3581

Probably is a combination of the game being niche and something else.

[ Niche mean gaming nowdays is big, but the amount of people that like turn based games on PC’s, is not all that big. ]

The something else could be, imho, that somehow the game is not producing worthy reviews (?), the journos don’t know what to think about this game. No one want to thrown the first rock. Or something like that. But this is my personal theory.

I think is hard to say if this game is a 9/10 or a 2/10.

I ask myself. Do I want to read reviews of the “Gold version”? and the reply is …not. Maybe thats another factor. The journos waiting for the game to be stable enough to give a fair review (I am being naif here?).

3582

I think there’s a difference between a GOOD review and an ETHICAL review. It’s fine to spend a relatively short time and not even complete a game yet then provide your opinion. It probably won’t be a good review, but as long as you disclose your limited time with the game then I don’t see any ethical issues. Such reviews, while likely woefully inadequate in giving a true feel for the game to a reader, could provide substantial value toward prospective day-one buyers who value the reviewer’s gut feeling.

However, as you said there are few reviewers who do disclose such things as the amount of time they spent unless it’s an RPG where hours played is often connected to value.

3583

Thanks!

That sounds like sound advice. It also pains me, Elemental is a game I desperately want to play and enjoy… and by most accounts it seems to not be there. I am not someone with a plethora of free time, a good game more or less out of the box is important to me. I don’t really have the time to try help baton down the hatches as it were…

I suppose good things do come to those who wait. Now if Civ 5 is in wonky condition at the start…

3584

This is, for me, the thing that really sticks in my craw about Brad’s casual promotion of the game over the past few years, here and elsewhere. From Stardock’s ostensible pursuit of the MoM name, to his soliciting our suggestions about what made MoM MoM, to eventually referring to Elemental as “not-MoM,” he carefully built up the expectation (and I do believe now that it was a calculated effort) that Stardock was intent on producing a successor to that most beloved of fantasy 4x games. I’d wager, in fact, the vast majority of preorders came from people who hoped for exactly that.

What we got is GalCiv II in Ren-fair drag, with tactical combat that feels tacked on at the last minute. When I sit back and think about it, I know that Brad did not consciously set out to bamboozle MoM’s hopeful fanbase. Right? So then the question becomes: how is it that Elemental can miss the mark so thoroughly? How could Brad have such a different idea from the rest of us – even after soliciting mountains of suggestions – of what made MoM a great game? What kind of cognitive dissonance is at work there?

Either he genuinely does not get comprehend what made MoM great, or he does, and Elemental was pushed out the door six months before that vision could be realized. Judging by what we have here, post-release, I can only presume it is the former.

So we end up looking to the modders, to see what can be done. My question there is, are the tools really flexible enough? You can edit spell variables like mana cost, damage, range, etc., but what about special rule-changing effects like invisibility? Is the scope and richness of MoM’s spellbook actually within the grasp of Elemental’s editing tools?

3585

Yeah, that’s what’s making me sad, too. The more I read about Elemental, the more convinced I am that it’s not what I want even if/when it gets to be an objectively good game. I want a Simtex-style Master game.

It’d be like if Firaxis had promoted Alpha Centauri as a MOO successor. Alpha Centauri was a fine game, but it wasn’t MOO, and by promoting it that way, they’d’ve just been mismarketing it.

3586

I would love to see a “State of the Game” post in a week or two. I do think Elemental has a lot of potential, but it really depends on what they see as being problems and what they focus on changing. I also think they can’t afford to be shy about ripping entire systems out. From developer posts on the magic system it looks like they’re gutting mechanics and reworking them, so that gives me hope.

With the spells, for instance, I get the feeling it was designed by engineers. Maybe this is arrogant of me, but I feel that we as a community could pool together a lot of cool ideas for spells, either by liberally cribbing them from other games or just flat out coming up with our own. There’s no personality to the magic spheres right now but that’s something they could fix, as long as they see it as an issue that needs to be addressed.

It all comes down to what they identify as problem areas and what is “working as designed”.

3587

I have a hard time believing Brad doesn’t understand what made MoM great, he’s not a dumb guy. Anyone with any brains can see this is a beta, whether you call it early or late beta the game’s buggy and incomplete. All his hype about this being a spiritual successor to MoM was a way to generate pre-sales IMHO, and apparently he was successful since his game already broke even. Maybe he was sincere and really believed his game was good in the beginning, but couldn’t back out of the early release date so he had to continue perpetrating a fraud.

I’m really angry at Brad/Stardock. I feel cheated and lied to. MoM is 10 times the game this is and probably ever will be.

3588

I’m really angry at Brad/Stardock. I feel cheated and lied to. MoM is 10 times the game this is and probably ever will be.

QFT…

At this point I’m just willing to paid 60 for a MoM remake just with better graphic, maybe multiplayer.

Jared and his band of windwalking hammerhands!!!

3589

Wow, it’s a shame, after reading all of these angry posts, I don’t even know if I wanna play the game I paid for until it’s patched more. Sigh.

3590

Hell I’d pay 100 for a MoM remake with better graphics and AI.

3591

Isn’t that what a lot of people thought Elemental was in the first place? I am so confused by all of this.

3592

it’s not, when I first played it, it’s reminds of me fantasy Civ4 a lot more than master of magic.

3593

Ohh. You know, gamekult is a pretty big site in France, i believe, it’s not like they are small fry.

3594

It’s was only a unofficial MoM remake for the first months after the official announcement, after Brad said clearly that we shouldn’t wait a clone, it was their own game, in the same genre, but their own game.

And you know, we maybe are giving a hard time to Elemental, but it would be three times worse if the game was really a supposed MoM remake / sequel.

edit: some people waited a MoO clone in GalCiv 2, and didn’t find it. But even then, GalCiv 2 was a fine entry in the same genre, just a bit different, with his own strong and weak points.
With Elemental in the other hand, i can’t say the same.

3595

I’m actually having fun with it, but then again I didn’t follow development closely and didn’t bother picking it up until after the release day patch. It’s not the disaster some of these posts make it out to be, at least for those of us who aren’t having serious stability issues.

3596

I haven’t looked at the editor, but bear in mind that MoM is the game that let you use magic to do the following:

  1. Make your entire capital city float in the sky, where it can only be attacked by flying units.
  2. Cause an entire city to be sucked into the Void, destroying much (potentially all) of it and scattering wreckage across the surrounding lands.
  3. Stop time.
  4. Cast a continuous global spell that causes all units that fall in battle to rise as zombies under your control.
  5. Cast a spell that has a chance of killing every normal living creature in both worlds, instantly.

If you want to do spells like MoM, you go big or you go home. The downside is that you probably need to build stuff like this into the game at a pretty basic level. I’m not sure an editing tool would have this sort of capability.

3597

It’s amusing that in the single-purpose thread folks are complaining about how unbalanced the game is. And in this thread folks are bemoaning that it isn’t unbalanced enough (I know there’s actually a bit more meat to the complaint than that).

Could some of the blandness of the spells be due to not wanting to unbalance multiplayer?

3598

Wowzer, clearly I have not plumbed the depths of MoM.

I could see doing a lot of this stuff using Python, depending on what Elemental exposes. 4 and 5 should for sure be easy. 2 seems doable, although it might be hard to make it look good. I’m not quite sure what 3 does – does that basically mean you get some free turns during which no one else can move? 1 would be hard to do since it would probably require special graphic effects and AFAIK Elemental doesn’t have flying units.

3599

I don’t need MoM magic (although it’d be cool). I’d be satisfied with AoW:SM magic. That is, distinct spheres of magic with interesting spells, both tactical and strategic.

The current spellbook in Elemental feels more like the choice between dagger, shortword, or falchion. They all have the same basic function, just differ slightly different in damage or range. It’s boring, but it looks like they’re retooling it, so I’ll wait to see what they come up with and, if needs be, make my own magic system. :)

3600

I don’t want to bash too hard on Elemental, because there are a lot of things I like about it. But regarding your statement above, the problem is both are true. The game is terribly unbalanced and the magic system is incredibly bland.

Do you go Air and take Lightning Bolt, that does 0-INT in damage? Or do you instead go with Fire and get a spell that does 0-INT in damage? Or perhaps Earth and Hurl Boulder, which does 0-INT in damage? Or Water and Ice Bolt, which does 0-INT in damage but causes the enemy to lose their action for 1 round, at the cost of a bit more mana? So much to choose from!

These are all fixable issues, though, so I’m not going to go chicken little quite yet.