Elemental all-purpose thread

[Abiding_Dude]

In this thread? Probably safe to suspect the usage was ironic…

The usage was ironic, unnecessary, and arrogant. Please continue :)

[dbd1963]

Ach… I admit, some of my posts were spammy because I wanted to get to 20 posts so I could post a thread asking some questions. Now I see you need FIFTY posts to post a thread.

So, dang. How 'bout that Elemental, anyone heard anything good about that?

EDIT: Yikes, how can you stand the search function… if your search term comes up with nothing, you have to wait 60 seconds to try again.

I’ve been searching for threads of similar games which have awesome mods, like MTW2 and Third Age Total War (which released a new version in July) and especially Civ iv’s Fall From Heaven 2, which I know Tom Chick liked. Maybe some of you old hands can help – If I’m searching specifically for strategy advice for FfH2, will my search be fruitful here?

[lordkosc]

best way to search is use google, type in what you are looking for and qt3 or quartertothree , it works surprisingly well

[dbd1963]

best way to search is use google, type in what you are looking for and qt3 or quartertothree , it works surprisingly well

Thanks for that tip.

[kerzain]

Looks like Brad made a recent post, recapping his take on the Elemental release. Included in the 2000ish word post is a F.A.Q. of sorts addressing questions like:

Q: What is Stardock’s plan for Elemental going forward?
Q: Brad Wardell – you have a martyr complex! You always take personal blame for everyone! Get off your cross!
Q: Your act is getting old. Fool me once on Demigod, fool me twice, shame on me!
Q: My post was hidden on the forums! I have a right to post my anger!
Q: You’re getting screwed in the reviews! I can’t believe <website X> wrote <Y>
Q: Brad Wardell: You should just kill yourself!

Linky.

EDIT: Oh yea, interesting tidbit to those who like to track PC 4x game sales.

As it stands today, Elemental has sold approximately 82,000 copies.

[Mister_Widget]

Ach… I admit, some of my posts were spammy because I wanted to get to 20 posts so I could post a thread asking some questions. Now I see you need FIFTY posts to post a thread.

So, dang. How 'bout that Elemental, anyone heard anything good about that?

EDIT: Yikes, how can you stand the search function… if your search term comes up with nothing, you have to wait 60 seconds to try again.

I’ve been searching for threads of similar games which have awesome mods, like MTW2 and Third Age Total War (which released a new version in July) and especially Civ iv’s Fall From Heaven 2, which I know Tom Chick liked. Maybe some of you old hands can help – If I’m searching specifically for strategy advice for FfH2, will my search be fruitful here?

Fall From Heaven 2 is awesome, and lots of people here have played it. There’s a long, ongoing thread all about it somewhere in this sub-forum, with some variation of the name in the title.

If I was really in the mood for a fantasy 4X game right now, I’d fire up Fall From Heaven 2 in a heartbeat. Elemental, not so much.

[Blackadar]

Right now Brad is saying that he didn’t truly understand the state of the game and that was because he was too close to it. And yet that “smoking gun” post, three weeks before the game was released, is Brad talking about a bunch of the same problems that people who bought the game are angry about. So how do you reconcile “I didn’t know” with “here’s what’s wrong”? As I noted above, the only way you can reconcile that is to believe, as Brad apparently did when he wrote that blog post prior to release, that all those things were going to be fixed in the final, not beta tested patch.

Or you can look at the other evidence and believe that Brad was fully aware that what they were shipping wasn’t going to go over very well but believe it was the best of two bad options you had.

Yeah, there’s no way to sugar coat it. Brad’s posts about essentially being blindsided is entirely contradicted from the July post where it’s obvious he knew of many of the issues. It’s really impossible not to conclude that he outright lied in some of his post-release posts on his forums. Nice way to publicly shred your own integrity, BW.

[John_Reynolds]

Q: What do YOU think of Elemental?

A: Elemental is the finest game we’ve ever released. Ever. However, I have come to the painful conclusion that we will have to dedicate more effort to making the game live up to the expectations of our customers as a whole.

I’m not really sure how to respond to this claim. He either thinks Elemental is a better game than it actually is or he thinks his own company sucks ass. And I’m doubting it’s the latter.

[Stepsongrapes]

Q: What do YOU think of Elemental?

A: Elemental is the finest game we’ve ever released. Ever. However, I have come to the painful conclusion that we will have to dedicate more effort to making the game live up to the expectations of our customers as a whole.

I’m not really sure how to respond to this claim. He either thinks Elemental is a better game than it actually is or he thinks his own company sucks ass. And I’m doubting it’s the latter.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Elemental has a kick-ass mode. Stardock forgot to turn this option on. In-house, all the versions have kick-ass set to TRUE.

We’ve all been playing Elemental-lite.

[dbd1963]

Fall From Heaven 2 is awesome, and lots of people here have played it. There’s a long, ongoing thread all about it somewhere in this sub-forum, with some variation of the name in the title.

If I was really in the mood for a fantasy 4X game right now, I’d fire up Fall From Heaven 2 in a heartbeat. Elemental, not so much.

Found some info I needed and am going upstairs to play that game right now!

I like that Elemental gets another update this week, but it looks as if it will take a while before we get the promised changes to magic and all. Luckily, I somehow never heard of FfH2 until now, so I’ve got something to occupy my time.

[ioticus]

Q: What do YOU think of Elemental?

A: Elemental is the finest game we’ve ever released. Ever. However, I have come to the painful conclusion that we will have to dedicate more effort to making the game live up to the expectations of our customers as a whole.

I’m not really sure how to respond to this claim. He either thinks Elemental is a better game than it actually is or he thinks his own company sucks ass. And I’m doubting it’s the latter.

Or he’s a lying sack of shit, which I’m becoming convinced of.

[Mordrak]

So, a question for other people familiar with QA processes and development, is licensing an engine the silver bullet for the compatibility/technical issues Brad seems to think it is? I often hear that when licensing an engine, much of it has to be rewritten to fit your game (not just game play mechanics, some rendering, camera work, etc), which seems like it’d leave open the opportunity for similar problems.

[Bill_and_Belinda_Gat]

well as long as he does the thing it’s the right thing.

[EvilIdler]

Yikes, how can you stand the search function… if your search term comes up with nothing, you have to wait 60 seconds to try again.

It’s a game forum, so the search function is modelled after a JRPG. It’s super-hard, but once you get over the threshold of grinding search parameters, you’ll have an easy time beating the monster that is the search result.

[idrisz]

So, a question for other people familiar with QA processes and development, is licensing an engine the silver bullet for the compatibility/technical issues Brad seems to think it is? I often hear that when licensing an engine, much of it has to be rewritten to fit your game (not just game play mechanics, some rendering, camera work, etc), which seems like it’d leave open the opportunity for similar problems.

it’s not the silver bullet, having a stable engine will only get you so far.

It’s as Angie said, QA typically isn’t at fault for bugs in PC games, I know a few people who worked on Bloodline(which is probably the buggiest game I played), most of issues are reported, but it’s really up to the production whether or not to fix them.

I have a few years of QA experiences as well, Medieval Total War was fairly buggy on release(especially the multiplayer), I worked on it as a QA, we had a huge bug list, but it’s really up to the developers.

[KevinC]

Yeah, there’s no way to sugar coat it. Brad’s posts about essentially being blindsided is entirely contradicted from the July post where it’s obvious he knew of many of the issues. It’s really impossible not to conclude that he outright lied in some of his post-release posts on his forums. Nice way to publicly shred your own integrity, BW.

I think you might be right, Blackadar, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a contradiction. Those areas Brad complained about in his July blog did receive work between Beta and Release. For example, the UI was tweaked pretty heavily (you can look back in this thread at the release shots from the Gold version and the commentary about how it was improved).

The systems he complained about still had issues at release, obviously, but they were changed. I’m not defending him and I’m not saying he’s not just spinning all this, but it’s possible that he felt the changes they did make to those systems fixed them up enough.

[DaleKent]

So, a question for other people familiar with QA processes and development, is licensing an engine the silver bullet for the compatibility/technical issues Brad seems to think it is? I often hear that when licensing an engine, much of it has to be rewritten to fit your game (not just game play mechanics, some rendering, camera work, etc), which seems like it’d leave open the opportunity for similar problems.

Brad is incorrect on one thing in regards to this question in his recent thread. He says Civ5 runs on GameBryo. 2K/Firaxis has said a number of times the Civ5 engine is new, and written from the ground up internally. Civ4 used GameBryo, which I suspect is what he meant.

Don’t know about the other games he mentioned.

[Manresa]

best way to search is use google, type in what you are looking for and qt3 or quartertothree , it works surprisingly well

and if you append “site:quatertothree.com” to your string, you restrict Google to only searching things on QT3 (this works for the rest of the internet, as well). The QT3 search engine is pretty powerful, since you can restrict searches to single threads, or just to thread titles, etc. The only one search per 60 seconds restriction helps keep the server responsive for everyone else–which may or may not be relevant in the age of modern hardware.

[Surly_Bob]

Q: What do YOU think of Elemental?

A: Elemental is the finest game we’ve ever released. Ever. However, I have come to the painful conclusion that we will have to dedicate more effort to making the game live up to the expectations of our customers as a whole

Drat! Unreasonable consumer expectations strike again!!

Obviously the three “Yes, people actually sent me these mean messages!” questions were NOT a plea for sympathy. What are ya, some sort of cynic!?

[Angie_Gallant]

So, a question for other people familiar with QA processes and development, is licensing an engine the silver bullet for the compatibility/technical issues Brad seems to think it is? I often hear that when licensing an engine, much of it has to be rewritten to fit your game (not just game play mechanics, some rendering, camera work, etc), which seems like it’d leave open the opportunity for similar problems.

It’s not a silver bullet. It gets you a head start and, depending on who you license from, varying levels of support so it’s not like you’re throwing money at them for no reason. However, you can still break the shit out of things and since you are messing with someone else’s code, figuring out a fix can be cryptic. It seems to me to be a net positive most of the time.