FrogBlog: May 2008

from JoeUser Forums

   We're in crunch mode and yet I have a lot of free time too. That's the nature of development in crunch mode - hurry up and wait. Right now, I'm waiting for some changes to the issues editor so that I can begin putting in new political issues for The Political Machine 2008.

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Hard to believe that this UI was done with DesktopX 3.5.

The game is going gold in about a month and there's a lot to do to get it ready.  We've got pre-orders from most of the major retailers so we definitely can't miss the date. That means some all-nighters. Once the changes to the issue editor are done, I can put in the new issues. The changes to the game's political issue format will break the game until new issues are entered. Thus, I have between now and tomorrow morning to write the C++ code to import in the new issues and have the game and AI make use of them as well as enter in the issues for all 50 states. Otherwise, the game will be broken for the whole team tomorrow and we can't afford to lose any time.  But right now, I have to wait until the issue editor is done to even start. So here I am.

DeskScapes

1077[1] Meanwhile, I'm also looking over tomorrow's release materials for DeskScapes 2.0. Animated wallpaper for all Vista users will be pretty cool. What's special about DeskScapes is it takes advantage of the DWM to lower CPU usage. On my water wallpaper, it uses basically 0% so I leave it running all the time.

Now, that said, .WMV based animated wallpaper can use a lot of CPU. That's because decoding a high-def MPEG 4 video in real time and then stretching it to fit your high resolution display uses a lot of CPU. That would be the same thing if you were playing the video in Media Player. It has nothing to do with DeskScapes or animated wallpaper in general.  The answer is to look for MPEG2 based animated wallpaper if you want video on your desktop OR stick with dynamic animated wallpaper (i.e. where the content is generated as a Direct3D source).

A kinder, gentler website

I don't know if you guys have been noticing but we've been working on updating our various websites. The Stardock.com websites have traditionally looked, well, like crud.  We're mostly a bunch of engineers.  But over the past year, things have changed. One of the benefits of creating Stardock Design is that we now have artists who can do stuff to make our presentation look better.  It's a slow process but check out the Stardock home page and main pages. We even re-did the WindowBlinds page. It'll be interesting to see if it affects sales or not.

Impulse Progresses

Our next-generation digital distribution platform continues to move towards its June 17th launch date. Internally we got chat back in. Here's a look:

ImpulseChatTest

This should be available in this week's beta.

Now, a lot of people have noticed how much better Impulse looks than Stardock Central. Once again: Stardock Design. 

So who is involved in Impulse? People you guys probably know already!

  • Alexandrie (of Pixtudio fame) did the main UI design.
  • Paul Boyer (Mormegil) helped in UI.
  • Chaninja (famous msstyler) is working on the dock graphics.
  • JMB1984 (of ObjectDock fame) is in charge of the overall project

They are all people we met through skinning over the years. All of them are here in Michigan except Chaninja who's in South Africa.

Brian Harper (Bagginz) remains in charge of Stardock Central which won't be going away any time soon either and T-man is working on the backend along with Cari-Elf. Bagginz is also working on IconPackager 4 which is incredibly slick as some of you already know.

MyColors

Stardock Design has finally released its first genuine female oriented suite called Princess:

princess_vista[1]

The screenshot doesn't really do justice to it. The weather gadget actually changes (more than just the icon) based on weather conditions. 

Now, I don't like pink. So what I do is load it up in WindowBlinds and hue shift it to a bluer color and change the wallpaper to something less girly. :)  Now you know why IconPackager 4 includes hue shifting for icons! It has awesome icons but they're pinkish.

If you have Object Desktop, it's only $9.95 for the entire suite.

That's all for now, the issue editor is about to be checked in. Cheers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

73,639 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

The Political Machine is looking good. Looks very polished.

The Impulse beta is going great too, I used it to purchase Twilight of the Arnor and it was a great experience. :D

 

As for that pink desktop, my girlfriend would probably like it. :P

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Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks Phazon!
The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
I'm very, very excited for PM2008. I've enjoyed GalCivII so much over the past few months that I figured it was time to try out another turn-based game.

So I've pre-ordered and eagerly await the betas. Thanks for all you do, Brad and Company!
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hey guys and gals of Stardock. I know you all are busy, and I appreciate all the hard work. I'm definately a Stardock fanboy at this point. :) I'm going to make a request here, as I'm not sure where best to do it. You have a product called Natural Desktop available on Stardock Central. It's for XP. If you all could find time to set it up for Vista, I'd buy it the same day it was released. I LOVE the concept, especially since I'm stuck working in an underground facility. No windows.... It'd make my days a little less, well, subterranian. :)
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Any update on the PM Beta? According the the original schedule Beta 2 is due this week.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Hey guys and gals of Stardock. I know you all are busy, and I appreciate all the hard work. I'm definately a Stardock fanboy at this point. I'm going to make a request here, as I'm not sure where best to do it. You have a product called Natural Desktop available on Stardock Central. It's for XP. If you all could find time to set it up for Vista, I'd buy it the same day it was released. I LOVE the concept, especially since I'm stuck working in an underground facility. No windows.... It'd make my days a little less, well, subterranian.

It's on the list. The developer in charge of that is currently working on Impulse.

Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Any update on the PM Beta? According the the original schedule Beta 2 is due this week.

Soon.  It's all the issues we have to type in.  But hopefuly this next week. This week besides coding I've got a ton of vistiors coming in to meet with us and I don't like releasing betas unless I've personally played what's goign up quite a bit.

I didn't get to play the "gold" version of Twilight before it went up (our server backend was having problems) and I'm regretting it

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Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 7
Soon.  It's all the issues we have to type in.  But hopefuly this next week. This week besides coding I've got a ton of vistiors coming in to meet with us and I don't like releasing betas unless I've personally played what's goign up quite a bit.
I didn't get to play the "gold" version of Twilight before it went up (our server backend was having problems) and I'm regretting it.


Hehe, I'm glad one of the liberties I can enjoy as a mod-maker for games is that I have no real pressure in releasing the next version or build I am working on. Its always nice having a release that I was personally pleased with and then learning that others enjoyed the hard work I put in.

Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
We're in crunch mode and yet I have a lot of free time too...


Kay, this may be way off-topic but since you mention it.
You're an AI coder and you have some free-time, (caugh-more-than-just-that-alone-caugh) right?

1) Some background info;

In the last two years or so, i have created an extensive Mod for an open-source civ-inspired game called cEvo by a Delphi german coder, Steffen Gerlach.

Civ Evolution
-- and the stuff i distribute for it;
XWorlds (again!)

2) The modular approach for AI opponents;

This guy went for a pretty slick Client_Server structure to provide external libraries coded by its user base. Modular AIs are compiled by them and then looped into the game itself. Efficient. Good challenge.
There's absolutely no other way to build better or best algorithms than to trust it into the hands of anyone willing enough to try it out. All it lacks, is the genius of some or many rare coders.

3) That's where you may come in;

Do it, please! Just for fun.

Of course, anybody reading the above would also be most welcomed to compile one of their own AIs, also.

Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I know you can't change this now, and I'm certainly not asking you to, but I have to say I preferred the older, Hanna Barbara-esque cartoon graphics over these bobble-heads. I know why're you're doing it, but I still honestly feel those looked better.

Otherwise though this version of the Political Machine is shaping up to be quite nice looking. Keep it up.
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
The Political Machine is a great idea. Nintendo demonstrated with the Wii that sometimes people want affordable fun over pricey but dull graphics.

Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I noticed Washington in there... there might be a gameplay reason against it, but I think he should really be an Independent, since (as far as I know) he was strongly against political parties altogether.