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Draginol

Join Date 03/2001

+137

Why Ironclad is so successful so quickly

I work at Stardock and those of you who follow my journals know I’m pretty opinionated (see “Kudos to Good old Games”, “Happy about Steam”, “Don’t blame the pirates”). So let me give my 2 cents on why the young studio, Ironclad Games is already so successful. I’m not speaking for them. This is just my opinion on what makes a new studio successful.

Who is Ironclad?

The founders of Ironclad Games are industry veterans. They worked on Homeworld: Cataclysm and other pretty well known projects over the years. When they got together, they decided to focus on something they were very passionate about and very familiar with first: Space strategy.

This is the key distinction that I know others in our industry are familiar with: FOCUS. Sins of a Solar Empire is a PC game. Period. It made no compromises. They didn’t spend money on things that would have diminishing returns like cut scenes (the cut scenes in Sins were made by Stardock largely for marketing reasons). As a result, the game was a lot less expensive to make than other games while delivering an incredible gaming experience.

Choosing to make a GAME

I’m the designer of Galactic Civilizations and I will say this: Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity is a better game than Galactic Civilizations. It has better game mechanics. It is more fun single player. It has multiplayer. It has a vastly better user interface. It has a more cohesive experience.

Obviously, the games do have a different set of appeal (and when I get back to some future GalCiv sequel I’ll happily steal a lot of ideas from Sins but that’ll be some years from now). But what Ironclad did with Sins of a Solar Empire was, imo, revolutionary.

Let me walk you through a few of the innovations in Sins of a Solar Empire:

1. The Empire Tree. A user can control their entire empire from this simple tree. In a world where “skill” is often measured by how fast one can click, the Empire Tree brings STRATEGY back to the real-time genre imo.

The Empire Tree in Sins. Expand the tree to the detail you want.

2. Adaptive UI. The adaptive UI got its start in games like Galactic Civilizations and Supreme Commander. But nothing yet has come close to matching what Sins of a Solar Empire does.

For those of you not familiar with Sins of a Solar Empire who have wondered how a game made by less than a half-dozen guys could sell a million or so copies the adaptive UI really provides a clue imo:

I can be looking at this and with the mouse wheel roll out to this next picture:

Notice how some ships are icons and others are not. It’s not “all or nothing” ala GalCiv or Supreme Commander. The interface intelligently figures out when something is “too small” and turns it into an icon.

If that was all Sins did, it would still be very impressive but it goes further:

If you keep zooming out, the user interface changes again to provide an instantly readable display (hint: the side with more dots on it is probably in the best shape in that system).

Remember, this is happening in a fluid motion. We’re not changing screens here. This all happens in one continuous motion.

Imagine how different things might have been done, however, if Ironclad had been worried about console controls during its development? It committed to a platform – in this case the PC – and used its inherent strengths to make a better game.

3. Knowing when to say “when”.

As any game developer can tell you, it’s not hard, if you have art assets (which obviously Ironclad does) to have incredible graphics. This is the battle that occurs in nearly every game studio in the PC world: Pixel Shader 2? Pixel Shader 3? Pixel Shader 4? The most gratifying choice is always the most powerful option but it means a lot fewer people will be able to play your game.

In addition, in a world of 32-bit gaming (every major PC game out there is a 32-bit game – even if it runs on your 64-bit machine) you get 2 gigs to play with. Total. That’s it. Even your 12GB Windows 7 box won’t benefit a given game because that game can only address 2 gigs. Hence, that super fancy first person shooter with gorgeous graphics may only have 8 guys in a room because otherwise it’ll go over the limit.

Knowing when to say when can make all the difference in the world in terms of gameplay. Choosing gameplay over “art” is a very unappreciated choice often times. Ironclad made the tough choices with Sins. They kept the texture sizes reasonable so that more ships could be in the game.

This tiny constructor ship looks great despite having to have a relatively small texture size in order to allow the game to have thousands of units in play at once. In an age where screenshots rule the day, how many large studios would have been able to make the tough call of choosing unshowable gameplay over screenshot love?

Conclusion

The continued success of Sins of a Solar Empire helps demonstrate the point here: If you want to found a successful game studio, do it because you want to make great GAMES. Don’t try to rationalize what you’re doing as some type of “high art” or for ways to commoditize the “product” you’re making. Make a game. Make a great game. If you do so, you will succeed, just ask Ironclad Games.

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runesia

I really would like to know what they're working on next.

Another Stardock/Ironclad gig again maybe?

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Philocthetes

Join Date 10/2003

+153

I admit I kind of harrumphed when I saw the Sins Dev Journals area start appearing at Elemental. I love GC2 and I don't think I'll every like real-time anything.

But I almost wish the latter weren't true now because the short UI critique you provide is very interesting. I know you won't be doing GC3 for a long while, but I trust you're planning to apply lessons learned via Sins to the Elemental project.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2394

We've learned a lot from working with Ironclad that we're applying to Elemental.

We don't have quite the same level of "adaptive" UI that Sins has in Elemental but the cloth map, while a natural evolution of what we did in Galactic Civilizations was certainly more focused on usability thanks to Sins.

Another thing that Sins helped us with is in the way Elemental is being developed - it's pure PC. As it exists, it couldn't realistically be ported (you might have a game called Elemental for a console but it would be a different game). We have focused on making Elemental a PC exclusive game.

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I strongly support point 1 : the empire Tree is very very great. First time i played sins tutorial, i found it a pain. Now, it is hard to come back to any other RTS where you have to move your viewpoint to the unit, zoom on in, click on it and so on... Here, i can review my economy and order my fleet planets away to colonize, attack, retreat, and so on. And the view of your ship's state is so clear : one unit is glowing red and has no more shields ? Ctrl + R and it retreats by itself ! Everything is glowing red ? He is missile barraging me ! Caps abilities are also so easy : your cap are on the top of the fleet list, so one your fleet is selected, you have only to use shift and maj+shift to navigate between your caps and launch their abilities with Q,W,E and R.

It really feels great. Sins may not be the best RTS i have ever played (i still prefer Rise of Nations by a few inches) but it is the one where i almost never have to search for my units in a close battle to give them orders.

I played Warcraft 3 years ago and i was disgusted : units were moving so fast and were so difficult to select that i could never get the abilities launched the moment i wanted or my units properly micro-managed. Maybe i was too bad or too slow for that game but, me, i think that the Age of Empires's style UI was also not good enough and i was looking forward for something better. I find the solution Ironclad found that for that issue (or for what i think is a issue, experienced Waracraft 3 players may disagree with me) very nice.

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So you're saying that Sins can't make use of more than 2 GB of RAM memory? So there's no point in buying a new pc to enjoy a larger game with several star systems and let's say 8 players?

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Choosing gameplay over “art” is a very unappreciated choice often times.

Not in my book, it's one of the main reasons I love this little clubhouse.

I admit I kind of harrumphed when I saw the Sins Dev Journals area start appearing at Elemental. I love GC2 and I don't think I'll every like real-time anything.

hehe you old grump...I know what you mean though...I love my dawn of war but I can't get into any new RTS games these days. I did however buy sins last year and plan to play it this winter. (Cold weather and space themes go together in my book) Why don't you take a punt GW? It has tons of research in it, you might enjoy this one.

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I admit I kind of harrumphed when I saw the Sins Dev Journals area start appearing at Elemental. I love GC2 and I don't think I'll every like real-time anything.

LOL, its ok I do the same thing when Elemental and Demigod stuff pops up in Sins forums. *shrugs*

Why don't you take a punt GW? It has tons of research in it, you might enjoy this one.

I suggest playing on slow setting, and maybe getting Distant Stars mod. I usually play on the slowest setting I can get...its just my prefered method of play. You can also pause in single player so you can get that turn based feel if ye wish. And the Distant Stars mod doubles the research.

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Excellent points, thanks for writing that article!

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Wintersong

Join Date 07/2006

+235

They had Stardock as Publisher. Not EA, not Atari, not Activision... they had Stardock. Minor detail but also important.

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Quoting GJDriessen,

reply 5

So you're saying that Sins can't make use of more than 2 GB of RAM memory? So there's no point in buying a new pc to enjoy a larger game with several star systems and let's say 8 players?

Sins code is better that Ironclad thing... i was able to use around 11-12gb ram for sins... the problem is not the game, is only partially the hardware... the real problem is the OS... like wrote, i have use around 12 gb, in fact it is a limit of 1520 mb by core ( i have two xeon quad core )... it is possible but the tag price of the basic software ( without any OS ) is round the 4000$ and work only on server and work station ( forget the desktop computer )...

Sometime, the move from one OS to other is not beneficial at all... by example, my sins game work better on Linux because i have a b!tch of graphic card with a lot of ram... opengl store the texture in the graphic ram in place of the main memory... it mean more fps... but the guy who have the minimum graphic card with crash after a few second if he use Linux with opengl due to the low graphic memory...

Anyway, devs of the game are not responsible... they target their game for the biggest amount of people, don't forget that they are a business... the mister Joe computer is usualy low end old computer and sincee the mister Joe are numerous, they are the target for game...

Now, about the main topic... why ironclad ( and i wish add Stardock ) is successful... i think that the quality of the software is maybe one reason but for me, the main quality is the support... we have problem, they try to resolve it... we request new feature and after some time, we have a patch who give us what we have ask... this is really great, specially when you compare with other who never correct their bug, who insult their own customer, etc...

Ironclad/Stardock service don't stop after buying the game, it just begin... and this is really something special and rare that i like...

Hmmm... time for a complain about Stardock ( not Ironclad )... please, stop these US only game release... it obligate me to buy game elsewhere... and i really wish to spend my money on Stardock, not elsewhere

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kyogre12

Join Date 07/2008

+100

I admit I kind of harrumphed when I saw the Sins Dev Journals area start appearing at Elemental. I love GC2 and I don't think I'll every like real-time anything. LOL, its ok I do the same thing when Elemental and Demigod stuff pops up in Sins forums. *shrugs*

I used to do that too, but eventually I got interested in the other games, tried them out, and don't regret it at all. They are great games, or will be in the case of Elemental (although I still prefer Sins )

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Quoting Thoumsin,

reply 10

Until Impulse has more weight to throw around with the large publishers that generally only release for US on Impulse and world wide elsewhere, there isn't much Stardock can do...

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Until Impulse has more weight to throw around with the large publishers that generally only release for US on Impulse and world wide elsewhere, there isn't much Stardock can do...

Though hopefully that will be soon, if I remember from another thread Impulse grew by over 200% last year.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2394

A process on a 32-bit Windows OS can only access 2 GB of memory. If it goes over 2MB, the app/game/whatever will crash with an out of memory error.

Hence, to have a game that can have 10 players playing with hundreds of ships each in multiple star systems, you have to be very very careful with how you use memory. No ships with crazy amounts of texture memory for instance.

Eventually, 64-bit games will start getting released and a new era of PC gaming will come -- but only for games that are for the PC in the near term because it'll be a long time before consoles have that kind of memory.

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awuffleablehedgie

Join Date 04/2009

+60

Quoting Frogboy,

reply 14

A process on a 32-bit Windows OS can only access 2 GB of memory. If it goes over 2MB, the app/game/whatever will crash with an out of memory error.

Hence, to have a game that can have 10 players playing with hundreds of ships each in multiple star systems, you have to be very very careful with how you use memory. No ships with crazy amounts of texture memory for instance.

Eventually, 64-bit games will start getting released and a new era of PC gaming will come -- but only for games that are for the PC in the near term because it'll be a long time before consoles have that kind of memory.

But you're planning on releasing a 64-bit version of Elemental, right?

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I agree on what you are saying, Ironclad did make an very successful game, and beleive me, it is a very good game.

There are many postive things ironclad should take with them, such as the game they created is unique, beutifully designed and most importantly, addicted.

but they also need to face the problems this game had, which was a terrible online play, minidumps and disconnects ruined and tormented the online community for ages, we used to host a 5v5, but we used to lose 2 players within 10 minutes, then another 2 used to minidump later on, games were decided on which team had no team lol, due to minidumps.

I think that was the only major drawback, and that was multiplayer, it wasent an experiance, it was hell.

But sins did have more postives than drawbacks.

Great game guys, thank you ironclad.

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So Brad and Thoumsin, if I understand you both correctly, normal desktops don't have any use at the moment of more than 2gb of free ram available? What about getting the latest graphic cards? Does a new model by Radeon or Nvdia really improves the performance of Sins compared to a model that is let's say 2 years old?

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Quoting Frogboy,

reply 14

Or you do what Crytek did and design/compile two versions a normal(restricted) 32bit executable and an enhanced 64bit executable and let the user decide. Naturally you would have to have some method of compromise on MP, and yes I do realise Crytek is a larger company.

So as tough choices go it was a smart move from a business perspective as it used the development time more effectively for the market, it wasn't so hot if you were on the otherside of the fence with a fast PC by 2008 standards.

That is why I am looking forward to 'the new project' where in Q1 2010 most PC gamers (even laptop users) have access to DX10 hardware/API (keeping in mind WinXP will shortly be out of support) and multi-core CPUs. I don't see why a 32bit multithreaded application cannot handle more than 2GB as a whole or why PAE cannot be employed? Personally as a consumer I prefer choice and think Crytek got it right regardless of whether your a fan of Crysis or not.

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Quoting GJDriessen,

reply 17

So Brad and Thoumsin, if I understand you both correctly, normal desktops don't have any use at the moment of more than 2gb of free ram available?

More that 2gb is best... read again the Frogboy post... the limit in windows is 2gb by process... in the case of sins, on windows, the limit for sins is 2gb but you need ram for your OS, your antivirus, your firewall, and all these numerous application who run in the background... if you have only 2gb ram, you can end up with only 1 gb free for sins due to the other application...

Limit address for memory in 32 bits is 4 gb... minus the address range for your material... your have two 1gb graphic card, it mean that 2 gb address range is directly removed... a solution is to use the PAE system ( since the pentium pro ) who is 36 bits... in so case, you can have the full 4 gb address range with driver and material address range being put over the 4 gb limit... be sure to have a driver who support PAE... a other way is to have a 64 bits win OS... when win64 start a 32 bit application, it use the wow64 system who reserve 4 gb ram to the application...

Now, 4 gb address range don't mean that you canuse the 4 gb... in win32, PAE or wow64, 2 gb are for application and 2 gb are for the system... there is a way to expand it to 3gb for application by adding the /3g in your boot.ini for XP... but if you run a local mail server ( for example ) who ask a lot of system resource, you can crash everything... a 32 bit application who accept the 3gb for application is by example Photoshop...

Texture is what use the more memory in sins... and it is why i play on Linux with sins... Why ? In win, due to how directX work, texture are cached in the main memory... the process sins is the sum of the real code and these cached texture... using Linux and wine allow to greatly reduce the memory print of sins due to opengl... opengl store the texture in the graphic memory... it is faster and use fewer main memory... back side is that if you have a graphic card who meet the minimum of the game, you will have a crash... wine don't execute directx code from sins but translate it to opengl code...

Now install Linux is easy, install the usual wine is easy but it will not work... you need to custom and compile your own wine version for the optimal result... not really a task for the mister Joe desktop guy...

What about getting the latest graphic cards? Does a new model by Radeon or Nvdia really improves the performance of Sins compared to a model that is let's say 2 years old?

New model have faster shader and this can be beneficial for the game... model with a lot of graphic ram can be benneficial only if you choose the Linux/wine way...

I have a two year old computer with two Xeon quad core at 2.66ghz, 16gb ram, almost 10Tb harddrive storage and a Nvidia 8800 Ultra 768 mb... Use windows XP pro x64, Kubuntu 64 bits and OpenSolaris... all these OS are fine tuned... and i have no problem with sins... of course, my two year old computer, in Benchmark test ( using XP pro ) have a score double from these of the lastest I7 computer... if i try to use mainly linux or OpenSolaris for game, it is simply because half of my bios option have a little nasty comment "don't work with windows OS"...

For example, in my bios, i have a option called "Discretee MTRR Allocation"... computer achieve better graphic effect when have more that 4gb ram... need a Linux/Unix graphic driver... don't work with windows...

I don't see why a 32bit multithreaded application cannot handle more than 2GB as a whole or why PAE cannot be employed?

A single thread can only handle 2gb, at best 3gb... PAE need special driver and not every hardware have the needed drivers...

Now sisn is single threat ( a second threat is only used for load )... but i have 32 bits professional 3D software who use one thread for the software and 4 individual threat for the render... each individual threat have his own 2gb limit... system is very simple, each individual render threat process 1/4 of the picture... in theorie, it can lead to 4 time more speed... it is not the case since the scene to render is never balanced to have each quarter the same work load... the speed win is around 2.5 in the reality...

Now, sins have can choice these way... render will be more fast for people with 5 or more core... but for people without multicore, code will be more slow...

I agree that a lot of people have multicore now but it is too late for change the game engine... it mean fully rewrite the code... a huge job good for a sins 2 but not a patch... compile the sins source for 64 bits and multicore without rewriting the code is possible but will lead to speed win at maximum of 10-20 percent... with a increase in size for the software...

Simply remember that sins was out 2 year ago, that development have start one year before this... when Stardock have made their coding choice, 64 bits and multicore was enough new... And personaly, for a 3 year old game ( dev time included ), sins remain a lot better that the few similar game who have go out recently !!!

Until Impulse has more weight to throw around with the large publishers that generally only release for US on Impulse and world wide elsewhere, there isn't much Stardock can do...

Just curious, how can Impulse have more weight if they remain on the US market only... the only way to grow is too expend the potential customer base... Europa is market big like the US... i think that the main problem is the Stardock/Impulse view... "one world, one price"... it is a good idea but tax level are different between US and Europe... more, since Europa allow a refund in some case ( test periode, bad product, etc ), the other publisher ask a bigger price... best that Stardock/Impulse forget their "one world, one price" for some time, and once they become the big player, they can try to impose their own view... i don't care to pay more that a US guy... what is my alternative ? Using Steam who ask a bigger price for European and having the steam engine who crash my computer at the boot in 50% of the case !!! Sorry, but no Impulse version and no store version mean a pirated version for me now !!! Hey, i have buy Mass Effect 2 in shop recently but have download a crack for get rid off all steam/EA bullshit/spyware... same my firewall was not able to stop the game trying to connect to EA...

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2394

But you're planning on releasing a 64-bit version of Elemental, right?

Yes if we can get a 64-bit edition of Havok from Intel. We have everything else in 64-bit, just not that.

Thoumsin, if I understand you both correctly, normal desktops don't have any use at the moment of more than 2gb of free ram available? What about getting the latest graphic cards? Does a new model by Radeon or Nvdia really improves the performance of Sins compared to a model that is let's say 2 years old?

Your video card has nothing to do with how much memory the game can address. A 32-bit Windows program can only address 2GB.

Because by definition, a 32-bit Windows program only sees 2GB. Period.

Read Thoumsin's response on the matter.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2394

Just curious, how can Impulse have more weight if they remain on the US market only... the only way to grow is too expend the potential customer base..

This has nothing to do with our discussion here. I know the Impulse group would love to have worldwide rights to every PC title but that's not always possible to get right away.

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Sorry Brad, I think you misunderstood my question. I meant to ask whether an uprade of my grahics card would make any sense/difference, irrespective of the amount of ram I have in my pc (currently I have 4gb with windows xp)

Thank you all for the elaborate answers.

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As a purebred PC gamer with a particular penchent for strategy, Sins was a breath of fresh air. I hate the emphasis on screenshot-driven development, because it does impact the quality of the games. Even though games are being released more frequently now, truly high quality titles are rarer than they were back in the 2D era. Sins is exactly the kind of game that I've been waiting for, taking the solid staples of the genre, steamlining them, and innovating in meaningful ways.

Personally, though, I don't use the empire tree all that much. I have anything that's important control-grouped for instant access anyways. It's useful, but it didn't shake things up in any meaningful way for me.

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goodgimp

Join Date 12/2003

+21

Yes, Graphics Card upgrades can provide a performance boost (sometimes substantial) based on where your particular system bottleneck is. If your bottleneck is your system RAM then no, I don't think you'll find it having a huge impact. However if your current card is having trouble rendering the graphics, i.e. your framerate is dropping and stuttering, then yes it will help.

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Because by definition, a 32-bit Windows program only sees 2GB. Period.

Question. If you have 2GB of RAM then what would be a good setting for the pagefile size? I know people could go 'round and 'round about this answer but what would you recommend Frogboy?

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