XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Strategy Game - Developed by Firaxis

The demo is excellent. It's gone to the top of my wishlist. My pile is, however, neck deep at the moment and can't justify the outlay for a while.

11 days to go not including downloading time.

And I think the downloading time will take 1 to 2 days at the absolute minimum due to a combination of slow connection and lots of people downloading at the same time (Steam servers will be clogged again).

It's torture I tell you.

Double posted to show the severity of the torture

Preordered thanks to GMG offers

Playing now Hammer & Sickle... (managed to get it working on Win7)

Watching Youtube gameplay videos

Thinking on installing Silent Storm again...

Taking the day off on the 15th

Anything else I can do to mitigate the pain?

The demo infuriated and sold me.

A tutorial and only 1 mission? That's so damn mean.

Anyway, looks good and I'm excited.

Thanks to KidC for Civ 5!

oilypenguin wrote:

The demo infuriated and sold me.

Yes, same to me, liked the combat mechanics but will miss lot of original stuff.

Big squads, loosing lots of men, searching the map for a weapon with ammo, firing walls and other stuff on purpose, fire comming from unknown spots, maps with dead cows in them... hope some of these are in it or at least with mods.

Xcom may have a perfect demo, at least from a sales point of view. It says "here's the tone, here are the systems and controls, here's the tiniest taste of gameplay, now if you actually want to play you have to buy the game..."

Spent this weekend playing the demo again and again...

I think I am going to take back my complaints about the camera. I dont know if I just got used to it or if I just like the gameplay enough not to care. Bottom line is I cant wait to really sink about 20 hours into this thing. I believe its time for me to re-organize my work schedule for next week.

anyone wrote:
oilypenguin wrote:

The demo infuriated and sold me.

Yes, same to me, liked the combat mechanics but will miss lot of original stuff.

Big squads, loosing lots of men, searching the map for a weapon with ammo, firing walls and other stuff on purpose, fire comming from unknown spots, maps with dead cows in them... hope some of these are in it or at least with mods.

I hope they eventually put this on the Steam Workshop like they did with CIV.

I have a question, does anyone think they would delay doing MOD support (Steam Workshop) because they want to push DLC first? I ask because I saw an interview with Jake Solomon and he kinda hedged when asked about mod support. I got the feeling he didnt want to answer the question the way he answered it. ("We havent had time yet with working on the game to think about mod support")

To be clear, I was only "infuriated" because there was only a single real mission =)

mcdonis wrote:
anyone wrote:
oilypenguin wrote:

The demo infuriated and sold me.

Yes, same to me, liked the combat mechanics but will miss lot of original stuff.

Big squads, loosing lots of men, searching the map for a weapon with ammo, firing walls and other stuff on purpose, fire comming from unknown spots, maps with dead cows in them... hope some of these are in it or at least with mods.

I hope they eventually put this on the Steam Workshop like they did with CIV.

I have a question, does anyone think they would delay doing MOD support (Steam Workshop) because they want to push DLC first? I ask because I saw an interview with Jake Solomon and he kinda hedged when asked about mod support. I got the feeling he didnt want to answer the question the way he answered it. ("We havent had time yet with working on the game to think about mod support")

Doubtful. Mod support implies building the tools and since this is a UE game, I think they can't make the tools they use available. Also, getting good documentation out is time consuming.

All in all, I'd say they left out mod support to make sure the game got released on this season.

UE3's SDK is free for non-commercial use, so that's not really the problem.

I think the 2nd point is the reason that there's no mod tools at launch: they're not done with them yet.

Vargen wrote:

Xcom may have a perfect demo, at least from a sales point of view. It says "here's the tone, here are the systems and controls, here's the tiniest taste of gameplay, now if you actually want to play you have to buy the game..."

Sir, I must disagree. The perfect demo was the original Mount & Blade game. You download the full game. Play until you're level 15. Then a nag screen pops up where you can enter your CC number to continue playing. You're so hopelessly hooked by this point that you cannot help yourself, but scramble for the card, just for one more fight. You also end up buying every subsequent game in the franchise without question.

Now that was a perfect demo.

cube wrote:

UE3's SDK is free for non-commercial use, so that's not really the problem.

Mini-tangent incoming, since I got curious: if 2K Games is profiting from including the tools in the game, doesn't that raise issues?

EDIT: nvm, a quick search solved all issues.

While the Unreal Engine 3 has been quite open for modders to work with, the ability to publish and sell games made using UE3 was restricted to licensees of the engine. However, in November 2009, Epic released a free version of UE3's SDK, called the Unreal Development Kit (UDK), that is available to the general public. According to the current EULA, game developers can sell their games by paying Epic the cost of $99 USD, and 25% royalty on UDK related revenue from all UDK-based games or commercial applications above US$50,000.[27] The December 2010 UDK release added support for creating iOS games. As of the September 2011 release, iOS, Mac OS X, and Windows platforms all support UDK-created games.

Double EDIT: damn it, read it too fast. The question still stands, since this quote only explains the permission given to modders to profit from their work. It doesn't clarify if 2K/Firaxis are allowed to freely release the tools they used, or at least, the ones related with the UDK.

Hey Tkyl,

Do you know of any plans on selling the patch on its own? I'd love to have one when I go to the range with my Fox Hound one.

Edwin wrote:

Hey Tkyl,

Do you know of any plans on selling the patch on its own? I'd love to have one when I go to the range with my Fox Hound one.

I have no clue if there are plans to sell the patch. Though I do believe they come in the special edition. Let me check with marketing.

MoonDragon wrote:
Vargen wrote:

Xcom may have a perfect demo, at least from a sales point of view. It says "here's the tone, here are the systems and controls, here's the tiniest taste of gameplay, now if you actually want to play you have to buy the game..."

Sir, I must disagree. The perfect demo was the original Mount & Blade game. You download the full game. Play until you're level 15. Then a nag screen pops up where you can enter your CC number to continue playing. You're so hopelessly hooked by this point that you cannot help yourself, but scramble for the card, just for one more fight. You also end up buying every subsequent game in the franchise without question.

Now that was a perfect demo. :)

For me the M&B demo was a case of "well that was a fun play session. I'll have to buy this when I'm ready to come back for another round."

And then I wander off, get distracted, and don't touch it until a couple years later when I notice a Steam sale...

Xcom on the other hand has me chomping at the bit for more.

Hey Tkyl what's special about the special edition?

Meh, link isn't working.

Special Edition:
Art book
Xcom HQ poster
Soundtrack, ringtones, wallpaper
Xcom Patch

I think that's it.

I pre-ordered from Amazon so i could get the extra baubles + the elite soldier pack. Who needs money? I have Xcom!

IMAGE(http://g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/videogames/2012/promos/2KGCHA_XCOM_EU_SE_CONTENTS_p2.jpg)

No special edition for consoles. I may be the only who cares, but I would've gone for it.

Tkyl wrote:
Edwin wrote:

Hey Tkyl,

Do you know of any plans on selling the patch on its own? I'd love to have one when I go to the range with my Fox Hound one.

I have no clue if there are plans to sell the patch. Though I do believe they come in the special edition. Let me check with marketing.

I'd love to get one! It'd look great on the flight suit I use when metalworking.

Moggy wrote:
Tkyl wrote:
Edwin wrote:

Hey Tkyl,

Do you know of any plans on selling the patch on its own? I'd love to have one when I go to the range with my Fox Hound one.

I have no clue if there are plans to sell the patch. Though I do believe they come in the special edition. Let me check with marketing.

I'd love to get one! It'd look great on the flight suit I use when metalworking.

So, turns out that the patches are not for sale outside of the Special Edition. That said, I was able to get my hands on a couple extra patches. Four, to be exact. That means that one is going to Edwin, another to Moggy and I have two more left to hand out. So, let me know if you want a one of the remaining patches. If enough people want one, I might setup some kind of competition to see who will get them.

*Moggy, send me a PM with the address you want me to send the patch to.

Whoever pokes his eye out, gets the patch. It's obvious.

Most wrote:

Whoever pokes his eye out, gets the patch. It's obvious.

Frackin' Toasters!
IMAGE(http://media.battlestarwiki.org/images/thumb/0/08/Saul_Tigh.jpg/200px-Saul_Tigh.jpg)

Tkyl wrote:

*Moggy, send me a PM with the address you want me to send the patch to.

Done!

In your honor, I shall name my most-likely-to-survive* soldier after you during my first play through.

*Which means, I'm afraid, that a horrible death is just around that corner. Sorry about that.

Tanglebones - well played, sir, well played.

Stilgar Black wrote:

No special edition for consoles. I may be the only who cares, but I would've gone for it.

They would probably have had to screw the game up with launch DLC to make that work. This way is much, much better.

You mean like what they did on the PC?