From the diary: "While some of the maps in our first game, Supreme Ruler 2010, had as many as 30 regions involved, most maps only had between three and ten regions in play. As it turned out, the bigger maps with the larger number of regions turned out to be very popular. There was a desire by many players to play longer games, experiencing diplomacy and the challenges of good government over the span of many in-game years. The early design of Supreme Ruler 2020 expanded the region limit to 64, and used a system of 'regional blocks' to help divide up the world and keep things manageable for the engine – it was important for us to maintain the 'no limits' design of SR2010 that allowed for big maps and big armies. As we began implementation of this new system, we discovered that with some adjustments we would be able to support over 200 regions – which would be enough to allow us to simulate all the existing countries in the world at once..."
PC game publisher Paradox Interactive has released a demo for its upcoming war strategy title, "Supreme Ruler 2020 GOLD". Developed by BattleGoat Studios, the gold edition of the game includes both "Supreme Ruler 2020" and the official expansion "Global Crisis".
Game-Debate writes 'Players can choose either the "sandbox" Campaign mode with either no or customized victory conditions, or go for the rather livelier scenario route. In terms of longevity, Supreme Ruler is somewhat unparalleled – with the ability to rule every nation in the world, multiple settings and even different pre-defined nation settings, this is one title you won't be completing in 10 minutes.'
Last month GameRanger, the PC multiplayer online gaming service, was officially recommended as a solution for the game, Demigod. Now GameRanger asks users which multiplayer games should be supported next.
The launch of Stardock's multiplayer-centric game Demigod suffered major scaling and connectivity issues. GameRanger quickly responded with networking support for Demigod, giving Stardock some breathing room to work on the issues. Stardock president, Brad Wardell, said: "I have fallen in love with a new program called GameRanger."
GameRanger already provides online support for over 500 games, but there are many more that still suffer from the network problems that GameRanger solves. Survey questions aiming to address this will be presented to users when they next log in to the service.
Network connectivity has long been an issue with multiplayer games, especially strategy games, and has worsened over the years with more widespread use of routers and firewalls in the home. These are complex challenges that have been tackled with only limited success by game developers and other multiplayer middleware providers.
Chris Latour, BattleGoat Studios game designer, said: "GameRanger has provided us with far more connectivity than we originally had for Supreme Ruler 2010 and 2020."
GameRanger takes the pressure off game developers by eliminating the network connection problems and their associated tech support nightmares, so they can focus their energy on making great games.
