I'm trying out the staged build of Demigod off of Impulse right now on my work machine.  Hopefully this will help players walk through what it's like.

I'll be updating this as I go along...

Installed. Running.

Into the game

My fresh install of Vista doesn't seem to cut it with the base nVidia drivers.

So I run dxdiag:

--------------- 
Display Devices 
--------------- 
        Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2 (Microsoft Corporation - WDDM) 
     Manufacturer: NVIDIA 
        Chip type: GeForce 7950 GX2 
         DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC 
       Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0294&SUBSYS_035B10DE&REV_A1 
   Display Memory: 776 MB 
Dedicated Memory: 504 MB 
    Shared Memory: 271 MB 
     Current Mode: 1920 x 1200 (32 bit) (59Hz) 
          Monitor: Dell 2407WFP (Digital) 
      Driver Name: nvd3dum.dll,nvapi.dll 
   Driver Version: 7.15.0010.9686 (English) 
      DDI Version: 9Ex 
Driver Attributes: Final Retail 
Driver Date/Size: 11/2/2006 05:46:12, 3022848 bytes

Wow. My drivers are over 2 years old.

So time to update my drivers...

Back to Impulse...

I click on Community and click on the nVidia tab and get my driver updated...

Once my drivers are updated, I re-run the game.

Ah, much better.

Remember to update your drivers!

... Game Play ...

These flags will become increasingly important over the betas. In the engine test, it's basically just about overpowering your enemy.  But over time, the way to do that will be through making strategic choices over which parts of the map you control.

This particular flag gives me access to better creeps who come out of the portal.  But other flags may provide all kinds of other interesting advantages.

This is the UI for beta 1.

On the left side are your 4 primary powers for your Demigod.  On the right side are 3 active item slots as well as your achievement slot.  The achievement slot is currently reserved for special items purchased with achievement points (these would not necessarily be available in skirmish games for those who want absolutely "equal" start ups).

The "1" button you see means I've gone up a level the right side is my player info.

This is the BETA 1 skill tree.  We plan to expand on this immensely over time. Our main goal for beta 1 was to settle on the UI.  Beta testers are free to suggest powers they'd like to see Demigods have (that is one of the benefits of being in the beta).

Keyboard commands:

• Use the SPACE BAR to control the view camera (i.e. hold space down while moving your mouse).
• Use the T key to have the camera track on your Demigod.
• Use the QWER keys to activate your abilities.

Just as a reminder here, folks, BETA 1 of Demigod is an engine test.  It is to see how well it works on a wider variety of hardware configurations.

For instance, my default nVidia 7950 drivers that came with Vista did not work right with the game.  

In addition, we can discover any and all Impulse problems people have with installing the game.  

Once in the game, the strategic features and content have been severely curtailed and a lot of visual content isn't even in.

If you are finding yourself enjoying the game, you should probably not play beyond beta 1 as future updates, will be so much more fun by comparison that it may cause permanent damage.

The bad news is that Google's recently released web browser, Google Chrome doesn't play well with WindowBlinds. It works but it's visually messed up looking.

The good news is that we have it it working internally but are working through some remaining issues. 

I love the new browser though I'm not sure I'm in love with their coding implementation.

The upcoming WindowBlinds 6.3 will support Google Chrome. Right now, changing skins while it's loaded still has to be dealt with and some skins naturally look funky since effectively the Google Chrome non-client area is huge.

Funny and insightful article..

http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2008/08/palin-in-comparison.html

Back by popular demand, Tom Francis of PC Gamer UK has begun writing a new epic diary of a Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor game.

The first one, released last year, was insanely good.  This is an absolute must-read.

Check it out here:

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=195920&site=pcg

We are back from PAX and what a week it was. PAX is definitely the best computer game trade show of its kind.

While there, Stardock, Gas Powered Games, and Ironclad showed off our latest and greatest and the teams got to know each other. We had a great time!

The Gamer's Bill of Rights, Demigod, Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment, and The Political Machine got a lot of attention.

Here are some scenes from the show...

 
Darth Vader approves of the Gamer's Bill of Rights...

Chris Taylor signs autographs

Blair and Craig (from Ironclad) demo Sins

Crowds watch Sins and Demigod get demoed

Chris Taylor (left) demos Demigod with Brad (Frogboy/Draginol) on the right with Brian Clair (Yarlen) standing right behind.

The Gamer's Bill of rights is a big hit at the show.

The Demigod station is very popular

Mike Mar (lead designer) demoes Demigod

The advent (Josie) at Pax.

The empire inspects Galactic Civilizations, recognizes Drengin threat.

Chris gets interviewed

Brad (Frogboy/Draginol) lives in fear of Karmagirl (for good reason)

Packing up to go

Stardock/Ironclad/GPG teams being silly and having fun.

So what do you do during your evenings? Me, I hunt around the various Stardock websites looking for problems. Yea, I have no life.  Our sites and servers are growing and evolving so fast that we often miss things.

Here's what I found tonight...

#1 CSS on Demigod journal messed up. Blog post the cause or something else?

#2 The Demigod pre-order page

Well first, we need to standardize on our description of Demigod. 

Demigod is an action RTS. It can be played as part of a team but I would not use team in there.

Second, it's confusing to have on this page that you have to order it directly through Stardock/Impulse when it's on the Demigod page.

#3 Coming soon page: Demigod

I'd clean up the language here. While Demigod makes a great team game, players can play 1 on 1 just fine.

#4 Coming soon page

Probably should add some other programs to the coming soon page soon like the Sins expansion pack, Fences, and other stuff coming up in the near future.

#5 WinCustomize link on various product pages (like CursorFX) should take the user to the proper gallery and not the home page. They should also use the &mode=1 to eliminate the right bar.

Example: https://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?libid=25&mode=1

Overall, the websites are looking in very good shape tonight.

This month we're going to put some extra effort to improve our forum experience.  One of the big things is the move to a clustered server back end which should dramatically improve the performance of our sites.

Below is a bug report on some of the things I've run across on our forums recently.

#1 Number of users on the forums

The forum statistics don't make any sense to me.  I know there's a lot more people on these forums than that because of the sheer number of responses.  I'd like to see either this statistic be all forums combined or removed entirely as it's not really interesting stats.

#2 The editor

This is the editor I get.  I think all users should get this rich editor too. Yea, it's possible to abuse it but I would rather err on the side of having a better forum experience.

#3 Quoting

In the stardock.com forum at least, when I quote something, I am still losing the carriage returns which is extremely annoying.

#4 Avatar images being weirdly sized

Some types of avatars aren't being resized correctly making the page look funny.

#5 Editing of comments

The forums are very inconsistent about editing a comment.  I think the general rule should be that anyone should be able to edit a post within say 10 minutes of their original writing. Period.

#6 User Profiles with more info

Overall, the forums have come along nicely. If we can get the speed in forum commenting that you get when commenting on blogs, that would be a big step forward too.

I'm still not voting for McCain or Obama (I don't like either) but the behavior of Democrats thus far towards Palin has been so disgusting that I don't think they realize how much they alienate people.

The current plan is get beta 1 out near the end of the week. 

• Beta 1 is the engine test.  It is not designed to be "fun". 
• You will be able to play it on the LAN (either against other people on the LAN or agaisnt AI players).
• If you want to play people over the Internet, we recommend installing Hamachi. We're not officially supporting Hamachi but it should work.
• The rook, regulus, and the Torch Bearer are the 3 Demigods we are including with it.
• The waterfall map is the map we're including with it.

What we are looking for is data on how well it performs on your machine, any incompatibilities you run into, any bugs you run into.  We are not looking for game ideas at this point, that will come with beta 2. Obviously, feel free to post game ideas but beta 1 does not really resemble what the final game will be like in any major way.

Reporting feedback:

1. Make sure you write your reports in the Demigod BETA forum.
2. Make sure your reports include your hardware configuration and OS (CPU, video card, OS, and sound card are the biggies).

We will be in the #Demigod channel on IRC which you can reach from Impulse.  You can type /join #demigod to get to it.

Good luck!