I don't know about you guys, but I am looking forward to Supreme Commander.

For those of you not familiar with it, it's a RTS being made by Chris Taylor's Gas Powered Games.  CT made the game Total Annihilation back in the late 90s which IMO is by far the best RTS that has ever been produced.

Rather than relying on a rock-paper-scissors type system, Total Annihilation introduced two pretty innovative concepts -- 1) Damage handled by the physics engine and 2) Pay as you go spending.

By damage handled by the physics engine that means shots can simply miss. Units have speeds and manuevability.  So you will literally see shots miss the target.  Having this extra dimension removes the need for things like "Unit A does 2X damage against Unit B".  It also eliminates the classic "I'll just build 50 of the same unit.." because some units move and fire drastically slower (which means they can get picked off by other means).

By pay as you go, this is my favorite part as it dramatically reduces the click-fest and micro management in RTSs.  In most RTS games, you can't build something until you have enough resources.  In TA, the building orders were decoupled from resources.  They still required X energy and Y metal to build, but different constructor units build at a rate of X energy and Y metal (which also meant that you could build things faster if you threw more units onto the structure). 

As a result, players could plan out their construction strategy at their leisure without even paying attention to how much energy and metal (the two resources in the game) that were stockpiled. The key was rate of resources coming in, not how much you had on-hand.

It also helped that it had terrific unit AI and an incredibly rich and intuitive user interface. 

I loaded up TA today and played with my son and it's amazing how well the game has aged.  This is a game that was probably developed around 1997.  Think back to that time, its competitor was Warcraft 2 and later Starcraft.  It was a 3D engine (software since back then no 3D hardware could support the kind of resolution people wanted) that could play at any resolution. The maps can be huge, there are tons of units, and tons of modding support and map making. Even today, it continues to thrive because players can make their own units and supply them to the game.  Even the AI was moddable (the game's AI was HORRIBLE, even for the time but modders improved that to the point that it's an excellent non-cheating AI).

Which brings us back to Supreme Commander.  How good it will be remains to be seen.  Total Annihilation was a niche game where as with SC, Gas Powered Games is hoping to make a more mainstream title. That worries me a tad. The website shows very few units per side (Total Annihilation had dozens of units per side to choose from which provided a high variety of strategies).  But the videos of it look impressive and with a hardware 3D engine, the zoom in and out looks great (and like TA, it has gigantic maps rather than the tiny maps we see in most RTS's such as Age of Empires 3, Rise of Legends, etc.).

So that's the game I'm looking forward to the most.  What about you?

The first video podcast for PowerUser.TV is coming but it's going to be long -- over an hour.

So you'll definitely want to get it from somewhere that can STREAM the video rather than downloading it as it will be huge.

The Reluctant

A Graphic Novel Outline

Brad Wardell, August 2006

Chapter 7: Legacy

Previously...
Act I

DL wakes and finds himself laying on a bed.  What should have been a mortal wound has nearly healed and his other cuts and bruises are gone.  It is dark.

An unknown voice in the room says into a communicator “He’s awake.”

Moments later, Agent Bill Gerard, a second man in a black suit and Mr. Miller enter the room.

DL: How long have I been here?

Agent Gerard: Two days. You’ve been asleep.

DL: Where’s Ethan?

Frank Miller: He’s in the guest wing. It’s late at night and he’s sleeping. He’s fine.

Agent Gerard: I’d like to introduce you to someone you may recognize, Walter Ableson, President of the United States.

DL: Mr. President, I don’t know what to say. Your…presence indicates that this…scuffle with the Intruders has altered things more than I would have thought.

President Ableson: More than any of us would have thought. All intruders world wide have disappeared.  In every country, they simply left. We don’t know what that means.

DL: Not necessarily a good thing.

President Ableson: I agree.  So what are we going to do?

DL: We? There is no ‘we’.

President Ableson: How can you say that? You have killed 4 of the 12 intruders on this planet. There is obviously something unusual about you. You are not one of them, but you are clearly not human.

DL: Oh, I’m human.

President Ableson: Then help us.

DL: I talked to Frank here, my father-in-law about this just before the Intruders attacked me at home. It isn’t my war.  As long as they leave my family alone, it’s not my concern.

President Ableson: But you have the power to do great things. Don’t you feel a moral obligation to help your fellow man?

There is a pause in the room as DL considers these words. They are words he himself has wrestled with many times over the years. Choosing the right words to explain to the President required thought.

DL: It’s not that simple, Mr. President.  There is no possible way you and I can ever relate to each other.  I am cursed.  I am cursed to live forever. I have lived thousands of years -- many thousands of years. And the thing I’ve learned is that human existence is transient. Fleeting.

My family – my son Ethan, they are what matter to me. And while I could spend a human lifetime solving the world’s problems, I would miss out on my son’s life. That’s time I can never get back.

And as hard as this is to hear, if you live long enough, problems like these Intruders come up time and time again.

Agent Gerard: What do you mean? Human civilization is barely two thousand years old and in that time there’s never been anything like the Intruders here.

DL doesn’t answer immediately. Carefully weighing his words DL finally responds:

DL: I am human, but I never said I am of your Earth.

President Ableson: You’re not from Earth?

DL: Sure. I’m from Austin Texas.  But I was born in the year 2188.

Agent Gerard: Time travel!

DL: No, not exactly. And it’s a long and complicated story. But imagine there being an infinite number of parallel worlds. I believe there’s a theory called “string theory” or at least you’re that far along the path to understanding this sort of thing.  

I eventually learned how to travel to these parallel worlds. Each one is in its own time phase.   I have lived many lifetimes in many parallel worlds each with its own problems.

On my Earth, there were no “Intruders”.  The United States fought in additional wars after the Korean war but they were against countries like North Vietnam and Iraq, not aliens. 

President Ableson: Alternate Earths. That is amazing. Immortality and power. Quite a gift.

DL: Not a gift. A curse. Forever is a very long time.  Ask yourself, what would you do with forever? Think about that. We’re really not designed to live forever.

I have lived so many lifetimes in different times…which brings me back to the question about why not go out and fight a crusade to make this particular Earth safe from its own peculiar super menace.

If you live long enough and travel to enough parallel worlds you will find there’s always some tyrant or demon or dread lord or some other power or horde.

And power is alienating. The more you use, the more it controls you and the more people become afraid of you. The nature of my…empowerment is unholy. It is corrupting. I try not to use it. The longer I live, the more empowered I become so my destiny may be futile, but that changes nothing in the present.

President Ableson: And so you won’t help us?

DL: As long as they don’t try to harm my son, I won’t interfere. He is my priority. In the blink of an eye, you all will be gone and I will be just as you see me now. I don’t want to miss that time with my son.

President Ableson: Then what of your son when he passes on?

DL: Then I will leave and find another lifetime.

President Ableson: Then consider this, DL Bradley – your son will grow old and die for certain. But he will probably also have children. And they will have children. Those descendants are of your flesh and blood.  What of them? What legacy would you give to them? A world dominated by evil and oppression? A world where their children could be taken from them – your grand children and great grand children to be taken to some alien world for who knows what monstrous reasons? Is that the legacy you want to leave?

DL, to his surprise, realizes he had never given that a lot of thought.  DL had never had a child who grew up and had their own children. The thought of having grand children hadn’t really crossed his mind in the practical realities the President had just put forward.

DL: Very well Mr. President, what do you want me to do?

Next: Destinations.

Last Friday we were about to deliver the new beta of Galactic Civilizations II v1.3 when I got a call from home about a different delivery that came earlier than expected.

After a nearly 9 month beta cycle, Baby 3.0 (code-named "Ashley") was released on Saturday. 

But we have released beta 2 and today beta 2a (see link below to see what's new in this build).  A couple long-asked for tweaks have been made including diagnol scrolling and a new planetary lights system for the dark side of colonized planets that grows with population (it actually came out a lot neater than we expected so check it out).  The AI also got some new tweaks in terms of handling what it builds on planets so let us know if you notice a difference.

If you have Galactic Civilizations II already and want to try out a beta (Which WILL have bugs in it so don't download it if glitches really are a problem for you) you can get it via Stardock Central.

The final 1.3 should be out later this month or next month. There's no set date since we're just basically putting in new features, tweaks, etc. and putting them up as betas until we get closed to delivering the Dark Avatar expansion.

We hope you like what you see.

Robert McLaws says Apple has Vista envy. And I think he's right.  MacOS X, which is currently the best desktop OS out there in my opinion, is starting to feel the heat from Windows Vista.

Rather than wait for Vista to actually ship, Apple has taken a preemptive whining about Microsoft "stealing" their ideas.

Here are two free clues for Apple:

Clue #1: Sometimes an idea is so obvious that people will come up with it independently.

Clue #2: Sometimes what you put into the OS has already been out, were you copying?

With Apple's new MacOS, Leopard, Apple is touting a number of features such as Time Machine (basically a brute force version of Stardock's KeepSafe which, no doubt, will have Apple zealots eventually retroactively claiming they had it first).

The most obnoxious thing of the show as reported by LonghornBlogs is Apple tweaking the Vista logo to make it look like Microsoft just took the Windows logo and put it in an Aqua bubble:

Bad move since anyone can look at the actual Vista logo and tell that no, that's not it.

An article on WinCustomize.com asks "Why do people hate the Mac so much?". It's not that people hate the Mac. It's fantastic hardware with a terrific OS.  It's the pretentious, elitist Mac users people don't like.  Users falsely claiming that Apple was first to put some feature into the OS (or some Apple ISV) despite the feature existing on Windows for years. Mac users acting as if they are superior for choosing a Mac over a PC (hey, I'd buy a Mac Pro for video editing but it doesn't support mini-DVD camcorders which I absolutely favor).

Apple tactics such as the "Redmond, start your photocopiers" nonsense and it's obnoxious ads absolutely encourage its rabid fanbase to behave so loathsome that I know plenty of people who won't buy a Mac simply because they don't want to be associated with "those 'people'".

By all accounts, MacOS X Leopard is going to be outstanding and coupled with state of the art hardware, it's in a great position. Let the quality of the product speak for you -- not endless whining and pontificating. Be the platform of true power users, not the platform for pretentious weenies who think getting a Mac will somehow make up for all the wedgies they got in highschool.

Here's the first set of pictures. Thanks for all your well wishes. Will add more as I get them.

Ashley not happy to be on the outside	Why am I here?	Sweet little girl	Daddy feeds Ashley	Daddy and Ashley
Mommy is relieved	Grandpa	Nana and Alex	Sibblings

Here's a picture of Ashley, less than a day old and she's already got me wrapped around her finger.

Our boys are also caught in her spell.  Most of yesterday they took turns holding her as grandparents and neighbors came and visited the newest entry into the family.

She's so cuddly and sweet.  We're so very thankful for her.

Debbie's at the hospital now.  Only a few hours to go.  I've managed to get a very low powered connection to the net via my Verizon wireless connection. Not fast enough to do very much but fast enough to hang out on #stardock and #joeuser and #galciv on irc.stardock.com if anyone's interested.

(on as Frogboy)

I just got the call from my wife that she's going into the hospital to have our third child so it's not looking good that we're going to get this up tonight. I am pulling the updates from the team and putting them together.

The hospital does have Internet access so if it's a long labor..well I might be able to use Remote Desktop to make the build and upload it... (whack as my wife kills me)

Some of the (okay a lot of the fixes) were things to fix things we bugged in beta 1.

In the meantime, here's what's supposed to be in there:

 + Colony lights on dark side significantly enhanced. Now based on population and uses a smart algorithm to fit the land masses. There's a ton of changes associated with this, it's probably overkill but it's been on our list for awhile to make the city lights on planets look better.

 + NEW! Diagonal Edge scrolling for those who prefer to use edge scrolling instead of using the left mouse button to grab the screen and move it.


 + fixed intelligences displaying incorrect value on Foreign Stats screen

 + fixed beta 1 bug where fleets would not have an icon in the stacked ships list

 +  fixed beta 1 crash in moon graphics code

 + fixed bug where freighters would in some cases revert to normal size after an ALT+TAB (very weird behavior)

 +  Updated AI so that it won't launch a transport with too few troops on it.

 +  changed behavior of fleet battles such that if fleet was in a battle and survived with one ship, the moves left for that ship would be not the expected number

 +  tweaked UI to support tech centering on selected technology when the tech tree was maximized and a new technology was completed

 +  listbox scrollbars support maximum entries.

 +  tweaked regional settings that was causing the messed up planet surfaces, missing components on ships, etc.

 +  improved keyboard entry for non English characters

  +  fixed beta 1 memory bug caused by loading save games (save games saved with 1.3 beta 1 cannot be fixed and you should delete them)

 +  the tech dialog that is brought up by right clicking on a tech in the trade screen or in the maximized tech tree viewer will now accurately list techs that become available when researching the selected tech. Also, the headers in this dialog will now only show up if they have something

 +  fixed random crash when starting/loading new game from within a game

 +  planet and ship list entries are no longer created as the planets and ships are restored from the save game

 + Made it so that if you played as one race and then started a new game as a new race, the previous race did not have the expected intelligence.

+ Misc. tweaks and fixes.

+ Still to be done: AI changes.