Hi team! Here are some of the pics.  I think Bruce or someone might have a lot more pics, these are some of the ones I got.

First off, I apologize for not getting more. I’m not a good photographer. If any of you (Stardockians) want to send me photos to put up, go ahead and I’ll update.

GalCiv III team! Well, some of them anyway.

Future developer! (or artist!)

This picture makes me feel 20 years older.  I’ve known the little ones parents since they were in HS.  They’ve been with us since college graduation. So cute! (all of them frankly)

Good shot of the gang getting ready to play Avalon.

Random shot. Though Jenna, our lead UI designer, knows what’s up.

My hero Bara. This is the man who wrote the Quest Editor for Sorcerer King.

Sarah and Skittles (Katie) with Leo. 

Really good shot of Leo. He’s the lead artist on Sorcerer King.

Another random shot.

More GalCiv team with Software team back in the background.

Such a good shot you’d almost forget it’s an iPhone.

I feel very fortunate to be able to work with such amazing people.  Many of these folks I’ve been working with for many years now.  It was really fun having them over.

Greetings! Welcome to the sausage factory!

Beta 3 of Galactic Civilizations III has arrived with lots of new changes and improvements. We still have a long way to go but progress is swift.

A few highlights

Beta 3 brings the Yor into the game.  We’re still playing around with how they “breed”.  The current plan is to have the player actually manufacture more Yor on the planet. 

The Yor are a synthetic, pre-singularity lifeform.  Long ago, the Yor were the servants of a race called the Iconians. Naturally, they eventually rose up and took over the planet.  The Yor home planet is Iconia which never amuses the Iconians and their lawyers. 

The Yor get their own ship parts to ensure that their ships are visually and functionally distinct from the other races.

The govern button on the bottom right is still newish and has a long way to go still before release. Eventually, players will want to automate this via governors to keep their massive empires from spiraling into a micromanagement abyss. Our hope is to have the governors rely less on AI and more on letting players set priorities and have it automate itself.

The shipyards have gotten a lot nicer as players can now more easily control which planets are feeding which shipyards.  We have a lot of balancing and pacing to do. Even today, we’re working our way through the default ships and capital planets to boost the early game pacing significantly.

The cinematics team has begun to deliver some amazing stuff to help bring you into the GalCiv universe. This is the first past of better visuals, music and sound since the original beta release.

Tooltips continue to improve in order to provide better information.  Much still to do but little by little, the UI is coming together.

A big part of what we hope will make GalCiv III much  more appealing to a wider audience is the time we’re spending trying to really visually deliver the new worlds players are colonizing.  Tell us what you think in the comments!

If you want to join the adventure, you can visit our store at: https://www.galciv3.com/store

I was on this month’s Binpress with Alexis Santos.  We talked a great deal about how Stardock got started and where the PC software and game industries are heading.

If you've ever wondered what it's like to start your own business from scratch you'll want to listen to this.    I was 20 years old when I started the company back in college from my dorm room.  This gives the gritty backstory, warts and all.

->Full Podcast

Greetings!  It’s the end of the year and here are some pics from work.

To the team: I suck. I apologize. I had said I’d get a photo album going this year and while it is still technically 2014, it’s the last week before we close down for the year.  On the bright side, this year is not just picture of the Stardock dogs (though Arrow is in a few of these but Bailey and Maggie are not).

Stardock in the evening.  Adam is in the first one. He is the poor guy who has to clean up after whatever PR horror I’ve got us into that week.  Kristin our GM is meeting with Adrian and Bruce and lastly Jenna, our lead UI artist is making icons.

On the left, Sam is back from maternity leave! Hooray! With Emily, our superstar HR manager.  Rob and Bilal talking tech. The dynamic duo of Jillian & Nikki do basically all of our web graphics design (not forgetting Katie but I couldn’t find her to take a pic).  Meanwhile, Stardock Chairman, Arrow is keeping an eye while Steph (like all of us) do whatever he needs.

The gang doing their thing.  The Fitness room was added this year to prevent people from ending up like me.  The Tachyon leads are scheming about..Tachyon while the Cinematics team is cooking up a lot of coolness for next year.

The Azure team (Lou and Sarah) along with a Sarah Prime (our lead gameplay coder on GalCiv III) working on the battle system for GalCiv III.  And Chris is coming up with new Azure stuff to do.

I will try to get more up before the end of the year. I apologize for procrastinating.

For those of you on vacation and weren’t in the pics. Remember what I always say: Friendship, Family, Religion, these are the 3 demons you must slay to be successful in business.  

More to come.

I need more analytics in the game to do this properly but this is a start.

How long should a game last? That depends on the game. 

Sorcerer King, for me, as the designer, is meant to take elements of Master of Magic, Star control and FTL and put them together.  While those games may seem dissimilar, they each have key ingredients that I think can be blended together to create something really spectacular.

And Sorcerer King is turning out spectacularly.

Map Size Ranges:

These are random maps so they’ll have random shapes. As maps get bigger, the shard dots (the white diamonds) will get smaller. You

Tiny maps

Land tiles: 300 to 800

Shards: 8

Time to play: 1 hour 45 minutes

Small Maps

Land tiles: 450 to 1200

Shards: 8-9

Time to play: 2:30 minutes

Medium Maps

Land tiles: 800 to 1600

Shards: 9-10

Large Maps (for the hard core)

Land Tiles: 2200 to 2800

Shards: 11 to 12

Huge Maps (for crazy people)

Land Tiles: 3000 to 5000

Shards: 12

Misc. Screenshots

Just thought this looked cool.

We’ve got questions for the beta team:

1. Some people have said that Sorcerer King looks a lot like Legendary Heroes.  What do you think people mean by this and what would be the most effective way to make sure the two games are visually distinct?
2. We are debating a lot about camera rotation.  The game supports it and we plan to have an option for it.  The question is, what would you like to see as the default and why?
3. We have the Magic slider in the game setup.  Right now, the plan for this was to have it determine how fast the Doomsday Counter goes up along with how much magic you receive from shards.  But we would like to hear from the beta team how they would like to see this slider used.
4. So far, what is your FAVORITE part of the game?
5. Similarly, what is your least favorite part of the game?
6. For those of you playing heavily, what types of spells would you like to see in the game that we don’t currently have?
7. Which Sovereign so far is your favorite and why?
8. Which Sovereign is your least favorite?
9. Which types of quests do you enjoy going on the most?
10. Which types of quests do you enjoy the least?

Thanks!

Windows 10 will be coming with DirectX 12.  DirectX 12 is the first version of DirectX that really uses multiple cores effectively.

Below are two slides provided by Microsoft:

DirectX 11: See how much of the work is done on the first core?

DirectX 12, the work gets split up.

Bottom line: In DirectX 11 this frame took almost 9ms to render.  In DirectX 12, it took about 4ms.  Now, how much real world improvement you get depends heavily on both the developer and the game.  But the reason we’re all getting so excited is that DirectX 12 should be the biggest performance bump for those who utilize it we’ve ever seen.

What this means to you

Next time you watch Jurassic Park or Phantom Menace, please realize that the CGI in those movies can be done in real-time today.  However, most graphics engines in games still render scenes very differently than in movies.  That’s because it’s only recently been possible to create real-world fidelity in real-time.  But a modern machine with DirectX 12 (or Mantle) could do real-time visuals in a game that is as good as you would get in say Lord of the Rings.

The Post-Frame Rate game world

We will need get away from frame rate as being the key metric on its own (unless we’re comparing apples and apples).  The DirectX 12 / Mantle specific games will look unmistakably different than what we have today.

What we basically do today in games is render a frame and then apply a bunch of post-process effects to it.  In a DirectX 12 / Mantle world we’ll render images the same way they did CGI in the past.  With a modern CPU + GPU combo with DirectX 12 you could do parts of the Battle of Helms Deep from LOTR in real-time.  Keep a very close eye on Unreal 4, Frostbite, Crytek and of course Nitrous.

Some of you know Kris Kwilas as Nakor around here.  He’s been with Stardock since, I think, 1996.  Last week he’s moved from our VP of Technology to being a consultant. He’s going off to do new and great things.  It’s been a long planned move. He gave me a 2 year notice that he was eventually going to do it.  But I feel like my right arm is missing.

Our management team continues to evolve. We’ll have to do a new management page.  These days it’s:

• Me
• Angela Marshall (COO)
• Kristin Hatcher (General Manager)
• Derek Paxton (VP Stardock Entertainment)
• Kim Kolaz (Controller)

with

• Tod Cunningham (Director of Platforms)
• Adrian Luff (Director of Technology) [Stardock Austin]

I still have to recruit a studio head for Stardock Towson (Maryland) but in the meantime lots of traveling (I’m in Maryland this week working on an unannounced game) while Kristin is in Austin this week.

All the while, there’s no Kwilas. I’m bummed.

I woke up today with my twitter feed full of angry, hateful people. Ok, so what are they mad about this time?  I click on a few tweets and see back where they came from. Zoe Quinn accusing me of having "offered a job" to someone because he had drawn "revenge porn" of her.  None of this true of course but her gullible followers, always ready to demonstrate their virtue, started filling my feed with hateful tweets.

So what was the truth? An artist had posted that he would love to draw for a living.  I told him to send us a resume.

Anyone who follows me on Twitter knows I do this several times a week. You want to work in the game industry? Send us your resume.

For example...

When Zoe asked me for a job and I told her to send us a resume.  I don't discriminate.  Anyone who wants to work in the game industry is encouraged to send us a resume. It doesn't mean they'll get a job of course but we want people to know that opportunities are available.  I see people posting on social media all the time saying how they want a job in the industry.

So what was this revenge porn she was accusing me of rewarding? It turns out he had apparently made a crude cartoon about Zoe Quinn at some point in the past (as in, long before and in a place that I nor few others ever saw).  Quinn, always looking to milk sympathy, misrepresented the situation by posting screenshots of my tweet and the crude cartoon in such a way to make them appear related when in fact they were many months apart and unrelated.

I told her it as no better than someone photoshopping a picture to distort the truth. In other words, she was lying and trying to use me as her foil to get sympathy.

I called her out on it.

First, telling someone looking for a job to send in a resume is not "offering them a job". Second, as I said, I had never seen the crude cartoon in question. Third, Quinn apparently didn't consider it offensive enough not to repost the crude cartoon (I am not willing to repost the cartoon) on socia lmedia to gin up her followers.

On top of that, she soon tried to dredge up false allegations that were made against me years ago.  Allegations that were not only shown to be false but resulted in an apology letter written by the person who made those claims (you can read about that here: http://forums.littletinyfrogs.com/458579).   Here is someone who endlessly claims to be the victim of character assassination actively engaging in it.

It's a fascinating example of the double-standards employed by social justice warriors.  Zoe Quinn was the one who chose, out of the blue to target me because I had suggested an artist who had offended her sometime in the past to send us a resume.  

Let's recap: I had done nothing to her. I had not attacked her. Throughout her GamerGate thing I had not said a word about her despite the fact that she had repeatedly smeared me in the past.

All it took was for her to cry wolf and her followers would rise up and smear me on social media.  Worse yet, the minute I defend myself against her flagrant misrepresentations others rise up to attack me and write defamatory blogs about me in which they totally misrepresent the events.

That's why you have to push back against these guys.  People like Quinn have made a career out of making false allegations and doing whatever it takes to get attention as a replacement for hard work and merit. 

Bottom line:

Zoe Quinn and her ilk’s message is as clear as it is sad: Software developers like myself better blacklist people they deem unacceptable or they’ll face the wrath of their mob and sympathetic game journalists and SJW enablers. And they will say and do anything, no matter how dishonest, in order to paint themselves as a victim even as they are creating grief for others. 

In the end, they do themselves no favors. No one wants to have to professionally interact with people who are toxic like that. And no professional wants to empower someone who would try to blacklist someone or block their career opportunities for having "incorrect" opinions.

Everyone deserves an opportunity to work in this industry. Their talent, hard work, and merit determine how successful they are. Not their politics. Not who they are friends with. Not whether they’re a man or a woman. Not what color they are.  Talent. Hard work. Merit. 

Learn it. Live it.

UPDATE: Logs form the so-called anti-harassment group "Crash Override Network" indicate that Zoe Quinn was coordinating the attacks on me.

I am the one she wants to "set on fire". For what? Because when she tweeted the image of the cartoon an artist made (that I had never seen until she posted it) and me tweeting to the artist he could send us his resume was photoshopped to look like they were related. Rather than focus on the obvious: That she was creating a false impression that I had tweeted to this guy because of his cartoon she wanted to focus on the fact I had referred to the presentation of the two images together as photoshopping.

To find out how this "anti-harassment" engaged in coordinated attacks on unsuspecting wrong-thinkers such as myself :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGOueq31ZkY 

Update:

Apparently drinternetphd is Zoe Quinn. I'm not sure who I have ever "abused" in the industry.  Bu I will say it's hilarious that she thinks I throw bees at people because that is based on this skit we did at work:

Note the number of down votes that video has.  A lot of people thought this was real. CON apparently did too.

Another Sunday with Sorcerer King.  A lot of progress was made this week. 

So below are the good, the bad, and the ugly things I have to say about Sorcerer King this week. It’ll all be schmushed together.

New Sovereign: Ashlira

This weekend I mainly played with Ashlira, the Priest.  Scott and I have been designing her for awhile and it’s amazing (but not surprising) how many ideas that look good on paper just don’t work out when implemented.  That’s always the case, particularly with “new IP”.

HighDPI UI

The high resolution UI is something we really want to get to you guys. It’s a real game changer in terms of user experience (if you’re running at 1920x1080 or higher).  There are still some glitches we have to work through but otherwise, it’s pretty much good to go.

The Spells

The spells have, generally, gotten bumped up in power while costing less. The idea is that when a unit calls the sovereign, they’re giving up their turn which is a sacrifice unto itself.

Random Maps

Other than some UI oddities, the random maps are done.  Generally speaking, there’s no such thing as a bad start. This was something in LH that was a bit of a struggle at times.  This time around, we did the starting points somewhat differently (and there’s a lot more good land in general). 

The main complaint on random maps will be distance from the SK.  We have purposely made a high degree of variability in your distance because there are pros and cons both ways.  I prefer to start close so I can try to gate him in early on but others might find overwhelmed.  It just depends on the map and any number of conditions.

Destiny’s Favor

The priest gets a set of wishes in the form of Destiny’s Favor.  These are incredibly powerful spells that consume a favor to use. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.

Rough version of Priest Tree

This is a rough version of the tree (no artist work yet).  Divine Insight is very interesting because…

You get a bunch of interesting new dungeon master events.

So in this case, I asked for a recipe:

BTW, I do fix bugs during the weekend, I just don’t highlight bugs. But for example, recipes didn’t typically show up in the treasure list (due to a bug). This is fixed.

Smarter AutoResolve:

Tactical battles where you are definitely going to win and should be able to do it without any losses now autoresolve that way (not units are hurt).

More Sorcerer King:

There’s a lot more interaction with the Sorcerer King now.  This will continue to grow.  Basically, we’re going to be testing pacing to see how much is too much.  Right now, we’re aiming for around 15 turns per interaction for *some* reason.

Smarter tactical battles:

Thanks to bpalczewski, the tactical battles are getting better.  Still working on this though.

Thralls

We are still debating whether this will be a Priest only improvement or whether everyone should get it.  It reduces the thrall count by 2 in the city (costs 1 mana to maintain).

Destiny’s Judgment

The Priest doesn’t get very large armies compared to the others but she does get the aforementioned Destiny ‘s Favor.  And in the game I’m in, I have 11 of them. Thankfully.

Destiny’s judgment fries the world but doesn’t increase doomsday to do it.  It does cost 1 Destiny’s Favor.  The other is Holy Wrath which spreads a holy aura on a bunch of tiles and any enemies who walk through it take damage.

By late game, the map starts to really look like a warzone.

Test Game

Doomsday is almost here.

Minimap

If you look at the above screenshot, you can see that the minimap has been redone.  Shards are displayed as diamonds, cities are bit blocks and SK units are little dots.

It’s a lot cleaner.  Now, this is on a small map that I’ve been playing for hours and as you can see, I’ve only cleared a small percentage. My doomsday counter was a lot higher than it really should be (I should have about 50 more points) due to a quest bug I ran into.

Arrgh!

I got greedy and waited a turn before attacking the SK to build up more mana!

Loading up saved game!

BTW, this game on a small map is 3 hours and 10 minutes of me playing.

My main champion at the end of the game.

On loading the saved game I don’t waste that 1 turn.  Forgive the ghetto looking map. Lots of units though.

I ultimately lost.  I learned the hard way, if you’re facing a guy called The Sorcerer King, you should probably craft some magical resistance gear so that his spells don’t cream ya.

After Hours

So 3 hours or so to play on a small map.  We had targeted being able to play a small map in 2 hours if you were a regular player.  So I think there’s still some pacing.  I modified the roads so that they let you move a lot faster.  I think I’ll have to do more with that.  The pacing on the getting new spells and skills is definitely too slow.  Either the costs need to be brought down or we need more “stuff” we can craft or build in our cities.

Speaking of crafting, I am looking forward to the new crafting system being in.  I definitely felt a plateauing of the available gear to craft. 

Overall pretty happy how it went. 

More next week!