Elemental all-purpose thread

Telefrog · 2010-09-28T10:15:06.000Z

Alstein:

Apparently they required such to get retail space. I do believe Stardock on that. It’s not that easy to get retail space if you’re not one of the super big guys.

I’m pretty sure the comment was more about the low quality of the current quests in the game and predicting that any additional “special quests” would also be lame.

On another note, apparently my code for subjecting myself to the awfulness of Destiny’s Embers gave me a set of useless sovereigns based on characters from the novel in the last big patch. Soon I will reap the rewards of a “full map of Anthys” to play should I feel especially masochistic.

Matt_Perkins · 2010-09-28T10:15:25.000Z

I love that it’s only months after the release you get your extra content. Oh, and the comment that the APIs aren’t fully developed sure is cute. Too bad they don’t have a QA team!

Sepiche · 2010-09-28T10:23:20.000Z

"Brad":

So v1.09 is still mostly about bug fixing, memory optimization, etc. A broken API got fixed that made the AI considerably better but it’s still way way too unaggressive. Having a non-cheating AI kind of stinks sometimes because the AI doesn’t usually know how weak your cities are. In GalCiv, the AI could come up near your planets and see how poorly defended. But the same technique fails in Elemental because they don’t get close enough to your cities to see how weak they are and then coordinate. So it’s something I’m still trying to deal with. But if anyone wondered why the AI wasn’t “aggressive” enough now you know. It’s something I’m painfully aware of.

Is it just me or is that not a really easy problem to solve with a couple of gameplay changes?

Just off the top of my head:
Adding a simple low level spell that will reveal a selected city (it is a game about magic after all)
Adding a spy unit
Adding an abstract espionage system that can reveal enemy territory

Then you just teach the AI to use whatever you add to reveal more city info, and there you go.

strategy · 2010-09-28T10:27:08.000Z

Sepiche:

Adding a simple low level spell that will reveal a selected city (it is a game about magic after all)

I’m not 100% sure (it’s been a while since I played), but I believe there is a fairly low level spell in the game already that reveals map tiles.

Alstein · 2010-09-28T13:21:52.000Z

There is. A few people are suggesting one solution would be to buff that spell some.

Jason_Lutes · 2010-09-28T17:03:03.000Z

Telefrog:

I’m pretty sure the comment was more about the low quality of the current quests in the game and predicting that any additional “special quests” would also be lame.

Bingo. I cannot, in fact, think of any game in existence with with “quests” as utterly uninteresting as Elemental’s.

kerzain · 2010-09-28T17:05:00.000Z

Jason Lutes:

Bingo. I cannot, in fact, think of any game in existence with with “quests” as utterly uninteresting as Elemental’s.

World of Warcraft.

Alstein · 2010-09-28T17:34:13.000Z

Apparently some of the folks laid off by Stardock have been hired back according to latest post by Brad.

The same post also makes it sound like after Elemental they will be doing GalCiv III.

KevinC · 2010-09-28T20:05:20.000Z

Alstein:

Apparently some of the folks laid off by Stardock have been hired back according to latest post by Brad.

The same post also makes it sound like after Elemental they will be doing GalCiv III.

Do you have a link to that? Their search is terrible over there.

slikster · 2010-09-28T20:10:26.000Z

Here you go.

amandachen · 2010-09-28T22:14:48.000Z

Brad:

For me, I’m in it for the community. To be honest, I’m in it for you guys. The only coding part I enjoy is the AI. I don’t like designing games really. I write design documents and such for our games but I don’t enjoy it. It’s a chore.

Erm, get someone else to design your games. Then I might be interested in playing them.

strategy · 2010-09-28T23:17:54.000Z

amandachen:

Erm, get someone else to design your games. Then I might be interested in playing them.

Hey, I’d take the job.

Weird problem to have when you do strategy games. I’m pretty sure there are many thousands - tens of thousands of strategy gamers - who’d jump at the opportunity to design a game. Whether it’d be any good as a design is of course another matter - but a design that someone is passionate about has a better chance than something delivered by rote.

Sarkus · 2010-09-29T00:17:09.000Z

amandachen:

Erm, get someone else to design your games. Then I might be interested in playing them.

Lost in all of this and Brad’s tendency to take the public role on Stardock games is that Brad wasn’t the guy in charge of developing the game, at least not officially. He certainly had an impact on how it turned out, of course, but if he is telling the truth when he says he didn’t really get involved on the day to day stuff until six months or so before release, then that means someone else was actually in charge of coordinating the various elements of the game. While Brad is listed as the designer, there is a producer and two lead developers also listed in the credits who presumably had a big impact on how Elemental turned out. Not that I’m aware of any of them ever saying anything publically.

That said, Stardock probably would be better off if they hired an actual experienced game designer and let him/her focus on the big picture of design while Brad did AI and whatever other parts he actually enjoys (plus run the actual company).

TurinTur · 2010-09-29T00:20:48.000Z

If i am not mistaken, credits of the game says he was the Lead Designer.

Jarmo · 2010-09-29T01:17:43.000Z

Wardell has a request for us:

One thing that I would request is if people could start posting their saved games. I would love to look at how people (real people) are playing the game. I would look at it from both an AI and game balance point of view.

Jarmo · 2010-09-29T01:36:41.000Z

Stardock is planning a city overview screen for v1.09. This will be a very welcome addition for the reasons explained in the opening post of the linked thread.

Razgon · 2010-09-29T02:59:32.000Z

Its interesting to see Civ 5 and Elemental, and how many similarities there are, and how wildly different they implemented it.

Its pretty clear to me that Brad wanted this to be fantasy Civ, but simply didnt have the resources nor design know-how to do it well from the start.

oh well, I still have a faint hope that it will turn out well, but I’m holding back on playing it this year

JM1 · 2010-09-29T04:00:26.000Z

kerzain:

World of Warcraft.

WoW has some great quests.

Mysterio · 2010-09-29T07:35:13.000Z

JM:

WoW has some great quests.

Yeah, I don’t understand the knock on WoW’s quests, especially when you consider they first appeared 6 years ago.

Telefrog · 2010-09-29T07:40:09.000Z

Jarmo:

Stardock is planning a city overview screen for v1.09. This will be a very welcome addition for the reasons explained in the opening post of the linked thread.

Yeah, Wardell’s got some really interesting insights in that post.

Wardell:

It’s in for v1.09.