I'm really curious as to what people at WinCustomize think of Windows Vista.
From a customization point of view, Vista has some immense opportunities. But my fear is a real splitting of skinning between XP and Vista.
XP, let's face it, works pretty good. And it's been out for years. So getting people to switch to Vista may be a slow process.
What do you think?
The Korath are the warriors supreme of the Drengin Empire. When the Drengin Empire absolutely positively has to win, the call goes out and the Korath always answer. The Korath always win. The Korath were the ones who took the Torian home world thousands of years ago. If the Drengin are a bunch of ruthless, evil, conquerors, the Korath are that to the nth degree.
As the Terran Alliance was about to celebrate its victory over the Dread Lords, it was the Korath who led the charge to crush the increasingly powerful human civilization. The humans had never dealt with the Korath. And if they had, they would not necessarily have noticed the difference in prior times. But now, in the past couple of years, the physical difference between the Korath and other Drengin is quite noticeable.
The Drengin (and Korath) take pride that the Drengin home world has been unified under one supreme emperor for over 100,000 years. Until they met the seemingly benign humans from Sol 3, they thought this was a source of great advantage. But the pleasant negotiators of the Terran Alliance have a blood-thirsty past. And the Drengin and Korath have come to rue the day that they dismissed the evolved apes of Earth as being a race of merchants.
The Terran Alliance and Korath fought a series of battles for control of key parsecs. This is one of those battles.
(AI note: This is a test of the Korath computer AI, notes and changes and errors will be documented)
Game settings: Intelligent (AI playing at the same level as the human player)
Detailed look at the player setup. CPU usage is increased to allow advanced algorithms.
Terran Alliance base world: Poseiden. Two very special tiles
Korath base world: Karza'Dun. One very special tile.
Terran Alliance First 10 tech choices:
Korath First 10 tech choices:
The quadrant:
The center has two key worlds that the Terran Alliance will attempt to take. It has the advantage of knowing where the planets are (because this is a pre-canned map that I've played before whereas the Korath have to explore it).
Even split in galaxy.
Very close overall still.
Korath base world:
More built up but no super projects.
Terran base world:
Manufacturing capital constructed. But one tile not filled.
In 2227, both sides that military parity. But the Terran Alliance had invasion tech. In fact, the Korath were quite slow in focusing on their Spore weapon technology.
It was a walk over.
Their ships had an attack of 2 each, mine had 3. But they had adapted to the changing circumstances but now they only had 2 worlds to my 5.
In the end, it was over.
Two things in particular:
Mistake #1: Planet Construction.
VS. 
Their capital world had only a 34tp production on research with no research bonus additions. Mine was at 74 X 2X with the tech capital.
Mistake #2: Their research path
They should have focused more on their weapons earlier on. They didn't get their spore weapons until too late. Though really, looking at what techs they researched, the main problem was the home planet.
The Korath played badly. But as badly as they played, a lot was learned and it was largely in the tweaking of values that the solutions can be found.
Back to tweaking and adding new functionality to make it smarter.
The Dilbert comics are pretty good at demonstrating how much waste occurs in really large companies. Large companies, however, usually have enough momentum (or at least inertia) to absorb a heck of a lot of waste. But companies that are moving from being a "Start up" sized company to being a small/mid-sized company don't usually have that advantage.
Over the years, I've read a lot of books on building a business and one of the points that comes up time and time again is to beware of taking your eye off the prize. Or more to the point - don't take resources away from what made you successful in the first place to focus on delusions of grandier.
One of the most common things cited was that many companies fledgling executive teams are embarassed or ashamed of what made them successful and instead try to reinvent themselves as a "respectable" company. So they move away from what made them successful and focus on making products and services that they think are more prestigious. The results are predictable -- disaster and often the end of the company.
Some of the warning signs (paraphrasing) includes:
The things to look out for included:
The phrase "pride before the fall" is not an empty phrase. It is very true. The desire for corporate respect can override sound business judgment.
The start-up with the ugly website selling geeky stuff that changes its site to having a picture of a female model in a business suit with a pen with some meaningless phrase with high-minded catch-phrases that don't adequately describe the company's business objectives is something a lot of people have probably seen. During the dot-com bomb, many Internet start-ups skipped the first step and immediately jumped to the second step.
Over the past couple of years, Stardock has grown tremendously. Our revenue has increased nearly 700% in the past 5 years.
And where has that revenue come from? Basically two sources: Object Desktop (our suite of desktop enhancements) and the game franchise of Galactic Civilizations. We do make sizeable amounts from other sources, but you take away resources from those two things and we become a much smaller company in time.
So as we expand our company, the challenge is to ensure that we aren't taking away resources from what made us succeed in the first place. Instead, we need to bring on new resources to put into related ventures. Things that build on our existing success but don't supplant what we are already doing that works well for us.
Master Skins. What are they?
A Master Skin is a skin made by a user with Master access or higher that is premium content. On WinCustomize.com we have access levels:
Users can rise up through those access groups based on merit -- becoming part of the skinning community and contributing to it in the form of skins, themes, icons, wallpapers, helping other users, writing articles, etc.
Once they get to Master level, they can choose to submit a skin and ask for a price on it. By the time they've become a master, they've probably provided a lot to the community for a considerable amount of time. This becomes a way for users to "give back" to the skinner for all the hard work they've done as well as for the skinner to be able to help support their hobby.
It also provides an incentive for up and coming skinners to create great stuff to share freely with others. By doing so, they too move up through access and can one day become a master. Half the income generated by master skins goes to the author and the other half goes to help maintain the site. WinCustomize.com subscribers get a 20% discount on Master Skins.
Master skinner Adni18 has uploaded literally hundreds of skins and themes to WinCustomize.com over the past 6 years. In that time, his skins and themes have been downloaded over 11 MILLION times.
Today, Adni submitted a suite called Suite 18. It contains a WindowBlinds skin, 4 gadgets, a wallpaper. When he submitted it, he made it a Master skin for $9.99. If you're a subscriber, it is only ~$7.99 (though the price is only updated during the checkout phase).
Master Skins are integrated into the main gallery section. You'll see a little tag by the skin if it's a Master skin. Now some people are going to say "I shouldn't pay for skins". I'm not one to argue what people think they should pay for. One of my main "day job" activities is helping produce PC games. PC games make millions of dollars (GalCiv II certainly did). Are games worthy but skins aren't? I certainly don't make that distinction. What I do know is that if the community wants to encourage long-time skinners to keep making cool stuff, then making some income to help pay for computers and software and their time seems to be a pretty worthy thing.
I also like the idea that it provides an incentive to up and coming skinners to make stuff. Skinning is fun. It's supposed to be fun. But it can also be a lot of work too. I used to skin a lot a few years ago. But I'm not very artistic and with 3 small children, it's hard to find the time. But I applaud those who dedicate the time to share their great creations with the rest of us. And I am glad to have a way to contribute in my own way back to them. Plus, it provides another incentive to subscribe to WinCustomize.com and help keep the site growing and running.
Brandon "Sidebar Geek" LeBlanc covered an assortment of topics as they met with technology enthusiasts in different cities:
Several topics covered with visitors:
The adventure continues as they head to Washington DC and beyond! If you have IE7 you can track wher ethey are with the gadget located here.
There's a bunch of different versions of Windows Vista out there. But there's only 3 versions that most people will care about:
Home Premium includes Media Center which is very cool. Having been a Snapstream (BeyondTV) user and Tivo user, I have not been a fan of Media Center to say the least. But the Vista edition of it has won me over. It's just totally incredible. Windows Vista Business adds domain logons and better Remote Desktop Features.
So for power users, there's a problem -- I want/need to be able to remote desktop into my machine and I use my machine on a network of computers and the business edition has all kinds of goodies for working with networked PCs. On the other hand, I also want Media Center.
Microsoft predicted this and the result was Windows Vista Ultimate which combines them both. And just to sweeten the pot, Microsoft has also includes "Ultimate Extras". These are basically downloadable super-power toys that Microsoft provides as an extra benefit.
As some may be aware, Stardock worked with Microsoft on Windows DreamScene, the animated wallpaper feature. I'm quite a fan of the feature as many people have wanted animated wallpapers for years. And before some net-geek says "But dude, there's been animated wallpapers for years" my answer is: yea right. Because yea, we've all been using them right? Oh..no, wait, that's right, previous attempts sucked down massive CPU and did flakey things to the icons and icon text on our desktops.
By animated wallpaper I mean actual animation that a normal human being might actually use and not just a tech demo. Windows DreamScene plays loopable high-definition wallpaper. Like static wallpaper, you'll likely see obnoxious things be created and useful. For me, it's about subtlety. If it's not slowing down my computer, what do I care if my desktop background isn't static? You can read more about it here.
So then it boils down to cost. Which is where things get less fun...
UPGRADE PRICING:
Which means for Home Premium users they have to wonder whether Ultimate Extras, Remote Desktop, Network tools, and Domain logons is worth $100. I'd itemize it like this personally:
Total: $140. Now your mileage may vary on how much you think each of those is worth. I'm just saying how much those things are worth it to me. If the number adds up to over $100 then you're in a good shape. If not, then there's a problem.
Personally, Ultimate it where it's at. I want my cake and eat it too. I want to be able to Remote Desktop into my machine and I want to be able to have Media Center on it too. And having cool Ultimate Extras is icing on the cake.
Next week users of Object Desktop who have Windows Vista will be able to try out the first beta of LogonStudio. We will be adding a "Vista Logons" gallery to WinCustomize.com where users can share their replacement Windows Vista logons.
In the following weeks, we plan to get the Vista boot screen section up and running as well.
If you don't have Object Desktop, you can get it at www.objectdesktop.com.
On the hierachy of lameness, you have:
I am at the bottom.
I watch computer players play each other. To see what smart things they do in different situations and what dumb things they do. So much of good computer AI really boils down to play testing. The best algorithms in the world are no match for real world playing. And what looks like a good idea on paper can end up being a disaster in the real game.
The decision tree in Galactic Civilizations is actually pretty significant. Consider the choices it has to make. Then consider other strategy games you've played and think of the choices that have to be made there:
Some of these decisions are more complex than others. The one I have the most difficulty with is one of the more straight forward -- what to research and when. I've had others I've had to struggle with -- I didn't write, for instance, the planet improvement placement code in GalCiv II, but in Dark Avatar I've rewritten it (for better or worse) to something that matches more closely the way I play the game.
In most strategy games that have computer opponents, the decision tree is kept very small. Think through the games you've played and consider the # of actual decisions that the computer opponents have to make. And by decisions, I mean actual choices as opposed to choices that are pretty obvious.
Consider your first 20 turns of Galactic Civilizations II. What should you research? If you research the same thing (i.e. you script it) you become predictable. If you just have the computer players randomly select what it should research, it becomes pretty obvious and ineffective.
Having computer players that don't cheat makes it tough too. I can't just tell the computer players to send a colony ship to the closest uncolonized planet. It has to know about it or at least make a reasonable guess based not on real data but based on what the map looks like. Very often players will complain that the AI should have not done this or that without realizing that the AI made its decision because it couldn't see their ships or a planet. Sometimes players will insist that the AI must know where the good planets are because it did what most good players would do -- built a colony ship and sent it into a sector full of planets that were on the galactic sensor map (the odds were in its favor after all).
In most games with tech trees, players are pretty much expected to research every technology. In GalCiv, players are punished for doing that. The tech tree is too big. Players have to pick and choose which techs for their strategy for a particular game. That means the AI can't just randomly muddle through. It has to wisely pick. At lower difficulty levels, that's what I have the AI do -- randomly pick technologies. But higher up, people expect their opponents to be thinking about this stuff carefully -- and they do.
And so on a variety of maps, a variety of players, I watch them play each other. What's worse, I like doing it. 
We are quickly coming up to the day when Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar goes gold.
With the last beta being nearly feature complete, work has begun to be totally focused on making the computer AI make full use of the new features as well as make use of the new options that take advantage of Dualcore and Quadcore machines.
As some people know, the AI in GalCiv is not scripted but is instead based on a series of adaptive algorithms based on trying to play similar to a human player (or at least a human player who is role playing as an alien race). Each player has its own unique artificial intelligence engine which runs in multiple dedicated threads.
To see a running tab on how the computer players are doing, see the Journals area. There you will see the AI do stupid things and see how we tweak the algorithms so that it makes better decisions (usually based on making sure it has more information to make a decision on).
Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar will be released on February 14th. It is an on-line only release (i.e. you can only get it on its own here -- CD or digital download). Users who pre-order it will be able to start getting it early (how early we can't say yet).