[3908] in comp.os.os2.announce archive
GAME: New Game: Entrepreneur 1.1 for OS/2!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Brad Wardell)
Tue Mar 10 04:48:01 1998
To: os2ann.DISCUSS@bloom-picayune.MIT.EDU
Date: 10 Mar 1998 03:13:00 -0500
From: wardell@ibm.net (Brad Wardell)
Reply-To: wardell@ibm.net (Brad Wardell)
Reply-to: wardell@ibm.net (Brad Wardell)
[Followups directed to comp.os.os2.games]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Stardock prepares to make Entrepreneur widely available...
Near the end of last Fall, Stardock released Entrepreneur 1.0 and it
immediately became popular with strategy game fans all over the world. But
Entrepreneur was only released in select areas. Due to the game's unusual
game mechanics, Stardock was uncertain of how well it would be received and
held back its general availability until after it could receive initial
feedback.
Entrepreneur is a real-time strategy game in which players start and build
up their own companies to compete against others in a chosen market. By
balancing their resources between marketing, researching, and manufacturing,
the players grow their hold on the world until they have conquered the vast
majority of the market. One Usenet player described it as "SimBillGates"
though its emphasis on making tough resource choices makes it similar to
Civilization.
The game's lead designer, Brad Wardell, says he was inspired to develop
Entrepreneur not by Civilization so much but by a classic game called MULE.
"I had been hesitant on developing Entrepreneur because I figured that
someone else would eventually create a good follow-on to a game like MULE."
Said Brad Wardell, Stardock Systems, Inc. "Though in actuality, the game
also has a lot of elements of a lesser known game called Lords of Conquest."
To Stardock's relief, Entrepreneur 1.0 has received universal praise from
the mainstream print magazines such as Computer Gaming World, Strategy Plus,
and PC Gamer. The magazines pointed out the game's addictive game play,
outstanding computer AI, and unique strategic elements help combine into
making a very good game. All this despite the game's limited availability.
One unexpected chain of events have gone into Entrepreneur's favor:
Microsoft and the Justice Department. With the object of Entrepreneur to
take over the market using extremely ruthless tactics and one of the
computer players called "MitroSoft", Entrepreneur has caught the attention
of the general press. With articles from the Wallstreet Journal, Business
Week, and Corporate Detroit and TV mentions on NBC Today and The Nightly
Business Report Stardock has suddenly found it has a hit on its hands.
"We're getting a lot of calls from the press about Entrepreneur and how it
plays like Microsoft would," said Wardell. "We wrote the game in the days of
the 'OS-wars' -- DOS vs. Windows vs. OS/2 vs. Mac and it did influence our
development considerably. All I can say is, Yea, Microsoft plays to win and
I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who want to play a game in
which they crush their opponents in a somewhat real-world scenario."
But Stardock hasn't been sitting on its laurels since its original release,
it used the time between 1.0 and now to address the feedback received from
the early reviews as well as from gamers. While the reviewers praised the
game itself, they also pointed out that the game's steep learning curve and
very dry graphics might turn off some players. To that end, Stardock worked
on enhancing those two areas of Entrepreneur.
Entrepreneur 1.1, due to be generally available on Wednesday, March 11,
brings a complete graphics face lift to Entrepreneur (see included screen
shots of 1.0 and a similar 1.1 screen shot). It also made subtle
playability enhancements to make the game more intuitive to beginners while
maintaining the challenge for expert players. The computer players, already
considered amongst the best in the genre, have been heavily enhanced and
will continue to be enhanced well into the future.
The game ships with a single market module -- the computer market, to play
in. Stardock used the time between 1.0 and now to work on two new markets
that will be available in late March. Moreover, the game ships with over a
dozen different maps to play on and Stardock plans to release several new
maps in the coming weeks.
The free multi-player service that comes with Entrepreneur, Stardock.Net
will also get a free Windows client so that users can not only launch
multi-player games from within Entrepreneur itself but also launch games
from a small GUI client. "With the Stardock.Net client, people will be able
to keep a little window up on their desktop and chat with people and wait
for just the right game to start instead of having to keep Entrepreneur
loaded all the time." Said Wardell.
Entrepreneur 1.1 available almost everywhere is poised to become one of the
hottest new games of 1998 and one of the best strategy games in a very long
time.
Stardock expects Entrepreneur to be available in the following stores by
March 9 or soon after:
CompUSA (March 9)
Micro Center (March 9)
Future Shop (March 9)
United CD ROM (March 9)
Babbages (Late March)
Software Etc. (Late March)
Fry's (Late March)
Electronic's Boutique (Late March)
Stardock can be reached at 1-800-672-2338. Entrepreneur lists for $49.95,
requires Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0, or OS/2 Warp to play and 8 megabytes of
memory on a 486DX2-66 or better system. Pentium system with 16 megabytes of
memory recommended.
Stardock's website is http://www.stardock.com
A free update from 1.0 to 1.1 will be available on Stardock's website on
Wednesday, March 11.
_____________________________________________________________________
| NOTE: Please send submissions by EMAIL os2_ann_req@bix.com
| Correspondence to the COOA Moderator: lfirrantello@bix.com .
| Please see: http://www.bix.com/pub/os2ann/pindex.htm for posting guidelines
