Gamasutra Interviews Stardock's Brad Wardell

Chock full of indie developer goodness!

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14842
from GalCiv2 Forums

Stardock's own intrepid leader and designer of the Galactic Civilizations series, Brad Wardell, spent some time with Gamasutra recently for a new interview, published today.  Within Brad gives a history of Stardock, the various games the company's worked on, the creation of TotalGaming.net, and some tidbits on where Galactic Civilizations II goes from here.

Check it out at: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14842

16,989 views 20 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Finally, a new journal on the front page....
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Even with Galactic Civilizations II, which had a wide retail presence and sold over 200,000 copies in stores, we still ended up making about a third of our revenue via TotalGaming.net, which is pretty spectacular given the vastly lowered cost of doing business digitally...[adoption rate for the game's expansion pack at this point is] around 25% of the GalCiv II installed base...

How many copies of GalCiv II were sold online? DA is available at retail as part of "GalCiv II: Gold Edition" which replaced "GalCiv II: Dread Lords". What percent of the DA sales were online vs. retail?

2007: Galactic Civilizations II: Expanded Universe...We’re working on a second expansion pack that will take this concept[scalable graphics] further.

Is the 2nd expansion pack GalCiv II: Expanded Universe? What else is planned for the next expansion?
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Nice article. Can't wait for that fantasy strategy title to come out.   

I'm a little confused on one thing, however -- is this second expansion for GalCiv 2 a free update then? For as wonderful as you folks at Stardock are, I confess I find it hard to believe even you'd do that for us!
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Finaly a new TURN BASED (I hate RTS games) fantasy game. I am a big fan of the Age of Wonders. Is this new fantasy game similar to Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic?

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
He say in the interview that you can say it's one part Master of Magic, one part populus and one part X-Com.

I haven't played neither populus nor X-Com but Master of Magic and Age of Wonders are good. I fear that the game will be too abstract in that skill will not matter much.
F.e I really like that in KotoR I can run around and move rangeattacking characters out of harms way while other are shooting and using Force powers on them. Playerskill (Yeah, I like RTS and FPS).
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I'm a little confused on one thing, however -- is this second expansion for GalCiv 2 a free update then? For as wonderful as you folks at Stardock are, I confess I find it hard to believe even you'd do that for us!

Nope, the Expanded Universe won't be a free update (but it won't cost an arm or a leg either).

Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Nope, the Expanded Universe won't be a free update (but it won't cost an arm or a leg either).


I'll pay. I'll pay now, if you want. If it was worth making a new expansion for, it has to be good!

One point... "Expanded Universe" seems a little, er, corny (no offense)... Why not something more evocative, like "Galactic Conquest" or "Terran Revenge" or "Return of the Precursors" or "Terra Ascendant" or "Hotflash Monkey Tenderlovin'?" Obviously, I can't really suggest too much, without knowing the content... it could be that you actually plan to have the galactic map physcially expand during play...

Also: I do hope you aren't quite ready to write out the races eliminated in DA... I rather like the current mix. I assumed they would be absent from GC3. I don't want to have to "dial back" to GC2:DA to use them.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Hotflash Monkey Tenderlovin'

ROTFL!!

Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Nope, the Expanded Universe won't be a free update (but it won't cost an arm or a leg either).


Ah, finally someone from Stardock has mentioned "Expanded Universe"!!

I'd have to agree with General Pants about the name though...

Didn't GalCiv1 have an expansion pack with the same name? Seems kind of silly from a marketing standpoint to have two expansion packs named the same within a series. If I search "Galactic Civilization" + "Expanded Universe" in Google, I'm gonna end up getting both the "original" for GalCiv1 from back in 2003 and the new one for GalCiv2 will come out later this year!?!

I'll second the vote for "Hotflash Monkey Tenderlovin'" it just rolls right off the tongue.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What is planned for "GalCiv II: Expanded Universe" other than graphic improvements?
What is the target release date?
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Has the legal team investigated to make sure that George Lucas hasn't trademarked "Expanded Universe" ?
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
So Brad... how's the apiary going?
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I could answer your questions, but Frogboy might send his bee army after me!    There should be more details released soon, though.

Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
could answer your questions, but Frogboy might send his bee army after me! There should be more details released soon, though.


Meaning he might send the dogs, and the bees, and the dogs with bees in their mouths that when they bark they shoot bees at you?
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

could answer your questions, but Frogboy might send his bee army after me! There should be more details released soon, though.


Meaning he might send the dogs, and the bees, and the dogs with bees in their mouths that when they bark they shoot bees at you?


I just gotta say... OUCH!
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
  
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Meaning he might send the dogs, and the bees, and the dogs with bees in their mouths that when they bark they shoot bees at you?


simpsonomania is the best
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Nice article. Can't wait for that fantasy strategy title to come out.


Indeed, just that rough mention of it sounds very interesting.

Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well the thing is that RTS leaves little room for stratagy since all it is is a click fest. However if they have something along the lines of the Total War series where they combined the stratigic element of turn base with the tatical element of RTS then it would not be so bad. But then Total war was the only RTS game that I have played that was not a click fest.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The graphics engine sounds... interesting. Now computer generated worlds arent that special, but its a nice touch.

Now more about the graphics, would they be on the Supreme Commander level with the ridiculously high computer requirements for something not so special.