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MrFreake_PDX

Lt. General
Community Ambassador
Feb 20, 2020
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Blub blub! Greetings from your favorite aquatic explorer—it's me, Glu Glu! Yes, I know what you're thinking: "A plushie writing a dev diary? Water you talking about?" But trust me, I'm ready to dive right in and spill the kelp!

My journey began when the Stellaris team decided they needed a new plushie. Choosing just one portrait wasn't easy—there were heated debates, passionate pleas, and more dramatic gestures than you can shake your tail at. Then Dave found the old Offishal Pun Document from the Aquatics Species Pack and that sealed the deal.

I arrived at Paradox HQ a few weeks ago — some really nice people followed me around and took pictures and videos of my antics around the office. They said they were getting something called B-roll, I don’t know what that was, but on a scale from 0 to fun, it was infinitely fun!

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Definitely unedited images of some of the Video Producers, including their 100% absolutely real faces.

Later that same day, I may have accidentally-on-purpose “liberated” Community Manager Aurora's laptop. Have you ever changed someone’s passwords as a prank? She didn’t find it that funny, but I didn’t find it funny that there were no pictures of Glu Glu on the Stellaris social media pages. So I fixed it!

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When we first met, Photoshop, I was but the learner. Now, I am the Master.

Before anyone could say "Man overboard!" I had changed all her passwords and taken full control of Stellaris' social media accounts. You might notice that the Stellaris announcements will be extra sofishticated for the next week, that’s me!

We also did a Makeship photoshoot. I perfected my plush gaze, and my pout is betta than ever. Soon, my photos started surfacing on desks around the office. No idea who was putting them there, but whoever keeps putting them there has exquisite taste, and super warm hugs.

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Also seen at the offish: waiting for Game Director Eladrin to leave his desk

I’ve learned a few new terms in the past few weeks of hanging around the Shellaris office. One of them is: merge request. That’s when salmon wants to make a change to the game, they make the change on their local computer, then send a merge request, and - if someone else approves it - it will get added to the game.

Since everyone is off today, I’ve written a few merge requests of my own, if any of them sneak through, let minnow.

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Glu Glu’s proposed Portrait rework

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Another Glu Glu merge request: These are the Ocean worlds you were looking for.


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Glu Glu merge request: added an Easter Egg to the Aquatics battleship

We’ll have to wait until next week’s patch to see if any of these changes get approved and make it into the game or not!

In the meantime, I’ve been busy on the Stellaris YouTube as well. I put together this totally accurate and definitely not-biased 100% sure to please YouTube short.


I also took the opportunity to extend my own Makeship campaign! You’d be amazed at what you can get done when people wander away and leave their computers unlocked and unattended!

I am proud to announce the end of the Stellaris Aquatic Plushie campaign will be June 5th! Don’t miss this opportunity to take me home, I could be your proud co-pilot for adventures in trouter space, a fintastic gaming buddy, or even just be there for a snuggle if you’re feeling crabby.

So that's my tail, friends—I'm Glu Glu, the squishiest explorer this side of Blorg Prime, signing off.
 
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The game is receiving mass criticism - even M**tu is despondent about 4.X. Bugs are rampant, AI performance questionable at best. People are (understandably at least, whether you agree or disagree) unhappy about this state of affairs. Many people are intrigued, yearning even, for further news about what is being done and what will be done about this.

And we get a Dev Diary about a damn Plushie. This is how seriously you take us, and how much our perspectives matter to you, huh?

Yeah, brilliant. Excellent 'reading of the room'. Cheers.
This week and next week are short weeks in Sweden. As others have mentioned and was mentioned in the last Dev Diary, the next official Dev Diary will be on June 12th.
 
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I don't consider this a Dev Diary personally. I ended Dev Diary #385 with:
Since the next two weeks are both short weeks in Sweden, our next Stellaris Dev Diary will be June 12th. (You’ll be hearing from me in patch notes in the meantime though.)

We won't have one this week because I want to get more time in on fixes because of the short week. (Friday is National Day.)
 
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