in the real world. It was probably one of the best text adventures ever written, but I cant think of the name of it. I didnt finish it, so I cant tell you how it ends.

Any help? Anyone remember this one?

[Phoenix-D]

I think that was A Mind Forever Voyaging.

[Gryphin]

Originaly Posted by Puke:
Really? It was actually a bit more difficult in my Version on the Atari ST (i think there were at least three iterations of the game). You actually had to have both sides withdraw all of their influence from smaller countries, stop funding other governments or insurgents, and basically mind your own business.

Yes that was harder. I just sat their and hit End Turn (or what ever it was) and would win by a small margin. I would love to see someone update it.

[PvK]

Originally posted by Wardad:

quote:

---

Originally posted by PvK:
First? Probably Trek, on mainframe computers. Oh no! My photon torpedoes caused a stellar nova chain reaction again!

PvK

OMG, your right!
I played Star Trek, written in basic, on the offline training IC test system. The IBM PC wasn't born yet.

---

Yeah, it's a pretty interesting game, too, particularly the later Versions where people had modded in a lot of additional weirdness that could be discovered. Lose the Enterprise but escape, and get to take over the obsolete ship USS Faerie Queen - I remember doing that on purpose, to see what it was like. Or, push the damaged warp engines too far, enter a time warp and get sent back in time to an old game position the game secretly had saved for that purpose. Pretty clever. Oh no - the Klingon super command ship has used its long-range tractor beam to pull me across the galaxy into its sector... Tholians... Romulans...

PvK