Elemental all-purpose thread

Dethedrus · 2010-09-05T20:58:45.000Z

Adree:

So who’s rune_74? Or would banning that account prevent the thread originator from posting.

He’s the resident uberfan/cheerleader who bitches at anyone who dares to call Elemental anything but the second coming of Zombie Jesus or whatnot. On the Elemental forums that is.

He reeks of desperate fanboy, but anything’s possible.

Alstein · 2010-09-05T23:12:15.000Z

dbd1963:

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?

Try Civfanatics forums?

Instead of FFH2, I’d suggest the Wildmana modmod of FFH, the AI isn’t as pathetic, though Civ AI is in general horrible. GalCiv2 spoiled me on AI.

Anaxagoras · 2010-09-05T23:33:14.000Z

Alstein:

Try Civfanatics forums?

Instead of FFH2, I’d suggest the Wildmana modmod of FFH, the AI isn’t as pathetic, though Civ AI is in general horrible. GalCiv2 spoiled me on AI.

Yeah, the limited Civ AI is what killed the (otherwise awesome) FFH mod for me.

UncleSmoothie · 2010-09-06T01:19:03.000Z

This thread would be better (though certainly far from good) if users with 2010 registration dates were banned from posting in it.

Sparky2003 · 2010-09-06T02:02:20.000Z

Regdate elitism is even sillier than post count elitism. We need new stat, P&RPosts:TotalPosts ratio.

Bill_and_Belinda_Gat · 2010-09-06T03:27:46.000Z

says the guy who has his registration date in is username.

Razgon · 2010-09-06T03:29:32.000Z

Bill and Belinda Gates:

says the guy who has his registration date in is username.

no no, thats the year he was born.

Teiman · 2010-09-06T03:35:52.000Z





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Morse code is for dinosaurs!

DaleKent · 2010-09-06T04:21:43.000Z

Sparky2003 · 2010-09-06T04:37:28.000Z

Bill and Belinda Gates:

says the guy who has his registration date in is username.

Someone had stolen Sparky before I found this site.

Phydeaux · 2010-09-06T06:05:07.000Z

Sparky2003:

Someone had stolen Sparky before I found this site.

Wow. There’s a flashback for you.

http://www.theycamefromhollywood.com

Talorc · 2010-09-06T06:51:38.000Z

A lot of people keep saying “Obviously they will make GalCiv III next, everyone loves GalCivII”

Is anyone else not exactly enthusiastic about “Gal Civ III: Sins of a Quick and Dirty sequel to restore Stardock’s Finances”?

Razgon · 2010-09-06T06:56:52.000Z

Talorc:

A lot of people keep saying “Obviously they will make GalCiv III next, everyone loves GalCivII”

Is anyone else not exactly enthusiastic about “Gal Civ III: Sins of a Quick and Dirty sequel to restore Stardock’s Finances”?

You are actually the first I ever heard talking about that…fishing a bit?

Talorc · 2010-09-06T07:17:26.000Z

Razgon:

You are actually the first I ever heard talking about that…fishing a bit?

Nope, just struck me whilst reading the thread. Looking at it it now, it is probably a tad harsh to be critical about a product that doesn’t even exist other than a potential flash in Brad’s eye.

I think the fairer point from here, speaking strictly in a financial/business sense and assuming the enterprise/winblinds segment of stardock is not some fantastical money source, how does stardock come back from here financially and as a business?

Polishing the heck out of Elemental is nice and all, but is it going to generate the sales? Personally I think Elemental is such damaged goods reputation wise, such that it would take a some pretty damn good feedback from a number of sources (well regarded reviewers and confirmatory forum posts) to move me to purchase, along with a pretty hefty sale price cut (to $20 or so).

They are damned if they do, damned if they don’t with their next product. They cant move on too quickly. but maybe they need to in order to have another good retail product launch. Similarly, the product is going to have to be all singing and all dancing out of the box. It is not going to be terribly inspiring if it is just a by the numbers sequel to fill up the coffers. Nothing wrong with a decent sequel if it improves things generally without breaking much I suppose (see AOW:SM)

Still polishing elemental might work, I bought The Witcher twice, once in the original collectors edition and again as the enhanced edition, so there might be sales in it. Shame Brad ruled out the re-box option.

DrCrypt · 2010-09-06T07:27:49.000Z

They have to polish the game so as not to alienate their core customer base. They can’t just flush the turd and move on, no matter how unprofitable it might be: if Stardock doesn’t make a show of trying to fix Elemental for the customers who still have faith in both Wardell, his company and the game, they are simply not going to have a game studio anymore, because even their most loyal fans will turn on them.

Janster · 2010-09-06T07:40:50.000Z

Sometimes it helps for a business to stick to what they know best…
Expanding your business too rapidly has can often be a surefire way to run yourself into ze ground

Jason_McCullough · 2010-09-06T07:48:21.000Z

Brad Wardell:

A lot of people seem to think that Stardock knowingly released the game “full of bugs”. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. As people who have played through the various versions can attest, weird stuff is very machine specific. For instance, the illustrative outline on graphics causes no difference (not even 1 frame) on our test matrix machines and yet results in 20+ frames for others who have, on the surface, similar hardware configurations for us. The PC Gamer UK reviewer ran into a white tactical battle screen that we had never encountered before (nor had it shown up during the public beta).

Earth to Brad: hardware compatibility problems are bugs.

Mike_O_Malley · 2010-09-06T07:52:49.000Z

The key there is “knowingly”. He’s saying that SD didn’t hit the bugs during test.

Coreander · 2010-09-06T07:55:29.000Z

Mike O'Malley:

The key there is “knowingly”. He’s saying that SD didn’t hit the bugs during test.

For all the talk about “it’s not QA’s fault”, this makes it look like it IS QA’s fault. It’s not the first time I’ve seen a quote from him where he talks about bugs customers ran into that Stardock didn’t. When the bugs are so common among so many customers, if the test matrix didn’t run into them, it’s because it was badly designed or incomplete. There’s no other way around that.

Of course he might simply be lying about not knowing about it before. But that’s even worse.

KevinC · 2010-09-06T08:08:28.000Z

It’s not QA’s fault if they weren’t provided with adequate hardware to test various platforms/combinations.