Future house continues to move along and we’re using a material called “SEALECTION 500” for the insulation.

Basically, it’s like having your house filled with styrofoam (at least, that’s how it tastes..).

Here’s the FAQ on it.

http://www.advancedinsulationla.com/faq.html

Once in, it looks like this:

If you use the Greenland ice core samples you get a long term temperature map.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that “this” – the Internet – does exist in the physical world too.  Millions of servers around the world.

Here’s a picture from one of the Stardock data centers. This rack contains one of the Impulse cluster manager servers and just inches below is Neowin.net’s servers. 

The Neowin requires 5 very high end servers to run the site that is almost purely database/text is a testament to how popular that site has become over the years.

I’m not much of an IT expert but my understanding is that cluster managers are basically a series of virtual machines that help manage a raid drive unit for storing a piece. You typically have several of these cluster managers (they’d kill me if I said how many there were total) to help distribute resources between each other and then mirror onto data clusters that are stored around the world to increase throughput.

The Neowin setup is very different since Neowin is a tech news site with very little downloading. So it’s mostly a series of database servers and VM’d web servers to help distribute its load to keep the site lightning fast.

Years ago, when we were a lot smaller and I was more involved in setting up servers, the traffic was so much lower that you could have a single box for handling all the databases and another box for handling the web server. Such a setup, back in 2001, was enough to handle millions of users.

Our friends at deviantART were much the same way. A couple of boxes were enough to handle the whole thing. I remember comparing notes with their guys back in the day. 

To give you an idea of how small a world things used to be, Betanews, Stardock, deviantART, and Neowin all shared either IT, bandwidth, or sever space.  Long ago, if Stardock.com was down or if there was a problem over at Neowin I’d call up Nate Mook (the founder of Betanews/FileForum) and see if he could “kick” the appropriate server.

Heck, for all I know, there’s still some Stardock file servers in the Betanews rack somewhere. Things are a lot more sophisticated these days.

Now, the machines are unimaginably faster and more powerful and you need more of them because the traffic and also because of the sophistication of data mining people expect in real time.

Though still, even today, part of me almost expects to walk in and see some sort of huge machine with blinking lights filling a room.

One of the biggest challenges Impulse has had to overcome is getting content up fast enough for users.

When Impulse launched midway last year, the goal was to be able to release 5 titles a week.

The goal now is to be able to release 5 titles per day.

Even that goal isn’t sufficient though but it’s a major first step.

The big advantage a digital distribution platform like Steam and Impulse have over websites is that they take care of the installing and maintaining of the games.  Simply put, with Impulse, you purchase a game and it’s attached to your account. Get a new computer and you can just download Impulse, logon, and have it download and install your games while you’re doing something else.

But doing the above requires a lot of additional work than simply putting up a setup.exe up on a secure URL.  The extra work, however, is worth it in the long run as users begin to be able to use Impulse to simply take care of their software library for them.

Check out this week’s progress:

http://www.impulsedriven.com/explore/sort;releasedate/order;desc

X-COM finally made it up! w00t. Make sure if you buy X-COM to vote it 5 stars in Impulse as it’s only at 4 stars right now (boo on whoever voted it less than 5 stars).

A demo of me playing Master of Magic.

There’s a lot that game designers can learn from Master of Magic. In this video demo, I walk through a few of the mechanics of the game.

You’d think before a PC game developer decided to “dumb down” their game they’d look at the sales of other games that went down that path.

If you want to make a simplified, “mainstream” game make it for the console and be done with it.  But if you’re making a PC-specific game, take advantage of what the PC can do and make the game you want to make along with look at what the people who buy these games want.

Speaking of PC advantages – the new version of Havok apparently supports 64-bit Windows. This is a big deal because it means we should be able to make a native 64-bit version of Elemental. 

Why does that matter? Because memory limitations are a big deal in PC games. Even Galactic Civilizations II (2006) was hitting the 2 gigabyte limit. It’s not about the graphics but rather the scale/scope of the game.  If I want to have immense sized maps or incredible amounts of detail, I don’t need a mega machine for that but I do need to be able to address a lot of memory.

Hopefully, everyone who has been upgrading to Windows 7 has been careful to get 64-bit because the quicker we migrate to 64-bit, the more the PC (as a platform) offers again to game developers. 

Consider this: The XBOX 360 has 512MB of RAM.  Even the “next gen” console is likely only to offer say 1GB of memory, maybe 2GB for cost purposes. So being able to address massive amounts of memory will allow PC game developers to do new and interesting things that we can’t currently do because of the memory limitations.

Hopefully, that will help encourage developers to not to feel the need to “dumb down” their game.

Just my 2 cents.

Choosing opponents should just use the advanced screen.

Sovereign Customization:

Sex: Male or Female

Base Attributes:

All default to 10. You get 10 points to add from this. Each point over 10 represents a 10% bonus to whatever it is applied to. So a strength of 11 would be Attack = Base Attack X (11/10).

· Strength (helps with attack)

· Intelligence (helps with spell learning)

· Wisdom (helps with spell casting cost in terms of mana)

· Charisma (helps with Diplomacy)

· Dexterity (helps with defense)

· Constitution (helps with HP)

Triggered events would make use of these to provide additional options.

History: (pick 1)

· Mason. (provides construction bonus in cities he’s in, gains access to unique tech)

· Warlord. (increases combat effectiveness of army he is with, gets special equipment)

· Merchant. (increases wealth produced in city he is in, gains access to special improvements).

· Bard. (increases moral of any army he is with, heroes easier to recruit)

· Swindler. (gets bonuses added to trade treaties)

· Assassin. (bonus to initial attack)

· Thief. (more loot after battles)

· Adventurer. (more and better goodie huts)

· Hunter. (“game” food resource becomes available)

Talents

· Brilliant. Increases research in any town he is in.

· Diplomatic. Increased diplomatic ability.

· Shrewd. Superior at negotiating deals.

· Lucky. Random events go your way more often.

· Organized. Decreases movement penalty for larger armies.

· Intimidating. Decreases enemy morale in combat.

· Natural Leader. Increases morale of friendly army in combat.

· Hardy. Bonus to HP.

· Tracker. Movement penalties reduced for going through rough terrain.

· Naturalist. Starting position slightly nicer.

Weaknesses (give points back to pick more items)

· Stubborn. Is more likely to not escape from a battle that goes badly.

· Unlucky. Random events tend to not go your way.

· Blunt. Increases difficulty in recruiting allies.

· Insane. Prestige of any city he is in is lower.

· Cruel. Morale of armies he is with is lower.

· Ugly. Fewer children

· Inefficient. Provides construction penalty in cities he’s in.

· Clumsy. Movement penalty in rough terrain increased.

· Outcast. Starting position slightly worse.

Additional traits and training can be picked up during quests in game.

 
Current Size

New size

Here are our 10 commandments that we live by:

1. Choose a topic you have a passion for. Game Design is about creativity.
2. Do research after the game is done. Tap into the player’s brain.
3. Define your axioms, refine your axioms. Prototype, prototype, prototype; sit in all the chairs.
4. Double it or cut it in half. You are more wrong than you think.
5. Make sure the player is having fun, not the designer/computer.
6. Games should be easy to start playing, but hard to stop playing.
7. Simple systems work together to create complexity.
8. Make it ‘Epic’!
9. Most important part of the game is the first and last 15 minutes.
10. Know when to stop, more is not always better and just because we can, doesn’t mean we should