4K and 5K monitors are coming. And we think they’re going to become common much faster than most people think.  That means gamers will be in a bit of a pickle. Either they’ll have to run their games at a lower resolutions (blurry, non-ideal) or face games with tiny tiny text and UIs.

Sorcerer King will be the first Stardock game to explicitly support high DPI displays.  The screenshots below come from my mere 2560x1440 display but as the last screenshot shows, the super-high DPI (for 4K monitors) doesn’t result in blurry text or graphics.

Normal (what’s in the game now being displayed on a 2560x1440 resolution, things start to look pretty small)

High-DPI UI (same resolution as before but now the UI and text is larger but remains super sharp).

Super-High-DPI (Can’t really show this on my monitor as I don’t have a 4K monitor but you can get an idea of how big this quest appears and yet how sharp things remain).

We expect this feature to hit sometime between Beta 2 and Beta 3 of Sorcerer King (www.sorcererking.com).

Greetings!

We cannot wait for you to get Beta 2.  I always hate the first beta. They’re so painful. They’re basically a “does this work on your machine”. Very boring.  Beta 2 is where the actual game starts to matter a little.

So where do things stand with Beta 2?

Beta 2 is due out this month and it’s going to be big.  It’s where the Minor factions start to matter. A lot. It also starts to really show off what makes Sorcerer King unique as a strategy game.

Yea, I may have burned down the forest but it was for a good cause so it’s ok.

We will be trying to reinforce that Sorcerer King is a game where you start off as if you won the previous 4X game you played. You are mighty.

Again: this is a contest between very powerful beings. Your group is elite. You’re just vastly, vastly outnumbered.

Below in no particular order are some notes for beta 2:

1. Important to remember, this isn’t a traditional 4X. The Sorcerer King has already conquered the world. He’s the guy who has strongholds as your neighbors.
2. Part of your job is to sneak under his radar as long as you can.  He has an overwhelming power advantage over you.  You need to make sure you aren’t blatant until you’re ready to take him on.
3. The minor factions are NOT neutrals. They are generally familiar with you.  They’re the ones you were previously competing with in Fallen Enchantress/Age of Wonders/League of Legends/Warlock/etc.  They don’t necessarily like you. It’s just that they, like you, were overwhelmed by the Sorcerer King.
4. You do not want the remnant factions (minors) to go to war with you. Their units are horrific.
5. You will have powerful, cheap, nuke spells that can be used on the enemy but they won’t work on ruined land (And once cast, the land in that area becomes ruined).
6. Your job is to create the most powerful stack of doom in the history of gaming. To do that you will need to craft craft craft.
7. Crafting ingredients aren’t random (they are in beta 1 but beta 1 sucks).
8. You can harvest crafting ingredients from the land if you’re willing to ruin it.
9. You might be surprised how hard it is to keep from ruining the land if it means easy wins.

Greetings!

For those of you who might be interested in seeing the sausage factory of game development in action, I’ll be streaming my antics at 1pm EST at http://www.twitch.tv/draginol today at 1pm EST.

I’ll be playing Sorcerer King, debugging it, writing code, complaining and answering your questions, comments, criticisms.

Update: Thanks everyone for coming by! That was a blast.  I'll try to do a pre-beta 2 one soon with more lead time.

Years ago the world was at war. Ceresa, The Fallen Enchantress, had unleashed an army of the undead upon the Kingdoms and Empires of Elemental.

The adventurer, Relias, managed to acquire the necessary pieces to build the Forge of the Overlord and with it, defeated Ceresa and her allies.

For a time, there was peace.

Then, one day, a powerful Sorcerer named Mirdoth found the ancient artifact, Curgen's Bane.  It was thought that the bane had been lost in the cataclysm. This was the same artifact that the ancient titans had used to try to consume the magical energy of the world before they were stopped by the great uprising.

The bane transformed Mirdoth into a being of unspeakable power.  He became the Sorcerer King.  With his power, he annihilated all those who stood in his way.  At the very last, Lord Relias, with the help of the Forge of the Overlord, managed to prevent the Sorcerer King from destroying the last city of Relias's realm, Athica but at the cost of his life.

The Sorcerer King's advance was blunted but not stopped.  With his grip on Elemental secure, he devised a new plan. He would send his minions out to sacrifice themselves by attacking the remaining shards of magic. Once shattered, the shards would unleash their power into the bane and fuel the Sorcerer King's new plan - to become a god.

With Relias and the other great channelers gone or ruined, only you, Relias's heir, stand between the Sorcerer King and the end of all life on Elemental.  While you master the Forge of the Overlord, you must send your champions out to find the necessary components to craft the powerful weapons and tools necessary to send an elite force into the heart of the Sorcerer King's realm and stop him before it's too late.

The game itself

The Sorcerer King (www.sorcererking.com) will have both a campaign that enables the player to take on the Sorcerer King through through the scripted story of his rise and godhood or downfall.  It also includes a sandbox mode with both pre-made maps and random maps to fight the Sorcerer King in lots of different and new ways.

Happy Halloween everyone! Just pouring some thoughts out into the ether here.

I <generally> don’t like boycotts

I’m only speaking of myself here. So don’t think that those of you reading this who engage in boycotts are being tut-tuted by me.

Here’s my rationale:

I don’t like coercion. I don’t like the idea of using economic power to stifle someone’s speech. The answer to speech I don’t like is more speech.

When we decide to exert our economic power to punish people for speech we don’t like, I think we, as a society, start to walk down a very dark path.  Imagine if business owners did this with their employees? I’m sure it happens sometimes but it’s definitely not the norm.  Do we want a society where it’s socially acceptable for companies to start firing people for their opinions? I realize that this sometimes happen but it is definitely not the norm and I’m talking about simple differences of opinion on say marriage, religion, politics.

I think the best path for society is tolerance of other points of view. As long as they’re not hurting you (and I mean literally) I would recommend tolerance and not trying to materially harm people.

Punishing your enemies with lawyers (or Lawfare)

Her intent became pretty clear. Under the guise of “fighting harassment against women” she wants to start a legal fund to go after the people who are upsetting her.

I can understand that urge. I can really understand that urge. But that line of thinking takes you down a different dark path.  That isn’t to say there’s never a case to go after people who are making your life miserable. But it should be an absolute, last resort.

Imagine the scenario:

Brianna Wu decides to file a libel lawsuit against some website or some individuals. And, as you can imagine, the gaming press would probably not condemn this given the recent political climate of that industry.  That sets a dangerous precedence.

As someone who has gotten a lot of sustained harassment I know the temptation:

There was a forum where one of its users had sent me a box in the mail with shredded paper and a note “Elemental materials” TO MY HOME and the same forum later had had another user post google directions with my house with the caption “we should pay him a visit” [to the forum owner’s credit, that person was banned] with that very evening receiving an email death threat directed at me, my wife and my oldest son). While I did call the police (or mainly, my wife insisted I call the police) I chose not to go after the site as I thought it all very circumstantial and also: It’s generally considered shitty to sic lawyers on people. 

I know some of the people from that forum read this blog so assuming they’re not totally lost causes, I would hope they can imagine why I have so much antipathy towards that group (and that’s just the tip of the iceberg).  Knowing some of the people involved I can imagine how freaked out they would be if they were receiving anonymous packages in the mail and death threats and had an inkling that it came from someone loosely associated with me.   I suspect they would not have shown the same restraint I have.

Anyway, imagine it became socially acceptable to go after people who piss you off with lawyers. I suspect some of the people who have harassed me (and feel totally justified doing it because I am, well let’s let them speak for themselves):

…probably believe the only thing that’s saved them is that it is considered incredibly socially unacceptable to go after people for saying words with lawyers.  Imagine if that taboo disappeared. Imagine if there was no PR hit for people who have the resources to legally go after people who were harassing them online.  Is that what people want? I bet some people reading this right now are thinking “Well, if they’re harassing someone , yea…” See how tempting it is to try to criminalize mean words?

Brigading

This is a term I just learned about and it’s possible I’m using the term wrong.  I think it means sic'ing your followers on someone. I have been accused of this and I wanted to respond to this allegation.

I have my own term: Spotlighting.   This is where someone is engaging in abusive or insulting behavior and you link to it. 

So what’s the difference? Basically, Brigading is proactive. Spotlighting is reactive. Some have tried to say it’s the “exact same thing” which I assume they think that a mugger and someone who punches a mugger are the “exact same thing”.

Regardless though, if someone objects to spotlighting my suggestion is: Then don’t attack me / Don’t engage in objectively abusive behavior (like wishing someone would die in a fire).

What ISN’T spotlighting

However, I had an unnamed indie developer get upset today because he RT’d the Brianna Wu tweet and I wrote a . in front of the RT to start, what I had hoped, a new conversation between us on the topic Wu had started.

I wrote “I think that path would lead to a very dark place.” And he accused me siccing my followers on him.  I was fairly offended at the implication that my followers are somehow inherently abusive.  I have dozens of interesting conversations on Twitter a week that start with this syntax.  Last night I had one with someone who is very against GG where we discussed “behavior shaping” in online game design.  It was one of the best discussions I’ve had online in many months. 

And…I don’t think anyone promoting the idea of creating a legal fund to sue people on the Internet is in any position to claim a moral high ground but I digress.

Ok, we need a faster way to communicate.

As some of you know, the reason *I* make games is to hang out with you guys. I know that seems bizarre but that it my motivation.  

And I'm a little frustrated because I want to be able to chat with you guys quicker.

So...

With that in mind, what you do you guys recommend as a good way for us to talk? Like, could I go onto a streaming channel or something where I can complain about the problems I'm having with the game and you guys can chime in on what you think would make it even better?

For example, tonight I am working on giving the Warlord hero some new starting abilities.  The flaming arrow just isn't doing it for me.  It's..lame.  

Anyway, what's a good place I could just jump into and you guys could join and leave as you wish?

Greetings!

I bring you fear, death, pestilence and candy. Virtual candy anyway!

Just some highlights of today’s Halloween at Stardock:

Our lead 3D programmer on Sorcerer King dresses up like Tandis for Halloween!

The lead designer of the Sorcerer King website is a fierce warrior!

The man in charge, Derek “Kael” Paxton is a great buddy!

GalCiv III lead designer, Paul “Mormegil” Boyer is a smooth operator.

My son…is…I’m not sure. He made this and it’s spookier in person.

Jillian “the bearded” is a filthy filthy hippie!

Boo!

They say timing is everything.

I keep being told that #gamergate started as a harassment and threat campaign.  Maybe they’re right if you treat #gamergate as having started years ago when people under the guise of “Social Justice” started harassing and threatening people they didn’t like.  I don’t just speak of myself.  What is happening now in the gaming community has been building up for years. 

So let me be succinct: People have the growing, creeping feeling that “pull” and “politics” rather than merit are becoming the driving force of our society. They believe it’s infected the coverage of their hobby. And they’re now pushing back.

Bullying

But let’s talk about bulling. Let’s make sure we understand each other:

Let me address those friends and colleagues who are vocally anti-GamerGate who have told me I need to be careful not to be associated with “GG”:

Don’t tell me that I must disassociate myself from #gamergate because it’s become a “harassment” movement when many of you personally witnessed the harassment, threats and hate I have been receiving for years on forums and social media that you knew was undeserved but did nothing about.  You didn’t say a word. You didn’t speak up. You just didn’t want to get involved.  Some of you participated in the very threads where I was being attacked and just looked the other way.

And mind you, I didn’t hold it against you that you didn’t want to step up and come to my defense.  I didn’t expect you to. I have a thick skin. And I am the bigger person.  That’s what I keep being told. In essence, I’m told I have to put up with the abuse and harassment and threats by the virtue of having the ability to crush them if I wanted.  Therefore, as an “overdog”, you felt no need to say a single word in, say, a thread that was full of personal attacks you knew were false because, hey, I can take it.  And you’re right. I can.

But it also means that your outrage against harassment, threats and abuse is selective. When you saw me being defamed for years and just ignored it (no tweets, no comments, etc.) you clearly made a distinction that some people need to be supported and others do not. 

In fact, in all those years, only one person who knew the details spoke up for me. (and you can look at the thread to see the hate thrown at me and then see that these haters now, 100% are the ones bullying and smearing #gamergate supporter today. Go ahead, check. These aren’t anonymous people. These are the people claiming to be “the good guys”).  And you know what they did to him? My friend? They suggested disgusting things about us. Ridiculed him. Of course, some of you know that because you saw what they said on other forums but you said nothing. Didn’t want to get involved.

I’ve seen the tactic used over and over: Delegitimize your critics and disperse their support base.  That’s what you’re trying to do to these #gamergate people through insults, bullying, ridiculing. 

And if that doesn’t work, economic punishment:

He’s using a word I don’t think he understands. Basically: I should be fired because…reasons (unspecified) Tolerance.

If I say something or do something or write something that you think is inappropriate, inflammatory or unfair then call me on it.  I can take it. 

But don’t tell me that I have some “guilt by association” thing going when you were perfectly okay associating with people and groups that have spent years harassing others.

For those of you not aware, Stardock is working on a new fantasy strategy game called Sorcerer King.

The Sorcerer King isn’t you…

It is currently in beta and we are getting ready to release Beta 2.

In our previous fantasy game, Fallen Enchantress, the player was competing with 8 other civilizations in trying to claim dominance of the world of Elemental.

Sorcerer King takes place centuries later and the bad news is, a new enemy (the Sorcerer King) has annihilated the Kingdoms and Empires of Elemental and taken total control.  The map is controlled by him and he is now in the process of trying to become a god.

Your job, as the player, is to build a last alliance of Men and Fallen to defeat the Sorcerer King before it’s too late. 

The good news, Sorcerer King assumes YOU WON Fallen Enchantress and thus have the Forge of the Overlord in hand (the game winning condition of Fallen Enchantress) which allows you to craft incredibly powerful items. It also assumes that you have reached the height of your power.

Starting where you left off

Sorcerer King assumes you won whatever your previous fantasy 4X game you played and start incredibly powerful.  You start at Sauron level power. Turn 1.  The problem is, to use LOTR terminology, your opponent is Morgoth power. 

The armies he sends against you, however, are still mere mortals.  You will be dealing with a massive disparity in numbers but you are encouraged to build a stack of doom – if you can.

Who are you?

Who are you?

Beta 1 had the player forced to play as the Wizard.  In Beta 2, we’re unlocking the Tyrant and the Guardian.  The Tyrant sees the Sorcerer King as a competitor. The Guardian acts as the protector of the world and can do a lot of terraforming.

You may have to destroy the world to save it

One of the major distinctions between Sorcerer King and other fantasy 4X games (including Fallen Enchantress) is that the land itself is your resource.  That is, you have the power to physically alter the land.

That land looks nice but it may need to be ruined in order to provide you with necessary resources.

You may have to make some…changes

Since you’re…you know, the hero, you may have to make certain sacrifices for the good of the world. 

This land needed to be ruined for the good of the world…Note the life stone in the middle. A powerful crafting ingredient.

The ultimate stack of doom

While strategy games tries to discourage stacks of doom, Sorcerer King embraces it. In fact, you will need that stack of doom to have a chance.  The question is, can you create it? Are you willing to do whatever is necessary to create it?

Crafting is a critical element of the game.  When there are armies of Trogs, Dreads, Trolls, Juggernauts, all heading your way, you will need powerful spells to destroy them before they get to you.  A volcano,  Heaven Fall, Hellfire, earth quakes, Fire storms, you name it will probably be needed.  You’ll also need incredibly powerful armor, weapons, potions, etc.

The ingredients for those kinds of things are going to require potent crafting items and sometimes, you’ll need to crush a mountain range or absorb the life from fertile lands or mutilate a lush valley to gain it.  The important thing is, because you’re the hero, the good guy, the savior of the world you can tell yourself that these things need to be done.  You are, after all, trying to save the world…

Release Dates

Sorcerer King Beta 2 comes out in November.  The final release is coming this Winter.  You can visit www.sorcererking.com to keep up with what we’re doing as well as join us to provide your own suggestions, ideas, and feedback on how we’re doing.

This Thursday (October 30th) we plant o have an opt-in beta which is basically a preview of Beta 2 (not quite done but getting there).

This is what will be in there:

1. All eight minor factions.
2. The Guardian sovereign
3. The Tyrant sovereign
4. Lots and lots of gameplay enhancements across the board

The Minor Factions

Minor factions in Sorcerer King interact with you purely from conversations.  It’s not a trade screen ala GalCiv, FE, Civilization, etc.  Instead, each one has specific things they can do for you (and to you) and gaining their favor requires doing specific things based on which minor faction they are.

Between now and release, the minors will get much more fleshed out.  We’re just putting in the skeleton of this system for Beta 2.  You will need their help to win (or at least, you’ll need them to not side with the Sorcerer King).

The Guardian Sovereign

The guardian sovereign is the master of terraforming the world.  She can raise and lower the land as needed.  If you need to wall yourself off (or protect shards by surrounding them with mountains) you can do that.  If you’ve ever played Populous, you will get an idea of what we’re going for here with the Guardian.

We are really hoping that the Kumquat 3 engine we’re using that supports morphable terrain will differentiate Sorcerer King from other 4X games (such as Fallen Enchantress).  We will be very interested in hearing the ideas of other players on other interesting things we can do here (and we’ll want it to come from people playing the game and not theory craft <g>).

The Tyrant Sovereign

The Tyrant is modeled after Saruman. He’s envious of the Sorcerer King and fancies himself taking his place.  The Tyrant can destroy shards and absorb their magic. He too can cast the spell of making.  In a way, he’s in a race with the Sorcerer King to accumulate the power to destroy the world for his own ends.

Lots and Lots of updates

We got a lot of good feedback from Beta 1 and began implementing it here.

For example, if the Sorcerer King won, why is the land relatively clear of his presence? Well, in Beta 2, he has garrisons around the map and strongholds start peppered around the map from turn 1. These strongholds train units, build improvements (different ones from you) and look to get even more land.

They also spread the Shadow lands – land that has been corrupted.

Shadowlands are utterly ruined but, for players who have enchantment books, they can be converted into fertile lands and be built on by the player.

We also have Thralls in.  As the Sorcerer King becomes more powerful, more and more of your citizens fall under his sway.  Thralls are basically the same as units you build except, they don’t’ do anything.   The cure for that is hope which can only be found through the sovereign’s skill tree (i.e. there isn’t a “hope building” here).

Worries, Anxieties and Honesty

What we want to do with Sorcerer King is provide a clean slate to build on.  That is, we imagine releasing Sorcerer King early next year and then having yearly expansions based on player feedback until people don’t want them anymore.  This means Sorcerer King itself needs to be a fun, tight, innovative experience.

Right now, I can think of two excellent fantasy 4X games on the market that player can choose from – Endless Legends and Age of Wonders 3.  We don’t want Sorcerer King to take away sales from these excellent titles so we want it to provide enough distinction that it’s not competing.  This means we have our work cut out for us. 

So let’s talk about the things that you might be worried about and the things we’re worried about:

Crafting

Frankfurter and others have made a lot of outstanding suggestions on how the crafting system in Sorcerer King might be extended. What’s ironic, is that we already have a crazy powerful crafting system…in XML.    If you open up coreitems.xml you ‘ll see that items have Game Modifiers on them.  This is a techie way of calling them enchantments.  We just never created a UI for them.

We have been frustrated with the current crafting system in that it’s basically just a store with ingredients as currency.  I don’t like it.

So this is what we are looking to add to it:

Recipes provide the means to both create items and enhance them. 

Example:

1. A recipe for a sword might require some iron ore and oils to create. 
2. If player has those items then they can select the sword to craft
3. Then, based on their CRAFTING SKILL level (which ranges from 1 to 3 based on the sovereign they chose) they enchant it.
4. The first level of enchantment is based on what magic books you selected: Chaos, Wrath, Enchantment, Summoning.  Thus, these enchantments would be related to these books. The more, say Chaos books you have, the more powerful the chaos enchantments you can place on this sword. 
5. The second level is based on Mana. If you’re willing to spend the mana, you can do some fairly straight forward enhancements (+2 attack, +2 speed, fire damage, etc.)  Nothing fancy here.
6. The third and most advanced level is based on additional items ingredients you might have. This third level will tend to add new abilities to your units when the item is equipped.  So maybe the weapon gives the unit the Smite ability or can absorb mana.

You are vastly outnumbered

When the balance is right, players who aren’t playing on beginner will feel like they’re up against crazy odds. That’s because they are.  You won’t win through traditional 4X means.  You’re going to have to nuke parts of the world. I don’t think there’s any way around it.  You’re going to have to use powerful, world breaking spells to keep them back.

You’re going to have to craft items and weapons and defenses that make the ultimate stack of doom.  This game isn’t going to punish you for having a stack of doom. It’s going to punish you for NOT having a stack of doom.   Make that stack of doom. You know you want to.

Your stack of doom, however, will be going up against a very smart opponent.  That is, I’m going to be personally coding the Sorcerer King’s units actions in tactical.  It’s not going to be dice rolling here.  I’m going to be looking at what you got and trying to counter you actively. You will need to look at what spells the Sorcerer King has gotten (this will be in Beta 2) and be careful not to run afoul of them.

Sovereign Differentiation

Obviously the different sovereigns have different units and their own unique skill tree (our tech tree equivalent).  The goal here will be to make each type of player very distinct.

The End game

Over the course of the game you’re going to run into a lot of quests that are where you get a lot of your special items, crafting ingredients, special units, etc.  But you will also be making choices that will determine what kind of character you are (ala Ultima IV).  So at the end of the game, when you meet the Sorcerer King, he will, in effect, be a mirror image of what you are.

Right now, the end battle is the same no matter what.  But as we go forward, the Sorcerer King will be the anti-you.  You won’t be selecting a specific Sorcerer King at the start of the battle but when you do reach him, you will be presented with a general summary of the way you’ve played that particular game and the particular consequences that will ensue as a result.

Sorcerer King vs…

For Sorcerer King to succeed at the level we want, we need to make sure it is truly unique. That is really stands out. 

Below are the 5 areas we are trying to focus on to do that:

1. This is the game that happens AFTER you lost the previous.  It’s the consequence of the enemy having defeated you and the other 4X fantasy races.   If you’ve ever played a 4X game where you’ve won and kept the other players in a zoo (i.e. down to 1 city and you own the map) that’s what the Sorcerer King has done to you.
2. All things aren’t equal.  You are up against vast numbers of opponents.
3. Victory isn’t largely or even mainly about building a bunch of cities.  The main point of cities is to provide logistical support for your units. The economy of the world is so shattered that money isn’t even a resource to use in the game (there’s no gold).
4. You may have to do great harm to the world in order to win.  We have maps in the beta that are very pretty (you may have noticed).  But they won’t end up pretty.  Are you really planning to risk wiping out your well crafted units to win? You can’t win by attrition.  Your Civilization / LH / traditional 4X strategy won’t work here.
5. This isn’t about the size of your army, it’s the quality of it.  The Sorcerer King already won via force of arms.  Your final army going into his realm needs to be as powerful as Sauron from that scene in Lord of the Rings.   Because the Sorcerer King isn’t Sauron. He’s Morgoth who’s trying to become Eru.

What’s next

So Beta 2 is still due in early November. But the Opt-In beta is this Thursday. Obviously there’s still a lot to do between now and then but hopefully this starts to show you where we’re going.

Please feel free to comment.