Brad Wardell's views about technology, politics, religion, world affairs, and all sorts of politically incorrect topics.
Mega ambitious..
Published on November 20, 2006 By Brad Wardell In GalCiv Journals

The idea behind the Epic Generator feature of Dark Avatar is pretty straight forward:

Turn your game into readable story complete with HTML and images showing how your empire grew. 

But implementation, woha.  By far, this has been the most expensive single feature of Dark Avatar requiring an immense logging system to put together keys that can later be turned into a story. 

And after 5 months of work, I have a feeling it may end up getting cut from Dark Avatar.  It's really a matter of resources -- which is more compelling to players? It's a tough call. But the practical reality is that the Epic Generator really may need AI programming which would bring me into it.

The problem with bringing me into helping with the Epic Generator is that that means I wouldn't be working on the AI. And I think the AI really needs as much time as humanly possible.

So the Epic Generator is on notice -- we'll know within 2 weeks whether this feature is going to have to be cut or not.  It'll be a bummer if it is.  To my knowledge, no game has ever tried to retell the story of a given game with this kind of narrative before.  And there appears to be a reason for that.

If it does get cut, I'm sure there will be a lot of bummed out players. I know I'll be bummed out. I love this kind of thing.  Today, for instance, I spent a lot of time putting in flavor descriptions for ship components and such. It's pure fluff (like the epic generator) but it adds heart to the game.  I love that kind of stuff.

So we'll see how things progress.  We'll know pretty soon.


Comments (Page 7)
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on Nov 28, 2006
I second the seconding of the request for the latest news...
on Nov 29, 2006
This must be the calm before the storm. Or something.
on Nov 29, 2006
I third the seconding or second the thirding.   

The silence is deafening.  
on Dec 04, 2006
Everyone must have had last week off. Not that I blame them since the week of Thanksgiving was very busy. I will be interested in hearing more about the EG since it's been a couple weeks and that was when a decision about its readiness would be made.
on Dec 04, 2006
Everyone must have had last week off.


Quite the opposite, actually.
on Dec 04, 2006
Oi, Kryo, the observant folks *know* y'all are working too hard. But couldn't the four aptly snarky words have been about the EG's status?
on Dec 04, 2006
kryo, trust me, i know what its like to work your rear off during a break, and even i can't begin to imagine what kind of effort you guys have been putting into this game (which is amazing, btw)

but could we please have some news, here, i'll take some effort out

respond "1" if the EG is dead

respond "2" if the status is still unknown but looking bad

respond "3" if the status is still unknown but looking better

respond "4" if the EG will make the cut

respond "5" if none of the above and we should shut up and be patient

on Dec 04, 2006
So, when do Stardock staff take time off? Geez! You guys are intense.

It will be interesting to read more of your exploits these past few weeks. There have certainly been a lot good ideas floating around in the forums recently regarding DA.
on Dec 05, 2006
At this point we're working towards release. There's really no time to add new features into Dark Avatar, it's all about polishing up what's already in the game (which is substantial). The Epic Generator likely won't make the cut.
on Dec 05, 2006
Yeah. It sounded like that quite a while back. Will logging still be on, though? That'd be helpful to the community and not a complete loss.

Thanks for the info. Good luck on polishing!
on Dec 05, 2006
The Epic Generator likely won't make the cut.




on Dec 05, 2006

Yeah. It sounded like that quite a while back. Will logging still be on, though? That'd be helpful to the community and not a complete loss.

I don't really know.   

on Dec 05, 2006
I don't really know.


ack! don't make me regret my pre-order! at least please please please please i'm begging you, keep the logging in, even if it is some backwoods folder with a very messy system, please keep logging on
on Dec 31, 2006
"Would releasing some of the code to fans help by getting them to do some of the dirty work?" The n00b with prior coding knowledge said.
on Jan 14, 2007
I'd be bummed too! That would be the coolest feature ever!  
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