2921

http://www.gamersbillofrights.com/
The link RPS mentions is a news item. Did anyone check that link a month ago? Four months ago?

You got to be kidding me…
The internet is stupid.

2922

I don’t think we can conclude that just because he hasn’t shown up yet to say sorry to Ben. I expect he has been pretty busy with fixing up Elemental and is likely skimming this thread if he’s reading it at all anymore.

Perhaps he really does loathe people who have a few reasonably argued problems with his game and thinks they should never buy Stardock games again, but that seems unlikely. I would guess instead that he was just angry from the general baiting he was receiving at around that time, lashed out thoughtlessly at some of the wrong targets with a heated remark and since then has barely been back to this thread thinking it better to spend his time on more productive things. That would just be me guessing though, neither of us can know the man’s mind completely.

AFAIK he didn’t ‘call out’ anyone specifically just picked up on a turn of phrase from a post or two that happened to be criticizing the game quite reasonably.
Again, I thought the remark was thoughtless and misdirected but there was a hostile context in which it was produced and some nuance attached to it that it will now likely lose out of that context.

2923

Kind of odd how far you are willing to go, Dan, to be an apologist for what someone else wrote on a public forum.

2924

I wonder how many times we can write the same things over and over and over again…does anyone really care *that’ much?

2925

That’s pretty specific if you ask me.

As for something earlier in the thread:

Funny how things turn out, isn’t it?

2926

What are you intimating Cory? You think you’ve finally cracked the Stardock forum plant conspiracy :)

2927

All I’m saying is don’t be an apologist for something that Brad hasn’t retracted or apologized for. His words are his words. This is a public place. He knew what he was writing.

2928

Indeed.

Half the people complaining write “I won’t buy it, but what I read of it must be bad”, another half hate Brad for being a dirty republican and forgo that very last part (based on the merits of the game itself), and the third half quibbles about action points.

Man, I wish I could discuss the terrible pacing of technology, the bad pacing of armies/units, the poor relation of magic and physical combat…

Instead I’m forced more and more into Stardock fanboi territory, simply because I can’t understand the direction and extend of this hate storm. I wanna flame the design of this game! But I can’t because even with that desire to criticise the topics discussed are too stupid and unbased on the actual game.

2929

I’m just curious, is this after your experiences playing the game or based off of this thread, the press it’s getting, etc?

2930

That’s an unfair representation of the criticisms aimed at the game in this thread. There have been several long-ass posts filled with detailed complaints. Those with an axe to grind about Brad’s politics have mostly been making empty posts and not all that often. There was an argument about action points because someone jumped in in a hostile fashion to defend the current implementation. To suggest that no-one’s bothered to put down reasoned critiques is unfair (or lying, if you prefer).

There is nothing stopping you from mentioning other bits of the game. It hasn’t stopped anyone else.

2931

So you’ve been essentially “forced” to complain about the supposed general tenor of the thread instead of posting your legitimate complaints? That’s fairly ridiculous. The whole brouhaha started as a result of Brad’s reaction to legitimate complaints. As for a hate storm, I think you’re massively exaggerating what’s gone on in this thread. The one guy that was making it personal with Brad has been banned. Everyone else, as far as I can tell, is discussing in good faith.

So go ahead and post your criticisms (and praise if you’ve got any). I’d love to read it.

2932

Maybe he doesn’t like watching people get bullied. I know I don’t.

I can certainly imagine reading this thread while simultaneously pulling all nighters to get the patch working would result in a blowup. And with many hostile posts, I can also imagine mis-targeting a response.

I know this is Qt3 where sometimes people just act like dicks. But it will be rather sad if developers stop coming over to discuss their games because we haven’t been civil.

2933

But the vast majority of folks were very civil. Certainly Ben Sones and Jason Lutes, the guys he specifically called out (for some reason Brad’s post only contains Ben’s name, though I swear he specifically mentioned Jason as well), were civil. If he was upset about the little bit of trolling going on, I can understand, but then why mention those guys specifically?

2934

Equally, why take the most harsh interpretation of his words as appears to be your wont at the minute? You appear to be saying that this single part of one of Brad’s forum post was a calculated line that he knew would be picked up by the wider media, and what’s more that’s exactly what he wanted because he hates the idea of people who don’t like Elemental playing any of his companies future game’s or something?

I didn’t really come launching to Brad’s defence by saying his words were ‘thoughtless and misdirected’ or ‘rash’ or by saying I wasn’t going to buy Elemental due to the poor word of mouth. The point I was making is that his seemingly angry words came from a context in this thread that makes them a lot more understandable than they will seem when repeated as a one line ‘quote’ on Kotaku. Maybe, you think that its fine and great in fact to pull out and spread around one liners from anything anyone says in public, or maybe you think it’s OK to do that to game developers, CEOs, people you dislike or whomever. I’m not at all surprised that it happened just expressing that I find it a bit of a sad situation for Brad and for reasonable discourse generally between game developers and enthusiasts.

2935

I wasn’t sure because I do not have a stockpile counter I noticed for food like I do for materials, gold, iron, etc…

What is the tech to upgrade houses or do these upgrades require more food? I was going through a lot of of the tech trees and I never see anything about improved housing anywhere. I guess I can stop maxing out my food consumption at my home city to make room for more for a 2nd city somewhere.

Thanks for the info.

2936

Cory’s presence in this thread is for the same reason as Matt’s, as far as I know. Cory hasn’t bought the game.

Dan, what specifically do you think was said to Brad that shouldn’t have been?

2937

Back to the game. A bit of feedback:

-Spellbook need a series of tabs/little bookmarks to filter spells by type, order by mana cost, etc etc. You know, like in almost every other fantasy TBS game.
-Spells needs to show their range in an inmediate, graphical way. At first i didn’t know why i couldn’t use the throw boulder spell! (max 5 range)
-Game should be clearer of why you can’t cast some spells (say, because you don’t have enough mana).
-I try to attack an settlement. I make right click into the settlement. Nothing happens, it’s like the game doesn’t register the click. I know what is happening, i need some warfare tech. like sieges or something like that, but it should show a message for new players.
-Fast movement option for tactical battles.
-Damage popups in battles are not sync with effects. Damage popups should appear just after the effect/animations, not before.
-You can’t see all the traits and talent chosen for your sovereign once you are in the game.

2938

I don’t like the Adventure tech tree at all.

2939

Maybe a few people are a little bit hostile, but this thread is rather mild.
For Qt3, anyway - other forums can be a LOT worse.

I forgot the exact topic of it (and I haven’t posted in it), but there was this one thread where everybody was calling out Brad a bigot and liar and whatnot for little reason at all. Now, THAT was a hostile thread.

This thread points out that the game isn’t in a state players want their games to be released in. Some things are downright broken, but many more things are implemented in a way that requires further improvements down the road, by modders or by SD (or both).

Some people are pobably extra disappointed because they were hoping for a “successor” to Master of Magic.
I know, I know, Elemental was never supposed to be a “sequel” to MoM, but the associations were surely made.

rezaf

2940

It doesn’t matter if the vast majority of folks were civil. Have you ever been to a meeting where most of the people are great, but 1-2 of the people act like complete asses to you? What do you remember, that most of the people were civil or that there were some real jerks at the meeting? You come away pissed and peeved, regardless of how the majority of the people acted.

He should have looked up all the posts before responding with names, for sure. He is kind of busy with something right now.