Hey Stardock, where's the combat viewer?!

Hi everyone --

As you may have noticed, the long-promised and -awaited combat viewer did not make it into today's Beta 3 launch. Ultimately we felt that it was the right choice to take a bit of extra time to raise the combat viewer up to the standards of quality we have for Galactic Civilizations III.

We apologize for the delay.

Here's the good news, though:

  • The combat viewer should be in the next beta at the end of January.
  • This doesn't mean Galactic Civilizations III is going to miss its release date.
  • This doesn't mean that Galactic Civilizations III development is "in trouble" in any way.
  • The rest of the development schedule is unaffected.
  • Beta 3 still has a ton of stuff to play with (the Yor are awesome, and there's some pew pew on the main map at least).

The reality is that game development has a ton of moving parts, and things don't always play nicely with schedules. Five years ago, practically no developer would share its roadmap this far in advance of release for just this reason -- development is a fluid thing, and players sometimes get mad when promised features or timelines change.

Stardock firmly believes that both we as a studio and Galactic Civilizations III as a game benefit from the kind of open communication we've had with you all, though -- we wouldn't stream live every week if we didn't, or invite you to play our games (in GC3's case) a year before release if we didn't. We hope that you can all understand where we're coming from, and that you enjoy Beta 3 with its balance overhaul, Yor empire, landmark cutscenes, and the rest.

Please don't stop with the feedback and the bug reports, and happy conquering!

5,268 views 11 replies
Reply #1 Top

Thanks for the heads up.

Its always nice to hear what and why things are delayed and a response from the developers like this goes (for me) a long way towards credibility. Even if you stated things are terrible and the release date was another 6 more months I would not be worried. I know that in the end the product will arrive at the high quality we have all come to expect from Stardock.

Reply #2 Top

Better name for combat viewer. Battle viewer, Combat conductor, Battle conductor, Tactical overview, Tactical manager, Tactical viewer. Combat viewer doesn't sound right considering we will be able to make choices instead of just watch.

Reply #3 Top

You are watching how your strategical choices effects the battle.

Reply #4 Top

Annihilation Sphere.

Holo-murder-simulator.

Pwn-view.

Pewpewvision.

DRADIS. (worst acronym ever, for the record)

Laz0rwatch0r.

Reply #5 Top

What does DRADIS stand for?

Reply #6 Top

Death Revenge And Destruction In Space?

dramatically realized annihilation displayed in space 

digitally rendered awesome destruction in space

Reply #7 Top

digitally rendered awesome destruction in space <<<< THIS works for me!!! DRADIS!!

Reply #8 Top

Quoting abiessener, reply 4

Annihilation Sphere.

Holo-murder-simulator.

Pwn-view.

Pewpewvision.

DRADIS. (worst acronym ever, for the record)

Laz0rwatch0r.
End of abiessener's quote

 

We're missing the obvious..Thunderdome.

Reply #9 Top

DARCA

Dynamically/Digitally Arranged/Analyzed Representations/Reviewer/Recreated/Recreations of Combat/Chosen/Command Animations/Automatons/Actions.

Reply #10 Top

Danger Zone

 

Twitch.galactic

 

Naval Budget Justification Chamber

Reply #11 Top

Quoting Larsenex, reply 5

What does DRADIS stand for?
End of Larsenex's quote

Direction, RAnge, and DIStance.

Because they didn't want to use "radar."