Bunnysays

I downloaded something, but as far as I remember, it seemed to be mostly in Russian still. I didn't get the files from here. I can't remember where I got them from but there wasn't anything explaining stuff with it. I'm sure I didn't see a list of keys or something like that in English. Then again, I didn't really look very hard. Usually, I'm pretty good about reading readme files and whatnot, but in this case, I just jumped right in and started screwing around and playing. It seemed pretty intuitive for the most part so I just kept on going. Does the English patch explain all the keys and everything? Should there be a big "Doh" in front of my message?

I was going to suggest the same thing. I do it every time. I save a lot, usually in alternating save slots in case I screw up something. So I would always have a save roughly close to the time before they would come out. And yeah, I would just fast forward until they did, check the time and remember it and prepare. I would save about an hour before they came through and fly out two groups of about 4 or 5 fighters next to the gates and blast them as they appeared. If one or two of your fighters are catching up to shoot at a ship, it feels like they are doing nothing. If you have 5 of them right there next to eachother hitting the a single alien ship at the same time, they go down pretty fast. As long as it's something roughly that they can handle. I also used another sort of cheat. I'm sure other people have tried this as well. Ships that come through are of different types and have different objectives (especially later in the game). If you save right before they come through and don't like the alien ship types that are coming through or what they are doing, reload and try again. And again, and again. If something came through that I just couldn't deal with at the moment, sometimes I would just reload until some other types (*cough* easier *cough*) of ships came out. Also, if there was a certain type that I knew I wanted to capture or whatever. I would just reload and reload until the groups had one of the kind that I wanted. Not original, but it could save hours of frustration. Remember, Save/Load are your friends.

Thank you a lot. I kept hoping there were ways to do stuff that I just couldn't get to because I couldn't get the Russian. I should have tried different key combinations. That makes a big difference. Makes me think there's more I didn't get as well. Thanks for the info. I didn't know if it was Beta or full. If it continues to be polished, it will make a big difference for me purchase wise. And hopefully, when a full demo comes out, I'll get a better grasp of the whole product. If anyone knows of a complete (or even uncomplete) list of keys that are used (in English), please mention it or put up a link.

Hi all. I'm fairly new to this group. I voted TFTD but I have to cop out and say it was really EU and TFTD together. I still consider them the same game just two different parts. I personally prefer EU but picking TFTD was, in my mind, like picking them both together. I'll never forget sitting there thinking, I only have 8 action points left...should I turn and open the door, go inside...should I wait till next turn.... go inside....nothing, then....should I turn with my two points left? Turn. Oh God. Alien facing me in the square right next to me. Then flipping out trying to figure out everything I possibly could to save my soldier. My best guy! (They were all my best guy.) I preferred EU's city settings but I liked the length of TFTDs ship terror missions. I just never liked the color palette from TFTD. The same murky sort of blue. I always prefer city type environments. A very close second was Apoc. Oddly, I've played Apoc much more than EU/TFTD simply because, for a long while, I couldn't get EU/TFTD running on my machine. So when I wanted to play, it was no other choice. After many times playing it, I began to appreciate it a great deal. Even more so after I found that "so and so's Midnight editor" (can't remember the proper name). It became, and still is, my favorite game to play and experiment with. And I end up playing it every 3 to 4 months or so. As a matter of fact ... it's about time to start up another game. Silent Storm would be a close third. It was like playing JA/Xcom again when I found it. The only problem I had with SS was the random missions. I felt like I was shooting the same 6 or so guys over and over again. There weren't really random but the same set number of maps and the same enemies in the nearly the same positions over and over. And after playing the story missions, the random maps were so small, they felt really confining. The enemies were always in the same certain places because they really didn't have much space to be anywhere else. If the random maps were a bit bigger and they were truly random, it would have had a lot more staying power with me. Anyway, EU/TFTD were my first, so they always have a special place in my mind.

I voted TB. There are certainly some games that I liked RT w/pause (say UFO:AM) but for the most part I would take TB. The problem I have with RTPause is that, in a squad based game, it feels like I am just making a lasoo around my group and using them as sort of "one" complete guy and shooting. As the enemies get tougher, it feels like I need to select say four or more guys at once to deal with the enemy. So I am no longer moving individuals and making strategic decisions. Just bunching up the most guys that I can and shooting back. That's what I felt like in UFO:AM and Xcom Apoc (which is why I used TB in that). I find that in other games NOT squad-based, I like RTPause. If you count it, for example, don't forget Rome: Total War. I couldn't imagine playing something like that fully TB. That game was the best mix of TB for overall movement, then RTS for battles. Then again, imagine trying to play something like Civilization as an RTS. That would just ruin it. If I'm dealing with larger scales, I guess RTS seems a good choice, but for individuals, I want to have more and more control over them and have fun thinking of them as individual people that I am commanding. In an RTS game, I never think of soldiers or people, but instead, "unit types or groups". The only other issue that I have is that, there are plenty of RTS games out there. Only a handful of TB nowadays (if you don't count TB RPGs like, say, on consoles--I don't). If there were more of a selection of TB, I would feel better about RT games and just pick and choose whichever at will and certainly have no grudge against either. But I find I don't have that choice which makes me feel a bit resentful against RT games for dominating the market. I certainly think there are markets enough for both. But marketing geniuses seem to decide everything should be RT as that's the "new thing/what kids only want" (their thought--that kids can only want big explosions and hyper action--which I feel is insulting to younger gamers). It feels as though, we, as an audience, are being told that we are too stupid to enjoy both. That only kids play games, and they only want twitch games. That there is only one type of game player: an 11-15 year old boy who wants to see stuff blow up. Indirectly, it feels insulting to me as a game player. I think there are all kinds. And that they dont' always prefer one type of game and that it depends on their mood. Age of Empires, for example, is probably one of my top ten games. But then, so is Xcom. But wouldn't you want the choice for either? I don't feel like I have that choice. I end up playing xcom/ja/fallout (and now finally, Silent Storm) for the umpteenth time but I can have any number of RTS games to choose from. If there were a glut of TB games out there, I might not feel so strongly about it, but for years now, I haven't seen it. It seems as though only recently has Silent Storm made a sort of semi-resurgence of TB games. I hope it continues. Then maybe you'll see a poll like, "Which of these top ten TB Strategy games do you like the most?"

When I was first playing, I thought, great another type of real time pause deal (which I'm not exactly fond of). Then combat started and I thought, oh it's something like JA. Then I got killed in a couple seconds, then again and again and again, and I thought, this is stupid. I don't know why, but I kept trying it (from quicksaves, not the entire thing) maybe by the 8th quickload, I was getting into it. It did crash on me a few times. In particular I found a repeatable crash. But it was a, "just don't do this, and it won't happen" type of bug. It also seemed a bit bare, in general, around the city. A lack of furniture in the houses and outside and whatnot. Rooms just seemed like rooms with a single chair or table in them if that. It made me feel like it lacked polish. I also wanted to be able to open shutters so that I could sniper from them. As it was, I had to go to rooms with already opened windows which limited where I could shoot from. Little things like that were bugging me and felt like the difference between an A and B title. And there just seemed like way too many guys to have to fight in a demo. I think I killed like more than 30 people all together. That's just too much for your 3 crappy mercs. Without having to quickload over and over and over again. Certainly, if I had a choice between this and something like the new Age of Empires, this would be waiting. But it felt like a game that, if I had nothing to buy and some time to kill and wanted that JA/xcom feel again. I might pick it up. Depending upon how many missions there/playtime in general and if it gets fixed up a bit, I might be willing to spend like $20 (US) on it. If it gets spruced up and polished a good deal and that little extra is added to it, I might be willing to pay full for it. If that demo wasn't a beta demo and a demo of the finished game, I think it'll be a sitting on a store shelf for a little while before I pick it up. Like say, until I think, "Oh I remember this, I played a demo of it and had a pretty decent time. (Shrug) I'll pay 15 bucks for it." I'm curious, what didn't you like about it? Was it just a general, "eh" type of feeling? Was it something in particular? Or just not your cup of tea.

Hmmm. So far, all I had seen were the screenshots from the posts above this and they looked ok, but the more I read about JA3d the worse I feel about it. They're converting the game to turn-based? That sounds like a slap-on type of job. Like they marketing boys told them to make it an RTS because that's what everyone wants, so they do so, then marketing totally turns around and tells them to do TB because they realize fans of JA want it that way, so they try to slap on a TB system after it's already done. Games that are real-time don't translate well to TB. There are different strategies involved that aren't necessarily useful or even necessary for either type. And if they are "converting" it to TB, I get the feeling it won't be a a particularly good job. It would be like converting my motorcyle into a minivan. They may be both vehicles but guess what .... It sounds like the game is being driven by marketing and no longer by the developers. That's not good. That's when you get a bunch of unhappy campers just doing what they're told. At some point they just give up, try to finish and move on to something else. The result is usually mediocre at best. I like to be hopeful for games. I'm still hoping the game will turn out well, but I don't think I'll be shocked if it isn't. Hopefully, the game after (the JA3), the one they are mentioning in the quote, will be ok.

Wow, I really enjoyed this. This is the first thing in a long time. I particularly liked the weapons system and the inventory. Also, the scale of the whole thing. Felt nice and large and that I was having firefights over a wide scale that I could manuever in. Made it felt very strategic in regards to setting up and movement and whatnot. Though there was something I wanted to be able to do a bit better: scoot over. Maybe it was there and I couldn't find it in the english. (There seemed to be a lot more that I couldn't exactly figure out yet from the Russian.) I mean that I wanted to be able to face in one direction and just slide over one "square/space". I found I was wishing for that desperately. An example: I had a merc (from far away, laying down, way across a street) shooting at someone right behind a window, inside a room. It was going on for a while and I moved another merc right next to the window. I wanted to face inwards (at the enemy) and just move over one space and burst away. (I had no grenades left but this merc had a small submachinegun that I needed to be close up for so it worked out perfect.) Surprise them with someone right there so to speak. As it was, I would move the one square facing the way I was moving and the enemy would shoot me in the side (which would always be lethal since I was only one space away) rather than me getting a sort of surprise burst shot on them. Same thing for entrance to an open doorway. Other than that (and that I wish I could speak/read Russian), I was having a good time. It surprised me. And that's the best type of feeling for me, to be pleasantly surprised by something I had never even heard of/ had no expectations from. I'll seriously consider buying this when it comes out as I was having a good time playing it.

I was thinking along those lines. But when I was originally looking I thought that most devs. will try to predict whats needed at the time the game will be released and since this was the first I ever saw of the game (I've since seen many links and forums on this site) I knew virtually nothing about JA3d. I thought that maybe the numbers were for, say, late next year or whenever they assumed they would be finished (I had no idead/was just guessing). That's what I was assuming anyway when I saw how steep they were. That maybe it was just a prediction and will be finalized further as it develops. And Frankly, I find that most games will lowball the numbers so as not to frighten buyers away with high requirements. So imagine what they might be to actually get the game to run well. Potentially higher. But then I thought, why show them at all then if they weren't pretty confident of what they should be? Then I just got confused because I was thinking the same thing you were. Why show only the recommended requirements and not the minimum? Usually everyone shows the minimum or both but certainly not the recommended. So that still makes me wonder if it actually isn't the minimum and the numbers may be ridiculously high. Honestly, it makes me a little nervous about it. Thanks for the friendly welcome Olav. I wrote you an email about a link to a file that I thought wasn't working (for UFO:AM -- my fault, it was just some sort of hiccup) just a few days ago and you were very helpful. I've since been visiting this board pretty regular and I'm sincerely glad it's here. I hadn't realized how many people were like me and still running xcom on their computers. BTW, the site is awesome. Really nicely laid out.

Wow, the 3d looks great. I could see by some of the pics that some of my favorite mercs are coming back and I was glad about that. I did have one concern though. Not in the screenshots, but I was looking at the system requirements. They seemed a little steep. I don't have a problem with them but there are some people I know who will have a problem, and they are are big fans (still playing JA2). I have to say, I always thought of JA as on the lower end requirement wise. I can understand that it is a sympton of it being a new 3d engine but does anyone know if the requirements listed are required or recommended? This is my first post btw. Just wanted to say hi to everyone and please pardon the intrusion.