Each year, like most companies, Stardock puts together an internal business plan that sets up goals, objectives, and challenges that the company must address.

Part of our internal business plan includes analysis of the state of the products/services we make as well as the results of our customer survey.

Last year, we made this report available to the public and based on the positive response we got for doing so, we’re doing the same again this year.

View: Stardock 2009 Customer Report

So today we’re playing a lot of Demigod v1.2.  There’s always that “release or not release” question hanging in the air.

Today, there’s 2 “show stoppers” still left. The Torch Bearer’s Ring of fire doesn’t go away (which would make Torch Bearer users happy but not the rest of us) and the other is that choosing a random Demigod will randomly let you play one of the two new Demigods.  That second one is obviously not a show stopper from the player’s point of view but we really do need to get it straightened up.

The time zone difference between Stardock (eastern) and Gas Powered Games (pacific) is what makes this kind of thing tough because, as I write this, it’s 8am there which in game development land might as well be middle of the night.  So then it’s a question of getting the fix in and uploaded, staged, re-tested and released.

To be honest, if it weren’t for the torch bearer thing, we’d be inclined to put it out still and let people “discover” the random demigod “feature” but on the other hand, in MP, it would encourage everyone to play random which might have pretty unfun game results and we want to really give this release a lot of attention since it is just such a big improvement.

…

Now, one of the other things I thought I’d use this journal entry to address is some of the things I read about Gas Powered Games on the forums.  Now, I work for Stardock, we’re the publisher. This website is run by Stardock.  So naturally, we’re pretty active.  But the GPG team does hang out here reading. They just don’t comment since they’re busy working on the game.

And I mean that.  Every day we’re emailing back and forth. Tossing around different ideas for future updates to Demigod. 

Stardock isn’t a real company.

What many users don’t realize is the difference between Stardock and Gas Powered Games is that GPG is a real game company and Stardock isn’t. 

Let me explain:

At Stardock, we’re really just a bunch of fan boys.

Sometimes we code the games (Galactic Civilizations). Sometimes we publish the games (Sins of a Solar Empire, Demigod).  Our involvement on the games we “publish” is non-traditional. The original designer of Demigod, John Comes, who’s now at Uber Entertainment, would be the first to tell you that the final release of Demigod is nothing like what he had in mind. It’s totally different.

That’s because of Mike Marr (and GPG) and I.   So the toned down generals in Demigod? That’s my fault. I wanted to get rid of generals entirely but from a marketing standpoint we couldn’t.  On the other hand, citadel upgrades and flags were from me.  My suggestions though were similar to the kind of fanboy posts you’d see on a forum. By contrast, designer Mike Marr was the true genius behind turning suggestions into something good.

In Sins of a Solar Empire, Brian Clair (who used to run Avault) and I worked with Ironclad to make massive changes to the original concept of Sins of a Solar Empire.  I basically wanted Sins to be Total Annihilation in space. I have no shame.  Hence, Sins has infinite resources with “metal” and “crystal” (crystal wasn’t in TA but was in StarCraft). Ironclad, of course, were the ones who took our “fanboy” like feedback and made Sins of a Solar Empire into the great game it became and continues to be.

Anyway, the point being, some people on these forums make the mistake of thinking what Stardock does is normal – constantly updating and talking to fans. It’s not. We’re mutants. 

Even now, the only reason I’m not at Chris Taylor’s house is due to the..well the restraining order(s).

 But let me talk about the pedigree here so you can understand the difference between a professional game studio and a fanboy company.

Chris Taylor didn’t just make Total Annihilation. He made Hardball 2 and countless other games.  Their VP of Business Development, Kellyn Beeck, was the guy  who made Defender of the Crown (if you had an Amiga and didn’t play that game then I’m not saying you’re a bad person…okay, yes, I’m saying it, you’re a bad person).

Basically, every person we work with over at GPG are experienced game designers of original IP.

By contrast, at Stardock, I basically just makes games I want to play and have no shame of borrowing from whatever else. 

Galactic Civilizations?  That’s Civilization in space.  If I hadn’t written the original version in college I would have known better than to use the word Civilizations. I picked up Teach Yourself C in 21 days in order to learn how to program so I could make it. Seriously.

Nowadays we would have called GalCiv something totally original like Space: Total War or something that wouldn’t get us into trouble…

Then there’s Elemental which let’s be honest, is really a next-generation combo of Master of Magic, HOMM, Age of Wonders 2: Shadow Magic combined with bits and pieces from lots of other things we like to play including board games.

The point I’m trying to make with you guys is that the reason we’re all over the forums and making these journals and such isn’t because we’re a good company. There’s no real business justification to do it. We do it because we’re basically just fanboys.  I was writing long posts like this during the Supreme Commander 1 beta (some of you may recall).

Real companies are smart enough not to show you the sausage factory.  Stardock, by contrast, does not.

Most corporate visitors who come to Stardock are shocked at the size of Stardock. Normally, a company that’s grown to our size would have grown up by now.  We just won’t grow up.

The ramifications of real-time communication with fans

Real companies don’t communicate with fans as much for good reason: Too much communication ultimately leads to expectations not being met. We know this.  But as fanboys, hanging out on forums posting what’s going on is what we do.

For instance, a real company would have had Demigod v1.1 be that May release that fixed the online multiplayer issues – btw, on a game that has sold hundreds of thousands of copies, only around 25,000 users even logged to play multiplayer between release and June (we had 10X that many pirates trying but they didn’t get access to the MP stuff after day 3 but that’s another story). 

So as big of a deal the online multiplayer shenanigans was to us (i.e. us fanboys at Stardock and those of you into this stuff) in the “real world” only a small percentage of users were even aware or cared. 

Then Demigod v1.2 would have been released in July (which was called v1.1).

In September v1.3 would have been released (which we called v1.19)

And then this month v1.4 would have been released (which we’re calling v1.2).

In other words, a steady stream of improvements to what is, without a doubt, an outstanding game.  But the journals tend to make it look like the updates are late or few and far between but they only seem that way because Stardock isn’t a real company and lets people see, in near-real time, what exactly is going on.

GPG has been continuously supporting Demigod since day 1. They’re working as a professional game studio that has been, consistently, releasing a steady stream of improvements and enhancements for the game. Staffed with industry veterans, they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing.  Every day, I get a half dozen emails from people at GPG – and that’s nothing compared to what QA/Support do back and forth with them.

It’s only when you look back and realize that Demigod’s only been out 6 months and you look and see how much better the game has already gotten (and it was good to begin with) and how much better it continues to get that you realize just how much effort GPG has put into supporting the game.

Anyway, I need to get back to “testing” Oculus some more.  Then I have to try out Sins of a Solar Empire: Diplomacy and there’s a new build of Elemental.  Then I need to see if IconPackager 5 is ready for release this week and see how things are going with yesterday’s release of WindowBlinds 7 (I made a quick video demo here). Then I need to see how the Live Writer integration into Neowin.net is going and see if the WinCustomize skin queries got updated to improve database response and then there’s some new moves to be updated for the Elemental pen and paper game we’ve got going and then I think I’ll write some blog on some topic that will get us into trouble and then…

We’ve been reading feedback and play testing for the past couple of weeks. Here are some quick questions about the upcoming update.

1. We have removed the new favor items based on player feedback. Going forward, the effort will be to make the existing favor items more equally powerful but in different ways.

2. Horn of Battle has been changed to provide 50 health per second to minions for 20 seconds.

3. We will have a sample mod to hand out for people to get the hang of making mods. 

4. The sample mod is called “Boots of Better Speed”.

5. The way mods work is if you enable them in the mod manager you can use them single player. In Multiplayer, they will only work if others players have them installed.

6. Epoch 3 will probably start next week (stats are reset but we will keep favor points around).

7. The two new Demigods are not part of v1.2 but will be enabled to players relatively quickly.

8. We anticipate releasing v1.2 this week. Lots of moving parts to nail down as it’s a lot of changes under the covers.

Hope this helps.

WindowBlinds 7 is out! Here’s a demo that shows off some of the cool new stuff.

Now you can see what all the talk is about.  Download it now and see for yourself.  If you’ve tried WindowBlinds in the past and don’t use it now, definitely try this, this isn’t just an upgrade, it’s a whole new system.

http://www.windowblinds.net

Demigod v1.20 (1.20.140 on Impulse)
--------------------------------

- Added new AI options
- Added mod manager (everyone must have the same mods)
- Added options to enable additional Demigods as the update rolls out
- Fixes a serious desync that could potentially resolve a number of problem cases in MP.
- Fixed TB’s ability to attack while moving in Fire Mode.
- Additional optimizations for MP on "laggy" connections. Please note that ping isn't
a measure of whether your machine or other machines on your network are taking bandwidth.

Citadel Upgrades
- Graveyard Citadel Upgrade: Increased bonus from 10/20/40% to 15/30/50%

Favor Items
- Samm-El's Cloak: Buffed cap from 25% to 15%
- Dark Crimson Vial: Reduced cast time from 2 to 1 seconds
- Staff of the Warmage: Increased mana from 700 to 800
- Magical Coin Pouch: Buffed cost reduction from 10% to 15%
-

New favor items:

Spirit of the Fallen: Assassin only
5000 Favor Points
1000 Health
8 Health Per Second

Haste Anklet: Assassin only
5000 Favor Points
17% Increased Movement Speed

Pendant of Prescience: Generals only
5000 Favor Points
15% Dodge
20% Minion Dodge

Tome of Champions: Generals Only
5000 Favor Points
800 Health
5 Health Per Second
150 Minion Health

Items
- Hex Scroll: Reduced cost from 500 to 250
- Capture Lock: Increased cast time from 1 to 2 seconds
- Duelist Cuirass: Reduced cost from 3000 to 2500. Crit chance increased from 5 to 10%.
- Gladiator Gloves: Reduced cost from 750 to 450
- Theurgist's Cap: Reduced cost from 3000 to 2000
- Hungarling's Crown: Reduced cost from 6500 to 5500
- Ironwalkers: Reduced cost from 3750 to 2750
- Desperate Treads: Reduced cost from 5000 to 4000
- Gauntlet's of Despair: Increased mana drain from 200 to 300
- Doomspite Grips: Increased weapon damage from 30 to 40
- Forest Band: Increased minion armor from 200 to 300
- Warlord's Punisher: Unchanged
- Ring of the Ancients: Reduced cost from 3500 to 2500
- Parasite Egg: Reduced cost from 4000 to 3000

- Horn of Battle time for effect increased from 10 seconds to 25 seconds.

Game Mechanics
- Dodge Cap increased from 30% to 40%
- Interrupts will no longer overwrite stuns
- Crit damage calculations fixes
- Item cost modifiers will now affect citidel upgrades properly. Previously, a citidel upgrade would charge a player the modified cost, but would not allow you to buy it until you had the full cost gold available.
- Improved shamblers to be a bit more capable of pursuit.
- Heroes will re-engage their attack target after performing an ability
- Fix for all of TB's Rings of Fire going away after the oldest ones time out.
- Fixes for demigods chasing after old targets at inappropriate times.
- Added support for ignoring players in-game. Supported commands: /ignore /squelch

Queen of Thorns
- Summon Shambler: Summon Shambler now increases health and damage of Shamblers as you gain new ranks. The values are 5/10/15 damage and 125/250/375 health.
- Entourage: Shamber buff decreased to compensate for Summon Shambler's boost. Damage reduced from 10/20/30 to 6/12/18 damage and 250/500/750 health to 165/330/495.

Known issues
-All new voices are currently going to be in English with the new demigods. We're working to localize those where possible with our publishing partners.

Elements that will likely need to be put off until the next update:

• Modding SDK
• More sample mods
• More balancing of two new Demigods (The DA and Oculus will be given out to players over the next 2 weeks online to help do more balance testing).

VERSION 7

Info & Requirements

• Developer: Stardock (www.stardock.com)
• Price: Free to try. Registered version is $19.95. Can be purchased as part of Object Desktop for $49.95.
• Requires: Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7. Native 64-bit versions included.
• Home page: www.windowblinds.net
• More skins at: www.wincustomize.com

Introduction

WindowBlinds is a program that empowers users to customize the look and feel of Microsoft Windows. By applying skins, users can change nearly every element of the Windows interface including:

• title bars
• borders
• taskbar
• Start menu
• push buttons
• and virtually every other part of the Windows UI

The WindowBlinds Experience

Windows XP user example:

to

Windows Vista/7 example:

   to

There are literally thousands of different skins to choose from

What’s new in WindowBlinds 7 over WindowBlinds 6

There are hundreds of changes and new features in WindowBlinds 7 over previous versions. Below is a summary of some of the more significant changes.

1. Native support for Windows 7
2. Native Aero skinning for Windows Vista and Windows 7 users
3. Native 64-bit support for Windows Vista and Windows 7 users
4. Auto-conversion of Windows XP era skins to Windows Vista or Windows 7
5. Ability to apply textures to skins
6. A new, easy to use configuration program
7. Native Clear-Type support for better font handling
8. New Skin format called UIS0 for skinning Aero (takes hours instead of days to create a new skin).
9. New WindowBlinds 7 skins included such as Submline, Aero Metals, Corporate, Aero Woods, Aero Clay, Sabertooth along with new WindowBlinds 7 skins being released soon after to the public such as Altitude.
10. Option to have a random skin applied each logon
11. Much better customization of fonts
12. Massive performance improvements in applying of skins.
13. Optimization of Windows Vista and Windows 7 DWM drawing to improve battery life on laptops.
14. Aero skinning (UIS0) is 100% compatible (it’s Aero) with all Windows programs.

Screenshots of new features:

Features of WindowBlinds

There are so many individual features of WindowBlinds that it would take many pages to explain them all. Instead, we will focus on the primary features of the program.

1. Changes the look and feel of the entire Windows graphical user interface by applying a WindowBlinds skins.
2. There are thousands of free WindowBlinds skins to choose from.
3. Improves performance of the Windows GUI due to optimizations it makes to Windows drawing routines
4. Uses very little memory
5. Easy and safe to use. Does not modify any system files. Can be turned off with a single click at any time.
6. Gives Windows XP users the ability to have per-pixel alpha blending, gives Windows Vista/7 users the ability to skin the native  glass (Aero) look and feel.
7. Users can assign mouse actions to roll-up windows, minimize to tray and many other options.
8. Supports animated title bars, start menus, and much more.
9. Can skin even “non-theme aware” programs meaning even older programs that look like old Windows will get skinned natively.
10. Microsoft certified. Used by millions of users worldwide and by major PC manufactures such as Dell and HP.

Screenshots in action

WindowBlinds can skin virtually every part of the Windows GUI.

Windows 7 gets a retro-look with this Windows XP skin

 
Like the native Windows Vista/Windows 7 look and would just like to spice it up? WindowBlinds 7 can skin Aero itself.

Skinners can customize as much or as little as they want and share their creations with the world

You know those really cool Starcraft II battle reports? If not, allow me to promote Starcraft II here.

Starcraft II: Battle Report 4

Now, I’m not saying you’re a bad person if you aren’t looking forward to Starcraft II.  But then again, I’m not saying you’re not either.

For Elemental, we are doing something a bit different.  We’d like to show readers what Elemental’s development is like long before the game is actually…you know…good.

Here’s a quickie example of what we’ll be doing:

For fun, on occasion we’ll take questions people have asked in the forums and answer them in video form.

We’ve got the build staged and we’ve been playing it like madmen. But we’re not quite ready to send this out into the wild, especially on a Thursday with the weekend coming up.

Did have a good game tonight. I was Erebus and my partner was the Demon Assassin and the other side was an Oak with another demon assassin. It played well enough and some of the new item changes were very welcome.

Lots of moving parts in this update so we want to just do more run-throughs.

That said, I will still be on this weekend playing Frogboy 3 on 3 games if you guys have questions, feel free to join me there or ask in the comments area.

Here’s some video footage of the game (I die at the end of the video):

No build this week but here’s some of the stuff that was on my machine today.

Who can pick out what’s new over the beta.

Check out what WindowBlinds 7’s new Aero skinning (UIS0) can do! WindowBlinds 7 is scheduled to come out next week!

http://www.windowblinds.net.