For those of you who subscribe to Stardock Magazine, use this thread to comment on the issue. Detailed responses regarding Star Control and what's next for Object Desktop will show up in the October issue. If you don't already subscribe go to: https://www.stardock.com/ and subscribe on the left side.
Once upon a time… In the Summer of 2015, Stardock released a 4X-RPG hybrid called Sorcerer King. The premise of the game was that after the events of Fallen Enchantress (or choose any fantasy 4X really) the bad guy (in this case, the Sorcerer King) had conquered the world. The good guys had lost. Not content with ruling the world, the Sorcerer King had begun to use a mysterious artifact known as the Bane of Curgen (an orb) to destroy the shards of Elemental to ascend to g...
I don’t like sounding like chicken little. Nevertheless, the sky is falling. For those of you who don’t know me, I run one of the oldest independent software companies in the world. My specialty for the past 20 years has been in AI. It is my job to research, evaluate trends and invest accordingly to stay ahead of the curve. And I am here to tell you that the sky is falling. It is automation. It is inevitable. It is irresistible. And if you think that automation always creates new op...
So I finally got a Tesla. Some of my friends were surprised I didn’t get one earlier. I have a 20kw solar array that provided more than 100% of my electrical needs. So why didn’t I get a Tesla when they first started coming out? The short answer: I didn’t think they were practical at the time. When the Roadster came out in 2009, it’s theoretical 240 miles (realistic, 190 mile) range wasn’t far enough for me to do serious distance yet. Remember, ...
Just some pretties for people who visit my home page…
Some people say that the dream job is to play video games, write about those games, take videos of them, etc. That job does exist and Stardock is looking to hire someone to do it. The job is called Content Developer. What does this job entail? Basically, playing our games and helping us get the word out to people what we’re doing via video, articles, screenshots, etc. Here’s an example using our friends at Firaxis as an example: http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/civ-vi-sp...
If you don’t already have Offworld Trading Company and would like an RTS that focuses on economy, plays at the pace you want to play and has really intelligent AI players that you can configure you should definitely go grab Offworld Trading Company. The first major DLC was just released for it, The Ceres initiative. The base game takes place on Mars. By contrast, Ceres takes you to the largest asteroid in the Mars/Jupiter asteroid belt and adds new resourc...
Stardock is setting up a number of Wiki pages: http://wiki.elementalgame.com http://wiki.ashesofthesingularity.com http://wiki.offworldgame.com http://wiki.galciv.com http://wiki.starcontrol.com http://wiki.sinsofasolarempire.com We're looking for volunteers to help flesh them out. We can't promise payment but we will do our best to reward and thank active contributors. Thanks!
In no particular order. If the Roomba would just empty its bin on its own, it would be a completely autonomous vacuum system. I wish there was an AI bot that could just block posts and messages from friends when they’re about politics. I don’t care which monster you want to support. You’re still supporting a monster. There are not enough bike paths to my office here in Canton/Plymouth Michigan. Nothing reminds you of your mortality like having a car zip past you g...
I recently picked up a Roomba and am amazed at how far they have come. Like many people, I followed the original release of the Roomba robotic vacuum it seemed kind of like a toy at the time. No more. It’s for real. Right now, my office building spends about $1,600 a month on cleaning. Now, vacuuming isn’t the main thing they do but it is a significant part of what they do. It is tempting to just buy three high end Roombas (one per floor) and let them go and se...
When it comes to DLC, what is popular is not always what one would expect. To that end, here are the top 3 most popular GalCiv III DLC in terms of units sold per day average. #1 Revenge of the Snathi Not in a million years would I have guessed this. The DLC that delivered the psychopathic squirrels that have been a gag in the GalCiv games for years as a major civilization takes the lead. #2 Precursor Worlds This is the one I w...
Yesterday, Breitbart editor, Milo Yiannopoulos was permanently banned from Twitter. The reason, ostensibly, was that he was targeting Leslie Jones, the actress in the recently released Ghostbusters reboot. It would probably be more accurate to say that it was “the last straw” from Twitter’s point of view given Milo’s engagement with Jones was relatively mild and no reasonable person would argue that Milo is responsible for the abuse his followers do. Twitter’s tolerance tends to be base...
In no particular order: People often lightly suggest that “you should sue X”. Lawsuits are multi-year arduous, tedious affairs. My opinion is that the threshold for a lawsuit should be if you lived without civil society would you be willing to commit violence to achieve your objective? If no, then find another way. A customer of ours recently got banned on Wikipedia for aggressively defending me on my Wiki page . Apparently he had been contributing for years. I fee...
Greetings! Season 2 has been delayed until the end of this month so that we can get in contact with the finalists. That gives us a bit more time to get the observer mode feature in and prep for Season 2 balance changes. Below, in no particular order, are some of the upcoming balance changes: T1 units are now slightly faster PHC Athena is somewhat slower PHC Brute squad size reduced from 6 to 5, firepower and HP on each unit substantially increased PHC Falcon Flak Ca...
When running an Internet business, trust is one of the most valuable commodities a business has. That’s why I was so surprised to discover that Teleflora seems to operate on what appears to be an unscrupulous business model. For my wife’s parent’s big wedding anniversary she ordered this: What they actually got was this: Besides the fact that it only had a handful of the roses, the most ridiculous part is that the little white flowers they included rather...