Box art

[Huw]

I assume there will never be a boxed version of AI War available.  At some point, though, it'd be great to have a PDF of an inlay that we can print off and use ourselves.  And accompanying CD label too!

Pretty please with sugar on? 

[x4000]

Actaully, a retail version is in the works, although depending on what country you are in it may not be there.  These retail versions will be localized, too!  I can't say more than that for now, but you might see IGF showing AI War at the Gamescon in Cologne, Germany this week if you follow that.

So, there is definitely a manual, boxart, and all the other related art in the works to be out sometime in the next few months.

[Huw]

YES!  Splendid!  I'll be buying it all over again, then, assuming I can get it in the UK. 

[x4000]

I don't expect existing customers to buy it twice!  I guess you can give the digital copy to someone else as a gift or something, to then play some co-op, haha.  I certainly hope to see this in the UK, and that seems potentially feasible, but I am not sure.  This will be November at the earliest, possibly later if other aspects are slower.  I'll definitely post more when I am able to (when I know more that I can reveal), but a lot of this is still kind of inwork right now and could fall through or change.

[Huw]

I guess you can give the digital copy to someone else as a gift or something, to then play some co-op, haha.

Exactly.  In truth I was planning to buy a license for a friend at some point anyway, so I can kill two birds with one stone this way.

[x4000]

Works for me! 

[Echo35]

I don't expect existing customers to buy it twice!  I guess you can give the digital copy to someone else as a gift or something, to then play some co-op, haha.

Now there's an idea! Right around Christmas (Or whatever other winter Holiday you may celebrate) you could totally sell a 4 pack at a reduced price or something. Say $60 for 4 copies, so you get one for yourself and gift three copies to friends? You could even set up a nice web form so the customer could send emails to his/her friends with the keys and a download link.

[x4000]

Yeah, that's a really cool idea.  I could probably set that up through BMT, though I won't have any control over how the retail copies are sold.  But yeah, that could be a real win.

[Velox]

     I will be buying another copy myself, for two reasons:

     a) I have an old computer (you guys make me cry when you ask "how many cores?" regarding performance problems.  CoreS?  Plural?) and want to see if I can't figure out how to play an essentially single-player game with the AI thread running on my wife's machine,

     and more importantly:

     b) I didn't pay enough for the game for the amount of enjoyment I've gotten from it.  Fair is fair!

[Echo35]

b) I didn't pay enough for the game for the amount of enjoyment I've gotten from it.  Fair is fair!

Seriously! I've been playing this $20 game more than most of my $50 ones.

[Admiral]

     a) I have an old computer (you guys make me cry when you ask "how many cores?" regarding performance problems.  CoreS?  Plural?) and want to see if I can't figure out how to play an essentially single-player game with the AI thread running on my wife's machine,

Actually, this sort of makes good sense, X: Allow a second computer to run in "AI host" mode... You already have 95% of the code to do that from the multiplayer...

Cheers!

[x4000]

     a) I have an old computer (you guys make me cry when you ask "how many cores?" regarding performance problems.  CoreS?  Plural?) and want to see if I can't figure out how to play an essentially single-player game with the AI thread running on my wife's machine,

Actually, this sort of makes good sense, X: Allow a second computer to run in "AI host" mode... You already have 95% of the code to do that from the multiplayer...

Cheers!

At first I was jumping at this idea.  However, then I realized that the host would still have to run the simulation on itself (on the main thread) so that the AI thread would have something to look at.  It's way too much data to pass over the network, even on a LAN, so there's no way around needing to do that simulation, unfortunately.  So it comes down to if you have a machine that is powerful enough to host and run the simulation both, then just play on that machine instead (with the lesser machine as a client, if you want).

But really, it seems like the game runs pretty well on single core machines at this stage, even lesser powered ones (1.6 Ghz and up).  Having a second core certainly helps, and I'm sure there will be ever more optimizations for speed over time, but as long as you don't try to host a big multiplayer game off a single core machine, or play a giant map (40 planets ought to be peachy), it should be okay.