Drox Operative on Linux?
Friday, 15 February 2013
Please don't take this as a guarantee or anything, but I'm finally seriously exploring a Linux port of Drox Operative and possibly our other games. Our main focus right now is the expansion pack, but this is something I've been making some slow progress on. I don't want everyone to get their hopes up too much, but I also wanted to be able to talk about this every now and then.

Anyway, I finally had an unused and reasonably fast computer available in the house so I decided to install on Linux on it. I did a bunch of research about which version. It looks like Mint might be the most popular one right now, but Ubuntu seems to be a more common target for games especially with Steam initially only supporting Ubuntu. So I installed Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. This was actually easier than I expected. It configured everything fine as far as I can tell. I'm probably not running the graphic drivers that I need to, but I'll look at that later.

I also researched IDEs a while back. There are a lot of them, but I finally settled on Code::Blocks since it sound like it does everything I want and seems to be similar to the Visual Studio stuff that I'm used to.

So yesterday, after patching Drox to 1.003, I sat down to figure out how to install Code::Blocks. This was actually a big pain in the ass. The painful stuff had nothing to do with Code::Blocks though. I had to learn about apt-get (a command line install package tool), repositories, PPAs (Personal Package Archive), Nautilus (the codename for the file manager that the more recent Ubuntu versions use), Precise (the code name for Ubuntu 12.04), and probably a bunch of other tools and code names that I've already forgotten about. Once I figured out what all of this meant, the steps of installing something wasn't too bad and went pretty quick.

I also researched SVN GUI tools and decide to use rabbitvcs. Since I just learned all of the installing headaches, installing this was much easier.

That's pretty much where I am at the moment, not a huge amount of progress, but it's a start. I've also learned quite a bit more about Linux in general.

I'm planning on giving updates as I progress. It will probably be sporadic though since my main focus is still the expansion.

As usual comments, tips, and encouragement are all welcome. :)

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Going forward with Drox
Friday, 08 February 2013

It seems I haven't blogged in ages. :(

First off, we have Drox Operative on Steam's Greenlight. If you haven't already, go vote for Drox Operative on Greenlight so we can get the game on Steam. Please tell all of your friends, family, and anyone else that will listen to do so also. :)

This is still pretty much unofficial, but we are working on an expansion. Unofficial in this case just means that we could change our minds and work on something else instead. At this point in time there aren't any guaranteed new features or content, but it will most likely contain at least a new race, new monsters, new components, and new quests. We do have a bunch of cool features that we think are going to make the expansion a must buy for any Drox fans. We will start to talk about the specifics once things are implemented and working.

One of the nice parts about working on an expansion is that we will be actively working on Drox. This means that we'll continue to have fairly regular patches and a lot of the smaller changes that were originally meant for the expansion will likely show up in the main game also.

As always, comments are welcome.

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Drox Operative 0.916
Monday, 20 August 2012

I still have a bunch of help work left to do, but the big thing I'm planning on working on next is the monsters.

On paper, most of the monsters are pretty unique. They use various weapons, use different buffs/debuffs, fly at different speeds or in different ways, some have armor and/or shields, and many have special abilities. However I don't think that's coming across as well as it should yet. I suspect I just need to make the differences more significant, so that everything that is already there is more apparent. After that I can decide if they need more unique touches

Before I get too far into changing things, which monsters do you guys like? Which monsters are especially memorable for you? And probably most important, why?

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Drox Operative Beta FAQ
Thursday, 02 August 2012

I should have written this over a month ago. :) I've been a little busy though.

So Drox Operative is in beta, what does that mean? Well to us beta basically means that we think the game is fun, stable, contains enough content, and it is relatively close to release. We still usually have lots of additions that we are planning at this point though.

Why do pre-orders and beta combined? We do this for a few reasons. First, this gives us a ton of awesome feedback that helps us make our games much better before the official release. Second, the flip side of the first reason is that our core gamers get to participate in the development of the game which is kind of cool. Third, our policy is to release our games when they are ready and having an influx of money at beta time makes this much more financially realistic. It also helps keep our focus on the game and not on a dwindling bank account. :)

If I have a problem, where do I report it? In general the best place is to post on our forums.

Where can I find my save games, screenshots, user config, or logs? It depends on your OS:

Vista/Win7 - C:\Users\YOUR USER NAME\AppData\Local\DroxOperative\User
XP - C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR USER NAME\Local Settings\Application Data\DroxOperative\User
Mac - /Users/YOUR USER NAME/Library/Application Support/DroxOperative/User

Note: The AppData directory in Vista/Win7 is hidden by default.

Is there an email address I can mail a save game or comment to? Yes. You can find our email addresses on our contact page. You want to email support.

How much will change in the beta? Probably a lot.

Will the game radically change from the 0.900 version? A ton of stuff is going to change over the beta period, but the core fundamentals won't change. We are pretty sure if you liked the first version, you will love it when it is done.

How long will Drox be in beta? Usually we are in beta for a month or two, but this one is likely to be a good bit longer than that. Drox Operative is the biggest and most ambitious game we have created. Personally I also think it has the most potential. So we are going to take our time.

Does the 30 day money back guarantee still apply? Yes it does, especially since we don't have a demo.

Will Drox have a demo? Yes, most definitely. The only reason why it doesn't have one right now is because it would be out of date almost instantly.

Do you really listen to feedback? Yes, I personally read and consider everything that gets posted to our forums and many external forum threads.

Will you make the change I suggest? That really depends on what the change is. There are a lot of reasons why we might not make a change that someone suggests: it's not feasible, it doesn't fit or works against the core gameplay, it will make it harder for new users, it has serious negative consequences that you might not have thought of, or it's just not a good idea. In our experience the last one is usually not the problem.

If I suggest something and you implement it, do I get credit? We try to credit who came up with an idea, who helped track down reproducible bug steps, or who finally convinced us to change something by noting it in our changes list. We don't guarantee anything though. We try our best to keep track of who suggested stuff. If you suggested something and it gets fixed and your name doesn't show up in the change list it's because everyone and their mom suggested the same thing, we had already planned the change, or because we accidentally lost track of you suggesting it.

I didn't get any feedback from the developers on my idea, does that mean they think it sucks? Not really. From a design and programming perspective, there is only 1 of us that can make the change. I'm not really outgoing and I'm really busy, so me not commenting on something doesn't necessarily mean anything.

You didn't fix my issue, do you not like me? Liking the person that suggests a change has very little to do with anything. We have made changes based on suggestions from the most annoying people on the planet and had to reject ideas from extremely nice people. It all boils down to what we feel makes the game better.

How often will patches come out? So far it has usually been a couple patches a week.

Everyone wants this change, doesn't that mean you have to change it? No it doesn't. Just because the majority want something doesn't mean they are right.

A suggestion was made and you did something similar but not the exact same idea, did you just want to be another cook in the kitchen? No, we don't really have a wasn't invented here problem. If we did it differently, we thought that was better in some way or just more feasible. We have no problem making exact changes suggested by external people.

Ok I think that's long enough. If anyone has more general questions like these, I will update this.

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Drox Operative Challenges
Friday, 08 June 2012

We've recently added a new feature called challenges that I think is going to be really interesting for players. Essentially challenges are special sectors that are tougher than normal, have a specific setup (not random), and do many things that can't normally happen.

How it works is every 6 levels there is another challenge sector, and one extra at level 100, for a total of 17 challenges. This is visually represented as 4 sectors per quadrant and 1 final challenge for the galaxy on the challenges screen. When you beat one, the next one unlocks and you can play any unlocked challenge sector whenever you want. Each challenge has a title and a short description to give you a little glimpse of what you will be facing in that challenge.

The big difference between a challenge sector and a normal sector is that the initial conditions are hand crafted instead of being random. They have a set level, sector size, races present, quests, wars, alliances, and even sector modifiers. This seems a little strange for a game that has so much randomness in it, however they create a cool, shared experience. It always starts out the same, but the random events and the players' actions will quickly make an impact. Then everyone can compare how their challenges went. It will be interesting to see how varied the end results will be and what the players decided to do.

Ok, so how about some actual examples? The first challenge starts off with all ten main races present when usually the max is six. It is really crowded and pretty chaotic. In one of my runs, I changed my allegiances at least three times. The fourth challenge starts with most of the sector colonized, only two races are left, and there is a huge war already. You can't possibly make them both happy, so which one do you choose? The twelfth challenge starts with one race in a huge lead, but they are at war with a four much smaller races who are allies with one another. Can the giant win or will all of the bees sting it to death? Even more importantly, who will the Drox Operatives help?

Oh, did I mention that the reward chest you get when winning a challenge for the first time is much better than a normal sector? Well it is. :)

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