1981

The game hasn’t actually “shipped” yet.

1982

Yea, the game doesn’t release until the 24th. Pre-orders will likely get it sometime this weekend (Sunday Night / Monday was mentioned). Somehow, when Stardock was getting the pre-load stuff set up, some charmed individuals were able to download the game. That’s why they have it earlier than the rest of us.

1983

(Twitch)

1984

You might want to get that checked out.

1985

When Brad had posted before about beta folks getting an earlier shot at it, I thought that was just a tip of the hat kind of thing, that it would be considered officially released if not universally available. Apparently not though. I got a very nice email explaining it’s not released yet and NDAs are still in effect.

So, I screwed up :(.

1986

Cure is coming sometime between now and the 24th.

1987

I agree totally. Hopefully they patch in “full” multiplayer at a later time if it doesn’t require too much effort. Avoiding initial negative review impact of unbalanced multiplayer + making people like us happy = everyone wins*?

*= Unless the people who are interested in playing multiplayer have very specific and strong preferences, and additional gamemodes serves to increase segmentation in the player base to a degree that reduces the number of games played? :)

1988

Is anyone still having trouble with the pre-install? I uninstalled the beta. But I cannot download the game. Impulse is telling me my registration is not valid. On the Registrations screen, Elemental has no email listed. When I try to update the registration and add my email (the same email tied to the Stardock account), I am told the serial number is not an active registration.

1989

Options are good, though I think too many in a custom game can have an undesirable effect on gameplay. With regards to quests, it is much like in Civ IV where a game could have, or not have goodie huts. After all, Goodie huts in the Civ series could potentially give a player a massive advantage right at the start; being lucky by picking up 1 or 2 early techs always and a massive chunk of gold would go a long way.

1990

Elemental has Goodie Huts (notable locations) which are quite different from quests.

1991

Yeah I know Brad, and they are great because the notable locations don’t necessarily give a player (as far as I could tell when having a cursory playthrough with the beta) a distinct advantage. A bit of money, the odd item, but nothing overpowered. Compare with Civ where their goodie huts can give a massive advantage to a lucky player early on. So, my point was that I understand the reasoning behind removing quests and the early access to powerful items for a multiplayer game.

1992

Notable locations in the release version of the game can give players everything ranging from extra spells, special items (that can be combined to create really good items), equipment, maps, etc.

I’m pretty familiar with Civ. Civ goodie huts = Elemental notable locations. Internally they’re called goodie huts. :)

But Quests are a different matter. They can be, by design, game changing potentially.

1993

Brad - thanks for staying up late working on getting my elemental Beta key unlocked to the full version, I’ll be so happy when I wake up tomorrow and I’m able to download with a valid key.

Don’t worry about the other guys, If you unlock mine now I’ll be sure to tell them how much fun it is.

Thanks again!

1994

All the things you mention have been done before, and done better. Except maybe questing. My knowledge is far from exhaustive, but I’m having a hard time coming up with another 4x that has quests. Especially quests to kill rats. What am I holding out for? First person. Storylines. Co-op. Chat. I don’t want some lame quest that ends the game, I want it to last for years, and at the end I want raids. And a pony. Preferably one that I can ride indoors when I go on raids.

“Flame Dart? What’s that?”

The Lore Master smiled, “Ah, this is a tactical battle. A channeler, such as yourself, can concentrate his considerable intellect and draw on the shards of fire that exist throughout the land to throw a small ball of fire at an enemy.”

“Shards?”

1995

Then go buy a different game.

1996

So… what Brad should do is include a race of trolls known as the arakyd. They can be described as being smelly beyond belief. Happy?

1997

Age of Wonders had them. You’re loosely describing Populus as 4X (I think) so I’m also throwing in Warlords and HOMM, both of which had quests but not what I would consider 4X. For that matter, was Age of Wonders? I usually save the term for all things MOO like and less MOM like.

1998

I think AoW qualifies. Explore, expand, exploit, exterminate – it’s all there. Researching spells is just like a tech tree.

1999

One, those aren’t TBS games. Two, you can’t possibly know about what’s been done better since Elemental hasn’t been released.

In your turn based strategy game? I think I understand the problem now…

2000

I’m told I can only say anything tangible about the game on Stardock’s special non-public forum (like, say, a bug report), but because I violated the NDA I’m locked out of the forum. So even if I found something worth noting, I can’t.

I wish the damn thing hadn’t shown up as available until the 24th. I’d turned off “pre-release” on Impulse specifically so I’d only see Elemental when it was actually released. The only reason I ended up mistakenly violating the NDA is because the stupid thing showed up as no longer pre-release. I don’t know if I got it by accident or it was some sort of favor to early beta users, but it ended up backfiring and putting a bit of a damper on the release for me.