Random News: April 2006

Status Report

from GalCiv2 Forums

I don't know how many people here read the Journals section but that's where we put up most of our day to day development stuff.  Though by "We" I mean the entire GalCiv II team though it seems like I'm the only one with enough free time to blog about it (under my Draginol account from JoeUser.com).

Next week we put out 1.1. We've been releasing beta builds like crazy since the end of last month.  Future updates won't be quite so extravagant. We just wanted to make sure people knew how serious we were about adding user-requested features even after release.

More reviews have been coming in. We've been very pleased with most of them.  The G4 XPlay review was a real shocker. 5 out of 5. I've never seen a game get a 5 out of 5 on there so we were pretty jazzed about that.  Our friends at NeoTechGaming had a nice review up of the game as well.  Computer Games Magazine gave us a 4.5 out of 5.  The CGW review should be out soon too, they aren't currently doing ratings though so we'll just use this made up quote of editor in chief Jeff Green "6 out of 5, greatest achievement in human history." ;)

Meanwhile, our developers have been coding away on these updates. But what about the art team? Most of them are on Society. But what about our other artists? One idea we've been toying around with is a "Ship Pack".  Basically a bunch of hulls and components for ships that would allow people to create a bunch of new ships that we would sell for $9 or something.  We'd be curious on people's thoughts on that.  Art is expensive and we'd rather do it as a one time thing as opposed to a bunch of smaller groups at $2 or something each.

After next week, the team will start working on 1.2.  We have a list already of tweaks and additions.  We probably won't have a long public beta test of it like we did with 1.1. New users come to our forums, see a ton of "crash" reports and think "Oh man, this game must be buggy" not realizing they're reading beta reports.

Speaking of forums, we realize that our forums are like the devil. We are looking at a redesign soon. But we are listening to people's ideas.  Our forum system works across all our sites and allows for a lot of customization - which we'll be using to make it easier and faster to use in the coming weeks).

That's all for now. !FROGCARE!

60,431 views 139 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well I'm surprised nobody has commented on this by now. I would certainly consider purchasing a ship pack, so long as there is enough content to warrant the $9 or whatever investment. Seeing as how that's equivalent to 1/4 to 1/5 of an entire game, it would need to be pretty sizable to get my attention. If its lame like the Oblivion packs (not even interested in purchasing that junk), then no way.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Some other game companies do near-continuous public betas and still manage to sell their games.

Instead of not having public beta's, you could change stuff on the website so it would be clear that those crash reports are to do with the beta test.
SoundPackager - Customize the Windows sound scheme
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
well the problem is this.. those shippacks need to be
1 easy to plug into the game.
2 give some good reason to put them in
(examples: TV show ships? (might be hard to do officially) unique or hard to do featues (rotations/movement)
3 give a bonus? (IE this hull that you bought gives more space?)


I want to see more cargo hulls.. i like the colony ship hull front but i don't like the rest of it, and i can't remove it
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I would absolutely love some sort of ship pack, but I'd have to see how much $9 would buy me. Would it be just hulls, or also jewelry? How many? If it doubled the number already in, that'd definitely be worth $9 to me. It'd be really cool if the pack could add some stuff currently not possible in the game, like animated/moving parts on ships, like rotating radar dishes or even tracking turrets (and maybe some AI so the ships would know they don't have to be facing their opponent to fire on them, in that case). Some non-cosmetic changes might be nice too. The great thing is you guys don't have to worry about fragmenting the community or maintaining player-vs-player balance like you would if there was a multiplayer mode, so you can essentially throw in whatever you like and players can take it or leave it.

Though to be honest, I'd kind of like to see the hardpoint misalignment problems fixed first.

I don't much like the idea of adding hulls from TV shows. One of the things I absolutely love about Gal Civ is it's so unique. I don't watch a lot of TV and I don't feel like I'm missing anything. If ships from Star Trek and Star Wars started showing up it'd feel a little less comfortable and familiar.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
First of all, I just want to say that I totally support the idea of a purchasable extra ship pack - it is, after all, entirely optional for the end user.

However, someone above made an important comparison. Oblivion has this purchasable extra content system happening and it is driving a lot of people away. I think this is so because the content is simply unworthy of release (i.e. it adds neglible things) and it is generally deemed to be things that should have been in the game in the first place.

That said, I want to point out an initial thought that crossed my mind. I think the extra ship pack would go down a lot better after all the races have their own unique hulls. Maybe there is some lore as to why some of the civs have similar or matching hulls but as a rule, most should be unique.

With that in mind, I think a pack that contained a few new hulls and a lot of extra fluff components would go down well. I for one would be happy to have a load of extra wing type components as these tend to have a bigger bearing on what the final ship looks like (it's fairly easy to bulk out the hull to any shape you want, but wings are harder).
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I would have some interest in purchasing a ship bonus pack. I would have a lot more interest in buying a Multiplayer Expansion pack which would allow me to show off my cool ship designs online and then destroy my Friends ships with them! Put them both together in one giant Expansion pack for $30 and I'll pre-order as soon as it is available!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S. I have 3 co-worker that would go out and buy GalCiv2 tomorrow if it had MP!
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
$9 huh? I wouldnt be opposed to buying it. BUT for if I'm going to pay almost 25% of the original game, it had better be big... not just a few new hulls, Im talking about enough for me to fall over on the floor and twitch with glee big
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I wouldn't mind buying the pack - if I could, lol... Unfortunately, the only way I can buy stuff online atm is through the splash-plastic card - and I don't know if you support that? (doubtful since it's British?). If you did - (or could in the future? (Hint)) - Then there'd probably be a few other things I'd buy too

(P.s. the site through which the Splashplastic (and other pre-pay systems) are run is this one:

http://www.prepaytec.com/
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I would not buy a ship pack. It's not a matter of money, I simply do not care much about minor visual additions.

I will probably buy expansion, though.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Depends on what exactly would be in this pack. $9 is steep, so I won't buy it unless there is way more in it than a small hand full of hull components.


Something else: What happened to the high res texture pack you wanted to release back in March? Still waiting for that one.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm not sure if bugs should be on the main forum instead of some forum only opened to testers. But I guess you dev thought about that

Artwork: Art is expensive?... This is so classic in mass-produce society, where human labor becomes the most expensive in an era of machines. Innovation or art are not from machines so... expensive
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I like the idea of a ship pack, and I'd buy it, but it should be substantial for that price. Also, what happened to the idea of having your empire's logo be able to be placed on the ships (presumably as a component)? Would that be in a patch, a "ship pack", or the more formal expansion pack that you guys were thinking about releasing I think in the September time frame)?
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'd pay the $9 if there were lots of ships upgrades, new jewlery.. more design hulls.. each alien species needs a unique one..... new bases.. etc


I'd pay.. but I'd want a hard copy on cd...
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have to agree with Spearthrower and his comment about all races not having unique hulls. I feel those ought to have been in the game from the get go. I imagine time and budgetary restraints prevented this from happening. That being said, I am prepared to drop $10 or $15 on a ship expansion. In my mind, the expansion must add to what is already there. It should have more gameplay options, not just more eye candy. More abilities like cloaking, different weapons, new classes of ships such as carriers. An expansion of that nature would be of interest to me. If it were simply more jewellery and hull designs, I'd probably buy as long as it were very substantial, and by that I mean considerably more than four or five extra hulls per race. More gameplay options win out in my mind though.

- J
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I would rather see this incorporated into an expansion pack, but would purchase if there was enough content, i.e - unique planetary improvement, starbase and ship graphics.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I would also be quite interested in seeing / purchasing a Ship Pack.

Has to contain new hulls.
And tons and tons of new Jewelry. *Bling*

And those bits of Jewelry, should seriously allow you to come up with some exciting options. And a big option should at least include more attached pieces that are similar to the Flared Cowl. Curved exteriors. So we can piece our ship builds together. But I guess we'll have to see it first.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'd probably buy the ship pack if it featured enough content. I support the ideas of having ship styles for every race. One other thing you might consider is making some new models for existing parts that now share a model with another part (as in, different models for sensors and shields), or maybe even alternate models for parts, so the player can choose what his laser looks like (between two or three styles, and maybe an empty one).

But I don't know what you can do for $9.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree with Taranis, I would much rather see multiplayer implemented and I know people that would likely purchase the game if multiplayer was available.
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
thx for the 'news'! nice to actually hear whats going on in the background. for me the ship pack would have be more than just hulls & 'bling'. it would have t oactually had something substansive to the game.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'd buy a ship pack if it was big enough, double if not more then came with the Collectors edition. But one thing I dont like about the original ship builder is the lack of content for the diffrent style hulls. The diffrent race styles dont have much in the way of the bling-bling that matches the basic hull design except for the human style hulls. And if we could set our own hardpoints that would be great.
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
any ship pack SHOULD auto upgrade the user to a CE jewelry and add a TON of new jewelry...

i mean enough that it could be possable to build the enterprise X A B C D and E

IN GAME

nah.. i think we need more parts.. just any kind to give a huge variety

more spinning hulls or spinning parts for sure
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I would definately be keen on the ship pack, and would prefer a larger pack over a smaller cheaper pack...

*long cough*Some more extras for the hulls would be nice too*cough splutter splutter*
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Charging for a ship pack strikes me as pretty weak. There's a fair bit more work yet to be done before the game is worth the purchase price as it is. In my opinion, of course.

Is there a way to encourage and facilitate the do this work for free? The Library on this site is a good start, maybe spruce it up a little to make it easier to use (more entires per page, numerical ranking for each download in an easy-to read column) and sponsor a contest.
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
A ship pack sounds attractive, but $9 might by pushing it a little... it'd really have to be good.

Plus: the ship designer can be a bit overwhelming as it is, so you would also have to evaluate tweaks to the interface if you keep increasing the possibilities - e.g. templates etc. At the moment the ship designer isn't strong enough technically to warrant such a big investment in artwork, even though it is a lot of fun.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
about the ship packs ... can you add some variant templates for the AI's ship as well, like some difference designs between their M1 - M2 - M3 - M4 models.