Along with this were a lot of bugfixes, and also a change to hopefully prevent the OSX version from crashing if it encounters the pthread_getschedparam that some users have run into (more details on that in the release notes).
Monday, November 1, 2010
AI War Beta 4.023 Released!
This update has a wide variety of fixes and updates into it. It also has the first beginnings of the upcoming Light of the Spire expansion in it, although you won't be able to see or enabled (even in trial mode) those new additions just yet. Later this week it will open for trial and preorders with the extremely early version of it!
Other notable new stuff in this version includes making the game much more playable with a 600px high resolution (which is technically below the minimum we supposedly support, but it's nice to have it playable on more widescreen formats than before). There are also a number of new threat-related options for defining when you want to be alerted about danger at specific planets. Guardians, fortresses, and beam cannons also got a heavy dose of rebalancing.
Along with this were a lot of bugfixes, and also a change to hopefully prevent the OSX version from crashing if it encounters the pthread_getschedparam that some users have run into (more details on that in the release notes).
This is a standard update that you can download through the
in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 or later. When you
launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found
if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 4.000 or later, you can download that here.
Along with this were a lot of bugfixes, and also a change to hopefully prevent the OSX version from crashing if it encounters the pthread_getschedparam that some users have run into (more details on that in the release notes).
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Another good update!
ReplyDeleteI hate to be that person, but when's the in-game lobby coming? I haven't played this game with anyone yet because nobody's in the VPN servers and the forum is just too impractical when you want to start a game right away. This game is really meant to be played with others in my opinion and a full-blown lobby and match-making system is to me therefor a lot more important than more ships and bug-fixes. No update in the world could make this game more fun to play if you still have to play it alone!
ReplyDeleteAs with most strategy games, the huge majority of players play the game solo and don't have any interest in multiplayer. Even with the most multiplayer-intensive strategy games (say, Starcraft), I'd be willing to bet you'd find that's the case. Sure, Starcraft multiplayer is huge, there are hundreds of thousands of people who play that -- but they'd sold somewhere north of 8 million copies of that game.
ReplyDeleteNot that that means the multiplayer isn't a concern for us, but I honestly think that you're not going to be super pleased even when we do have a lobby: these games are LONG. When you sign up for a game and play for 6-12 hours, that means that you're not in the lobby for all that time, and all those sessions. And if it was a success, then that means you might have found a "regular group" and have no incentive to go to the lobby, etc. AI War is meant to be played with friends or a group of regulars, when it comes to co-op, and that's more what it excels at at the moment. I think that you'll find the online lobby will be as empty as the Hamachi networks for this, simply because once someone finds someone to play with, they're off busily playing instead of looking for yet more people!
With Starcraft or other competitive RTS games, you don't want to play the same people repeatedly since they are your opponents, AND matches only last 15-60 minutes at most anyway, so that means that there is a lot more time for people to just be hanging out in the lobby, etc.
All that said, we are planning to put in some Tidalis-style simple matchmaking, but I can't promise when. Possibly by the end of the year, but I can't commit to that as there's a lot going on and it's simply a low priority for us (as I think the results will be quite disappointing for the social reasons I laid out above). If you want a really quick pick-up game, I'd suggest the IRC server, honestly.