Elemental all-purpose thread

[kerzain]

EVerytime I read that bill of rights I keep hearing the GLaDOS voice doing the talking.

[Dejin]

Heh. An adventurer cropped up. I went and moved my Sov to talk to her. Instead, the movement turned into an attack as the adventurer moved. I was given no choice whether I wanted to attack or talk. I kill the adventurer, the game gives me the “You have murdered someone, the world will react!” talk.

Are you sure it was a hireable NPC? Some of the NPCs are labelled something like “adventurer creature” and AIUI they act kind of like monsters. You can’t hire them and I don’t think you can talk to them either.

[Telefrog]

The gamer’s bill of rights is still up:

http://gamersbillofrights.com/

Unfortunately, just like bad news reporting, the negative stuff is what people will remember.

What’s up RPS?

[Dejin]

-In auto-resolve mode, casters doesn’t use their mana to use spells. It’s a delicate issue, as you don’t want the AI to waste your precious mana, but sometimes the fact it won’t use you powerful offensive spells makes the auto-resolve mode itself null, so you will have to fight every battle even if there aren’t lots of enemies in the fight. A threshold perhaps, a % of mana?

I always end up battling on tactical map, even against single enemies. I’m just better at micromanaging and getting out of the fight without any of my units getting hurt. Usually on auto if you’re a much bigger force you’ll win, but you’ll get dinged up a bit in the process.

[Ross_Macpherson]

Really? Here’s the particular segment I take exception to:

First off, I’d like to see where I’m apologizing for anything when someone refers to me as an over the top apologist. I don’t believe I did that anywhere. Quite on the contrary, I’ve been on the offensive instead of defensive. I had nothing to do with the game, and didn’t submit a single beta report despite my early access with the preorder. I’d like it to be a good investment, but it obviously has had some issues and I’ve never said otherwise.

Second, Mr. Francis is somewhat confused between “paid beta test” and “precisely what people signed up for and were warned about multiple times.”

They’re not even apologetic: CEO Brad Wardell says on the game’s site that they’re definitely happy people played the pre-patch version because of all the useful crash reports they got. Wanting customers to encounter crashes so that they can be fixed is pretty much the definition of a paid beta test

My reading of the article was that this referred to the version released in shops and available to download prior to patches being released. The next line of the article reads:

The game did launch a day earlier than expected due to retailers breaking the street date, but that doesn’t affect the quality of the code in the box.

So it seems clear that he’s talking about the game as released and not the beta versions made available to people who pre-ordered.

[KevinC]

-Creature camps are confusing, because they appear to work like a normal resource tile (you have to research the appropriate tech, the tile have to be inside you influence area, you have to click on it and the select build) but really there is an added requisite, they have to touch one of your cities to work.

I’m not sure, I have a Darkling camp at the edge of my Influence, not touching any cities, but I can build construct the units. Was it a particular creature camp you saw this behavior on, or did it seem to effect things universally?

[Oghier]

Unfortunately, just like bad news reporting, the negative stuff is what people will remember.

What’s up RPS?

I think three things are up:

1. The press release on SD’s site referring to the GBoR evidently expired. That press release is the second result in a Google search.

2. Google doesn’t return the actual GBoR until the second page of results, and most people don’t bother to go past page one (oddly, Bing has it on page 1).

3. RPS got a little enthusiastic with the piling-on.

RPS is one of my go-to sites for gaming news. I am a bit surprised to see this.

[Granath]

Unfortunately, just like bad news reporting, the negative stuff is what people will remember.

What’s up RPS?

the article for RPS is accurate as it says:

Stardock’s own Gamer Bill of Rights is no longer to be found on their site. That’d be the Bill of Rights featuring the proud bulletpoint:[INDENT]“2. Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.”
[/INDENT]You used to be able to find the bill right here. [Edit: You can still find it on its own site here]

sorry, can’t post the links, but you can go see for yourself

[deanco]

Thanks for the tips, guys. But if the spells are queued up, shouldn’t the second spell I try to learn say ‘Queued’ when I click it?

Good point on the Paradox games as well, I tried 1 demo for about a half hour and ran far far away from it, never to return.

I don’t want to be too harsh really, but so far I just haven’t felt engaged and interested in the ‘one more turn’ mold. I click End Turn and only feel like I probably forgot something important.

Ah well, one more try…

DeanCo–

[Ben_Sones]

Not having reached a point in the campaign where I could research anything, I’m confused about this tech talk. It seems that you guys are saying that as you progress up one tech tree the cost of researching other tech trees increases. Is that the case? If so, what’s the justification for that? As you become more specialized along one path you’re being discouraged by increasing costs to try out another path?

I think it’s similar tot he approach that Rise of Legends used, where the intent is that increasing costs mean that you will never be able to research everything. So you have to choose what to focus on, and you can spread out your focus as well, though there are obvious benefits to specialization.

The gamer’s bill of rights is still up:

http://gamersbillofrights.com/

AFAIK, that site is not run by Stardock. It seems to be a third-party site that encourages publishers (of which Stardock is one) to become signatories on the Gamer Bill of Rights. It is not clear to me that Stardock has the power to shut down that site even if they wanted to… and I don’t know that they would want to, though RPS is correct in pointing out that references to the Gamer Bill of Rights have disappeared off Stardock’s company website. I don’t know what’s up with that, and it may well be a coincidence or a glitch. If so, then the timing is unfortunate.

Edit: scratch that, if you go to the forums section of that site, there is a Stardock copyright at the bottom of the page, so apparently it is run by Stardock? It’s weird, because there is no reference to that on the rest of the site, and they have “case studies” of Stardock releases (Demigod, specifically) that are written as though the GBR site is an objective third party. If Stardock is actually running that site, then that’s a little… weird.

[KevinC]

The Gamersbillofrights.com site is run by stardock, I thought? Click on a link to the forum on the site, you can see a Stardock URL before it redirects… and the forum itself is obviously a Stardock forum.

[TurinTur]

I’m not sure, I have a Darkling camp at the edge of my Influence, not touching any cities, but I can build construct the units. Was it a particular creature camp you saw this behavior on, or did it seem to effect things universally?

The thing i was speaking of was precisely a Darkling camp!
One appeared just inside the sphere of influence, but pretty far away of my only city, after i researched a “Domination” technology. I clicked on it, built the camp, but i didn’t have any new unit in the city to train. I tried to pass a pair of turns, nothing.
Then i tried to make a new pioneer, and fund a new town touching the darkling camp. Baam, just then that new little town had the darkling unit to train. My (mistaken? perhpas it was a bug?) conclusion was that your city had to “touch” the camp.

[kerzain]

AFAIK, that site is not run by Stardock. It’s a third-party site that encourages publishers (of which Stardock is one) to become signatories on the Gamer Bill of Rights. It is not clear to me that Stardock has the power to shut down that site even if they wanted to… and I don’t know that they would want to, though RPS is correct in pointing out that references to the Gamer Bill of Rights have disappeared off Stardock’s company website. I don’t know what’s up with that, and it may well be a coincidence or a glitch. If so, then the timing is unfortunate.

Stardock owns the domain, they’re running the forums too, but I’m not sure about anything beyond that.

[KevinC]

Sounds like a bug, Naeblis. Speak of the devil and all that, I just built a… Umberwhatever wolf den, also not near my city but inside my influence. I cannot build any units related to it, though.

[MattKeil]

AFAIK, that site is not run by Stardock. It seems to be a third-party site that encourages publishers (of which Stardock is one) to become signatories on the Gamer Bill of Rights. It is not clear to me that Stardock has the power to shut down that site even if they wanted to… and I don’t know that they would want to, though RPS is correct in pointing out that references to the Gamer Bill of Rights have disappeared off Stardock’s company website. I don’t know what’s up with that, and it may well be a coincidence or a glitch. If so, then the timing is unfortunate.

Edit: scratch that, if you go to the forums section of that site, there is a Stardock copyright at the bottom of the page, so apparently it is run by Stardock? It’s weird, because there is no reference to that on the rest of the site, and they have “case studies” of Stardock releases (Demigod, specifically) that are written as though the GBR site is an objective third party. If Stardock is actually running that site, then that’s a little… weird.

Stardock wrote the Bill of Rights to begin with, so one would figure it’s their site in some regard.

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/08/29/stardock-releases-gamer039s-bill-rights-pax

[Oghier]

AFAIK, that site is not run by Stardock. It seems to be a third-party site

You already corrected your post, but I did the research and everything!

Domain Name: GAMERSBILLOFRIGHTS.COM
Registrar: GODADDY.COM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com
Name Server: DNS.STARDOCK.COM
Name Server: DNS2.STARDOCK.COM
Name Server: DNS3.STARDOCK.COM

[JM1]

Fire Giants! Woo.

Let’s have a look at its abilities.

1. Flame Strike. Cost: 3 mana. Range: Infinite. Damage: Attack strength (17.6 in this case)
2. Searing Attack. Cost: 3 mana. Range: 1. Damage: 3 “true damage” (presumably gets through defence?) per round for 3 rounds.
3. Fire Breath: Cost:: 3 mana. Range: 4. Damage: Half the caster’s attack strength.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

[Cubit]

AFAIK, that site is not run by Stardock. It seems to be a third-party site that encourages publishers (of which Stardock is one) to become signatories on the Gamer Bill of Rights. It is not clear to me that Stardock has the power to shut down that site even if they wanted to… and I don’t know that they would want to, though RPS is correct in pointing out that references to the Gamer Bill of Rights have disappeared off Stardock’s company website. I don’t know what’s up with that, and it may well be a coincidence or a glitch. If so, then the timing is unfortunate.

Edit: scratch that, if you go to the forums section of that site, there is a Stardock copyright at the bottom of the page, so apparently it is run by Stardock? It’s weird, because there is no reference to that on the rest of the site, and they have “case studies” of Stardock releases (Demigod, specifically) that are written as though the GBR site is an objective third party. If Stardock is actually running that site, then that’s a little… weird.

It isn’t weird, it is marketing. The Gamers Bill of Rights was always about marketing, and was designed and implemented towards that end.

[MSUSteve]

Second, Mr. Francis is somewhat confused between “paid beta test” and “precisely what people signed up for and were warned about multiple times.”

As Ross pointed out, Tom Francis is clearly referring to the version of the game released and paid for by folks at least two days before the “Day 0” patch.

Last, I’d like to see where I stated or implied any kind of a conspiracy or excused Brad’s post. I explained it, but I didn’t excuse it. There’s a world of difference between the two.

I’m not sure if you’re being willfully obtuse or you’re just a very literal person by nature. I don’t think I’m reading anything into a post where you clearly blame the “sound-bite oriented world” for taking Brad’s statement out of context and sensationalizing it. In context Brad’s comment was asinine and his anger was misdirected.

Regardless, I have no further wish to derail this thread when it’s gotten nicely back on track.

[JM1]

Are you sure it was a hireable NPC? Some of the NPCs are labelled something like “adventurer creature” and AIUI they act kind of like monsters. You can’t hire them and I don’t think you can talk to them either.

100% positive.

I have Wild Horses available near one of my cities. I say available - I mouseover and it says my faction cannot use them. Despite being able to select them in the shop and in the unit designer. And the game puts a big fat ! over the wild horses and tells me to build there. Sigh.