From: John T. Chapman <jtc1@cornell.edu>
Subject: Re: Pax Imperia Demo (Update!)
X-Xxdate: Fri, 20 Nov 92 19: 14:35 GMT
Nntp-Posting-User: jtc1@cornell.edu
Organization: Office of Computing and Statistical Consulting
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 19:04:40 GMT

In article <BxzJG5.F43@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> Douglas Rusch,
drusch@sunflower.bio.indiana.edu writes:
>Yes there is a new demo at sumex. This demo is playable - but only in a
limited
>way. Its also filled with what I have to assume are bugs - so I dont
think
>it is too recent (considering that they have finished the computer
players
>now and are just waiting for the printers to finish up).

>What cant you do? Well you cannot interact with the advisors in any way.
>You apparently cannot colonize a world (so far I havent discovered how).
>There is no combat per se - but I have managed to get one of my ships
destroyed
>attacking an enemy world. There is no computer player so far, and I
>wasnt able to set it for more than 1 human player (it crashed). There are
>of course no instructions so this is not an easy game to work with.
Accept 
>that it will crash and play with everything.

With all this discussion batting back and forth, I figured I might try 
and clear up some of the confusion before it gets nasty.

For the record, although I don't work for Changeling, I am a beta tester 
of Pax Imperia and have been talking with them more or less regularly, so 
I am somewhat 'in the know'. Don't expect too many spoilers, though - 
I'll leave it up to Changeling to release any info. Oh, and please don't 
mail me asking for docs or a copy of the Beta; I will not send them.
Thanks.

With that in mind,...

1. The new 'Demo' that's found its way to sumex and other FTP sites was 
not exactly intended to be shipped as a Demo. Apparently, it is a fairly 
early Beta that was released by Changeling to some CD-ROMs, probably as 
promotional material. It _is_ very buggy and was not intended as a 
current 'Demo'.
   The posted version is also missing a heck of a lot of files, including 
licensing info and any sort of instructions. It was not an official 
posting by Changeling (as was the SuperCard demo, from what I gather).

2. While I don't know exactly what they plan on shipping, I can verify 
that multi-player from _single_ computer works very nicely. The most 
recent Beta has had some really slick changes in the ship design 
sections. Much of which is mentioned above and in other postings as 'not 
working' or buggy has been fixed and works pretty smoothly.

3. They are cleaning up the bugs in AI and in network play; I don't know 
whether either will be available in the release or not or what the 
upgrade policy will be.

4. Sounds and graphics are incredible. Especially some beautiful 
full-color icons and large picts (eg. the Pax Imperia splash screen).

There's lots more, but I don't want to overstep my bounds. The people at 
Changeling are really nice and fun to work with; I hope that Pax Imperia 
lives up to everyone's expectations as it's a really slick piece of work 
from what I've seen. Kudos to Changeling for pushing through lots of 
obstacles trying to get this monster finished and ditto to the net for 
being (more or less) patient in waiting for it.

Later,

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  John T. Chapman                                     jtc1@cornell.edu
  Office of Computing and Statistical Consulting
  Cornell University - College of Human Ecology
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"Truth is after all a moving target/Hairs to split, and pieces that don't 
fit/How can anybody be enlightened?/Truth is after all so poorly lit"
                                             - N. Peart, Turn The Page
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