Who else is playing it? Where you at?

One of the areas that got optimized that is hard to demo is the speed of skin changing.  While not a huge deal for most people, being able to change skins quickly is something that we’ve been working on quite a bit for WindowBlinds 7.

This video is of the beta that will be going up this week for Object Desktop users. There is no editing. This is how fast it really is.

 

[Watch Screencast Video]

It’s no secret I was a bit disappointed with Windows Vista. It was an incredibly ambitious project that delivered a massive, under-the-hood update to Windows. Where it failed was that it was released just a bit too early.  Too early means not enough polish on things that could have dramatically improved the first impression of the new OS.

Here is what I said back in 2006 prior to Vista’s launch:

What will happen if they ship Windows Vista if it comes out in 1Q2007? I predict it will be a disaster. Driver compatibility, rough edges in software working, weird and unpolished UI design, etc.  The acronymn UAC will come to haunt Microsoft and they will rue the day they didn't wait just a few more months to get driver compatibility together.

Windows 7, by contrast, is all about polish. It fixes the mistakes made with Windows Vista.

Unfortunately, I still have to deal with Windows Vista. And now, even issues I hadn’t noticed before in Windows Vista become painfully obvious now that I’m used to Windows 7.

Below are 10 things that are driving me crazy about Windows Vista now that I’ve got Windows 7.

 

Reason #1: Nothing is ever responding

 

In Windows Vista, it seems like the OS is just waiting to declare a window isn’t responding. This is particularly obnoxious when it comes to network windows.  The Windows 7 GUI is much more responsive and it’s far less likely to have that annoying “not responding” behavior occur.

 

Reason #2: The UAC

I still can’t believe Microsoft hasn’t updated UAC in Windows Vista so to make it less annoying.  Every time I go back to a Windows Vista machine, it’s one of the first things that comes up. Prompts. Prompts. Prompts over the silliest of things.

On Windows 7, there’s a lot more control of these annoyances. Windows is still the “are you sure” OS but it’s a lot less annoying.

 

Programs like Tweak 7 make it easy to further refine this. For instance, the delay/darkening of the screen theoretically can add more security but it’s just annoying. On Windows 7, I can turn that off.

 

Reason #3: Basic Usability

In Windows Vista, if you want to change the resolution, you either use the video card’s built in add-on (seen at the top) or you have to jump through menus. It’s ridiculous.

 

in Windows 7, you can get to screen resolution quickly by default. A very nice touch.

 

Reason #4: The System Tray

I had no idea how annoying the system tray system of Windows Vista (and before) was until I started using Windows 7.  Going back to Windows Vista is like going back to system tray hell.

 

No comparison. On Windows 7, it’s clean and nice.

 

Reason #5: Explorer Usability

Windows Vista (above) is just a lot less useful with explorer even though it seems more cluttered (to me anyway).

 

By contrast, Windows 7 (above) has common sense options up above and the navigation pane on the left is much more useful as well.

Reason #6: Customization – Vista sucks at it.

For reasons unknown, Microsoft insisted on putting lots of hard-coded colored images in the Vista UI. 

Windows 7 still has the problem somewhat (baby blue) but it’s a lot easier for programs to customize a color than it is to deal with an image.  So if you run a program like WindowBlinds that lets you customize Windows, Windows 7 makes life even better.

 

Reason #7: Cyan borders.

This goes with Microsoft’s love affair with various blue-like colors being baked in. Vista had cyan borders on the edges.

On Windows 7, the colors are neutral.  I should also add that Aero doesn’t have that annoying reflection texture in it anymore.

 

Reason #8: Useless network object

How often are you going to want to sift through all the computers on your network?  Windows 7 cleans up (it could still be better) the network experience.

 

Reason #9: Devices

This is something that seems obvious in hindsight but Windows Vista does not have it. A nice, simple screen for dealing with the real world stuff that people use.

 

Reason #10: Windows XP mode

Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate include “Windows XP mode”. For most people, it’s not a big deal. But it’s a handy tool that one would have thought Vista would have included for programs that had compatibility problems.

You can install things from within the environment and then they will run seamlessly on your desktop.

So if you have programs that don’t like Vista (or Windows 7) you can run them within Windows XP on the desktop.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t work well with games very well.

But imagine how things might have gone with Windows Vista if it had had something like this. 

 

There you have it…

Well look here, I just got handed a Windows 7 Professional DVD.  Goodbye Windows Vista.

WindowBlinds 7 quickie demo: http://screencast.com/t/HM3IdyykvJxJ

 

 
DeskScapes 3 quickie demo: http://screencast.com/t/wwhSKh7x

 

Do you have Windows 7? Do you have a 64-bit system? Then you should have Object Desktop which not only supports 64-bit Vista and Windows 7 64-bit but has native engines for them.

Object Desktop: Windows: XP/Vista/7

It’s not the loudness

I’m a stalker.

No. Really. I am.

I don’t just read the feedback on Elemental in our forums. I read the feedback on lots of other forums. So I lurk on sites like RPG.net, Octopus Overlords, PCCohort, Qt3, CnardPC, WArgamers.com, rpgcodex.net, tacticularcancer, colonyofgamers, bay12games.com, Shrapnel Games, penny-arcade forums, etc.

And one of the most consistent concerns I read is that the hard core beta testers who post the most will influence the game to become too hard-core.  There is nothing to fear.

I have happily debated, over the years, the merits of games like Space Empires V vs. Galactic Civilizations and such.  And while Elemental will be “deeper” than Galactic Civilizations, players are not going to have to micro-manage sword production or something.  Elemental is, at its core, a macro-game. Your stratregy will have more to do with your victory than tactical prowess.

That doesn’t mean that the battle system won’t be heavily modified to be richer than we currently have it but it does mean that we will not have cutting versus slashing damage. 

Where things stand with the beta

We are officially at Beta 1-B.  The economic phase of the beta.  Several weeks have been schedule to work on this until we’re all happy with it. So expect more beta 1-B updates before we get to the initial AI skeleton beta.

Elemental Economics

My sovereign founds a city.

The city has an initial prestige based on the prestige ability of that civilization (typically 10).

Each turn, the population of that city grows by prestige/10 + existing population*prestige/10 % pre turn.  The first number represents sheer prestige, the second one is meant to model natural population growth (babies).  Sure, we could have a “fertility” rating but we are trying to keep the number of variables down to a minimum so that players aren’t having to build 20 different types of buildings.

Each citizen pays taxes at a fixed rate. There is no slider to increase taxes ala Galactic Civilizations. Instead, if you want to increase income, you need to increase the wealth of your city through improvements. Your money comes from people.

When you harvest a resource (food, metal, crystals, stone, whatever) your city gets M per turn. In addition, your other cities will receive Q per turn (typically 1.0).  If they are connected by roads, they will get Q * R (road bonus which is typically 2.0).

You can increase these variables based on improvements you choose to build in your city.

Each citizen produces T technology units per turn (typically 0.10).  You can increase this rate by building schools, libraries, and other improvements. 

Building a new improvement in your city takes L turns for the labor plus S turns based on the supplies needed.  So a fancy estate that increases the prestige of your city may take 10 turns to build due to labor + an additional 2 turns to get the 4 stone needed to construct it. Improvements also have an up-front cost that is the labor (in turns) X A for the labor cost per turn (typically 10.0).  So that estate would cost 100 gold to build because it takes 10 turns of labor.

You can produce soldiers. Soldiers cost Z gold per turn to keep around. They are the main drain on your economy per turn.

Researching

We are playing around with different types of research mechanisms for Elemental.  The current research screen UI is deplorable.

Here is a rough mockup of a new one that we hope to make available next Thursday.

The idea being that players would choose amongst the 5 research categories:

1. Civilization
2. Warfare
3. Magic
4. Adventure
5. Diplomacy

When they chose a category, they would get a list of technologies that may become available when they make their breakthru.  If the listed technology is green, then it will definitely be available when you make your breakthru.  If it’s yellow, it might be available when you make a breakthru, if it’s red, it probably won’t be available.

Some technologies will require a pre-requisite. You can’t simply (by luck) get access to say plate metal armor. You would have to research warfare, then defenses, then armor and then after that you would have a chance to get plate metal armor. The more points you have in a particular category, the greater the odds that one of those techs will pop up.

So let’s walk through this:

I choose warfare: level 1 and I see:

• Barracks (green)
• Weapons (green)
• Defenses (green)
• City Walls (yellow)
• Archery (yellow)

Warfare level 1 costs 10 technology points (which at this stage means 10 turns).

I know I want to get to plate mail so I pick Defenses.

10 turns pass…

The breakthru window pops up and I choose Defenses. City Walls also showed up but Archery didn’t.

The research window comes up again and I see this:

Warfare: level 2

• Barracks (green)
• Weapons (green)
• Armor (green)
• City Walls (yellow)
• Archery (yellow)
• Fortify Position (red)

Warfare Level 2 costs 20 tech points (which at this point in the game is taking 14 turns).

14 turns pass…

The breakthru window pops up and I get to choose between Barracks, Weapons, Armor, and Fortify Position.  Now, because it was red, it means I got pretty lucky that it is an option and next time, it may not show up as an option. Do I pick that now or do I go with Armor?  I choose Armor anyway.

Now I see this:

• Barracks (green)
• Weapons (green)
• Leather Armor (green)
• Plate Armor (yellow)
• City Walls (green)
• Archery (green)
• Fortify Position (red)

As you can see, City Walls and Archery have become green which means they will always be choices because enough points have been put into Warfare that they’ve gone from being maybes to certainties.

Warfare level 3 costs 40 points (which at this point will take 20 turns to get).

The other thing about this system is that we can have a giant pool of minor but interesting techs that normally don’t show up in a game but when we go through the new game generation, we will randomly give them a slight chance to come up during a game. So, for instance, you might get a tech called “Forest Defenses” where if you have it, it will give your units extra defensive bonuses in a forest.  All players would have access to such a tech (i.e. it’s not per player though we might make some race-based).

We’re finding this system to simply be a lot more fun to play and give the player a lot more interesting choices.

The idea here is that you’re researching an area of technology, you have breakthrus and the player can then choose what that breakthru was.

Next Beta opening?

For those who are pre-ordering, we will probably let more people join just before Christmas. But that really depends on the state of the game.  Right now, we’re still working out basic stuff like crashing, memory leaks, and low level game mechanics.  I don’t anticipate the game being “fun” until Beta 2 and even then it’ll still be pretty raw.

A typical “beta” program that is open to the public wouldn’t start to what we are calling Beta 4.  So others might call Beta 1, 2 and 3 “alphas” if you’re into the semantics of this kind of thing.  But it gives you an idea of the distance that must be traveled between where we are now and where we expect the game to be something that a sane company would want its fans to see.

Why are we torturing our top supporters?

Stardockers are a rare breed of power user / gamer.  Most of them know what they’re in for already.  The reason they got involved is because they know that we’re reading their “walls of text”. We may not always respond, but we’re reading them, thinking about them, and will make real changes.  We’re making the game with them.

When all is said and done, every game design decision the game has will have to be defensible to the main base.  Hence, there will be posts arguing that the magic system should be different or that the research system should be different.  The question is whether the design decisions that are ultimately made can be logically defended and whether most of our target audience likes what we ultimately have chosen.

Big thinks to Pacov for putting this together.

 

Q: Demigod has been out 6 months. What would you say are it’s biggest strengths at this point?

A: The game mechanics are extremely good.  I would say it is the strategy game to beat when it comes to setting up a weekend LAN game with friends. Any other game I’d want to play would take hours of explaining the ins and outs to friends to get them to be remotely competitive.  In Demigod, you can get people together quickly who can play the game.

At the same time, the game still allows for a huge difference between skilled players and new players. The big thing for me though is that someone can play Demigod with only a few minutes to practice.

Q: What are its weakest areas? What areas are you most disappointed?

A: I’m a glass is half empty kind of guy. So I tend to always be the dark cloud on this kind of thing.  For me, the most annoying thing is playing online. It’s an age old problem though that is really brought out in Demigod because it’s so multiplayer centric.

Specifically, you get online and into a game only to realize someone has Bit torrent running in the background making the game lag for everyone because the game has to be in sync.

Then you have the people who blame P2P for that problem. No, it has nothing to do with that. It has to do with the game needing to be in sync. If the units were all projectile based (like TA/SupCom/Starcraft) you wouldn’t necessarily need to be in perfect sync. But in a melee centric game, you do or else you get into all kinds of other trouble. 

Lesson I’ve learned is that every strategy game in the future that has MP needs to have not just ping but a quickly throughput rating so that people who have stuff running in the background can be ejected. Sorry, just something that drives me crazy about playing online with random strangers.

Q: What is happening with balance suggestions?"

A: I send them over to Mike Marr at GPG to evaluate. They are implementing some of them. 

My list of things includes:

1. Queen of Thorns needs to be made more powerful.

2. Some of the items need to be made better (I’ve sent the threads over to Gas Powered Games to look at).

3. There need to be more game options for dealing with the AI (that’s in our internal build so hooray!).

Q: Why do pantheon players get experience when playing against AI.

A: The whole pantheon experience is something that is a challenge because on the one hand, you want people to only play against people but on the other hand, you don’t want people to have to wait 10 minutes for a game to start and there are times when there aren’t that many people playing online on pantheon.  We don’t really have a good solution here.

Q: What is the top priority at the moment?

A: Getting the new Demigods integrated with the v1.19 code-base so we can begin testing.

Q: When will the 2 new Demigods be released?

A: I am hoping that the beta for them will start this week. It’s a matter of integrating them into people’s accounts seamlessly so that we can potentially sell demigods in the future if we eventually wanted to migrate the game to a LoL or HoN style model for certain markets.

Q: What sorts of minion UI enhancements do you see happening?

A: I know I’d like to be able to bind minions to hot keys (so I can move my monks independently for instance).  I would have to talk to GPG to find out how hard that would be to implement at this stage.

Q: You’ve mentioned that Demigod wasn’t designed to be a hard-core competitive game. Why was that decision made?

A: It was a technical decision more than anything.  For instance, as a former PGL player I can tell you right now that if Demigod wanted to be a serious online competitive game it would need to have its LUA scripts secured some that griefers and cheaters couldn’t potentially hack it in real-time.  To me, that’s a fundamental requirement.

The other issue is that the game would need to have had a much bigger budget in order to make both the single player and online more expansive.   For instance, last night I played a game where I quit because it was so laggy.  If this were a competitive game, I would have been compelled (and aggravated) to play through a laggy game.

Without tools to penalize or control people who make playing online a horrible experience, the entire system is open to abuse.

Q: Is Voice Chat coming to Demigod?

A: Not directly. It would come via Impulse: Ready to Play and the built in overlay and that’s not going to happen until next Spring so it’ll be awhile.

Q: Will Torch Bearer get a fire on move animation so it can fire and move in fire mode?

A: That would have to be answered by GPG.

Q: How can the community become more involved in future updates?

A: Modding.  Demigod itself is largely programmed via mods. v1.2 has a mod manager that will let people install their own mods.  I would like to see it so that future updates bundle in third-party mods.

Then, if you don’t like our values for items or whatever then you guys can just pick a mod that you guys agree on. 

Q: The ladder system penalizes people who play because people who never play start with 1000 points.

A: This is indeed a problem.  For Epoch 3 I think we’re going to have to revisit the entire ranking system further because as someone who wins most of the time but has an experience rating of 300, I’m (understandably I think) annoyed that my rating is lower than someone who has never played.

Q: Will the dodge cap be removed?

A: I hope so. I’m going to lobby that it either be removed or raised dramatically given how fun that ability is.

Q: Is it possible for German users to update the game with a different text found in http://nokthra.impulsedriven.net/article/347922/A_new_german_translation_for_Demigod_hits_the_ground

A: I wish but Atari has made it clear that we are not to do something like that.  Believe it or not, Atari, not Stardock is the worldwide retail publisher for Demigod except for North America.  If you bought the game in a box outside North America and you’re posting here, please keep that in mind.

Q: So when will Demigod v1.2 come out?

A: Quick answer: When it’s done.  Longer answer – we are still pursuing the strategy of releasing updates for it in pieces rather than one huge update. 

Q: But originally you said you’d release v1.2 in September. It’s November! What’s the deal?!

A: Our estimates were made back during the time when we had planned on having public betas of features. But there has been such an outcry of “splitting the community” that we had to eliminate the public beta process which in turn has greatly increased the internal QA resources required which, naturally, increases the time to release. As a result, the release had to be broken into bite-sized chunks that could pass through QA one piece at a time.

It draws things out but on the other hand it keeps the MP community as one cohesive entity.  It’s a trade-off that we think most users prefer.

Q: How can I tell what problems GPG knows about?

A: Sorian has a thread that discusses just that:

http://forums.demigodthegame.com/364824

I’m still running Windows Vista on my laptop.  I’ll post more screenshots from other versions of Windows soon on this but here’s a sneak preview of Sublime, a new skin that is part of the WindowBlinds 7 beta.

To get WindowBlinds 7 early, get Object Desktop at www.objectdesktop.com .

WindowBlinds is the engine.

The skins are the content.

UIS1 and UIS2 were the two skin formats WindowBlinds has supported.  UIS1 for “simple” skins and UIS2 for complex skins.

Both were designed in an age where few people wanted their systems to resemble Windows classic let alone Luna (the Windows XP look) .

Windows Vista’s Aero changed that.  Because (like me) think Aero looks good.  But Microsoft severely limited the customization options of Aero for reasons most of us can’t fathom. 

But we skinners only has UIS1 and UIS2 skin formats.

If making an Aero like skin required lots of work, then skinners might as well spend that same amount of time to make something truly original right?

Therefore:

As a result, nearly all the Aero-like skins were designed by Stardock because skinners didn’t want to spend a ton of hours to make a skin that simply looked slightly different from Aero.

Unfortunately for skinning, LOTS of users wanted looks that were just a bit different from Aero.

This is why the new skin format in WindowBlinds 7 is such a big deal.

Of course, there are color options in Aero but you have no choice but to deal with the default weird texture and other behaviors that you’re still stuck with regardless of the transparency.

But because of all the effort involved in making a traditional WindowBlinds skin, that meant that previously, no one would make simple Aero skins like the one below that can now be done in seconds from within the WindowBlinds configuration interface that are obviously not possible with what’s built into Windows.

WindowBlinds 7 comes out in early November. Object Desktop users can do this now though.

Alas, Poor Skinning. I knew him…

Or so it seemed.  Skinning was huge for awhile. And then it wasn’t. 

What happened?

I’ll tell you: Windows stopped being so ugly and there was no easy way to simply customize Aero(the default glass look of Windows Vista and Windows 7).

Until now.

In the years since Windows Vista, if you wanted to have say a metallic version of the Windows Vista UI, a skinner had to spend as much time making that (i.e. many days) as it would take to create something outrageous. And so, most skinners chose outrageous because let’s face it, people don’t appreciate the amount of effort it takes to make a subtle change.

And so skinning returned to the niche it was prior to Windows XP’s release.

WindowBlinds 7 changes that.  Of course, it still supports all manner of total Windows makeovers. But WindowBlinds 7 also supports skinning Aero itself. That means no worries about compatibility, performance, or memory because it’s still Aero.  And, best of all, the effort involved is dramatically less.

WindowBlinds 7 is due out in early November for everyone but if you have Object Desktop, you can play with the late betas now.