3901

Nope. Not at the Tacoma Best Buy this weekend.

The only reason I mention it is that we have a pretty large military presence in Tacoma, so things like paperback books, video games, comics, and RPGs sell a lot better here than in non-military non-college towns. I usually see all sorts of weird hard-to-find PC games at one store or another. I didn’t see it at all.

I suppose they could’ve all sold out, but I didn’t see shelf spots, placards, or displays for it. Nothing. The guy at Gamestop (who usually knows about PC releases) didn’t know a thing about it.

I have the Impulse version, but I was curious to see the box. Mainly, I wanted to see what the box copy said.

It just struck me as weird. For all the talk of how retailers screwed them on the release date, I thought it was odd that I didn’t see a single copy of Elemental anywhere.

3902

Just saw this in the public #elemental chat:

[12:56] <jagdpanther> Should Los Angeles beta purchasers of the Limited boxed edition have received the game?
[12:57] <fangsters> I got mine today
[12:57] <fangsters> east coast though
[12:57] <@kryo> they started shipping in batches tuesday
[12:58] <@kryo> usps priority mail for domestic orders

3903

I’d think of that as being part and parcel of the same thing. With like Starcraft 2 or Halo 3 or whatever, they’ll get labelled boxes telling them not to open them until a certain day, and there’ll be letters from corporate instructing the stores on how to handle these releases, and communications on release day about putting up signage and what-not… but with a more minor game like Elemental (as with about any book not named “Harry Potter”), the street date is more like an estimate of when it might be in stock, and stores will just put it out when they get it, like they would with a new edition of Grolier’s or the latest Sims Fun Pack expansion.

3904

Yeah, I’ve stopped reading previews to avoid disappointment, never mind PR hype direct from the developer. If I’d been following this thread from the beginning and got conned into preordering, I would probably hate the game as much as I hate GTA4. Much better to keep expectations low, and buy things after finding out that they’re good.

3905

Right on.

3906

Yeah, I got mine at Best Buy the day after release. One other nice thing about BB is that you can often get preorder copies off of the shelf if you get it the first week. This gives you a few days to read the feedback before buying. I did this with both Dragon Age and Red Dead and ended up with preorder copies of both games.

3907

He did? I recall him saying numerous times “We went with an illustrated art style. Some will like it, some will hate it, but we feel the tradeoffs were worth it”.

3908

Sorry to hear that. I’m starting to worry about getting my refund now.

3909

Brad, I was one of your pre-order beta testers. I paid a little over $60 AUD for the “pleasure”. I have been playing EWOM since beta 2 and participating in your Elemental forums at Stardock.

Shortly before release you asked for critical feedback. I provided my feedback and explained why I believed the game would fail. You proceeded to call me a Steam fanboi and a troll, and attempted to incite other forum posters against me.

A week after release (yesterday) you post an update thread which is obvious damage control. You also make some delusional claims, such as most people are happy with the game. I replied to that saying you must be mistaken, and commenting on reviews coming in (from Metacritic). I also pointed out I disagree with your point #7 (that reviewers should rate the game based on 1.05, not 1.0 as was pressed on the disk and released). I remember you proudly proclaiming to all your sycophantic back-patters on the Elemental forum that v1.0 was your “best game ever”. As it turned out, this was as accurate as your continuous claims during beta testing in criticism threads that the “internal version is way better”. The final part of my reply was to remind you of my prediction before release, and even though you had called me a Steam fanboi and a troll, you had to admit I was right.

Anyways, today I find myself banned from your forums with no explanation as to why. I will be surprised if the game still lets me play too. So was I banned for being critical of your game? Did I fail at being your lap-dog? Is THAT why I was banned?

Is this how the CEO of Stardock treats his paying customers? I also read I will not be able to get a refund since I was in the beta test. Does your “gamer bill of rights” actually mean nothing to you? Do as I say, not as I do?

If you want something to nerd-rage me about, try this on:

Your game is SHIT Brad Wardell. You can see a couple of great ideas but the design execution is exceptionally POOR. Magic is completely broken, MP is still not functional, modding (against your promises of getting a code SDK at the beginning of your discussions on EWOM) will be pitiful (only stats updates and maps allowed), you failed at the most basic premises of strategy games (player decisions and random maps), city building is chaotic and extremely unintuitive, the tech tree is a repeating set of uninspiring +X% techs, and documentation for the game is non existent.

You promised us a game that would be a worthy sequel to Master of Magic, and even claimed on the forums it would be better. What you gave us what a steaming pile of crap that doesn’t even deserve to be given out as coffee cup coasters.

Elemental was my first Stardock game, and it will be my last!

3910

GalCiv 2 is a pretty awesome game, you are missing out.

3911

Is one of your handles GaelicVigil? I read a story very similar to yours over at the Dwarf Fortress forums recently.

3912

fixed

3913

No I’m on Elemental forums as Dale_ (with an underscore).

3914

Dale is correct on all counts. I was in the beta test and can vouch for what he said.

3915

More reviews are rolling in.


FINAL SCORE 9.0/10

Sean Ridgeley @ Neoseeker reviewed the game:
Link.

3916

I wish I played that version of the game. :/

3917

title of the article is funny

1.Build something out of nothing
2.Make your own fun

I can make my own fun without spending 60 on a game, it’s call jerking off.

3918

What the fuck is up with Neoseeker’s UI? I am trying to find their other “editor’s reviews” but the “User’s Reviews” isn’t it – they’re from every mouthbreather with a login. Nor is it under the “P/Reviews” – those are aggregated from the whole web, though without even Metacritic-level score reporting.

So I want to find out how Neoseeker has reviewed other recent games, but I can’t find their other recent reviews!

I suppose the moral here is that Neoseeker is fairly worthless :-)

3919

A pretty good review at Out of Eight.

3920

First of all, that needs pictures/screenshots/whatever.

Second of all

What?