Was he bashing DarkStar One or just making a point that those types of games don't sell well?

the latter.

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I am a Blues Nazi.

Punisher did write:

Derek Smart...
http://www.sillyanimals.com/pics/monkeys/images/funnyape.jpg

and his team...
http://planetquo.net/Paranoid/3%20monkeys.jpg

Why did you post that, are you a fucking retard? What a waste of two clicks.

As to Derek Smart, all's I know about him is the many threads of bashing here, a few links to some newsgroup posts and his own posts here, whatever, he's sometimes interesting but not as much as to the time he get's here.

I did download one of his demo's about a year or two ago to an underpowered machine, but couldn't figure out what to do. At the time I was looking for something simple (I think I tried getting into Diablo for the third time, unsuccesfully) but I couldn't figure out what to do at first glance. Maybe I'll try one again sometime but I've got so many games to get through and I'm just bored anyways. I feel like that other guy that was saying that PC gaming is dead because he's bored. I don't think it's dead, I think I'm just bored. Anno 1701AD is pretty good though.

But back to Freespace 2, I still have it installed on my machine and although I have about five fairly new games installed right now, I just played FS2 last night. Great action, good story and I suddenly felt like I was in the middle of a BSG capital fight. Great stuff. Pretty simple but well executed.

I don't know why modern developers can't capture that basic but fun atmosphere anymore, despite their modern tech options and massive budgets. Whatever, go try FS2 SCP and Derelict. Amatuer voice overs yet a fun campaign.

And Creston? X3 is bugged? I've never played any of the series but I've decided that I'm not playing new games anymore, just stay behind the curve for six months to a year and wait for patches. Does anyone release a game that isn't buggy anymore? I'm not talking a few quirks, but just unfinished games. BF2, Bloodlines, Gothic 3, Oblivion, NWN2, the list goes on. I'll wait for six months. Think of release date as the paid beta of modern game development.

I'll buy my hardware when it's cheaper and the software bugs are almost worked out. The zero day software (or hardware in the case of consoles) people just baffle me. There's plenty of old games out there that I still need to catch up on, but the window is narrowing....

D. Smart threds are the best

and that it was only after several years and four titles in, that there were machines powerful enough to even run my games without choking

Heh. Read : It wasn't until recently that hardware had become so powerful that I could finally hide the fact I don't know how to optimize anything.

Then again, that's a curse every developer is saddled with.

"Our game runs like shit, should we go through the code and see if we can't streamline some stuff?"
"Nah, just double the system requirements, noone will notice."

Creston

And lets not even get into the North American numbers for X3, even with all its reviews.

1) HORRIBLE release by a truly inept publisher. The game was delayed for so many weeks that actually a ton of people bought the import version from Gogamer (with Starforce and all), and I know a lot of guys who frequent their message board who just gave up and ordered it directly from Egosoft themselves. So just because the publisher reported bad numbers doesn't mean the game didn't do well.
It didn't do as well as X2, however, and that's mostly because :
2) Same game as X2, except better graphics.

I didn't get the license and a bunch of idiots who think they matter in the general scheme of things, felt that a Freespace 3 by any developer other than the original developers would not be Freespace 3.

Hey Derek, what if we gave the Battlecruiser franchise to someone else, someone who actually knows how to make a good game, like say... the Freespace guys! Would it still be Battlecruiser?

The "idiots who think they matter" may not matter all that much to you, but apparently they mattered enough to the people who owned Freespace that you didn't get the license, which is really all we wanted anyways.

As for your new game, all I will say is good luck.

Creston

This comment was edited on Dec 5, 01:04.

and there he is, our ol' buddy Hellbinder! Say HB, how's Dereks taint smelling these days?

Why don't you ask random.thought? He's here too. Surprised DS hasn't showed up for the party yet.

I thought it was a moon rock.

And Darkstar One wasn't terribly enjoyable. It was fun for the first couple hours until you realized how linear the game ended up being, how little exploration mattered, and how combat got really old really quickly.

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"Oh how awful. Did he at least die peacefully? To shreds you say. Well, how's his wife holding up? To shreds you say."

... Sad thing is, DS doesn't seem to realize that his worst enemy is DS. If he'd only clue in and realize that he should hire someone to do PR for him (and keep his idiotic mouth shut), his games would likely do far better. At least he's still fun to make fun of.

Derek doesn't let things like "sales numbers" bother him, because as an "indie developer" he creates "niche games" that cater to his "loyal fanbase" who love to buy his "space simulations" 8 times over. He can leap tall Coke machines in a single bound, raise millions of dollars at the snap of a finger, and send his "freight train" of lawyers to any point on Earth within 2 hours.

And did I mention he has a PhD? Oh, and a Mars rock.

Derek Smart...
http://www.sillyanimals.com/pics/monkeys/images/funnyape.jpg

and his team...
http://planetquo.net/Paranoid/3%20monkeys.jpg

whatever version i bought of it years ago required a analog joystick so it was a game so advanced i had find a old stick in a 2nd hand store. the damn thing crashed constantly so i wasted my money twice.
i was one of the fools foaming at the mouth for it when i read the cover story in the april 1996 issue of computer gaming world. 10 years of crap from this guy and his claiming over and over his next project is gonna be awesome is getting tiresome.

Well I've played both BCM and DSO.

DarkStar One is a great game. Any iteration I've played of BattleCruiser sucked.

Yes that is my opinion, and it may not matter to anyone else, least of all Derek Smart, but it matters to me and I'll be basing future purchasing decisions on it.

And yes, the level of customer service on 3000AD forums was less than amateur the last time I was there.

Time for a Lobotomy, dude.

Hmm, someone's been reading Culture novels...

how about this little gem in the interview

That's funny by itself, but it's more funny when you take it:

You've been around long enough to know that for many many years, PC technology had to play catch up to my ideas and the things I wanted to do; and that it was only after several years and four titles in, that there were machines powerful enough to even run my games without choking.

and contrast that with:

We've always taken care not to over-tax our users by going all out in the graphics front because then we'd be stuck with a virtually unplayable game, given the size.

So it took several years to get machines powerful enough to run his games without choking, but he was always careful not to make his games choke machines. He can't even avoid contradicting himself in a single interview!

Was he bashing DarkStar One or just making a point that those types of games don't sell well? I'd hope it's the latter, as just a quick look at gamerankings.com shows DarkStar One, while not a high scoring title, easily beat any of the UC releases in reviews.

Yes, nothing is better for business than the 'customer is always wrong' creedo.
A friend of mine *cough*cough* was naive enough to purchase BC3k many years ago and was so flabbergasted at the manual, controls, etc. that he tried getting support via the 3000ad forums.
It was, suffice to say, a not so helpful experience (though you got feedback VERY quickly).
I wish I...er...he would have kept some of the snarky responses.

how about this little gem in the interview linked further down on Blues home page

"You've been around long enough to know that for many many years, PC technology had to play catch up to my ideas and the things I wanted to do; and that it was only after several years and four titles in, that there were machines powerful enough to even run my games without choking. "

I believe it was X (the Unknown), then its expansion X:BTF though there may have also been a non-related flight sim simply known as X.

Hey, WTF?
No DS sitings yet even with the multiple invocations of his name?
I for one will be tempted to rent this new title if it ever gets past the 360 certification folks...yes I am a masochist.

"Personnel only use line of sight for detection at short range and radar (like you DIE) at long range. So, why would you want to see them (on radar) but you don't want them to see you? There is no cheating in my AI.

Go prone if you don't want to be detected on radar or by line of sight. Yeah, its in the manual."

He is so nice on his boards to his customers too.

quote:
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Originally posted by hoda:
inability to set the game controls,
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The game controls are fine and it is highly unlikely that you'd do a better job were it possible to modify them.

And please fix your forum registration or you will be perma-banned. The location 'space' is not valid.
You have until the end of the day.

This comment was edited on Dec 4, 17:10.

Wasn't X:BTF the first X game? And wasn't the game "X" that experimental flight simulator, having nothing to do with X:BTF?

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"Oh how awful. Did he at least die peacefully? To shreds you say. Well, how's his wife holding up? To shreds you say."