Hey guys,

First off I'm sorry to those who read my journal a lot, this is pretty much a double post of my recent journal entry ... I'm not trying to spam the forum, I just hope to possibly inspire some people as to what is possible if you work towards your dreams. I've been on this website for the last 7-8 years and have learned so much ... I view Gamedev.net as a foundational part of my journey as a game developer. The feedback I've received on my journal posts have been very formative, and I can't thank you guys enough.

I'm just hoping to reach people with this post who don't frequent journal land.

That said, I'm returning from the frozen land of Stockholm, Sweden :-o I was there for my publishers convention, Paradox Interactive Convention 2012, in a Swedish castle showing my latest game Gettysburg: Armored Warfare . You can view the website here - http://www.armoredwarfare.com this is the game I was showing. If you want much more frequent updates, I post on the game's Facebook page as often as possible - http://www.facebook....gArmoredWarfare

A quick summary of the game would be - This guy goes back in-time to change the outcome of the American Civil War and you get this Steampunk mix of future technology and 19th century technology. The game is a RTS/FPS hybrid supporting 64 players per server gameplay, full stat and achievements through the Steam platform, cloud storage of custom armies, and a full featured world editor accessable in-game.

Since I wrote all this technology and the game in the last year, the game pretty much from scratch it's crazy for me to see it all working like this on BETA test servers all over the world, especially on Steam platform. I have a 64 player test session tomorrow, we are using a 3rd party QA studio to handle all the testing.



There has been so much happening in terms of the game and the technology behind it. The biggest thing I'm happy about is the achievement of 64 players per server, and the announcement that the game will be for sale on Steam platform in March of 2012. As somebody who grew up playing Counter-Strike and other Valve games on Steam...it's just awesome :-D

There are two key gameplay modes :
- Deathmatch ( 64 players per server, shared units, RTS orders disabled ).
- Army Skirmish ( 4 players per server, each controlling their own army, full RTS orders ).

You can also play the game offline practice with AI bots. I've included AI bots on the dedicated servers as well ... imagine running around in Battlefield with bots ? :-p



64 Players Per Server. *does happy dance* I'm very happy to have achieved data rates on par with some of the best games I've seen. I can syncronize up to 1024 units among all 64 players in the server. Data rates are about 10kbps-20kbps up from the server to each client, with the clients only sending about 2-5kbps up the the server in average situations.



PRESS - As you can imagine there has been a great amount of press from Paradox Interactive Convention 2012...I will link you guys to some of my favorite ones so far, there are a bunch I'm leaving out, just google for the game 'Gettysburg: Armored Warfare' if you want more :-o

Gamespy/IGN Preview of Gettysburg: Armored Warfare : http://pc.gamespy.co.../1217105p1.html

Rock, Paper, Shotgun preview of Gettysburg: Armored Warfare - http://www.rockpaper...rmored-warfare/

Great Interview with Angry Joe - http://www.blistered...iew-gettysburg/

RTS Guru Interview with me - http://www.rtsguru.c...anny-Green.html

GameTrailers videos - www.gametrailers.com/game/gettysburg-armored-warfare/14430/

Games Radar video walkthrough - http://www.gamesrada...e-preview-demo/

RTS Guru preview of Gettysburg: Armored Warfare - http://www.rtsguru.c...re-Preview.html

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Angry Joe giving me the treatment -



Oh HAI a picture of a tank ...



Anyways, the trip to Sweden was amazing, had such a great time meeting all the press and cool people at Paradox, they really are probably the best publisher in the world for an independent studio / team / dude like myself! I love them.

Again, sorry for not stopping by in so long ... I've been so damn busy with all this stuff. I plan to become a lot more active in the community again once I finish this project. Until then you can follow the game on facebook - http://www.facebook....gArmoredWarfare

I'm also starting to use twitter for a change - it makes it easier to release quick status updates - http://twitter.com/TheRealDgreen

If anybody has questions about anything in terms of the tech, or anything regarding the game in general I'd love to answer them...I've gotten so much out of this community over the years I'll do anything I can to give back to it :-)

- Dan

Amazing! I've been following your project as close as I can, I was under the impression that it would be released free-to-play by Paradox, but it's even cooler than it will be for sale on Steam. Great job, congrats, and I wish you a huge success. You're a true inspiration!

You were kidding when you said you did it in a year, right? Right?!!!

Hey guys! Thanks for the responses.

Amazing! I've been following your project as close as I can, I was under the impression that it would be released free-to-play by Paradox, but it's even cooler than it will be for sale on Steam. Great job, congrats, and I wish you a huge success. You're a true inspiration!

Thanks a lot, yea we made the switch from free-to-play a while ago, I think it's the right move. Going out at a low price point $9.99 and then supporting the hell out of it with DLC, and content.

Amazing, you're a one man army

I would like to ask you for some advice: I started many projects but quit on them in 2 days because I always get a "better" idea.

What was your mindset like when doing this project? Did you plan every smallest detail upfront in the design document or did you do any brain storming later on in the project?
Did you wanted to add additional features to the game but you decided it would take long so you decided do drop some so that you could get the project finished?

But anyway, congrats on this, it must be an awesome feeling to have a published game! Keep it up.

I actually get that question a lot, specifically in regards to how I can do this kind of work without a team of people around around me supporting, etc. I guess I'm just driven. Some may say too driven with a uniform vision for the project....not at the micro level, but in the bigger picture. I didn't have every detail of the game planned out - I knew I wanted to do a 64 player per server RTS/FPS hybrid wargame with every type of unit [ land, air, sea, human, horse, zeppelin, sdfsdsf ], but I didn't know it would materialize in this way. I just kept working toward that vision, I've been working on 'Armored Warfare' in some form since like late 2008 I believe ?

Some features were dropped, originally I planned to have a 'Commander Mode', a single player on each side who would sit above even the RTS/FPS layers and would give general orders to players who will get global XP rewards for completing them. That just added a level of complexity on top of everything that was too much for me to deal with. I think the game can eventually use a commander, but right now it wasn't in the cards.

Yes, it will be a good feeling to finally get a game published considering how much time I've put into all this stuff! lol...

You were kidding when you said you did it in a year, right? Right?!!!

Well of course this technology and the games are the cumulative result of my lifes work essentially ... but this latest iteration 'Gettysburg: Armored Warfare' has been in production for a little over a year.

Thanks a lot for the comments and support guys, if anyone has any questions about anything just let me know!!

- Dan