News Archives: September-December 2001

New Poseidon Adventure

Posted by Angel Reckless Rodent on December 4, 2001

Impressions has posted a new Poseidon adventure on their site (thanks Quinn). It’s called “Rich Man’s Blues”, and you can grab hold of it here.

BobT on Beta

Posted by Angel Reckless Rodent on December 3, 2001

We have another scenario design article for you today, with Cherub bobT turning his expert eye and keyboard to an often-forgotten aspect of adventure creation, namely the importance of beta testing it. Click here to take a look at what he has to say.

Bug in the Poseidon Patch?

Posted by Angel Reckless Rodent on November 25, 2001

Thanks to the ever-vigilant David Masters for warning me about a little bug which seems to have crept into the recently released Poseidon patch:

The new patch for Poseidon has a ‘minor’ problem…

In the Editor, if all you do is click on ‘Save Settings’ in the menu (after the patch has been installed) and exit the editor, you might as well say goodbye to that adventure — it will not show up in the editor list, you will not be able to load it in the editor.

However, if you also click on ‘Create Adventure’, then it will show up in the editor list, and you will be able to load it in the editor.

Before the patch was installed, all you needed to do was click on ‘Save Settings’, and the adventure would show up in the editor list… you could go back in and work on it at any time.

Update: Eugrabades dropped me a line to let me know that this particular issue is addressed (amongst many others) in the Poseidon FAQ, available on the official site.

Poseidon Patch

Posted by Angel Reckless Rodent on November 21, 2001

Impressions has released a patch for Poseidon. Here’s what it does:

  • Greek Custom Adventures no longer show up as Atlantean Custom Adventures.
  • Pyramids will no longer become corrupt after delete/undo.
  • The game no longer pauses when deleting certain structures.
  • Resource gatherers are better able to find the closest available resources.
  • Hera is quicker to rebuff Zeus when he invades.
  • Pyramids destroyed by disasters may be rebuilt.
  • Setting a ‘Slay’ goal in the editor no longer causes an exit to desktop.
  • ‘Doubled’ fishing points have been fixed.
  • Dionysus prevents unrest properly.
  • An uncommon situation where Armies get stuck on the world level has been fixed.
  • Disasters do not permanently kill heroes.
  • Heroes no longer get stuck on Hippodrome Crosswalks.
  • Custom Adventures no longer slip into ‘Open Play’ mode, adventure creators do not need to include the .set file when exchanging adventures.
  • On-loan troops no longer get stuck on the edge of the screen when attempting to return home.

It’s only a small file (between 350k and 1mb, depending on the version you need), and can be obtained from the official downloads page (scroll about half way down to find it).

Forums offline

Posted by Angel Jayhawk on November 19, 2001

Please note that the forums will be down for maintenance some time today. We’ll do our utmost to get them back online as soon as humanly possible.

Heavengames XIII: Stronghold

Posted by Angel Jayhawk on November 17, 2001

On behalf of the Stronghold Team I’d like to welcome you to our
latest site: Stronghold Heaven.

The site will offer you the things you’ve come to expect from Heavengames, such as walkthroughs, game information, downloads and forums.

We hope you enjoy our efforts.

Which leaves me but one more thing to do, which is introduce our first Stronghold Cherub: Gill Britannica.

She’s done a great job in helping us get the site ready in time for opening and will watch over you in the Economic Mission forum.

Please give her a warm welcome.

The sound of giggling was heard among the lofty clouds of Heaven

Zoo Tycoon Review

Posted by Angel Reckless Rodent on November 11, 2001

AOMH’s Angel Thunder got his hands on a copy of the recently-released Zoo Tycoon recently and decided to put it through its paces. So, did he enjoy feeding visitors to the lions and showing off his amazing performing penguins? You can find out by reading his review of the game.

Caesar III World Championships

Posted by Angel Reckless Rodent on November 1, 2001

The folks at CitybuildingContests.net have outdone themselves again, this time hosting the Caesar III World Championships:

CityBuildingContests.net proudly presents: the Caesar 3 World Championships! Over the course of the next four weeks, we will be hosting a number of events designed to find out just who is the best Caesar 3 player of the moment.

So, if you feel like dusting off your old copy of C3, Click here to see what all the fuss is about.

Tired of temples?

Posted by Angel Jayhawk on October 26, 2001

With the sounds of chanting monks and catchy folk tunes while you build your castle and defend it from the attacking hordes of Duke Beauregard and his friends, Stronghold turns out to be a wonderful mix between City Building and Real Time Strategy.

While it has a more martial elelment Impression’s City Builders, Firefly‘s Stronghold offers a lot more (micro-) resource management than games like Age of Kings or Cossacks.

It just hit the stores here in Europe and it seems the US will be taken by storm pretty soon.

Bored? Find out more about Stronghold or just downlaod the demo.

CBC Poseidon Contest

Posted by Angel Reckless Rodent on October 17, 2001

The good folks over at CityBuildingContests.net have announced their latest competition, and it’ll be of interest to those of you who have got the Poseidon expansion pack. Called Atlantis Cries, it is designed by out own Cherub bobT, so you just know it’s going to be good.

Click here to head over to CBC.net for all the info you need to participate.

Lords of the Realm 3 Announced

Posted by Angel Reckless Rodent on October 12, 2001

Pulling up Impressions’s main page shows that we need no longer wait to see what it is they’re working on next:

Impressions Games™ and Sierra™ today announced development of Lords of the Realm� III, the long-awaited return of the companies’ highly successful Lords of the Realm series of games. The ultimate medieval simulation, Lords III covers the entire life of being a lord in the middle ages – castle building and design, rural estate management, acquiring knights and soldiers to make armies, warfare and conquest, politics and diplomacy, and the struggle with or against the Church, and with the rising merchant class. The elements that made the Lords of the Realm series a best seller worldwide are now powered by an all-new 3-D graphics engine designed to catapult the game to the forefront of the strategy genre in late 2002. More information can be found at http://www.lords3.com.

Mystery Time

Posted by Angel Reckless Rodent on October 11, 2001

Thanks to the 3 people (Cherub bobT, Sigbj�rn Koks�ter, and Quinn) who dropped me a line informing me of this little mystery currently being drawn out for its full effect on the Impressions website. Looks to me like a logo for their upcoming game, to be revealed no later than October 18th. It’s still pretty fuzzy at the moment, but it’s looking to be like there might be some fisticuffs going on ;).

Contest Winners Announced

Posted by Angel Reckless Rodent on October 5, 2001

The official Zeus site has posted up the winners of their caption contest. The winning entry was submitted by Liz Nation and goes something like this:

“Mmmm, I wonder if this one has a soft, creamy center?”

Scen Design: Monsters

Posted by Angel Reckless Rodent on October 3, 2001

Cherub bobT has been hard at work once again and has put together a handy guide for those wishing to spice their adventures up a bit by adding some monsters. Click here to follow the path to enlightenment.

Announcing Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds Heaven

Posted by Angel Reckless Rodent on October 3, 2001

In the “better late than never” category ;):

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

HEAVENGAMES LAUNCHES STAR WARS: GALACTIC BATTLEGROUNDS HEAVEN
September 30, 2001 – HeavenGames LLC announced today that it has launched Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds Heaven ( http://swgb.heavengames.com ), the latest in its series of special-interest sites for real time strategy games.

Slated for release in November of 2001, Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds is a Real Time Strategy (RTS) game developed by LucasArts, based on the engine developed for the award-winning Age of Kings series by Ensemble Studios/Microsoft. The game covers the Star Wars expanded universe, witnessing the birth and demise of the Imperial Empire, and the legends of the Jedi & Sith.

Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds Heaven will be dedicated to featuring extensive coverage of Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds before and after its release, and will bring you the latest news on the game.

Overseeing the operation as Site Director for SWGB Heaven will be Michael “AoErat” Zander. Zander previously operated a fan site dedicated to the game, and was a perfect fit for the new Heaven site. Working alongside Zander will be HoYin “Zen” Au, Technical Director; and Tom “Spineman” Mescher, Downloads Director. The three have been actively involved in the gaming community for more than 4 years.

ABOUT HEAVENGAMES, LLC
HeavenGames LLC, based in Villa Park, Illinois, is a privately-owned web-content publisher geared towards the creation of special-interest sites for Real-Time Strategy and City-Builder games. Its sites, contents, vast amounts of resources, as well as a dedicated staff & management team make HeavenGame’s sites the premier destination for gamers worldwide.

Going to the zoo

Posted by Angel Jayhawk on October 2, 2001

Ever wondered what it’s like to run a Zoo?
Angel Thunder, the lucky man, had the priviledge of playing around with Zoo Tycoon well before it is released and wrote us a neat review.

Why are you still here?

Impressions’ Next Title

Posted by Angel Reckless Rodent on September 29, 2001

An update posted yesterday to Impressions’ main site has dropped a hint as to when we might find out what they’re working on next:

A local film crew paid us a visit, and while they were here we let them in on a little secret: the title of our next game. What could it be? We’re still not ready to tell everyone our little secret yet, but all shall be revealed soon. Stay tuned.

By the way, if you live in the New England area and have AT&T Cable, you can see Impressions Games at work on the October 18 edition of “Chowdah.” The show airs at 7:30 p.m. on AT&T 3.

More CBC Contests

Posted by Angel Reckless Rodent on September 15, 2001

The good folks at CBC.net have got two more contests up and running, should you with to take your mind off some of the events of the past week with a little light gaming.

First off, there’s an individual Zeus contest that goes by the name of Argeiphontes, which was designed by our own scenario supremo, Cherub bobT. Entries have to be in by October 14th, so there’s plenty of time.

alternatively, if you fancy a little team action, then this page might be of interest to you. The time schedule on this one is a little tighter, with pre-contest maps having to be submitted by September 28th. More information on both of these contests can be found over at CBC.

Official Contest

Posted by Angel Reckless Rodent on September 7, 2001

Want to win a nifty amaxon.com gift voucher or two? Then head over to the official site and participate in their latest contest. It’s all about captions, so will suit those of you with a quick and agile mind (hang on, you’ve all got quick & agile minds ;)).

Be warned, though, you’ll only be eligible to win if you live in one of the following areas:

U.S. and Canada (excluding Florida, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island and Quebec), Great Britain, Holland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Austria, France, Ireland, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxemburg, and Italy

I hope the winner gets his prize quicker than me – I’m still waiting for my winnings from the first Core Rewards contest, held way back in the past…

Edit: The contest is now closed. As soon as winners are announced, we’ll post news of it here (of course).

The user database merger is nigh

Posted by Angel Jayhawk on September 5, 2001

Time for a bit of a technical talk.

A long time ago we started with two separate databases, one for the Citybuilders and one for Age of Kings (and all that followed after). Now we’ve passed the stage where this was needed and the Powers Above (i.e. Zen) will be merging the two databases.
To make sure you’ll still be with us after the merger he asks you to make certain that your email address (as written in your profile)is:

  • accurate
  • an active account (i.e. we regularly get bounced emails from inactive hotmail users)
  • not filtered (i.e. AOL members sometimes might have too high of a restriction on their mail and thus resulting in forum emails being bounced)
  • not “overquota” (i.e. full mailbox)

… and most importantly, an account that you check regularly for mail.

We’ll be send out more details about the forum user database merge later in the month. Not being able to read these emails and follow the instructions contained in them could possibly result in your account being renamed or purged during the merge.

Poseidon gets 9.3/10

Posted by Angel Reckless Rodent on September 3, 2001

The Poseidon bandwagon rolls ever on, with Deafgamers being the latest site to get swept away. Their review awards it a stunning 9.3/10, and calls it “A masterpiece”.

Now, if that doesn’t convince you to buy it, nothing will ;).