Sword of the Stars II: Lords of Winter released

[$iljanus]

Thank you for all your reporting, Silvaril! I'm glad they are doing away with reinforcement queues. Hope they are on track for a Sept release.

Any word on how they are distributing the game? Gamersgate exclusive or Steam as well? I remember Gamersgate initially had a mess of technical problems distributing SotS but they fixed that up.

[silvaril]

Heya

To my knowledge; GamersGate, Steam, Impulse and Direct2Drive are in the digital distribution list.

Steam, complete with achievements, has been confirmed.
GamersGate is a gimme given Paradox's involvement.
Impulse has been a regular for distribution since Paradox took over from Lighthouse.
Direct2Drive actually has a coming soon page listed already.


There are also indications of boxed media sets, but nothing confirmed as yet.

[Moat_Man]

CnC is now a radius thing, which ties in sensor net and collaborative firepower, instead of a limitation on number of ships in the combat.

This is great. My biggest complaint about SOTS-1 was not being able to use all the ships I had in a fleet when I arrived at a planet.

[silvaril]

Heya

Some more paraphrased info from those who attended the PAX event:
Armour Piercing Stormers
Armour Piercing Bursters

You can spend your monies on Espionage where, much like Research, after a certain amount is spent you obtain the fruits of same.
In this case it seems that the relevant section of your Imperial Service will prompt as to what missions can be completed, and throw up some conditions for achieving those mission results.
Example being having to park a freighter in an enemy system for a combat round, culminating in the freighter being used as a fire ship, damaging or destroying an enemy base.

Ship death by Reactor Explosion apparently creates a shockwave similar to the Refineries going boom in the first game.
This includes adjacent shipping being physically moved by the shockwave.

Bandboxing ships now brings up weapon banks for the entire group, not just for the selected Design in that group.

[silvaril]

Heya

new interview with Chris Stewart on BeefJack:
http://beefjack.com/features/interview- ... -stars-ii/

...the Lords of Winter are Liir in their Winter years, so to speak. So, to all the snarks out there, there is Winter in space. And if you meet it, it will likely try and eat you...

...until you encounter a particular alien race, or research a particular technology, they will not have a listing. So, no spoilers. And as the game grows, this encyclopedia will grow as well...

...If you’re going to have real-time combat, it’s one thing to have things moving in real-time… it’s another thing altogether to have them toss light sources around that cast shadows in real-time as well...

...targeting improvement with the Hawkeye module. And some modules are just unique in their function, like carrying more crew, or liquid polysteel to temporarily patch up a ship in battle...

...Ships are meant to last longer than a single round of combat – so much so that you can name your ships...

...The short-lived ships still exist as system defense boats and battleriders, but the core of your fleet, from Cruisers to Leviathans, are meant for big capital battles...

...Trade has had the most change ... with the old system of sector based being overhauled to a system that takes into account planets you control in a system, nearby planets you control in other systems, and of course provinces...

...Research is still very familiar to players ... But we’ve added feasibility studies that let you do exactly what a feasibility study does – look at a technology, find out how hard or easy, roughly, it will be to research, and decide if you want to undertake that research now...

...planets you don’t own in a system are potentially beachheads for opponents, they are a factor in setting up provincial territories made up of multiple star systesm, and they even require you think beyond the use of interstellar ships and to think in terms of intrastellar ships – system defence boats that can’t go star to star, but are designed with buttoning down a star system...

Also, SotS Dice Game - Empire, Admiral, Fleet:
http://kerberos-productions.com/forums/ ... 37&t=20934

[silvaril]

Heya

Angry Joe coverage of the SotS-2 fan show & tell:
http://angryjoeshow.com/2011/09/sots-ii ... ring-2011/

Includes:

That Leviathan Armour, and why it shrugs off the light weapons.

The Immortal, one of the seven Suul'ka.

Launch animations.

[GamrIrv]

OMG the planet in the lower left corner on the tv is YOUR NAME!!!

YOU ARE NOW IN THE GAME!!!!

[Zurai]

Silvaril was in the original, too. Several of the systems were named after people who post regularly on the developers' forums.

[Grifman]

Wow!!! is all I can say after that video.

[silvaril]

Heya

So I've been catching up on some of the Forum discussion around the release date.

It seems that several of the media outlets now have October 6th as the release date.

Mecron has stated that community beta testing is slowly being squeezed out of the remaining time before the 20th of September.
Thus he also states that the chances of going beyond that release date to something closer to the October 6th date are increasing, as the Dev's would prefer to have a greater exposure to live machines before going live with the Gold release.
Paradox seem to be happy with Kerberos taking that time.

Nothing confirmed yet, but it does seem to be under consideration.

[silvaril]

Heya

OMG the planet in the lower left corner on the tv is YOUR NAME!!!

YOU ARE NOW IN THE GAME!!!!

Silvaril was in the original, too. Several of the systems were named after people who post regularly on the developers' forums.

Kerberos actually have a Fan activity section called Dog Soldiers.

Anyone who wants to can do Kerberos game promotion stuff and earn Dog Soldier Points.

Earn enough points and get your name in their game, or a free copy of the game, or similar things.

I earned enough over the years to have 3 star systems named, mostly by going to Con's at various times and getting the Celeb's there to sign paraphernalia addressed to Kerberos which I then mailed to the Kerberos folks.
( We have one major Con per year in my locale, two in the region overall )


Dog Soldier thread on the Kerberos Forums:
http://kerberos-productions.com/forums/ ... ?f=2&t=304

Now you all ask, what can I get with these points? Good question - here's what we have in mind.

5 - Set of 4 buttons
10 - 1 mini poster (your choice of species)
12 - Set of 4 buttons and SolForce bumper sticker
18 - 2 mini posters (your choice of species)
20 - Mug
25 - 3 mini posters (your choice of species)
30 - 4 mini posters (your choice of species)
35 - 1 full sized poster (your choice of species)
40 - Copy of Spaceship Zero CD (music from trailers, features SotS voice actor, Toren Atkinson)
50 - Copy of Spaceship Zero CD, signed by Toren
60 - We'll name a planet after you in-game. (depending on time, may have to be in an expansion. Some negotiation may be required - Silvaril for example is a fine planet name. Mr.BingBong, not so much, so a middle ground will be required)
70 - Hang out at the Kerberos office, play some SotS, gab, that sort of thing (we're letting you in, but you have to make your way here.)
90 - Personalized Dog Soldier T-shirt
100 - Set of 4 Full sized posters
120 - Early Tark Recruitment poster that's currently hanging in our office, signed by entire team.
150 - Copy of the game, signed by entire team

And if we think of anything else, we'll add it, but let's just start there.

Though that list hasn't really been updated in a while

[silvaril]

Heya

SotS Giveaways:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/sho ... goodie-bag

[silvaril]

Heya

Gaming Nexus interview with Chris Stewart:
http://www.gamingnexus.com/Article/Swor ... m3186.aspx

[silvaril]

Heya

Another Interview with Chris Stewart, this time over at Space Sector:
http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2011/09 ... s-stewart/

[baelthazar]

Heya

SotS Giveaways:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/sho ... goodie-bag

I was one of the winners! Great day!

[silvaril]

Heya

I was one of the winners! Great day!

[baelthazar]

The bad news from Paradox is that it is starting to look like the end of October for a release date. No real clear statement yet, but hints seem strong.

[silvaril]

Heya

Update on the Release Date from Paradox:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/sho ... tober-28th


October 28th is the current target.

[silvaril]

Heya

Apparently there was a live feed from the StarCraft League 5 in Atlanta of SotS-2 being demo'd, including showing off all of the relevant Suul'ka, Ship size comparisons, some of the new GM's...

If anyone knows of a video taken of the event, it would be appreciated if it could be linked...

[baelthazar]

I haven't been this excited for a game in a long time! I do wish they would release some footage or a pre-release demo to tide us over.

I get the picture that they will go gold soon and that the beta is going well. Kerberos learned their lesson last month and is staying pretty quiet this time, and I can't blame the.

[GamrIrv]

What was in the goodie bag you won?!?

[silvaril]

Heya

According to another winner over on the KP Forums:

The bag itself, is bright red with silvery Paradox logo. Then there's a black Paradox shirt, 4 (morrigi?) ship silhouettes, codes for EU 3 Complete, Crusader Kings Complete and Sword of the Stars Complete Collection (my... fourth SotS code ). And of course the 6 SOTS DICES with the rules for SotS dice game!

Bael' may be able to confirm similar contents.

[silvaril]

Heya

According to the Dev in charge of tools for the internal development of SotS2, there will be a bunch of Modding tools released shortly after the game comes out.

Trust me we're working VERY hard to try and make the (Game) framework as solid as we can and the modding will take a backseat to actually making sure things are running smoothly, but if there are quick questions about how to change things that I can help you guys with, I'll be the guy to ask.

At the moment, we are using editors with some GUI interface - Most of it is coded in WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) - so you get text boxes, combo boxes and other things for general organization. If you REALLY have to edit with a text editor, you can... Most of the modable file formats are in XML. Here are the tools we have at the moment:

A Starmap Editor - has a drag and drop type of interface and some other functionality for hooking up node lines/provinces/starting positions/terrain chunks and the like...
An Effect Editor - for creating explodey stuff and lazers - this is a pretty technical app and you would need to build your assets afterwards with the asset pipeline (which we'll most likely be including).
A Module Editor - for changing bonus' to ships from attached modules.
A Scenario Editor - for in game triggers and win conditions.
A Ship Editor - for (one lucky guess) ships!
A Tech Tree Editor - for editing techs costs/feasibilities unlockables - If you wanted to actually change the tech tree, you would need to modify the source art files, so for the first little while you might want to start only editing the existing tree instead of changing the actual tree
and a Weapon Editor....

Obviously, all these tools are DEV TOOLS and (have) not really (been) put through a rigorous testing process or anything - so they crash and have their quirks if you use them incorrectly. If there's anything REALLY bad I can always try and keep them updated in future patches or add easy to add functionality. I'm sure there'll be a wishlist in a few months....

I personally think he'll have a wishlist in a few days, weeks at the most, but hey, he can dream


In unrelated news, the limited Public Beta is apparently due to start shortly, indicating that the game is closer to release...

[silvaril]

Heya

And Pre-Orders have Opened on GamersGate, $39.95 with a stated Release Date of the 28th of October:
http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-SOTS2LW/sw ... -of-winter

According to Folks that have already Pre-Ordered, there is a Pre-Order bonus of one of the Immersion packs:
http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-SOTS2LMRPD ... -race-pack


So if you pre-order, you'll currently get both of the items linked above.

[baelthazar]

Yes, that was the contents of my goodie bag. Neat shirt, it says "strategy is our game," and has the paradox logo. I may use it for my boardgame days. The dice are very cool, custom d6 with the six a race symbol.

RockPaperShotgun reports that closed beta apps are being taken up until Oct. 12. I can't link from my phone but go check it out for more info and to sign up. I'm tempted, but I am so busy this month and I want them to get dedicated testers.

[xwraith]

And Pre-Orders have Opened...

Is Steam going to carry the game? I don't see it on their list of upcoming games...

[baelthazar]

And Pre-Orders have Opened...

Is Steam going to carry the game? I don't see it on their list of upcoming games...

I would assume so, given that Direct2Drive has it listed and Steam has Paradox's other games (i.e. Sengoku, etc.).

We are now at the 10 day to go mark. I'm so very very excited for this one!

[Sarkus]

Regarding Paradox/Steam, recent history has been that Steam doesn't do a pre-order for their games and sometimes doesn't even release it the first day. Sengoku came out a day later and on sale, for example.

[Freezer-TPF-]

Is it correct that SotS2 will not run on WinXP (Vista/7 only)?

[Sepiche]

From what I've heard it requires DirectX 10 which XP doesn't support, so yes.

[abr]

And Pre-Orders have Opened...

Is Steam going to carry the game? I don't see it on their list of upcoming games...

I would assume so, given that Direct2Drive has it listed and Steam has Paradox's other games (i.e. Sengoku, etc.).

We are now at the 10 day to go mark. I'm so very very excited for this one!

Also, on the GamersGate page for SoTSII it says 'Requires a 3rd party download and account' which usually means Steam.

[ColdSteel]

From what I've heard it requires DirectX 10 which XP doesn't support, so yes.

Wow, that's kind of surprising considering XP still makes up a 60% share of the MS OS install base. Seems like they are limiting their sales a lot by doing that. I guess I won't be able to get it until I get a new box sometime next year. Too bad, I was really looking forward to it.

[silvaril]

Heya

The Third Party download thing only popped up in the last 12 hours or so on GG's page for SotS-2.

According to the Dev's, the game will run without having to run the third party client, which is being used for rolling out the game and updates only.

[gbasden]

Wow, that's kind of surprising considering XP still makes up a 60% share of the MS OS install base. Seems like they are limiting their sales a lot by doing that. I guess I won't be able to get it until I get a new box sometime next year. Too bad, I was really looking forward to it.

Given that XP is 10 years old at this point, how long should Devs continue to limit games so that they will work with an antique OS?


Sent from my SGH-i917 using Board Express

[GreenGoo]

Wow, that's kind of surprising considering XP still makes up a 60% share of the MS OS install base. Seems like they are limiting their sales a lot by doing that. I guess I won't be able to get it until I get a new box sometime next year. Too bad, I was really looking forward to it.

Given that XP is 10 years old at this point, how long should Devs continue to limit games so that they will work with an antique OS?


Sent from my SGH-i917 using Board Express

As long as their customer market continues to use it?

This is one of those trick questions, isn't it?

[gbasden]

As long as their customer market continues to use it?

This is one of those trick questions, isn't it?

Apparently. In this case, the Devs have obviously decided that they need the extra features available with the newer operating systems to make the game they want. I simply don't see the logic in complaining that devs are no longer going to support a decade old operating system. Do we have a lot of people that still think that devs should be coding for System 9 for Macintosh?

[silvaril]

Heya

Space Sector are having a competition, prizes being a copy of both the SotS-1 Complete Collection and SotS-2 for 10 winners:
http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2011/10 ... y-contest/

[Alchemist]

According to the Dev's, the game will run without having to run the third party client, which is being used for rolling out the game and updates only.

Looks like the 3rd party will be Steam, which I'm happy with. They cited the challenge of getting patches out across the different download services as being the reason for a single download service.

After a fairly annoying experience getting Heroes VI to run from an Amazon download, I'm even happier it's on Steam. Amazon was very slow to verify the order and Ubisoft wouldn't let me install it the first 6 tries...

[GreenGoo]

As long as their customer market continues to use it?

This is one of those trick questions, isn't it?

Apparently. In this case, the Devs have obviously decided that they need the extra features available with the newer operating systems to make the game they want. I simply don't see the logic in complaining that devs are no longer going to support a decade old operating system. Do we have a lot of people that still think that devs should be coding for System 9 for Macintosh?

Ok, now you're just messing with me. What is the installed user base for System 9? And of those, what percentage are used by people gaming on them?

If you want to reach a lot of people, then you code for the widest possible machine configurations you can. Or, you make a game with all the bells and whistles, hoping to capture more of market that has machines that can run it. But there's a reason WoW runs on the lowest common denominator, for example.

But these are rhetorical questions, I'm assuming.

[Zurai]

I would be very surprised if XP were really 60% of the installed base of gamers. I expect corporate systems are bloating those numbers considerably.