Some changes are coming to WinCustomize.com.  Big changes.  But before we get to that, for those of you who haven't been here from the start, let me give you a brief history of WinCustomize.com...

...In the beginning the dot-com collapse of 2000 has knocked out many of the sites in our "skinning" community.  Many of us feared that it would be the end of our community. So in early 2001, Stardock quickly put together WinCustomize.com.  The idea at the time was that Stardock would provide the servers and bandwidth and community volunteers would take care of everything else.  That didn't work out so well and within the first month of the site's development, T-Man, a Stardock developer, had been put in charge of the site's development (which he continues to this day) and I came on as the primary administrator.  So that when the site was launched in March 2001, Stardock was taking care of the bandwidth, the servers, site coding, and overall site direction.  However, community volunteers did come to the rescue in the form of people like Jafo (and many others over time) who essentially take care of WinCustomize on a day to day basis.

But over time, the "skin" community has changed.  Despite skinning becoming increasingly popular, no major skin sites have been launched since 2001 (other customization-oriented sites have launched but no major gallery sites).  Moreover, since 2001, some of the existing skin sites have essentially gone on auto-pilot.  The skinning community, at its prime, was something to behold.  But it is not what it once was in my opinion. It is fractured and dispersed.

Meanwhile, traffic at WinCustomize.com has continued to grow and grow:

   
Figure 1: Traffic per month

At the same time, the # of subscriptions per month has declined and declined:

Figure 2: Subscriptions per month

So as a community of sites, we're at a cross-roads.  As someone who wants the skinning community (people who like to create and use "stuff" to alter the way their computer interfaces look & feel) to thrive, I want to do something that can help the community return to where it was.  But I'm also in the position of being in charge of Stardock.  The business case on WinCustomize has always been pretty weak.  The most profitable thing to do historically has been to close WinCustomize and just point to deviantART libraries of skins and themes for Stardock's software.  But at this point, closing WinCustomize.com would be a true last resort because a single site, deviantART, which is primarily an art site now, not a skin site, would have a virtual monopoly on skinning content (that's not to take away from Skinbase and other very good skin sites, but we're talking purely in terms of monthly traffic).

We're at a cross-roads then.  We have to get WinCustomize to a point where it can pay for itself.  I think the key to this is helping bring the skinning community back to its prime.  That means more community features, more galleries, more bandwidth, more programming, more of everything.  But to do this, it's going to cost money. Even with the people who volunteer, we still have to code the site, pay the bandwidth and the size of the site means that we need more people who's jobs are dedicated to the site.

So we've brought on two new people: Mike Bryant who many of you know.  He'll be creating some exclusive suites this year for WinCustomize subscribers.  We also have brought on WishX to help organize and keep the sites running, to interface more directly with the community volunteers.  And we hope to hire more ASP.net and SQL database developers to add in new features for people.  But to do this it's going to cost money. A lot of money.  Stardock writes most of the cost of WinCustomize off as "marketing".  But even today, WinCustomize costs many hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to run.  These changes are going to add dramatically to that cost. 

So later today, we're going to launch a subscription drive.  Our hope is to get 2,000 new (or renewed) subscribers between now and October 31st.  We'll be keeping you all informed of our progress. With 22 million visitors (over 3 million of whom are unique), getting 2,000 people to subscribe or renew shouldn't be a major problem we hope.  But we'll see.  We'll have more details on the subscription drive and what subscribers will be getting for sure and what they'll get IF we make the 2,000 goal.

Holy cow are things going fast now.  Up till now, it's been engine building. And even now, it's still engine building. But now we're starting to get into gameplay features which are far more fun.

Fleets are in. Totally in. Of course, at the AI guy, I have to get the AI to effectively use them.  I just finished working on the AI's handling of the planetary improvements.  The planet surface code is all done with STL which I'm a bit sketchy with.  So my first crack at it was a bit weak.  This time, it's better. Not great. But better.  The AI doesn't know how to upgrade its planetary improvements yet. I will have to go through and do that.  That's going to be interesting to do.

It's easy to write fast AI code. And it's easy to write really smart AI code.  But it's really hard to write fast and smart AI code.  And that's the conumdrum I always have.  For instance, in GalCiv I, my biggest beef was that the AI didn't update its ship orders between turns. That is, if you moved your ship, the AI couldn't attack it because it "moved".  That was because of the time it would take for the AI to "update" its ships.  This time, I'm going to fix that.  CPUs are faster and I'll use that extra processing power there.

Another thign I'm going to do is completely re-do the way the AI goes to war.  Fleets change things a lot and make things potentially easier.  I have my fears about the balancing of the weapons techs still but since I do that too, at least I can tweak that myself as I discover exploits. 

The way the AI did war in GalCiv I was based on a military concept of projections of force.  I would identify a sector I wanted to militarily control and then figure out how many ships I needed to control it and send them in there.  The problem came in when trying to coordinate my groups of ships.  In a tiny or small galaxy, the AI ships woudl come in groups quite nicely.  Since I was running in the debugger (Which is much slower), I tended to play the game on very small galaxy sizes and the result was nice.  But as you moved up in size, the ships had more and more of a problem getting to the target at the same time.  As a result, ships would come in dribs which looked like, to me and our critics, as the usual "death march" of lame AI that we've seen for decades. 

But with GalCiv II, I've got better tools.  First, Altarian Prophecy introduced the Rally Point system.  The AI, thanks to the "not cheating" design, can make use of the same stuff as humans and vice versa since the engine doesn't make a distinction between players.  So the AI can set up rally points on ships to move together.  And now with the fleet code, I can group them together more easily.  I am also going to add in code so that even if I don't build fleets (due to lack of logistics units for instance) I will set a "slower" speed for ships that can't keep up so that when you're attacked, you know it. They come in waves of massive fleets.

I'm also going to put more work into having the AI clue the player in on what it's thinking.  There's a lot of calculations the AI does that humans don't even know about that could make the game more exciting.

We're starting to move forware more on the tech tree.  I hope people like our philosphy on it.  In GalCiv I, it was based on the OS/2 version of the tech tree which was based on the tech tree not being tightly coordinated with the rest of the game.  In GalCiv II, the techs  tie into something in the game. So it's much more linear.  You have techs called Plasma Weapons IV for instance (as opposed to "Advanced Phase Induction" or something like that).  You research a technology because you want something specific out of it.  So there's a lot fewer essoteric techs in there.

I sure hope people like the fleet battles. I think they're cool. But I think some people are going to think "Why can't I control my ships?".  It's a playback of the battle, not a tactical battle element.  I hate tactical battles in strategy games.  Hate them.  The reason is that they're so time consuming. I am the guy who always pressed "Auto" in Master of Orion.  But I also knew that I wasn't playing the game optimally by doing that because the AI is never going to be as good as a skilled player at tactical combat.  Our combat system is essentially like a forced "auto" of the MOO 2 thing except with 2005 3D graphics.  If you watch a battle in cinematic view, it's a lot like watching a battle from Star Trek TNG.

Speaking of MOO, people who only played MOO need to remember -- GalCiv isn't Master of Orion.  GalCiv for OS/2 was a contemporary of MOO 1 for DOS back years ago.   GalCiv I was in public beta back in 1993.  It's a different game.  As much as I like the MOO series, I don't want GalCiv to be MOO. 

There were 3 points from MOO1/2 that I particularly don't want to emulate (and bear in mind, I'm a huge MOO2 fan, I played MOO2 in the delivery room waiting for my first born -- true story):

1. MOO 1/2 always ended in a genocide race. Each side collected huge fleets and then just wiped out each other's planets so it was a race to see who killed off the other.
2. MOO 1/2 had tactical combat which I really don't like in a strategy game.  If I want tactical combat (And sometimes I do) then I'll play Homeworld which does it very well.
3. MOO 1/2 had starlanes.  I like free-form maps. It worked for MOO since you're parking fleets around.  But in a free form map like GalCiv, you have to limit fleet sizes and distribute up military power.

So while I sympathize that many MOO 1/2 fans are looking for a MOO 4, GalCiv isn't designed to be it.   It has its own set of strengths and weaknesses that make it a unique gaming experience.

Anyway, Beta 4 should be out before Halloween.  It'll be still a beta (read: buggy and incomplete) but it'll be well on its way to final by then. It's not quite fun IMO yet, but it's getting there.  Beta 4 will be open to those who pre-ordered the game.

The first public beta of WindowBlinds 5 is almost here.  Stardock released the alpha this week to its internal QA team to put the program through its compatibility testing before sending it out.  WindowBlinds 5's most notable new feature is the ability to support "glass" and full alpha blending of the title bar and border (no more jaggy borders).  The critical step has been to deliver this functionality without affecting performance for reasonably modern video cards.

In addiion, WindowBlinds 5 no longer has a "wbload.exe" and instead extends the painting of the Windows GUI in a more "native" way.  Or put another way, it has "zero foot print" in the same manner that the default bundled Windows themes (msstyles) use. 

Users who have Object Desktop will be able to try out the beta next Tuesday (Oct 4).  Users of WindowBlinds 4 will be able to upgrade to Object Desktop at a reduced price.  Moreover, users who purchased WindowBlinds 4 after September 1 will receive WindowBlinds 5 for free.

WindowBlinds 5 will also be designed to run on Windows Vista natively by the time Windows Vista ships (the beta of WindowBlinds 5 should run on the beta of Windows Vista though the Windows Vista GUI is still in a state of flux obviously).

The new Treo 700W has been announced and is using a version of Microsoft's Windows mobile.  For years, PalmOS and Microsoft's mobile OS (Window CE, PocketPC, etc.) have battled for the hearts and minds of users.  Palm's Colligan, in full Lucutus mode stated "If you've been in this business long enough, you know that partners sometimes compete and competitors sometimes partner."

Palm did not discuss how it will use the Palm OS in conjunction with the new hardware it showed off Monday. But the company has said it plans to continue developing products, including smart phones, based on the Palm OS.

Full story over at CNET.

Last week I was at PDC getting the latest news on what Microsoft is working on. 

And for those interested in self-torture, you can hear my report on PowerUser.tv in a special Friday segment.

The full new episode will be on Monday with the entire PowerUser.tv gang.

Found this over at Neowin...People slavering to get Apple's "impossibly small" iPod Nano into their sticky hands may want to pause a moment: those ahead of them in the queue have discovered that it's also unbelievably easy to scratch the screen, nixing its photo-displaying abilities. Apple's discussion forums are already host to a 188-post thread on the topic, where people have spotted that the plastic used for the screen and front of the product is as sensitive as a Kate Moss sponsor.

Trouble is that a few scratches will quickly make the color screen all but useless for viewing album art and photos stored on the machine. In which case you might as well have bought the cheaper, screen less iPod shuffle, hmm? When the point was put to the head of Apple's iPod division, Jon Rubenstein - who in the past oversaw the development of the Titanium PowerBook - the one that killed off Wi-Fi reception, because metal cages do that - he replied: "Nah, you don't really think that? It's made of the hardest polycarbonate... You keep it in a pocket with your keys?"

(received this in my email today)

For your review:  An outstanding rebuttal (published in National Review) to novelist and occasional New Orleans resident Anne Rice's op-ed which appeared in last week's New York Times.

September 07, 2005, 8:26 a.m.
We Failed You? Try Again.
Anne Rice blames America, not local officials.

"To my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs." - novelist and New Orleans resident Anne Rice

Let me get this straight.

Ms. Rice, you live in (what was) a very attractive city which lies below sea level. On one side you have a giant lake; on the other side you have the Gulf of Mexico. Running through the middle is the Mississippi River. All of which are above you.

Preventing those giant bodies of water from flooding and drowning you are levees. These levees are described as "century-old." People have been warning about the devastating effects of a direct hit from a hurricane for decades.

I've heard a great deal of complaint in recent days that the federal government may not have allocated enough money to speed up the upgrades to those levees. This does, however, raise the question of why city and state residents were waiting around for the federal government to send enough money to upgrade this, instead of paying for it themselves. I mean, it was only your homes, businesses, and lives at stake. Perhaps these upgrades would have been expensive. If only this city had some sort of events to attract tourists, from which to collect taxes.

Anyway, your state and local officials decided to spend your tax dollars on something else that they (and presumably you) found more important, and then they waited for the rest of the country to pay for these life-preserving necessities.

Your beloved city and region has a colorful political history, in which there is, oh, a wee bit of corruption. I'm from New Jersey, so I can't throw stones at that glass house. But you guys have managed to pick leaders who give you the worst of both worlds - they're scandal ridden and incompetent in a crisis. Look, Rudy Giuliani might have run around with Judith Nathan before his divorce, but he was a hell of a leader in our darkest hours. You know the National Review crowd isn't a fan of Pataki, but the man was a rock after 9/11 compared to Governor Weepy I'll-Evacuate-Eventually and Mayor It's-Everybody's-Fault-Except-Mine. Nobody's throwing around the adjective "Churchillian" about any of your officials these days. We didn't pick your local officials; you guys did.

Rice asks, "how many times did Gov. Kathleen Blanco have to say that the situation was desperate? How many times did Mayor Ray Nagin have to call for aid?"

Ahem. What about those buses left unused, less than a mile from the Superdome? JunkYardBlog notes that it's written in the Southeast Louisiana Evacuation Plan that buses are supposed to be used for evacuation of those who don't have personal vehicles. As JYB observes, "there is something very peculiar about a city and a state that have a plan on the books for years that outlines what to do when a hurricane is about to strike, yet when a hurricane comes roaring in, the responsible officials just chuck the plan and try winging it. Delaying and then winging it in the face of a monstrous Cat 4/5 hurricane is never, ever a good idea, especially for New Orleans." (See more here.) Ironically, Nagin told CNN, "I need buses, man," when he had plenty sitting around unused before the storm hit. Now they're flooded and useless.

But it's not like state and local officials could have seen this coming. They have never had a hurricane bearing down on them before and... oh, wait, there was Hurricane Ivan just last year. And after that dodged bullet, Blanco and Nagin both acknowledged they needed a better evacuation plan.

I would note that we've seen some pretty intense disasters in other parts of the country, like planes crashing into skyscrapers and subsequently collapsing, earthquakes, tornadoes, blizzards, and yet somehow, none of these disasters had the total breakdown of law and order, civil society, etc. Jonah Goldberg's early joke about a Mad-Max style post-apocalyptic tribal anarchy may have been in poor taste, but it has turned out to be nightmarishly prescient.

We failed you? No, oh brilliant creator of Exit to Eden, you failed. You might not think of it this way, but: Your leaders failed to upgrade the levees. You elected a bunch of weepers and blame-shifters who lost their head in a crisis.

Over the past decades, your elected officials have let a criminal element incubate and grow until they ruled the streets, instead of the forces of law and order. In pop culture, a New Orleans thief is always a charming rogue with a devilish smile. In reality, they're a bunch of thugs.

If the number of residents who are looting thugs were such a "tiny minority," we wouldn't have seen this widespread, relentless anarchy. Madam, a noticeable number of your neighbors saw this disaster as an opportunity to smash a window and run away with a television, an act that reveals much about the inadequacies of the local school system, since that thief won't be enjoying that television with any electricity anytime soon.

I would also note that this is one hell of a police force your local officials hired and that you and your neighbors tolerated. 50 percent turned in their badges during the crisis and quit. Your police superintendent is conceding that some cops were looting. Just want to refresh your memory - four years ago, New York and Washington, planes falling out of the sky, thousands dead, no idea what the hell is coming next... and the cops, among others, showed up to work.

To save you guys now, I - and a lot of other Americans - will pitch in. We are witnessing the biggest mobilization of civilian and military rescue and relief crews in history. But I have a sneaking suspicion you're going to want the rest of us to pay for the rebuilding of your city. (In the near future, we're going to have to have a little chat about the wisdom of building below sea level, directly next to large bodies of water.) And if you're going to come to the rest of us hat in hand, demanding the rest of us clean up after your poor judgment, I'd appreciate a little less "you failed us" and a little more "we've learned our lesson.