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Countdown to GalCiv III gold: 48 hours

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Countdown to GalCiv III gold: 48 hours

from GalCiv3 Forums

Greetings!

We're burning the midnight oil to make sure when we go gold we have the best game we can possibly deliver as 1.0.

I hope you guys have enjoyed the early access program as much as we've enjoyed working with you guys.  You've made a huge difference both in terms of making the game funner and helping make sure that what actually goes out is more like a v1.01 rather than the traditional 1.0 level of quality/stability.

Here's a run-down of the things that are on our hot-list that we hope to have to you either today or tomorrow as the last pre-gold build of the game:

1. We are testing a fix for a hang when players go to the battle viewer. It was tracked down to being the trails on the ships (oddly enough). For now, if you turn off trails in the options in your build, it'll probably go away even in beta 6.

2. We are playing a lot of multiplayer. We did a minor update last week that helped with MP but the next bulid will be a much bigger update to MP stability and just general user experience.

3. Campaign polish. I know most people don't really care about a campaign in a 4X like this. I'll be the first to admit that we mostly do it for ourselves so that our story, that we've been telling for 20 years, continues to move forward. 

4. Balance / AI.  They're the same thing at this point.  Trying to beef up the Yor and nerf down the Krynn (patriotic trait is OP). 

5. Anything that affects stability or user experience that has been reported by the fans.

On a personal note, having been developing games for over 20 years, it has been a real pleasure working with the community on this game.

I will say, candidly, that a game of this scope simply couldn't be made from scratch like this without it.  This isn't a knock on Unity based games (we're using Unity for two of our upcoming games, we're fans).  I'm saying that building a 4X strategy game engine where you can create your own players, create your own units, can support tens of thousands of units simultaneously with game sizes from tiny to figuratively insane is not a task done lightly or often...or sanely. ;)

After gold, we move directly onto 1.01 which will be mostly addressing requests that we've gotten but just couldn't get to yet and then 1.1 which will mostly focus on feedback from players on balance, AI, and Steam Workshop integration.

Let me know if you have any questions. I'll be here with you right to the day we release 1.0 and beyond. :)

115,315 views 49 replies
Reply #26 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Just wanted to say it's been fun playing through this since Alpha.  I've been part of other company's Alphas/Betas and I can honestly say Stardock is a class act.  The way you engage the community, incorporate player feedback, and make yourselves available to the community is awesome.  Good luck and good business!

Reply #27 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting wpkelley41, reply 25

Dual-Zero and Ryat, am I looking at the changes to my custom civs wrong? I just make a copy, make the changes that I want and save. Then I delete the original.
End of wpkelley41's quote

 

I'm just wanting more options basically.  For example, setting how many credits each individual civ starts with.  Or giving one certain techs to begin with.

There are tons of changes you can make to the civs if you dive into the XML and recreate each custom race in there.  But it's a lot more time consuming doing it that way.  So a dedicated editor would make things a lot easier on our end.

Stardock has made modding editors for their games in the past, so here's hoping they will again. :)

Siege of Centauri
Reply #28 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Beta's been fun.  Being a tester for a game you believe in is very motivating and rewarding.  Thanks for having us along for the journey.

Reply #29 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I'm almost sad. It has been fun to follow the Development, and now it is almost over.

Reply #30 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Look on the bright side they intend to carry on developing the game further after release  so it's not really over.

Reply #31 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting econundrum1, reply 30

Look on the bright side they intend to carry on developing the game further after release  so it's not really over.
End of econundrum1's quote

 

hell yeah.. Release is only the beginning.

Reply #32 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting jnpoint, reply 29

I'm almost sad. It has been fun to follow the Development, and now it is almost over.
End of jnpoint's quote

"Over"?  Did you say "OVER"?  Nothing is over until we say it is!  Was it over when EA nuked Van Buren? HELL NO! 

(EA??  <_< )

(Forget it, he's rolling)

Reply #33 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Is it too late to ask for squares instead of hexes?

 

 

I'm totally joking about squares. MOO2 turned me on to GC2 which turned me on to Stardock which turned me on to EWOM which just turned me on in general. When I heard GC3 was in the works, I was a happy camper. Well done on this project, time to go party at Brad's and Derek is buying the beer!

Reply #34 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I found gc2 after moo3 broke my heart by being one of the most broken, badly designed least fun games of all time. I'd  loved moo2 but thought it was all over for 4x space strategy. Gc2 quickly showed me how wrong I was and I've  never looked back.

 

So gc3 has a special place in my heart and I look forward to seeing it develop further be it through free patches, dlc or expansions. As a founder it's  all the same to me. That was a great deal.

Reply #35 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Can't wait for the campaign, I think that makes this series unique as its the only one that actually has a story 

Reply #36 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting wpkelley41, reply 25

Dual-Zero and Ryat, am I looking at the changes to my custom civs wrong? I just make a copy, make the changes that I want and save. Then I delete the original.
End of wpkelley41's quote

That is the current work-around yes, but many want to be able to go back and modify without having to do that.

Reply #37 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Does this mean there will be a soft release of 1.0 today?

Reply #38 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I'm already working on v1.1 for June.  1.0 is just an arbitrary milestone really. GalCiv III is a whole brand new 4X platform that we can build amazing stuff on.

I could go on for hours on all the things we want to add into the game over the next few years.

Reply #39 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 38

I could go on for hours on all the things we want to add into the game over the next few years.
End of Frogboy's quote

 

Yes please.

Reply #40 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 38

I could go on for hours on all the things we want to add into the game over the next few years.
End of Frogboy's quote

Dev Stream for release week ;)

 

Reply #41 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Hmm... I wish I could have done more. It seems that I had trouble getting involved in this game. I felt like I was being ignored (we only got hotkeys recently), or maybe my idea of an ideal 4x space game was different than what the devs wanted. There many features like tile adjacency bonuses that were added (that I don't like because it increases micromanagement), while some features that I wanted haven't been implemented or implemented late (like hotkeys for the guard command). Because of this, my enjoyment of the game had diminished over time. It was easier to go play some other game than to play GalCiv 3 (and want to find problems to be fixed). Maybe I'm not suited for alpha and beta testing. Or maybe I changed or something? (as of late, I have to give myself a good kick sometimes to get stuff done).

This was different in GalCiv 2. I enjoyed that game so much that I tried to learn everything that I could. As such, there are few things I don't know about that game. I discovered that game shortly after release and I continued to play it long after it was stopped being worked on. I was invested in it, it was fun to play through the betas of the expansions, and because I enjoyed the game and knew much about it, I could readily come up with ideas of how to improve it.

I don't know. It felt like this game took a turn in a direction that I didn't want it to. Maybe it'll take a few patches before I can change my mind. Maybe then I can get the motivation to push it a direction that I want. Until then, without the love, how can I care enough to try?

Reply #42 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Don't kick yourself DivineWrath. Not everybody has time to playtest everything. I know I didn't either. You can still enjoy the game from now and contribute if you want. I would have prefered hotkeys early on as well, but in the grand scheme of things does it really matter? Go and play the game when it's ready and just enjoy. It's a game after all!

Reply #43 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I also think the adjacent bonus thing is a case of you can't please all of the people all of the time. I love the adjacent bonus and think it makes colony management much more fun than gc2. But like any new feature some people are bound to dislike it. 

 

Don't get me wrong there are some design decisions I don't agree with in the game as I'm sure there are for all of us. Because after all none of us are lead designer and no two people would make all the same design decisions. 

 

So why it's not exactly the game I would have designed, it's still a great game and only going to get better. But if it's not working for you then of course you will end up playing something else I guess.

Reply #44 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I was so burnt out after the Beta test for Elemental and FE that I haven't played them since.  This will NOT be the case for GC3.

Reply #45 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

You sure aren't giving me a lot of time between this and Witcher3. How am I going to play two games at once? Somewhere along the lines it's going to blur together into a glorious gaming mash of Geralt flying through space killing Drengin, I just know it. Thanks chief!!

Reply #46 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I don't know if that's an option for modding. I would like you to consider adding a "switch" for modders to set starting date. As to transfer unfinished projects from Galciv2 or the near past, or even the future(assuming the universe survives, but even if it doesn't, I can still think some stories). Game looks good.

Reply #47 from Elemental Forums Top

When I was young I watched a vhs movie wherein the heroes, predictably, overcome challenges and tangle with villains. What really stuck with me, however, was the final scene. While still exhausted and varnished down to their cores, the actors still managed to portray a great sense of beginning rather than an end. 

And I especially am looking forward to the campaign. Humanity, defeated, outnumbered, alone, somehow prophesied to destroy the universe? I feel like a holocaust waiting to happen.

Reply #48 from Elemental Forums Top

Congrats to the max!

Reply #49 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Just want to echo a few others here in saying that I pretty much NEED a campaign in order to invest in a 4x game. It was DEFINITELY worth your time to work one in, as it also serves as a long form tutorial in some ways. Going to start digging in this weekend!