I haven't listened yet, but any show that has "Overcoming Cheese" in the show notes is at instant winner imo

Certis- 43 minutes in and thank you.

It was getting rough before that.

Thanks very much for the plug, sir!

I have a pre-production screen shot showing the new features discussed on this Conference call with Blair Fraser.

Also f*ck I'm buying the damn expansion, thank you GWJ! I thank you for what my wife is going to say when she gets the bill.....

Since I'm an avid Stardock fan and have read/listened to a ton of interviews with Brad, I would say what MrDevil says is 100% accurate. Stardock doesn't put copy protection on their games, but if you want updates, you have to register with their system, which is now Impulse.

I'm not even that big of a Stardock fan, but I think requiring the Impulse client only when you need to download updates to games is so minor it can barely be called an inconvienience. I think it's more than a fair system to protect their investment, considering you don't need to run it to actually play the game, nor do any kind of online serial check at all.

When there is sound suggestion that 90% of a new PC game is pirated, while it's certainly arguable as to whether any of that is a lost sale, Wardell has been defending this patching policy by explaining the part of that equasion that people forget about. It means the patches they put out are downloaded by amounts exponentially higher than the amount of copies sold, and the majority of tech support is for people with illegal copies. It's understandable for a company to want to cut down on those costs.

good show altho you guy didn't really get into some of the email questions as much as i liked. your discussions were kinda watered down. is it because you guys had a guest?

Thanks for linking Robo Rally, I wanted to check it out when you mentioned it, just on the name alone.

I will say, the discussion of Sins lost me fairly quickly, but in a different way than MMO discussion loses me. That's not a bad thing for the CC, but it is for me. I'm not into those specific games, but people that listen and are on the site do, and it works to keep games that appeal to everyone in on the discussions, even if it leaves someone out in the cold on a conversation.

This is the reason I love this site. You people are cool.

For the record, on Stan's for TF2, we largely follow the "If it's in-game, it's fair game" rule. People complain, a lot and there was a time when people tried to call other folks out for shooting into / out of the spawn, but really, some of the custom maps just work that way. Desert Fortress is infamous for sniping into and out of the spawn. None of these are kick/ban offenses, though, and I'm inclined to say they're perfectly legit. Desert Fortress is a REAL bugger when it comes to getting that last point, so much so that your only option is usually spawn camping and sniping. People seem to like that map, though, so it sticks around. Most of the time, though, the server population vetoes a map that allows clearly exploitable and unfair play, or simple unbalance. Castle was the biggest offender of this, especially with the exposed defensive spawns.

Last word on the Impulse thing. I know it's fairly inocuous. I just don't like random sh(*&^*^ installed on my PC. I appreciate Stardock's attitude on piracy.

Does Sins of a Solar Empire have a demo? The interview from today has me really interested, but I suspect that it won't run well on my system, and I'd like to know before I spend any money.

Looks like it has virtually the same sys reqs that Left 4 Dead has. For me that means I barely make it at the very bottom. Since it's a really deep RTS, I'll continue to pass, despite the constant temptation from the conference call. I will, however, continue to play Left 4 Dead because GWJ during Steam sales is nothing but a bunch of filthy enablers.

If you can play Left 4 dead (even if it's just barely) on your system you should have no problems playing Sins, you may even be able to play with everything on medium settings or higher. Try the demo see what you think. It's a fantastic game, that is if your into RTS type games.

There is a Dominion thread where you can get a run down on how to get into a game or create and host one.