So on a more serious note I'd like to recommend a few things for the alpha release Dedicated sub-discussion. I realize there isn't an NDA on it but maybe it would make things 'cleaner' to talk about things. Thought it is a valid point that even if you're not in the Founder's Elite doesn't mean you don't have valid feedback Stan
Personally I think this 'hidden Early Access' is the way to go. I also think going with the higher price tag for the alpha release was a good idea. Introversion had a similar theory of "This costs a lot of money so you're going to THINK about it, and not just buy it blind because it was on sale on Steam". I think this coupled with the fact that it's only on GalCiv3's website 'should' mean only the hard-core of the hard-core will be buying an testing. And will be fa
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[quote who="Rudy_102" reply="53" id="3447101"] Since Kickstarter is part of our society, I guess it falls under all statistical data for our society, including success/failure rate.[/quote] https://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats Kickstarter is pretty open about their stats. Games actually fall below the 'average' of 44% of successfully funded projects at 35%. Though weirdly the games category has the mos
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http://hothardware.com/News/Microsoft-Confirms-DirectX-12-Lives-Will-Showcase-Technology-At-GDC/ I know Frogboy has talked about how MS has been behind the times with DirectX and such. Maybe we can hope that DX12 provides some "Mantle-like" capabilities.
They're definitely prepping for the alpha release soon on Steam.
GalCiv3 doesn't use the Oxide Engine so any of the AMD Mantle stuff in CCC 14.2 isnt' really relevant
the only real stipulation they had was that you state clearly the footage is alpha.
I'm not against fluff but that is one of those UI foibles that needed fixing. You can add the BC stuff else where, but keep the main UI clean of those kinds of nonsensical nomenclature that doesn't convey useful information to the player
You can disable the Steam Community features either globally or on a per-game basis To do it per-game go to your library, right-click Properties, General tab, uncheck "Enable the steam overlay while in-game"
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[quote who="chuck1es" reply="38" id="3442431"] It's simple: They need to have a pre-Beta Beta to make sure the game is ready for consumers for Beta release. A Gamma, if you will. Duh![/quote] It sorta depends. Even Prison Architect in Alpha 1 was 'playable' just not really complete and such. Each update adns more and more content and complexity. It's hard to say when in that process Prison Architect goes from alpha/beta really.
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[quote who="ParagonRenegade" reply="31" id="3442026"] Quoting Tridus, reply 30 The problem isn't testers. It's people who don't know about the game seeing alpha footage and not knowing its alpha. Currently being in the Planetary Annihilation Beta, where it flatly says (twice) "this is a beta!" and has a gigantic "Beta" symbol on the main menu, people say almost every game something along the lines of "Dude, Uber really screwed up this
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[quote who="Zarkov" reply="11" id="3441310"] The problem has often been that people have complained about "being forced" to do something, and then things get automated, or simply removed, which in turn leaves you with too little to do. The level of possible interaction must stay high, or else you end up as a passive observer, rather than an active manipulator.[/quote] In my own Civ games when they used to have Governor AI to do things. I would always micro manage the hell out of
[quote who="Lucky Jack" reply="13" id="3441291"] I think I remember them doing that once before, and it wasn't even an April Fools joke. Or was that someone else's game?[/quote] Gmail was officially released on April Fools 2004. And given the company's history of really screwing with users on April Fools, a 'free email service with 1GB of space' announcment was on par with PigeonRank and a Lunar Google Base in terms of believablity.
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[quote who="Island Dog" reply="11" id="3438528"] As mentioned above, I think it being clearly indicated that it's an alpha/beta is very important. Not everyone follows development and I've seen way too many times people that think an alpha/beta is the final product. [/quote] You can try but Steam's "Early Access" with the banners that literally kick you in the head telling you what it is, developers putting gigantic disclaimers like DayZ "DO NOT BUY
March 27? ... Brother from Japan is in town..... Yeah bro you can't come, I have sabola you really can't come. What is sabola? Its SARS and ebola in one. Nasty stuff from when a Chinese chicken mated with an African monkey. You REALLY REALLY can't come. It's a vomitorium in here, bleeding from the eyes, puss everywhere, and I'm coughing up blood like the 3rd act in a Korean drama. Yeah its really really bad.
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Look I love Alpha Centauri. It's an awesome game But dear god that games NEEDS STREAMLINING. The UI is mind numbing and too much click micro. "Streamline" != "making the game stupid" It's about making each choice a meaningful chioce, instead of giving you 100 stupid choicses that have no clear consequence. Having more junk to do, doesn't make the game more 'complex' it just makes it 'complicated'
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Stardock has a pretty good history of supporting bizarro land resolutions so I'd imagine you'd be covered https://forums.galciv3.com/449050/page/1/#3406728 From frogboy
[quote who="Sanati" reply="52" id="3438656"] Quoting Tridus, reply 50 I doubt its that. Vista is out of mainstream support at Microsoft, is falling back to 4% on the Steam hardware survey, and is generally irrelevant. Most likely they just don't want to have the expense of supporting it. That's the thing, there should be nothing to support. There is no fundamental difference between Vista and 7 that I'm aware of, in fact windows 7 is basically a minor U
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So while the alpha is a bit out I did want to ask a few questions concerning Multiplayer which I think are relevant 1) Is there going to be an option for a "Pitboss" that can manage MP matches? 2) Will there be a 'lite' version of this Pitboss server. I only ask because Civ5 implemented this entirely crazy "You can't run civ5 and be a pitboss at the same time on the same computer" which is really really annoying 3) Steam Notifications. While not well known
[quote who="psalmy" reply="38" id="3438050"] I am so glad you guys are taking the UI seriously. After playing SC2 and customizing my hotkeys there, GalCiv II hurts me ! Please let us create custom hotkeys, even if it's just through editing a .txt[/quote] Every once and while I start up ALpha Centauri for kicks. The game still is awesome but GOD TEH UI IS SO GOD DAMN TERRIBLE. Some 'retro' stuff really does need to stay dead. And UIs
[quote who="Frogboy" reply="53" id="3437953"] The answer is that we're always having to worry about "exploits". But what if we designed a game predicated on the player being OP'd? [/quote] That's kinda interesting... How does it compare to something like AI War? Which has the learning curve of a brick wall but has a kind of opposite design philosophy of the players vs 2 utterly superior AI opponents?
[quote who="Heavenfall" reply="60" id="3438090"] Yarlen noted over on the Steam forums that the next Elemental game isn't going to use Nitrous: http://steamcommunity.com/app/267130/discussions/0/558746745692944849/[/quote] If the 'next game' was in dev even before LH, then it makes sense that Oxide wouldn't have been part of that picture.
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[quote who="admiralWillyWilber" reply="16" id="3438234"] Brad said that there will be both Dlc and expansions, and the Dlc's will be old school. I know what an expansion does, but what did the Dlc's do for the game. Compare what it would do for Twilight of the Arnor as a comparison.[/quote] Well we don't have a lot of history since Stardock hasn't really gone on the DLC train much. The only game we can really reference is Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes. Whi
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[quote who="Frogboy" reply="6" id="3438254"] I would say so. Though, I doubt it'll be very impressive. [/quote] I can't recall does Stardock have a general 'video monetization' policy? Given YouTube's recent draconian stance on let's play videos, we have to 'ask' just in case YouTube decides monetizing an alpha footage lets play video is some kind of violation of the Geneva Convention.
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[quote who="Rudy_102" reply="11" id="3437221"] I don't like concept of DLC itself, I like old add-ons and expansions, but if it's free content, something from graphics departments, if artists really have nothing to do up to release - then why not? [/quote] The problem is 'most' people LOVE DLC. They love it so much that for Call of Duty Black Ops 2, they made MORE MONEY ON DLC than they did selling the actual game. You can reference Activisions' Q4 earnings ca
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