A Busy Schedule For The Remainder Of 2012

[cupogoodness]

Originally posted: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-busy-schedule-for-remainder-of-2012.html

If you've been keeping an eye on the forums and/or the Games By Design blog, you'll know we've been planning quite a bit for the second half of the year. A new AI War expansion, completely redone art for A Valley Without Wind, and the reveal of our latest title Shattered Haven.

AI War: Ancient Shadows Beta Incoming
Beta and pre-orders are imminent. I can't give an exact date (or rather I don't want to provide one and have something come up after that ends up changing it), but those looking for the first taste of the fourth AI War expansion won't have to wait much longer. Take a peak at the Marauder Starbase if you haven't yet.

We're hoping for the beta to last around two months and then have an official release for Ancient Shadows alongside AI War 6.0 sometime in October.

A Valley Without Wind Art Rework Underway
This has been building up for sometime. After deciding not to go with the Kickstarter route for several reasons, we'll instead be investing our own funds into fully redone art by Heavy Cat Studios. Full details here.

During this period the content updates regular players are used to will be much less frequent. Our hope is that we can resume that level of support after the new art update, though ultimately that will depend on how sales go. That said, we had a new patch this week which includes a couple new spells and a bunch of new room designs.

Shattered Haven Announced
Oh yeah, and we announced a new game! We're definitely excited about the developments for AI War and Valley, but we're flat out pumped for Shattered Haven (formerly Alden Ridge) and its beta/official launch later this year.

More info on the top-down survival game coming soon.

Recent Press Coverage and Videos
VG247 -- Living the Dream: Arcen Games and the Indie Recipe, Part 1

VG247 -- Down to Earth: Arcen Games and the Indie Recipe, Part 2 

Skullduggery.us -- AI War: Fleet Command (VG)

Game Anyone? Video Walkthroughs -- A Valley Without Wind Parts 1-8

Games Are Evil -- A Valley Without Wind’s 1.2 Update Marks Major Changes 

GameConnect -- A Valley Without Wind Review

Roencia -- A Valley Without Wind Review

Gaming Nexus --  A Valley Without Wind Review

Eh+ Gamer Reviews A Valley Without Wind (Video)

Z-Giochi -- A Valley Without Wind Review (Italian)

TheComet on Livestream -- Let's Play AVWW

MadCraftX3 on Youtube -- How To Own at Valley Without Wind Beta

Diotliz on Youtube -- A Valley Without Wind Covered Farms

Shio Looks at Indie Bundle IV - A Valley Without Wind Gameplay

Michael and Billy Play A Valley Without Wind Parts 1-6

TheSurreall on Youtube -- A Valley Without Wind Let's Play Part 1 Freefall (French)

Bob Larry on Youtube -- Yoda Plays...: A Valley Without Wind 001

[_K_]

I wonder if there are any plans for improving the AI logic for the expansion.
I mean, it is far beyond any other RTS games offer, but its still quite weak on the highest, strategic level.

Like telling a difference between an opportunity to attack and an obvious trap, making smarter decisions on where to allocate defense, where and when to attack and so on.
I know this is probably the hardest part to implement, as there are so many factors a real player considers when making those strategic decisions, but man that'd make the AI so much stronger, without artificially giving him more brute force to use.

In fact, the strategic level is where most of the AI "exploits" are present at the moment, where the AI is predictable, and as result easily trapped.

[TechSY730]

I wonder if there are any plans for improving the AI logic for the expansion.
I mean, it is far beyond any other RTS games offer, but its still quite weak on the highest, strategic level.

Like telling a difference between an opportunity to attack and an obvious trap, making smarter decisions on where to allocate defense, where and when to attack and so on.
I know this is probably the hardest part to implement, as there are so many factors a real player considers when making those strategic decisions, but man that'd make the AI so much stronger, without artificially giving him more brute force to use.

In fact, the strategic level is where most of the AI "exploits" are present at the moment, where the AI is predictable, and as result easily trapped.

I've made lots of AI behavior suggestions on mantis, too many for me to list right here. (Do a search for issues with the category "Suggestion - AI Behavior And Tactics", and your should get a good list of them) Some of them are quite simple, but nonetheless would greatly improve the AIs strategic effectiveness.

But I would agree that further AI buffing should focus more on smarter behavior than just "MOAR" (not that MOAR isn't needed, like ships on defense numbers could use some buffing, but it isn't the primary issue with the AI)

[keith.lamothe]

We recently made it more clever in recognizing a chokepoint and spending longer to build up bigger waves that would have more chance, but that sort of thing isn't expansion work, it's normal support work.