Holy Crap.

[SlyDave]

I quote:

You can choose from 40 different maps, ranging from 5 km-by-5 km all the way up to 81 km square.

Yes I am talking about Supreme Commander, you'll need to have played the beta to understand just how large 81km is, its 4 times larger in area than the largest map in the beta, and those maps are HUGE.

Now I fully understand why Teir 3 Artillary has such a large range (on a 20km x 20km it can almost each all the edges), and suddenly Teir 4 Artillary (UEF faction only, 1 of 3 possible factions) makes so so much sense (its a very expensive Artillary, that takes over 2 hours to build if you have 1 contructor on it (of course you normally have about 20-30 on it :P).

Just, holy crap... thats HUGE.

[putty_thing]

It's released soon isn't it?

[SlyDave]

End of Feb apprently.

That leaves about 2 more weeks of bug fixing and testing, if I'm honest, there is still a lot to do to add the polish it requires, so I'd like to see it out in March.

In either case it'll be out for the next even I assume, so yeah, I wont be playing much else :p

[BlackDemon]

Yeah it's sure looking good, and pretty damn epic :¬)

Just like any game these days, it will take a few patches to sort out most of the major early release problems but it will rule for sure!

[Blackstar]

I am extremely interest to playing both SC and C&C3. Most RTS games I don't really like but C&C have always been good and I loved TA and SC from what I've read appears to be quite a few times better than that!:D

[BobNT]

Sounds almost like fighting in the real world.

BobNT has bombed Paris from Southampton! :D

[vale]

I havnt touched the beta yet, i have been saving it all up for when its realeased and then im on play ordering it.

[BlackDemon]

don't order from play they overcharge, go to www.gameplay.co.uk instead!

[SlyDave]

play are doing a play exclusive limited edition version of the game.

and isn't gameplay.co.uk wireplay? :P

[SHimmer45]

sounds awesome Dave....... games that will last for weeks LOL
must try the updated beta :)

[vale]

don't order from play they overcharge, go to www.gameplay.co.uk instead!

seems to be the same price!

[SlyDave]

Aye its the same Price, and gameplay.co.uk is only the normal version. for the same price from play you get the Limited Edition.

so don't get it from gameplay, get it from play (or amazon)!

[vale]

soon as i get paid thats my plan....so online games anyone hehe

[BlackDemon]

For sure!

[vale]

For sure!

you know i dont have ur msn addy mate!!!! i should add u lol!! i plan to order the game on the weekend!i get paid tomoz woo hoo

[BlackDemon]

Unfortunately, the beta is being stopped on the 5th Feb, and release date isn't until the 16th so that means no SC for a whole 11 days! (unless there's some skirmish crack comes out for the latest beta before then, atm there's just an AI crack but you still have to connect online to use it)

LAME!

[welshbloke]

Beta was obviously stopped in order to make way for the demo which is now available

http://www.gamershell.com/download_17675.shtml

[vale]

im waiting for the game to arrive on my doorstep :P COOOOOOME OOOOON!

[welshbloke]

Well played the demo and well struggling to find this much fun. It is just another C&C game with bigger maps. Oh well back to looking for mods for Half Life 2 then.

[putty_thing]

Holy Crap.

It requires WinXP.

?!


Demo: ftp://download50.gamershell.com/mirrors/.0/ftp.gamershell.com/demo/supremecommanderdemo.zip

[Blackstar]

Get with the times putty_thing! Even XP is old hat now :p

[BlackDemon]

It works fine with Vista... I think they probably mean it doesn't run on anything older than XP.

[SlyDave]

@ putty, its XP or Vista, it doesn't run on Win98/2K etc and there are no plans to make it do so, they are totaly unsupported. get with the times :p and stop using 3.1!

Well played the demo and well struggling to find this much fun. It is just another C&C game with bigger maps. Oh well back to looking for mods for Half Life 2 then.

.... You should be saying C&C is just another TA games with smaller maps and less units, less straegy and more micromanagment, less scope and less control..

and SC is another TA with new gfx and bigger maps :)

the C&C line of games don't focus on strategy, building 50 tanks isn't a strat, its a tactic, the entire scope of C&C is very small, small sqauds of units that are designed very tightly to do a job, there is very little start game, mid game and end game planning, its all one blur over quite fast and is normally down to who can make the most of X unit. or starve out their oppenents resources.

SC however, focuses on strat, not tactics. units are cheap and fast to build and easy to kill, so building 500 tanks isn't going to mean much if 1 bomber can wipe them out. no instead ensureing they are in the right place and your fighters are harreshing air defence so your bombers can take out their air factories before you assult their flank with those 500 tanks which are in air-transports which happen to be inside your aircraft carrier (which happens to be a sub and is underwater!). and its not without its element of resource managment, which is a unlimited supply, its about balancing inbound and outbound resources - factory managment, queue managment.

For example in C&C can you make an engineer, build a factory, queue it to build 3 power stations, then repair a structure then move to a location, reclaim some trees, move back to somewhere else, and then head to a air transport beacon? all in our action? leaving it alone to do it.

Mean while, you're setting the factory (that isn't built yet!) to build you 5 tanks, then 20 anti-aircraft tanks after that you've set it up upgrade to tech 2 then build unlimted amounts of tech 2 tanks - remember the factory isn't even built yet... we've also set the factory to automatically move unti to the air transport beacon as soon as they build.

The air transport is doing ferrying runs from its beacon up and around the back of your base along the side of the map, getting to the edge of the world, them following waypoints to a destination behinde the oppoents base, avoiding patrol routes and AA fire.

And all this before the game has really even started. - when they say SC has scope and depth, they lie not :)

Anyway, point is C&C is a small fry compare to SC, its NOT just another C&C game, its very diffirent - you heathen!

[BlackDemon]

Welshy is an FPS man through-and-through and I don't think any amount of RTS rambling could win him over... good try anyway though mate! lol

Only 4 days left till I have SC Cybran CE in my graps! mwa ha ha!

[welshbloke]

Fact is the demo was boring as hell and very samey. Skirmish was more fun but I cannot help but feel I have played this sort of game before.

This is the risk of a demo I guess. Afterall the last demo I played in depth was the BF2142 and if I had gone with my experience with the demo I would never have purchased the game. It was only the reviews of the full product which actually made we want to purchase it despite the crap demo.

[(KKND)Solid Snake]

i have to admit it took me a while to get back into this game but i have to admit it took about 5 mins for me to get used to queing up my orders (because they changed it :( )

[Blackstar]

I only played the demo for about 20 minutes so far, I will go back to it but right now I've got to say that I'm not that impressed.

The first thing I noticed was just how difficult my units were to see on the battle field. Obviously not at the global mode, but more up close they seemed to blend into the terrain.

If what Shadow says is true then I've only just stratched the surface, I'll have to try some more tactics me thinks.
Yet to be convinced though...

[SlyDave]

I've not yet played this demo as I've had the beta since it started, giving me full access to everything...

It could be just the demo is crap, in which case a huge feksup on there part, as it will be 99% of peoples first impression.

If I get a chance I'll check it out and compare it to what I see as the game - worth noting most RTS' suck in single player, its the mulitplayer where it counts.

[vale]

woo my supreme commander is being packed :D

[SlyDave]

3:00 PM: Your order for Supreme Commander (Limited Edition Cybran Faction Pack) has been posted.

W00t :D

[(KKND)Solid Snake]

any one up for a big game of super com tonight?

[vale]

i think i might have to have a game or two :D

[eaterofpies]

As I thought theres supposedly a hack to get it working on 2k out already . . .

Ill give it a test at some point over the weekend with any luck.

[BlackDemon]

Gimme a shout on msn if something hapens an I'll join in to kick your butts :P

Edit: Just collected my pack from the post office at lunchtime and won't be able to play 'till I get home, but I've just opened it all up and I have a French map/tech tree. Anyone else got this too? All the rest of it is English like normal lol.

[SlyDave]

Pick up from the post office?! it wont fit in a letterbox? it didn't look that big.

Bugger it, that means I can't play until tomorrow then, assuming they tried to deliver it today.

[BlackDemon]

Yeah it's 2 DVDs in a cardboard package, the main game DVD box, and the Cybran special edition DVD box with the extras content, so the dimensions are too large for a letterbox :¬(

Popped home at lunch because I thought it might be the case and had to go collect it from Royal Mail.

Edit: Been playing for 30 mins now single player campaign, and although it's a lot different from the multiplayer It's still really amazing, I love the way they've done the scaling thing, starting you off on a tiny patch of land and gradually the battlefield area grows outwards and you can judge the huge scale of things when it does this - it's well done I think. Not sure what the demo gave you, but if it was anything like what I'm playing now this is a must have for any RTS fans! Going to keep me busy all night, and the gf is going to London for the evening so I get to hear all the cool explosions with my sound turned really high :¬D

Oh, and it automatically pauses when you alt/windows-tab \o/

[SlyDave]

Heh, good old local postie, left it sat by the door (safe streets, and colder sacks ftw).

Currently raiding tho, so can't play yet. oh and my tech tree is in french (grumble)

[BlackDemon]

lol, must have been a mix up somewhere, I'll try to find an email address so I can email and ask for an English one :P

Let me know when you're done raiding and we can perhaps have a game, if i'm not either in a campaign, or playing Vanguard...

[BlackDemon]

Apologies for double post, but Pies... any luck with that 2k fix for SC yet? I got a friend asking me about it too.

[SlyDave]

Right then SC.

Well it rocks, ignoreing some of the dodgy voice acting the single player is fun and refershing thus far.

However the game is a huge resourse hog :D its the only game I've got that'll use both CPU's at 100% and my memory at 98% !! Time for a new PC ;)

The 81KM maps are totaly mental, and games last HOURS on these maps, but great fun!

I've not played around with dual screen on the full version yet, as it pretty much doubles the system requirements and my PC struggles with 4000 units visable on one screen, let alone two.

It has to be said that the AI sucks, and they are a large reason for the poor proformace mid game, they build up 100's of units and do jack shit with them causing the game to lag like mental. Playing vs Players shouldn't be an issue.

Good fun! can't wait for the LAN :)

[BlackDemon]

Heh, doesn't quite use up all my resources... unlike Vanguard which since it's just been released, they are still ironing out multiple performance bugs and atm it rags my CPU to buggery and it uses all of my RAM from the moment I launch it >< Bloody good game though, I'm going to be playing it for years!

We should have a game of SC soon Dave give me a shout!

[vale]

Heh, doesn't quite use up all my resources... unlike Vanguard which since it's just been released, they are still ironing out multiple performance bugs and atm it rags my CPU to buggery and it uses all of my RAM from the moment I launch it >< Bloody good game though, I'm going to be playing it for years!

We should have a game of SC soon Dave give me a shout!


YOU FOOL! buying a SOE product your mad...anyway its all about age of conan...!

and i cant really play supreme commander it rapes my current pc into the floor even on lowest settings so im upgrading...thats final lol.

[BlackDemon]

Yes SoE sucks ass, however the developers of Vangaurd, Sigil, have retained FULL rights to the game devlopment for the future as one of their conditions of giving Sony the task of billing etc.

So it will be fine, these are the creators of some of the greatest MMOs ever, such as EQ1, and Ultima Online, and Sony don't have a say in anything. The game is looking superb so far, and bar a few bugs which they are fixing at a ludicrously fast rate (a couple of patches a week so far) it has enourmous potential once the economy gets going and people start to get high level stuff going like building boats, houses, and obtaining flying mounts which can fly ANYWHERE in the game world, unlike in WoW where you can only fly in the Burning Crusade zone.

Seriously, this game has to be witnessed to believe the extent of the world, it's as seamless as you can get with zero loading screens, and literally... if you can see it, you can go there. It's going to be the best MMO ever once they iron out the main bug issues from release, and once more people try it out after hearing about it. Just wait for a demo if you're sceptical, or I might be able to give you my 10 day free trial I got with my game copy if noone else fights you for it, and we'll see what happens then :¬P

[vale]

Yeah I have read about it. It does look good, graphics wise, though I would definatly have to upgrade to even consider playing it from what I have read in places.

The only thing that really stood out for me was the playing made Ships....and pvp wars at sea. Will be really interesting to see in action.

To be honest with you though it doesnt look like the combat system is all that riverting, and I want to try something new. Which is why Age of Conan caught my eye.

Its got a custom macro system for combat and you can fight on horseback. There is also resource/player based crafting like SWG and player cities....so just sounds good to me...and the thought of having my very own catapault to lay waste to some cities sounds very fun to me hehe.

[SlyDave]

flying mounts which can fly ANYWHERE in the game world, unlike in WoW where you can only fly in the Burning Crusade zone.

Simple reason for this is foresight, the normal world in WoW wasn't designed for flying in mind, if you could fly you'd see large areas of flat land, texturealess areas etc.

Outland was designed with flying in mind, thus you see seemless transitions between zones etc.

vanguard came out later, and thus they had the abilitiy to look at everything on the market and take the "best bits".

Anyway, once again BD, you've become the master of spiltting away from the topic at hand! (hint make a vanguard thread ;)) and so, Supreme Commander - end of the month = pay day = new PC becuase I want to be able to play on 2x1600x1200 screens with 8 players on a 81km map each player having 1000 units without any CPU lag :D

[vale]

Supreme Commander - end of the month = pay day = new PC becuase I want to be able to play on 2x1600x1200 screens with 8 players on a 81km map each player having 1000 units without any CPU lag :D

Aye specced up my machine, its going on order soon :D

[SHimmer45]

Anyway, once again BD, you've become the master of spiltting away from the topic at hand! (hint make a vanguard thread ;)) and so, Supreme Commander - end of the month = pay day = new PC becuase I want to be able to play on 2x1600x1200 screens with 8 players on a 81km map each player having 1000 units without any CPU lag :D

you dont want much Dave :), im sure i could find a home for some of your unwanted equipment :D

[BlackDemon]

I think he'll need to buy a Sun server to fulfil those desires ^_^

[welshbloke]

Would be a bit shakey on the graphics though. That new Alienware with the Intel Quad would probably do the trick though.

[BobNT]

What sorts of spec would you need to play this at a decent level without to much lag.

*Ponders an upgrade*

[vale]

quad 486?

[SlyDave]

Would be a bit shakey on the graphics though. That new Alienware with the Intel Quad would probably do the trick though.

If you're buying a Quad box for gaming you are an idiot with to much money, unless the game is designed to take advantage of quad cores it wont utilise them, the best you could do is configure the game to run on 2 cores and the OS on another 2.

Supreme Commander is designed with Dual Core in mind, all the AI pathing is sent to the second core whilst the first core deals with everything else. I can not think of any game on the market currently that'll take advantage of a Quad Core system, or a Dual - Dual Core System - with the expection of Quake III...

Also worth nothing Supreme Commander doesn't get bottlenecked by the Graphics Card (unless the one you have is REALLY shit), its the CPU that causes SC to slow down, as is the case with most games these days.

As to anwswer Bobs question, RAM and CPU power, as much as you can get! 4GB and a intel duo dual core 2.4+ should do. Any gfx card that supports shader 3 or 4, and has at leas 512MB too.

SC is a new gen game, and has new gen requirements, but is backwards compatible enough to run on old gen :P

[SHimmer45]

going to get a demo and run it on this and see how it goes:

P4 3Ghz
Ati X1600 Pro 512
2GB RAM

good to see that it is able to make use of a dual core cpu, buying an Intel Quad for gaming is a bit pointless as nothing is able to use it properly so is just for ppl who have FAR too much cash and want to show off

[BlackDemon]

There are games in development for quad cores now, but it will be a long time until it becomes the norm.