Nov 3, 2010

Team Fortress 2 - SZ

<a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/31280/">Poker Night at the Inventory</a> is now available for pre-order. If you move fast, not only will you save 10% off the already low price, but you'll also pick yourself up a sweet pre-order bonus of this spiffy Poker Visor for your favorite Heavy. Once the game is released, you'll also be able to unlock new TF2 items by beating The Heavy, Max, Tycho, or Strong Bad at high stakes games of poker.

<a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/31280/"><img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/telltalepoker.png" border="0" width="420" height="341"></a>

This is pretty exciting to us - it's the first time a game made by someone other than us allows you to find TF2 items by playing it. If you'd asked us, as we slaved away on TF2 back in '63, whether one day you'd be able to get the Heavy's first minigun off him by playing poker, we'd think you were nuts. Then we'd have hired you, because you had a vision for the future.

If you're curious, here's the set of items that you'll be able to collect inside Poker Night at the Inventory:
<ul>
<li>The Enthusiast's Timepiece - Tycho's favorite timepiece (equippable by the Spy)</li>
<li>License to Maim - Max's Badge (equippable by all classes)</li>
<li>The Lugermorph - A second chance at Max's personal armament (equippable by the Scout and the Engineer)</li>
<li>The Iron Curtain - The Heavy's first love (equippable by the Heavy, obviously)</li>
<li>Dangeresque, Too? - Strong Bad's styling glasses (equippable by the Demoman) </li>
</ul>

Nov 3, 2010

Shh. Sascha is asleep.

Team Fortress 2 - SZ

Poker Night at the Inventory is now available for pre-order. If you move fast, not only will you save 10% off the already low price, but you'll also pick yourself up a sweet pre-order bonus of this spiffy Poker Visor for your favorite Heavy. Once the game is released, you'll also be able to unlock new TF2 items by beating The Heavy, Max, Tycho, or Strong Bad at high stakes games of poker.

This is pretty exciting to us - it's the first time a game made by someone other than us allows you to find TF2 items by playing it. If you'd asked us, as we slaved away on TF2 back in '63, whether one day you'd be able to get the Heavy's first minigun off him by playing poker, we'd think you were nuts. Then we'd have hired you, because you had a vision for the future.

If you're curious, here's the set of items that you'll be able to collect inside Poker Night at the Inventory:

The Enthusiast's Timepiece - Tycho's favorite timepiece (equippable by the Spy)
License to Maim - Max's Badge (equippable by all classes)
The Lugermorph - A second chance at Max's personal armament (equippable by the Scout and the Engineer)
The Iron Curtain - The Heavy's first love (equippable by the Heavy, obviously)
Dangeresque, Too? - Strong Bad's styling glasses (equippable by the Demoman)

Nov 3, 2010

ARMA 2: BAF patch details

Arma 2: British Armed Forces - Dwarden

As promised, here’s a little info about the upcoming patch for BAF content.
The list below is approximate and not representative of the final patch.

Changelog:
1. Fixed: Tripod bags bug preventing BAF static weapon completion
2. Fixed: SUSAT GL has working alternative optic
3. Fixed: Reverse faces on FV-510 driver hatch
4. Fixed: Permanent muzzle flash on Chinook door gunner
5. Fixed: Chinook left-gunner-chief position is rotate-able
6. New: Auto-registration of BAF addons (preLoadAddons)
7. Fixed: Wrong proxy position of pilot in BAF models
8. Fixed: Missing proxy of Jackal GMG's crew shadow LOD
9. Fixed: gunnerCanSee was broken by BAF for static weapons
10. Fixed: non-working GL rangefinder
11. Fixed: cfgMod correction
12. Fixed: IED deactivation issues
13. New: New addon config parameter isLite for BAF-Lite
14. Fixed: DR.Haladik is not mystified with world directions anymore
15. Fixed: invisible bag bug
16. Fixed: IEDs have theirs proper names and actions
17. Fixed: Adjusted FV-150 cannon strength
18. Bonus: Textures quality for BAF-Lite doubled
19. Bonus: Sound quality for BAF-Lite doubled
20. Bonus: Brand new grenade launcher optics to fit ballistic trajectory

Here is a small appetizer of the bonus from no 20!

<a target='_blank' href='http://img109.imageshack.us/i/arma2oaexe0010418.jpg/'><img src='http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/4894/arma2oaexe0010418.th.jpg' border='0'/></a>

Please note: this is by no means the final patch for ARMA 2: BAF.

Nov 3, 2010

ARMA 2: BAF patch details

Arma 2: British Armed Forces - Dwarden

Please note: this is by no means the final patch for ARMA 2: BAF.

Nov 3, 2010

Idea Submissions for Light of the Spire Expansion

AI War: Fleet Command - Josh "Spikey00" Y.

<a href="http://www.arcengames.com/aiwar_features.php"/><img src="http://arcengames.com/img/side_aiwar.png"</img></a>
AI War <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/AI-War-Fleet-Command/143457342376">Facebook page</a>
Arcen Games' <a href="http://www.facebook.com/arcengames">Facebook page</a>
Tidalis <a href="http://www.facebook.com/Tidalis">Facebook page</a>
Our <a href="http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php">community forums</a>
<a href="http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,7513.0.html">Please visit the forum topic here.</a>

So, we've already had some folks asking for what sort of ideas we're looking for for LotS. I'd initially said we have everything we need based on Keith's and my own concepts, and past player suggestions, but I've changed my mind on that. While we are keeping things a bit "close to the vest" on what will be the coolest features of the expansion that tie all this together, I can say that there will be a large number of the following, and we're definitely looking for specific ideas in the following categories:

AI Guardians
You know what's already there in the base game, but we want to add a bunch more of these for the expansion. Ideally I'd like to add around 10 new guardians (so 50 ships in all just from these, with 5 marks of each), but we'll see what really happens. So far I have ideas for 7 of these, so it could be fewer or more than my target of 10.

AI Guard Posts
Basically the same notes as the guardians, and I hope to add around 10 of these also (so 50 ships in all just from these, too, with 5 marks of each). So far I have ideas for 4 of these, so it definitely could be fewer than my target of 10.

AI Core Guard Posts
These are only used on the AI homeworlds, and so can be very powerful. I'm even open to some that are so super powerful that they're only seen on certain difficulties or with certain AI types. There's only a mark V variant of these, and since these are only shown at the end of the game I'm not as keen to add tons of them. At the moment I have ideas for 4 of these, but depending on the ideas I could do a few more potentially.

"Bigger Than A Starship, Smaller Than A Golem"
There's a new class of ships that both the humans and the AIs will be getting, which are larger than a starship but smaller than a golem. These would be built like starships, rather than captured like golems, but the methods that players gain the ability to build them is something new -- I don't want to get into that just yet, but it's very new and cool. I could definitely use a lot of ideas for these, and in fact the more the merrier.

Other AI Weapons
We're always interested in big things for the AI (along the lines of radar jammers, alarm posts, etc). We'll only be doing ones that are relatively quick to implement, though, in terms of this expansion -- these aren't the focus, but if there are a lot of straightforward-to-code-but-cool-to-play-with ones, we'll do them.

"Candy Techs"
This is little stuff that would cost 250 knowledge to unlock. Like the advanced warp sensor. This stuff would be useful, but not hugely so or not in all situations, to justify the low knowledge cost but still make them tempting. The idea being that probably you shouldn't unlock most of this stuff most of the time, but the temptation is significant. These also aren't a core focus of this expansion, but they're something that I'd like to explore.

Please make suggestions one-per-entry in Mantis.
Our "idea tracker" is where this sort of thing should go: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/

Your ideas and such should be posted on the <a href="www.arcengames.com/forums">forums</a>; all will be read, and the most appealing additions will be considered!

Nov 3, 2010

Idea Submissions for Light of the Spire Expansion

AI War: Fleet Command - Josh "Spikey00" Y.

AI War Facebook page
Arcen Games' Facebook page
Tidalis Facebook page
Our community forums
Please visit the forum topic here.

So, we've already had some folks asking for what sort of ideas we're looking for for LotS. I'd initially said we have everything we need based on Keith's and my own concepts, and past player suggestions, but I've changed my mind on that. While we are keeping things a bit "close to the vest" on what will be the coolest features of the expansion that tie all this together, I can say that there will be a large number of the following, and we're definitely looking for specific ideas in the following categories:

AI Guardians
You know what's already there in the base game, but we want to add a bunch more of these for the expansion. Ideally I'd like to add around 10 new guardians (so 50 ships in all just from these, with 5 marks of each), but we'll see what really happens. So far I have ideas for 7 of these, so it could be fewer or more than my target of 10.

AI Guard Posts
Basically the same notes as the guardians, and I hope to add around 10 of these also (so 50 ships in all just from these, too, with 5 marks of each). So far I have ideas for 4 of these, so it definitely could be fewer than my target of 10.

AI Core Guard Posts
These are only used on the AI homeworlds, and so can be very powerful. I'm even open to some that are so super powerful that they're only seen on certain difficulties or with certain AI types. There's only a mark V variant of these, and since these are only shown at the end of the game I'm not as keen to add tons of them. At the moment I have ideas for 4 of these, but depending on the ideas I could do a few more potentially.

"Bigger Than A Starship, Smaller Than A Golem"
There's a new class of ships that both the humans and the AIs will be getting, which are larger than a starship but smaller than a golem. These would be built like starships, rather than captured like golems, but the methods that players gain the ability to build them is something new -- I don't want to get into that just yet, but it's very new and cool. I could definitely use a lot of ideas for these, and in fact the more the merrier.

Other AI Weapons
We're always interested in big things for the AI (along the lines of radar jammers, alarm posts, etc). We'll only be doing ones that are relatively quick to implement, though, in terms of this expansion -- these aren't the focus, but if there are a lot of straightforward-to-code-but-cool-to-play-with ones, we'll do them.

"Candy Techs"
This is little stuff that would cost 250 knowledge to unlock. Like the advanced warp sensor. This stuff would be useful, but not hugely so or not in all situations, to justify the low knowledge cost but still make them tempting. The idea being that probably you shouldn't unlock most of this stuff most of the time, but the temptation is significant. These also aren't a core focus of this expansion, but they're something that I'd like to explore.

Please make suggestions one-per-entry in Mantis.
Our "idea tracker" is where this sort of thing should go: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/

Your ideas and such should be posted on the forums; all will be read, and the most appealing additions will be considered!

Nov 3, 2010

Update on Donations for Charity, Arcen Financials, Light of the Spire, Alden Ridge News

AI War: Fleet Command - Josh "Spikey00" Y.

Nov 3, 2010

Update on Donations for Charity, Arcen Financials, Light of the Spire, Alden Ridge News

AI War: Fleet Command - Josh "Spikey00" Y.

AI War Facebook page
Arcen Games' Facebook page
Tidalis Facebook page
Our community forums
Please see the original post here.

It's that time again! As of October 31st, 2010, we have so far raised and donated $1,640.80 for the Child's Play charity via sales of our Children of Neinzul micro-expansion for AI War -- and that's just with preorders! Bear in mind that the money that was generated in October via distributors like Steam and Impulse won't reach us until the end of November, and we can already tell that our total donated is going to massively increase at that time.

We look to be well on our way to hitting our goal of $14,000.00 for the year at this rate (just with what's already been generated, but not yet made it to us, we look to be around 2/3 of the way there!). We'll post monthly updates on how we're doing towards our goal, so check back!

Please see the original post for the entire details because its' too large to be posted here. Here are the highlights:

- More About AI War: Children of Neinzul and Child's Play
- A Quick Note On Our Finances
- And To Address A Couple of Misconceptions About Our Finances
-So What Were The Problems?
- Lessons Learned / Plan of Action