I have to give a big fat thank you to the guys at Gas Powered Games for being so dedicated to their art. Chris Taylor must be doing something right. The company produced a fantastic game called Supreme Commander and it really is the rightful heir to one of my all time favorites, Total Annihilation.
First, they seem to listen to the community and are actively improving an already released game. Do they have to do this, certainly not, but boy am I glad they did. If you play Supreme Commander, the latest patch that was released includes a feature that should have been in every RTS game ever released. The feature actually seems so obvious that it is amazing it hasn't been done before.
What I'm speaking about is the new ability to create a control group (basically, you assign a number to a group of units for easy recall) and include a factory in that control group. Doing this now causes every unit produced to automatically be assigned to this control group from there on. What a beautiful thing this is. Imagine, if you will, assigning a factory to produce bombers and making it part of control group 5 and never having to go seek out these new bombers ever again. Just press 5 on your keyboard and those new bombers are ready to fulfill your every command. Kudos to the SupCom development team!
Second, I commend Chris Taylor for actually giving the developers of his company a real life outside of game development. His philosophy is counter to all other game developers and many other companies in general. He actually wants his people to leave on time from work and spend time with their families! What a concept!
Oh, if you want to try another game from a company that listens better than any I've ever come across before, check out the guys at StarDock and the Galactic Civilizations line of games. If you've never played Galactic Civilizations II, you owe it to yourself to play it. Anyone who likes the Civilization style game or fondly remembers Master of Orion, just go buy it. You won't be disappointed. The best part is that patches and enhancements happen with regularity and they always listen to the comments of their customers. In fact, it isn't uncommon for them to have real conversations with those in the community. There are very few companies out there that do this anymore.
Oh, and the best part is they don't believe in copy protection either. GalCiv2 is not copy protected and neither is the expansion for it. Even without copy protection, when GalCiv2 was released it was on the best seller list at WalMart for quite some time. It just proves that if you give the public what they want, you'll be rewarded for it.
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