Brad Wardell's views about technology, politics, religion, world affairs, and all sorts of politically incorrect topics.
Draginol's Articles » Page 4
November 27, 2016 by Draginol
Disclaimer: For the first series of these I’m going to put these up so that those of you who have no idea who I am don’t get too concerned that there’s this guy endlessly criticizing the game (and other people’s games) in the most unprofessional way.  Who I am: I’m the founder and CEO of Stardock. I wrote the original Galactic Civilizations for OS/2 back in 1993 largely as an AI simulator in which humans were allowed to interact.  It took off from th...
November 22, 2016 by Draginol
So tomorrow is my first day on GalCiv III.  It’s been a long break for me.  It’s very nice returning to my baby.  GalCiv III is the first GalCiv game I didn’t design or get to spend much time on.  A few observations The engine is fancy I basically have unlimited memory to work with.  However, it uses a lot of memory.  This isn’t terribly surprising given how complex the ships can get. But it is still a problem.  I spent a l...
November 19, 2016 by Draginol
A very long time ago, like, a million years ago, Stardock made a game called The Corporate Machine.  Like all of Stardock’s games, it was played almost exclusively single player.  But unlike our other games, it was surprisingly popular in multiplayer.  How come? For The Corporate Machine we did the following: Start-Up Watcher: A little system tray app that monitored for available games and let people launch it. 7 multiplayer only keys that people who owned t...
November 19, 2016 by Draginol
A very long time ago, like, a million years ago, Stardock made a game called The Corporate Machine.  Like all of Stardock’s games, it was played almost exclusively single player.  But unlike our other games, it was surprisingly popular in multiplayer.  How come? For The Corporate Machine we did the following: Start-Up Watcher: A little system tray app that monitored for available games and let people launch it. 7 multiplayer only keys that people who owned t...
November 10, 2016 by Draginol
Greetings, I know some of you clicking on this email are hoping that I’m here to tell you about Sins of a Solar Empire II.  I hope to be able to talk more about Sins of a Solar Empire more in the near future but today I wanted to make sure you know that we’re releasing a new RTS today that I think you might like: Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation. In many respects, it’s Sins of a Solar Empire on the surface of a planet. If you already know you want it, get it here: http:...
November 3, 2016 by Draginol
Greetings! Sorry I haven't been as active lately. It's been Ashes of the Singularity 24/7 here at Stardock.   So let's do this: ## Escalation ## We had to push the release date of Escalation from November 3 to November 10. This is my fault as I just wasn't comfortable with the balance in the campaign. It was a bit too hard on the default setting and we needed to adjust it. Obviously, you can change the difficulty level (side note: In hin...
November 3, 2016 by Draginol
Greetings! Sorry I haven't been as active lately. It's been Ashes of the Singularity 24/7 here at Stardock.   So let's do this: ## Escalation ## We had to push the release date of Escalation from November 3 to November 10. This is my fault as I just wasn't comfortable with the balance in the campaign. It was a bit too hard on the default setting and we needed to adjust it. Obviously, you can change the difficulty level (side note: In hin...
November 1, 2016 by Draginol
Stardock has released the final update for its political strategy/simulation game, The Political Machine 2016.  The new version adds “Election Integrity” as an issue, updates the Probing HIllary’s emails issue and provides some new random events such as Internet Revelations, Foreign interference, Internal party revolt and more. The most recent AI vs. AI simulation of Trump vs. Clinton has the Democratic candidate up by 4 points nationally with the top issues including “Securin...
October 27, 2016 by Draginol
  My desktop running WindowBlinds, DeskScapes, WindowFX, Fences, Start10 at 5K resolution IconPackager, Tiles and more at 5K resolution   Object Desktop is a suite of desktop enhancement utilities designed to allow users to customize their Windows desktop to work however they want it to work. The core components of it are: WindowBlinds – customize the Windows GUI Fences – organize your desktop IconPackager – customize your icons ...
October 26, 2016 by Draginol
The Basics Massive-scale real-time PC strategy game Requires Windows 7, 8, 10 with 2GB video memory, DirectX 11 or DirectX 12, 4 CPU cores. Stand-alone expansion to Ashes of the Singularity. Includes everything from the base game plus Escalation.     The Specs   The Screenshots       The Details 12 new missions further chronicle the story of Ashes of the Singularity: Campaign 1: Memories- See the events of Imminent Crisis fro...
October 26, 2016 by Draginol
The Basics Massive-scale real-time PC strategy game Requires Windows 7, 8, 10 with 2GB video memory, DirectX 11 or DirectX 12, 4 CPU cores. Stand-alone expansion to Ashes of the Singularity. Includes everything from the base game plus Escalation.     The Specs   The Screenshots       The Details 12 new missions further chronicle the story of Ashes of the Singularity: Campaign 1: Memories- See the events of Imminent Crisis fro...
October 26, 2016 by Draginol
Greetings! We’re releasing the biggest DLC for Offworld Trading Company yet today.  It adds a lot of new content and is, btw, only $4.99. The Campaign The Patron and the Patriot is a DLC pack focused on enhancing the single player campaign mode within Offworld Trading Company. The campaign mode that shipped with the base game operates like a competitive tournament that lasts for seven games. There are nine characters to play, each with their own set of perks...
October 21, 2016 by Draginol
For this journal, I’m going to, in story form, give you a guided tour of Escalation.   Background.. Escalation is the first expansion pack to Stardock’s massive-scale RTS, Ashes of the Singularity.  It is sold as a stand-alone expansion with its pricing determined based on whether you already have Ashes of the Singularity or not.  To learn more, visit www.ashesofthesingularity.com .   The year is 2180… The human race is at an inflecti...
October 21, 2016 by Draginol
For this journal, I’m going to, in story form, give you a guided tour of Escalation.   Background.. Escalation is the first expansion pack to Stardock’s massive-scale RTS, Ashes of the Singularity.  It is sold as a stand-alone expansion with its pricing determined based on whether you already have Ashes of the Singularity or not.  To learn more, visit www.ashesofthesingularity.com .   The year is 2180… The human race is at an inflecti...
October 18, 2016 by Draginol
Greetings! Today we are opening up the Founder’s Program to Phase II in preparation for alpha testing (Fall) and beta testing (Winter).  If you haven’t seen the gameplay teaser, you can check it out here: https://youtu.be/K6ntg47q_cM We’re still very early in development as you can see.  The creatures and other cool stuff on the planets weren’t quite ready to show yet and we’re saving the best parts for a later reveal. Feature status ...