WindowBlinds 7 internal alpha on Windows 7 beta
Unmodified WindowBlinds skin (i.e. skinners won't have to necessarily make any changes to support Windows 7).
WindowBlinds 7 betas will probably show up on Object Desktop this Spring.
Well today I have to start putting together all the assets that are going to need translation so that we can get that going.
For Elemental, the plan is to have a much much higher level of writing quality than we had in previous games by bringing on professional authors and editors to help.
So what sorts of things do we have in mind?
The Factions
There are 12 named factions (races) in Elemental. In addition, players will be able to create and submit their own factions to be shared by other users.
Each of the 12 named factions will have its own history and back story. Those factions are:
The Kingdoms are of men, the Empires are made up of the Fallen.
Technology Trees
The technology in Elemental is largely the same for each faction with a handful of distinctive early game features that enable special buildings and units per faction.
There are roughly 20 different technologies. This seems low because of the way (far more fun IMO) technologies are implemented. Instead of there being "Advanced Swordsmanship" or something players instead choose a more generalized tech and the more they research into it, the better that stat gets. Spell books are where the more literary interesting stuff comes in.
Spell Books
Men and Fallen get completely unique spell books. The spells are broken into the 5 different schools of magic:
Earth. Air. Fire. Water. Life/Death.
Each of the 5 schools will have around 20 different spells in them.
Quests
Unlike previous strategy games Stardock has developed, Elemental will have optional quests. How in-depth these get will really depend on how much time we have. But ideally, we would like players to be able to see their sovereign as a quasi-RPG unit that can go out and deal with a particular quest.
There would be a huge, and ever growing, quest pool for the game to make use of.
We are budgeting for an initial quest pool of around 500 quests.
The Campaign
Like the GalCiv series, Elemental will thrive the most in its sandbox mode. Unlike GalCiv, our intention is for the campaign in Elemental to have a lot more to it. We'll have a firmer idea of this later once we figure out how powerful the engine can be made in the time we have with it.
1. I've lived in Michigan nearly all my life but was born in Texas.
2. I love talking and reading about politics but I don't really care much about it.
3. My birthday is almost exactly half a year away from Christmas
4. I never had to learn to blow my nose until I was 34 due to never being sick.
5. I have a pet turtle that I got when I was 15 (22 years ago)
6. I never had a detention in school but was suspended for defending myself (successfully) from 5 huge seniors by using a knife back in 10th grade.
7. I tend to get obsessed about order and efficiency.
8. I prefer to chat with people online versus talking to them on the phone.
9. My favorite thing in the world is being the daddy of Alex, Ryan and Ashley.
10. My favorite hobby is reading history.
11. I am a beekeeper with 6 honey bee hives.
12. When I was a kid I wanted to be a pro baseball player. Then I got a computer.
13. I tend to plan major events meticulously years in advance.
14. I was very good at disciplining my children until my daughter Ashley was born, now I just do whatever she wants me to do.
15. I never drank coffee until I was 37 and then started drinking Mocas every day.
16. I've been working on a fictional sci-fi / fantasy universe since I was 12 that I'm about to start writing books on to be published next year.
17. I often spend hours doing statistical analysis for enjoyment.
18. I met my wife in Electrical Engineering classes 17 years ago.
19. The movie I've watched more than any other is Back to the Future.
20. I enjoy having friends that are around the world because it's like having an all-star team of really awesome people to virtually hang out with.
21. I'm extremely competitive.
22. I often think I have the greatest job in the world. I spend my day working on making computer games and desktop enhancement software and love the people I work with.
23. One of my best friends is also my sister-in-law.
24. I am proud of the success our family has achieved but uncomfortable about discussing it with friends and family out of fear of being seen to be "bragging".
25. I believe that the best way to succeed is to help others be successful.
If you guys could think of 20 questions that someone might want answered about Demigod what would they be?
Our story so far...
Last month the beta for Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment was released. We have been very happy with the reception the first expansion pack has received and we've gotten a lot of great feedback and suggestions.
This week we plan to release beta 2 which has a new implemention for mines and tons of other things. Based on the feedback for this, we'll have a firmer date for the final release.
Tentatively, the release date for Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment is February 11.
View: What's new in Beta 2
SlotMusic cards look to replace CDs it appears as a means to purchase MP3 files in a physical form:
http://www.universalremote.com/product_detail.php?model=34
I saw these at CES and I have to say, I'm getting more and more tempted to get one of them one of these days.
For now, I'll stick with juggling remotes.
Last week I wrote an article detailing just how far left Time Magazine is. My objection isn't that these media outlets are biased, my objection is their insistence that they are "objective" and "balanced" which they most certainly are not.
American liberals tend to foam at the mouth about the existence of FOX News, a center-right media outlet but are often oblivious or in aggressive denial that MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, Newsweek, Time, Washington Post, New York Times, LA Times, etc. are all as far left as Fox News is right.
Liberals are quick to talk about how you can't get your news from Fox but see nothing wrong with regurgitating quotes from the latest issue of Newsweek or 60 minutes.
This week, I'll walk through Newsweek -- as seen through the eyes of a conservative...
Read on...
Starting with the cover we see scary pictures of Dick Cheney.
Now, to the left, Dick Cheney is a kind of boogeyman. And what did Dick Cheney do to deserve that? Did he institute the draft? Throw people in prison for simply disagreeing with American foreign policy? Send American citizens who happened to have ancestors who came from countries we were at war with? Nope. Oh wait, it was Democratic Presidents who did all those things (Wilson and FDR).
No, Dick Cheney is a villain to the left because...he doesn't think waterboarding is torture and, like most of congress, thinks it is okay if the government listens in on phone conversations of suspected terrorists calling in from overseas. Am I missing something? Maybe something about Iraq where he, like the Demcorats, believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction? Or maybe because he believed that getting rid of Saddam was a good thing?
I dunno what the left's issue with Cheney is to be honest. American liberals get hysterical at the drop of a hat anyway.
The Editor's Desk...
The lead editorial could be summarized with this interesting and unintentional admission:
To his [Cheney's] fans (a small but devoted bunch) Dick Cheney is a bulwark against the forces of darkness. To his foes (and they are legion), he is darkness.
I am sure if you live your life in a liberal bubble, Cheney is universally loathed with only a few kooks supporting him. But outside that bubble, you will find that most conservatives approve of him just as most liberals disapprove of him.
After all, even Bush, who I certainly don't approve of, still managed to eek out a 30% or so approval rating. And Cheney has consistently had a higher approval rating than Bush.
The problem with Newsweek is again, they are blind to their own bias. They are in such a bubble. It's sort of like when Harry Reid accused Cheney of having an only 9% approval rating when in fact it was much higher -- which is amazing considering how negative the reporting on him has been consistently.
Turning the page...
Newsweek has a lot of pretty vapid coverage compared to the others.
Unlike Time, which tends to have liberal editorial, Newsweek is far far more guilty of liberal assumptions about the world. I.e. liberal beliefs posed as facts.
Page 8, for instance says "Even some Republicans are anticipating a love fest at Clinton's confirmation hearing.."
WOW.
Conventional [liberal] wisdom
When I used to subscribe to Newsweek, one of the first signs that the magazine was turning into a left-wing propaganda outlet was in the Conventional Wisdom area. It's a series of up and down arrows of various items of the week. I kept noticing that no matter what, conservatives were always given down arrows.
I had been a reader of Newsweek since high school when I was not political at all. As Newsweek became increasingly left, I just kept noticing that it its judgments didn't seem to make any rational sense.
This week, for instance, Israel gets a down arrow because of the (their words) "Gaza Invasion".
Moving to page 13...
Moving past various Apple related news, we get to an article titled "Traffic Jam? Blame Bush."
Putting aside the fact that the article isn't newsworthy and is just a petty shot at Bush, the content of it is ridiculous. Basically, the Obama family having to move to the White House is causing traffic jams and this is Bush's fault because he didn't let the Obama family move into the Blair house early because it had already been booked previously. Talk about going to great lengths to blame Bush.
Obama's Cheney Dilemma
I won't bother to nitpick this article. It can be summed up that Cheney increased the power of the executive and will Obama be able to resist the temptation to make use of all these new powers?
The Big Idea: The Enigma in Chief
Jacob Weisberg's article on Bush's legacy strikes the tone for the whole magazine. It makes some typically left-wing assumptions as fact errors such as:
Bush's three most obvious legacies are his decisio to invade Iraq, his framing of a global war on terror after September 11 and a massive financial crisis. Each of these constitutes a separate epic in presidential misjudgment.
Really? I think not.
I think it equally likely that Bush will be remembered for his response to the 9/11 Terrorist Attack by setting up a series of government agencies and programs that resulted in zero new attacks during his administration, toppled a hostile regime in Iraq and replaced it with one friendly to the United States that was relatively painless to the United States. And he led the way in making the American people and congress aware of the financial crisis and pushed through quickly the means for the government to try to solve it.
But the thing is, I'm biased. The difference is, I'll admit it. I am biased. Newsweek plays the game that they're somehow reasonable, objective people offering analysis and they're not.
The article even states:
Among Presidential Historians, it is hardly an eccentric view that 43 ranks as America's worst President ever.
Oh come on. What Presidential Historian? No serious one.
Bush is bad compared to Woodrow Wilson? A man who got us into an unnecessary war, forced hundreds of thousands of Americans into the armed forces where over a hundred thousand died and jailed people for protesting the war?
Bush is as bad as Johnson? A man who got us into the Vietnam war, forcing over a million Americans into the armed forces where 60,000+ Americans died? Created an endless series of entitlement programs that have spent trillions of dollars with almost nothing to show for it except a welfare state with no limit to its appetite?
Worse than Buchanan, whose actions and lack of action helped lead to the Civil War?
And so on where we could add Jimmy Carter, Andrew Johnson, John Tyler?
But in the liberal bubble that is Newsweek, Bush is one of the worst Presidents. I'd expect that kind of provincialism from say the Huffington Post or the DailyKos but from a so-called serious journalistic outlet? No.
Judgment Calls: Obama's Healthy Choices
Now here is an article that is contrary to much of Newsweek, it actually calls into question some of the left-wing assumptions that the rest of Newsweek's editors seem to have.
The article isn't really conservative or liberal, it is just pointing out why our insurance is so expensive and how hard it would be for us to fix it or even to try to be like Canada or Europe because we expect so much more from our health care providers than what people in Europe and Canada expect.
The rest of the issue goes into entertainment and other non-political areas except for...
The Last Word
Which sometimes has a conservative columnist (George Will) but this week has Anna Quindlen whose article is effectively an Obama pep talk. Utterly vapid and unimaginative, it is an open love letter to President Obama with little care whether we, the reader, have any interest in the topic.
One of the things that has been driving Demigod beta testers crazy is that they aren't used to how Stardock does betas. A lot of them came from the Gas Powered Games community so they don't realize that Stardock betas tend to be very primitive.
With Elemental, we may drive the point home by having the first beta of the game only use the cloth map instead of the actual game engine for game play. The idea is, if it's a good game, it should be reasonably fun even without fancy graphics. Then for once we could get people to fixate on the key features of the game rather than piddly details.
The other benefit it would have is if we could make the whole game play on the cloth map too, people with insanely low end systems could actually play the game. Imagine people playing Elemental on a netbook for instance?
So that's what's going through our crazy minds today. 