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!

The next sovereign to come up is the Priest.

The priest is going to be the sovereign that does the best at keeping the Doomsday counter under control as well as decreasing the perceived threat they pose to the Sorcerer King.

Broadly speaking, the Priest is going to get a special resource called Destiny's Favor. They will start with 3 of them and come with an assortment of unique to the priest spells that are incredibly powerful but consume one of these favors. So consider the priest as being the sovereign with a bit of a connection to higher powers.

I intended to go into more detail but I'm a bit under the weather. So I will open the floor to hear some of the things you would like to see and see how we might be able to fit them in to the priest.

For Sunday I spent the day doing lots of various little things.  I’m not sure where to even start.  One thing I can say is that we still have a long way to go. Not just in terms of bugs but just balance and feel.

The mid-game has a death-lull in it.  That is, where you’re well into the game, you think you have a pretty good handle on things but there’s nothing exciting happening.

In a traditional 4X game, this is where diplomacy/world council type mechanics come into play.  That is, you’re having to make sure your primary objective isn’t derailed by other forces (people ganging up on you, someone building a nuclear weapon, someone gaining control of the United Planets/United Nations, having your technology obsoleted, etc.).

Sorcerer King doesn’t address the death lull yet.  As enjoyable as it is to research new spells, leveling up heroes, crafting items and such, it is a very linear progression.  There is nothing forcing me (or encouraging me) to put resources and effort into a secondary direction.

In Sorcerer King, this is where the Dungeon Master comes in.  However, as a player, I’d like to see more levers for the player to control how the Dungeon Master is going to affect the world (i.e. I don’t want it all quest based). 

If you’re part of the Early Access, please feel free to comment on levers you’d like to see.

Screenshots from today:

The tactical maps are getting more and more interesting as the sovereign spells come in.

Random large maps are really cool.

Painful programmer art but the end game is very different based on your previous choices.

Huge end game battle.

Check in:

+ Most city improvements are slightly cheaper
[7:32:41 PM] Brad Wardell: + Fixed bug with icelords first contact
[7:33:13 PM] Brad Wardell: + Fixed display issue with Grisly politics
[7:33:38 PM] Brad Wardell: + Added conversation quests with each minor that come at you if your'e allied with them.
[7:34:11 PM] Brad Wardell: + Various fixes to Do the dead even need respect quest and traits added
[7:34:25 PM] Brad Wardell: + hole in the ground quest ends successfully
[7:34:47 PM] Brad Wardell: + About a dozen quests updated to support giving traits, enhanced loot
[7:35:12 PM] Brad Wardell: + Fixed Procipinee's crown quest to put lairs around 4 tiles away
[7:35:38 PM] Brad Wardell: + Fixed bug where a player could use persuasive option even if they didn't have the trait
[7:35:50 PM] Brad Wardell: + Updated the shadowlands stamp
[7:36:14 PM] Brad Wardell: + Life ability added (only priest has it right now) which will tell the AI in tactical to focus on buffing
[7:36:48 PM] Brad Wardell: + Guardian now starts with Sleep, Mass SLow, Soothing Melody, Obstruct Tile, Harvest Shadow land, and awkard movement spells
[7:37:20 PM] Brad Wardell: + First attempt to have more varied encounters with monster lairs
[7:37:34 PM] Brad Wardell: + Fixed typo for persuasive
[7:38:09 PM] Brad Wardell: + New craftable items: Aspects. Give units +1 damage of a particular type.
[7:38:33 PM] Brad Wardell: + Added a bunch of new recipies including ones for bows (not testeD)
[7:39:02 PM] Brad Wardell: + Unhide a lot of spells from the hiergemanon. This will introduce spelsl that are buggy but we'll fix them. Just want to get them in.
[7:39:25 PM] Brad Wardell: + Cleric given a Cleric's staff making it a rangeed unit. Also given life ability
[7:39:50 PM] Brad Wardell: + Champion death penalty increased to 25
[7:40:13 PM] Brad Wardell: + Procpinee Crown quest monsters nerfed
[7:40:51 PM] Brad Wardell: + Raise and lower land sound effects reeadded to spell
[7:41:12 PM] Brad Wardell: + Changed colors of healing and mana potions
[7:41:34 PM] Brad Wardell: + Crafting nag quest added (will need balancing)
[7:41:52 PM] Brad Wardell: + Fixed karma dice bug (now rolls karma dice for every possible event rather than just 1)
[7:42:19 PM] Brad Wardell: + Minor races greatly enhance their military strength once they're at war with the SK (allied with the player)
[7:42:39 PM] Brad Wardell: + Minor races build up more interesting military forces
[7:43:00 PM] Brad Wardell: + Minor race interaction with allies added
[7:44:00 PM] Brad Wardell: + Sorcerer King now will cast spells into battle. However, we need the game to do a better job at indicating that the sovereign cast (some sort of...something to communicate to the player that the SK has interveneeD)
[7:45:00 PM] Brad Wardell: + First (crappy) attempt at making auto resolve mroe satisfying if you have an overwhelming advantage (i.e. less random)
[7:45:24 PM] Brad Wardell: + SK Spells given their own class (for use later when we list what spells teh SK has)
[7:46:21 PM] Brad Wardell: + Player can now begin conversations with minor factions by clicking on their capital building
[7:46:59 PM] Brad Wardell: + Tactical battle window now indicates how much mana and attention the SK is willing to dedicate to a battle with his forces
[7:47:18 PM] Brad Wardell: + random map controsl enables
[7:47:58 PM] Brad Wardell: + New stamps to support new spells
[7:48:04 PM] Brad Wardell: + Nymph egg, creature added
[7:48:28 PM] Brad Wardell: + Lots of debalancing little tile modifier spells added (will balance as we go forward, enjoy them while you can)

Had a busy Saturday playing and adding new stuff.

Here’s a sampling:

1. Lots of tweaks to quests to give players more intangible traits.
2. Lot of work on the Guardian sovereign in general
3. Guardian gets a mass sleep spell
4. Guardian gets a mass slow spell
5. Guardian gets an obstruct map spell (rains rocks onto the tactical map causing those tiles to slow down enemies)
6. Guardian gets a damage reflection spell where damage is 2X back at the enemy as long as that unit is standing in that tile (i.e. it’s tied to the tile)
7. AI updated to be smart about tiles (darkling unit will exchange places with player unit on these tiles sometimes so be careful)
8. Guardian gets a spell called harvest shadow land. Turns shadow land back into grasslands and creates a Nymph egg that can be picked up.
9. More monster lair variation (still working on this)
10. Nymph egg item created and it can be used in battle as an item too
11. Lots of new chaos spells based on forum feedback
12. Nymph unit (it’s a baby Morian)
13. Minor races you ally with now crank out bigger armies to clean out SK units on the map in their part of the world
14. Beautify Land spell increases movement in that tile
15. Some fixes to raise and lower land spells
16. Fixed coloring of potions (health is red, mana is blue)
17. Sorcerer King casts spells into tactical battles IF you’re fighting his forces.
18. Sorcerer King focus on your battle depends on your player threat (i.e. the more he’s paying attention to you, the more he intervenes)
19. Sorcerer King has some unique spells including summoning darklings and other units and spells that turn your part of the tactical battle into a snowy slow mess
20. AutoResolve better at providing more consistent results
21. New quests to remind player if they’re forgetting to craft and other such events (done as quests so there can be fun)
22. You can now right click on minor faction capitals to talk to them
23. Various UI tool tips written
24. Random maps now ready for general availability
25. Lots of new tiles designs and stamps made
26. Spells made generally cheaper to research

From playing today, I still don’t feel like I have enough “tools” to fight my battles. This is an area I plan to keep adding and adding to.  I wrote some World Spells (like a Time warp spell) but there isn’t sufficient feedback to the player that they’re doing anything.

Going to probably mess around with the magic slider option more tomorrow and add a lot of new spells, particularly summoning spells.

I also want to get a lot more recipes in.  The quests give a lot of recipes but they don’t display what recipe you got in the quest complete window so you don’t realize you’re getting recipes.

Hi guys,

We have a ton of quests that need to get into the game and are finding that we are just not getting them in fast enough.  We have a great editor but it isn't super user friendly either (i.e. it's not for a non-technical person).  

If any of you would be interested in helping on this, we'd pay by the hour.  If you're interested, respond below.

Thanks!

Update:

We probably have enough people involved now. Unless you're an experienced LH modder, we probably don't need anyone else.

For those of you who have contacted me, make sure you have Google Docs set up and Skype set up if you don't already.  Make sure you ping me. I am always on (well as much as someone with 3 children can be on when they're not at work).

If you like Rogue-like games, a new one has come to my attention:

http://www.indiedb.com/games/there-is-only-power

Let me know what you think.

Cheers!