IGN: Developer Diary #1

Did the race backstory articles for Gal Civ 2 on IGN ever get finished? I really enjoyed those. I'll have to check these new ones out.

Brad Wardell sayed: But when deciding what to put into the game, we have to look at how many people will really want the feature who already have the game vs. how much it will cost to put into the game. Let's take multiplayer as an example. Multiplayer advocates are very vocal about the feature. But poll after poll, and any other measurable criteria we use (including our own experience -- GalCiv is the only game Stardock has developed for Windows that isn't multiplayer), show that a relatively small percentage of people actually use it. Those who use it really like that feature. But we estimated it would use around 900 engineering hours to implement, not even including QA (Quality Assurance) time. That would be 1/3rd of our engineering budget. We ultimately decided that it would make more sense to wait until the multiplayer libraries in Society were ready (it's being designed to be cross-platform and easy to plug into other things) and then use that in a future GalCiv II expansion pack when it would take only a quarter as many engineering hours to implement.

Frogboy, are you telling us that it would take 1/3 of 900 hours, or in other words 10-12 days to put multiplayer into the game, just by having Society's library online??
I understand this means 12 days of work, obviously your team isnt going to work for 12 days straight, although many ppl would pay u a bunch of money for that    , but I know that programmers aint robots(you know thinking about it, we should make robots with GALCIV2's team consiousness programmed in    ), anyways, in total, doing 8 hours a day, thats 1 month and 1 week extra, Thats kinda KOOL!! to say the least...

What is that library anyways, and Why do you need it to cut engineering time??

In the end, deciding the feature set is a lot like building an RPG character. I have so many points (engineering hours) and a set of things I want. Then it's just a matter of figuring out which features to put in there and hope that my "character" (the expansion pack) is successful.

Guyz BUY DARK AVATAR, we need more "character points".... BADLY!!!! (for those CARRIERS I want!!!)  


Anyways, a good read, cant wait to play Dark Avatar!!    


Monc34

What is that library anyways, and Why do you need it to cut engineering time??

Well, for programming, library is the way to not rediscover the wheel every time. Generally it is code made by a project but used by others projects that need the same functionnalities. If you want to build a car, what would be the most efficient thing: Creating a new engine from the ground or using one that already exists and whose characteristics can fit with the capabilities you are envisionning for your car?

Cool new screenies...almost feel sorry for that poor emancipated Torian, locked up behind bars, well awaiting his fate at the hands of the Korath.

As for yr overall direction, vibe, yea sounds good.

I wonder why so many people will not buy an expansion via download? It's as easy as 1...2...3.

Did the race backstory articles for Gal Civ 2 on IGN ever get finished? I really enjoyed those. I'll have to check these new ones out.

I think we're still waiting for the Humans and Altarians. That was over 6 months ago...

It sounds like MP will be likely in the second expansion pack, or it that just wishful thinking? Would it really be easy enough to port the library over? I would think that the two games would require completely different engine types ( One is a client side server and the other is a MMO).

Phoenix: Good analogy.

What ever happened to the Terran overview at IGN? They stopped after they got to the Dread Lords, but said that they were going to do one about the Terrans. (Part VI)

(Senator)Peace PhoenixSeptember 21, 2006 03:27:55Reply #3What is that library anyways, and Why do you need it to cut engineering time?? Well, for programming, library is the way to not rediscover the wheel every time. Generally it is code made by a project but used by others projects that need the same functionnalities. If you want to build a car, what would be the most efficient thing: Creating a new engine from the ground or using one that already exists and whose characteristics can fit with the capabilities you are envisionning for your car?

Quite a lot of code from GC1 was used as a basis for building GC2. You bring what you have in and adapt it to suit the new game. Otherwise you start with a blank screen and type in all the same stuff over again until you reach the stage where you make the changes. It's duplicating work for yourself.

Society is Stardock's MMO project so they are writing up all the multiplayer code already, once done they can drop it in to GC2 and spend a few weeks wirining it all up.

(Citizen)mewcurano2September 21, 2006 17:13:50Reply #6It sounds like MP will be likely in the second expansion pack, or it that just wishful thinking? Would it really be easy enough to port the library over? I would think that the two games would require completely different engine types ( One is a client side server and the other is a MMO). Phoenix: Good analogy.

There was a poll not long ago asking if people would be interested in a Muliti player expansion after Dark Avatar is done. Stardock want to do it, they just want to do it affordably. DA is bringing in the features that should appeal to the largest audience first and which will improve the core game the most. By the time its out they should know where they stand with the MP code and how large the audience is likely to be for expansion #2.

On a completely separate note, is it just me or are some of the ships in those screenies obscenely massive? I don't recall seeing anything about new larger hulls being added to DA but woohoo them things are BIG!

On a completely separate note, is it just me or are some of the ships in those screenies obscenely massive? I don't recall seeing anything about new larger hulls being added to DA but woohoo them things are BIG!

It may be that larger hulls now just appear larger in the combat viewer, for dramatic effect. But a larger hull may be a good thing. According to the text, a huge hull is 1,000 m long. However, a star destroyer is 1,600 m long, and a super star destroyer is upwards of 10 km long. It may not be realistic to do a super star destroyer (let's just say there is a reason why there is only a handful in the Star Wars universe), but a massive hull size would, for lack of a better word, be COOL!

I want to be one of those to mention 'where are the rest of the race overviews' people. Where are they. IGN can take the time to put this up, but not finish what they started?