Stardock's Impulse Phase 3 Complete!
Tuesday, April 7, 2009 by Island Dog | Discussion: Personal Computing
Stardock announced the third major update to its digital distribution platform, Impulse today. Known as Impulse: Phase 3, the update includes a host of new features.
Impulse Phase 3 includes five major new features that developer Stardock believes will be compelling to both PC users and software publishers. These new features are:
- The Impulse client has had its user interface significantly improved and updated with features such as player rankings, achievements, intelligent match-making, and more. It also includes a new tray application that lets users track friends, receive update notifications, and much more.
- The beta of Impulse Anywhere, a new web-based method for users whose home Internet connections are non-ideal to download their software on another machine, take the files home and install them.
- The release of Impulse Reactor, a development platform that lets users add many new features to their games without having to re-distribute a third-party client (i.e. users don’t have to distribute the Impulse client). Impulse Reactor includes features such as intelligent match-making, multiplayer tournament support, NAT negotiation, friend lists, rankings, community features and much more. Gas Powered Games’ much anticipated PC game, Demigod, is being released next week and makes full use of Impulse Reactor.
- Impulse Reactor Overlay, an in-game overlay that lets users instantly access chat, friends lists, profile data, micro-expansions, and more. Demigod will also be the first title to make full use of this.
- Game Object Obfuscation (Goo) - An alternative method for developers to protect their intellectual property. Goo allows developers to associate licenses with people rather than their PCs which will eliminate the issue of “limited activations”. It also provides the underpinnings to support vendor neutral software downloads and transferring of licenses.
“One of the key things about Impulse Reactor and Goo is that it’s a win-win for users and publishers. For users, it begins the process of our customers owning their software license. For publishers, it provides the highest level of security for their software but in a way that doesn’t inconvenience legitimate customers,” said Brad Wardell, president & CEO of Stardock. Stardock is in the process of migrating from traditional activation on its digitally distributed software to Goo and working to incorporate Impulse Reactor into its existing titles.
One of the first publishers to adopt Goo is Paradox Interactive, whose titles on Impulse will soon be protected via the new technology.
In addition, Stardock and Activision Publishing, Inc. recently signed a distribution agreement which will make select Activision titles available on Impulse in the near future. Stardock expects to add additional major publishers this spring.
“With Phase 3 of Impulse completed, we are now focusing on bringing the catalog of games and applications on Impulse up to parity with what is available on other services,” said Wardell.
For further details about Impulse please visit www.impulsedriven.com.
Reply #3 Tuesday, April 7, 2009 1:57 PM
Grats on the launch. Activision isn't a bad netting either, looking forward to seeing which games make it on!
Poor, poor Zoomba having to check out so many games to make sure they work fine.
Reply #4 Tuesday, April 7, 2009 3:36 PM
i have purchased the europa universalis and hearts of iron games from gamersgate and i purchased mount and blade from impulse. with paradox signing up for goo does that mean that i will be able to download the eu and hoi games from impulse and mount and blade from gamersgate if i felt inclined to do so?
Reply #5 Tuesday, April 7, 2009 3:53 PM
Activision? Wow, sounds familiar!
Who's next joining the revolution, may i ask?
EA and/or Blizzard? XBox & alumnis? Freewares & Sharewares?
Ahhhhhh, progress & pioneers - lucky us, noboby can stop them.
Reply #6 Tuesday, April 7, 2009 4:01 PM
Woohoo:P Congrats! Can't wait for more games to be listed, particularly some publishers (looks at Atari and Neverwinter Nights 2 
)
Reply #7 Tuesday, April 7, 2009 4:34 PM
Wow, conga-rats on the Activision contract. May many others follow their lead.
Reply #8 Tuesday, April 7, 2009 5:17 PM
Hey, smooth, rapid install - i like it; even the now icon minimization menu in the Notification/Area might come handy.
Reply #10 Tuesday, April 7, 2009 5:46 PM
Hey my original GalCiv2 cd key is fix and I could update it! Thanks Stardock! 
Reply #11 Tuesday, April 7, 2009 7:38 PM
Here are a few things I noticed:
1. View can be set to detail (default setting) - Good
2. The columns can be edited along with view - Good
3. "My Tools" & "My Desktop" is now a single entity "My Software" - Don't really care
4. There are some missing information (such as galciv1 not having any publisher or genre for instance) - Should be an easy fix
5. Incomplete list of demos (There are more than what is shown in the My Games tab when enabled) - Should be an easy fix
Still waiting to download an archive before I start commenting on those.
Reply #12 Tuesday, April 7, 2009 8:19 PM
Impulse now is nice. Finally, a system for choosing programs within Impulse that doesn't lag the shit out of me and my horrible satellite internet.
Reply #13 Tuesday, April 7, 2009 8:23 PM
6. There does appear to be some problems with downloading an archive, and restoring from archive. These problems seem to be the same ones back from phase 2. I'll be doing some tests tomorrow (or some time when I don't have to worry about university finals).
Reply #14 Thursday, April 9, 2009 8:10 AM
about activision i hope you signed a contract to release the games worldwide, didn't you?
Reply #15 Thursday, April 9, 2009 9:05 AM
I like the new look of the new impule. Way to go Stardock.
Reply #16 Thursday, April 9, 2009 9:13 AM
How big is the update? My internet is having a tantrum and running at roughly twice dialup speed at the moment.
Reply #17 Thursday, April 9, 2009 9:30 AM
Under a minute and and a half-about 75 seconds total-on 768kbit. Didn't watch it to see if it was running full speed the whole time, but that's still relatively small.
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Reply #1 Tuesday, April 7, 2009 1:26 PM
woohoo!