NASA has been doing this program for at least a few years now. When I was working at JPL, some of the guys from Ames were helping out a group at JSC with the scheduling problems of what to do with the current set of participants.
AFAIRC the participants were doing exercise, tests, etc. so it wasn't just lying in bed all day long. I believe that they had computers/books that they could use to kill the time between activities.
And of course there is the blatant disregard for the US' contribution to global warming.
This of course assumes 2 things:
1. Global warming is a bad thing considering that the earth is relatively cool right now compared to most of it's history.
2. That "if" global warming is happening that it is the result of human action rather than natural climactic shift.
I'll give you that the NWN engine may have been "outdated" when it came out. However, it has been in continual evolution and was used in KOTOR. The same engine has continued to be worked on and is being used for KOTOR 2, NWN 2, Jade Empires, and Dragon Age.
I'm not entirely sure where you got information that Dragon Age is using an entirely new engine, but Bioware has consistently stated that they have been evolving the Aurora engine for each new game that has come out since.
I never played the original on OS/2. However I was one of the beta testers for the current version.
The same developer built all of the GalCiv games, so there is a lot of continuity between them. The differences are basically more things have been added.
All the original races are still in existance. You are limited to playing as the humans (I don't know if you could play as the others), but that isn't very limiting as you can customize them anyway you want. More starships have been added, larger galaxies are possible. Multiple planets orbit stars (I don't believe that was the cas in the original).
Starbases, trade (not sure if new), and culture (ala Civ3, but implemented better) have been added.
If you liked the original and/or 4X games in general you will probably like GalCiv.
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NASA has been doing this program for at least a few years now. When I was working at JPL, some of the guys from Ames were helping out a group at JSC with the scheduling problems of what to do with the current set of participants. AFAIRC the participants were doing exercise, tests, etc. so it wasn't just lying in bed all day long. I believe that they had computers/books that they could use to kill the time between activities.
Yes, some of the rover drivers are female. Unfortunately there are no rear view mirrors on the rover. And yes, they are good looking.
Ed Burnette did a great job of documenting the talk at http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=41
I suspect that it will be free to play after purchasing the game. So no monthly charges, just a flat fee to buy the game initially.
This scheme sounds a lot like voter fraud and is very likely to be illegal. Keep that in mind if you choose to sign up.
This of course assumes 2 things:
1. Global warming is a bad thing considering that the earth is relatively cool right now compared to most of it's history.
2. That "if" global warming is happening that it is the result of human action rather than natural climactic shift.
I'll give you that the NWN engine may have been "outdated" when it came out. However, it has been in continual evolution and was used in KOTOR. The same engine has continued to be worked on and is being used for KOTOR 2, NWN 2, Jade Empires, and Dragon Age. I'm not entirely sure where you got information that Dragon Age is using an entirely new engine, but Bioware has consistently stated that they have been evolving the Aurora engine for each new game that has come out since.
I never played the original on OS/2. However I was one of the beta testers for the current version. The same developer built all of the GalCiv games, so there is a lot of continuity between them. The differences are basically more things have been added. All the original races are still in existance. You are limited to playing as the humans (I don't know if you could play as the others), but that isn't very limiting as you can customize them anyway you want. More starships have been added, larger galaxies are possible. Multiple planets orbit stars (I don't believe that was the cas in the original). Starbases, trade (not sure if new), and culture (ala Civ3, but implemented better) have been added. If you liked the original and/or 4X games in general you will probably like GalCiv.