Overwritten.net
Games => General Gaming => Topic started by: idolminds on Tuesday, November 04, 2008, 10:36:12 AM
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Woo! (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/55726)
More infos (http://www.edge-online.com/features/elemental-war-magic-unveiled)
Beta this spring, release scheduled for Feb 2010. So...we have some time.
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It's been quite a while since we've had a really good fantasy strategy game. Could be interesting. I'm more concerned with Disciples III, and if either one sucks, I can always just go back to playing the greatest fantasy strategy game ever made, Disciples II. But still... I find the weird, low-fi art style oddly compelling. I'll keep my eye on it.
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GameSpot preview (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/elementalwarofmagic/news.html?sid=6200601&mode=previews)
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Official site (http://www.elementalgame.com/) with screens and art to look at. Oooh!
Looks like they are going for a painterly cel-shaded look.
But you have to go and read the journals (http://www.elementalgame.com/journals.asp). This game sounds awesome. You don't just build a "knight" unit. You take a man, give him armor, a helmet, a sword, and a horse and you can name it a knight if you want. So you more produce "stuff" that you give to your "units" to make them into whatever you want.
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I'm looking more forward to it the more I hear and read about it.
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A cool bit of info. From Frogboy/Wardell (http://frogboy.impulsedriven.net/article/337725):
One of the things that has been driving Demigod beta testers crazy is that they aren't used to how Stardock does betas. A lot of them came from the Gas Powered Games community so they don't realize that Stardock betas tend to be very primitive.
With Elemental, we may drive the point home by having the first beta of the game only use the cloth map instead of the actual game engine for game play. The idea is, if it's a good game, it should be reasonably fun even without fancy graphics. Then for once we could get people to fixate on the key features of the game rather than piddly details.
The other benefit it would have is if we could make the whole game play on the cloth map too, people with insanely low end systems could actually play the game. Imagine people playing Elemental on a netbook for instance?
So that's what's going through our crazy minds today.
Heh, thanks to all these "beta demos" that are way past the actual beta phase people are confused when they join an actual beta. Hilarious.
Having a game scale back and be playable on a freaking netbook? Hell yeah. Go go, Stardock!
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Awesome!
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The other benefit it would have is if we could make the whole game play on the cloth map too, people with insanely low end systems could actually play the game. Imagine people playing Elemental on a netbook for instance?
<3
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Here's a VERY EARLY Beta gameplay vid showing off gameplay for Elemental: War of Magic at GDC 09. (http://gdc.gamespot.com/story/6207014/)
IMPORTANT NOTE on the video:
To begin with, Wardell reiterated his commitment to getting the game into a testable, playable state earlier than usual. Stardock plans to run a "beta zero" phase, where a working prototype of the game, using extremely simple art assets, will be made available to a small group of beta testers to thoroughly test gameplay--pretty art assets, such as the oil portrait-like textured characters you've seen in screenshots, will be added later during subsequent phases of beta, which will test the game many, many times to ensure that it ends up being a highly polished, well-balanced, and enjoyable finished product.
Gameplay
Currently, most of the major gameplay aspects are locked down, though Wardell confides that he and his team still occasionally come up with "Hey, what if we did this?" inspirations that the team then tosses against the proverbial wall to see if it sticks. There's a great deal of implementation and content-building yet left to do, but Wardell is adamant about certain aspects of gameplay, such as having resource-related buildings appear outside of your castle keep, rather than in it. Your castle keep, the base of your operations, will exist in the world as a 3D structure, and you'll build all your farms and barracks and other buildings around your keep over time to eventually end up with a thriving medieval metropolis.
When asked what he most wanted to see in his own Master of Magic-like game, Wardell replied that he'd always enjoyed the global spells of Microprose's classic, and confessed that he was extremely excited by the prospect of using modern computer graphics technology to create some truly spectacular large-scale magic effects.
In addition, the team already knows that content customization, which was very popular among players of Stardocks' Galactic Civilizations series, will definitely be in the game. The GalCiv games let you meticulously design your fleet of spaceships with whatever weapons and accoutrements you wanted; Elemental will let you do the same to army battalions as well as to buildings.
Some of the Content:
Though the initial game will ship only with two playable races, the humans and the sinister Fallen, the team expects that elves, dwarves, and other fantastical creatures will appear more or less immediately as a result of the fan community's efforts with the editing tools, which will let you upload your content to a centralized database. And it's also likely that Stardock will add more playable character races later to the game, since the studio has a longstanding tradition of supporting games post-launch, and also since the game's lore is apparently so extensive that Wardell himself is chronicling it all in a book he's writing concurrently with his game development duties.
Sounds good to me. :)
Elemental's FUTURE
When asked about the future plans for this game, Wardell admitted he was uncertain as to whether Elemental would grow by way of full-on $30 expansion packs, or through "microexpansions," which Stardock has released for Sins of a Solar Empire. A larger expansion, explains Wardell, will take longer to make and keep players waiting, but microexpansions don't seem well understood by customers and press just yet, either.
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Weigh in on complexity! (http://forums.elementalgame.com/352821)
Tough call. I like the idea of the complexity in Camp 1. Town mines ore, sends to town that makes swords, swords are sent to towns that make troops or further refine and specializes the swords, etc. Would be a very interesting dynamic where your opponent might have some awesome swordsmen army but if you can disrupt his supply chain (take the ore mine, capture his sword producing towns) you can cripple him. But...is it going to be too complex? I don't know. I think Camp 2 is a little too simple and removes that supply line dynamic.
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There's now a third option which may be a decent compromise. I, too, like the idea of a sophisticated/complex economy, but from a design stand-point it may run too many people off. But, then again, I doubt this is a game that will be targeted to the masses anyway.
Tough call.
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I like that 3rd option. Building more "shops" in a town creates a priority for resources to be sent there. So you can still create the neat production chains of items getting processed and further refined, but its not totally complex and micromanagey.
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Elemental: The Book (http://forums.elementalgame.com/360957)
Will be interesting to see how that turns out.
Also, alpha invites went out to select people. Beta should be kicking off around PAX. Preorders get you in to beta, but shortly after PAX they will close that off.
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Preorder is tempting...
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Especially after you read this (http://forums.elementalgame.com/360476).
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These guys know how to post updates.
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Quck look at the alpha. (http://frogboy.impulsedriven.net/article/361047/Brads_Quickie_Eval_of_Elemental_Alpha_1)
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Damn it. I may have to just bite the bullet and preorder this.
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This game is going to be so awesome.
Shacknews Q&A with Brad Wardell part 1 (http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1201)
Brad Wardell: Yeah, so games like X-Com, and Star Control 2, and of course Master of Magic, we love those games. And so we take bits and pieces, and we take our own ideas of things we wanted to see in games. I think the family tree feature of Elemental is pretty much something that we're bringing to the genre that's fairly unique.
Shack: Talk about that tree.
Brad Wardell: Well the idea is that, in these games, it's pretty normal to have heroes, and you can recruit heroes in this game as well. But we wanted the player to have more diplomatic tools than the usual treaties or tribute or whatever. And instead, while you are immortal, you can get married, have children, grow old and die. And you can actually arrange marriages and that kind of thing, and they'll have offspring that are a genetic blend of the two.
As an example, lets say I'm playing as the Altar, and we have an AI player, and their daughter is married to my son. She becomes a part of my family; I can control her, she's a unit in the game. Royalty in the game are actual units that you just get. Well, now she's my unit. Alright, I have her in my capitol city, and [she] just has babies or something. Or what do you know, she gives a 25% morale boost to any army she's in. Maybe I'll send her off with the army. Uh oh, she died. Well guess what, the other player's going to declare war on me because I killed their daughter.
Shack: There's the potential for some very twisted scenarios there.
Brad Wardell: Or how about this. The AI player's sovereign gets killed. He's out of the game. What happens to his kingdom? Well, his daughter is in my family, but what if his son was married off to some other family? Now there's a civil war in his kingdom. Some of his cities join my side, some of the cities join the other side.
One of the things in Galactic Civilizations is that people felt there was too much randomness when a civilization surrendered, who they surrendered to. Now it's not random at all. You can predict what's going to happen when someone surrenders or breaks off.
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Idol, I'm not big on strategy -- but holy shit, all those scenarios that could be sound fuckin' awesome.
EDIT:
The modability discussed in the article sounds pretty sweet, as well.
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Every time they talk about this game I get more excited. Damn you, Stardock. Stop making me want stuff that doesn't exist yet!
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Preview from IGN. (http://pc.ign.com/articles/109/1093898p1.html)
SDK / Mod Support
Stardock's saying mod support will be a big part of what keeps this game going, and is including editors not only for terrain, towns and maps but also for items and even spell effects.
I would assume that means we'll see someone create a version of Middle-earth soon after this game is released, along with all the appropriate weapons, armors and locations. The game's scheduled to be released later this summer, and I'm certainly looking forward to getting some hands-on time with the title to see how it all plays.
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This is one game I might actually play. I say that now... but I'm hopeful, god damn it.
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New FAQ up.
Coming August 24th, even though that date could be subject to change. (http://forums.elementalgame.com/383339)
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Video thingy! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM6MbFV9hrQ&feature=youtu.be&a)
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Elemental Beta4 includes Modding Tools, so here's Modding Tools Guide from Stardock. (http://forums.elementalgame.com/389510)
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Interesting quote from Wardell (http://forums.elementalgame.com/390434/page/3/#2710931)
For what it's worth, Elemental has sufficient pre-orders such that it'll break even on August 24th.
Break even on release day? Thats pretty crazy.
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Interesting quote from Wardell (http://forums.elementalgame.com/390434/page/3/#2710931)
Break even on release day? Thats pretty crazy.
Well...any clue how much did they spend to actually make this game?
I bet it's chump-change, when compared to most Triple-A titles that WAY, WAY OVERSPEND in so many areas....
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Man, this game comes out in less than two weeks. Shouldn't it go gold right about now (http://www.stardock.com/about/newsitem.asp?id=1933)?
Plymouth, MI - August 13, 2010 - Sharpen your world domination skills, prepare your spell book and get your wizarding robes on: the anticipated PC fantasy strategy title Elemental: War of Magic from independent publisher and developer Stardock has gone gold! The Limited Edition ($69.95) and the standard edition ($49.95) will hit national retail stores on August 24 and can be pre-ordered at Stardock's digital distribution platform, Impulse (www.impulsedriven.com) or via the game's web site (www.elementalgame.com).
Elemental: War of Magic opens a world of magic and ancient lore as players begin the game as one of the few beings in the world still able to channel power from shards of magic - a series of mystical artifacts left over from a great cataclysm. You must decide how much of your power to imbue into your heroes as you build cities, explore dungeons, learn spells of ever-increasing power and negotiate with friends and foes.
The game also includes integrated modding tools that allow players to create their own fantasy maps, monsters, tiles, effects and much more. The game's story-driven campaign, written by Random House's writing team, was made exclusively with the built-in modding tools.
"We wanted to make a game that players would be able to keep adding into for years to come," said Brad Wardell, president & CEO of Stardock and the game's lead designer. "With the built-in tools, players can create whole new worlds and share them with others players seamlessly from within the game."
Besides including the sand box game and campaign, Elemental also includes a multiplayer mode in which up to 16 players can play online while taking simultaneous turns. Players can save their multiplayer games online and return to them to continue in order to support players who wish to play more epic-sized games.
In addition to the PC title hitting stores on August 24, the novel ELEMENTAL: DESTINY'S EMBERS, written by Elemental: War of Magic Executive Producer Brad Wardell, will also be available at bookstores nationwide from Random House's Del Rey publishing division. Customers who purchase a copy of the book ELEMENTAL: DESTINY'S EMBERS will be able to download the additional, exclusive video game campaign, Elemental: Destiny's Embers. The campaign will release in four stages, with the first component being released in September.
"Elemental has been a labor of love; a project we've wanted to do for many years at Stardock. Since we began development, our artists, developers, programmers and support staff have been incredible and I couldn't be prouder of what we've accomplished," said Wardell. "This project has defined our company as a seamless team of dedicated, creative professionals. Elemental is by far our finest project to date and one we've had an incredible amount of fun creating."
Interesting, buying the novel gives you a code for an extra campaign (apparently based on the book). Hmmm...
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Man i am sold. I'm buying this
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Wow (http://forums.elementalgame.com/390801)
No Copy Protection
Elemental, out of the box, like all of Stardock’s other games, has no copy protection whatsoever. However, you obviously need Internet access to get updates. But then, why should this be necessary?
Because Elemental, unlike our previous games, has really been designed to be a game that people can play for decades, this is something that has concerned us. Because we want to encourage people to have the latest version but at the same time, we are aware that some people are worried that 10 years from now, they won’t be able to get the “better” version.
So here is what we’re going to start doing on our developed titles: We’re going to start making archival DVD versions of the game that can be sent to customers. We already do this with Object Desktop (our most popular non-game product). This archival version would have no copy protection whatsoever. It would just be a DVD you can put into your machine.
So starting in October, what we will do is make archival DVD editions of our games starting with Galactic Civilizations II: Ultimate Edition and Elemental. Roughly every year or so, if there have been updates, we’ll create a new archival version of the game that people can have sent to them (it’ll just be a DVD).
I wonder how much those will cost. But thats pretty awesome to have fully updated archive versions mailed to you. Its fairly easy to offer since I can't imagine there would be tons of people clamoring for it since you can create your own backups if you can update the game yourself. But still its kind of a nice thing to offer.
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Yeah - you can always back-up/archive your entire game in its most patched-up state via Impulse.
But, these DVD archival back-up things they can mail to you - how much are they charging? Wait - are they even charging owners?
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I would imagine they would charge for it. But maybe just the cost of shipping? Which for Stardock seems to be $10. Don't know, they havent actually said.
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That's still pretty awesome. I do love this company.
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You know, when Stardock does awesome stuff like this - it's a damn shame Impulse ain't as popular as Steam.
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Elemental: War of Magic - "Launch" Trailer and "Intro" Video. (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/65150)
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Demo coming in Early September. (http://news.bigdownload.com/2010/08/20/elemental-demo-planned-for-early-september-release/)
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We are getting reports that the street date for Elemental has been broken. This is one of the downsides of being an indie, we lack sufficient retail clout to get retailers to take our street dates seriously apparently (same thing happened for Demigod).
As a result, we plan to make Elemental available to beta testers TOMORROW (Sunday) as well to pre-order customers ASAP (either tomorrow or first thing Monday).
However, because I have to re-task the IT team to do this, I'm going to have to have us delay the multiplayer server availability until later this week - Tuesday - the original release date - or Wednesday in all likelihood). It won't affect the single player, campaign, or modding.
Sucks that apparently retail is fucking up their plans AGAIN...but yay, get it early.
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Link to Frogboy's post on Broken Street date that Idol quoted and mentioned above. (http://forums.impulsedriven.com/391165/page/1/#replies)
Idol - you may edit your post and toss this link from Impulse's forums in there, if you like.
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Version 1.0 (aka retail box version) is now up on Impulse for people that preordered. The Elemental IRC channel went nuts.
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Wardell on Day 0 Release. (http://forums.elementalgame.com/391747)
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Wardell responds to some comments on Elemental's forums (http://forums.elementalgame.com/392474) about...
PCG's reaction to Elemental "being broken" (http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/08/25/elementals-disastrous-launch-stay-well-away/);
RockPaperShotgun's recent article (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/08/25/stardock-rescind-own-bill-of-rights/);
and also to some things he said on Quarter To Three Forums. (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showpost.php?p=2346986&postcount=2431)
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Tom Chick isn't happy about that whole mess. (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showpost.php?p=2350714&postcount=3035)
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Tom Chick isn't happy about that whole mess. (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showpost.php?p=2350714&postcount=3035)
Wow - what a shit-storm this is turning into! :o
Seriously, though - if the distributor presses the game into print and that's reported as "Gold" and what you get in the retail store, whatever's on disc is what can be reviewed. That's just my 2 cents.
If there's a newer patch out that they got their hands on - then it's up to the reviewer if they want to review that instead.
*shrug*
EDIT:
GiantBomb is picking up on the madness. (http://www.giantbomb.com/news/what-is-going-on-with-elemental-war-of-magic/2479/)
Looks like this whole ordeal w/ Elemental is gonna spread like wildfire.
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Mistakes or not, this can't bode well for future developers wanting to go with Stardock for publishing. I imagine Gabe Newell treated himself to an extra bucket of fried chicken tonight in celebration.
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Mistakes or not, this can't bode well for future developers wanting to go with Stardock for publishing.
That's two big games in a row published by Stardock w/ a rocky launch - Demigod and now this Elemental. :(
I imagine Gabe Newell treated himself to an extra bucket of fried chicken tonight in celebration.
ONLY one extra bucket? :o
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Yeah, it sucks for Stardock...and well, everyone. I guess for Stardock they better get this stuff patched up in time for releasing the demo. If they can do that it might save the day, otherwise this will be another game that gets trashed at launch and then fixed up well later on that few people pay attention to.
From what Im reading of peoples impressions, the game is good once you get past some of the bugs (which I think a lot of them are being blown way out of proportion). Reminds me of Borderlands PC: Good game if you get past some of the borked shit. And even Borderlands still has a lot of those things in place (like, oh, that fucking UI), where Im fairly certain Stardock will fix the issues in Elemental.
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----------- Elemental v1.06 Change Log ------------
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**********************
* Gameplay / Balance *
+ Cost of weapons increased in terms of gold and materials
+ Monster leveling tops out earlier so that there aren’t crazy powerful monsters late game
+ Training time increased for the more sophisticated weapons
+ AI will focus more on training soldiers rather than building up their cities if under threat
+ General AI improvements
+ AI smarter about training units in cities based on their current resource situation
+ AI more effective at determining who to go to war with
+ By default, the AI opponents added in the Choose Opponents window get difficulty set based on the World Difficulty
+ Campaign: Markinn now gives tactical HASTE spell instead of strategic SUMMON ROCK GIANT spell
+ Campaign: city leveup bonuses for TECH KNOWLEDGE and ARCANE KNOWLEDGE now suppressed in campaign
+ AI sov's are now using an HP adjustment multiplier based on AI difficulty settings
***********
* Battles *
+ Hooked up the projectile follow camera code to obey the Auto-Move Camera in Tactical option.
+ Adding message boxes to explain why spell casting fails.
+ Fix to repick targets in autoresolve when a counterattack kills the attacker.
+ Fix to make targeting picking more intelligent (to be sure it doesn't pick invalid targets).
+ Auto selection of the next unit in tactical battles should no longer occur if the game option for not auto selecting is turned on.
+ Tactical action cost modifiers for everything except for movement (which can have buffs) should now be 1.
+ The tactical action cost of special abilities is now 2.
+ All tactical actions use up to their cost, except for spells which require at least 2 action points.
+ When a tactical battle closes it now sets the cursor to be an arrow.
******
* UI *
+ Fixed Map Notifiers only placed for resources your faction can eventually tap (ex. won’t tell kingdoms about wargs)
+ Trade Equipment Wnd tweaks so that summoned creatures show up in the scene views better.
+ Hooked up new entries for the actions list, vitals list, and other basic image entries in main game wnd contexts to act more like buttons (highlight and have a click down state) to indicate that they are clickable
*************
* Bug Fixes *
+ Fixed the infamous "white screen" in tactical battles that occurred on a very specific hardware/driver/OS configuration.
+ Fixed a problem that would cause the particle effects to disappear after alt-tabbing out of the game when running in full-screen.
+ Fixed a DirectX warning in Tile Highlight Graphic
+ fixed uninitalized UNIT pointer in AIMessageBox (caused a debugger crash, probably fixes random crashes users have witnessed)
+ Fixed bug where linked pioneer improvements were getting the multiplier bonuses from their linked cities twice
+ Changed around the values grabbed for some resource breakdowns so that they match getting rid of this double bonus
+ You can no longer build pioneer improvements on resources outside of your ZOC, even if they are adjacent to a city, to prevent them from getting destroyed if they can't get absorbed in time
+ Adjacent pioneer improvements to cities now get absorbed into the city the very next turn, instead of 2 turns after they became adjacent
+ Fixed bug where custom empire factions designed in the faction designer wouldn't have a valid tech tree
+ Custom factions now get the appropriate wall set, and change their name to "Kingdom of" or "Empire of" appropriately
+ Fixed a bug in the faction designer that caused the race spinner to not match the actual race being displayed
+ Shortened the text in the caravan info cards to make it less likely that text entries will overflow to the next line down, and got rid of some old text that doesn't mean anything to how caravans work anymore, and got rid of some hardcoded strings, and moved the hardcoded quote to the different caravan/trader unit types
+ CMapGenerator no longer generates race starting position for tactical battles, since they aren’t used in that mode and were causing debug messages to flood output as the random land tile buffer isn’t getting filled after the first tactical battle map is created.
+ Campaign: Fixed oddity where reloading a save would reblock the pass between New pariden and Gilden.
NOTE: This version is not totally compatible with Saved games from previous versions. YMMV.
Its great that they are so keen on updating the game, and its apparently making big improvements in just a few short days. However, it seems like ideally they should have had a period during the beta test where the game is "final" and playable and have the testers play it for a week or two to catch all these rough spots. THEN go gold. I don't think the beta testers were ever allowed to do anything like that.
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Tom Chick reviews the game (http://fidgit.com/archives/2010/08/elemental_the_review.php).
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OFF-TOPIC:
From what Im reading of peoples impressions, the game is good once you get past some of the bugs (which I think a lot of them are being blown way out of proportion). Reminds me of Borderlands PC: Good game if you get past some of the borked shit. And even Borderlands still has a lot of those things in place (like, oh, that fucking UI), where Im fairly certain Stardock will fix the issues in Elemental.
Have their been any Borderlands UI mods for the PC version? It surely could use an update and some improvements. It's like one of the only weaknesses in the game.
ON-TOPIC:
Its great that they are so keen on updating the game, and its apparently making big improvements in just a few short days. However, it seems like ideally they should have had a period during the beta test where the game is "final" and playable and have the testers play it for a week or two to catch all these rough spots. THEN go gold. I don't think the beta testers were ever allowed to do anything like that.
Let's hope Stardock can keep patching the hell out of this one - since it sounds like it's much more stable than what it was out-the-box. Down the line, I'd like to give it a whirl.
Though, yeah - I still wonder why they shipped Beta 4 on disc, if they didn't want people playing it - especially since the game had NO DRM. We all know Day 0 Version was the first version they wanted in people's hands - so, why didn't Stardock wait and just press that version on disc?
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1UP review (http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3181116)
Linking this one because its funny. The reviewer is terrible.
The sheer variety of structures and units (including the ability to design completely new units with a construction interface) is awesome, but it sure would be nice to get an alert message when those structures (or units) are done being built so your cities aren't sitting idle until you happen to check on them.
In the last screenshot of the review you can see icons running down the right side. Those are the event alerts including, oh hey, when structures and units are done.
Combat, for example, can be either auto-resolved, or fought mano-a-mano via a tactical interface. But how to control units in that tactical interface is left completely up to you to figure out, as are things like what special abilities enemies may have, how to cast spells using your heroes, and even how to retreat. If you want to put in the trial-and-error effort to figure this all out, God bless ya, but I just auto-resolved every battle -- I've got enough things in my life to make sense of without having to try to learn to play Elemental.
Left click unit, right click to move. This was too hard for him to figure out. But "I've got enough things in my life to make sense of without having to try to learn to play Elemental"...aren't you a game reviewer? Isn't that your fucking job?
Well, the A.I. problems are fixed to some degree by the robust multiplayer (if you can find friends willing to slog through the ugliest visuals since finger-painting class)
The finger painting crack is just retarded, but this quote proves be basically didn't play the game. There was no multiplayer in the beta, and the multiplayer servers won't be online until next week. So...how the fuck can he make that statement?
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WTF @ 1up's review...
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A note from Brad (http://forums.elementalgame.com/394104)
Greetings!
I'm pretty far from a good net connection so I'll keep this brief
Let me say that I'm glad that most people seem to like the game. This message, however, is for those who are disappointed with Elemental so far.
Stardock is not just a game studio but it is also a publisher. What does this mean? Well, historically, the way it works is a game is released and if people don't like it, they're supposed to buy some expansion pack for it that "fixes" things that people thought should be in the original version.
We don't have to do that because we're both the studio and the publisher.
That means we can release free "expansion packs" for Elemental until such a high percentage of players love the game that only then can we discuss sequels or paid expansions.
Having had the opportunity to finally get out of the office for the first time in months has let me look at the game (and ahem, play the game for crazy amounts) of time from a new perspective.
I should also say that regardless of sales or reviews, our commitment to Elemental will not be affected. As some of you know, most of our company's revenue doesn't come from developing games. Even if the game didn't sell another copy, we would still continue our update schedule.
So what will be the concrete results of this?
1. In September we will release v1.1 which will be the first major revision to the game that takes into account the feedback we're getting from players. This will be a pretty substantial change. In particular, character creation, magic (think, shared mana pools),
2. We are going to go ahead and make a more traditional tutorial. I'm not a fan of tutorials but some of my grognard friends have had trouble figuring out the mechanics which means to me that we have to do something about that.
3. We are going to move Book 2: Magesa out of a future expansion pack and into the base game in a future "mega" update, likely late Fall.
4. As mentioned on the forums back in July-ish, we plan to make a new DVD gold master available to those with limited Internet connections later this Fall.
5. As discussed (I think) last Winter, I will be taking a sabbatical this Fall specifically so I can dedicate time to AI and modding so that others, long after me, can use the Elemental engine to create other things (you will need to know Python to really go crazy with it).
6. I will NOT be ceasing my postings on other forums. The guys on Qt3 and Octopus Overlords and elsewhere are my friends. I'm no more going to stop posting there then I would stop going out with my friends to movies and other "public places" where, heaven forbid, someone datamining my comments might find a "gotcha moment". Those people are my friends both on the forums and outside the forums. Interacting with you guys is a major reason I like making games in the first place.
7. To those reviewing the game: I would urge you to review the game prior to v1.1. I say this because v1.05 (the release day version) is the version of the game that was originally released and if that version of the game is considered flawed then my view is that Stardock should suffer the consequences for that. We appreciate the kindness and patience many people have shown. I just think game studios, including Stardock, need to be conscious of what they release and not expect to "patch themselves out of trouble". I do believe Elemental is, by far, the best game we've ever made but I also agree with most of the criticisms I've read too. The state of PC entertainment has changed since 2006 (when we released GalCiv II) and it is our responsibility to stay with the times.
In short, we love this game. And we love this community. We're not going to be leaving this game to work on some other game. We're with it and you guys for the long haul.
I won't be around to answer questions until next week so I hope this answers some questions.
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Good note. As much crap as seems to be surrounding this one, I'm still really looking forward to playing it. I did have fun with my limited time in the beta, and I know for a fact things have improved quite a lot beyond what I played. So whatever the problems, I have no doubt there's a solid game there.
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Looks like the reviewer at Neoseeker (http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Games/Reviews/elemental_war_of_magic/) liked it quite a bit.
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G4TV -> 2 stars (out of 5). (http://g4tv.com/games/pc/63836/elemental-war-of-magic/review/)
IGN -> Why they have not reviewed Elemental yet. (http://pc.ign.com/articles/111/1117649p1.html)
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You know, its kind of weird how several sites have decided to hold off on reviewing the game until its patched up. Most other games they would just throw up a review of "This shits broke. Final score: 1/10" and be done with it. Does stardock have that much good will saved up with these places? Is it partly because its not one of the big genres that everyone is going after (Turn based strategy games aren't going to be flying off shelves, except Civ) so there is no rush?
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You know, its kind of weird how several sites have decided to hold off on reviewing the game until its patched up. Most other games they would just throw up a review of "This shits broke. Final score: 1/10" and be done with it. Does stardock have that much good will saved up with these places? Is it partly because its not one of the big genres that everyone is going after (Turn based strategy games aren't going to be flying off shelves, except Civ) so there is no rush?
I don't know what it is, Idol. But in the past, yeah - most reviewers would go ahead and review whatever version is out there and NOT hold off.
Maybe they feel sorry for Stardock b/c this is two games in a row they published that should've been in a better state out the box? (Demigod and now Elemental).
I think some reviews ain't up b/c the MP isn't up yet, too...
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PC Gamer -> 70%. (http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/02/elemental-war-of-magic-review/)
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I can't tell if this is worrying or encouraging... (http://forums.elementalgame.com/394855/page/2/#2753014)
(I'm up north on vacation typing on an extremely slow connection so bear with me)
I don't think people yet fully realize the completeness of Stardock's fail on Elementa's launch.
I'm going to write more about this but not only did we think v1.05 was ready for everyone but we felt v1.0 was too. That's the level of disconnect/poor judgment on our part we're talking about.
If the game had come out in February, it would still have been a disastrous launch because lack of time wasn't the issue. It was blindness, sheer blindness. We felt the game was finished. And I speak of v1.0, not v1.05. Blindness.
There will be massive consequences for Stardock's game studio. I'll be talking more about this when I get back. But the game wasn't released early. The game was released poorly. Head in the sand syndrome imo. I've read the reviews as much as possible given my hideous internet access up here and I agree with them. We just didn't see what they were talking about. We thought any complaints would be about polish points or something.
The point is, the issue here is far far worse than many of you think it is. I wish it was an issue of the game being released too early. That's an easy thing for a company to "fix". Elemental's launch is the result of catastrophic poor judgment on my part.
EVERY competent software developer knows that the programmer must never be the one deciding whether the program is done. Yet, my love of Elemental broke my self discipline and I began coding on the game itself in vast amounts and lost any sense of objectivity on where the game's state was. I normally only program the AI on our games so I can keep a level of distance from the game itself to determine whether it's "Ready". On Elemental, I was in love with the world and the game and lost my impartiality.
We'll do better.
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Holy crap at that post, Idol.
I don't know what to make of that, either...
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Wait, theres more! (http://forums.elementalgame.com/394855/page/4/#2753375)
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Stardock will be working on Elemental for years to come. Literally. Let me be specific: Stardock will NOT release a new game next year. It'll all be Elemental related. Releasing it in August wasn't a financial decision. Hell, Stardock's games aren't funded by PC game revenue. I wanted you guys to get the game ASAP.
Does he mean a patches for Elemental? Expansion packs/DLC's? Or both?
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Patches. There is no way they will try release expansions until the base game is solid.
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Patches. There is no way they will try release expansions until the base game is solid.
Since Stardock does plan to sent updated disc-version to owners - we don't know if it'll cost money and if it does, how much - I wonder if they'll also re-release the game in a more patched-up state sometime down the line, on disc.
Hell, many companies are re-releasing games later on disc w/ Gold Editions, GOTY Editions, Ultimate Edition, etc etc - why not have Elemental do the same?
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They probably will do that once everything is worked out.
More Brad (http://forums.elementalgame.com/394855/page/5/#2753548)
I don't think Elemental's shortcomings can be fixed with tweaks or small patches. I think there are core game mechanics and AI that will have to be revisited. I think there are things that would normally be reserved for sequels that will have to be put in.
Yikes.
Further down that thread:
I think, for starters, the first expansion pack for Elemental - Book 2, will have to be given away for free to the people who already bought the game.
In my mind, that's a START. So, anyone who sticks with is going to get at least one free expansion pack out of it. And it won't be some piddly "look, it's a new campaign". Think Dark Avatar level expansion.
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Sounds like giving away an Expansion Pack is a nice way to thank early adopters of Elemental for buying Beta-in-a-box.
But, knowing there is a Book 2 expansion coming, I can only wonder when next year the inevitable Elemental: Gold Edition is coming. :P
Good luck to Stardock w/ trying to fix this game AND expand on it already...
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Brads back from vacation (http://forums.elementalgame.com/395131)
Heads rolling at Stardock? (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/65443)
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Layoffs are the real deal. (http://forums.elementalgame.com/395168/page/1/#2755755)
Wow, this has turned out horribly.
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Layoffs are the real deal. (http://forums.elementalgame.com/395168/page/1/#2755755)
Wow, this has turned out horribly.
Oh, that majorly sucks. :(
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In that same thread.
Elemental's success doesn't impact whether Stardock will be doing new games or expansions to Elemental. It does, however, impact whether Stardock can afford to have a second games team. Our objective was to be able to develop two games at once. That goal will have to be postponed.
So it sounds like the people they brought in to start a second game development team are being let go. That sucks, but at least the sky isn't falling.
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GameSpot -> 4.0 score (out of 10). (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/elementalwarofmagic/review.html)
Kevin Van Ord is reviewing and blasts the game.
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Big post from Brad (http://forums.elementalgame.com/395485)
Q: What is Stardock’s plan for Elemental going forward?
A: For the immediate future we’re going to go down two paths. First, the v1.0x versions will continue to focus largely on compatibility (crashing or weird video issues) as well as bugs and turning on multiplayer.
Then, we will work on v1.1 which will serve as our answer to player feedback. Enhanced AI, improved UI, a tutorial, updated quest system, new magic system, numerous other tweaks. This version will serve as the basis to make a demo version of the game.
Beyond that, we will be looking at player feedback. That will work towards v1.2 (October) and v1.3 (November). Once we are satisfied that the game has met reasonable expectations, we can then focus on the first expansion pack: Elemental: War of Magic – Book 2, Cerena.
Unlike Book 1, which is fairly short because it’s only meant as a kind of introduction (the game is mean to be played in sandbox mode. GalCiv and Sins of a Solar Empire didn’t even include campaigns, we are generally not very pro-campaign-y people as you can gather, campaigns have limited replayability).
Book 2, Cerena is the excuse to introduce more far reaching game mechanic changes and begin to add in the multiplayer modes we have long been thinking of (from custom servers that yes, will work on your LAN that has no Internet connection) to tactical-only modes.
That first expansion pack will be free to everyone who owns the game at the point of v1.3.
Q: I heard Stardock is laying off people, I thought your non-games revenue funded the games team.
A: It does. It funds ONE games team. But Stardock has been hiring up across the board to build a second studio. Only Elemental can fund that. “Stardock” is made up of 3 groups: Enterprise software (our #1 revenue source), Consumer software (Object Desktop, Fences, etc.) and Consumer Entertainment (the games). That’s not counting Impulse which is a separate, profitable entity that doesn’t get affected one way or the other by the success of the games or the enterprise software.
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This should be interesting to listen to: Brad Wardell on the Three Moves Ahead podcast (http://threemovesahead.libsyn.com/episode_81_elemental_post_mortem_with_brad_wardell).
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IGN -> 6.0 score (out of 10). (http://pc.ign.com/articles/111/1117649p1.html)
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More stuff (http://forums.elementalgame.com/396905)
Just posting this for the people that might have already bought the game and didnt install/register it yet. You will want to do that before Sept 30th.
What I'd like to see happen is for Elemental: War of Magic to continue to be refined with its existing game mechanics largely intact other than the change to the mana system and UI update scheduled for v1.1.
Beyond that, the evolution of the Elemental TBS would be delivered via expansions, sequels, etc. like every other traditional game. This way, we can introduce pretty substantial gameplay changes without people feeling like the War of Magic version is some sort of test tube of game design experimentation.
For brevity, call these A, B, C where A is Elemental: War of Magic and B and C are some sort of future expansions. B would be free to everyone and C would be free to those who own the game by September 30th.
Free expansions! And hes comparing them to the GalCiv expansions so they will probably be rather...big.
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Wow, this is kind of a big deal.
Stardock Taps Fall from Heaven Creator to Lead Game Development Efforts (http://www.stardock.com/about/newsitem.asp?id=2056)
Fall From Heaven 2 is probably the most popular mod for Civ 4, and it turned it into a fantasy game. Seems like a perfect fit to help fix Elemental.
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Best wishes to Stardock Corp and their new employee to fix the living Hell out of this game. I really hope they call pull this one off.
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Elemental Forums -> Frogboy's new post. (http://forums.elementalgame.com/399482)
New Interface - pic:
(http://draginol.stardock.net/images/Onward_CB90/image.png)
You know how it goes.
Game company releases game. They put out a series of bug fix patches for a bit and then they move on until it’s time to get you to buy an expansion pack or two until it’s time to do a sequel. If the initial game gets panned or negative reviews, it’s typically abandoned.
And people wonder why gamers have gotten so cynical.
As people in our community know, that’s not how we do things here.
Those of you who hang out here have seen us discussing the upcoming version 1.1 of Elemental: War of Magic. This is a partial screenshot (right side of my screen) of some of the UI updates we’re doing.
For those of you who want to try v1.1 in beta, we plan to put out the first beta in about a week.
Until the end of THIS MONTH (October 31), anyone who purchase Elemental: War of Magic, will get the first two expansions for the game for free (as well as our normal long-term support for the game itself).
The purpose of this entry is to provide space for people who have questions on what we’re doing now versus in future updates.
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1.1 open beta starts next Thursday (11/18/2010) (http://forums.stardock.com/400142/)
The post talks about some of the changes they've made. Sounds good.
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Version 1.1 is supposed to release tonight! (http://forums.elementalgame.com/402305) Click the link for the massive change log.
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From Shacknews...
Stardock hires Civ 5 lead designer Jon Shafer to work on Elemental
AND also Fantasy-author Dave Stern to work on Elemental's "Lore". (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/67016)
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BigDownload.com -> Interview w/ Brad Wardell on Elemental. (http://news.bigdownload.com/2011/01/07/interview-stardocks-ceo-talks-about-elemental-and-other-topics/)
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Fallen Enchantress (http://forums.elementalgame.com/403846), the first Elemental expansion.
In Fallen Enchantress players will be able to explore the world of Elemental and discover a wide range of unique locations, including dangerous wild lands that can’t be settled until they are conquered. There are areas like the Bhinadmi Fissure, a massive chasm that spawns demons and earth elementals, until a player goes to the edge and challenges the elemental lord that dwells within. These undiscovered lands contain new characters and creatures: from the tragic Butchermen who wander the lands around Red Springs trying to pass their curse off to another victim, to Morian the Ruin of Summer, who was once a powerful nature elemental who has been driven mad by the Cataclysm and the destruction of his forests.
Derek Paxton, lead producer for Fallen Enchantress, said, “In Fallen Enchantress we wanted to focus on exploring the world outside your kingdom’s borders. The world isn’t empty and waiting to be settled, it is dangerous and needs to be conquered. There are unique locations with their own history and guardians; monsters settled in their lairs and vast wild land areas that offer their own challenges and rewards. There will be areas the player would do well to avoid for most of the game until he builds an army that is able to conquer them.”
“Fallen Enchantress brings the world of Elemental alive. Don’t expect many of your scouts to return, but those that are daring, lucky or strong enough to survive will be rewarded for their journey,” concluded Paxton.
Sounds good. Lets hope they pull it off. And hey, I get it for free either way!
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That should be the box-art. Looks epic.
(http://draginol.stardock.net/images/islanddog/80cb14830396_F413/Ceresa.jpg)
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I guess I missed this part the first go around, or they updated that post.
Elemental: Fallen Enchantress will be released as a stand-alone game but will be free to all players who purchased Elemental: War of Magic in 2010 and will be heavily discounted for anyone who purchases Elemental: War of Magic prior to Fallen Enchantress’s anticipated Summer 2011 release.
Making is stand-alone is a smart move. It'll basically give them a chance to "relaunch" Elemental with all the updates.
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Wardell expands on that (http://forums.elementalgame.com/403882)
There is also another advantage to Fallen Enchantress being its own game rather than an “expansion pack”. And that is, it frees the team to make radical changes to the basics of the game while allowing War of Magic to still be updated on its own source tree. A user of Fallen Enchantress won’t have to have War of Magic to play it and can treat War of Magic as a separate game.
This will be the same case for the third entry in the Elemental world which won’t be out for a long time still (but will be free for people who got War of Magic before the end of October 2010). It’ll be its own game as well not requiring War of Magic and Fallen Enchantress but be available at a sharp discount to those who have the previous entries in the game world.
A few years ago, this wouldn’t be possible. Retailers would have refused to carry just stand-alone expansion. There were exceptions and the Company of Heroes series did a lot of good for our industry by paving the way here. Supreme Commander’s “stand alone” expansion helps as well.
Of course, no one has brought more attention to the changing digital model of PC games more than Blizzard with its recent release of Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty which will have two additional stand-alone games in the Starcraft 2 universe.
Will this be a good thing for PC gamers? I think it depends on how it’s handled. Personally, I’d like to see people get discounts if they have other chapters in the series. That’s going to be our model for the foreseeable future but part of that is because we have our own digital distribution platform (Impulse).
Not a bad plan. Each "expansion" is stand alone, owning any previous one gives you a discount (or if you're an early adopter of Elemental like me you get the next 2 expansions free. Hooray!)
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So I'm finally giving this game a shot, and I'm absolutely loving it. I didn't love it in beta so much, but this is a much better game than that was, and I think a lot of the updates have helped. I feel like it's polished, fun, and obscenely addictive. It's got not only the addictiveness of a Civ-style empire builder, but also a little bit of the addictiveness of a character-building RPG. The RPG elements are fairly light, but there is a better sense of identity and character because of your bigger hero units, and it's cool that you can literally go to shops and buy equipment for them and have it make a major difference in battle. I also really dig the way you can build your own forces. Instead of just picking from stock guys, you get to make them yourself, right down to their equipment. But it isn't obtuse or hard to understand. You can simply outfit guys with the gear you think you can afford to give them, and if you notice that the unit is becoming far too expensive to build, dumb it down. And if you have new, better stuff and a big money/material surplus, go template yourself some bigger, badder dudes.
I wish I hadn't installed this game simply because now I'm playing it way too much.
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So this weekend Elemental is half off on Impulse, so $20. Whether you think its worth that is up to you.
But Im really posing because this Dev Diary (http://forums.elementalgame.com/407109) for Fallen Enchantress sounds awesome. Its just on the weapons that you can equip your troops with, but the way they interact with various stats and stuff sounds really interesting.
Normally I wouldnt hype myself up after the original Elemental, but they have Derek Paxton (Fall From Heaven) working on it....plus I'm getting it for free.
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I really don't see why Elemental was so bashed. I didn't play it pre-patching, which I suppose is obviously why, but as far as it is now, it's a solid, addictive, and entirely enjoyable game. I enjoyed all the time I spent with it and was glad I preordered the CE. Looking forward to FE.
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Well when you release a game that's broken, and you tell everyone that it's not and on top of that tell those people who say it is broken that their business isn't welcome anymore... yea people tend to get upset.
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That whole "not welcome anymore" thing was totally blown out of proportion.
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He actually said that those people should not buy their games.
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That thread was a mess with lots of personal attacks. We've all said stupid shit online in the heat of the moment, its just Brad owns a company at it got cherry picked out of that thread.
Anyway, whatever. Looking forward to Fallen Enchantress.