One of my favorite gaming communities is The Escapist, and this morning I see the have the March Mayhem Developers Showdown 2010 going.  Even better is that IronClad Games (Sins of a Solar Empire) is in the first round in the North division going up against 64 other developers to see who is the best!

I casted my vote for IronClad, and feel free to head over and make your vote heard as well!

Link

Make sure to follow the rules, and be sure to tweet who you support as well.

Ironclad Games and Stardock Entertainment are pleased to announce the release of Sins of a Solar Empire v1.191, Entrenchment v1.051 and Diplomacy/Trinity v1.011 for all registered customers via the Impulse client. These new versions resolve a long-standing desync/crash bug; while the Diplomacy/Trinity update also includes some minor tweaks.

For a full change log please visit: http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/378243

The 2010 Game Developers Conference is done, and over the past few days the Stardock crew was busy showing off Impulse::Reactor while in San Francisco.  Impulse::Reactor is a “revolutionary” feature that will allow developers to integrate many features such as achievements, GOO, and more into their games.  Brad Wardell has written an extensive overview of Impulse::Reactor, and has also filmed a demo video showcasing some of the highlights of Impulse::Reactor.

You can see both here.

Link

GamePro magazine did an analysis of Digital Rights Management (DRM) in PC games, and among the people interviewed for this story was Stardock CEO, Brad Wardell.  This analysis takes an in-depth looks at piracy from several different views, including those of industry professionals and “pirates” themselves.  This is a must read for anyone who enjoys PC gaming.

“Every copy protection scheme gets cracked, it's just a matter of time," Stardock CEO Brad Wardell tells GamePro. Through Stardock’s online games distribution service, Impulse, the company has spearheaded new DRM measures that respect the rights of the player.”

Read the full story at GamePro.com.

Stardock and Ironclad are pleased to announce the first post-release update to Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity (in the Diplomacy expansion).

The new update tweaks the behavior of pirates, improves diplomatic relations handling and provides dozens of small game balancing changes based on player suggestions.

Below is a change log:

Diplomacy 1.01

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Gameplay

- Pirates will now prefer planets with 2 or more modules (rather than dead asteroids and the like).

- AI players will offer pacts regardless of their feelings towards the player, as long as the other relationship requirements are met.

- When on a player mission the pirates will no longer stop at the first target owned planet they come across. When on a raid the pirates will try to stop at a sufficiently occupied planet instead of any planet.

- Pirates will always try their best to nuke a planet before leaving. It's the only way to be sure.

- Relationship penalties have been changed to make them more stable.

- Initial pirate raids are less powerful.

- Pirate gauss guns are less powerful.

- Lowered the rate at which AI players gain diplomatic points.

- Lowered the rate at which the AI relationship bonus increases.

- The various AI difficulties will now gain the AI relationship bonus at different rates.

- Lowered the cooldown on Diplomatic Immunity by 30 seconds.

- You should now be able to target any ally in a free-for-all match for pirate/regular missions, and for pirate bounty.

- Locked teams games will no longer have a diplomatic victory option.

- Increased the penalty for breaking a peace treaty.

- Experience for killing pirates has gone down.

- AI players are now more likely to send pirate missions.

- The pirates now have a unique armor type that will allow them to take less damage from all weapon types.

- Military actions now have a negative cap of -20.

Interface

- The quick bounty button will now let you increase the bounty on allies. It will prefer non-allies if any exist;

- Fixed a text placement issue on the game over screen.

- Relationship displays can now be negative.

Misc

- Added a data value to game constants (juicy planet threshold) to set the number of modules pirates look for when stopping to attack.

- Fixed an old bug that resulted in AI players offering alliances more often than they should.

- Fixed an issue with some autocast use times.

- Fixed an issue where certain pacts were not functioning properly (most notably the supply pact).

- Fixed a possible crash within the mission system.

- Fixed a bug that might cause the AI to not offer pirate missions.

- Fixed a sync bug related to Pirates.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity is available at most retail outlets in North America.  It can be purchase digitally for $39.95 via Impulse.  Users who already have the original Sins of a Solar Empire and Entrenchment expansion can upgrade by purchasing the Diplomacy expansion pack.

Links:

• Purchase
• What’s in Diplomacy?

Screenshots:

There have been a ton of reviews coming in today for both Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity, and the micro-expansion Diplomacy.  Since there quite a few today I wanted to a quick roundup of some of the latest that have hit my inbox.

Gaming Evolution

http://gamingevolution.info/?id=9428

“…this quirky way of being mind-bogglingly complex while maintaining a strong sense of accessibility. Ironclad Games combined two genres I suck at, and only occasionally enjoy, and got me to completely buy into the product of their incestuous union. I regret avoiding it for so long. If you have even a mild interest in the game, you should give it a shot.”

 

Hooked Gamers

http://www.hookedgamers.com/pc/sins_of_a_solar_empire_diplomacy/review/article-512.html

“Given that Diplomacy is available alone or as part of Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity e - a package that also includes the original game and its first expansion, Entrenchment - there is no excuse to not experience this improvement on an already worthwhile game.”

 

Gamer Access

http://thegameraccess.com/reviews/pc/review-sins-of-a-solar-empire-trinity

“It's VERY addicting, it even stopped me from playing Mass Effect 2. I haven't had a decent amount of sleep in four days...”

We can round of this set of reviews with a great podcast from Three Moves Ahead.  Their topic of discussion is obviously Sins, and as usual, it’s an entertaining episode.

Link

BigDownload.com has posted their review of the recently released Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity, and the 2nd expansion titled Diplomacy. 

“Diplomacy adds a whole new layer of strategy, and it's a lot to get used to. It significantly turns up the need to multitask, but at the same time, players are presented with new and powerful tools to expand their empire. Picking up the add-on and turning the game into Trinity makes for deeply challenging gameplay, and is definitely completes the Sins experience so that players have more variety in how they choose to conquer the galaxy.”

Read the full review at BigDownload.

IGN.com has published their review of the recently released micro-expansion, Diplomacy, for Sins of a Solar Empire! 

“Diplomacy comes with an entirely new diplomatic technology tree for each of the three races, and offers up the chance to spread good will, engage in mutually profitable agreements, and even pay for your rivals to undertake specific missions against each other. Being able to move from general bounties to specific targets is a big improvement and can help you soften up not only your target, but also tie up another rival's fleets while they do your dirty work for you.”

Read the full review at IGN.com.

Today Stardock Entertainment released the newest incarnation of Ironclad's masterpiece called Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity takes the original game and combines the Entrenchment expansion pack and the Diplomacy expansion pack (also released today) together.

If you already have the original game and Entrenchment, you can get Diplomacy for only $9.99.  If you're new to the game, you can pick up Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity.

Quick Links:

• A Guided Tour
• A Gameplay Example
• Purchase Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity (for new players)
• Purchase Sins of a Solar Empire: Diplomacy (for users who have the first expansion pack already)

Reviews:

• Evilavatar.com
• Sarcasticgamer.com
• Neoseeker.com
• IGN.com
• ZTGameDomain.com
• BigDownload.com

Screenshots:

Sins of a Solar Empire: Diplomacy is also slated to be officially released tomorrow, and we have another thorough gameplay example.  This guided tour also gives a rich overview of the micro-expansion and it’s a definite must-read.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Diplomacy – a guided tour