It’s no secret forums have seen a serious decline in recent years versus social media. Which is a shame because social media is so impersonal. I think this year I’m going to focus more time hanging out here.
A new beginning The story of Galactic Civilizations is the story of the future. Our future. Galactic Civilizations III is actually our 6th edition that provides you with the framework to tell that story (we made 3 OS/2 versions back in the 1990s). With each iteration, we get a little bit better at it. Sometimes, like when we change engines, it takes awhile to surpass where we were in previous editions. For instance, the OS/2 version of Galactic Civilizations...
Greetings! Sorry I have been so quiet lately on GalCiv stuff. We've had our noses to the grindstone on the new expansion pack, GalCiv III: Retribution and we haven't had much time to come up for air. I'll be sharing lots of stuff shortly now that things are starting to reach screen-shot worthiness. For today, though, I want to just talk a bit about the background story that I built, over decades for Galactic Civilizations and why Retribution is so important from that perspectiv...
Greetings! Star Control has definitely been the most...dramatic franchise we've ever worked on. No doubt the diabolical work of the Crimson Corporation indeed! So what's next? What's happening? Right now, we're working on Part 2 of Earth Rising which revolves around the Lexites. You might ask, what is the process for creating these? Well, broadly speaking it goes like this: General story. What is the overall meaning for the story. Design up the q...
Are you a software developer interested in working in the game industry? Are you a talented artist with a great eye for making games with a distinctive look and feel? If so, make sure you check out some of the positions available at Stardock . Stardock has been around 25 years with the average employee having worked here for over 5 years. It's an environment that encourages innovation, career growth and is just plain a fun place to work. Today's highlighted position: Game Dev...
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Stardock! As the founder, President, and CEO of the company starting from the time I was a college student, I've made a ton of mistakes that you can learn from. Below is a list of both small and large errors I have made over the years. #1 Computer Hardware becomes worthless It is really difficult to admit that a perfectly good monitor, keyboard, mouse - or even PC - eventually becomes worthless. Over the years, I tried to find increasin...
As the Tywom like to say, HELLO, BEST FRIENDS! Just playing the start of a new GalCiv III v3.1 game with the Star Control DLC added. Let's take a look at what we can expect. The Setup Players have been asking for a way to customize the colors further than what was possible before and now they can do it. So if you're into ship designing, you're in for a real treat! Here is my super tame but very custom color scheme. Just starting up my game here w...
This upcoming Monday, Stardock will be releasing a new DLC for its massive space strategy game, Galactic Civilizations III. The new DLC, Heroes of Star Control: Origins, will introduce 4 new major civilizations to play as complete with their own ship styles, parts, new traits, diplomatic behaviors, and AI for $5.99. It'll be available to purchase on Steam, GOG, and of course GalCiv3.com, starting Monday afternoon EST, November 12. About Galactic Civilizations Galactic Civiliz...
Over on the GalCiv III Steam page, I asked players to post their saved games so I could check them out. And what I've been finding has been amazing and horrifying simultaneously. Players are able to do things that I wouldn't have thought of. This is why saved games are so valuable. Many times I get feedback from players who say "The AI needs to do X" and my answer is, "well of course, it already does that!" But there is some other thing that it...
One of the challenges I face in my role as the CEO of a company is that I always live in the future. My job is to project things that will happen 1 year, 3 years, 5 years from now. As a result, I tend to worry about things all the time. Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel, wrote a book I highly recommend called Only the Paranoid Survive . It's been a boon and a curse to me because I have learned a lot from it but at the same time, it has resulted in me constantly focusing on th...
Greetings! With Star Control: Origins out and having already sold nearly 50,000 copies after only a week of availability we are now ready to talk about...THE FUTURE. We will be making an official announcement after version 1.1 (the big modding release) is available but we didn't want fans, especially those who are starting to finish the Origins adventure, to have to wait to know what's next. Needless to say, we've gone back and forth on the best way to deliver new stories, que...
Greetings! This is it! The very last of this Prelude series. I hope you've enjoyed them. So now let's talk about modding. To understand modding in Star Control: Origins, you need to understand how the game is structured. Everything that matters is in the \Assets directory. Meanwhile on your machine, in your documents folder you have: Each universe is equivalent to the Assets folder. If I want to create a whole new universe, then my changes would go ...
Greetings! Wow! What a fantastic week! Like many of you, we weren't sure what the reception would be. How many people are into space adventure/RPG games? I've even seen debates on what exactly is an RPG? Here's what we have planned for this week: Translation (Перевод) Russia is the #2 market for this game. With German a close #3. The translations came in a lot hotter than we expected due to the star and planet names. We are hoping very much to have a package from Moscow waiting ...
The most important game release in Stardock's long, 25-year history was celebrated with a party! Here are a few pictures to give faces to match the names! Derek (GM of Stardock Entertainment) and Amy (Director of Operations). QA and SUpport team with the marketing team! Sarah and Leo Chris Kowal (VP of BizDev), me, and Kevin Unangst (VP of Marketing & Partnerships) Engineers! Me an...
This week, Star Control: Origins will be released. It is, by far, the biggest game we've ever done. It's the first game we've ever made that might qualify as a AAA game in our 25 year history. The first thing people will notice about Star Control: Origins is that it's unlike any game Stardock's ever made. Not just in terms of genre, but in general production quality. When you look at Sins of a Solar Empire, Galactic Civilizations, Offworld Trading Company, As...