Dell has released its Core i7 machines.  The XPS 730X takes isn't just a little bit faster than previous XPS's...it's a LOOOTTT faster.

And best of all, Dell has started pre-loaded Vista 64-bit as standard. The XPS 730X comes with Vista 64-bit. Period. 

My only complaint is that I can't buy it with 12 gigs pre-installed. 6 gigs is the max they're shipping with right now (4 gigabyte DDR3 RAM is out so it's possible).

But my friends, this is the future of computing.

Gas Powered Games is working hard on Beta 2 of Demigod. We don't have a definitive date for it but we're hoping to get it out before Thanksgiving so people can play it over the break (that would be next week).

Now, so far beta testers have only played the engine test. That was basically just to see compatibility and performance.  We've taken that data and the GPG team has increased the game's performance dramatically.

Beta 2 is where we get into the "meat" of the game.  As we've mentioned before, beta 1 wasn't supposed to be fun. We're delighted some people found it fun but it wasn't really meant to be fun.

Beta 2, by contrast, is where the fun starts. How fun it'll be depends on how many of the features get in.  Below are some of the key features beta 2 will introduce:

1. Objective Flags.  Beta 1 has a couple of these but beta 2 adds a lot more.  Winning at Demigod is about your ability to capture and make use of these objective flags.
2. Skill Trees.  The skill trees have been greatly expanded upon.
3. Generals.  While Assassins are extremely powerful on their own, Generals can summon minions who can be controlled like an RTS.
4. Internet play.  Impulse Reactor based "cloud" multiplayer gets in which should make getting games going very easy (fingers crossed).
5. Citadel upgrades.  Right now, things progress based on time.  In Beta 2, players will have to spend gold on Citadel upgrades to get access to more units, better units, etc.

We also have some surprises that we hope will make it into Beta 2 but we can't commit to that or whether they'd fall into Beta 3.

I started back in September on a 7 week diet.  With a beginning weight of 176, my goal was to get down to 165.  This is the first diet I've ever really been on.

At first, it went pretty well - a pound a week.  But around week 5, I hit 171 and have not managed to get past that.

To lose more weight I have to overcome one primary obstacle: Cold weather.  While I have a treadmill and elliptical at home,  I much prefer to exercise outside. So when the weather started getting cold in October, I found my average daily steps drifting downward.

In week 4, I was averaging over 10,000 steps a day.  In the last couple of weeks, that average has dropped in half. 

I've been finding it a lot easier to restrict what I eat than to take the time to get out and walk and such.

My wife and I got home from a romantic weekend and I discovered to my dismay that I was at 176 pounds. Now, my ideal weight is 165 given my height (5 foot 11) and this was the heaviest I've ever been.

Mind you, it's not the health issues or even how I look, it's the clothes. I don't want to have to buy new clothes.  So it's diet time.

Let me tell you a few things about dieting that you probably already know:

• Going from 2 cokes a day to water is not fun.
• Exchanging a glazed donut for an apple isn't enjoyable.
• Carrots are not nearly as good as BBQ potato chips.

So here's my goal chart which I'll be updating:

Week 1: Well, I didn't lose as much weight as I had hoped. I kept to the diet pretty well even walking on average 2 miles a day (4 miles on Sunday). I cut out soft drinks and candy and fudge. I did have Pizza on Sunday which probably didn't help but I also walked 4 miles and only had a salad for lunch. I'll just have to work harder this week.

Week 2: Still only lost a pound but did a better job watching what I eat. I did have a day night with my wife where I ate and drank which probably kept me from getting to 173.  I've increased the amount of exercise I'm doing starting with the elypitical machine twice a week.

Week 3: Lost a pound again.  I almost lost 2, just didn't get quite enough activity this past week.  I've started making more use of the treadmill and elyptical machine we have but the number of steps I took per day was pretty lousy. I only had 2 days where I exceeded the 10k minimum (average: 6723)  I'm much better about controlling what I eat which is probably the only reason I continue to lose weight.  I'm going to try to do better this week.  This week I'm going to try to get my average steps per day up while still maintaining my lowered food consumption. With any luck, I could lose 2 lbs.

Week 4: Lost another pound. I just barely got down to 172, it was a close thing.  I increased the amount of exercise I got this past week increasing my average daily steps to 10,639. I think I've reached the end of the "easy" weight loss. I found out that a Panera bread sandwich has typically 950 calories so there won't be any more of those.  My coke consumption is down to nil.  It will be interesting to see if I can get to 171 this next week.

Week 5: Lost my pound. I didn't think I was going to do it. My average steps dropped to 7572. Part of that was the trip up north. After 3 hours in the car, it's hard to get the umph to walk. But mostly, I was just busy with work.  I think there may be a little more "easy" weight loss left after all as I feel pretty confident I'll get down to 170lbs this week.  I'm pretty far behind my goal weight now (3 pounds) but the steady progress is encouraging.

Week 6: Didn't lose weight this week.  Between a business trip to California, Halloween candy, Halloween party, etc. I just didn't have time to exercise let alone watch my intake.

Week 7: No change.

I wrote this over on my neowin blog:

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?automodule=blog&blogid=8&showentry=2280

Bottom line: Given the choice between an SSD or running 64-bit with 8 gigs of RAM, get the extra RAM.

For those of you who have been in the Demigod beta so far, the thing to remember is that that build has been a mere engine test.

Beta 2 is where the real game mechanics come in. The actual "fun" part of the game really starts to show up.  Generals, upgradable Citadels, strategic objectives, etc.  It should also be the first big availability of ImpulseReactor's "cloud" multiplayer (if it works right, it should make getting games going a snap).  We're hoping to get this out before the Thanksgiving break.  

We are prepping a major update for Impulse for release prior to the upcoming release of Sins of a Solar Empire v1.1.

Version 1.1 of Sins of a Solar Empire is the first update to the award-winning PC strategy game to require Impulse for downloading the update.  During the beta process of Sins v1.1 we got a lot of feedback from players -- a lot of it very negative.

The first question people ask is, why are we requiring Impulse for Sins of a Solar Empire? We released a number of stand-alone patches for Sins earlier in the year so why require Impulse now?

There are a number of reasons. The most obvious reason is that Impulse wasn't available then. In the user manual for Sins of a Solar Empire we actually mention Impulse as it was intended to be used for updating the game.

But more importantly, Sins of a Solar Empire v1.1 is a gigantic update. It's even a bigger update in many respects than the recently released Galactic Civilizations II v2.0 (which also requires Impulse). Making a smart installer for it would have required a great deal of effort to keep the size under control. 

There's a lot to making game updates that aren't obvious. For instance, does the game update combined with the demo allow the player to have essentially a full game? You'd be surprised to discover how many games in the past have fallen into that problem. Having Impulse simplifies that sort of thing.

In addition, there's the issue of on-going support for Sins of a Solar Empire. Ironclad and Stardock want to put out more releases and make it easy for people to get the micro expansion packs such as Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment which is scheduled to go into public beta shortly. Impulse vastly simplifies and improves this user experience.

So what are some of the things we've done with Impulse that will be out soon?

Check out the screenshots below:

Besides the user interface being cleaned up, the performance has been significantly enhanced. It's a lot snappier all around, particularly on Windows XP systems.

Another addition is that tabs are only displayed when there are items in them. So if a program is being downloaded, a download tab shows up.  If there are updates, the update tab shows up. The idea is to provide a much cleaner experience.

So does this mean that Impulse is perfect? No. We still have a lot of features to add to it. We're always striving to make it better.

But hopefully users will be able to see some of the progress that's been made based on their feedback.  When Sins of a Solar Empire v1.1 ships, hopefully users will find Impulse to be something highly useful rather than as simply a download manager. 

Stay tuned!

So there's going to be a GalCiv II v2.01 soon.

Normally, this time of year, I would be playing a new PC game. But right now, I only buy new games from Impulse. I'm currently looking at The Witcher and Sacred 2. I'm going to get World of Goo this weekend for me and the kids.

But this past weekend, I played Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor which some of you know I helped develop and wrote the AI for.

And when I play, I always have the debugger open and so came up with some changes.

1. I made it so that tourism revenue grows slowly with time. Late game, I just don't like hitting the wall in terms of what I can do.

2. I made Terror Star techs a lot cheaper. Terror Stars are pretty powerful but so are Spore ships and they don't cost that much.

3. I made a new planetary super project called Fleet Command Centers that you get on Interstellar Construction. Once built, all your ships in orbit will work together as a fleet when any of your planets are attacked. This eliminates the old orbital fleet manager improvement.  I found it just too cheesy that I was able to go to a civ's capital planet, knock out their defense one by one with my mega fleet and take it which can often cripple an AI player.  It's too hard to defend against and too unrealistic so I changed it.

One of the best changes in 2.0 that I didn't really realize was going to make the game so much better was the change in weapon tech costs. It is now quite difficult to get up the weapons tree. Combined with other techs being less expensive (the removal of the big late game tech penalty) and you really end up having to seriously look at other strategies.

I've seen the AI start to finally build up influence starbases and economy starbases because the path to victory wasn't so obviously a simple climb up the weapon tree.

So this update should show up this week I think on Impulse. It should go along with the update for the European expansion bundle "Endless Universe" so that they can update via Impulse as well.

Object Desktop 2009, which is due out on November 19, will be including some pretty cool stuff.  For Vista users, they finally get BootSkin.  For XP users, they get animated wallpaper with DeskScapes.

Hi guys,

The media often requests we point them to some gamers who are well spoken and who are familiar with Stardock's games to talk to.

If you are interested in being interviewed by the press and such on the game industry and about Stardock's games, respond here.

Thanks!