A Valley Without Wind 2 - a full sequel free for existing customers - is coming.

[x4000]

I actually just remembered one of several trivial questions I've had about this.

How are the demo limitations? Something along the lines of 'you can only reach x level' as in AVWW1, or is it more time-restricted like AI War's demo? I ask because, this almost (from how it's described) seems like a fusion of AI War's format with AVWW's gameplay being brought back to a different place.

Currently the plan is to limit how many turns you can have in a single campaign.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Aaaand... that reminds me of the same think that the game itself reminds me of! It's time-limited, but with turns instead because... alrighty. Color me not entirely surprised.
I might be able to convince some friends to try it and pick it up maybe, the demo sounds good for a try.

[x4000]

Well, the idea with the demo is to let you play enough to see if you like it, but to leave you wanting more.  If you can play so much in the demo alone that you're entirely satisfied, then our families go hungry.

But I think there will be plenty in the demo to make it clear if it's a game for your group or not, anyhow.  If we're not giving enough time in the demo that people become convinced, then our families go hungry too.  It's a fine line!

[LaughingThesaurus]

Yep, and that's what I wanted to figure out!
Any of my friends should be able to grasp whether they want to play the game or not based on the demo model you've got planned here. Same thing with AI War as well. It's just, none of my friends have the time so far. The hope is during breaks from school we can spend some off time playing. At least, that's my hope. I'm really wanting friends to play the game with, so I personally am really glad your demos are so generous as they are. Though I must say, I don't think I even got halfway ready to fight a lieutenant in AVWW before I was sold on the game.

[MouldyK]

Well, the idea with the demo is to let you play enough to see if you like it, but to leave you wanting more.  If you can play so much in the demo alone that you're entirely satisfied, then our families go hungry.

But I think there will be plenty in the demo to make it clear if it's a game for your group or not, anyhow.  If we're not giving enough time in the demo that people become convinced, then our families go hungry too.  It's a fine line!

O_O -gives Arcen Games some tins of soup since they seem like they need them to survive- 

Can't have you dying now...you got games to make! 

[x4000]

Fortunately it's a figure of speech!

[LaughingThesaurus]

If you were struggling to eat, it's likely we'd have seen something about it. Except, it wouldn't literally be saying "We have no food, we can't keep making games for you for a while"

[Wanderer]

If you were struggling to eat, it's likely we'd have seen something about it. Except, it wouldn't literally be saying "We have no food, we can't keep making games for you for a while"

[Aklyon]

The bit on the left vertically either says 'Yak casuality', or 'Y2K casuality'.
Can't tell which fits more, its a pretty plain background behind him.

[Wanderer]

The bit on the left vertically either says 'Yak casuality', or 'Y2K casuality'.
Can't tell which fits more, its a pretty plain background behind him.

He's willing to code in OpenGL and MFC... it's Y2k. 

[Scorcher24]

Code: [Select]

#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>


int main()
{
int seed = 0;
std::cout << "Please enter the seed, numbers only: ";
std::cin >> seed;

srand( seed );

std::cout << "Generated Numbers: ";
for ( int i = 0; i <= 10; i++)
{
std::cout << rand();
if ( i != 10 )
std::cout << ",";
}
}
Have a freebie... ( I wrote this a few days back when I was trying to explain someone random numbers and how seeds affect it :p)

[Oralordos]

How odd. My computer science teacher used that exact program today in class. With an endline instead of a comma. What's with the #include <algorithm>?

[Scorcher24]

Uh, yeah thats unnecessary
Forgot to delete it. Thouht rand() was defined in there, but now that you mention it, it is defined in cstdlib.
Funny enough that the M$ compiler (cl.exe) compiled it without warning or error. Curious if gcc would compile it without an #include <cstdlib>.

About your professor...  I hammered this together in like 5 minutes as I said to prove a point in a discussion with my friend :p. But then it is the best way of making the point that there is no real randomness on a PC. Only algorithms that generate them, but those can be influenced by the seed.
Thats why you can have the same world in Minecraft or Gnomoria by entering the same seed.
But I guess you know that if you study computer science or something.

[Oralordos]

It is something that needs to be taught. I've actually looked up the algorithms behind random number generators. I don't quite understand them, but I have looked them up.

[x4000]

That's why in comsci it's generally called "pseudorandom" rather than random.  And actually, there are a variety of algorithms for it -- we use the Mersenne Twister algorithm in our games rather than the stock random that comes in .NET/Mono.  Gives a much more interesting result.

The deterministic nature of pseudorandoms is actually enormously useful, however, for things like AI War -- we can generate randoms in "lock step" on multiple clients and know they will all get the same result if they take the same operations.

Where true randoms are needed, outside sources are required.  I've heard that some scientific research labs use atmospheric noise as the seed for their randoms in order to get a true-er random.