Elemental all-purpose thread

[Robert_Sharp]

Of course. Angie is good people.

[forgeforsaken]

Matt has managed to make himself look obsessed and vindictive. Whether that’s creepy or not, it isn’t making Matt look good.

This also seems to carry beyond just Brad too as he’s exhibited similar behavior in the past in other threads, take the Borderlands thread as an example.

[YourConscience]

I don’t agree with any of that. First off, knowing what I know about AoW AI, I’m sure that AI just cheats more- and cheating is not AI, it’s cheating.

Also, for a MP-centric game, AI is not a high priority, but much of the replay value of a SP TBS game is wrapped up in the AI being interesting.

I’d say getting the AI right in a game like Elemental is almost if not just as important as getting the game right.

Well, sure. I actually meant to say that most players would prefer an interesting game over a good AI, if they have to choose between these two options. Of course everyone would like to choose the obvious third option.

Really, it’s actually a tautology I am stating here: A game per definition is a set of rules that wants to satisfy the people playing it. IF the rules are bland, unimaginative or just don’t make sense, no one’s going to play that game. Look at how many board games there are in any toys market. They are all just rules, materialized in the form of paper and plastic. Without any AI. Yet people play them. Hence, the one (game) can do without the other (AI), but certainly not the other way around.

The only qualitative thing a computer really changes in this equation is that suddenly you can fake playing against someone by playing against an AI. And if the cheating is sufficiently reasonable and non-obvious, I personally don’t mind. Obvious cheating can be very bad, especially if it precludes otherwise valid playing strategies. For example in Empire Earth the AI’s income was not determined by how many workers were working on the mines. Hence, constantly bombing them, as you would against a humand player, didn’t have any effect whatsoever.

Edit: In fact, for many people part of the SP player satisfaction is that it is actually not competitive to play against the AI. At least I personally don’t like to play online overly because I constantly loose against all those pros there. But beating a half-witted AI is somehow satisfying, especially if I can bolster my self-confidence by saying: the AI cheated, yet I still was able to win, I am so great!

It is, btw. a different matter when playing with a friend right next to you. Even if you loose, it’s fun, because you can talk about it.

[Lizard_King]

So is this now the clearinghouse thread for drawing connections between some time when Matt Gallant hurt your feelings and the current situation? Or is this just the usual chickenshit ban gloating masquerading as ethical grandstanding?

I can’t keep up.

[Abilio_Carvalho]

This also seems to carry beyond just Brad too as he’s exhibited similar behavior in the past in other threads, take the Borderlands thread as an example.

I loved Borderlands and still give the benefit of the doubt to Brad, but honestly? People are being WAY more obsessed with Matt than he ever was with Brad, and with much less reason.

Let it go. He’s not some kind of creep, he just decided to push Tom, and Tom pushed back. Move on.

[TimJames]

So is this now the clearinghouse thread for drawing connections between some time when Matt Gallant hurt your feelings and the current situation? Or is this just the usual chickenshit ban gloating masquerading as ethical grandstanding?

I can’t keep up.

I don’t know, I liked arakyd’s post. I seem to enjoy deconstructions of the minds of small business owners.

[Anaxagoras]

You have a creepy (or perhaps just juvenile) definition of what is normal human behavior.

Bullshit. Payback (aka revenge) is as old as history. And as common as dirt.

To me something creepy is disturbing in some way.

Fair enough. If you think revenge is disturbing, then I see where you’re coming from.

but I don’t see how his actions can be seen as ‘entirely reasonable’. What did the other Amazon reviewers do to Matt’s friend? Hell, what did WE do to him to deserve being trolled by his joke accounts?

Most of this board seems to consider both of those to be major transgressions. I don’t, and I suspect Matt doesn’t either. The Amazon reviewers in particular deserved to be griefed. They were fucking tools. BTW, I don’t know what Matt did. He might have crossed the line. But as a general rule, pestering dipshits who gave Elemental a 5 star review on Day 1 is a good thing. The game was not 5 star material. And their justifications for the ratings were the most petulant, fanboi-ish, and/or poorly thought out screeds I’ve had the misfortune to read in a long time.

I will agree that Matt’s trolling of this board was disrespectful of Tom, and AFAIK Tom doesn’t deserve that. But that’s why I think of Matt more in terms of “an amusing dick” than “creepy”.

[Alstein]

Well, sure. I actually meant to say that most players would prefer an interesting game over a good AI, if they have to choose between these two options. Of course everyone would like to choose the obvious third option.

Really, it’s actually a tautology I am stating here: A game per definition is a set of rules that wants to satisfy the people playing it. IF the rules are bland, unimaginative or just don’t make sense, no one’s going to play that game. Look at how many board games there are in any toys market. They are all just rules, materialized in the form of paper and plastic. Without any AI. Yet people play them. Hence, the one (game) can do without the other (AI), but certainly not the other way around.

The only qualitative thing a computer really changes in this equation is that suddenly you can fake playing against someone by playing against an AI. And if the cheating is sufficiently reasonable and non-obvious, I personally don’t mind. Obvious cheating can be very bad, especially if it precludes otherwise valid playing strategies. For example in Empire Earth the AI’s income was not determined by how many workers were working on the mines. Hence, constantly bombing them, as you would against a humand player, didn’t have any effect whatsoever.

Edit: In fact, for many people part of the SP player satisfaction is that it is actually not competitive to play against the AI. At least I personally don’t like to play online overly because I constantly loose against all those pros there. But beating a half-witted AI is somehow satisfying, especially if I can bolster my self-confidence by saying: the AI cheated, yet I still was able to win, I am so great!

It is, btw. a different matter when playing with a friend right next to you. Even if you loose, it’s fun, because you can talk about it.

The option to play a less competent AI is in GalCiv (and Elemental)- just set the AI difficulty lower. It will snark at you if you blatantly exploit it.
So I don’t see your argument on satisfaction as relevant, as the option is there in both. I’d rather beat an intelligent AI then a dumb one.

It’s like a fighting game- it’s no fun beating up scrubs, but competing against a good player (within a good game that you like) is one of the best experiences in gaming.

I am picky about AI’s, I got annoyed with the Civ IV AI at Normal having cheats. Usually cheating AI’s force a lame one-dimensional strat to beat them at a high enough amount of cheating.

[slikster]

Let it go. … Move on.

Did you ever stop to think that maybe this is what Matt should have been doing?

[mtkafka]

nothing creepy about being obsessive over a game (or developer) you hate. unless you’re possessed by a demon. then thats just freaky.

blah blah!

[Sarkus]

Most of this board seems to consider both of those to be major transgressions. I don’t, and I suspect Matt doesn’t either. The Amazon reviewers in particular deserved to be griefed. They were fucking tools. BTW, I don’t know what Matt did. He might have crossed the line. But as a general rule, pestering dipshits who gave Elemental a 5 star review on Day 1 is a good thing. The game was not 5 star material. And their justifications for the ratings were the most petulant, fanboi-ish, and/or poorly thought out screeds I’ve had the misfortune to read in a long time.

I will agree that Matt’s trolling of this board was disrespectful of Tom, and AFAIK Tom doesn’t deserve that. But that’s why I think of Matt more in terms of “an amusing dick” than “creepy”.

I’m not aware that MattG reviewed the game on Amazon, but he did review the book. The problem, as some see it, is that he seems to have gone out of his way to do so. He has only two other reviews on Amazon, so it’s not like he reviews everything. That’s why some people think his actions are “creepy.”

None of which justifies the response to the negative reviews by Brad, his wife, and that Stardock employee.

[rezaf]

And if the cheating is sufficiently reasonable and non-obvious, I personally don’t mind. Obvious cheating can be very bad, especially if it precludes otherwise valid playing strategies.

Well, a LITTLE cheating is always ok.
For example, most games that require a human player to scout in some way allow the AI to glimpse into the shadow-of-war without sending something there as a human would have to.
I always hated that in the HoMM games.
In MoM, on higher difficulties the AI gets such obscene bonuses that while it definately becomes more challenging, it becomes frustrating and less fun as well.

But with what Brad referenced in the podcast - the limited mana availability - it’s really a matter of making the AI take it into consideration.
For all I know, their mana system is horrible at first glance. Brads reference to the D&D chacters is funny in a way, as there’s no mana in D&D (at least not in the editions that I played).
They have this memorizing mechanic that’s a little odd at first, but it does it’s job. How well can be discussed, but it works.
Maybe it would have been interesting to use something similar in Elemental, but they didn’t, and having a supposedly powerful spellcaster regenerate a lousy single point of mana each turn is OBVIOUSLY a horrible idea, no matter how close to the system you are.

It was the same way earlier when the dullness of the (then just relvealed) spellbooks was discussed - Brad said they couldn’t make more interesting spell effects because it would be hard to teach the AI to use them properly.

Anyway, at normal difficulty, a wee little cheating is tolerable, but it should only be really easy to spot on those very high difficulty settings for those that wish to punish themselves.

---

rezaf

[Mark_Asher]

I will agree that Matt’s trolling of this board was disrespectful of Tom, and AFAIK Tom doesn’t deserve that. But that’s why I think of Matt more in terms of “an amusing dick” than “creepy”.

He stopped being amusing about one day into the release of Elemental.

[Mark_Asher]

So is this now the clearinghouse thread for drawing connections between some time when Matt Gallant hurt your feelings and the current situation? Or is this just the usual chickenshit ban gloating masquerading as ethical grandstanding?

I can’t keep up.

Gloating and grandstanding probably describes the tone of Matt’s posts about the game when it was apparent it was something of a disaster.

[Teiman]

Well, sure. I actually meant to say that most players would prefer an interesting game over a good AI, if they have to choose between these two options. Of course everyone would like to choose the obvious third option.

Really, it’s actually a tautology I am stating here: A game per definition is a set of rules that wants to satisfy the people playing it. IF the rules are bland, unimaginative or just don’t make sense, no one’s going to play that game. Look at how many board games there are in any toys market. They are all just rules, materialized in the form of paper and plastic. Without any AI. Yet people play them. Hence, the one (game) can do without the other (AI), but certainly not the other way around.

The only qualitative thing a computer really changes in this equation is that suddenly you can fake playing against someone by playing against an AI. And if the cheating is sufficiently reasonable and non-obvious, I personally don’t mind. Obvious cheating can be very bad, especially if it precludes otherwise valid playing strategies. For example in Empire Earth the AI’s income was not determined by how many workers were working on the mines. Hence, constantly bombing them, as you would against a humand player, didn’t have any effect whatsoever.

Edit: In fact, for many people part of the SP player satisfaction is that it is actually not competitive to play against the AI. At least I personally don’t like to play online overly because I constantly loose against all those pros there. But beating a half-witted AI is somehow satisfying, especially if I can bolster my self-confidence by saying: the AI cheated, yet I still was able to win, I am so great!

It is, btw. a different matter when playing with a friend right next to you. Even if you loose, it’s fun, because you can talk about it.

I don’t understand you post.

…

Really… a “Artificial Oponent” is not a simulation or something like that, It resemble nothing a oponent, is just a set of rules and systems. Some of the systems, like the pathfinding, may have a godlike knowledge of the map and things like that.

[DaleKent]

Sorry to post this here (I can’t post on Stardock forums anymore) but has anyone had contact from SD support email address in the last week?

It was 7 days ago the last response I could get out of them, and I’ve been sending daily emails.

[Lizard_King]

Gloating and grandstanding probably describes the tone of Matt’s posts about the game when it was apparent it was something of a disaster.

That’s great. I’m glad I was finally able to provide you with the vocabulary you needed to bring your dream comment to life. Consider the first one a freebie.

[TimJames]

…I’ve been sending daily emails.

That’s creepy.

[darkurthe]

IMHO, programmers talk from a very deep gnome cavern, full of gold mechanics. Since most people don’t realize that, wen programmers point left, people misunderstand right.

Those gnomes finally figured out how to turn a profit with my skivvies!

[Robert_Sharp]

Fair enough. If you think revenge is disturbing, then I see where you’re coming from.

Most of this board seems to consider both of those to be major transgressions. I don’t, and I suspect Matt doesn’t either. The Amazon reviewers in particular deserved to be griefed. They were fucking tools. BTW, I don’t know what Matt did. He might have crossed the line. But as a general rule, pestering dipshits who gave Elemental a 5 star review on Day 1 is a good thing. The game was not 5 star material. And their justifications for the ratings were the most petulant, fanboi-ish, and/or poorly thought out screeds I’ve had the misfortune to read in a long time.

Wait a second. You didn’t even read what we are talking about here? You don’t know what Matt has been posting? We’re not even talking about Elemental here. The reviews were of the book. But what strikes me as odd is that you are telling us we are overreacting when you don’t even know what we are reacting to in this case. Or did I misunderstand your post?

Also, I don’t find ALL revenge creepy, and if you believe that Matt’s problems with Brad are based solely on this “hurt my friend” story, you aren’t getting the whole picture.

But it’s fine, really. I’m starting to sound obsessed now. It doesn’t really bother me overly, or at least not as much as it might seem now that I’ve posted about it a few times. I just noted that I thought he was being a bit creepily obsessive. The only reason I added to that comment was because people seem to be challenging whether I’m allowed to think that.