5561

Brad Wardell deserves every bit of criticism he gets for the way he handled the beta and launch of Elemental, for the terrible design of the game, and for convoluted (at best) customer service and communication post release. Unfortunately, this also makes it feel like open season for personal attacks on the guy because he really hasn’t done very much to differentiate himself from Derek Smart as far as his online behavior has gone.

With all that for context, jumping on people for doubting the sincerity/truth of Brad’s posts strikes me as a bit ridiculous. He has earned the cynicism of gaming consumers.

That said, I don’t really understand why certain people felt the need to shift into idiotic Forum Warrior mode over this and I wish they would stop posting/go away (the Stardock forum refugees posting here as well as some of the current/former Qt3 posters chasing Brad all over the internet).

5562

yeah i kind of agree, i dont like the kitchen sink design that seems to be going on. ultimately, its there game, and they shouldn’t be asking fans on design/logistic decisions (though i think they are just trying to appear open minded).

but i still think the game can turn out really great. the last couple patches are pretty solid and i havent had any crashes. design wise, they havent made complete overhauls, its still conceptual gameplay the same from release (whcih is good, because i like the simplified city build 4x approach ala Gal Civ). the biggest change i see with the game is magic and tactical, which is needed.

anyway some of you ppl need to calm down. the game had a bad release. its not the end of the world. you will not die.

5563

Why do people say this? It makes no sense. This is a gaming forum, so of course games are taken seriously and people are passionate about them. Would you like someone in the Ubisoft DRM or Blizzard RealID threads saying “You guys need to calm down and not worry about this so much, it is just a game!”.

5564

You really should have been playing DWARF FORTRESS the whole time anyway.

5565

of course ppl have a right to complain and criticize a game or its company. but its beating a dead horse now. the game got bad reviews (rightfully so), bad press and willl likely ruin stardock financially for awhile. at this point its just pontless to keep pointing out the obvious.

5566

I have two questions for you:

  1. why, when you type out every other full word, do you keep abbreviating “people” down to “ppl”?

  2. if your basic argument is that further discussion on this topic is “beating a dead horse” and that “it’s just pointless to keep pointing out the obvious” why are you still participating in this thread?

5567

i’m terrible with grammar so sue me!

and i came to this thread to actually defend stardock. the rage against them is totally overblown here. i dont even think derek smart got as bad a reception here… or cleve blakemore. AND THAT SAYS ALOT~!

5568

Scale of Developer Crazy:

Builds a Castle House ---------- Attacks Soda Machines ---------- Builds Underground Bunker to hide from the Mud People

5569

I want a castle house!

5570

Go found your own company. If you’re both good and lucky, you may get to build a castle house. Also, you’ll be able to employ a bunch of other people, helping them build their own houses.

5571

I was talking about flaming on Qt3, not any of the other stuff. I was talking about forum behaviour, not the whole mess that is the Elemental release. About realising where you have gone off the rails in your posting and correcting your style of addressing people like an actual functioning adult. This is not the same as absolving Wardell of any and all wrong turns he and his company have made.

We’ll see how much of a wake-up call this debacle will actually prove to have been for Stardock’s chosen style of game design. If this hasn’t been enough to make them change their basic (non)methodology it’s hard to hold out hope for better new IP releases. They need an experienced game design vision-holder very badly.

5572

I have to say that releasing two hotfixes already for a patch that was delayed a week to make sure it was “good” is not really making me feel really confident about things.

5573

That’s good as I had this person show up outside my settlement one day. He has 481 essence.

5574

Here’s some info about the magic system changes from Wardell. The actual change is in the last paragraph.

The bulk of the AI work is going to be in v1.1. It’s almost impossible to make it produce a cohesive strategy given how easy it is for the human player to summon tons of units. It’s an O(N^3) issue.

Basically, it boils down to the need for a game AI to be able to have N strategies. In a typical game, say GalCiv II or Civ IV, you’d have the AI have several different general strategies (rush, boom, turtle, etc.). But in Elemental, there are a number of unique challenges.

For instance, you have sovereigns who are very powerful. This isn’t a new concept, Total Annihilation had commanders. However, when the enemy commander died, they’d destroy everything around it. Thus, you wouldn’t tend to “Com rush”.

Another challenge has been the issue of summoned creatures. With the way imbuing works, you can easily crank out a lot of summoned creatures without any real economic impact.

You take these two issues and it makes it basically impossible to write a challenging AI. And yet, asking the player not to make use of the most obviously effective strategy would be insane and “gimping” the game is not an option.

What we are going to do in v1.1 is this:

Your sovereign is the powerful Channeler who generates +1 mana per turn. Each time you capture a shard (which in v1.1 willl have 1 seeded near where you start) it will provide +1 mana also as well as amplify certain spells. When you imbue a champion, it costs -1 mana to maintain. When you summon a creature, it will cost -1 mana to maintain. Thus, if you want an army of spell casters, it comes at the cost of having your sovereign being as powerful as he could because he’s sharing his power with so many minions. If you keep it all for yourself, you can only be in one place at a time. It also makes controlling shards strategically meaningful because they are the source of the Channeler’s power.

5575

Uh, so spells cost mana now? Or is there still essence?

Also, the stupid special-tile-for-everything is eventually going to result in the entire starting area being covered in what are supposed to be rarities.

5576

The spells have always had a one-off mana cost… The way I understood it is that summons and imbues will have a running mana cost. You can’t maintain an army of casters or summons for long nor can you summon scores of creatures. It’s a nerf to a summon/imbue rush strategy.

5577

I’m less than thrilled about the proposed magic system. Nerfing magic in a game that is based around magic seems…strange.

And more clutter at startup on the tiles? I never liked the whole adventure system with things suddenly popping up (Toms insane picture with the Tower of Hell suddenly popping up is a good example) have always annoyed me. The world feels extremely gamey for it, and not all like a real magic world, a feeling that has been captured by many other games.

its just all too gamey and generic.

5578

Yikes, warhammers are now Attack Rating 5, which is worse than maces (Attack Rating 6). Warhammers are more advanced than maces, so they’re kind of pointless to research now. Cutting weapons also got similarly nerfed. Armor hasn’t changed, and it’s pretty hard to hit some stuff with anything but spells and abilities now.

Oh, and that first magic sword you research costs 12k.

5579

There’s mana in the game? I thought it was all essence-based.

5580

Elemental has both. Mana is the replenishing resource used to cast spells. Essence is a permanent statistic of a person that e.g. determines the maximum amount of mana she can have.