Brit Posted April 22, 2009 Share Posted April 22, 2009 Ahem... no new developer diaries... release info... or that AAR? Either that is a bad sign or a very good sign (too busy getting this done to post)! Come'on guys, throw us a bone! <tosses smoke bomb and disappears into the night> SoM Yeah, sorry for the lack of updates. Lately, I've been busy with game-balancing issues: making sure resources on the map are balanced well against the cities' and units' consumption of those resources, tweaking the technology tree, units, and the city improvements. There's a bug that sometimes crashes the application once every 70 turns or so. I hope to get that fixed this week. And, of course, tweaks to the AI to make it play better. (It's actually very cool setting up the game to have AIs play against each other with no human players involved; this isn't something players will be able to do, but it's very nice for testing.) Things are progressing, and have been progressing over the past few months. But, it's the perpetual problem of software projects that things take longer than you initially think they will. So, that's the state of things right now: flushing out the bugs so players will have a bug-free experience, and tweaking the game-balance and AI to make the game as fun as possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawk Posted April 22, 2009 Author Share Posted April 22, 2009 ...(It's actually very cool setting up the game to have AIs play against each other with no human players involved; this isn't something players will be able to do, but it's very nice for testing.)... Aaaargh! Please, PLEASE make this option available for players as well! I love this feature, but it's so seldom available these days. It's invaluable for testing custome made maps and scenarios in these types of games! Pretty please, with sugar on top? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thraka Posted April 22, 2009 Share Posted April 22, 2009 I really only have one thing to say.... gimme! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wang chung Posted April 24, 2009 Share Posted April 24, 2009 Hawk...sounds like a great option. I am hoping that they will add it too. BTW: I was wonder if the delivery is still anticipated in the first half of 2009? Does anybody have any info? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brit Posted April 25, 2009 Share Posted April 25, 2009 BTW: I was wonder if the delivery is still anticipated in the first half of 2009? Does anybody have any info? I need to do some discussion with the publisher to figure out if we'll release before the end of June. I'll get back to you on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoolaman Posted May 4, 2009 Share Posted May 4, 2009 I'd just like to chime in and say that I'm really looking forward to this game in a way that I almost never do with games this days. Good luck with development and hope to see it soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawk Posted May 4, 2009 Author Share Posted May 4, 2009 Brit, any change for allowing AI vs AI for us mere mortals, or is that an absolutely no-go? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brit Posted May 4, 2009 Share Posted May 4, 2009 Brit, any change for allowing AI vs AI for us mere mortals, or is that an absolutely no-go? Hi Hawk. The AI vs AI isn't something that I'm going to turn-on for the initial release. I do like to give users what they're looking for, though, so if this is something that people would like to see, then maybe I could open it up later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawk Posted May 5, 2009 Author Share Posted May 5, 2009 Thanks for the feedback! I'll start lobbying then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scheer Posted May 8, 2009 Share Posted May 8, 2009 AI vs AI would be cool from a mod/map testing kinda view .... But I´m ok with seeing it later as a patch or sumthing .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wang chung Posted May 19, 2009 Share Posted May 19, 2009 I hope everyone is staying dry!! It has done nothing but rain for the last three straight days here in "sunny" Florida. Everybody has gone quiet on this forum. Has anybody heard any news on how the game is progressing? Any news on the release date? Thanks!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brit Posted May 21, 2009 Share Posted May 21, 2009 The game is still progressing. I've been doing more work on game-balancing and the AI. I'm spending a lot of time watching the AI play games against itself, watching for errors and fixing them. Interesting side note: The AI is designed to play the game with any set of rules. This means if someone creates their own game-rules, with totally new units and technology, the AI should be able to play a good game. As far as the release date: it looks like the release won't be within the first half of the year - which is only six weeks away at this point. But, we'll certainly be giving out more information during that six weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wang chung Posted May 22, 2009 Share Posted May 22, 2009 The game is still progressing. I've been doing more work on game-balancing and the AI. I'm spending a lot of time watching the AI play games against itself, watching for errors and fixing them. Interesting side note: The AI is designed to play the game with any set of rules. This means if someone creates their own game-rules, with totally new units and technology, the AI should be able to play a good game. As far as the release date: it looks like the release won't be within the first half of the year - which is only six weeks away at this point. But, we'll certainly be giving out more information during that six weeks. Brit, Thank you for the information. You definitely have an avid fan on this end. Keep up the hard work, and have a great relaxing weekend! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wengart Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 I've got to say, this thread alone has sold me on this game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagicKoji Posted June 13, 2009 Share Posted June 13, 2009 is there any more news on progress??? Can't wait to play this game. thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brit Posted June 14, 2009 Share Posted June 14, 2009 is there any more news on progress??? Can't wait to play this game. thanks. Hi MagicKoji. Sorry for the lack of updates. The beta has been taking longer than I would've expected. A lot has been accomplished, though. In the past few months, we've reduced the amount of memory the game takes (it was using up too much memory on very large maps with lots of AI players), speeded up turn-processing, speeded up AI decision-making, made big improvements to the game rendering (which was slowing down when there were lots of units and animations on the screen), and fixing other bugs. Some of these improvements have been pretty dramatic. I've been adding a some of the beta-tester suggestions to the game as well. At this point, we're still getting everything in top shape. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BRO, JD Posted June 14, 2009 Share Posted June 14, 2009 Any chance of a demo being released soon? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagicKoji Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Hi MagicKoji. Sorry for the lack of updates. The beta has been taking longer than I would've expected. A lot has been accomplished, though. In the past few months, we've reduced the amount of memory the game takes (it was using up too much memory on very large maps with lots of AI players), speeded up turn-processing, speeded up AI decision-making, made big improvements to the game rendering (which was slowing down when there were lots of units and animations on the screen), and fixing other bugs. Some of these improvements have been pretty dramatic. I've been adding a some of the beta-tester suggestions to the game as well. At this point, we're still getting everything in top shape. thank you for the reply, I think you're going to have a big hit on your hands... because I sure can't wait. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brit Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Any chance of a demo being released soon? I'd like to get something out to people "soon", but I can't really define what "soon" means. I can tell you that it won't be this month. I can also say that one of the problems I'm dealing with right now is a networking problem. At least I'm in good company - it looks like Stardock has the same problem with Demigod (scroll down to "The Pantheon" section http://frogboy.joeuser.com/article/355534). We're using the same library. They didn't discover it until after they released the game, and now they're trying to fix it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawk Posted June 17, 2009 Author Share Posted June 17, 2009 I'd like to get something out to people "soon", but I can't really define what "soon" means. I can tell you that it won't be this month. I can also say that one of the problems I'm dealing with right now is a networking problem.... Sorry to hear about that, Brit. From what I read on that blog it seems like a tough nut to crack. Perhaps a stand-alone demo with just singleplayer mode would be possible in the mean time? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Actually we are in fact considering a public beta demo. But the focus would be multiplayer instead of single player. The game is darn fine as is in singleplayer, it's the (8 player) networking code where we're going to have to expand the tester base to polish it. While single player is great and very addictive as is and the AI opponent can smack you often enough, MP is a big part of the game due to the built in IM and voice chat, scenario and mod swapping and MP lobby and other community driving features. And, well, it's simply a blast to play, too, so we want to make sure it works right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Balaban Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 Actually we are in fact considering a public beta demo. That would be nice. If it was easly done. Not to slow down the release date much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
son_of_montfort Posted June 26, 2009 Share Posted June 26, 2009 I understand the push to have the MP right, and I respect it. I know I'll be an SP only (or nearly only player), so I'm pleased to hear that the SP is fit and ready to go (and would love it to be released with the promise of an MP patch) but I think it just makes perfect sense to have the thing in tip-top shape. First impressions are important and most people will want MP in their first impressions. So good luck guys! I'll be here when the "Buy Now" button lights up! SoM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brit Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 I understand the push to have the MP right, and I respect it. I know I'll be an SP only (or nearly only player), so I'm pleased to hear that the SP is fit and ready to go (and would love it to be released with the promise of an MP patch) but I think it just makes perfect sense to have the thing in tip-top shape. First impressions are important and most people will want MP in their first impressions. So good luck guys! I'll be here when the "Buy Now" button lights up! SoM Thanks. One of the things I've been thinking about lately is the release of Masters of Orion 3. It got bad reviews because it wasn't a very good game. I've heard that they released several patches that made the game a whole lot better. Despite the fact that I own a copy, I still haven't bothered to get the latest patches and try it out again. The reason I've been thinking about MOO3 is because I wouldn't want to make the same mistake they did: releasing before it was ready. It sounds like they would've done a lot better holding off the release instead of releasing and then adding patches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisND Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 Don't worry guys, the wait will be worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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