If you have Windows 8 and want the Start menu back, the single best way is to use Start8.

www.stardock.com/products/start8

We've added a section on WinCustomize.zom where modders can upload and manage their FE mods.

If there's sufficient interest (i.e. sufficient content uploaded) we'll integrate the gallery into the game.

https://www.wincustomize.com/explore/elemental_fallen_enchantress

It’s a mad house! A MAD HOUSE!

I can feel your anger.

Prince Ari, turns out to be, Aladin!

I…don’t know what this is. Journey?

You gotta find that paw print!

She is in charge of our health care insurance.

The marketing team is ready!

Awesome

This costume is so good that I actually don’t recognize who this is.

Just very disturbing.

Oh Kael. Why? WHY?

Eternal September refers to when the Internet became open to everyone to participate on (1993). Our communications capability has grown at an amazing rate since then. I marvel daily at all the things that are possible, just 20 years later, thanks to the Internet. At the same time, I cringe at the ugliness that the Internet has created in humans that was not previously possible.

There was a study, the link escapes me, that shows that the Internet allows like minded people to essentially isolate themselves from different points of view. A different study showed that people who discuss things that upset them with others end up becoming more upset.  The combination of these two factors result in people who are very angry and whose anger is reinforced by their isolated communities.

I purposely try to spend time on other communities – particularly ones where I don’t have any moderation power.  The Stardock and Neowin communities are very active, rich and fun places. But I make a point not to focus all my attention there because I don’t want to be lulled into a false sense that my opinions equate to some sort of universal truth.

But most people (i.e. normal people) don’t have the time to spread their activity across multiple Internet communities. The predictable result is that people are having their opinions reinforced by like minded participants and are increasing angry at those who don’t share their world views.

The problem I run into, one that wouldn’t have happened 20 years ago, is that people mistake their opinions as “truth”.  And it’s getting worse with no end in sight.

It does not bode well for the future.

At work I have an nVidia card which lets me set all kinds of goodies on the card for games.

At home I have an ATI card.  I have the ATI Control Center (which uses Stardock DirectSkin btw), but I can't tell where I can set up Vsync and such. Anyone know how to do this?

Thanks!

Before I check in my code, I try to do a lot of testing.  Sometimes my changes get thrown out  because they may cause incompatibility.  

But if anyone is interested in playing with my personal builds which try things like new AI techniques, performance improvements but also probably some bugs, post here.

DISCLAIMER:

This is an unofficial build. This is built on my personal machine at home. Do not report "bugs" anywhere but in this thread. 

---

Build:

v1.0Frog

What's in it:

+ Crash fixes

+ AI more careful about going on difficult quests 

+ AI more likely to use strategic offensive spells (untested)

+ Significant performance boosts late game (but untested, may blow up your video card and harm pets)

+ Improved base frame rate on test system from 22fps to 45fps in a late game scenario.

Here's the link:

UPDATE 5: 11/2/12 - 1.004 beta build

*** 11.2.12 - BETA update available for forum users https://forums.elementalgame.com/435790 ***

If you are using the "unofficial" builds, please see the note in the post about the beta on reverting the main EXE to 1.00 before patching. You do not need to reinstall completely.

One of the benefits of having the “non games” generating steady revenue is that when we release a new game, we don’t have to downscale after release.

Typically in the games industry (and really most any industry that has “launches”) there is the “staffing up” phase and then the “staffing down” phase.  That’s because a lot of positions become semi-idle after launch.

One of the decisions we made early on here was that we didn’t want to do this. We wanted to have a stable company culture where people knew their job wasn’t going to just disappear post release.  We did this by implementing the following 3 business strategies:

Multiple smaller projects

Traditionally, when a game comes close to be being released or shortly after you’ll get reports of layoffs. What they are doing is lowering “overhead” until those skills are needed for the next game when they will begin to “staff up”.

What we do instead is there’s always another project to do.  That’s why Stardock, a relatively small company, has so many different products.

Let me give a few specifics.  We write our own forum software here. Why? Well, for one thing, it does have some long-term benefits like being able to integrate in lots of game or software related functionality.  But another reason is to ensure there’s plenty to do for the web team between major launches. There’s a lot of projects like this. 

One point Five Game teams

When War of Magic was released, we knew pretty quickly that it was going to fall short financially by a good margin.  At the time, we had been staffing up for two concurrent game teams. This was, it turned, out, a mistake because without the WOM revenue, the games unit wouldn’t have enough capital to tie it over until the next game release. So there was downsizing. 

What we’ve employed instead is the concept of 1.5 teams (or someday 2.5 teams possibly).  By doing that, the staff moves to the next project seamlessly.  For most of 2012, the art team and game engine team had already moved off of Fallen Enchantress and onto Game X.  With the game released, more people will move to Game X while some will work on follow-ups to FE.

R & D

This is a broad category but essentially people get assigned to various types of tasks of internal improvement. Trying out different CDNs, experimenting with different OSes, new tools, new marketing services, etc.  Sometimes these don’t pan out. But quite regularly, we’ll end up with something that helps all the teams (a new source control or a new set of tools that increase productivity).

Why we do this

Having low turn-over is one of the biggest advantages Stardock has.  We’re a very small company that is able to get a disproportionate amount of “stuff” out the door.  Think of how much better you are at your job today than when you first started? The longer you can keep people, the better. There is a real morale cascade when people know that releasing a product doesn’t mean saying goodbye to friends.

How many times have you heard someone proclaim 4X strategy games doomed? Prior to major reviews, prior to us even sending out mailers, Fallen Enchantress is already 7th on Steam.

Spread the word!

Don't forget to vote: https://www.elementalgame.com/journals

And on the 23rd of October, the classic strategy game design concepts returned

When I think of classic strategy games, I think Civilization, Star Control, Ultima, Wing Commander, Master of Orion, Baldur’s Gate and of course Master of Magic.

Because of the…unusual nature of Stardock, we have the luxury of trying to make a game that, we hope, is a love letter to that classic age.  The user manual, the lore book and that the game itself will keep showing new things each time you play for months in advance are all things we wanted to emphasize as being part of the overall experience. Our industry just doesn’t make games like this anymore. The “ROI” just doesn’t work out.  But we can. Because for us, Fallen Enchantress isn’t a “product”. We care about it. It matters to us. We want to make a game that not only we want to play but others will play for years to come.  We want a game that even if there were no expansion packs or sequels (and there will be), would, on its own, provide months of enjoyment. We wanted a game that you would never have to update if you didn’t want to. We wanted to make a game that you’d never need to buy an expansion pack if you didn’t want to.

So what’s next?

Of course, we haven’t forgotten we live in the age of digital distribution. We embrace that and plan to take full advantage of it. The 2-week code lock down we have has been lifted by old man Paxton and we can begin to check in “Stuff”.  You have to understand, I stalk you people. You think that French language forum stops me from reading what strategies get used? You think because the forum is in Russian and someone is mentioning a cool way to outflank the AI that I can’t use Google translate? So there’s always new things we can put in and thanks to digital distribution, we can, painlessly.  So expect to see new AI strategies, UI tweaks based on customer requests, and of course bug fixes.

It’s a great time to be a PC gamer. Our employers – you guys – can tell us what you’d like to see. We can see what we can do and add it in and push it out. For us old gamers, this is truly a golden age we’re in.

I would expect to see a v1.01 download patch in the next week or so.  I can’t list everything that’ll be in it. I have a lot of new AI ideas I want in. I’d like to make the battles a bit more multithreaded. I am sure there’s plenty of bugs out there that the guys will be fixing. The date will be heavily dependent on when the server loads come back down to earth.

WE NEED YOUR HELP

As I type this, there’s a lot of outstanding games that have recently come out. Let me use this space to advertise some of them.  There’s XCOM, Dishonored, Borderlands, Torchlight, and a bunch of big games coming out in a few weeks.  I’ve used my +1 boots of groveling with the media to try to get reviews. And they’re trying. But there are only so many gaming journalists and so many games. As a practical matter only the player base can save the day.  We have lots of advertising lined up. But we’ll need people to give honest reviews of the game on various sites as well as just tell your friends and neighbors about the game.

The good news is that despite all the competition, we’re in the Steam and GameStop top 10 best sellers. And we haven’t even started getting the big reviews yet. That’s a good sign. 4X strategy gaming appears alive and well.  And since we’re giving away just under 100,000 copies of the game, it’s going to be a real challenge to be a “top seller” (that’s $4 million in free games).  Since most games only sell a third that number in their life time, it’s going to be a difficult hurdle to jump for this game to be listed as a best seller.

The fun is just beginning

I like to say that games are never truly “finished”. They simply ship. I don’t like to think that Fallen Enchantress is "finished”. There’s so much potential here. And together, hopefully we’ll be able to build on the cool game we’ve got today into something that really does (to quote one of my favorite games) “Stand the test of time”.

If you have finished reading the in-depth user manual for Fallen Enchantress, we have an extra bonus now available:

The Hiergemenon (Heer Gem Eh Non). This is the lore book written by fantasy author Dave Stern that goes into great deal on the history of the world.  It’s been designed to be read online. 

We think you’ll like it.

Check it out here:

https://www.elementalgame.com/hiergamenon