[ripster88]

Does anyone know where I could download a spce game like age of empires, but instead of making humans etc you make spaceships and stuff, then go attack the enemy with your fleet?

Please remember I'm on dial-up

[gofer-chan]

starcraft? kind of?

[RoSS]

If you're looking to download a newish RTS on dial-up, it's going to be quite a while no matter which you choose, really =/

[zombieguy]

You can get Starcraft off Kazaa, but it's like 100mb (the ones I saw were, anyway). Which isn't all too good if you're on dail-up.

[gofer-chan]

pirating software is ILLEGAL

[Koji]

So? Who's going to get ya? The Software Police, Big Bill!?

I mean unless you're a HUGE offender, no one really cares. The people who they go after are the people providing the software for download, not the individual downloaders (unless they are downloading to also provide it elsewhere).

The reason is because there are SO MANY people downloading warez, it's just not effective to chase after them all, For everyone you catch 3 (or more) more pop up. You might as well go after the providers. And then on the p2p networks, the downloaders are in most cases also providers, so... the software police are fighting a losing battle.

So long as your not making money off of it, no one cares.

[RoSS]

It's not so much that no one cares, it's that it's impossible to enforce. If the government put a lot of money into stopping it, there could be a major crackdown.

[weasel]

Ahem...

There are several good space RTS games, but the catch is that you'll have to buy them. Not one good freeware RTS exists. But if you really do want to buy one, I'd say Starcraft (obvious), the Earth 2140 series, and Dark Reign. Not exactly space, but not like you can get much else.

[Dr_Dos]

Also take into account that the Starcraft Battlechest (if you can find it) is like $25 and gets you SC, Broodwar, and OH BOY A STRATEGY GUIDE

[commodorejohn]

There's older shareware TBS space games out there if you look. I remember one called "Space Empires II" for Win3.1, implying that there's a "Space Empires I" out there. Just Google for these games or visit dosgames.com or something.
Remember, pirating is bad, so only I get to do it =D

[Crusader]

Blah blah blah. So much talk, so little helpful information. Here are two fine legal-to-download full version futuristic strategy games.


Metal Fatigue

Real Time Strategy. Anime-ish Mecha-based combat. About a 73MB download.

http://www.the-under...ame.php?id=1975


Master of Orion

Turn Based Strategy. THE classic conquer-the-galaxy game. Only about 5MB.

http://www.the-under....php?gameid=688

[asgromo]

Anacreon

Turn Based Strategy. THE classic conquer-the-galaxy game. Only about 200 KB.

http://www.the-under.../game.php?id=55

[Lachesis]

Crusader, on Jul 27 2004, 03:00 PM, said:

Metal Fatigue

Real Time Strategy. Anime-ish Mecha-based combat. About a 73MB download.

http://www.the-under...ame.php?id=1975

I am glad my parents bought DSL =(

[ripster88]

Ok, first off, I'd like to thank everyone for suggesting a game of two or whatever you did.

Now then, some games I haven't gotten around to yet, but I WILL.

Asgromo: I had I look at that, and the OLD graphics etc confused the crap out of me. Thanks, but NO GOOD.

Crusader: The first one is too big, and the second one refuses to run on my pc Thanks, but NO GOOD.

Anyone who said starcraft, sorry but it's too big. Thanks, but NO GOOD.

Lastly, anyone who said Buy a game, forget it, cause my cd-rom drive is F**KED so it would be POINTLESS.

So, come on people, step up and tell me MORE.

[Koji]

*cough* kazaa! *cough* ;P

Really, since you have no CDrom drive, you should probably buy one of them before you go out buying a game meaning that to play a game now, it'd cost you probably $100 or more... Which would suck.

Soultion, Warez a game, buy a CD-RW burn it and play. Seriously, the people who made thoes games already paid for the developement and broke even on what they put in day one of the release. The MOST expensive thing you buy when you buy a game is the cardboard box it comes in or possibly thoes instruction manuals. Cost of CD averages like 5 cents for these guys. The profit margins are HUGE per copy. Not even if half the people playing got a ripped version would the developers suffer. I mean really, buying games now a days is like being robbed, only you ask for it.

Now cartridge games take a bit more money to distribute I can undestand them costing upwards of $25, or $50 sometimes, but CD games have no excuse. It's bullshit.

But that's just me, I like to think I'm sticking it to the man whenever I download some program I should pay for, but I wont kid myself, I guess I just like free stuff more. ^^

[duvel]

Why hasn't anyone mentioned Sid Mier's Alpha Centurion(or whatever it was called)?

[Sci-freak]

ler, on Jul 28 2004, 07:06 PM, said:

Why hasn't anyone mentioned Sid Mier's Alpha Centurion(or whatever it was called)?

I believe ripster88 was talking about Real-time Strategies. Alpha Centuri is a turnbased strategy.

[gofer-chan]

Koji, on Jul 28 2004, 10:28 AM, said:

*cough* kazaa! *cough* ;P

Really, since you have no CDrom drive, you should probably buy one of them before you go out buying a game meaning that to play a game now, it'd cost you probably $100 or more... Which would suck.

Soultion, Warez a game, buy a CD-RW burn it and play. Seriously, the people who made thoes games already paid for the developement and broke even on what they put in day one of the release. The MOST expensive thing you buy when you buy a game is the cardboard box it comes in or possibly thoes instruction manuals. Cost of CD averages like 5 cents for these guys. The profit margins are HUGE per copy. Not even if half the people playing got a ripped version would the developers suffer. I mean really, buying games now a days is like being robbed, only you ask for it.

Now cartridge games take a bit more money to distribute I can undestand them costing upwards of $25, or $50 sometimes, but CD games have no excuse. It's bullshit.

But that's just me, I like to think I'm sticking it to the man whenever I download some program I should pay for, but I wont kid myself, I guess I just like free stuff more. ^^

Fuck you. Yeah, CD-roms don't cost much. But newsflash, dickhead:

THEY DEVELOP THE GAMES AS A JOB. THIS IS NOT SOMETHING THEY DO IN THEIR SPARE TIME. THEY HAVE TO MAKE A PROFIT.

This isn't like the movie industry where people say that you're "PUTTING WILL SMITH OUT OF BUSINESS FOR DOWNLOADING I, ROBOT" or whatever. Where do game developers make their money? Go on, take a guess.

GAME DEVELOPING.

And if they already "broke even" on the first day of development, you'd see these guys living like movie stars or famous musicians, but you don't. Because they don't, because if people don't buy the fucking games then they don't make money, it's that simple.

I pirate shit too, but there's a difference, I don't fucking justify it by saying "OH WELL THEY MAKE ENOUGH MONEY ANYWAY AND CDS AREN'T EXPENSIVE", and there are plenty of games that I DO buy.

[Crusader]

ripster88, on Jul 28 2004, 06:58 AM, said:

The second one refuses to run on my PC.

dosbox.sourceforge.net

Honestly.

[duvel]

Sci-freak, on Jul 28 2004, 01:40 PM, said:

I believe ripster88 was talking about Real-time Strategies. Alpha Centuri is a turnbased strategy.

It doesn't matter too much.

[asgromo]

Hey! Give Anacreon a try, man. If you can look past the ZZT-level graphics, it's an incredibly deep game. Download the manual from that link I gave you. It's in PDF format and it explains everything.

Seriously though, Anacreon is amazing. You can purposely addict the people of a planet to drugs in order to increase efficiency. You actually set up trade routes between planets. And you can play with up to eight players at the same computer, taking turns against each other. It's freaking amazing.

[Torte]

Gofer is right. I mean, it's a lot of effort put into the game, and quite frankly, putting down 30-40$ for something that took 100's of hours of working isn't that much to ask,

[Koji]

Okay first let me say a few things,

Any game that didn't sell well isn't worth warezing, DUH, since apparently no one want's to play it. Therefore the game's creators ARE probably living the high life what with their golden mansions and rocket cars.

I never said I didn't buy any games. Some games I buy, especially if I really liked playing them in my "Trial version." I warez some of the REALLY good games to find out if they are worth paying for (And these games are sometimes upwards of 60 dollars so yeah I think I'm entitled to a little trial before I blow a sixty bucks on a game I'll play once). Alot of the software (non-games) I warez are things that YOU CANNOT BUY in a store, such as Animation Master, and Swift3d (nice 3d rendering tools). Some things are JUST TO DAMNED EXPENSIVE, like maya. ^^ (I like 3d rendering programs as you might have guessed) Some games/software Aren't sold in stores anymore. Ever seen The original sims game for sale lately, cause all I can find are $30 plugins! YAY.

Gofer: Whoa, dude, calm down. You and a few other people need to take a step back from their computer and notice that the post they are replying to isn't there to insult you. You have no right to go off the handle with these Fuck-you's, dickhead's and such.

As for the developers, THINK about what games are warezed most. THE TOP SELLING KIND, DUH! So yeah thoes developers, more than likely, broke even (and then some) the first day of RELEASE (You don't make money during development, but I figure you just typo'd or something). Think about it, if you sold half a million units (which is a horrible sell in the market these days), and you were promised (lets go to the bottom of the food chain here) %10, and each game is sold for a profit of $30, The developer(s) get $1,500,000. Sure this doesn't include taxes and such and probably isn't COMPLETELY accurate, it still illustraights the point, you (the game developer) are STINKING rich before your game get's warezed. Who want's to download a 500mb game that stank in the market? Even in THAT case, the developers not making Money off of it anyway, since the game isn't even on the shelves anymore.

In short I guess the arguments for Warezing are similar to the arguments for shoplifting, The market isn't hurt at all by this if it's in moderation. Only if it gets out of hand (Like EVERY person who wants the game warezes it) does the market suffer, and that isn't very likely, since everyone would then wait for a warez copy to appear indefinetely, since no one has a real copy to rip.

Are you getting me here? There is LOGIC behind most of the stuff I say I'm not just posting this stuff to hear you cry out FUCK YOU, DICKHEAD, YOU'RE BEING MEAN!

Oh wait one more thing.

If the developers are being paid durring development, then they are no better or worse from people warezing. However, a developing COMPANY (the developers I was refering to) don't get paid durring development, they develop the game and the publisher takes the finished copy, sells it, and gives the developers a percentage back of the profit. THAT is why when a game doesn't sell well, the developer company suffers not the publisher.

However, in the case of developer/Publisher companies, like Electronic Arts, Sony, etc. The company branch suffers and may in extreme cases be terminated.

BUT this is all if the game DOESN'T SELL, and if they DON'T SELL, you probably won't find them listed in the Warez sites,

Theres a demographic system behind all this trust me.

[GetDizzy]

I have a feeling Gofer's just feeding Koji and vice versa. Unless gofer suddenly got an injection of morals .

ANNNYWAY, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Stars! yet. Its small, the graphics are neat, its on a little wider scale than your average Age of Empires game (Solar systems, not buildings), and its overall exactly what ripster is looking for. Free trial, not too expensive to buy (or hard to find a serial number for).


(Also I download 73MB files for breakfast on my 56k modem. You just need time, man )

The Stars! site seems to have crumbled, but here is where I'd start looking for Stars! stuff.

This post has been edited by Insidious: 29 July 2004 - 03:39 PM

[Koji]

I didn't fule Gofer at all, I just stated that there was no major consequence for downloading warez, it's a victimless crime. Especially since the warez usually isn't available till a week or so after market release, and since more people are more likely to buy the software from a store, than risk a viral infection from a warez copy with a trojan attached. So the company behind the game STILL ends up on top.

And if Gofer doesn't like that outlook on the whole warez thing, that's cool, but he doesn't have to jump out of skin cursing at me about it like he did.

[Thunderdog]

What about Dark Colony?

[gofer-chan]

Koji, on Jul 29 2004, 12:52 PM, said:

I didn't fule Gofer at all, I just stated that there was no major consequence for downloading warez, it's a victimless crime. Especially since the warez usually isn't available till a week or so after market release, and since more people are more likely to buy the software from a store, than risk a viral infection from a warez copy with a trojan attached. So the company behind the game STILL ends up on top.

And if Gofer doesn't like that outlook on the whole warez thing, that's cool, but he doesn't have to jump out of skin cursing at me about it like he did.

...ever hear of Suprnova? Most warez releases for "big" games are 0-day, which means they come out the moment or even before the game is released in stores.

And here's the thing, though: these developers don't get the majority of their pay until the game is complete. Most games do NOT take a month or so to develop, so it's anything but a "monthly paycheck" for them. And you say bad sales only affect the publisher, that's hardly the case. If a developer makes a game that doesn't sell too well, do you think publishers will be eager to hire them in the future? And even if the game does sell fairly well, but is still pirated a bunch, do you think a lot of the extra sales they would have got (and yeah, i know not all people who download the game would have normally pirated it, but for really good, big releases, quite a few people are content to download the game instead of buying it) would have helped them any? Definitely.

Software piracy is anything but a victimless crime (like masturbation or necrophillia), and it's a world away from, say, sharing mp3s. Do game developers make a large amount of their money from advertising or concerts (*cough* musical artists *cough*)? Hell no. They make their money depending on how well the game sells, and that's pretty much the bottom line.

[djtiesto]

If I ever have the inclination of playing a game from EA (which is very doubtful), I'll warez their game, since it's a product of a soulless corporation that doesn't cater to its fans and exists only to make money... I would never do something like that to companies I have respect for - SEGA, Working Designs, Atlus, Square Enix (for the Enix bit) etc. Unless the game becomes REAL hard to find. Rez for Dreamcast is nearly impossible to find in complete form, so I copied it. (if I found a reasonably priced copy, I would gladly fork over money because the game is fantastic). Hell, I even registered MZX back in the day...

[Dr_Dos]

MZX couldn't have been hard to pirate. Just had to stay away from Greg.

[Spectere]

Insidious, on Jul 29 2004, 10:21 AM, said:

ANNNYWAY, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Stars! yet.

Stars! is fucking incredible. It pisses me off when people shun it simply because it has crappy graphics and an interface that requires more than a brain cell to operate. That game was certainly worth every penny.