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AI coding as a platform

Well the party is almost over for you humans. I’ve never hidden the fact that I consider human beings playing my AI a necessary evil. I need your money to fund my AI work. This time around, I’ve got a talented young developer working with me. He makes me feel old. Very. Very old. A lot has changed over the past 20 years. It is still technically C++ but it’s all very different from what it used to be. Example code //GalCiv III: ... [read more]

1/14/2015 By Frogboy in GalCiv III Dev Journals

Founder's Edition Ending This Friday!

It's your last chance to get the Offworld Trading Company prototype through the Founder's Edition as that will be ending this Friday. Post from Soren: Offworld is progressing nicely, which means that we are ready to move forward to the next phase of the game’s development. Thus, the Founder’s program is going to be closing soon, specifically on January 16th. After that, the game itself will not be available to new purchasers until it goes up on Ste... [read more]

1/14/2015 By Island Dog in Offworld News

Sorcerer King Dev Stream (January 14th) at 3pm EST, Noon Pacific

We're excited to have our next Sorcerer King livestream today at 3pm EST! We'll be discussing what's been going on with Sorcerer King development and taking your questions. If you can't join the stream live and ask, be sure to leave your questions here and we'll try to get them answered. Join us and follow our Stardock Twitch channel - http://www.twitch.tv/stardock After the live broadcast today, we’ll post the replay on our YouTube c... [read more]

1/14/2015 By Island Dog in Sorcerer King News

Dev Stream (Friday, January 9th) at 3pm EST, Noon Pacific

The first livestream for Galactic Civilizations III is happening today! We are glad to be back and I know you have a ton of questions ready to be answered. Today we'll be talking about what's going on with GCIII and taking as many questions as we can. Come on over to our Stardock Twitch channel and join us for our live broadcast today at 3pm EST! After the live broadcast today, we’ll post the replay on our YouTube channel so y... [read more]

1/9/2015 By Island Dog in GalCiv III News

Sorcerer King Dev Stream (January 7th) at 3pm EST, Noon Pacific

Happy New Year! Today we'll be having our first dev livestream of 2015 for Sorcerer King. We have a new internal build to show off with a bunch of new stuff you might be interested in. We'll be going live at 3pm EST today, so be sure to join our stream and have some questions ready. If you can't make it, feel free to leave any questions in the comments below and I'll try to get them posted. Join us and follow our Stardock Twitch channel - htt... [read more]

1/7/2015 By Island Dog in Sorcerer King News

Sorcerer King: Beta 4 Change log

**Updated 2/4/15** Hey folks, this is Island Dog making an update to Brad's original post. Here is the updated changelog for the upcoming Beta 4: New Sovereign, Champion, & Sovereign Customization Tinkerer sovereign – A master craftsman who wields the power of the Forge of the Overlord with great skill Drogon the Dwarf champion – wields two axes, has the Beardsmith ability...what else do you need to know? Sovereign customization unlocked... [read more]

1/4/2015 By Frogboy in Sorcerer King Dev Journals

Legendary Heroes Free this Weekend on Steam!

Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes is FREE all weekend long on Steam! Many of you reading this most likely already have LH, but this is a great opportunity to let your friends give Legendary Heroes a try. Aside from the free weekend, Legendary Heroes is also on sale for 75% off and the DLC is 50% off. Get it here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/228260/ [read more]

1/2/2015 By Island Dog in Elemental News

Opt-in Bugfix Patch Available

We've got a minor bugfix patch for you before we take off for the holidays. Short patch notes list today. To wit: Fixed threat level to no longer jump to 3 after the first few turns Fixed issue where AI could potentially go on quests, collect goodie huts To get the patch, do the following: Right-click Sorcerer King in your Steam library Select “Properties” Select the “Betas” tab Choose “Opt-in” from the drop-down menu Close the Pro... [read more]

12/18/2014 By abiessener in Sorcerer King News

Sorcerer King Dev Stream (December 17th) at 3pm EST, Noon Pacific

We'll be having our next dev livestream for Sorcerer King on Wednesday, December 17th at 3pm EST. We will be discussing the recently released beta 3 and taking any questions that you may have about Sorcerer King. If you do have a question, please leave it in the comments below and we'll try to answer them on the stream. I also wanted to note this will be the last Sorcerer King livestream for 2014. We appreciate your support on the streams and have had a great time chatting with y... [read more]

12/16/2014 By Island Dog in Sorcerer King News

Galactic Civilizations III: BETA 3 arrives

Greetings! Welcome to the sausage factory! Beta 3 of Galactic Civilizations III has arrived with lots of new changes and improvements. We still have a long way to go but progress is swift. A few highlights Beta 3 brings the Yor into the game. We’re still playing around with how they “breed”. The current plan is to have the player actually manufacture more Yor on the planet. The Yor are a synthetic, pre-singularity lifeform. Long... [read more]

12/16/2014 By Frogboy in GalCiv III Dev Journals

Dev Streams Start Again In 2015

It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I must bring the no-doubt totally unexpected news that the Galactic Civilizations III dev stream is going on hiatus until after the New Year. We wish you the finest winter celebrations of your people, and look forward to catching you next year with recharged creative batteries and lots more pew pew as Galactic Civilizations III development enters the home stretch! [read more]

12/16/2014 By abiessener in GalCiv III News

Sorcerer King Beta 3 Now Available

Evil overlords everywhere beware; never before have the forces of good had so many ways to fight the good fight! Which is to say that today’s update to the Sorcerer King beta adds the Priest and Commander sovereigns to the game. Huzzah! Fix the shadowlands, restore your armies to fighting shape, and call in divine favors for absurdly overpowered effects as the Priest, or field legions the likes of which other sovereigns can only dream of as the Commander. Either way, you’ll... [read more]

12/15/2014 By abiessener in Sorcerer King News

Sorcerer King Developer to Beta Team Q&A

We’ve got questions for the beta team: Some people have said that Sorcerer King looks a lot like Legendary Heroes. What do you think people mean by this and what would be the most effective way to make sure the two games are visually distinct? We are debating a lot about camera rotation. The game supports it and we plan to have an option for it. The question is, what would you like to see as the default and why? We have the Magic slider in the game ... [read more]

12/13/2014 By Frogboy in Sorcerer King Dev Journals

Dev Stream (Friday, December 12th) at 3pm EST, Noon Pacific

The next dev livestream with Lead Designer Paul Boyer will be happening Friday, December 12th at 3pm EST. We'll be talking about beta 3 and taking any questions you might have. Come on over to our Stardock Twitch channel and join us for our live broadcast! After the live broadcast today, we’ll post the replay on our YouTube channel so you can catch up on the latest episodes. Update : Replay is on YouTube [read more]

12/11/2014 By Island Dog in GalCiv III News

Galactic Civilizations III Beta 3 Now Available

Weak fleshlings beware, the Yor Singularity has arrived! Beta 3 adds everyone’s favorite synthetic sociopaths, who laugh at the idea of feeding their colonists or worrying about growth rates. Need more population? Just build some new units to augment the Singularity’s physical capabilities. Simple. Also included in Beta 3 are big-moment cinematics done by our in-house team to mark occasions like your first capital ship launched or first colony founded, and our first pass... [read more]

12/10/2014 By abiessener in GalCiv III News

Congratulations Tezmagorian, Ship Design Contest Winner!

The first Galactic Civilizations III Ship Designer contest has concluded, with the community voting user Tezmagorian's Terran battleship the victor. Congratulations, Tezmagorian! All eight of our finalists will have their ships included in the retail version of Galactic Civilizations III. Congratulations JohnRawghi, The Sisko, Archcreature, MRKiscaden, Overpixel, and Thecw -- everyone who plays Galactic Civilizations III will see your work sooner or later, and you'll get a s... [read more]

12/10/2014 By abiessener in GalCiv III News

Sorcerer King Dev Stream Today (December 10th) at 3pm EST, Noon Pacific

The next dev livestream for Sorcerer King is today at 3pm EST. Post any questions you have in the comments below and we'll get to as many as we can on-air. Join us and follow our Stardock Twitch channel - http://www.twitch.tv/stardock After the live broadcast today, we’ll post the replay on our YouTube channel so you can catch up on the latest episodes. Update : Replay is on YouTube [read more]

12/10/2014 By Island Dog in Sorcerer King News

Galactic Civilizations III - Beta 3 Changelog

–RELEASED 12/11/2014– Galactic Civilizations III Beta 3 is now available! See below for details on the mechanical Yor race, the first pass at combat animations, cinematics, and more: Features Added the Yor with their own line of spaceships, star bases, techs and general non-organic life weirdness. They aren’t exactly the best neighbors to run into when exploring space, but they do provide a fun opponent to go to war with. Added th... [read more]

12/5/2014 By DerekPaxton in GalCiv III Dev Journals

Dev Stream Today (Friday, December 5th) at 3pm EST, Noon Pacific

Join us today at 3pm EST for our next dev livestream for Galactic Civilizations III! We'll be taking your questions about GalCiv 3, and talking about what to expect in the next beta release. If you have any questions, please post them in the comments below. Come on over to our Stardock Twitch channel and join us for our live broadcast! After the live broadcast today, we’ll post the replay on our YouTube channel so you can catch up on the l... [read more]

12/5/2014 By Island Dog in GalCiv III News

Galactic Civilizations III - Meet the Team

I saw the following as I was reading through the GC3 change log: + CBattleGfxObjectShip:: UpdateMovement: Calculates a quaternion rotation at the given path point + CBattleGfxObjectPathData:: PathPoint: Removed yaw and pitch, replaced with orientation + CBattleGfxObjectPathData:: GetTransformAtTime: Now uses spherical interpolation of quaternions to calculate rotation matrix of the ship Either the GC3 programmers are making up words (always a possibility) or we have a team of v... [read more]

12/4/2014 By DerekPaxton in GalCiv III Dev Journals

Sorcerer King Dev Stream Today (December 3rd) at 3pm EST, Noon Pacific

We’ll be having our dev livestream for Sorcerer King today at 3pm EST. We'll be taking your questions so be sure to leave any you may have in the comments below and we'll try to answer them on-air. Join us and follow our Stardock Twitch channel - http://www.twitch.tv/stardock After the live broadcast today, we’ll post the replay on our YouTube channel so you can catch up on the latest episodes. Update : Replay is on YouTube [read more]

12/3/2014 By Island Dog in Sorcerer King News

No Dev Streams This Week

We're taking Thanksgiving week off of the stream; hope we aren't ruining too many plans! In the meantime, catch up on Brad's huge Sunday update with all kinds of Priest goodness, and check out any previous streams you may have missed on our YouTube channel . See you after the holiday! [read more]

11/24/2014 By abiessener in Sorcerer King News

No Dev Streams This Week

We're taking the holiday week off from our regularly scheduled dev stream, sorry all! Don't forget to vote in the ship designer contest , and catch up on previous streams with our YouTube channel . Battle viewer probably wouldn't be ready these week anyway, so it'd just be another big tease Or...it's totally ready and we're making you wait a week because we're big ol' meanies. Basically what I'm saying is that it's Schrödinger's battle v... [read more]

11/24/2014 By abiessener in GalCiv III News

SK’s Sunday afternoon work (11-23-2014)

Another Sunday with Sorcerer King. A lot of progress was made this week. So below are the good, the bad, and the ugly things I have to say about Sorcerer King this week. It’ll all be schmushed together. New Sovereign: Ashlira This weekend I mainly played with Ashlira, the Priest. Scott and I have been designing her for awhile and it’s amazing (but not surprising) how many ideas that look good on paper just don’t work out when implemented. That’s... [read more]

11/23/2014 By Frogboy in Sorcerer King Dev Journals

Sorcerer King Beta 2.1 Now Available

An update to the Sorcerer King beta is available. Connect to Steam to automatically update your game. Sorcerer King Beta 2.1 is primarily a bugfix patch. Notably, units no longer lose moves for joining or leaving armies, WASD camera control is improved, and we’ve changed the damage range for attacks from 50-100% of damage to 90-100%. Read the full patch notes here: http://forums.sorcererking.com/459460/page/1/ Thanks for helping us test Sorcerer King, and good luck su... [read more]

11/20/2014 By abiessener in Sorcerer King News

Ship Design Contest Voting Open - Round 1!

Thanks to everyone who entered our ship designer contest. We were blown away be the creativity and skill that you all poured into your creations. Paul (lead designer) begged me to let him pick 16 instead of 8 finalists because he was so impressed by the submissions, but I wanted to make sure to minimize any fun that anyone was having (and/or couldn't re-jigger all the web design or alter the contest rules legally at the last minute) and so 8 is the final number. Anyway, get over t... [read more]

11/19/2014 By abiessener in GalCiv III News

SK’s Sunday night work

For Sunday I spent the day doing lots of various little things. I’m not sure where to even start. One thing I can say is that we still have a long way to go. Not just in terms of bugs but just balance and feel. The mid-game has a death-lull in it. That is, where you’re well into the game, you think you have a pretty good handle on things but there’s nothing exciting happening. In a traditional 4X game, this is where diplomacy/world council type... [read more]

11/16/2014 By Frogboy in Sorcerer King Dev Journals

SK: Saturday’s additions

Had a busy Saturday playing and adding new stuff. Here’s a sampling: Lots of tweaks to quests to give players more intangible traits. Lot of work on the Guardian sovereign in general Guardian gets a mass sleep spell Guardian gets a mass slow spell Guardian gets an obstruct map spell (rains rocks onto the tactical map causing those tiles to slow down enemies) Guardian gets a damage reflection spell where damage is 2X back at the enemy as long... [read more]

11/15/2014 By Frogboy in Sorcerer King Dev Journals

Dev Stream (Friday, November 21st) at 3pm EST, Noon Pacific

This Friday at 3pm EST we’ll be having our next dev livestream for Galactic Civilizations III. If you can’t join us live then please leave any questions you might have for the team below in the comments. Come on over to our Stardock Twitch channel and join us for our live broadcast! After the live broadcast today, we’ll post the replay on our YouTube channel so you can catch up on the latest episodes. edit: YouTube replay is up. ... [read more]

11/13/2014 By Island Dog in GalCiv III News

Sorcerer King Dev Stream Today (November 19th) at 3pm EST, Noon Pacific

We’ll be having our dev livestream for Sorcerer King today at 3pm EST. We'll be discussing Beta 2 that was released last week, and taking your questions. If you can't join us live be sure to leave your questions in the comments below and we'll try to answer them on-air. Join us and follow our Stardock Twitch channel - http://www.twitch.tv/stardock After the live broadcast today, we’ll post the replay on our YouTube channel so yo... [read more]

11/13/2014 By Island Dog in Sorcerer King News

Dev Stream (Friday, November 14th) at 3pm EST, Noon Pacific

This Friday at 3pm EST we’ll be having our next dev livestream for Galactic Civilizations III. This week our tech lead Nathan Hanish joins us, so ask away about any questions related to the technical side of the game. If you can’t join us live then please leave any questions you might have for the team below in the comments. Come on over to our Stardock Twitch channel and join us for our live broadcast! After the live broadcast today, we’ll post the replay on... [read more]

11/13/2014 By Island Dog in GalCiv III News

Sorcerer King Dev Stream Today (November 12th) at 3pm EST, Noon Pacific

We’ll be having our dev livestream for Sorcerer King today at 3pm EST. We have been getting some great questions and feedback during these streams, so please continue to submit your questions in the comments below or join us live and ask your questions! Join us and follow our Stardock Twitch channel - http://www.twitch.tv/stardock After the live broadcast today, we’ll post the replay on our YouTube channel so you can catch up on the latest episodes. Update ... [read more]

11/12/2014 By Island Dog in Sorcerer King News

Sorcerer King will support highDPI displays

4K and 5K monitors are coming. And we think they’re going to become common much faster than most people think. That means gamers will be in a bit of a pickle. Either they’ll have to run their games at a lower resolutions (blurry, non-ideal) or face games with tiny tiny text and UIs. Sorcerer King will be the first Stardock game to explicitly support high DPI displays. The screenshots below come from my mere 2560x1440 display but as the last screenshot shows, the supe... [read more]

11/7/2014 By Frogboy in Sorcerer King Dev Journals

Dev Stream (Friday, November 7th) at 3pm EST, Noon Pacific

Join us today at 3pm EST for our next dev livestream for Galactic Civilizations III! We'll be taking your questions about GalCiv 3, so leave any you might have in the comments below and we'll get to as many as we can. Come on over to our Stardock Twitch channel and join us for our live broadcast! After the live broadcast today, we’ll post the replay on our YouTube channel so you can catch up on the latest episodes. Update : Replay is on ... [read more]

11/7/2014 By Island Dog in GalCiv III News

Updated Dev Snapshot Now Available

We’ve updated the opt-in development snapshot for Sorcerer King with the ability to “harvest” mountains and forests for raw materials – at the cost of breaking the land itself, which may have some long-term consequences – tons of new animations, and a huge load of bug fixes. If you’ve already opted into the update, Steam will automatically apply the patch. To opt into the development snapshot, do the following: Right-click Sorcerer ... [read more]

11/6/2014 By Island Dog in Sorcerer King News

Sorcerer King Dev Stream Today (November 5th) at 3pm EST, Noon Pacific

Today at 3pm ESt we'll be having our next dev livestream for Sorcerer King. Leave your questions in the comments below and we look forward at getting a chance to talk with you! Join us and follow our Stardock Twitch channel - http://www.twitch.tv/stardock After the live broadcast today, we’ll post the replay on our YouTube channel so you can catch up on the latest episodes. Update : Replay is on YouTube [read more]

11/5/2014 By Island Dog in Sorcerer King News

Win $1,000 in the GalCiv III Ship Designer Contest!

UPDATE 11/18: We've picked the eight finalists, so check your email. Voting starts tomorrow! Get cracking on the best darn ship you can put together, because we’re adding eight finalists’ designs to the release version of Galactic Civilizations III – and entering those eight finalists into a community-voted bracket that awards $1,000 to the ultimate winner. Submit your ship to the contest here. Here’s how it works: Anyone can enter the contest &nd... [read more]

11/5/2014 By Island Dog in GalCiv III News

Sorcerer King Beta: 1 Month Status

Greetings! We cannot wait for you to get Beta 2. I always hate the first beta. They’re so painful. They’re basically a “does this work on your machine”. Very boring. Beta 2 is where the actual game starts to matter a little. So where do things stand with Beta 2? Beta 2 is due out this month and it’s going to be big. It’s where the Minor factions start to matter. A lot. It also starts to really show off what makes Sorcerer King unique as a strategy game... [read more]

11/4/2014 By Frogboy in Sorcerer King Dev Journals

Sorcerer King–Lazy Sunday Dev Stream at 1pm EST

Greetings! For those of you who might be interested in seeing the sausage factory of game development in action, I’ll be streaming my antics at 1pm EST at http://www.twitch.tv/draginol today at 1pm EST. I’ll be playing Sorcerer King, debugging it, writing code, complaining and answering your questions, comments, criticisms. Update: Thanks everyone for coming by! That was a blast. I'll try to do a pre-beta 2 one soon with more lead time. [read more]

11/2/2014 By Frogboy in Sorcerer King Dev Journals

Sorcerer King Beta 2 Dev Snapshot Now Available

Greetings! Beta 2 is coming along nicely, and it’s full of new content and lots of requested features. Lead designer Brad Wardell posted a dev journal with a roadmap of what’s coming to SK both in the near term and in the big picture, which has a lot of great info. Beta 2 specifically includes: Guardian and Tyrant sovereigns New heroes Geomancy! Raise mountains or sink land into the ocean All eight minor factions Bug squashing, balancing acr... [read more]

10/30/2014 By Island Dog in Sorcerer King News

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