Elemental all-purpose thread

Raife · 2010-09-02T23:11:59.000Z

I rest my case.

TurinTur · 2010-09-03T00:50:07.000Z

"Brad:

The problem with Elemental was that I am in love with it. To me, it’s not just a game. It’s a whole world that we can expand and build on. During the months of July and August, when I was working on the game non-stop, I literally had a hard time distinguishing the difference between the GAME, the MODS and the future. It all merged into one fuzzy centrality.

Teiman:

Sounds like a horrible problem for a designer and a writter. As a gamer, I only see what you DO put on the game. I can’t see what you have on your imagination.

There’s not constrains for things in his imagination. If is not made real (writting it down as code) is not “validated”.

This also sounds bad in a software project. where’s the roadmap? designs documents? prototypes?

He still too confident in the future, and I don’t expect things to be as happy as he seems to think will evolve.
But I trust his words*. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

*or maybe I don’t care enough and I already feel sympathy for the dude

So… do you know in the english world the Milkmaid’s Tale?? I swear you people that i just thought of that reading that quote. How anyone can delude himself in mixing these three different things, a game, the mods (something that depends on a uncontrollable third party, and usually flock to the big games only) and something as abstract as “the future”?

And no, Elemental won’t be a fantastic game once is fixed. Even if the ai, balance, bugs, and ui is improved, that will transform a bad game to a decent game, but not to a fantastic game. Still behind from FFTH, MoM and AoW.

Mazuo · 2010-09-03T01:37:33.000Z

JM:

My problem with Elemental is that I’m not sure that there’s anything worth salvaging beyond the original concept. The engine is a dud, the mechanics do not play nicely together, the AI is mostly worthless…

I just read PCGamer’s review and paragraph after paragraph basically gives the game the trashing it deserves. Imagine my shock when I get to the bottom and see a final score of 70. What? What exactly do you have to release to get somewhere between 10 and 40? A manuscript detailing a world you hope to design and code into a game someday filled with grammatical errors? Oh wait, Destiny’s Embers. :P

We keep discussing about how the game and the company are getting crucified, but it only seems that’s happening in this forum and others. The reviews that the masses are going to read seem at worst lower than average and others like PCGamer’s downright positive score-wise. Is this sentiment for the small company or just review site score inflation? I’m genuinely confused here.

As for Brad’s posts, my first reaction was to commend him for sucking it up and laying it out there as it is. But it just doesn’t add up really as beta reports were being sent in constantly that things were wrong. I have to imagine someone was internally detailing the issues as well, and if not, what were they being paid for? Being blinded by the love for your product is one thing, but that doesn’t mesh with months of reports that they knew things were broken and that they’d easily be fixed by release. If the first was true, shouldn’t we have been getting denials during development that submitted bugs even existed?

Perhaps I’m being overly cynical, but after getting burned by the release I’m loathe to just accept anything said now at face value.

Teiman · 2010-09-03T01:53:49.000Z

humm…

AlanSmithee · 2010-09-03T02:51:42.000Z

In the 111 pages so far, I haven’t seen anyone mention Brad’s anti-piracy measure of completing a game in a basic state and then adding content patches as a form of DRM. Methinks there was a judgement in error of making the final content too basic.
All of the games I have played so far involve me making an uber-stack before the AI can and wiping it off the map. There’s a lot of mid to end-game tedium which I feel is going to be filled in later on. I had a similar experience with Galciv and I wasn’t surprised that this was the case. I have patience and expect it to come right eventually.
I feel more bitter about the bait-and-switch that was performed by Brad when he claimed that this was a successor to MoM when it was more clearly a fantasy version of Galciv. Jason Lute’s comments accurately reflect my dismay when he asked if Brad actually understood what was special about MoM.

Teiman · 2010-09-03T03:10:51.000Z

Peter Frazier:

In the 111 pages so far, I haven’t seen anyone mention Brad’s anti-piracy measure of completing a game in a basic state and then adding content patches as a form of DRM.

If you visit warez sites you will see that the warez distribuitors also break and redistribute the patches.

Patches in the Impulse network are not mandatory, since DRM is forcing things on the client, is hardly a DRM thing. By default Impulse don’t autoinstall patches, so the default for Impulse is you install updates wen you want to install updates. This is probably usefull for Elemental, since updates may break savegames, and a user would want to delay the installation of the update to finish his current game to the end :-D

Impulse is not worse than apt-get

TurinTur · 2010-09-03T03:32:51.000Z

Peter Frazier:

In the 111 pages so far, I haven’t seen anyone mention Brad’s anti-piracy measure of completing a game in a basic state and then adding content patches as a form of DRM. Methinks there was a judgement in error of making the final content too basic.
All of the games I have played so far involve me making an uber-stack before the AI can and wiping it off the map. There’s a lot of mid to end-game tedium which I feel is going to be filled in later on. I had a similar experience with Galciv and I wasn’t surprised that this was the case. I have patience and expect it to come right eventually.
I feel more bitter about the bait-and-switch that was performed by Brad when he claimed that this was a successor to MoM when it was more clearly a fantasy version of Galciv. Jason Lute’s comments accurately reflect my dismay when he asked if Brad actually understood what was special about MoM.

While it would be very nice to have a modern remake of MoM, it doesn’t feel right for me to judge harshly Elemental just because it’s not like MoM. It’s called Elemental War of Magic, not Master of Magic 1.5.

But it feels right to judge harshly Elemental as it’s own, and it can be done. Look at Age of Wonders, look at Fall from Heaven (a mod of a game!), they are very good fantasy turn based strategy games by themselves, even if they have their own way to do things different from classic MoM, with focus in different things.

Razgon · 2010-09-03T03:41:10.000Z

I think there is a lot of confusion about this in particular - especially since Elemental started out as “Not-MoM”, and was in effect, the spiritual successor of MoM, since Stardock could not aquire the rights to the brand itself.

That means, that in a lot of peoples heads (Mine included, I’m afraid), it IS the sequal to MoM, and it has many of the elements, but its simply not as good, and thats a bit of a letdown. It doesnt even have half the features of MoM (Tactical maps with wall defenses??)

TurinTur · 2010-09-03T03:58:05.000Z

I think i left my hopes of a “Not-MoM” a bit before the beta 1, when in a journal Stardock explained their race/faction variety in Elemental (i.e, two sides, with just humans/dark humans as races-factions).

Jason_Lutes · 2010-09-03T05:47:32.000Z

Naeblis:

While it would be very nice to have a modern remake of MoM, it doesn’t feel right for me to judge harshly Elemental just because it’s not like MoM. It’s called Elemental War of Magic, not Master of Magic 1.5.

It’s absolutely right to judge Elemental by that standard, since Brad hyped his game by invoking MoM in the first place. As a result, he gets to reap what he sowed.

But I agree that Elemental also falls short of what turned out to be it’s own half-baked premise.

Teiman · 2010-09-03T05:58:44.000Z

All the Heroes of Might and Magic, King Bounty and Civ IV games are nice, but in no way fix our MoM needs!. Is like a drink, wen what you want is to eat something.

Elementals has been the most “like MoM” game in a lot of years. So, of course, the supermagneticgamerforces want it to be as MoM 2.0 as possible.

Telefrog · 2010-09-03T06:00:27.000Z

Sarkus:

Stardock released Demigod but didn’t develop it. So that’s a somewhat different situation. Prior to Elemental, Stardock hadn’t actually developed a full game since GalCiv2, over four and a half years ago (though they did two expansions to that game). I suspect that has something to do with how things turned out.

The Political Machine 2008.

(Which was a pretty good beer & pretzels strategy game.)

The_Punch_Line · 2010-09-03T06:38:09.000Z

Mazuo:

As for Brad’s posts, my first reaction was to commend him for sucking it up and laying it out there as it is. But it just doesn’t add up really as beta reports were being sent in constantly that things were wrong.

Well said. It is frankly a little sad that so many people are swallowing this hook, line, and sinker, because nothing really does add up. This “shocking admission” is nothing more than an underhanded grab for sympathy to try and keep a percentage of fanboys mollified.

Also, the review copies thing: Elemental “went gold” on August 13th. Reviewers got copies “a few days before” the 22nd? Little bit of a gap there, eh? No accompanying caveats of known issues or fixes in the initial patch?

And “all” the reviewers? Kieron said RPS didn’t get a review copy. The 1UP review is certainly no proof that they ever received a copy, they may still be waiting :). There are only two major reviews I’m aware of: GameInformer (aka the “savage” 65) and G4, both released a full week after the launch…are you sure they didn’t have to go out and buy the game? Maybe Adam B will say when he got his.

TimJames · 2010-09-03T06:40:57.000Z

Mazuo:

What exactly do you have to release to get somewhere between 10 and 40? A manuscript detailing a world you hope to design and code into a game someday filled with grammatical errors? Oh wait, Destiny’s Embers. :P

Let’s leave the jokes to the pros.

KevinC · 2010-09-03T06:47:51.000Z

The Punch Line:

Also, the review copies thing: Elemental “went gold” on August 13th. Reviewers got copies “a few days before” the 22nd? Little bit of a gap there, eh? No accompanying caveats of known issues or fixes in the initial patch?

And “all” the reviewers? Kieron said RPS didn’t get a review copy. The 1UP review is certainly no proof that they ever received a copy, they may still be waiting :). There are only two major reviews I’m aware of: GameInformer (aka the “savage” 65) and G4, both released a full week after the launch…are you sure they didn’t have to go out and buy the game? Maybe Adam B will say when he got his.

Wait until you hear about Area 51, it’s going to blow your fuckin’ mind.

JM1 · 2010-09-03T06:52:29.000Z

RPS is a blog.

Island_Dog · 2010-09-03T07:00:07.000Z

DaleKent:

Yeah he ignored me to. :p

OK, but I don’t believe I received any communication from you, and I haven’t gone through all the pages of this thread to catch a back story.

I’m assuming kryo has helped you already since you mentioned his name, but if you still need something I’m back here now.

Acosta · 2010-09-03T07:29:58.000Z

The Punch Line:

Conspiracy!

Shut up already.

Brad already said he screwed up big time, what do you want? want to beat him? throw him to the flames? Making him recognise he made a pact with the devil?

Here are the guys you must contact:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gldlyTjXk9A

Phydeaux · 2010-09-03T07:33:11.000Z

The Punch Line:

Well said. It is frankly a little sad that so many people are swallowing this hook, line, and sinker, because nothing really does add up. This “shocking admission” is nothing more than an underhanded grab for sympathy to try and keep a percentage of fanboys mollified.

Also, the review copies thing: Elemental “went gold” on August 13th. Reviewers got copies “a few days before” the 22nd? Little bit of a gap there, eh? No accompanying caveats of known issues or fixes in the initial patch?

And “all” the reviewers? Kieron said RPS didn’t get a review copy. The 1UP review is certainly no proof that they ever received a copy, they may still be waiting :). There are only two major reviews I’m aware of: GameInformer (aka the “savage” 65) and G4, both released a full week after the launch…are you sure they didn’t have to go out and buy the game? Maybe Adam B will say when he got his.

The concept I believe you are failing to grasp is that most of us have enough happening in our day to day lives that we have moved on. You’re acting like this incident is the defining moment of your life, which may be true. Some people are like that.

Sure, it doesn’t add up, but he’s flat-out admitted that it’s a monumental screw-up, which is an unheard of thing for a CEO to publicly admit.

Do you even own this game?

Blackadar · 2010-09-03T07:53:02.000Z

Phydeaux:

Do you even own this game?

No, but his wife bought the book! :)