Congrats on 5.0!

[Jderz]

Man, you guys take post release support to a whole new level! I can't wait to try it out when I get the chance.

Any eta on when Light of the Spire is released to steam?

[pnptcn]

There's no real way to tell with these things, but Children of Neinzul and 4.0 were released on Steam a day or two after Arcen released them.

I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that we get it some time today. No foul if it doesn't arrive today though. Man, I can't wait, I've been keeping an eye out here and at Arcen's forums for like the last week or so. :D Just seeing that it was released yesterday was awesome, and I'm happily anticipating it getting added to my Steam account soon.

[warwon]

i was hoping to see it tonight. sad.

[Jderz]

i was hoping to see it tonight. sad.

Me too :(

Oh well it will come in time. Meanwhile, has anyone read about A Valley Without Wind? (http://www.arcengames.com/w/index.php/games/avww-features) It sounds amazing, and if AI War is any indication it will live up to its description. Insta buy for me. I can't wait to try the alpha.

Question for the devs: I understand A Valley Without Wind will be a focus on adventure and rpg, but will there be simulation elements as well? You mention bringing people together in settlements. Does that mean there might be some survival based gameplay? Like building shelter and scavenging for resources? In my experience the only games that have ventured into this territory have been roguelikes (Unreal world, Rogue Survivor, Dwarf Fortress). It would be superb to see something more mainstream capture the scope of those types of games.

[lyravega]

Light of the Spire is goood. Believe me. Story is really nice, it's like stirring up a bee hive then smashing all of them together :P

[x4000]

Thanks, all!

I don't yet know when the née version and expansion will be on steam -- I presume next week, but I dot have confirmation yet. The contract is signed and all that good stuff, and valve is on board, but they have their own schedule and I don't have visibility into that. From our end, we gas them 0 days notice on having the expansion done, which is not very kind to them in terms of having it out right at the same time as us. That wasn't intentional, but was something based on our last bughunt before release. Anyway, so it's not their fault at all, it's just a circumstantial thing because my schedule ran over die to final quality checks. Sorry about that!

In terms of AVWW, glad there is excitement! There will be not true simulation aspects, but there will be... simulated simulation aspects? In other words, scavenging and settlement growth, etc, are all in there, but it will be using shortcuts that are kind to the CPU to allow for all that stuff to enhance the adventure and ads new activities without requiring that this have a dwarf fortress sort of true simulation behind it. It's hard to explain because I don't think any other game has done this before. The focus is on the player experience instead of a true simulation, anyhow. In those respects, it's most similar to the ai in ai war.

[Red Spot]

Remember you can already try it out in trial mode, you will just be restricted in how long you can play the campaign.
No better demo than a full game with a timelimit :)

I can tell you that defender mode, while in trial, still kicks some behind. If you make it past the timelimit you can always scale up the difficulty :D

[pnptcn]

Congratulations to you and your team Chris. 5.0 is the best AI War yet and LotS is completely awesome so far. I've just started a Fallen Spire campaign (with a Dyson Sphere and roaming Neinzul Enclaves! Excitement! ), and everything so far is fantastic. I think this will be your smoothest release yet, everything seems to be dripping with quality. The core community really outdid themselves with testing this release, so they deserve thanks and congratulations too.

Gotta go now, there's a subspace signal to track down.