Stardock Magazine September 2016 Contents Editorial from Brad God games meet fantasy 4X The economic singularity is near Object Desktop 2017 thoughts DLC vs. Stand-alone expansions Discuss this issue... Editorial from Brad Greetings! I don't know
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Author’s note Some years ago Stardock developed a game called Elemental: War of Magic. We loved it. Unfortunately, it was a bridge too far. Too ambitious and it largely collapsed under its own tech. The name Elemental was tarnished and we moved away from using it. The original plan was to have: Elemental: War of Magic (2010) Elemental: Fallen Enchantress (2012) Elemental: Legendary Heroes (2014) Elemental
I run a software company. I have for over 20 years. Once in awhile, someone will ask me what my “net worth” is. I have to respond, “It depends on whether you value intellectual property”. Intellectual property, IP, would be things my software company owns or has rights to such as Galactic Civilizations or Start8 or our websites and our patents and trademarks. How much are they worth? It depends. There are a number of ways of valuing intellectual propert
Awhile back I wrote about depression . I wasn’t really intending to revisit the topic despite the apparent suicide of actor/comedienne Robin Williams but some of the analysis I’ve seen about depression written by people who clearly have no personal experience with it has motivated me to talk about it a bit. Depression is a physiological disease. Its severity is different from pe
The time machine worked like a charm (this time anyway) and I got to spend a few hours in 2020. Things haven’t changed nearly as much as I imagined (I was hoping for Amazon delivery drones, but alas, none to be found). But my friend drove me up north and showed off a relatively new feature on his BMW: Super Cruise. Now, admittedly, I had hoped there would be self-driving cars by then but apparently they still aren’t a thing in 2020 which was a big bummer. However,
When I was 20 I had nothing. I was working multiple jobs to pay for college and started Stardock as a way to pay for school. 20 years later, it’s now worth 9 figures. How did this happen? The number 1 rule for success I’ve found is to build partnerships. This can mean your employees and it can mean external companies, contractors, etc. that you team up with. What does “building” partnerships mean? To me, it means, working towards their</em
Ever wonder how popular a given game really is? How many times have you read on a forum about how some game is way more popular than some other game. Is there a reasonable objective way to tell? Actually, yes. www.steamcharts.com Here are some Stardock games: LH: http://www.steamcharts.com/app/228260#All <
For most of my adult life, I’ve suffered from what I euphemistically have described as melancholy. And like most people, I mistakenly considered it to be a “mood” as opposed to a serious physiological issue. If I just did X, then I’d feel better. When the issue began to seriously affect my life, I readily accepted “advice” that included “appreciate what you have”, “look on the bright side”, “try to reduce stress from your life”, “don’t sweat the small stuff”, etc. <p
I’m going to do a follow up article soon on how I almost killed myself with cough suppressants. Long story short, I came down with a bad cold in January but I’ve been traveling like crazy so to function, I just took a bunch of cough suppressants to control the cold. Unfortunately, that led to a pretty severe case of bronchitis which has basically taken me out for the past 3 weeks. Lots of stuff going on in the Elemental universe though. An additional year of developm
Clearly my offensiveness is a genetic condition. Therefore, I have a disability and nothing is my fault. Seriously though, here’s some fun my teenage son had with photoshop he sent me. Top X rejected flavors
Sometimes I’ll hear someone marvel at how amazing it is that humans have been able to adapt from hunting and gathering to the information age so well in just 10,000 years. Of course “so well” is subjective. In reality, as a species, we’re struggling with it. A lot. Most of my friends who are, let’s say, economic peers of mine, suffer from a surprisingly consistent set of brain demons as I do. The brain demons giveth and taketh. I suspect many of
Many people have dreamed of writing the great American novel. Few people actually do it because, well, it’s a ton of work and even harder to get published. These days, you can release your indie book on Amazon but don’t count on selling any copies. The age of publishing isn’t over, not by a long shot. I’ve talked to many indie authors and I’ve yet to meet one whose book outsold <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Elemental-Destinys-Embers-Bradley-Wardell/dp/03455
What do you do if your troll husband gets banned from a forum for being an obnoxious dick? Well, most people might ask their hu
My day job is in Michigan at the Stardock building in Plymouth (just outside Ann Arbor). But we’ve got a bunch of activity going on in the Baltimore area with the launch of Oxide Games and Mohawk Games. Rather than living in hotels for weeks at a time, I decided that we would buy a house in Maryland (Towson). If you know any game developers or artists in Maryland who are looking to work on really cool stuff, apply here:
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Every few weeks someone writes an article comparing some amazing statistic from the Nordic countries in Europe and then compares that statistic to the United States in total. It’s always some ridiculous apples and oranges comparison that results in a meaningless comparison. So just as a reminder, the populations of these countries are: Sweden: 9.5 million Denmark: 5.6 million Finland: 5.4 million Norway: 5 million </ul
My daughter said the Raptors
As part of my comprehensive settlement with state and local authorities I have been asked to make this public apology in an effort to help alleviate common misconceptions regarding the rights of citizens. I realize that things got out of control. I know that now. The numerous interventions, the visits from social services along with the highway patrol have all helped me understand that my understanding on certain legal…particulars was inaccurate. The following is a list of of
There's a number of tricky things with regards to the lairs. For example, the AI does tend to leave lairs because it gets XP from farming them. But in 1.4, I've made it more aggressive about going after them since people assume the AI just doesn't know what it's doing rather than doing something that's actually pretty smart.
also, if you're reading this and have and iOS device: Absolutely get Dead Man's Draw. I don't say this to self boost but for regulars here, it would be really useful I think for you guys to see what a game that was designed from the outset for a mobile device can be like. The whole game was made for less than $200,000 from start to finish.
Funny thing on the space game. We designed it before we got Star Control. But it's an infinite exploration type game.
[quote who="Borg999" reply="33" id="3400077"] As a mod on another board, I deal with a lot of trolls and people using the anonymity of the Internet to be jerks. And I agree with most of what has been said here. But to claim every troll is an unemployed loser is just over the top. Not everyone who is unemployed is a lazy good for nothing leech. Most people are unemployed because there are dozens of people looking for work for each open position avail
[quote who="Fistalis" reply="25" id="3399947"]Anyone who needs anonymity to feel empowered against another individual has nothing but a false sense of empowerment.[/quote] Well said!
w00t!
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