Stardock was showing off two games at this year's E3. Galactic Civilizations II, of course, and a new game called Society. Society won't go into beta until after Galactic Civilizations II ships. But you can check out some details on it:
Gamespot has some screenshots of the upcoming Beta 2 of Galactic Civilizations II. The interface has been significantly changed and many other tweaks.
Beta 2 will be available to those woh have pre-ordered the game in about two weeks.
Microsoft's next generation OS, Longhorn has a lot of features that make it compelling to computer users everywhere. But element of it that is looking very exciting is the ability for developers to create software to customize it. Longhorn comes with a new rendering engine called Avalon. It's through Avalon that Longhorn will be able to deliver things like Aero Glass, a new user experience that includes title bars with semi-transparent borders.
The ability for software developers to integrate into Longhorn (without compromising security), at this stage anyway, looks very promising. When combined with the impressive list of technologies in Longhorn, users and companies alike will be in a very good place. A place in which they'll be able to customize the next generation version of Windows to suit their needs.
Whoever is in charge of Xbox Live over at Microsoft should have a bronze sculpture made. His left arm holding onto a Xbox 360 and his right arm grasping towards the sky. I say that because while the Xbox 360 games we saw weren't impressive, the plans they have for Xbox Live on the 360 are amazing. They're so brilliant that in hindsight it seems obvious -- let people buy smaller games via Xbox Live and download them right away.
They're starting their Xbox Live game purchasing out on a smaller scale with Xbox Live Arcade. They handed me a Ms. Pac-Man DVD to play on my Xbox when I get home. But people will be able to buy "smaller" games electronically via Xbox Live and have them to play. Very cool. It opens the door for all kinds of game development. Just when you think the consoles are shutting the door on the sub-$10 million dollar game product, something wonderful like this happens. I could see Xbox Live's on-line game buying system being a significant purchasing factor for gamers.
And while I was all stoked up from that, I encountered a wonderful surprise in the form of Heroes of Might & Magic V. Ubi Soft is really serious about revitilizing this series and it shows in what they have. The new HOMM sports a state of the art 3D engine that is applied to the game in such an ideal way that it is as if they read our minds. The battles are so cool now, reminded me of the heady days of the Amiga version of Archon. And the world itself allows you to zoom in incredibly close to things (not worm coming out of apple close but pretty close) all the way out to seeing a good chunk of the map.
Not everything was warm and fuzzy though on the show floor. Nokia is still pushing the n-Gage. The n-Gage is a cellular phone that can play fairly impressive games. This is the second iteration of the product. The first iteration required you to remove the battery in order to change games. I suspect any momentum they may have possibly have had died that day. You have to give Nokia credit -- they're really trying. But I think the ship has sailed on that one. Their booth was usually pretty empty compared to others to the point that it often appeared more like a walk through area to get to booths near it.
I admit I'm not usually a fan of portable game consoles like Gameboy but I have to say that the Sony PSP is pretty damn cool. If I was permitted to move away from my desk more often I would probably be tempted to play that. But of course, that would take precious time away from World of Warcraft which I could stop playing any time I want. I DO NOT HAVE A PROBLEM...
Peter Molyneux's "The Movies" does look very cool. Like most of his designs, they are brilliant. As long as he's able to make it reach its potential it could be one of the real stars (no pun intended) of the game market when it comes out. On a sad note, one game I was really looking forward to learn more about, Will Wright's Spore, I was unable to get a glimpse at. But it sure does sound cool.
Meanwhile, I was very pleased with how the stuff we were showing was received. Society, our massively multiplayer strategy game that we're developing drew particular interest.
That's all for tonight. Tomorrow I take the plane home and will go over my full notes, videos, pictures, incriminating booth babe evidence and start compiling things. Stay tuned!
E3 is such a mad house this year. And for good reason - three huge console announcements competing for our attention. Microsoft has a bit of an advantage with their Xbox 360 being a little closer to reality than the Nintendo Revolution or Playstation 3. On the other hand, there was a depressing lack of booth babes. And what is E3 without booth babes?
XBOX 360 or 1.5?
Xbox 360 is going to be backward compatible with existing Xbox titles which may help make up for the relatively negative impressions that they gave off at the show. Nearly everyone I talked to was pretty disappointed with the Xbox 360 games being shown. The term "Xbox 1.5" was used quite often and it was hard not to notice the Mac boxes that were used to power the games.
You could say it's unfair to judge the Xbox 360 based on these demos because the machines used to power the demos are only 1/3rd as powerful as the eventual hardware. But it's not like Sony used some Jedi mind trick on Microsoft to force them to show the Xbox games before they were ready for prime time. The reality is, the Xbox 360 games were not impressive. They looked like year old PC games. Turning on anti-aliasing might have at least helped matters a tad. Microsoft would have been better off with canned demos I suspect.
Remember when they made games for computers
The good news from E3 is that apparently game developers still make PC games. Not many PC games but still, there were some. The PC vs. Console wars go on via Usenet and other Internet sources routinely. But the real status of the war can be felt each year at E3 as the PC games take up less physical space. In the good old days, the South Hall was devoted mostly to PC games and the West hall to console games. Now, the South Hall has a lot of console games too.
Mmm. Age of Empires III..
I did manage to find Age of Empires 3. I had to go to a relatively small two-story booth to find it, but I did. And at the risk of sounding like a mindless fanboy -- best RTS ever possibly. But Age of Empires 3 will rock not just because of its graphics, which are impressive, but I think it's the physics engine that will make people drool. I know I did which was embarrassing as I was wearing a white shirt. Canon balls ripping through a building is a sight to see. I'm so excited to get AOE 3 and it should be out by Christmas.
The funniest canned video was the Civilization IV demo. It was a video that talks about being addicted to Civilization. I know that it was playing the original Civilization that I was able to tell my mom back years ago that the birds start singing at exactly 4:45am. I think there are a lot of people reading this who can relate to being addicted to Civ. The demo was light on showing the chocolatey goodness of Civilization but from what I did see, it was incredibly cool. I don't want to build it up too much but it looked better than ten superbowls..
I also got to check out Rise of Legends. That looked pretty cool too. Its graphics aren't quite Age of Empires III quality which may be problematic since it comes out afterwards. But no matter, if its game mechanics are anywhere near as good as Rise of Nations, it'll be heaven.
So even after the second day, I still haven't actually got to check out the Playstation 3 stuff or the Nintendo Revolution. That's mainly because I'm a loser who's not willing to wait in lines.
Below are a few random pictures. Being on Eastern Time, it's something like 43 o'clock so I'm dead tired. The problem with being a lazy schlumb like myself is that once the muscles atrophy, it's hard to get around all day. And tomorrow is going to be even busier. But stay tuned, lots of goodies then.
This is my seventh E3. I started coming back in the mid 90s to keep up with what's going on in the game industry. For gamers, E3 serves as an exciting preview of things to come. For a small game developer, E3 can be scary as you discover that "everyone else" has stuff far cooler than you could possibly imagine.
Going to E3 as a indie developer is like playing the classic game Civilization. You've just produced your first musketman and think you're doing great when suddenly the Mongols land on your shores with a dozen tanks.
For the most recent times, I've tried to "blog" what I see. You can read past ones here. There you can read glorious predictions such as how great Duke Nukem Forever is going to be and my prediction that the Game Cube is the best of the consoles. But then again, I also used to make games for IBM's OS/2 operating system so..
So what's exciting this year? Well, first off there is the XBOX 360 vs. Playstation 3. Both sides claiming their mega hardware will be the end all be all.. But who are we kidding? We don't all have amnesia. I still remember the Playstation 2 demos which looked incredible. Games are much more taxing than demos. But from all indications, the Playstation 3 does look like it's a bit more powerful. But the Xbox 360 is going to ship first.
Hardware specs, aside, the Xbox 360 is being designed for high-definition TV. All its games support HDTV resolutions (1080i/720p) which means that they will be much crisper, cleaner, and just plain better looking than the original Xbox. Visually, it will likely be an immense improvement. It will also play DVDs and CDs and connect easily to various digital devices you have (digital cameras for instance).
I think Microsoft has learned a lot from its first Xbox. I have an Xbox and it's a big heavy thing. The new one is much smaller, cleaner and to be honest could teach PC vendors a thing or two about good case design. It also has fewer wires -- its controls are wireless so setting the thing up at a friend's house is even easier.
And it sounds like Microsoft plans to push its advantage with Xbox live even further allowing people to send instant messages, voice chat, email and provide a host of additional user services over time. Now, if Microsoft can get some good games for it, they'll be in really good shape.
The Playstation 3 seems to have such advanced hardware that one is left wondering just how much further can game graphics go? At some point, it's going to be all about the quality of the content. At 1080i/720p resolutions (the realistic best-case that players are going to have ) there's a hard limit on how much computing muscle you need to have incredible graphics. At that point, it's up to the artists to produce the stuff to take advantage of it. That's one of the reason why games have gotten so expensive -- as capabilities improve, the content has to improve.
Nintendo will also be showing off its Nintendo Revolution which isn't scheduled to come out until mid next year. Nintendo is struggling with its third-place position in the US console market. They just don't seem to have the ability to make the noise and build the excitement for their stuff here the way Sony and Microsoft are. So it will be interesting to see what Nintendo comes up with.
But consoles aren't the only big news for E3. There are a lot of exciting PC games in the horizon too. One of the things that hasn't been discussed much in the press is the significance of DirectX 9 as a platform for games. DirectX 9 really made doing 3D games much more practical in all settings. Whereas before there were legitimate cases to make sprite based games (especially in the strategy arena), DirectX 9 makes it much easier to have your cake and eat it too in 3D.
To that end, one of the things I'm here at E3 for is to show off Galactic Civilizations II. A 3D engine for it has delivered not just much nicer visuals than the sprite-based original but a lot of practical game-play additions. For instance, it's resolution independent -- you can play at any resolutions > 1024x768 you want, even weird ones and it will automatically adjust itself. It also allows players to design their own ships from scratch. No more being stuck with pre-canned ships, players can literally dive in and put design up nearly any kind of ship they can imagine. As a former..ahem..Lego starship designer, anyone who's ever played with legos will appreciate the free form ship design stuff.
Beyond the computer games, there's also renewed excitement over handhelds. I have to admit, as someone who has never had any interest in a Gameboy, the Playstation Portable (PSP) is pretty damn cool. I'll be looking at what's new there.
I've also brought with me my Canon Elph digital camera which has some video capture features. I'll be recording what I see and putting it up for you guys over the next few days.
DesktopX 3 lets users take total control over their Windows desktop. Add desktop objects, widgets, or create entirely new desktops.
DesktopX is very powerful but at the same time, it's quite easy to use. It has thousands of objects, themes, and widgets available to end users. But to a new user, all this stuff may seem difficult to get into.
To that end, Alberto has put together a new on-line manual for DesktopX that lets users learn about all the things they can do with DesktopX as well as show how to create their own stuff.
DesktopX comes with Object Desktop or can be downloaded on its own at www.desktopx.net.
Check it out and see what you can do!
In the mid 90s, we put together what we thought, especially at the time, was a really cool and fairly unique idea for a game. The game was called "Mobilization".
The game would use the Total Annihilation engine and allow users to build up cities that, in turn, they used to conquer the world map by map. These maps would be part of a larger world much like Cavedog's fantastic Boneyards universe where Core and Arm (the factions in Total Annihilation) battled for control of the galaxy. In this case, things would be even more persistent, more interactive, etc.
In terms of game mechanics, Mobilization didn't have peons. Instead, your citizens were born and it was up to you to create the right conditions to get your population up there. You would direct what your population was doing through sliders so that there was no micro-management of units. The only other buildings you would build were for military purposes to "mobilize" your citizens. You would then draft citizens into the military and send them off to war (which is where the TA engine really shined).
The project got as far as pre-production as GT Interactive was interested. But then they got bought out and everything kind of stalled. And by that point, we were busy with other projects anyway.
As time went on, and hardware improved and net connections improved and our development resources grew, our design changed, expanded. We had other ideas we wanted to incorporate into the game to make it much more open ended and provide multiple ways of playing the game other than war.
At that point, the name "Mobilization" didn't quite fit anymore and so we came up with the name "Society".
Over the months, we hope to give you glimpses and then eventually beta versions of Society to play. It will be available first to TotalGaming.net members. But eventually it'll be available for everyone. And then after that, released to everyone in its final "gold" form.
These journals will hopefully be interesting and give you some insight into how a small development house goes about creating a massively multiplayer game. You'll hear a lot of details on how the servers are put together, the issues we run into in terms of budgeting and technological limits, and all kinds of other details. In short, you're going to see the sausage factory. 
