Elemental: War of Magic

[Dragor]

So, the game got released yesterday. It'd completely slipped under my radar, but some comments reminded me of its release.

For those not in the know, it's a strategy game by Stardock (of Galactic Civilisation and Sins of a Solar Empire fame) which encompasses influences from D&D, Might and Magic and Civ. If you're familiar with the Fall from Heaven mod for Civ 4, I felt a lot of the influences when I looked at the game again.

Here's the site. (http://elementalgame.com/)

Anybody else been following this?

(Oh, if you can, watch the videos. (http://www.screencast.com/users/draginol/folders/Default/media/f0f0207e-c9bf-4464-82a1-20ef87d179c2))

[Destro_Yersul]

I've been keeping my eye on this one for a while. Going to buy it today.

[Dragor]

I've been keeping my eye on this one for a while. Going to buy it today.

Sadly, I'm lacking in money, so I exert my jealousy in your direction, sir.

[Jahkaivah]

I've been keeping my eye on this one for a while. Going to buy it today.

You might want to take a look at this first. (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/08/25/stardock-rescind-own-bill-of-rights/#more-36993)

[Destro_Yersul]

Ouch. Still, looks like they're working to fix it. I'll buy it next paycheck. Ought to be good by then.

I like Stardock. I really do. Their games are good, generally speaking. I can't decide what to think about some of the things people are saying. Ah well. From what I've read about this game, it sounds really interesting. And that's the only thing I really care about. I don't give a crap about graphics or UI design. Hell, I play Dwarf Fortress. I challenge anyone to find a game with worse graphics and a more arcane UI than that.

And if I don't like it, It's not like it costs all that much money.

[warty goblin]

Ordered the Limited Edition through Amazon, should get here Saturday or so. I'm fairly jazzed.

Honestly I'm really not sure what all the fuss people are making is about. Oh I understand the reasons, but I cannot grasp why it's that big a deal. Stardock's games have always been a bit bad at release, it just goes with the territory and I don't think this is exactly insider knowledge anymore. Their in-house jobbers also tend towards some unique UI decisions and general opacity, it's part of the price of admission.

The thing is that their post-launch support is really, really good. GalCiv 2 is a completely different game now than the thing that I got in a box ages ago, Sins - even though only published by Stardock - started out fairly rough but acquired polish and depth in vast amounts reasonably quickly, and that's without the expansions. I expect Elemental to be no different, and a lot of the enjoyment I get out of a Stardock game is watching how it evolves after release.

And really, getting into a furor because the game is in bad shape before you apply the day - zero patch is pretty weird.

[Ranielle]

You might want to take a look at this first. (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/08/25/stardock-rescind-own-bill-of-rights/#more-36993)


Actually, http://forums.elementalgame.com/392474

The problem with the release was the fact that some retailers released the game early for weekend sales, and Stardock acted on this to release the game to preorderers and beta testers.

It has always been said that the day0 patch would complete the game, simply because the game had to be burned to discs and shipped to the retailers to catch the release window. The merits of this line of thought is questionable, but everyone who followed the game should've known about this. Since, you know, they posted that a lot of times on the forums over the last 6 months.

Playing the game with the day0 patch right now, and it's complete. I'm pretty sure there will be tweaks here and there, but Stardock has always patched their games fast and took care of the issues. Unlike some other more known ( and rich ) developers.

And the game, well; it plays something like a cross between Civ IV and GalCiv. I've been disappointed with some aspects, most of them being personal taste, but since you can pretty much mod "anything" in the game, in a few months we will have something for everybody. Just proves how much moddability adds the the value of games, I guess.

[Triaxx]

Does Sins really get good? I attempted two games then uninstalled it in disappointment. One bad RNG is acceptable. Two games with pirates two systems away and no way to defeat randoms to capture planets to survive is not a fun game.

[warty goblin]

Does Sins really get good? I attempted two games then uninstalled it in disappointment. One bad RNG is acceptable. Two games with pirates two systems away and no way to defeat randoms to capture planets to survive is not a fun game.

That seems a bit fast on the despair there man. With that rejection rate is there any randomized grand strategy games you like?

I also don't understand how could you be without ways to defeat the neutrals? It's hardly difficult if you put any effort into it - I find that a single capital ship (the free one you get at the beginning assuming you don't pick one of the really weak support ships) with a couple light frigates for support is easily sufficient to knock out all but the best defended terran and desert worlds.

And pirates two systems away is an advantage. Means you know which direction they'll attack from, so you can park your capital ships there and reap the experience.

[Om]

It has always been said that the day0 patch would complete the game, simply because the game had to be burned to discs and shipped to the retailers to catch the release window. The merits of this line of thought is questionable....Questionable to say the least. I don't care how good the release patch is, actually shipping a beta in the box and then trying to finish the game in the next six weeks is just not cool

It would also explain the numerous reports of a very shoddy product even after this 'day 0' patch


...everyone who followed the game should've known about this. Since, you know, they posted that a lot of times on the forums over the last 6 months.I followed it and I wasn't aware of it. Largely because not everyone who 'follows' a game regularly visits the forums or avidly reads every last developer post. No, I just kept an eye on it, dropping in from time to time, and generally expecting that the final release would be release worthy. I'd imagine that the vast majority of people who do buy the game will be of a similar mindset, if not even more detached. Thank God I didn't pre-order

[J.Gellert]

Day 0 patches annoy me. Bugs and technical problems have destroyed (in reviews and sales) many of the greatest games I'ver ever played*. Why the rush? Delay the game 1 or 2 months and fix it! That way you can ever consider an expansion pack or a sequel - more money to you, more happy people who play great games.

*VtM - Bloodlines, The Witcher (almost! thank God for enhanced edition), NwN2, Alpha Protocol, to name a few.

[Om]

Day 0 patches annoy me. Bugs and technical problems have destroyed (in reviews and sales) many of the greatest games I'ver ever played*. Why the rush? Delay the game 1 or 2 months and fix it! That way you can ever consider an expansion pack or a sequel - more money to you, more happy people who play great gamesI've not got a problem with Day 0 patches per se as its only natural that the team continue to work on the game in the intervening period between it going gold (ie, becoming release worthy) and actually shipping. Most of the time this is just a matter of hunting down the odd bug or applying a final layer of polish

The problems occur when the developer, as with Stardock, decides to release an unfinished game and then tries desperately to finish it before the customer gets their hands on it. That's just not on in my opinion

What's interesting in this case is that the usual excuse for shipping early - ie, evil publishers - doesn't apply as Stardock are an independent publisher. So I'd imagine that there were either cash flow problems that forced a premature release (the downside to being independent) or simply a desperate urge to avoid going head-to-head with Civ V. Either way, the whole affair has dented Stardock's previously glowing reputation

[Driderman]

I was rather interested in this game.
Now, having installed it, it mostly seems like some sort of poorly written browser-based game. And not one of the good ones, either.

I really hope my initial impression is wrong, but since the game also keeps crashing on me, I have a hard time getting past the start of the campaign.

[J.Gellert]

I've not got a problem with Day 0 patches per se as its only natural that the team continue to work on the game in the intervening period between it going gold (ie, becoming release worthy) and actually shipping. Most of the time this is just a matter of hunting down the odd bug or applying a final layer of polish

Well, there's patches, and then there's patches... Obviously, I enjoy the continued support. But even if I get no patch at all, ever, I won't mind, as long as the game I am paying for is complete at release. It's the pricinple of the Day 0 patch that I oppose.

And again, not so much for me... I will download any day 0 patch. But for the press. I hate to see promising titles (and companies!) going under because of a messed-up launch.

Of course, having never played any of Stardock's games, I don't think I will be crying myself to sleep if this one goes badly :smalltongue:

[Ranielle]

Actually most of the indie games have interface problems at launch. They make up with awesome fast speeds of patching and dev support.

[Ethdred]

I think part of the problem is that Stardock promised so much more - their Gamers' Bill of Rights even says that games should not be released if they are incomplete. If it needs a Day 0 patch then to my mind (and I suspect the minds of the people who are complaining) it's not complete. You are assuming that everyone knows about such things, which isn't true - not everyone who games is a regular in gaming communities. Heck, if I had a job that kept mne busier, I probably wouldn't be :)

I was quite excited by the cconcept of this game, but looks like it's another one where I'll wait for a few months before picking it up cheap and/or expanded.

[The Valiant Turtle]

Day 0 patches annoy me. Bugs and technical problems have destroyed (in reviews and sales) many of the greatest games I'ver ever played*. Why the rush? Delay the game 1 or 2 months and fix it! That way you can ever consider an expansion pack or a sequel - more money to you, more happy people who play great games.

They posted an interesting bit on the forums about how game releases work. (I was in the beta - started a thread here a few months ago but nobody noticed). If you are doing any kind of retail release you have to reserve your shelf space months in advance. If they hadn't released this month it would have had to wait until February as that was the next shelf space availability.

I do somewhat wish they had polished it off a bit more before release, but easy and frequent updates are one of the biggest bonuses of having a strong PC-only digital distribution platform. They actually considered themselves easily ahead of schedule for the most part.

It's also very clear that they consider Elemental to be a platform as much as it is a game. Brad Wardell (the CEO) is taking a sabbatical for 2 months or so starting in October just to build his own personal mod for Elemental (and for Civ V apparently). They have features in the pipeline that are going to be just for modder use (example: supporting multiple maps or sub-maps to enable a MoM style Myrror Plane, and underground or exploring a dungeon) and supplied plenty of art resources just for modders as well, which I think they plan on continuing to do.

I got sucked into League of Legends last week so I've only barely touched Elemental even though I've been beta-testing it for nearly a year now. I'll start diving in soon.

EDIT: Just saw this:

What's interesting in this case is that the usual excuse for shipping early - ie, evil publishers - doesn't apply as Stardock are an independent publisher. So I'd imagine that there were either cash flow problems that forced a premature release (the downside to being independent) or simply a desperate urge to avoid going head-to-head with Civ V. Either way, the whole affair has dented Stardock's previously glowing reputation
Oddly enough Stardock's main revenue source has never been games but their windows utilities, mostly being licensed to other developers. From everything on the boards they didn't really consider this to be rushed, just something that they are going to continue to build on for quite some time (I believe they have already budgeted the team for 18 months of continuing development). They sent the "gold copy" for printing 2/3 weeks ago and just kept on trucking and don't plan on stopping for quite a while.

[Ranielle]

Heck, if I had a job that kept mne busier, I probably wouldn't be :)


I do agree with the rest of your post, and especially the waiting for a few months part but having a busy schedule isn't a really good excuse. Anyone who considers his opinion important and educated enough to post in a public forum should be knowledgeable in the subject. If you don't know about it, don't post about it.

Disclaimer: This is not about Elemental or aimed at any particular person. The GitP community is one of the better parts of fabled internets. Venting some frustration over a few disagreements at the university forum, mostly. But it, still, in my view a good rule of thumb.

[Triaxx]

Sure, I like Alpha Centauri, and Gal Civ 2, and Supreme Commander. (Randomized starting positions, not random race.)

What free capital ship? I got plunked down, given some resources and had to build a bunch of little ships in a vain attempt to survive.

And then the pirates arrive with 12 ships.

I guess I'll have to go patch hunting and try it again.

[Ethdred]

I do agree with the rest of your post, and especially the waiting for a few months part but having a busy schedule isn't a really good excuse. Anyone who considers his opinion important and educated enough to post in a public forum should be knowledgeable in the subject. If you don't know about it, don't post about it.

Disclaimer: This is not about Elemental or aimed at any particular person. The GitP community is one of the better parts of fabled internets. Venting some frustration over a few disagreements at the university forum, mostly. But it, still, in my view a good rule of thumb.

My point was actually that some people buy games but don't frequent the forums. I do try to only post informed opinion, and I always make sure I have read the post I'm responding to :)

[warty goblin]

Sure, I like Alpha Centauri, and Gal Civ 2, and Supreme Commander. (Randomized starting positions, not random race.)

What free capital ship? I got plunked down, given some resources and had to build a bunch of little ships in a vain attempt to survive.

And then the pirates arrive with 12 ships.

I guess I'll have to go patch hunting and try it again.

The first capital ship you build each game is free, excepting the cost of building the factory. The capital ship factory is always one of the first two buildings I construct every game, the other being the homeworld's crystal extractor. Generally I found the battleship, dreadnought or colonizer to be the best choices.

Also you can buy off the pirates. They're on a timer, when it hits zero they launch a raid against whomever has the most bounty at that particular time. If it's not you, you've got nothing to worry about - although occasionally later in the game they'll end up taking a route through your territory to their target, which can be annoying. In the early versions of the game you could add bounty through the pirates tab of the black market screen, later versions added a sub-window in the top right that allowed you to add bounty to the faction with the current highest price on their head.

[Ellye]

Sins of a Solar Empire is one of my favorite games ever, and I really like X4 Strategy and Grand Strategy, so I'll definitely take a look at this one (I've been waiting for its release).
Unfortunately, I'm not really in the mood for Fantasy right now, but oh well.


By the way, from what I saw of the game, there's one thing I absolutely loved: the look of the maps when zoomed out.

[Ranielle]

By the way, from what I saw of the game, there's one thing I absolutely loved: the look of the maps when zoomed out.

Actually you can disable the fancy graphics altogether and play on cloth map.
Well, as for the purchase, you might want to wait a month or two anyway. Just so they can release more patches, and more mods surface. You'll like it more, then.

[Om]

From everything on the boards they didn't really consider this to be rushed, just something that they are going to continue to build on for quite some time (I believe they have already budgeted the team for 18 months of continuing development). They sent the "gold copy" for printing 2/3 weeks ago and just kept on trucking and don't plan on stopping for quite a while.There's two points here. The first is that the version that they did ship was, by all accounts, entirely unplayable out of the box. I've seen posts on the Stardock forums (though obviously you'd know better than me here) saying that they effectively shipped the beta. I don't consider this to be acceptable in any way; even if they spend the next ten years working on the game. People paid money for that game this week and it should have been playable out of the box. This is a minimum requirement and that it was not met (instead relying on the 'Day 0' patch) strongly suggests that, whatever Stardock think, the game was rushed. (That is was a shelf space issue is interesting though)

Secondly, I don't like the 'platform' argument. Having games highly moddable is a good thing but it does breed the attitude (and I see this plenty over at Paradox) that any rough edges can be smoothed over with either post-release patches or fan mods. I like to have both of those but when I pay for a game I also like to have it fully functional and polished at the time of purchase. I want to play a game, not a 'platform' that might someday become a game. So I will (probably) eventually buy Elemental but not until its received at least half a dozen patches and an expansion or two. That is, until its become more than a 'platform'

All this is something that's really disappointed me about Stardock. Brad's 'don't buy our games' quote has gotten a lot of press but I consider this one (http://forums.elementalgame.com/391747) to be worse. It was "a blessing in disguise" that people got to play the bug-ridden pre-'Day 0' game? Really? It was good that people shelled out cash to buy a supposedly 'release worthy' game that continually crashed? People rightly rage on the likes of Creative Assembly (and everyone but Blizzard really) for releasing shoddy products that take weeks or months to become playable. Yet even CA wouldn't say that they were "definitely glad" that people were trying to play unplayable games. I expected Stardock to be better but in a way they're actually worse

[Ranielle]

What amazes me is people in these kind of positions making simple mistakes like this. If they went for a February release, it would be much better. Watching the beta, many people already sort of felt that the game would release in a rushed state.

Elemental itself is, patched twice after release, by no means a bad game. It is just sad that it isn't the instant classic it could be. The fan disappointment comes from the fact that much were promised, but most of those promises are postponed to after release patches.In a few months it'll be a very good game, but that won't fix the reputation hit Stardock has recieved.

[Ellye]

Actually you can disable the fancy graphics altogether and play on cloth map.Oh, that's good to know. I'll definitely play it in Cloth Map mode, then. I honestly found it much more attractive than the normal graphics.

[Ranielle]

Oh, that's good to know. I'll definitely play it in Cloth Map mode, then. I honestly found it much more attractive than the normal graphics.

That's what I do as well, it feels much more immersive when it's your imagination that's doing the drawing.

[warty goblin]

Got here a day earlier than I was expecting. Am updating now, while oggling over Limited Edition goodies - the extra $20 was totally worth it, the cloth map is gorgeous, the poster is nice, the dragon mini is, well, an unpainted dragon mini, but the limited edition guidebook thing is really nicely put together. Best game edition since Witcher Enhanced, hands down.

Impressions of actual game to follow.

[warty goblin]

OK, actual gameplay impressions. I'm on chapter III of the campaign. I had a few CTDs, but updating my graphics drivers seems to have fixed that, and otherwise the game's run just fine.

1) The campaign is, so far, really, really boring. The gameplay is dull, and the story reads like really bad Tolkien fan fiction by way of far too much D&D. It's also often a bit hard to figure out what to do next since a lot of it is written in such a way I'm not sure whether it's telling me what the characters are doing, or what I need to make them do. However I can't imagine anybody with a brain buying this thing for the campaign so I don't consider this a big deal.

2) However a brain-possessing person might dabble in the campaign in order to pick up the basics of the game - as I'm doing. Here also the game fails to excel. It does a decent - but no more than that - job of telling you what buttons to press to build what, but makes seemingly no effort to actually tell the player what any of these concepts mean. Tactical combat for example is not explained at all, while such things as unit building aren't talked about any more, and even things such as equipping your hero are only covered in the 'click this tab, make sure it's done' sense. In fact short of building a city and buying equipment, I'm not sure the game's explained a single thing to me very well.

4) However the interface is actually pretty strong. It's not something that a player new to the genre could grasp quickly, but even with virtually no instruction I've had no trouble doing what I want to do. I've only played a few hours, so there are plenty of things I haven't tried yet, and I've not really hit any of the actual strategy yet, but I'm more worried about understanding the game than issuing orders.

5) And honestly, except for the horrid tutorial, what I've seen so far is very strong. City building feels distinct from, say, Civ, and so far seems like it would lead to much more diversified cities. I've only unlocked a very few parts, but unit design looks to have some real depth to it as well, with a real need to balance expense versus effectiveness. In a really nice touch, you can choose to recruit individual soldiers, or units of multiple men. Since the strength of a formation seems to be equal to the sum of the strengths of it's constituent soldiers this should make cheaper units viable longer.

6) I generally like the look of the game. The somewhat watercolor-esque art style and muted, earthy color palate do create a unique feel, much different than any other fantasy TBS I've played. Zooming all the way in and watching little people working in my city is fun, and makes the map look a bit more alive than most games this large, and designing the unit cards for custom units is positively addicting. There's some stuff that's definitely ugly; animation transitions in tactical battles, some of the unit faces and so on, but in general the game's easy on the eyes. Sound isn't great and is really pretty limited, but the soundtrack itself is quite nice and generally seems to fit the game nicely.

Overall I'd say the learning curve is going to be a bit brutal, but I'm looking forwards to starting a skirmish game tomorrow and really going to town on this thing.

[Vitruviansquid]

I'm going to go ahead and ask the question everyone is thinking (right? =X).

How much like Master of Magic is this game? Are you guys getting the same "vibes" from it?

[warty goblin]

I'm going to go ahead and ask the question everyone is thinking (right? =X).

How much like Master of Magic is this game? Are you guys getting the same "vibes" from it?

I've only played a very little bit of MoM after GoG rereleased it a while back, so I'm really not an expert. However I will say I generally think Elemental's game systems are more interesting. City building in particular I really like: it's much more organic, freeform and tied to the terrain nearby than in just about any other X4 I've ever played. It also feels like becoming a ridiculously powerful wizard is a choice in Elemental. Sure you're always researching spells, but in order to get the most out of them you've gotta spend your technology research on magic as well, which has a real opportunity cost.

Bottom line, Elemental's rather rough around the edges right now, but even in that state I'd say it's one of the best X4 strategy games I've ever played, certainly more enjoyable than Civ IV.

[Ozymandias]

I actually really don't have a fundamental problem with shipping a game that's a little rough out the gate, especially with the way updates are handled now (steam!). It basically means the devs get a horde of free beta testers, so theoretically they should be able to quickly identify the larger problems and fix them quickly. That's what happened with this, right? It was bad for the first day, but the new patches make it much better? I'm probably just biased because so many of my favorite games have come out really buggy.

I'm thinking about buying this, but I want to know a couple of things. How is the combat? Is it turn-based like HoMM or real time? How much of an RPG is it vis-a-vis tbs? That sort of thing.

[Triaxx]

Has there been any 4X in history that wasn't more fun than Civ IV? Guess I'll have to add this to my list of buys.

[IncoherentEssay]

I'm thinking about buying this, but I want to know a couple of things. How is the combat? Is it turn-based like HoMM or real time? How much of an RPG is it vis-a-vis tbs? That sort of thing.

Regarding combat:
Turn-based, with each side taking their turns moving units in any order. Units have action bars of 2.0 to 3.2 or so, depending on general speed & encumberance(primarily heavy armor). Moving/attacking/casting use up different amounts. Most early units have enough to move and attack once, or to attack three times.
You cant stack units like you could in HoMM, but units can be built in ready-made stacks of 1/4/8/10 with the requisite tech. Stacks add up the attack/armor/hp of the units, so solitary peasants has 5/2/0 while a party of peasants(4) have 20/8/0. I have not yet tried out large units too much, so i don't know if they lose members or suffer Critical Existence Failure as a group.

Regarding RPG-elements:
Your Sovereing(main hero) and any champions you recruit have levels and a Strenght/Dexterity/Constitution/Intelligence/Wisdom/Charisma ability array with 10 as the baseline.
Strenght affects weapon damage as a STR/10 multiplier. Dexterity does the same for defense. Constitution is base hp. Intelligence affects spell damage/effects. Wisdom, also referred ot as Essence, determines maximum mana. Charisma affects the price of hiring wandering heroes.
When a hero gains a level they may add 3 points to a stat of their choice, or arond .2 points to combat speed (action bar). So far i have not found any other way to gain equipment than teching up Weapons and buing those for the heroes.
Leveling up seems to do nothing aside from the statgains, however i have not yet leveled any hero above lvl 5*.

Quests are gained at Inns/Taverns and such that dot the map. At first you have access to lvl 1 quests (there are 5 lvls of quests), higher lvls are accessed by teching up the Quests chain.
lvl 1 quest have so far been kill rats in basement(classic)/kill brigands/escort noble to x,y.*

*I have primarily focused on city-building and economy, so my experience with questing and heroes is quite limited. Hopefully this was helpful.

[warty goblin]

I actually really don't have a fundamental problem with shipping a game that's a little rough out the gate, especially with the way updates are handled now (steam!). It basically means the devs get a horde of free beta testers, so theoretically they should be able to quickly identify the larger problems and fix them quickly. That's what happened with this, right? It was bad for the first day, but the new patches make it much better? I'm probably just biased because so many of my favorite games have come out really buggy.

Really, it was apparently only dreadful on the days it came out before it was supposed to release. From what I can gather, the Day Zero patch fixed a lot of stuff.


I'm thinking about buying this, but I want to know a couple of things. How is the combat? Is it turn-based like HoMM or real time? How much of an RPG is it vis-a-vis tbs? That sort of thing.

Combat is turn based, but is much more a descendant of the Age of Wonders (1) philosophy than Heroes. Your Channeller (aka the uber-wizard) is an actual unit on the field just like any other in that he/she can engage in melee or ranged combat and can be killed. Should this occur in enemy territory, it's perma-death and game over. The game also has a fairly rudimentary moral system in tactical battles, although this really hasn't come up as a deciding factor in any of my combats so far.

As IncoherentEssay explained, with the neccessary Warfare techs you can build your units into formations, in which case they move and fight as a single entity. I have to say I really like this feature, since it means that armies can meaningfully advance in ways beyond simply getting better weapons. Also it means a couple of hours in it really starts to look like you're leading an army instead of a vague mob of dudes.

In terms of RPGness, it really isn't. As the developers said it's more an X4 that takes place in an RPG world. There's quests and wandering monsters and artifacts and all that jazz, but you can completely ignore it if you so choose. Adventuring is just another path to victory, like magic, warfare or diplomacy.

[factotum]

Combat is turn based, but is much more a descendant of the Age of Wonders (1) philosophy than Heroes. Your Channeller (aka the uber-wizard) is an actual unit on the field just like any other in that he/she can engage in melee or ranged combat and can be killed.

You mean, just like in Heroes 4? :smallsmile:

[Rollory]

I have seem some really negative commentary on this game. Bottom line seems to be, wait six months and buy it at a steep discount with all the features and stability it should have shipped with.

[warty goblin]

I have seem some really negative commentary on this game. Bottom line seems to be, wait six months and buy it at a steep discount with all the features and stability it should have shipped with.

I'm honestly not sure where all the vitriol is coming from. Don't get me wrong, the game is very rough at the moment - I for instance have not the slightest idea how to build ships despite having two sea ports - but as of 1.06 I've not encountered any bugs and save for multiplayer (which is coming this week) all the content seems to be in place.

As I said, it's not particularly transparent in some respects, although honestly I've found it easier to grasp the fundamentals of what's going on than I ever have in a Civ game. I'm also unsure why exactly the game not making the consequences of every action crystal clear is a problem. To me one of the fundamental aspects of strategy is making choices with incomplete information and uncertainty of outcome. The occasionally inscrutable interface is a legitimate problem, and the AI could use some work - which given Wardell's devotion to AI coding I'm sure it will get - but there's still a lot of very good gameplay to be had from Elemental in it's current condition. A lot of the negativity I'm hearing sounds like the internet's usual ability to grab hold of something and blow it up beyond all reason.

Also, it's the only game I've ever played where I declared war over a library.

[random11]

Bought the game, and my impression is that it has a HUGE potential, but it's currently wasted on very big balance issues that can be easily fixed.

The biggest problem is how overpowered squads are.
The idea was great, let us research a technology that allows the creation of parties of 4 or more units to make them more powerful.
The problem is that they made them TOO powerful, overshadowing every other strategy.
That balance issue can be easily fixed and is caused by a dumb mistake: instead of having a party have 4 attacks with attack X, it has an attack rating of 4*X (same with defense). that makes a squad of peasants stronger than most heroes and advanced units, and that's just wrong.

That by itself should fix most balance issues, leaving some tweaks in the spell book (making the elements more unique in spells), and adding something that makes the heroes stand out over regular units.

I like the idea that magic is rare and that there are very few units that can use spells (although it should come with making magic stronger, making the players fear and respect casters).

I like the idea of a post-apocalyptic setting that makes you fight over every resource instead of a simple city spam with resources as a nice bonus.

I like the idea of researching weapon techs and deciding your own soldiers instead of researching only set unit types.


In short: I thing the game has a potential to be great, but only after some balance and content fixes.

[Joran]

I'm honestly not sure where all the vitriol is coming from.

Well, for people like me, I bought Demigod and got burned pretty badly and this is the second straight launch to be completely unplayable at launch. On the plus side, it sounds like the fixes were pushed out in a reasonable amount of time.

The first response to the launch day issues was a sterling example of what NOT to do during a crisis. Do not insult your customers, do not act hostile; just apologize and move on. Replying defensively only made everything seem worse and turned off current and future customers. Of course, he apologized later, but the damage had already been done.

I think Stardock definitely painted itself into a corner with the Gamer's Bill of Rights. Now, anytime they have an issue at launch, they can have the document thrown into their face.

P.S. Doesn't a Day 0 patch kind of conflict with "Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game."

[Ranielle]

It really is one of the few games where 2000 turns of peace can be ruined by you or your ally capturing a lowly fertile land. It really fits the wasteland theme, each resource is important.

And shards? Control too many and everyone declares war on you.

[Driderman]

Well, speaking for myself only, I'm up to 1 patch 1.06 and the game still crashes on me every 10 to 20 minutes.
But thats alright, cause the game seems completely bland, boring, ugly and uninteresting so I guess I'm not missing out on much.

This reminds me somewhat of the time I got my hands of Master Of Orion 3: So much wasted potential

[warty goblin]

Well, for people like me, I bought Demigod and got burned pretty badly and this is the second straight launch to be completely unplayable at launch. On the plus side, it sounds like the fixes were pushed out in a reasonable amount of time.

Yeah, rolling the first fix before the game even officially released seems pretty reasonable.


The first response to the launch day issues was a sterling example of what NOT to do during a crisis. Do not insult your customers, do not act hostile; just apologize and move on. Replying defensively only made everything seem worse and turned off current and future customers. Of course, he apologized later, but the damage had already been done.
This is the part that really gets me. I read the Quarter to Three forums, and lemme tell you, Gandhi would have gotten defensive by the end of that thread. Wardell also didn't insult his customers, he told one person, who was being a prick, not to buy Stardock's games in future. This was not a big press release saying "Customers, go jump in a lake!", it was one comment on a not particularly well known forum owned by a third party, and the context made it pretty clear he was addressing the comment to one person in particular. Really, nobody would ever have even heard about it if Tom Francis didn't also read that forum and strip the quote of all context for his PCG article. Quintin Smith's RPS article and crosslink was even worse, and frankly an astoundingly bad piece of reporting.


I think Stardock definitely painted itself into a corner with the Gamer's Bill of Rights. Now, anytime they have an issue at launch, they can have the document thrown into their face.

It might be a bit stupid, but at least they're willing to commit to something. That's more than most other companies do.


P.S. Doesn't a Day 0 patch kind of conflict with "Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game."
Maybe it's just a really timely update. :smalltongue:

[shadowxknight]

Hmm
I ran the 1.06 patch.
But when I try to run a new game or campaign, it still spends over 15 minutes on this scenery screen with music(I'm guessing it's supposed to be the loading screen) and still doesn't move on. :smallsigh:
My computer meets all the minimum requirements, so I'm gonna say not all the bugs are out yet.
But of course, this can be cause my computer is getting a bit aged...

[random11]

Hmm
I ran the 1.06 patch.
But when I try to run a new game or campaign, it still spends over 15 minutes on this scenery screen with music(I'm guessing it's supposed to be the loading screen).
My computer meets all the minimum requirements, so I'm gonna say not all the bugs are out yet.
But of course, this can be cause my computer is getting a bit aged...

I had a bad experience about "minimum requirements" with a different game.
I had an old computer and bought the new "Civilization" game when it got out (the first CIV 4).
My computer was just above the minimum requirements, but it appears that their definition of "minimum requirements" is "yes, you can play the game, but only on tiny maps". Even after reducing all the graphical settings to the lowest option, the waiting time between turns in anything but a tiny map became unplayable.
Five minutes at loading time is annoying but still makes it possible to enjoy the game, five minutes between turns is simply not an option.

[Rockphed]

OK, actual gameplay impressions. I'm on chapter III of the campaign. I had a few CTDs, but updating my graphics drivers seems to have fixed that, and otherwise the game's run just fine.

1) The campaign is, so far, really, really boring. The gameplay is dull, and the story reads like really bad Tolkien fan fiction by way of far too much D&D. It's also often a bit hard to figure out what to do next since a lot of it is written in such a way I'm not sure whether it's telling me what the characters are doing, or what I need to make them do. However I can't imagine anybody with a brain buying this thing for the campaign so I don't consider this a big deal.

2) However a brain-possessing person might dabble in the campaign in order to pick up the basics of the game - as I'm doing. Here also the game fails to excel. It does a decent - but no more than that - job of telling you what buttons to press to build what, but makes seemingly no effort to actually tell the player what any of these concepts mean. Tactical combat for example is not explained at all, while such things as unit building aren't talked about any more, and even things such as equipping your hero are only covered in the 'click this tab, make sure it's done' sense. In fact short of building a city and buying equipment, I'm not sure the game's explained a single thing to me very well.

This is the impression I got from the Gal Civ 2 campaign. Okay, the story might have been okay, but you pretty much started every mission at nothing and had to build up from there, making each mission essentially a whole game in its own right. I gave up at the last mission when I had 2 planets separated by about half the map, no tech, and an imperative to keep both my original planets against raiders I knew would be descending at any moment. I think stardock just doesn't have a clue how to write a campaign for a turn based strategy game. Then again the only way to properly write a campaign for a TBS is to NOT INCLUDE A CAMPAIGN!

I would buy elemental right now except for 2 things:

1. I am currently a college student with limited time.

2. Relating to 1, I am a college student with not near enough money.

Since I like reasonably good grades and sleep, I can't get elemental.:smallfrown:

[factotum]

Thing is, most strategy games work the same way, whether they're turn-based or real-time. As a perfect example: in the very final mission in the original Starcraft campaign, you still had to research all the units, even though you had Raynor's Battlecruiser and Tassadar's Carrier hovering overhead! It's never made much sense, but it seems to be endemic in the genre now.

[Om]

Yeah, rolling the first fix before the game even officially released seems pretty reasonableLots of companies do it. A 'Day 0' patch is supposed to fix minor glitches/bugs that have been discovered since the game went gold however. This is not the same as shipping the beta in the box and then trying like hell to complete the game in the intervening period. The 'gold' version of this game, the one that people were unfortunate enough to play, was just not release worthy

And Stardock would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling retailers


This is the part that really gets me. I read the Quarter to Three forums, and lemme tell you, Gandhi would have gotten defensive by the end of that thread. Wardell also didn't insult his customers, he told one person, who was being a prick, not to buy Stardock's games in futureThat one person being a customer. Regardless of the rights and wrongs, and Wardell was entirely wrong, it was an incredibly stupid thing to do. You and I can get frustrated on an internet forum and vent over a game but it is simply unacceptable for a developer to do the same. Particularly when the customer is right - the 'victim' was playing a pre-release build that he had spent money on


It might be a bit stupid, but at least they're willing to commit to something. That's more than most other companies doExcept that now they have to deal with the charge of being hypocrites as well. Making grand statements about what customers deserve is all well and good but then people might actually expect you to meet these standards that you have set

[Rollory]

Yeah, rolling the first fix before the game even officially released seems pretty reasonable.

No, if you are going to be releasing such an important patch fixing so many things even as the game is hitting the shelves, maybe you shouldn't be releasing just yet.


I read the Quarter to Three forums, and lemme tell you, Gandhi would have gotten defensive by the end of that thread.

The point is that Wardell and Stardock should not have put themselves in that position in the first place. If the criticism was unwarranted, sure, you can tell them off then. In this case however it is a lot of specific things being pointed to, and the only response is "it'll get fixed in a patch" or to get flustered, as Wardell did. Judging from the variety and scope of the problem descriptions I have seen (and I don't mean just video-driver-related crashes, but actual gameplay issues that QA should have caught - the fact that they weren't caught pretty strongly indicts the very idea of there being an organized QA effort at Stardock) the game should not have shipped in the state it was in. For Wardell to go around saying he thinks it was ready is evidence of very bad judgement at the very least.

[Rockphed]

Thing is, most strategy games work the same way, whether they're turn-based or real-time. As a perfect example: in the very final mission in the original Starcraft campaign, you still had to research all the units, even though you had Raynor's Battlecruiser and Tassadar's Carrier hovering overhead! It's never made much sense, but it seems to be endemic in the genre now.

In an RTS, it is one thing, as you can finish a mission in 30 minutes to an hour. In Galciv 2, each map took about as long as a game on a similar sized map, meaning anywhere from an hour to 3 hours. Furthermore, due to the nature of the game, frequently you could just sit back until your allies got the victory for you. Then the dread lords show up, which you could have dealt with if you had been taking tech with you, but instead you are stuck trapped on your starting planet and any others you can get to before the DLs zap your colony ship out of the sky.

Furthermore, guess what, I hated the starcraft campaigns too. Age of Empires campaigns were similarly annoying. On the other hand, Outpost 2 and Homeworld both had campaigns where research(and to a certain extent, units) carried over from mission to mission, and I love their campaigns(though I like Homeworld better than Outpost 2). Furthermore, despite what you may say about either of those games, they were all around fun.

Now, when, not if, I buy Elemental, I will probably try out the campaign, but I will probably just jump right in and start playing it like civilization or space empires. Yeah, I'll probably play it like a fantasy space empires game.

[warty goblin]

No, if you are going to be releasing such an important patch fixing so many things even as the game is hitting the shelves, maybe you shouldn't be releasing just yet.

In a perfect world you're completely correct, but I suspect they really didn't have much choice. Stardock doesn't have Valve or Blizzard's punch where they can sit on something 'til it's done and be able to find retail space for it, they're a fairly niche developer releasing a definitely niche game, which means they've got to reserve their retail space. It was either release when they did or wait until February, and delaying the game another six months to incorporate three weeks worth of work doesn't make sense.




The point is that Wardell and Stardock should not have put themselves in that position in the first place. If the criticism was unwarranted, sure, you can tell them off then. In this case however it is a lot of specific things being pointed to, and the only response is "it'll get fixed in a patch" or to get flustered, as Wardell did. Judging from the variety and scope of the problem descriptions I have seen (and I don't mean just video-driver-related crashes, but actual gameplay issues that QA should have caught - the fact that they weren't caught pretty strongly indicts the very idea of there being an organized QA effort at Stardock) the game should not have shipped in the state it was in. For Wardell to go around saying he thinks it was ready is evidence of very bad judgement at the very least.
My take on it was Wardell told a guy who was being a prick to shove off, a decision I support utterly. Buying somebody's product should not grant you carte blanch to be a jerk to the people you bought it from.

As for the state of the game, after the day zero patch it's not substantially worse than any other Stardock game I've played, and all of those ended up being some of my all time favorite titles. I'll happily trade a slightly rocky launch for a finished product as fine as Galactic Civilizations II ended up being.

[IncoherentEssay]

As far as the game crashing goes, it seems to happen when i save way more than is necessary. With autosave set to every turn the game runs into memory issues around 40 turns later, and crashes. Easing up a bit on constant saving solved the issue for me. So far no other issues have come up.

As to the gamebalance of squads, i think they are fine. The move from solitary units to parties of 4 is a +300% in combat ability, so naturally it seems a bit much. Moving from 4 to 8 is 'only' an extra 100%, and 8 to 12 an +50% increase.
The thing is that the 1 to 4 can be picked up immediately by throwing a single level of research into warfare. Squads(8) take much more to get, and companies(12) are not only at the very end of the techtree, but behind an [Unlikely] tech, so thats potentially an extra 2-3 turns trying to get the prerequisite tech.
So it's not like there is no investment into it*. Besides, changing squads into making multiple individual attacks would completely cripple them against most summons and monstrous units. Have fun trying to scratch that Def 15 Stone Giant(lvl 3 Earth summon, 8 mana) with macemen (Att 12). With the way attacks are handled in Elemental**, high-def units would be completely immune to basic units. Not merely better, Immune. So no, i do not consider squads to be overpowered.

The only thing i would peg as a balance issue is how the game handles item slots. As in, no slot limits. Trivial for the most part, but if you can build a surplus of gold and tech up magic items to the 100g +1 move bracelet, these can be spammed on an Organized sovereign for a 50+ move/turn army o' DOOM :smallwink: (for reference, a move of 2-5 is the baseline).

*Referring to Squads & Companies, not Parties.
**Attacker rolls damage from 1 to Att, defender rolls from 1 to Def. If defense is of correct type, it automatically gains the maximum result. No idea if the 'Defense wears out' from GalCiv is in effect.

Edit: Minor correction, freshly summoned lvl 1 Stone Giants have Def 12, not 15. Still 30 hp to chip through, and a hefty 17 Att to hit back with.

[Triaxx]

Might be because I haven't really applied patches, and my GalCiv2 is Dread Lords, but it really doesn't like me trying to run it with dual cores. You might solve the crashes by only running Elemental on one core.

[random11]

As to the gamebalance of squads, i think they are fine. The move from solitary units to parties of 4 is a +300% in combat ability, so naturally it seems a bit much. Moving from 4 to 8 is 'only' an extra 100%, and 8 to 12 an +50% increase.
The thing is that the 1 to 4 can be picked up immediately by throwing a single level of research into warfare. Squads(8) take much more to get, and companies(12) are not only at the very end of the techtree, but behind an [Unlikely] tech, so thats potentially an extra 2-3 turns trying to get the prerequisite tech.
So it's not like there is no investment into it*. Besides, changing squads into making multiple individual attacks would completely cripple them against most summons and monstrous units. Have fun trying to scratch that Def 15 Stone Giant(lvl 3 Earth summon, 8 mana) with macemen (Att 12). With the way attacks are handled in Elemental**, high-def units would be completely immune to basic units. Not merely better, Immune. So no, i do not consider squads to be overpowered.

The only thing i would peg as a balance issue is how the game handles item slots. As in, no slot limits. Trivial for the most part, but if you can build a surplus of gold and tech up magic items to the 100g +1 move bracelet, these can be spammed on an Organized sovereign for a 50+ move/turn army o' DOOM :smallwink: (for reference, a move of 2-5 is the baseline).

*Referring to Squads & Companies, not Parties.
**Attacker rolls damage from 1 to Att, defender rolls from 1 to Def. If defense is of correct type, it automatically gains the maximum result. No idea if the 'Defense wears out' from GalCiv is in effect.

Edit: Minor correction, freshly summoned lvl 1 Stone Giants have Def 12, not 15. Still 30 hp to chip through, and a hefty 17 Att to hit back with.


I have to disagree about that part.

First of all, the calculation is not +300% in combat ability, but +300% in both attack and defense, making it a MUCH bigger jump than 300% in combat power terms.
Parties of 4 should only slightly stronger compared to 4 separated units of the same type.
It would still have advantages over separated units:
1) It's a lot harder to maneuver 20 units in combat compared to 5 parties.
2) A single unit that dies is dead, while a unit in a party will still heal as long as the party survives the battle.

There can also be other advantages, but it shouldn't be something like multiplying their stats by 4. It's simply too much for one tech to learn, even if it will be more advance than it currently is.

Most weapon and armor techs improve one of the stats of the units by ~1-3 points (meaning, at best 50% bonus to one stat, usually less).
That means that learning this sort of tech improves your potential, but your older soldiers should still do some damage.
A multiplier however, and it doesn't matter if it's by 4 or "only" 2, makes all previous units obsolete. They have no chance to stand against someone with a stronger tech.

To make things worse, not only the group techs are stronger, they are also cheaper.
Learning a better weapon or armor tech usually allows you to spend more gold or resources (like iron) in order to get the better stats, while the parties of 4 cost as much as 4 separate units, but are a lot better.

This imbalance is also the main reason why heroes just aren't worth it.
Heroes can upgrade their gear in the store, but they cannot get the bonuses squads get, so they will rarely worth anything beyond the first combat techs.


Making the squads have more attacks instead of the multiplier and maybe improving the stats by a bit (say, +2 for a party, +4 for a squad etc.) balances the game and makes you actually think if you want to invest in a squad or prefer to make a single but stronger unit.


If the current way attack is calculated does not allow it, it should change.
Whatever the changes are, the result should be that each combat tech improves your options, but doesn't completely runs over all your previous units.

[IncoherentEssay]

I suppose i could have been a bit more clear. Should have said +300% in C.AbilitieS, if only for the sake of clarity.
IMO parties are fine despite being a massive upgrade over solitary units because anyone can tech them up pretty much instantly.
Solo units are not meant to do the heavy lifting, they are for scouting, patrolling and any other duties where expensive special upgrades could be useful. For beating up dudes, use nothing less than a party.

As to the balance inbetween Parties & Squads, Attack outpaces Defense at almost all points, as weapon upgrades come before armor in the techtree.
Ex. 'Hvy Macemen': Mace/full Leather gear+Hvy Wood shield -> Att 12/Def 12 for Gold 37/Mat 19/ Met 4 per dude.
Unless swimming in materials, it is better to go mace/leather cuirass+Hvy shield -> Att 12/Def 6 for G 22/Ma 4/Me 4, much more affordable.
In a party, Att 48/Def 24. in a Squad Att 96/Def 48. So a party of macemen is feeling pretty :smalleek: going up against a squad.

Lets take a look at the next step in arms&armor: 'Hammerers'. Warhammer/full Light Plate+L.Steel shield: Att 24/Def 20 for G 46/Ma 11/Me 8 per dude. Materials are a bit less of an issue, but metals are becoming necessary.
Light Hammerers would be Hammer/L.P. Cuirass+Shield: Att 24/Def 8 for G 34/Ma 5/Me 5, somewhat cheaper. A party at 96/36 vs a squad at 192/72 vs a company at 288/108. Now there is a pretty good shot that two parties could take down the squad. The squad will oneshot a party on an attack, but takes damage from the other one. Also, a bad Def roll from the squad could get them oneshotted.

The next step, Battlehammers/Hvy plate: Att 30/Def 24 for G 58/Ma 17/Me 12 or Att 30/Def 13 for G 43/Ma 8/Me 6. A party at 120/52 vs a squad at 240/104 vs a company at 360/156. Same thing applies as with the previous equipment level,
but 'Hammerers Light' now sit at pretty much half the Materials/Metals as their heavier counterparts.
Weapons also go up one more level, giving us Lord Hammers to play around with for a tasty 40 Att., but since it is top-level tech and lacks equal level of armor, it got left out.

Looking at the numbers, a squad that turtles it up with armor can in fact lolstomp all over a party. It also gets prohibitingly expensive, and can still bite the dust if targeted with attacks of any type it is not strong against.
A lighter, more affordable unit on the other hand is still vulnerable to attacks from smaller sized units. Especially since having two smaller units for its price gives them the action advantage, guaranteeing first strike for one of them.
Blunt weapons were picked for comparison because of the Att/gold rate. When using smaller units against larger ones, Att>> other concerns.

Though looking at the numbers, i do agree that the multipliers could be cut down some, maybe even 50%, but the basic idea is IMO sound.

As for heroes, they have a few assets that grunts just dont get. Heroes get above average stats. Give a peasant an axe, and hell hack at the foe for 1-6 damage.
Give that sword to a fighty hero and he will hit for 1-9 or more. That is at first level, with no special tricks.
Not all heroes are combat worthy. Generally anyone with the Loremaster, Farmer or other obviously administrative or academic trait will have STR/DEX 8-10 aka a penalty Att/Def. Those with the Adventurer or Assasin background have anywhere from 15 to 18
in Strenght/Dexterity, and the corresponding stat/10 multiplier to Attack/Defense. Leveling up some can rack up the multipliers to a hefty 2.7 or so.
Some heroes have abilities like crushing blow or dominate to beat up dudes with. Also noteworthy are Quest reward items, as those are quite nifty and unavailable to the rank&file. Similarly any magical bling found lying about is nifty for getting more mileage from the heroes. Manuals, journals and other textbooks lying around in notable locations can also be used to enchance your heroes. +1 Att books are common as dirt, and +8 books have made an appearance once.

Still, i suppose it would be nice to have a way to get some ablative hp for them, either by joining units (adding their own combat stats to the pile) or with monstrous mounts of some sort.

Side note: archers vs armor
Larger units of heavily armored troops can get humiliated by solitary archers. Metal armor is strong against slashing weapons and gets max Def against the attack.
Against bows, it has to roll.
Attacking takes 1.0 from action bar, so bowmen get 2-3 shots/turn each. If this is kept up, there will be quite a bit of chip damage. Also noteworthy is that whilst moving uses up 2.0 AP, you can still move with less, it just means no more actions from that unit.
IF Def wears out, the 30+ shots/turn a full army of solo archers puts out get rather nasty.

Edit:
Did some digging on the Elemental forums, apparently squads should already roll independantly for attacks, the big number is there just for eyeballing their offensive potential.

[The Valiant Turtle]

There was some interesting developments on the forums yesterday and Brad really explained well why he considers this to be a personal epic fail on his part.

Forum Link: http://forums.elementalgame.com/394855/page/2/#2753014

I'll quote his important posts below and spoilerize them just due to length.


Stop Stop Stop. And I'm not just saying that because it takes like half a minute to load up a page from here.

There is a phrase they use in the movie industry "Kill your darlings".

The person green lighting a production should NEVER EVER be the one working on said production. Writing AI on GalCiv or helping design the game mechanics on Sins of a Solar Empire kept me at a reasonable distance from the actual GAME.

The problem with Elemental was that I am in love with it. To me, it's not just a game. It's a whole world that we can expand and build on. During the months of July and August, when I was working on the game non-stop, I literally had a hard time distinguishing the difference between the GAME, the MODS and the future. It all merged into one fuzzy centrality.

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.

I think most people would agree that Elemental has tremendous potential. The reason it was released when it was was because we thought it had reached that level ready to be shipped. When you're living, breathing and eating something 24/7, your perspective changes.

From a personal pride point of view, it would be much easier to say "Whohaah, my jet fuel requires Elemental to ship in August!". To give you guys an idea of how certain I was that the game was ready for everyone to ship, I didn't just give copies to reviewers, I sent copies to my friends who used to be reviewers (long story but the gaming media has changed a lot in the past 18 months) because I was dying for them to see this masterpiece.

Tom Francis's debiliating PC Gamer preview only was possible was because I personally compiled a version for him (of v1.0) for him to see because the v1.0 version doesn't work outside North America (region checking). In other words, that negative PC Gamer UK preview was only possible because I was so confident in Elemental's readiness that I bypassed Stardock's PR people to get a friend of mine in Europe a copy.

I don't think there should be much disagreement that Stardock absolutely blew it with the launch. Holy cow that should be obvious by now. In my mind, anything less than "game of the year" (in a year with Starcraft 2 and Civ V in it) means we totally screwed up.

The real question, and the question I think every single person who shelled out $50+ for this game should ask is this: What is Stardock going to do to make me whole?

And the answer, I hope, is in the coming months because, like I said, most of Stardock's revenue doesn't come from making PC games.

Having my idiocy shown on a global stage is humbling but probably very constructive for PC gamers. I think most people would agree that Elemental is a fantastic game -- once you get past the idiotic UI decisions, balance, etc.

We are very fortunate to be in a position to make the situation right. We're our own publisher. We don't have the same financial constraints as other companies so we can spend months or even years if necessary to do right by you guys.

Hopefully, this message will make it up to the forums, (because it was long) but if it does, please take it as it is meant. I failed you. I failed you because I love what we're doing and out of sheer hubris -- that the basic law of programmer != guy who decides if it is done somehow didn't apply to me. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Elemental is getting pasted in reviews and deserves that pasting. I'm glad many people are having fun but our eyes have been opened. Like I said before, I'll be writing a lot more about this when I get back to an Internet connection that measures bandwidth with an M instead of a K.




Obviously, if you don't like the game at its core, you probably won't ever like it. My suggestion would be to read carefully the reviews of Tom Chick, Troy, and even Tom Francis's to get an idea of the level of fail here.

When I worked with Tom Chick on GalCiv II, he could give me feedback and it was to me. If he didn't like something it was no skin off my back because I wasn't coding it. I would just pass it on and make adjustments. But on Elemental, because I was personally coding (i.e. personally spending 2am mornings coding) a "suggestion" carried a different emotional context.

It doesn't change the fact that I was an idiot or whether Stardock's games unit got filled with "group think". The issue is the *result*. At the end of the day, gamers shouldn't care WHY a launch failed. But rather what the heck the company that just charged you $50 for said game is gonna do about it.


(bear in mind reading this forum right now is like reading off a 56k modem right now so my responses are based on reading pieces).

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.

I think I mentioned this earlier but we employ multiple former editors of major review sites who were part of the process. When you're working a long time on a project it's easy to get way way way too close to it and soon, its foibles and flaws become simply part of the fabric.

When I get home, with the benefit of being away for a bit, I'll be able to outline some specific and in hindsight, obvious game mechanic things that will need to be addressed for Elemental to begin to reach its potential.

As an AI coder, the biggest disappointment to me is that I allowed the design to allow so many N^2 variables (I'll talk about this later). So don't think i'm thinking that we can just tweak around the edges to make Elemental what it needs to be. That would be just another version of denial of the problem -- as if we could just tweak it and suddenly it goes from a 3 out of 5 to a 5 out of 5 and no, that's not the case. Not even close.

The upcoming version they're working on, v1.07 is still about working on all the crazy compatibility issues that our engine has to deal with (that deserves a separate discussion but I've been looking at the check-ins and they're depressing to me. I see a lot of "Fix allocation that causes a crash on nVidia driver 1/10/2010" type stuff which makes me wince).

The kinds of changes Elemental will require to meet is potential are pretty big things IMO. Things that we (and myself in particular) were just blind to. Let me give you a couple of concrete examples so you can see what I'm getting at (and this post BETTER post, this is like being back in 1994): My friend Mark Asher on a post on a forum talked about how boring our spells were. I took that to be about the spell names. But it wasn't just the spell names, it was about the spells themselves and how they worked. The way resources are managed and handled is very limiting when it comes to the way the AI has to deal with them (N^2 variables).

Anyway, the point is, we fell in love with a vision of the game that was largely in our minds rather than in reality. The difference here is that Stardock has the luxury of being able to address it. Even if Elemental didn't sell a single new copy, we would still be able to address it.

I truly wish I could ascribe Elemental's launch to cynical greed or something. Cynical greed beats out pathetic incompetence any day.

And of course the all important reply included in this post:




Quoting Frogboy, reply 87
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.

All Elemental-related, as in...what?

Patches?

Expansion packs?

DLC's?

Some of the above?

All of the above?
Mostly porn. Think Trog porn.

[Ranielle]

Wow. That's mature of him, taking the blow like that.

[The Valiant Turtle]

And somehow I forgot to paste in his very first post:



(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.

[endoperez]

It sounds like such an easy mistake to make, I get the feeling this has happened before. Especially for people who have managed to create great games before, and are given free hands in a new project.

Black & White and Spore come immediately to mind...

[J.Gellert]

Well that's ballsy, and I think I understand what he means (think, because I didn't see any specific examples). Anyway, you do get "tunnel-vision" when you are judging a project from the inside - whether it's a movie, a game, a book, or what have you.

It's a little sad because from what he says, he should have been aware of this earlier, and killed his darlings :smalltongue: But hey, at least I'm happy to hear that people are still designing games out of love, and not because the big-heads at EA or wherever hired them to do it.

[Ranielle]

Stardock has a very successful software business, they time and again said that they were making niche games just because they can.

And now I feel sorry for the guys, some of them will lose their jobs, I think.

[AgentPaper]

Looks interesting, and from what little I've seen of the gameplay I think I might be picking this up. Probably not until whatever issues have been resolved, but if they're honest enough to admit they made the mistake, then that's a pretty good sign that it should improve now that they've got their heads out of their proverbial waste evacuation apertures. :smalltongue:

[AgentPaper]

So, I gave in and got it. The game seems to be stable now at least, or at least I haven't crashed while playing it once in my at least 6-8 hours of playing. I definitely like all the modding tools, can't wait to see what people cook up. The combat system though seems a bit meh, maybe it'll be improved later on. The campaign is also very meh, very unpolished to say the least. Overall I have to agree that the game isn't really "complete" yet, but I don't regret buying the game now as it won't be long before some great mods come out, more likely than not, and the game itself shouldn't take too long to become what it should be.

Right now I'm having fun with an aggressive warrior hero, pure combat ability, actually imbued Janusk with all my essence early on and used him to pump essence/int while focusing on brute power with my lord. Love that that's possible in this game, magic is too strong to pass up but you don't necessarily need your lord to be great with magic, he can very easily just pass the role along to someone else. Running around now with both of them mounted (worgs are pretty cool) killing stuff, actually took out another kingdom early on, so even though I don't have the bonuses to production and such that other lords have, I can just expand so much and get so many cities that it makes up for it.

Probably my biggest complaint right now is that equipment is just so. Goddamn. Expensive. Gildar is just so limited right now, that I simply cannot buy my hero any armor or weapons. I barely could afford to get them mounts to move around the map faster, and only that because I got lucky and got my second city next to two gold mines.

[IncoherentEssay]

I don't quite see the value in pouring all Essence into a single champ, as the Sovereing is to my knowledge the only one who can Imbue. IMHO it is better to imbue multiple champs with the bare minimum of 3, and let them level up it into 15 or so. More casters = more overall mana recovery = more frequent casting. Also, since the Sovereing is automatically in the lead when in an army, a non-caster Sov. cannot teleport since teleport only works of the caster is in the lead*.

As far as lack of gildar goes, try teching up the Adventuring tree, specifically the one that advances Notable Locations. Level 3 locations yeild chests, and chests contain around 200+ gild a pop. Useful for the far-roaming Sovereings :smallwink:.
This was particularly made-of-win in 1.06 when items did not take up slots: move 4 Sov grabs 2 chests, uses gild to buy 4x+1 move amulets. move 8 sov grabs ~4 chests, etc :smallamused:. Good thing it was fixed in 1.07

*Though Empires get Imbue as default whilst Kingdoms get Teleport to start, so this only really applies to Kingdoms. Empires have to research their teleportation methods.

[Chen]

It still seems to me like slots aren't fully used up by sovereigns. I've bought ALL the rings and amulets and my sovereign is wearing them all. Now you can't double up on them it seems but I can still wear like 3 amulets without problem.

Also it seems my sovereign (and her husband) both to a TON more damage than my groups of archers. I'll have a squad of archers with an attack of 48 and they'll do say 6-7 damage against a target. When my sovereign with an attack of 44 attacks the same target, they seem to do 13-20 damage against it. And I'm not talking about just a one time thing. In general against the exact same targets my champions are doing a ton more damage compared to my archers despite having less attack power. Is there something I'm missing here? Both are using bows so the type of damage should be the same.

[IncoherentEssay]

If you check History for the game on Impulse, you get:

---------------------------------------------------
----------- Elemental v1.07 Change Log -----------
---------------------------------------------------
**Stuff**

***********
* Battles *
+ Changed the calculation for battle damage to take multiple troops into better account (with each unit getting an individual attack roll).

**Moar Stuff**

So your archers are each attacking for 0-8 against 0-Def., whilst the sovereing makes a single attack for 0-44 against 0-Def.
High Def pretty much blocks all the piddly archer's shots, with a few lucky points of damage here and there, whilst the sovereing gets a more varied damage output depending on the Att. roll.

[AgentPaper]

I don't quite see the value in pouring all Essence into a single champ, as the Sovereing is to my knowledge the only one who can Imbue. IMHO it is better to imbue multiple champs with the bare minimum of 3, and let them level up it into 15 or so. More casters = more overall mana recovery = more frequent casting. Also, since the Sovereing is automatically in the lead when in an army, a non-caster Sov. cannot teleport since teleport only works of the caster is in the lead.

I only put it into one champion because I never get enough essence on my sov to imbue another person. The one caster is more than enough to suit my needs anyways. All I use him for is to protect my cities, get a basic enchant on my leader, teleport my army, and maybe summon something with the extra mana or throw out some flame darts. (I only pick up the fire spellbook)

To imbue multiple champions, I'd have to spend points increasing my essense, instead of my strength/con/dex. It would also mean that I would have to have a good number of champions, and since I dump charisma, take the blunt flaw, belong to an arrogant empire, and spend all of my gold on expansions, troops, and equipment, that's not really the case. Generally I just have Janusk since he's free, imbue him at the start, and that's it. Then I just cart him around with my sovereign as he crushes puny weakling empires and they both level up pretty quick.

Good to know on that teleport bug though, hopefully that's fixed very soon because it's rather annoying.


As far as lack of gildar goes, try teching up the Adventuring tree, specifically the one that advances Notable Locations. Level 3 locations yeild chests, and chests contain around 200+ gild a pop. Useful for the far-roaming Sovereings :smallwink:.

Hm, I'll have to try that, generally I never put any time into researching adventuring, but I guess it might be worthwhile just for that. Should also give my sov some more challenging critters to fight against, getting him more levels.

[lord_khaine]

So, is the game fun? considering buying it myself when it shows up on steam.

[AgentPaper]

So, is the game fun? considering buying it myself when it shows up on steam.

It's pretty fun even in it's rather rough state, and the patches are coming fast and hard in fixing the long list of bugs/imbalance, so yeah I'd say it's worth getting. (Though it's still definitely a niche game, so YMMV and all)

Also, this (http://forums.elementalgame.com/395485) is a good read if you're wary of the game from all the bad stuff you've heard about the game and stardock regarding it. Basically the devs explaining how this all happened, admitting it was pretty much all blood on their hands, but they didn't do it on purpose by any means and are set to make it up to those who bought the game. Notably: the first expansion will be free to everyone that buys the game before patch 1.3. (which is slated for november or december or something)

[warty goblin]

So, is the game fun? considering buying it myself when it shows up on steam.

It's worth getting, and in my experience completely playable, although the AI is rather passive at the moment. I haven't been playing much recently as I'm waiting for next week's patch, since that changes the way manna works and improves the AI a bit.

However it's not going to show up on Steam. It's developed and published by Stardock, who run Impulse, which is in direct competition with Steam. It is available there, and honestly Impulse is a better service than Steam in most respects anyway.

[AgentPaper]

Yeah, I can't wait for multiplayer, should be fun. Though it's going to be ridiculously unbalanced to start. :smalltongue:

[IncoherentEssay]

...I never put any time into researching adventuring...
:smalleek:
Yeah, that does kinda explain the "no cash" issue. I generally go for Civilization -> {Farming] -> [Money] -> [Tech.Research], alternated with
Adventuring [Exploration]. The Exploration tree, when fully researched pretty much triples resource density. The only things it won't spawn are Arcane/Tech libraries, mounts or refugee camps. Therefore it is safe to specialize into research with cities near the appropriate library and on gildar with all others, as gold seams do infact spawn from thin air with [Exploration] :smalltongue:. Libraries on the other hand, don't.

It is also good to hear that taking pretty much the polar opposite of my approach to the game still works out. My custom sovereign is:

STR:5 DEX:5 CON:~12 INT:5 WIS:15 CHA:15
Brilliant/Meditative/Organized/Naturalist/(+1 move talent)
All spellbooks, Cowardly

Essentially a total wuss in battle, but can set up casters like nobody's business, and can guide an army like a pro. He pretty much mooches Xp off the kills made by summons and uses level ups to gain Essence that he uses to Imbue Moar Casters. Once he stops leveling fast enough he heads for the capital for effective retirement as his personal cadre(5+) of Essence 15+ mages take over the day-to-day rival-stomping schedule :smallwink:.

I may have said this earlier in the thread, but it bears repeating:
Summons rock. Ice Lords especially.

@lord_khaine:
Sadly, Elemental won't be making an appearance on Steam, as Stardock runs Impulse, a similar and competing service. Naturally, they will keep Elemental exclusive to Impulse. However since Elemental does not require Impulse ot be running to play, there is really no reason not to have both Steam and Impulse. I have both (Left 4 Dead 2 on Steam).
As to whether it is fun, if you like Civilizations/HoMM/turn-based fantasy strategy in general, Elemental is quite fun.
It does currently lack some variety, for example ranged weapons consist of shortbow/longbow, no crossbows, slings, thrown weapons or others. Similarly, no polearms besides Oak Spears (aka sharp sticks). Still, if GalCiv2 is anything to go by as an example, i trust Stardock to pretty much overwhelm us with options and variety.
Eventually, at least :smallwink:.

Edit: ninja'd on Steam.
At least they caught the Item-move trick. Nothing like waiting 15 min for the opponent to make his move (all 84 of them :smalleek:).

[AgentPaper]

One thing I wish we had, was a way to level up your sovereign (and champions even) without having to send them out trolling for monsters. Something like, they can sit in a city and "train", which gives significantly less XP than adventuring. (and no loot, more importantly) I just like the idea of having my sovereign just sit in the city, summon up stuff, buff troops, increase production, maybe hop over to near the enemy city and debuff their production and such. Basically a sovereign more focused on actually being a ruler and less on wandering around killing random crap and doing quests.

[IncoherentEssay]

Yeah, it would be nice if ruling over a city without picking fights with random trolls was somehow viable. Something like gaining xp for completed buildings/trained units or the option to build training academies for heroes.

Similarly a perk/feat system for gaining more variety for the heroes would be nifty. Currently it is all about luck wheter you find one of the heroes with Crushing Blow/Dominate/other special tricks. Something like 1 perk/2 levels with stuff like +10% hp, +x Att., +y% Def for simple options and stuff like the aforementioned special attacks for fiddlier preferences.

[warty goblin]

Yeah, it would be nice if ruling over a city without picking fights with random trolls was somehow viable. Something like gaining xp for completed buildings/trained units or the option to build training academies for heroes.


I think that's covered by the Warfare tech tree. In the games I've played so far I essentially ignore my sovereign after I get a city or two going, and instead pump my technology into the military. At least until the stack nerf* it was pretty easy to get seriously powerful armies very quickly.

*This, I have to say, annoys me. Finally a game that recognized that trained units fighting in formation were much better than individuals fighting on their own. Simply summing all the attacks and defenses into one was probably too strong, but a bunch of attacks at individual strength seems like it's way too weak - there should be some bonus for fighting in an organized group.

[IncoherentEssay]

Not quite covered, actually. True, warfare does have it's perks, but in a turn-based game, a sovereign sitting idle is not yeilding any benefits. He is just sort of wasted potential that way. In a real-time game, time not spent microing the sovereign around could indeed be invested into other pursuits. Turn-based? No such benefits. Administrative perks/attributes would go a long way to fix this.

On the unit issue, i pretty much agree. It would be better if the attacks were resolved in a single roll, maybe like a squad or Archers(0-8) doing 8x(0-8)(essentially 0-64 with bell curve distribution). If the numbers get too large, just cut them in half across the board for a distribution of 100%/200%/400%/600% solitary unit effiency for groups of 1/4/8/12.

[Chen]

So your archers are each attacking for 0-8 against 0-Def., whilst the sovereing makes a single attack for 0-44 against 0-Def.
High Def pretty much blocks all the piddly archer's shots, with a few lucky points of damage here and there, whilst the sovereing gets a more varied damage output depending on the Att. roll.

Is this the same for defense then? Does each individual in a company really only have X defense even if the company is showing a total of 12*X defense? Also when I've lost units in a company its attack power still shows its full value. Is this just inaccurate?

[IncoherentEssay]

I'll admit that my explanation was approximately 95% deduction and speculation. I have vanishingly little actual experience with larger units as i tend to run my military on summons, which are solitary.

What was the defense on the unit in your example? If it was around 6-10/trooper, then it is likely individual defense used, with the big numbers more of a leftover from the original system.
Having units resolve attacks as individuals whilst using summed def. seems a bit unlikely to me. It would probably look more like fighting with nerfbats than weapons, what with units hitting for 0/miss most of the time :smalltongue:.

speculation about map generation:
edit: I think i have made some sort of a discovery. Whenever i start up a new game i replace the random name generated with either Glorantha or Oerth. So far i have had three '4reals' games. Both of the games on Challenging had the world as Glorantha, and though i have yet to explore the map in full, i am beginning to suspect that it is indeed identical to the last time around. So it would seem that the world's name influences map generation.
edit2: More extensive exploration reveals the map to be exceedingly similar but not quite identical. Could be just freak chance.
Spoilered because of dull subject/lack of proof.

[Chen]

I'll admit that my explanation was approximately 95% deduction and speculation. I have vanishingly little actual experience with larger units as i tend to run my military on summons, which are solitary.

What was the defense on the unit in your example? If it was around 6-10/trooper, then it is likely individual defense used, with the big numbers more of a leftover from the original system.
Having units resolve attacks as individuals whilst using summed def. seems a bit unlikely to me. It would probably look more like fighting with nerfbats than weapons, what with units hitting for 0/miss most of the time :smalltongue:.


Somewhere around 6-10 would probably make sense individually which would explain things. I mean I've seen parties of 4 units have defense around 12 but still had my archers able to damage them fairly consistently which does kind of remove the full summed defense logic. This type of mechanic also makes individual strong units absurdly good. I mean that Ice lord summon with a 61 attack is going to absolutely destroy pretty much everything it hits. Perhaps limiting the amount of units a single big unit can kill in a group would be good. Like that ice lord will almost certainly kill a swordsman, but if its a squad of swordsman maybe he can only kill 2 of the 8 max with each attack. That would at least start to balance out the hard hitting units.

[IncoherentEssay]

Somewhere around 6-10 would probably make sense individually which would explain things. I mean I've seen parties of 4 units have defense around 12 but still had my archers able to damage them fairly consistently which does kind of remove the full summed defense logic. This type of mechanic also makes individual strong units absurdly good. I mean that Ice lord summon with a 61 attack is going to absolutely destroy pretty much everything it hits. Perhaps limiting the amount of units a single big unit can kill in a group would be good. Like that ice lord will almost certainly kill a swordsman, but if its a squad of swordsman maybe he can only kill 2 of the 8 max with each attack. That would at least start to balance out the hard hitting units.

Though i love Ice Lords, i don't see them as a OP. As it is they have 9 Def & 20 Hp. The archer-sovereign you mentioned would be picking off 1-2 each turn. They only dominate AI beacuse AI moves up to them even if it cannot attack on the same turn. Another player could counter it with massed archery, cavalry/fast units or a veteran company with enough Hp to soak the hit. It is also noteworthy that iLords are the top dog in damage. Only ones that hit harder would be STR18+ hero w. Lord Hammer, a party of Drath or Young Dragons or the Smaug-stand-in acquired with a lvl 5 quest.

Still, if iLords prove too strong in multiplayer, a simple solution would be to resolve high-damage attacks thus(Ex. iLord vs Axemen squad (Att.6/Def.4/Hp8x5):
iLord attacks, damage roll(0-61 = 45). Defense roll (0-4 = 3). Damage(42-5, 37 dmg & 35Hp remains.) Defense roll (0-4 = 2) Damage(35-5, 30 dmg & 30 Hp remains) etc.,
essentially applying defense anew to overflow damage from each kill. Something like this handily nerfs heavy hitters against groups. Then again, large units with nice armor are essentially stone walls with such a mechanic. Whether that is fine or not is debatable.

Edit: 1.08 is out and weapons got nerfed across the board :smallsigh:. Lord Hammers are now 12 Att., as presented in the Hiergam-thingy. All hail iLords!

[Ethdred]

(I think I avoided necroing this thread)

Just had an email about a new version being released - anyone got the sp on this? Have they fixed it, or should I wait a bit longer?

[warty goblin]

(I think I avoided necroing this thread)

Just had an email about a new version being released - anyone got the sp on this? Have they fixed it, or should I wait a bit longer?

Define 'fixed.' From what I've read v1.09 should be basically stable, there's been some rebalancing, and the AI is a bit better. However the major overhauls to game systems aren't going to happen until v1.1, which IIRC is out sometime around the end of the month.

[Knaight]

*This, I have to say, annoys me. Finally a game that recognized that trained units fighting in formation were much better than individuals fighting on their own. Simply summing all the attacks and defenses into one was probably too strong, but a bunch of attacks at individual strength seems like it's way too weak - there should be some bonus for fighting in an organized group.

Dominions 3 handled this well. There was a penalty to defense for attacks past the first, meaning a tight formation would shred a loose one as it well should. But, being a fantasy game, that had risks of magic, and of course as a fantasy game, some individuals can simply deal with hordes, regardless of how well trained they are.