Stardock Magazine: April 2017

Stardock Magazine

April 2017

by Brad Wardell (@draginol)

## Editorial from Brad ##

Spring is here.  Which means, of course, that another anniversary of the launch of OS/2 2.0 has come.  In fact, this year marks the 25th anniversary of OS/2 2.0 or as my wife calls it, the 25th anniversary of our first date (which, she reminded me as I was holding up my OS/2 2.0 box). The Register has a lot to say on this. In the meantime, I'll be sleeping out on the lawn.

## Discord ##

I have fallen in love with Discord.  And yes, it's romantic love. Don't judge me.  I use Skype constantly and there's a time and place for both.  Now, if it can add in the power of Google Hangouts (where I can just give out a link to join a hangout at a certain time) then my life would be complete.

What makes Discord special is that it combines Skype + IRC + the Web.  I can give out a link to a Discord server which is super nice. I can also manage permissions in a channel (which I can't do in Skype which is frustrating).   But it's also like a BBS (I started out running Commodore 64 BBSes) where things can stay like posts (I'd love to have more features like that where I could have topics or something.

Here are two links:

Windows desktop stuff: https://discord.gg/tth3jx6

Ashes of the Singularity: https://discord.gg/gFc8bUM

We'll be sharing more soon.  Let us know what you think.

## Feedback ##

The Stardock forums are possibly the longest running Windows based forum software on the net.  People sometimes suggest we move to a different forum software.  For instance, Quarter To Three recently changed to a new forum system and it's pretty slick. Meanwhile, Neowin has a super customized forum system as well. 

The reason we persist with our forum setup is that it allows us to directly integrate customer features into the forums and gives us a lot of flexibility in how it's used. For example, check out the new games website.  This page is just custom view of our forums.

What we'd like to hear from you are what are some features that you'd like us to add to our forums?

Speaking of hearing from you, visit here to give feedback on this issue of Stardock Magazine.

## Fences on Steam ##

If you are reading this and don't already have Fences, then stop reading this and go get it.  Seriously.  If there ever was a program that every computer user should have, I would rate Fences above any other app.

I actually use it to quickly hide all my desktop icons (double click on the desktop) so I can use my desktop as a staging area. It's, by far, our most popular program.

Fences is the first non-game we've put on Steam and you can get it .

Here's Fences in action: [CLICK HERE]

Get Fences on Steam: [CLICK HERE]

## Windows Creator Update ##

Microsoft is doing a major update to Windows 10.  Dubbed Creators Update, it has a bunch of new features and updates.  Windows Central has an article on it.

Our QA team has reported that some of our programs have problems with it.  Ashes of the Singularity is crashing on DirectX 12 on some machines with it and we had to update many of our Object Desktop programs to support it.  So if you have any problems, make sure you update the program in question.

## Galactic Civilizations III: Crusade ##

The biggest expansion we've ever done for any game is nearly complete!  Galactic Civilization III: Crusade.  You can read more about that here.

## Sins of a Solar Empire: Anniversary Update ##

This past week we released a huge update to Sins of a Solar Empire. 

Performance improvements, graphical improvements and high DPI support and more are amongst the improvements. 

Learn more about the big update here.

## That's all for now ##

It's been a super busy month here.  Within the next few weeks we should be able to start talking about Object Desktop 2018, the big expansion we're working on for Offworld Trading Company, some Star Control news and more.