VR Designs

Its been an exceptionally hot week over here in France, luckily my office has air conditioning. For “fun” I have been reading Zaslavskaya , interesting to learn about how people inside the Soviet Union saw some of the core problems of the system.

I have been mostly working on DC5, which is slowly shaping up enough to be revealed to the public after the summer holidays.

AI work on DC5 also made me eager to bring some improvements to SE in the future. Especially since in the last poll “better AI” scored really well. So the new follow up poll is up and running. It is asking: what exactly should be better? results so far are interesting and I would like to share the initial results with you.

The first results from the AI difficulty poll is that players are not mainly asking for strict “same rules” AI, but for AI that feels more believable and less arbitrary. 

One of the biggest pain points seems to be “logistics and roads”, especially where supply, mountain roads and rough terrain make the AI look like it is breaking the logic of the world.

On the battlefield, players want the AI to do more of the following: defend key assets/choke points, mass for offensives, exploit real advantages and stop acting too timid when it should be pressing hard.

On the “empire side”, players also want more consistency between economy, army size, morale, diplomacy and war decisions, as well as more rational peace and clearer signs of what a regime is thinking.

Another important result is that regime personality matters: players would ideally like different regimes to behave more distinctly both in diplomacy and on the battlefield.

I am leaving the poll running here. Thank you all for taking it, it’s helping me a lot in planning the work for the future improved SE AI. 

Best wishes,
Vic

The last poll gave the surprise result “better AI”. Many caveats there, but still, it was not really expected. So we are following up with a detailed poll https://www.vrdesigns.net/vidcom_poll/ai_poll.php

best wishes,
Vic

Am I really managing to do a small post every week? Maybe, but summer holidays are near, so lets not get our hopes up that much. Anyways I am still mostly working on the next DC title and making good progress here. Seems the reveal of that title will be after the summer. So I wont say much on this topic.

Seems like Silo season 3 will premier 3rd of july. Looking forward to this. The series worldbuilding managed to grab me, especially the moddeling of the different social-power groupings is giving me some ideas.

I have been happy with the recent roles/gameplay poll for SE. Just closed it, enough results are in. Big thanks to all participants for taking the time! I’ll need to ponder the results a bit more, but I’ll share the card picks top 20 with you already.

Here the big suprise, to me at least, is that “better AI opponents” is that much in demand. Note especially the difference with “cleaner UI” which is all the way at rank #11.

I think I’ll do a follow up poll in one of the coming weeks. Keep in mind that all these polls are just make the blind man discover where the walls and exits are, of the dark cave he is in. Its really all done to improve my grasp on the rough preferences, be they graphics, gameplay, roles or whatnot. As always you can count on me to make my final choices in a less democratic fashion.

Let’s see I manage to do another small blog next week.

Best regards,
Vic

The polls I did recently on the Vidcom Gfx gave me some very interesting results, helping me shape my thoughts about them much better. So now we are attacking a more core subject. What kind of role would you like to play? What kind of gameplay interests you most? It would be appreciated if you could find 4 minutes of your time to complete the mini-game poll: https://www.vrdesigns.net/vidcom_poll/card_poll.php

Edit: Poll has been closed. sharing results soon. Thanks for helping out!

best wishes,
Vic

What have I been doing the last weeks?

In my limited leisure time I have been enjoying From (tv series) and have been reading up on designing architecture lore, I have especially been enjoying the Megastructures facsimile reprint.

I have been focussing mostly on work on the next Decisive Campaigns title. Working on UI improvements as well as finishing up PBEM++ support. Shadow Empire still gets rule fixes and bug fixes. Soon after the brunt for DC is done I am looking forward to adding navy units to SE. Chances are becoming higher that this will not be locked behind a new DLC. No defenitive announcement there yet though.

Also I would like to share the poll results about what your favorite Vidcom style graphics are. Most interesting result I found is that, graphics preference-wise, voters seem to fall into three groups: Sharp Grimms [55%], Sharp Hopefuls [30%], and Mood Artists [15%].

The first two groups are the most important to me, by their sheer size and overlap. Both prefer sharp, realistic graphics. The big difference is mood and message. Sharp Grimms prefer menace, tension, social pressure, repression, politics, war, and visible power relations. Sharp Hopefuls also like sharp realism, but with more readable worldbuilding, civic life, high-tech, governance, repair, construction, competence, and some room for optimism.

So that provides me with the possibility to let the game itself help select the right Vidcom tone. If your nation is unstable, oppressive, or desperate, the image should lean more Grimm. If your nation is functional, competent, democratic, or improving, it should lean more to Hopeful.

Mood Artists are the smallest group. They prefer painterly, nostalgic, gloomy, environmental, and more ambiguous images. I think I could implement their style in the future by serious usage of elements like: fog, dust, smoke, ruins, weather, murals, posters, newspapers, reflections, discovery scenes, planet details, and low-tech scenes.

Above the best liked image by the Sharp Grimms

Above the best liked image by the Sharp Hopefuls

Above the best liked image by the Mood Artists.

Now Vidcom art is something I wont actually work on in the near-mid future, but I did want to share these results with you. Its a nice topic to reflect upon. And I will continue to do so. A next poll will probably be about gameplay. One might argue that is actually a more important topic :)

Best wishes,
Vic

Hi all, just a quick word. What have I been doing these last weeks?

In the limited leisure time I have available I have started rewatching the Andor Series and reading up on Belisarius. And working on extending the SE lore for before the Dissolution War.

I have also been slightly annoyed with some continued negative reviews for the Shadow Empire base game due to AI art inclusion, while the base game is completely and utterly playable without that art, by using the master switch on the startup menu. I am surprised to find myself at the point where I am actually happy to see a negative review that just says “Game is no fun; UI too clunky; thumbs down”.

Mostly I have been working on implementing PBEM++ systems inside the next Decisive Campaigns (DC) title; more news on that title soon. The last time I used PBEM++ systems was like 3 PBEM++ system versions ago, and for DC2: Case Blue; so I am happy that I am getting this tech back in to one of my games again. Might also see introduction with SE at some future point.

Shadow Empire work is mostly bug fixes, balancing changes and enlarging to-do lists for nice-to-have stuff, as time currently is being mostly spent on finishing up the mystery DC title.

However, after the summer (yes, got family, I also do holidays), I’ll return my full focus to SE. I said a month or so ago that I would make a new road map, but since my plans for the next SE release need to be properly aligned with the publisher, this will take a bit longer. I gotta be sure of how I am going to spend the next years, before I commit. The good news here is that the more I am secretive, the more it points towards some major thing.

Next week or so I’ll share my findings from the NewGfx polls. It’s quite interesting, but of course just a rough guideline.

Hope everybody is doing well. And I will try to post more. Take care!

Best wishes,
Vic