 May 21, 1999 18:00 PM EST
Cleopatra on NBC!
There's something on this weekend that those of you who have
cable shouldn't miss. If you are a fan of Caesar III and are also looking forward to
the arrival of Pharaoh, then you can witness the two civilisations that we love collide in
Cleopatra, which is on NBC at 7pm EST (8 Central) on Sunday and Monday.
If you are one of the lucky ones who gets to see this, then pop over to the forum
afterwards and let us poor souls without cable know what happened!
Angel
Reckless Rodent
May 20, 1999 18:00 PM EST
1 down, 2 to go
Well, that's one of my exams done, just another 2 to go in a
couple of weeks time, and then I'm off for the Summer! Wahay!
Enough about me, let's get on to the news.
What's up today in the land of Pharaoh? Well, Angel Jayhawk is putting his slide
scanner to good use by grabbing some of the pics he took when in Egypt a few years
back. Today's image is the one on the right - the pyramid at Djoser. Find out
more about it here.
Stay tuned for a load more pics from the Hawkster!
Angel
Reckless Rodent
May 19, 1999 17:33 PM EST
IGN interviews Chris Beatrice
While I was surfing round last night looking for some E3
stuff about Pharaoh, I came across this piece
over at IGN. It's a fantastic interview with Chris
Beatrice, the head honcho over at Impressions,
and deals exclusively with what we can expect to find in Pharaoh. Here are a couple
of wee examples - mortuaries, reed cutters, papyrus makers and so on. If that's
whetted your appetite, then head over there
and check it out! After you've seen it, you can post your comments here
in the forum.
Angel
Reckless Rodent
May 18, 1999 16:00 PM EST
E3 Stuff from SpineMan!
One of the Angels who went to E3, SpineMan, has posted
a message in the forum telling us some of the things that he found out about Pharaoh
there. Here's a bit of the post:
| There is hunting in the
game of both ostrich and gazelle. There are now 15 gods (5 major gods each with 2 sub
gods) but they aren't as harsh as in C3. Worshipping certain gods will give bonuses but
not worshipping others will not bring down wrath from on high. It's a more friendly gods
structure. The Nile
floods once a year and your harvest is gathered once a year. That means you must collect
enough food to last the remainder of the year.
The water system is no more - all water
is handled by wells and distributed by carriers and is limited to a certain area close to
the Nile.
Obviously, your highest level of housing
exists where there is water but beware, mosquitos also breed on the Nile and therefore the
chance of Malaria is high there as well. |
As I said, that's only a small snippet of the info
that SpineMan posted (and he says there will be more to come). If you want to see
the rest of the post, and add your comments, then click here.
If you're wondering where you can download all the
screenshots that have been released to date, then fear no more! I've put them into a
couple of zip files in the download section which
you can check out if you so wish.
If you've passed your mouse pointer over the above
links, then you'll see that the hover properties have changed (or at least, you should
have;)). This will hopefully make them a bit easier to see (as well as looking
better IMHO). Any thoughts can, as always, be posted in the Website Comments forum.
Angel
Reckless Rodent
May 17, 1999 13:00 PM EST
I sense a big update coming on...
Nope, I haven't heard from the Angels who were at E3 yet,
but someone from Impressions told me that
they should have loads of great stuff to report! So, keep coming back here for news
from them. However, this immediate lack of Angelic information won't stop me doing a
nice big update today:).
I've added a few things to the navbar on the right
hand side of the screen today, including 2 screenshots, one of which is shown on the left
(well, these were actually mock-ups rather than screenshots and don't really reflect how
you will go about building your cities in Pharaoh. Still, they're nice to look at,
aren't they?).
This thing on the right looks like a pic, no?
Well click on it and you'll discover that it is, in fact, a 1 minute movie with
some music and a few animations that we might see in the finished version. Beware,
it's 15mb or so in size, so you might have to go put the kettle on or
groom the cat while it's loading (bad luck Jayhawk;)). However, it's probably worth
the wait (and phone bill).
Those amongst you who are of an observant
disposition (i.e. all of you) will notice that there's a brand new poll on the right
today. This time, it's asking what your expectations of Pharaoh are and is adapted
from a suggestion made by WhoElseButMe in
the forum. I know that we haven't had too much information yet, but we'll
probably do a similar poll closer to release date in order to see how peoples'
expectations have changed. I've put the old poll in the poll archive if you want to check out the final
results.
Any of you who were or are regular visitors to Caesar III Heaven will surely remember Angel Stef, otherwise known as the Techanator. Well, she
pointed me in the direction of Sierra's
Pharaoh site, which seems to have undergone a bit of a look change since I last saw
it. Not that they're copying us, of course...;). Still, it's worth checking
out - you can even send people email postcards with a picture from the game if you so
wish!
I said today was a big update, didn't I?
Well, in case you're wondering what that picture on the left is, then it's something that
was taken by Angel Jayhawk on his last trip to Egypt. It goes with the following
poem, posted here
in the forum by the Hawk himself. I'll leave you with the poem - have a nice day
and see y'all tomorrow!
Ozymandias
by Percy Bysshe Shelly
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away. |
Angel
Reckless Rodent
May 16, 1999 17:00 PM EST
E3 over, now the harrying begins
All good things must come to an end, and E3 is regrettably
no exception. However, the good news is that the Angels who have been charging
around LA absorbing the atmosphere and getting the info on all the latest games will be
heading home soon. Why is that good? Well, for a start it means that articles
can be written up and photos developed. So, with any luck (if they weren't all too
captivated by Age of Kings, that is) there will be a
couple of articles from them about Pharaoh appearing here soon.
To tide you over 'til then, one of our forumers, WhoElseButMe,
found an article about Pharaoh at E3 over at Gamecenter. Check
it out here and post your comments
here.
Our forums have exploded somewhat in the past days
or so...Here's a post about trade:
An option to use the
barter method as a form of trade would also add to the gameplay.
(Exchange rate based on the resouces of a given partner and the time period)
e.g. 3 ostrichs for 2 oil, that type of thing. It would be positive since it wouldn't cut into the
"actual money on hand" funds, but it would also require increased managing to be
sure you weren't trading a good that you needed for your own use.
I agree that micromanagement would have
to be optional; it would give the players who prefer more control the ability to have it,
while others may prefer to have the option off and let the AI manage things. ( Ladies
chasing crows comes to mind... ) |
Comments about that can
be put here. But that's not all - here are some thoughts about being able to
tell warehouses which part of the city they should supply (thread
is here):
| How about the ability to
"zone" warehouses? That is, tell the game where you want the warehouse goods to
be delivered. This would allow for several warehouses in a palace area which supply the
palace area only. In C3, you sometimes had market ladies walking right
across town to nick oil from a warehouse when it was needed to support a group of palaces. |
Angel
Reckless Rodent
May 15, 1999 18:30 PM EST
Alpha version of Pharaoh at E3
I'd suspected that there might be a playable version of
Pharaoh at E3 this year, and my suspicions
were confirmed today be Ironrod from Impressions. In the forum over at the official site, he confirmed that there was indeed an
early version of the game on display in LA (an alpha or pre-alpha version, one assumes).
He also hinted that the public showing of this version might result in the removal
of those dreaded NDAs which have kept the Impressions guys quiet about what's in Pharaoh.
Oh well, we live in hope, eh? Also, I guess that there might be more
screenshots coming too, something made more likely by the showing of this alpha version.
There's one forum-related thing to report too
today. I'm looking for ideas from you great guys and gals as to what we should have
in our forthcoming polls. So, if you've got some ideas, then
let me know here. Thanks in advance!
Angel
Reckless Rodent
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