Before I tell them to set this up I wanted to make a post and gauge interest in this:

There's going to be a new fantasy strategy game from Stardock in the Elemental universe. It's NOT a sequel to Fallen Enchantress.  

I'm looking to ask the team to set up a founder's program for people who are interested in getting a sneak peak at what we're doing and getting early access to it this Fall. The founder's edition would be $20.

Here is, broadly, what the game is like:

1. Completely new art style
2. Asymmetrical 4X (it's not you vs. other similar empires, it's you vs. a single bad guy with everyone else as pawns between the two of you and you both play by your own set of rules)
3. No unit design and no tech tree, instead you gain access to things based on what you've built in your city
4. Sovereign is not a unit in the game, you instead choose the spell books your sovereign has, their specialization and their ability and use that across the world 
5. Shards provide magic which is divided between mana, lore (spell research) and skill (for upgrading your sovereign's specialization tree)
6. Much more quest focused (spells written by Cracked.com's Chris Bucholz, they're awesome)
7. Champions acquired via completing quests
8. Crafting (players find ingredients and recipes through the course of the game)
9. Multiple continents, islands, ship travel
10. Tactical battles heavily focused on what spells and abilities you have and how you use them, feels a bit like Hearthstone but the battles are still elemental style except with more units - instead of 9 ala LH you'd have up to 15)
11. All units have special abilities
12. Plot takes place centuries after the events of LH - suffice to say, bad things have happened
13. Player *starts out* with the Forge of the Overlord - the player is very tough, has all the techs from LH from the start which is to say the bad guy is just that much tougher

Now, as you can see, because it's so different we're updating, enhancing LH on its own dev path with its own meaningful updates. 

Anyway, who would be interested in joining a Founder's Program if we put it up in June?

UPDATE: The URL for the $20 early Founder's edition is live: https://www.stardock.com/buy?s=ESD-SDE-W062

UPDATE 2: The E2015 Founder's Vault is live: http://e2015.stardock.com/

I’ve got some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that GalCiv III is moving along on schedule.  The bad news is that we’ve decided to change the feature requirements necessary for GalCiv III to be considered a “beta”.

Originally, we were going to release the beta in May/June and have it not include combat/diplomacy/etc.  However, we’ve determined that we’re better off continuing with the Alpha series until some of those features enter into the game which isn’t scheduled until late Summer.

So the Founder’s Elite Edition will continue to see some big updates in the coming weeks (there’s a pretty huge update scheduled for the end of this month) but the beta version has been pushed.

Old man Paxton is giving me 16 engineering hours to put into LH v1.7.  So that means AI and other C++ game mechanic stuff.  There's a few threads around here I'll be mining.  But suffice to say, I plan to do terrible terrible things to you people with the AI update.

We have something really cool in the works. 

For those of you in the GalCiv III founders program, what are your favorite aspects of it? What would you like more of?

I’ve seen a lot of talk about early access and the pros and cons of it.  I wanted to share some experiences on this. 

The very first commercial retail PC game that allowed people to pre-order the game and get access to the beta was called Galactic Civilizations for OS/2 and the year was 1993. 

Every single Stardock game has had early access for over 20 years so this is a good opportunity to share some experiences about it.

#1 You can’t fund your game this way

I’ve seen many gamers (and even some game developers) believe that they can fund their game through early access.  It doesn’t work that way.  Most people (95%) won’t buy a game in beta.  The sales/revenue graph of a game is a straight line that turns into a cliff when a game is released.   So if you think you can pay for development this way, forget it.

There are notable exceptions (Star Citizen) but the reason they get a lot of attention is because they are so unusual. 

#2 Early Access is good for compatibility testing

I’ve seen people online talk about “paying to beta test” which is, well, a crazy thing to say. That said, Early Access is wonderful for compatibility testing.  For example, mixing video drivers, sound drivers, network drivers, and the OS is largely impossible to do well for smaller studios and publishers.

The setup has gotten insanier (that’s now officially a word) even in the past few years.  Right now, as you read this, right click on your sound system tray options, select play back devices.  How many of you get a noticeable delay in getting that dialog up? The answer is about 10% of you.  This is caused by AMD high definition audio devices being added which can cause some games to get a lot of stuttering in their sound.  It can be worked around but without early access, it would be really hard to solve this (you can fix this on your end by disabling those devices). 

It’s even worse on Windows 8 btw where people who don’t have Windows 8.1 UPDATE (not to be confused with Windows 8.1 normal) because there’s a bug in the OS that causes the sound driver to not get enough CPU which affects games using DirectX 11.  And these are sound issues. Video, well, that’s a whole different world. 

The point being compatibility is a good use of early access.

#3 Early Access is good for fan feedback

One of the best elements of Early Access is that you get people who are committed to the concept of your game.  We took some blow back from people because Galactic Civilizations III: Founder’s Edition was $100.  It includes everything we will ever make for GalCiv III (all DLC and expansions).  The idea behind it was to find a way to not have casual players in the alpha program.   The feedback from these players has been amazing. 

This is why #1 is so key: Not only will you not get very many sales (relative to the final game) of your EA game but you don’t want too many.  If you get too many EA players, the feedback gets way too muddled. You want people who are already sold on the concept and not people who will try to push you to make a different game (like MOO fans who always seem to wish GalCiv would become a MOO style game, I love MOO but GalCiv isn’t MOO).

#4 PR is a limiting factor on Early Access

As some of you know, Stardock sold Impulse to Gamestop some years ago. With that capital, we created an investment fund which has been used to help start-ups and get some amazing games off the ground.  Over the next 36 months or so, we’ll be releasing around 7 new games.  You know about Galactic Civilizations III. That’s one.

I would love to announce these games over the next year and get Early Access going for them because most them are brand new IP.  The limiting factor for us is PR. That is, how many games do we want in Early Access at once?  We don’t know that answer but we do know there’s a threshold before you create what marketing calls a “negative narrative” that becomes very hard to get away from once it has been created.

Galactic Civilizations III was an easy one because people already know what it is.   Right now, we have 3 other games that we play daily internally that aren’t even announced (one of which we play at lunch every day competitively multiplayer via the Internet between the teams).

The point being, many people don’t like the concept of Early Access and it does put the brakes on how many Early Access games are available at a given moment and keeps the bigger studios from doing it. 

#5 Fan interaction is a major motivator

Most people I know who make games do so because they enjoy making things to share with other people. No one becomes a game developer for the money.  If it weren’t for fan interaction, I wouldn’t be making games at all.  It’s my primary motivation.  I’m a creature of the Internet. I’m notorious for lurking and participating on forums outside our own because talking about our games or other games is very enjoyable.

Early Access is particularly fun because you can actually make meaningful changes to the game based on intelligent feedback.  Nothing sucks worse for a game developer than to get a great idea from a fan only to not be able to use it because it’s “too late”.

We’ve been blessed with a lot of fantasy 4X games in the past few years.

Besides the Elemental games we’ve gotten Warlock, Age of Wonders 3, Eador, and soon Endless Legends. If you like fantasy games, I highly recommend checking them all out (except War of Magic which is inferior to all of them).

Unfortunately, as game designers, we have an unusual challenge: Magic.

Magic isn’t fair

It is really really hard to write good AI in a game that literally allows players to conjure up all kinds of game changing stuff.  The granddaddy of this genre, Master of Magic, didn’t really have an AI.  In theory it did but the AI doesn’t really provide a challenge. The game’s amazing game design makes a strong case that it’s the journey that matters, not the destination.  That is, in MOM, winning is a foregone conclusion. Of course you’re going to win. The question is how?

Revisiting Elemental: War of Magic

At the risk of being boastful, as problematic as War of Magic was at launch, it was highly innovative.  The cloth map mode it introduced is kind of expected now.

Elemental: War of Magic introduced the cloth map zoom out concept, now obvious in hindsight

The city building features were pretty amazing

The problems of Elemental: War of Magic could be summed up as follows:  It was a series of interesting game concepts that were not tied together versus computer opponents who weren’t sure what they are supposed to be doing.

If I had to do it over again Elemental: War of Magic would have been bulleted like this:

• You are a powerful Sorcerer (or sorceress) who must build a kingdom from the ground up
• Your goal is to be the first to cast the spell of making to take control of the world (not that conquering enemies is NOT a requirement here)
• To do that you will need to capture the 4 types of Elemental shards: Earth, Air, Fire, Water and construct the Forge of the Overlord
• You can build alliances with other players who control one or more o those elemental shards who are willing to tie their destiny to yours
• Those alliances are built through arranged marriages through your dynasty
• Go on quests to find one of the very few Champions of the world to help lead your armies to secure the land you need to build your cities along with the loot necessary to make your units, champions, and cities more powerful.
• Your cities provide the units necessary to learn the spell of mastery, construct the forge of the overlord and armies to secure resources that required to do both.

This design takes into account the basic problem in magic games: You can’t make a Civilization style 4X game and have powerful magic at the same time. If the object of the game is to conquer another empire, then you have to deal with balance and magic eliminates that balance.  Conquering other cities should not be the goal in these games. It’s boring and tedious.  It should be optional but not central to whether you win or lose. 

By making magic both the tool AND the goal, you can eliminate mundane balance issues.  Want to protect your capital by surrounding yourself with mountains or ocean? No problem. Go for it.  But you can’t do that if the AI is required to actually conquer your cities in order win. 

If city conquest is the goal, then magic has to be gimped and at that point why have it?

We had a great discussion about what features of LH players liked the most.

Now, let’s turn it on its head.  What parts of Legendary Heroes do you like the least?

This doesn’t have to be a feature list either, it could be elements of the game (or parts of the game) that you just find boring or frustrating or poorly thought out.

Let us know!

Bottom line: DirectX 12 looks to double perf over DirectX 11 on the same hardware.  The game changing effect of this cannot be understated.

Build is Microsoft’s annual developer’s conference.  It’s been a long time since I’ve gone to one of these.

This year, for the first time in some years, I feel like Microsoft is back to their old selves.  It’s like they were in an incompetent funk for a very long time.

Consider the idiocy that has flowed from Redmond in recent years:

1. Creation of Silverlight and subsequent abandonment (Silverlight was awesome)
2. Windows Presentation Foundation and its abandonment (WPF was awesome)
3. The Windows Sidebar and its abandonment (this was just a dumb idea)
4. Windows Phone 7
5. Games for Windows Live (good idea, horribly executed)
6. Microsoft Live’s abandonment (great idea, well executed, abandoned)
7. Zune
8. Windows 8 in its entirety (this would be a long list of incompetence)
9. Windows Phone 7.5 (took like 30 years to get this update out)
10. Calling the new XBox the XBox One (Seriously, who named this?)
11. The first iteration of “Windows Store” (You can’t find anything)
12. Windows RT vs. WinRT (One is the Arm version of the Windows OS, the other is an API designed for making “Modern” apps
13. Surface RT’s condition when it shipped

As a long time Microsoft watcher, especially as someone whose formative tech years were spent watching the Microsoft of the Bill Gates era behaving with a  combination of ruthlessness and competence (Windows 95, NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, SQL Server, ASP.NET, Win32, .NET, DirectX, the NT kernel, etc.) it has been painful watching Microsoft decline into sheer ineptitude.

But with their new CEO, it seems like it’s a brand new day at Microsoft. In talking, off the record, with many tech leads and managers here at Build, it’s pretty clear that the best and brightest at Microsoft were being held back.

Let’s look at Build 2014 and the sudden coherence of what Microsoft is doing:

1. They announced WinU, a single API that will work on XBox One, Windows Phone, and Windows allowing developers to use their favorite language (C#, C++, etc.) to make Windows apps that can be recompiled for different platforms.
2. A new version of Visual Studio that integrates these features into it.
3. An admission of the foolishness of Windows 8 by bringing back desktop functionality like the Start menu and letting Windows store apps run in a window on the desktop.
4. The unveiling of Cortana, a developer friendly personal assistant that is leveraged by Microsoft’s vast and varied cloud services (and make no mistake, Microsoft Azure is, by far, the best cloud tech out there)
5. DirectX 12 which is being designed not just for games but as a platform for creating high performance graphics apps that will work on XBox One, PC, and Windows Phone.
6. Microsoft services and products being introduced across multiple platforms. This means Office for iPad and the unveiling of Office for Metro.

These 6 steps demonstrate that Microsoft is back in the game.  It’s a brand new day for Microsoft.

UPDATED TENTATIVE SCHEDULE 8/14:

Hey everyone!

Island Dog here with an update to the schedule now that the beta has released. Please note that this is a TENTATIVE schedule that is subject to change, though we’re very happy with where we are in the development process.

Happy conquering!

***

March 2014: Alpha 1 - First release!
The very first version of the game.

April 2014: Alpha 2 - Shipyard added!
This version addressed early feedback and some new UI improvements, tech tree changes, and ideology tree changes.

June 2014: Alpha 3 - Starports and more!
We’re adding some big features and making huge changes to a few more with this alpha release. This includes larger maps, improved AI, starports, multiplayer fixes, an improved ship designer (based on your feedback from Alpha 2), resources, performance improvements and numerous UI updates.

August 2014: Beta 1 - Terraforming! Ideology rework! Tons of other stuff!
Now that the game is something approaching fun, we’re calling it a beta. This release adds a ton of stuff (and the regular $49.99 price, discounted to $44.99 during Early Access). See here for more: https://forums.galciv3.com/456691/page/1/

October 2014: Beta 2 - Diplomacy! Trade! United Planets! Krynn Syndicate! Global Events!
October will be a big month for GalCiv III. Many of the non-combat paths open up at this point, and we introduce global events and the fifth faction, the Krynn Syndicate.

December 2014: Beta 3 - Combat! Yor Singularity!
This is the big combat update. Ground invasions, our new take on fleet combat, and the sinister mechanical Yor join the beta before the end of the year.

Early 2015: Iteration, balance, polish, factions 7 & 8, and more!

April 2015: Release!

********************

UPDATED TENTATIVE SCHEDULE 5/27:

Greetings everyone!

Island Dog here updating you on the current iteration of the TENTATIVE schedule for Galactic Civilizations III development.

In case the all-caps weren’t clear, everything from Alpha 3 on is subject to change.

Thanks for your support!

***

March 2014: Alpha 1 - First release!
The very first version of the game.
 

April 2014: Alpha 2 - Shipyard added!
This version addressed early feedback and some new UI improvements, tech tree changes, and ideology tree changes.

June 2014: Alpha 3 - Starports and more!
We’re adding some big features and making huge changes to a few more with this alpha release. This includes larger maps, improved AI, starports, multiplayer fixes, an improved ship designer (based on your feedback from Alpha 2), resources, performance improvements and numerous UI updates.

Summer 2014: Alpha 4 - Even more systems!
We will discuss the features introduced in this patch at a later date.
 

Late Summer 2014: Beta 1 - (Mostly) feature complete!
Thanks in part to the valuable feedback provided by our Elite Founders, we’ll have most if not all of the major systems and features implemented in the game at this point.

This is also the point during Galactic Civilizations III development at which the Founders Elite Edition goes off sale forever, replaced by the normal $49.99 game.
 

Fall 2014 to Release: Beta iteration
Anything that didn’t make it into the initial beta release will be added in the following months, and we’ll be polishing, tweaking, and fixing bugs throughout until we’re happy with calling the game “finished.”

And then we’ll get to work on post-launch patches, DLC and expansions, naturally. But it’ll be officially launched at that point.

********************

ORIGINAL POST:

Greetings everyone!

There's been lots of questions regarding the development schedule of GalCiv III. Below is our *tentative* schedule for the game:


March 2014: Alpha 1
(the version you have now along with some minor updates)

April 2014: Alpha 2
(this version will begin to address early feedback and some new UI improvements, tech tree changes, ideology tree changes)

May 2014: BETA 1!
(This version is when the Founder Elite Edition goes away and is replaced by the normal, $49.99 game which is expected to be priced at a discount. So those people who don't like the $99 Founder Elite Edition who just want GalCiv III and would like to get it early and at a discount, this is the version you'll want.)

June 2014: BETA 1A
(this version is expected to bring in the Shipyard -- the in game ship designer amongst other things)

August 2014: BETA 2
(Diplomacy, Trade, Influence victories, culture, more in depth economics)

October 2014: BETA 3
(The Fleet Combat screen)

Beyond this point: Polish, Tweaking, Fixing, repeat.

Expected final release is 2Q2015 (April through June).