Elemental all-purpose thread

[Dan_Theman]

I think that if a post on a 3rd party forum is supposed to be emblematic of not only an individual’s own enduring personality but also that of his company, we’ve all got some serious worries. Who here hasn’t made an ass of themselves at one time or another on a forum? As said, that’s why context matters. Not just for the other posts surrounding Brad’s knee-jerk response, but also for what both he and his company have done - good AND bad.

Anyway, I didn’t know that Pentadact was the PC Gamer writer in question and therefore apologize for having potentially offended a fellow member in previous posts, although I’m enough of a nobody that I suspect/hope he just laughed me off.

[vyshka]

So, when I mouse over my character stats during the level-up point spending process, the tooltip for Intelligence says something like “The magical might of your character” and the tooltip for Essence says something like “Increases the potency of your magic.” They sound like the same damn thing. You can only see this while leveling up…there are no tooltips for these things when you otherwise look at your character details.

I believe Intelligence helps determine the amount of damage a spell will do, while essence factors in to your mana, determining the level of spell you can cast.

[Andre_Costa]

But if you’re going to do stuff like Stardock/Wardell did, expect it to be noticed.

That is all.

Careful people, Matt Perkins is on patrol and he never sleeps.

[tomchick]

This sounds really, really personal to me, Tom.

Well, personal in the sense that I care a lot about this forum. But not personal in that I feel something was directed against my person. That might be too hair-splitty.

Or are you guys just reacting to the fact that I rolled our the full-bore f-word a couple of times? I reserve the right to do that when I’m irked.

 -Tom

[Shadarr]

I think this is a generational shift, and people need to realize not only that the things they say on the internet are public, but that they will be there forever. Would it really make a difference whether Brad’s comment was quoted by a “news source”, or just passed around via Twitter, Facebook and other forums?

I guess it could be seen as a degradation of journalism that “news sources” are becoming more like blogs, but that’s the way things are going. And it’s not like this was rumour-mongering or incorrect information. They re-printed exactly what Brad said. Context or no, it’s accurate.

[Mark_Asher]

I think that it would have been polite for Tom Francis to contact Brad directly for an official statement. On the other hand, I don’t think that it’s out of line for a journalist to quote a statement made in public by the CEO of a corporation.

It would have been more than polite; it would have been in the interest of the readers who are potential customers of Stardock and Elemental. The easy thing to do is lift a quote and run with it, though.

When I read Brad’s comment, I immediately understood it was an emotional response and wasn’t what he really wanted. I find it hard to believe that the writers in question didn’t also understand that.

I like RPS. I hope their new contract with Eurogamer isn’t making them chase traffic harder.

[ElGuapo]

Fun??

[Matt_Perkins]

I agree. That is all. There’s a lot to write about in there, all fair game. And I notice nothing in your “that is all” summary has anything to do with an angry comment made in an informal setting and Kotaku’ed out of my forum for an out-of-context blog post that misrepresents how Stardock treats its customers.

-Tom

P.S. I still play Demigod regularly. I look forward to playing Elemental regularly at some point in the future.

I thought I covered the

angry comment made in an informal setting and Kotaku’ed out of my forum for an out-of-context blog post that misrepresents how Stardock treats its customers

I guess I was laying out the why someone would pull quotes out of an [I]informal /I forum and use them elsewhere. Brad already set himself up for it… shrugs I get your point too. I don’t necessarily agree, but I see what you’re saying.

I still own Demigod, maybe I should fire that up again…if anyone is still playing it online. I tried a few months back and there wasn’t one game available…

[slantz]

OTOH, though Mr. Chick, if you don’t want that happening, you… need to make the forum, or parts of the forum, private. It’s the Only Way to keep the rest of the internet from carrying off with whatever people post.

I got bitten by this once here too. Something I said turned into a blog post. That, in turn, got me a few talking-tos by Powers That Be.

I think it’s pretty easy to feel like there are taller walls around Qt3 than there really are.

[frank_austin]

Well, personal in the sense that I care a lot about this forum. But not personal in that I feel something was directed against my person. That might be too hair-splitty.

Or are you guys just reacting to the fact that I rolled our the full-bore f-word a couple of times? I reserve the right to do that when I’m irked.

 -Tom

I think specifically calling people out by name and saying “FUCK YOU GUY!” multiple times is a pretty good indicator that you’re taking something personally. I don’t particularly care one way or another if you do, but it’s hard to read a consistent tone from your posts in threads like this.

[Shimarenda]

Brad’s response was bad, and yeah, it was public. But it’s not newsworthy …

“Drunken talk isn’t meant to be printed in the paper.” – Ray Charles on Elvis Costello’s insult

[JM1]

Does anyone really have a problem with Tom getting pissed off about his forum being used like this? He’s a games journalist, Pentadact is a games journalist and a QT3 member and should’ve known better. Regardless of whether people should know what Brad said, the RPS post further damages QT3’s ‘special relationship’ with devs.

[Cubit]

Also worth noting: Mr. Wardell did state publicly, here on Qt3, that his presence here will no longer be just as an interested gamer talking about games. He said that, for a variety of reasons, he will only speak out here in an official capacity as CEO of Stardock (and thus have to be less open and more careful about his thoughts on games). Given that, I’m not sure it’s entirely inappropriate for RPS to have pulled a quote, even though they should have given it more context. By his own decree, Brad’s posts here are supposed to be taken as his speaking in an official capacity as Stardock CEO.

You have a good memory, Mr. Cross.

Consumerst + Stardock = Brad Wardell Headache?

As I said earlier, I’m not leaving Qt3, I’m just going to cease treating it like some sort of industry pub where I would hang out and complain about the game industry.

What that simply means is that when I participate here, it’ll be part of my job which means I won’t be around as often and it’ll be in my official capacity as CEO of Stardock.

[Argot]

When I read Brad’s comment, I immediately understood it was an emotional response and wasn’t what he really wanted. I find it hard to believe that the writers in question didn’t also understand that.

Of course everyone understands that he doesn’t want people to stop buying his products. The newsworthy point is not that he said don’t buy our games but that he said (and I paraphrase) if you don’t consider Elemental shipworthy then don’t buy our games.

This is exactly what games journalists should be talking about. Brad Wardell thinks Elemental was released in a shippable state. I think that is absurd. Sounds newsy to me.

If Brad had politely said “Ben, if you think Elemental is just an early beta that we have to agree to disagree” it would be just as noteworthy.

[Sarkus]

Does anyone really have a problem with Tom getting pissed off about his forum being used like this? He’s a games journalist, Pentadact is a games journalist and a QT3 member and should’ve known better. Regardless of whether people should know what Brad said, the RPS post further damages QT3’s ‘special relationship’ with devs.

I guess, but I don’t think QT3’s “special relationship” means it protects them against saying stupid things that are relevant to their job. So while I do think that the people who followed Brad around to make P&R points were way out of line, I don’t think there is any way for QT3 to protect Brad from saying something in the heat of the moment he shouldn’t have said regarding the release of Elemental. Brad deserves the heat he is getting for this game - he decided to essentially blog about its development here in a forum he doesn’t control, he decided to make a big public deal about Stardock’s “Gamer’s Bill of Rights” and then appears to have violated that with the decision to release the game as he did, and so on. As the public face of his company, he absolutely has to be careful about what he says publically, just like anyone else in that position. He’s even admitted that, as noted above by Cory.

[UncleSmoothie]

Can we get back to making specific complaints about how broken the game is, so they know what to fix? ;)

I’m with you.

The names of my cities on the standard view in strategic mode are often wrong. If I’m looking at Xville and then scroll over to Ytown, Ytown will be labeled “Xville”.

If I recruit a “+1 tech research point” hero and stick him in one of my cities, he appears to have no discernible effect. If his bonus is showing up on the kingdom report or the city detail screen, I sure as hell can’t find it.

Sometimes in tactical battles mounted swordsmen will take the better part of a minute before they do their attack animation.

Attacks in tactical battles miss quite a lot. It seems like any attack that does zero damage gets counted as a miss. Attacks also seem to do zero damage a lot.

City walls don’t seem to impart any actual defense bonus in tactical battles.

[Anaxagoras]

But I don’t for a minute believe Brad doesn’t want you to buy his games. We all know Brad, for better and for worse. That’s not the case with the people reading those entries at RPS and PC Gamer, and the guys who wrote those posts know that. Just go look at the comments section on those blog entries. Many of those readers don’t know anything about Brad, or Stardock, or the history of GalCiv, or Impulse, or the Gamers’ Bill of Rights. What they now know is a single comment lifted out of any context: “If you don’t like the state of our game, don’t buy any more of our games”. Brad did say that, but I don’t think he meant it, and I think that’s a really unfair way to represent him and his company.

Tom, you thought Brad didn’t mean it because you’re friends with the guy. That’s the only context. There was a thread (I think in P&R) where several people said they wouldn’t buy any more Stardock games because they thought Brad was a disgusting individual, and they didn’t want to support that. And Brad said something to the effect of “Fine. I wouldn’t want your business.” And he never took it back. I don’t think that was an oversight. So it’s hardly a stretch for some people to believe that Brad actually meant what he said in this thread. You’re right that some of us know Brad, for better or for worse. And it’s that very knowledge that made some of us assume that he actually meant it.

[Damien_Neil]

It would have been more than polite; it would have been in the interest of the readers who are potential customers of Stardock and Elemental. The easy thing to do is lift a quote and run with it, though.

Yeah, I’d agree with that.

[MattKeil]

Of course everyone understands that he doesn’t want people to stop buying his products. The newsworthy point is not that he said don’t buy our games but that he said (and I paraphrase) if you don’t consider Elemental shipworthy then don’t buy our games.

This is exactly what games journalists should be talking about. Brad Wardell thinks Elemental was released in a shippable state. I think that is absurd. Sounds newsy to me.

If Brad had politely said “Ben, if you think Elemental is just an early beta that we have to agree to disagree” it would be just as noteworthy.

What I don’t understand is how I’m supposed to know whether or not Elemental is shipworthy without buying it. As of yet, there’s no demo, although there’s one coming in September, supposedly. And a demo released a month after the game was shipped isn’t really a useful tool in deciding whether or not said game was released in a finished state to begin with.

[Damien_Neil]

Tom, you thought Brad didn’t mean it because you’re friends with the guy. That’s the only context. There was a thread (I think in P&R) where several people said they wouldn’t buy any more Stardock games because they thought Brad was a disgusting individual, and they didn’t want to support that. And Brad said something to the effect of “Fine. I wouldn’t want your business.” And he never took it back. I don’t think that was an oversight. So it’s hardly a stretch for some people to believe that Brad actually meant what he said in this thread. You’re right that some of us know Brad, for better or for worse. And it’s that very knowledge that made some of us assume that he actually meant it.

FWIW, I don’t think there’s anything unusual or newsworthy about someone saying that people who don’t like their politics, or their game design, or whatever shouldn’t buy their product. That’s the only sane attitude to take. You can’t please everyone all the time, and you shouldn’t try.

The interesting part of Brad’s quote is where he says that Elemental is shipworthy.