This week I’ve been presenting internally our company business plan for 2011. Part of this is the Stardock Customer Report 2011 (which we’ll be making available publicly soon) along with our road map on the studio games (this doesn’t count future titles from our partner Ironclad who developed Sins of a Solar Empire nor does it address next steps in the Demigod franchise.
This journal entry will likely only be of interest to either techies or biz types. So if you’re looking for interesting game feature stuff, you’ll probably want to skip this.
The Road Map
Essentially every studio has a road map. They just don’t make it public for obvious reasons. Since we’re privately held, we can pretty much do whatever we’d like and one of the things we like is to keep our fans up to speed on what the heck is happening here.
So below is the road map for the studio developed (Stardock Entertainment’s studio) titles.
Kumquat
Kumquat is just our internal nickname for the engine. It was called this in honor of former Stardock developer Mike Duffy who created the predecessor “Pear” which we licensed from him after he left to start his own studio. Pear is what all Stardock games from 1997 through 2003 used (Entrepreneur, The Corporate Machine, LightWeight Ninja, Galactic Civilizations I). It was a fantastic game engine for its day but was 3D.
Kumquat is a new engine that was developed originally for Society which is the free to play MMORTS that we’ve been slowly developing for the past hundred years or something like that. We decided to have the first game that used Kumquat be a fantasy strategy game, namely, Elemental: War of Magic.
Now, when War of Magic was being made, we obviously had very high hopes for how it would be received. So we pictured having Elemental: War of Magic – Expansion 1…2…3. And then you’d have Elemental: War of Magic II and so on. But when Elemental: War of Magic was released it was very buggy and even after the bugs were largely fixed, the gameplay wasn’t what we had envisioned it being. We had cut or altered so many features from the original design to match what Kumquat could do – at the time – that we ended up with something that few were pleased with.
But work on Kumquat has continued non-stop and so in December it was decided that rather than continue the War of Magic line we would use the opportunity to create a new fantasy strategy game in the Elemental world that would succeed War of Magic and then just give that to everyone who bought War of Magic in 2010 it for free with steep discounts for anyone who buys it before it is released. That’s where Elemental: Fallen Enchantress comes in.
Elemental: Strategy Games
The effect of this is that we’ll eventually have War of Magic, Fallen Enchantress and <Untitled third branch>. This isn’t really very different than what we did with Galactic Civilizations II with the exception of the intention to have them be stand-alone and thus allowing the separate entities to continue to be potentially developed on their own path based on what players ask for. If the strategy games were primarily multiplayer games, we obviously couldn’t do this because you’d be fragmenting the player base. But these are primarily single player games that happen to have (fairly crummy) multiplayer support.
One nice thing about this is that it gives us, and players, a lot more design flexibility. Fallen Enchantress is a pretty radical departure from War of Magic. Based on what I’m seeing, I suspect most people will prefer that by far to War of Magic but only time will tell. But in any event, we will be making a v1.3 of War of Magic that will be on its own code branch.
As a game developer, I can tell you that this is pretty exciting stuff. Consider the challenges other strategy game franchises have. Some players would have liked to see Civilization V be more along the lines of Civilization IV. Others would have preferred it to be far more complex and others would have preferred to have it streamlined.
Elemental: RPG games
Now, as some people may recall, after War of Magic’s difficult launch, we had to re-evaluate our staffing levels and reorganize. This meant some painful layoffs back last Fall which came from people slated for the RPG title. After War of Magic, it was recognized that the game studio was being run like a hobby and not as an engineering process like our enterprise software unit. This meant we needed to bring in full-time designers and full-time project managers onto the studio. Thus, the second studio team, designated for the Elemental: RPG, got largely zapped. This year we will begin to reconstitute this team as we bring in a lead studio developer and some senior developers to help ensure that we don’t have another War of Magic episode.
The Mod Layer
As some people may remember, I was planning to take a sabbatical last year. Clearly that didn’t happen. I am still planning to do this sometime early this year. With Kael and Jon Shafer here now, I am comfortable that the games unit won’t need me to intervene. This will let me create what I’ve creatively named “Mod Layer”. The idea is to create a piece of middleware between Kumquat and future games that would allow people to make games using mostly Python. I’ve started the planning part of this with our DesktopX lead developer so that we can use Expression Blend to create “objects”, and then manipulate them via Python and render them in Kumquat. This way, modders can easily create a wide assortment of games that are either 2D or 3D and potentially portable to (at the very least) Xbox Live Arcade and Windows Phone (though I’d like to also do iOS but Xcode is the devil still so I may ask some Stardockians to make that part for me <g>).
Just throwing out some spaghetti on the wall here hoping something sticks...
Have you folks at SD ever considered talking to Smith and Tinker folks like Jordan Weisman (www.smithandtinker.com) about doing a TBSRPG set in the BattleTech universe circa 3025-ish? Your Game engine seems to be malleable enough to be able to do it well enough.
It would be more strategic and less tactical than the MechCommander series. Basically a TBS in BattleTech and RPG for your mechwarriors. House campaigns, Mercenary open ended contracts, etc...
I'd buy it several times over if it was BattleTech.
Cheers,
Gene
Well, if we talk about a P&P RPG going on the computeras a RPG, I would really like to see Shadowrun! (I know that Microsoft own the rigth, but someone could still hope and wish )
Well I hope the sabaticle went good. Before I get to the point i'm going to point out that the point to classifying games is to make it easier to classify for purposes of buying video games. If every video game I saw was a Rpg then I couldn't use that classification to try new video games I didn't know about to buy or rent. Or even learn about. Just think how much harder it would be to look up video games if they aren't classified. Next this is what I think a Rpg classification is. You need to be in a party u either formed, or is part of. You need to be able to pick different kind of characters either by race or species. Different kind of occupations. This can be different or the same depending on the species. These all seem to be level dependent. When u increase in level U increase in hit points and skills depending the kind of game. What I mean is a skill can be different things. I would also expect that as i gain in level that I get better equipment deoending on the game this can be different. These r always played under some kind of life long story line like defeating some kind of evil being or taking over a kingdom. With that is usually interaction with other non-player characters. This is a reasonable definition of an Rpg as far as I'm concerned. If an Rpg doesn't fill this criteria I am then disappointed. Galactic civilizations is not an Rpg but a stratedgy game. Stop calling it an Rpg. A stradegy game is a game that has even less interaction between characters almost to the point that the only way to improve is either upgrading either through exoerience training or through tech research this takes place through an army which a rpg only works through a few men. I will give u that final fantasy tried to redefine with final fantasy tactics i thought was more like a roleplaying not a stratedgy game. In a Rpg the leader is usually a person that has a personal backstory. In a stradegy game the leader is sort of like a general or the president. For the most part in a strdegy game instead of finding treasure or getting paid by an individual U have to raise money through a larger scale. There r 2 kinds of stradegy games turn based and real time stradegy. From what I can see stardock deals with all 3 kind of games. There r other classifications but I'm dealing with these 3 This is what the problem with spore was. I was expecting a stradegy game what that means the civilization stage was supposed to be like empire earth 2 or rise of nations. The space stage was supposed to be like sins of a solar empire of shattered suns. Instead it turned into a poorly done Rpg. I would like to see a sporelike game like the tribal stage sort of like virtual village. The civilization stage like empire earth 3. The space stage like sins of a solar empire with all the expansion packs. Remember this is a stradegy not a Rpg game. Galactic civilizations has a real good ship editor concept with tech research. Except I would like to see fish in the cell stage. I do think that in the creature stage even right before the tribal stage the creature creator needs to be less complex to use I don't want to be a master to make descent aliens for being stardock u should have a plethora of different aliens to make I would add them all if u can u have at least several tech trees u can use even if u include the mods. I like civilization 4 beyond the sword. I wouldn't mind if u would make a turn based stradegy game that combines civilization with galactic civilization. I would like to add the campaigns in galactic civilizations does not make it a Rgp. Rpg does not have anything like a sand box game.
The reason why we keep bugging u to make galactic civilizations 3 is because Galactic civilization. The only other things out there r not space games or they don't have tech research or aren't turn based. It would have to be a tech researching turn based stradegy space game not a Rpg thats why we want galactic civilizations 3 if there are other modern ones please tell me.
In contrasting Galactic civilizations 1.0 and 2.0 This is either between dread lords and dark avatar or dark avatar and twilight of the arnor. Between Dl and DaThere was a redesign of the Drath most had added abilities based on the points suggested on the first one. The super abilities were added. Two new races were added extreme olanets were added U now could choose how many minor races u can hence anializing was made better. More campaigns and scenarios Research and economic treaties were added I think asteroids were added then and a lot of new techs that changed a lot. Between Da Tota everyone have multiple race tech trees new customized race graphic designs better Ai. more game affecting options better map and a customize tech
What I would like to see with the new game is more races I would also like to see the races more evenly balanced I would like to shut off the races ability to trade planets About evenly balancing the tech trees I like the pirates from sins of a solar empire I like how they limit artifacts I like better variety I like anti matter abilities more evenly balanced Ai I like the idea of a all powerful Thalans but I dont like how a lot of other races suck instead of cheating I mean instead of makeing the economy easier or harder by increasing the player or oppenents economy lets make harder Ais all around I like the minor race tech tree when customising lets have more options like that more race pictures some starting customization ships civilization is not country but leader based U could do that and have multiple leaders with different abilities for the same race civilization have civics instead of governments more options that way specialized buildings and units u should probably check out the great people they have an option of abilities not just hit points when U level up optional paths for the same tech I think every race should have the same nimber of super projects and have an equal chance on trade goods and galactic acheivements lets add corporations and about the same number of techs in medieval warfare they have a really interactive way to communicate between leaders i would like to see that in galactic civilizations customising again I would like to at least be able to create the same abilities techs as I have with the stock races penalizing me for customization does not make sense A larger map based on how much Ram and Virtual memory u have these r just some ideas for galactic civilizations 3 if u aren't going to make a new version then can u please make a new turn based researching multiple aliens multiple tech tree space stradegy game.
I'd love to see Stardock to a turn-based tactical of some form with more of a classic feel. XCOM:EU is a good game but it deviates so much from the classic formula that it doesn't quite scratch that classic itch, and most other entries in this field end up being weak, unfinished, buggy, and/or created by companies that are about 1/100th as awesome as SD.
But more than anything, I want to see GalCiv 3. GC2 is still one of the best space 4X (with the gap between the upper echelon and the rest of the field being very noticeable) and it'd seem the only way to match or exceed its greatness would be for GC3 to come into existence.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
