So beta 4 of the upcoming new version (v1.6) of Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar has resulted in massively improved performance for most users. Yay.  I can't really explain why we decided to go and do it other than the fact that we have learned so much new stuff in the past several months working on the unnamed fantasy strategy game that we wanted to incorporate some of the techniques into Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar.

On the downside, a small % of users have found no speed increase and a few have had weird graphics glitches. Which is a bummer.  Down the line we hope to resolve it but since we need to get this show on the road, we're going to have to put in an option to let people choose between the existing engine and the new Enhanced Graphics Engine.  On my somewhat wimpier home machine, when I'm playing in a large galaxy with lots of ships I was getting around 20 frames per second when enough ships were on the screen. Now, I get 60 (it's capped at 60) on the same screen. 

A couple people have emailed asking what Stardock's building looks like. Here's where we work:

The game team is on the top floor.  The web team is on the main floor.  The bottom floor is empty right now as we prepare for expanion in the next year or two (we're always hiring).

On the West side of the property we're located on

When I was a kid I lived next to a wetland and always thought it was a great place to grow up by.  As the company grew and became more successful, I saved up and bought this property with a wetland and fields for the company. I just like critters (My main handle is "Frogboy" after all <g>).

Controversies

One controversy in the forums has to do with a "bug" in how turns are handled.  Right now, turns go like this (where 0 is the AI and 1 is the human player):

0101010101010

So when I load a game, the AI plans his moves, then turns it over to the human player. The human player then takes his or her turn and then the AI takes their turn and so on.

But you may understand the issue: If I save a game where the AI has already taken their turn, load up the game and the AI gets to take another turn, you've got a slight disavantage for the human.  I use the word slight here.  The AI doesn't get to actually move ships or get additional production. What they do get is the ability to pick planetary social and military projects. It's a slight advantage but an advantage nevertheless. Of course, compared to the fact that human players get to save and restore games, I'd say humans still end up with the better deal. How many times has someone loaded a saved game because they got a random event they didn't like or an engagement went poorly? The AI doesn't get to do it.

But still, it's a bug and it's in the database now.  It's actually been this way since the original beta of GalCiv 1 back in 2002. That's one of the reasons why nobody wants to touch it. It's ancient code. 

Getting 1.6 done and moving to 1.7

There's been a lot of very good tweaks and changes in 1.6 that I think will make the game even more fun.  For 1.7, there's a number of new features that we're looking to add. I want to tackle some of the constructor management and starbase handling.

Cranky people and private companies

One thing that I've noticed recently is that as our games get more popular, we get a higher incidence of cranky people.  I sometimes think it's one guy who has many different names and goes on all forums because they seem to have the same background.

Cranky person post goes like this:

• Game is buggy
• Product should never have been released
• I have been a programmer/IT manager/developer for 20 years (and it's always 20 years -- not 5, not 10, not 25, but 20)
• Vague description of problem and little to no information on system.
• Expect prompt and courteous support

Now, a few things about that.  Stardock isn't a store.  If someone wants to be cranky to someone, they should probably go to the store and yell about it there.  I'm not a clerk.  I make games because I enjoy it. I enjoy hanging out with people like you guys.  It's fun. It's rewarding. 

But someone buying our game doesn't give them the right to be rude and nasty and condescending. It's an equal proposition -- someone wants a product or service and is willing to exchange money for it.  No one has leverage over the others. It's an equal trade.  Someone insulting me personally or being obnoxious on the forum is not going to be put up with. I have no incentive to put up with it.  We'll absolutely jump through hoops and bend over backwards to help people. But we don't expect to be treated with utter disrepect or have our work insulted. It's one of the reasons why so many game companies don't have forums, they don't want to put up with nasty users.

Luckily, our forums are full of helpful gamers who are really part of our team. We are all in it together making cool stuff.  We put out extra updates because we like to. Privately held companies can do that -- do things simply because they want to.  And we like doing it because we like interacting with the players as much as we can.  It's something I hope we can expand on.

But any users who thinks that they have the right to insult us should think twice.  We don't want those people playing our games and I'd prefer they never bought anything from us ever again. I hope that doesn't sound elitist. But I just don't want to deal with people who think it's okay to be nasty to other people simply because they bought a product.

Future Community Features

I suspect that down the line that we'll make a system in which only active people in the community can participate in post-release betas.  Right now, some people download these betas and I guess I don't know what they're expecting but apparently they expect them to be the same as releases.  Beta 4 of 1.6 introduces a new graphics engine for instance.  I'd like to see people thorugh their stardock.net account be able to go to a page to get private beta builds. It probably won't happen for GalCiv II but maybe for Sins and definitely for the fantasy strategy game.