Re feedback:

1. Doomsday clock speed. I was thinking of hooking the Magic slider at the game setup to this. You would get less magic from the shards but the SK would get a less doomsday for breaking one. This would allow the player to have a great deal more say over the pacing of doomsday.

2. Empire building. This is a really good discussion because really, that is the crux of the argument for the game: Is the game about your EMPIRE or about the Party of heroes you're putting together? I.e. where should the focus be.

I don't think there's a "right" answer here other than to say that one direction will satisfy more people than others. I also think that there is a lot of wiggle room where more can be added to one without diluting the focus of the other.

For instance, I have been adding more types of administrators to the game as time has gone on. These administrators could be further enhanced to allow for more differentiation in the city.

Similarly, I'd like to see more magical spells that affect cities put into the game. I don't think I'd want to get into the farmer/worker/elvis scenario but instead would prefer to see the player be able to spend magic to enhance their city based on what tiles they have. 

Nevertheless, I do feel like there is room for expansion on the cities themselves but I suspect that would have to wait until post release where we can see the game is going to go.

3. Expansions. We have 3 expansions for this game planned over the next 3 years or so. What goes into them will be up to you guys. I can tell you that Sorcerer King is the beginning of a series and not the end of one.

4. Early game setup. One of the things I'd be interested in hearing from you guys on are "advanced setup" options for hard core players. Since I write the code that woul dhandle this, I would be delighted to put in interesting things here. So based on your hours in the game, what sorts of things would you want (besides Doomsday adjustments which I plan to handle through the magic slider).

5. Re Crafting vs. Finding. There seems to be a slight preference that works like this:

I should be able to craft up to great things. But AMAZING things should only be findable and rare. Would this represent your view?

-brad

I saw some people asking if they can monetize their streaming of Offworld Trading Company. The answer is yes. We have no problem with that.  Have fun!

I don't really have a dog in the console wars. Personally, I think both the new consoles are pretty outstanding from a hardware point of view.

That said, a few uncomfortable truths:

1. The PS4 hardware is better. Significantly. There's no amount of hand waving that make XBO's choice of DDR3 go away.
2. People are too hung up on hardware. Hardware mattered more in the 90s but software is king. All the HW in the world won't make a DirectX 9 game be able to deliver more than 10k batches per frame today.  
3. The visual difference between an XBO and a PS4 game are going to ultimately be trivial. 
4. DirectX 12 will make a big difference for the XBO in the long run.
5. Sony will almost certainy adopt the next OpenGL spec (or Mantle) which will even the playing field.
6. The graphics stacks on the PS4 and the XBO currently are not very parallel so there's a lot of room to grow.
7. The raw computing power of the XBO and PS4 is about 6 times the previous generation was.
8. The previous generation graphics stack never maximized the use of the hardware or came very close imo.

A couple weeks ago I wrote about DirectX 11 vs. DirectX 12 and how they worked.

Bottom line: DirectX 11 stuffs all the commands to the GPU through a single pipeline. DirectX 12 makes it parallel. In theory, you could see an Ntimes boost (N = number of cores). 

The article got a lot of coverage with some people arguing that such massive gains due to a platform change were impossible.

I had the advantage of knowing that Star Swarm was going to be benchmarked on DirectX 12 vs. DirectX 11: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8962/the-directx-12-performance-preview-amd-nvidia-star-swarm

In the AnandTech article: The AMD GPU (which is the brand the consoles use) got a 5X (500%) performance boost just by having the game (which was originally optimized for DirectX 11) updated to use DirectX 12 instead.

You can see their video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilVq4kRedcw. Note that this is just a quick engine demo. Having decent textures and such wouldn’t have affected the performance.

The software matters: DirectX 9 vs. DirectX 12 on same hardware

Hardware is only part of the picture and in fact, these days, a relatively small part of the picture.  The biggest monster machine I have available to me (Core I7 5960X with a Radeon R9 290X) is still going to top out at around 8000 batches on DirectX 9 for the typical developer.  On Mantle or DirectX 12, however, that same hardware can do >100,000 batches.

Terminology: Number of batches. 

This is how much information can be put on the screen in a given frame.  The more batches, the more sophisticated the scene. The next big debate will be how many batches does a scene need before the typical viewer will think it’s “real life”. they’re looking at.

You want >30FPs (or better yet over 60FPS) so then it’s just a matter of how many batches can you shove into a scene and keep it at that speed?

Batches directly tied to on screen sophistication

Look around your room. How many sources of light are there? I have 3 monitors and about a half dozen light bulbs in this room. Those lights are bouncing off drink glasses, my desk, the monitor, etc.

Now, how many light sources does a typical game today have? 4? I saw someone on a forum laughing because I didn’t know what I was talking about because they saw an example of 8 light sources. Eight. 

A real life battle scene would likely have hundreds or thousands of different light sources involved.  In a game today, only 4 (or EIGHT) of those lights are going to be real. You may not notice this but your brain will.  And that’s just lighting. Plus, real world temporal anti-aliasing, much greater material sophistication and all the other things that are pre-requisites to have something that looks real or at least not blatantly plasticy. And as Oxide’s Dan Baker points out, we haven’t really touched on lens effects.

Batch count survey

Best guesses below.  Would be great to get exact numbers from some enterprising game developer (hint hint).

This presumes 30fps at 720p.  I haven’t tried out DirectX 9 at 1920x1080 with that level card and am too lazy try to now.

Frames per second needs to die

FPS needs to die as a benchmark result.  Let us presume that 30fps or 60fps is a prerequisite at this stage of the game.  The question is therefore, how many batches per frame can a piece of hardware or software deliver and still hit those 2 minimum qualifiers?

Using FPS at this stage is like arguing processor power based on MHZ.

When is it Star Wars prequel level?

I got quoted as saying that by the end of the current console generation that you’ll have games that are able to do LOTR-like battle scenes.  I stand by that. I’m putting it here, in writing, on this blog so people can point back to it in a few years and see if I was right (or tragically wrong).

But we can have a useful debate on it now: Is 50,000 batches in a given frame enough to produce a scene of sufficient fidelity that the typical viewer will find it realistic?  We have had this debate internally a lot over the past year.  Our lead graphics dev says you’d really need more like 300,000 batches.  My position is that at 50,000 you reach well into the “good enough” range provided that the engine is doing a lot of optimizing (LOD, good use of built in hardware features, etc.).

I’m pretty sure this can be done with 50k batches at 24fps. They don’t even have real light. Seriously, go back and watch the prequels, most of their explosions might as well be cartoons.

This is very doable at 50k batches.

With smart LOD, yea, I think this can be done with 50k batches per frame to a level as to make the typical viewer not tell the difference. (this scene is admittedly vastly more sophisticated than that, look closely at the light reflections on the people then point and laugh at the Gungans above. It’s okay. They’re used to it.).

Next Up: TXAA, GPU computing

As GDC gets closer, I am going to try to dive into why Mantle, DirectX 12 and other upcoming architectures are a big deal besides just in making the screen prettier or faster in a given frame.

AMD and NVidia have some amazing features built into their hardware that are scarcely used because of the CPU to GPU bottleneck that is now being addressed.   In addition, a lot of interesting things start to become possible when the CPU and GPU total computing power can finally be effectively merged instead of segregated as they are currently.

Greetings! We need your help!

This year we have SIX games (not including Star Control) that are being released or going into early access this year.

We want to make sure we highlight the coverage these titles get on the major game sites that would traditionally cover these titles.

Please comment below on any sites you think I’m missing that have substantial traffic that you think are likely to cover PC games as well as ones you would like us to talk to.

Game Sites:

Game Sites:

Game Sites:

Game Sites:

Game Sites:

YouTubers / Let’s Play

YouTubers / Let’s Play

Also, if you see coverage, please add it to the comments. Thanks again!

Screenshots:

What: Sorcerer King: Build a kingdom in a world dominated by the malevolent Sorcerer King.
Who: From the team that made Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes.
When: Release date: March 2015

What: Galactic Civilizations III: You are the leader of an interstellar civilization that must expand into the galaxy.
Who: Er, the team who made Galactic Civilizations II.
When: Release date: April 2015

What: Offworld Trading Company: Build the most powerful company on Mars no matter what it takes.
Who: From the designer of Civilization IV
When: Early Access begins: February 2015

On deck:

[A] From the team that worked on Age of Empires I/II/III and Age of Mythology

[B] From the team that helped make Civilization IV, Civilization V, Railroads and much more.

[C] Stay tuned…

(and wait till you see what we have in store for 2016…)

***Updates***

2/23: Added The Escapist, Geeks With Wives, GWW GalCiv3 preview, Giant Bomb OTC preview video.

2/24: Added: Game Informer Test Chamber video (OTC), USGamer Soren Johnson interview, Day[9] to YouTube and OTC videos, IGN preview (OTC), added Kokatu and OTC article.

2/25: Added Destructiod OTC preview, Games Arena OTC preview

3/5: Added Servo and Ashes of the Singularity to the lists. Niche Gamer, IGN, PC Gamer, and GamesBeat previews. News posts from IGN and PCGamesN.

3/6: Added Game Informer preview.

3/9: Added The Escapist Ashes of the Singularity and Servo news.

3/11: Added PCGamesN news, RPS interview about OTC.

3/19: Added Niche Gamer Servo preview.

4/1: Added Servo preview from PCGamesN.

4/7: Added Ashes of the Singularity preview from PCGamesN, GameSpot OTC Early Access review.

4/10: Added GameSpot article about Ashes of the Singularity and Servo.

4/24: Added GameSpot video of Galactic Civilizations III.

4/27: Added IGN video of Galactic Civilizations III

5/8: Added PCGamesN interview for Galactic Civilizations III.

6/11: Added various Galactic Civilizations III reviews.

8/14: Added various Sorcerer King reviews

9/3: Added GameSpot review of Sorcerer King.

–RELEASED 02/05/2015– (Island Dog update)

Sorcerer King Beta 4 is now available! See below for details on the enchantment system, Tinkerer sovereign, custom sovereigns, and more:

*************
 

We’re putting the final touches on beta 4 of Sorcerer King.  It is a massive change from beta 3 and we plan to have a beta 5 before release.

NOTES: Beta 4 will be MAYHEM as we have not even attempted to balance the crafting enchantments yet. So feel free to go nuts as you should be able to annihilate the AI, even on hard if you use it right.  We'll be balancing it later this month.

Status: Release scheduled by end of the week.

What’s new told in screenshots:

The Tinkerer is in

First phase of final graphics starting to get in

Roughing in the new crafting system

Crafted items get a distinct look

new quest screen is in

Combat system will tell you what it expects to happen (yea I picked the one where the result is uncertain, I suck)

Combat now has rounds which allows us (and modders) to have spells and abilities that take rounds into account (and visually allows us to show how fast a given unit is).

New diplomacy screen in and yes, these are animated

Lots of new creatures in the world or existing ones differentiated further from similar types

Sovereigns can gain crafting skills that allow them to go back and improve existing crafted items further!

PLUS

Tons of balance improvements, tweaks and polish across the board.

and the first writing pass on some of the interactions (again, all animated)

More to come!

Change Log:

• New Sovereign, Champion, & Sovereign Customization

  • Tinkerer sovereign – A master craftsman who wields the power of the Forge of the Overlord with great skill

  • Drogon the Dwarf champion – wields two axes, has the Beardsmith ability...what else do you need to know?

  • Sovereign customization unlocked – combine any sovereign skill tree, starting ability, champion, and spellbook loadout

• Improved strategic map visuals

  • Claimed city tiles now have visible villages

  • Terrain has more elevation variation, texture contrast, and scattered props

  • Unique forest types for desert, shadow, burning lands, scrapyard, and blue fissure

  • Chasm terrain

  • Improved lighting and shadow appearance & values

  • Improved Fog of War appearance to better match art style

  • Polished appearance of Kingdom forests

  • New Frozen Realm capitol

• UI improvements & additions

  • Auto Resolve Prediction – safely auto-resolve battles you’re guaranteed to win, avoid those you’re likely to lose

  • Animated Sorcerer King and minor faction interactions

  • Full screen quest UI (final art still WIP)

  • General UI polish and consistency improvements

• Gameplay features, balance, and additions

  • Enchantment System – enchant crafted items to customize their buffs and abilities

  • Tactical Battle Rounds – Some abilities are locked by round now, like enemies that will summon a big bad if you haven’t killed them by round 4

  • Can edit owned unit and city names

  • Steam Achievements added

  • Hero quests now properly scattered throughout the world (and you can’t find duplicate heros)

  • Summoned unit spells added

  • Additional variation in monster lair battles

  • Lots of new sound effects for units, abilities, and spells

  • Lots of new visual effects for abilities and spells

    • Enchantment Sleep

    • Sleep

    • Enchantment_regeneration

    • Soothing Melody

    • Harvest Shadowland

    • FlameDart Projectile

    • Cloudwalk

    • Heroic End

    • Warriors Might

    • Guardian Wind

    • Gift Of Iron

    • Tutelage

    • Divine Protection

    • Withstand

    • Haste

    • Enchantment Confused

    • Celerity

    • Enchantment AttackBoost

    • Blood Rage

    • Blood CUrse

    • Blight

    • Blessing of Restoration

    • Boat particles (not hooked up)

    • Aura of Vitality

    • Aura of Might

    • Aura of Madness

    • (and more)

  • Lots of new icon art added

  • Tons of new quests

  • Additional balance to quest rewards

  • More quests are escapable and repeatable (e.g. running away does not always end a quest)

  • More idle animation variation and custom ability animations

  • Changed all references of “combat speed” to “initiative” for consistency

  • Camera can now be zoomed out a little farther before cloth map appears

  • New Map and Battle music tracks

  • Falcon unit art and animations

  • Storyteller camera mode advanced option added (free rotate for screenshots, etc.)

  • Smoother camera zoom behavior

  • New Spells:

    • Enhance Land (turns grassland into fertile land)

    • Restore Land (turns marginal land into grasslands)

    • The Drain Fertility and Harvest spells no longer cost doomsday points. Just mana

    • Bewilder (reduces enemy accuracy by 33)

    • Call Skeleton ability (special ability for summoning a skeleton)

    • Unearthly attack (15% splash damage)

  • Lowered Champion immobilization penalty to 3 (from 5)

  • Big update to the tactical AI to make units effectively use all these cool unit abilities intelligently

  • Tactical AI does positioning and enemy stat analysis to choose what ability and who to use it on (wait till you see this in action, it now plays better than I do manually)

  • Music choices greatly increased as the game goes on (very tired of hearing the same 5 songs early on)

  • Music playing during tactical battle takes more into account to get a better variety

  • Increased SK unit moves to 3

  • Rewrote the guardian spawning to support multiple, randomized wandering monsters. Supports XML

  • SK Strongholds are not seeded as much

  • AI good (arguably too good) at summoning monsters at the worst possible time for the player.

  • Added support to XML via AIPriority to nerf AI’s summoning if necessary

  • SK has more spells to use on the player.

  • If you haven’t met a minor race, it won’t declare war on you anymore. They now have to know you to want to murder you

  • Player Threat to SK now impacts how many monsters the SK can have (not by a lot)

  • General nerfing of the SK’s armies on lower difficulty levels

  • Monsters won’t attack cities unless their army size is at least 3 (very annoying being attacked by a lone bandit)

  • However a monster that is sufficiently powerful WILL attack a city, even if it’s alone (I’m looking at you Umberdroths)

  • Pikeman becomes trainable by the Barracks, does not require metal

  • Tons of tweaks to units to balance them better

  • Massive increase in the number of abilities units have

  • Warlock enemy unit has been redesigned

  • Lots of spells enhanced to make them more worthwhile

  • Coalstones cooldown increased from 5 to 7

  • Coalstones damage decreased from 2X level to 1X level

  • Despair now has a 20 turn cooldown and only removes 1X caster level HP from all units.

  • Divine shield mana reduced from 15 to 3

  • Inner Fire will summon a Flame Elemental

  • Nightmare casting time eliminated, now an instant

  • Shrink fixed to target enemy units

  • Lots of AI fixes to the targetworthy code

  • Lots of new items

  • Linguistics, Pragmatism, and Archeology are now sovereign traits (mostly for future modder use in quests)

  • Lots of new goodie huts and monster lairs created to provide more variety, especially early game (so sick of same 3 bandits)

  • Balancing of the various unit abilities, especially in terms of how valuable they are in determining the units actual combat rating.

  • City improvements made slightly less expensive

  • Official game year set to 651 AC

• Bug Fixes

  • Improved performance on laptops – now defaults to high performance mode on dual-GPU laptops

  • Starting weapon recipes for all Champions

  • Removed outdated and broken items

  • Typo and phrasing fixes throughout

  • Fixed a crash where gfx code was being called from a thread

  • Fixed a game-within-a-game crash due to shard cleanup between games.

  • Fixed a warning about a function not always returning a value, which would cause unexpected behavior

  • Fixed a bug that caused the Allow Camera Rotation code and game option to not be synced

  • Minor faction quest items can no longer be equipped

  • Fixed Varda skill tree typo & bad prereq

  • Fixed issue where AI could potentially go on quests, collect goodie huts

  • Fixed broken post-process lighting

  • Dead SK units no longer visible after they attack a shard

  • Shards no longer occasionally invisible when initially attacked/revealed

  • Fixed bug where "next page" arrow button was being shown in the spellbook when there was nothing to show on the next page

  • Unnecessary “what do you do” lines removed from quests.

  • Fixed a crash with the "enemy in ZOC" or "resources in ZOC" notifications

  • Fixed bug where world props did not fade under exposed fog of war

  • Archer Sniper now plays particle on sureshot properly

  • Dwarf warrior crushing blow now plays animation and particle

  • Fixed bug where you could casts sov spells in tactical when it was not your turn

  • Fixed the really annoying “hourglass showing up when it shouldn’t” bug (lots of little code changes to do this, very annoying)

  • Fixed the really annoying tendency of the doomsday counter updating at the same time as a lot of things are going on resulting in choppy animation (still needs more work)

  • Fixed the slow, inefficient and often inaccurate tile yields displayed. So founding a city that claims to have 4 grain and 2 materials won’t happen anymore (it’ll display the correct amount). Also, this was called a lot and it was really really inefficient

  • Fixed bug that caused monster lairs to sometimes spawn with nothing in them

  • Fixed bug that caused the Sorcerer King’s fortress to be turned in weird ways with the gate floating off

  • Fixed bug (heh) where monsters could go on quests and thus make them unavailable to the player (forgot I had had that in there, seemed like a good idea at the time)

  • Fixed bug that was preventing AI from making use of certain types of combat abilities

  • Fixed embarrassing bug of mine where a minor race would still adjust its favor with the SK even after you were allied

  • Fixed bug that caused multiple trait quests to come up on the same turn

In my day. We had sprites and we liked them!

Last year we released zilch.  No new games, no new apps.  It was a year of building. 

This year, things start to get interesting.

Let’s take a look at just this Winter:

February: Offworld Trading Company goes into Early Access

March: Sorcerer King is scheduled for release

April: Galactic Civilizations III is scheduled for release

And we still have two more games that are unannounced that are going to be shown at GDC.

Sorcerer King Beta 4 is starting to come together. We expect to release it in early February.  There’s a ton of changes coming to it, most notably the new crafting system and summoning system. 

Below are two screenshots that give you a taste of some of the visual changes coming too.

I hadn’t used Windows XP in years.  It’s easy to get nostalgic about how great Windows was back then.  Then you load it up and try to search for a file and you’re greeted by a dog.