5941

I couldn’t disagree more, Mr. G88. A lot of the brilliance of the Fall from Heaven mod is how Derek managed to create gameplay mechanics from his backstory. Or fit gameplay mechanics to backstory.

Plenty of people slap their D&D campaigns, either literally or figuratively, onto the side of a game. Not many of them have Derek’s talent to weave it into actual gameplay.

 -Tom
5942

Ah crap. I checked out the Civlopedia for the lore, and will now stand corrected with the Ljos and Svalfs, who I never actually considered as being elves, just elf-like.

Jumping in, I was tempted to start a new game of FFH but had to resist.

5943

When I said faction concepts, I just assumed it was understood this included the associated mechanics that defined the faction. I mean, you can call one faction a race of vampires, but if they aren’t given sort of “vampirey” things to do, what is the point? It would be purely cosmetic. Kael didn’t make a mod that vastly expanded the variety and re-playability of the core Civ gameplay by creating factions that had solely cosmetic differences.

Which brings it back to the question that I originally posed, in response to the idea of Elemental becoming “Fall from Heaven 3”. Does something become “Fall from Heaven 3” without Kael’s setting, lore, and signature faction concepts (and associated identity in terms of mechanics)? It seems unlikely they’d jettison Elemental’s default lore (as much as I prefer Kael’s).

If you mean rather the “spiritual successor to FFH”, simply referring to a fantasy strategy game that has a number of factions each with distinct gameplay…well, that describes a a lot of games.

5944

I see FFH and Elemental as being two different things. FFH is Kael’s baby whilst the world of Elemental is Brad’s. Each has their own backstory, and trying to merge the two would be messy I would think.

Using the engine powering Elemental (wasn’t it called Kumquat engine or something) to make a new standalone iteration of FFH however, that could be possible, maybe.

5945

Personally, I’d love to see Kael deliver something new in terms of world and background. FFH is awesome, and awe-inspiring, but also feels exactly like what it is: a sprawling D&D campaign cobbled together over the years, from a variety of folklore and fantasy fiction inspirations. It is brilliant in the creativity and richness of the details, but the big-picture elements – mythological references like Loki, using Tolkien/Scandinavian vocab, etc. – are somewhat derivative. What I’d love is to see him take everything he’s learned from those years of campaign building and create something from whole cloth.

5946

Agreed. The reason I didn’t pay attention to the game fiction was because the seams show so clearly. Seeing words like Elohim or Bhall cut the wires on my suspension of disbelief.

As for the successful top-down design you mentioned, Tom – perhaps. Since I didn’t pay any mind to it, I can’t say for sure, but that’s probably correct. Still, top-down design is about using flavor to enhance the resonance of your game mechanic. I’m one member of the audience who played for the mechanics and not the flavor (which often struck me as uneven or eclectic in a bad way).

What’s interesting about this hire is that Elemental and FFH have the same plot, right? Both feature societies rebuilding after some kind of apocalypse.

5947

Well, as long as I can play with chaos clowns, vampires, and recruit militant, amoral angels to aid me as long as they get to fight their eternal war against the demons, I admit I don’t care much about the proper nouns.

But again, I don’t think Elemental’s setting is going anywhere. Brad wrote a book.

5948

This is the point I think.

The lore for Elemental is pretty weak. Its not very interesting and the factions aren’t that exceptional. I’d like to see Kael get in there and mix it up and make it interesting, but I don’t see it happening (because of the crappy book).

Ideally Elemental would scrap its generic background and we’d go with FFH’s, but thats very unlikely. The best we can hope for is Kael gets to play with the factions enough to make them notworthy and unique.

5949

Wardell’s latest post The new magical order tells us that Paxton will not be the lead designer on Elemental, Wardell will.

I’ll be resuming my traditional position as Executive Producer and lead designer

Then again,

the part of the game I’ll be involved in most – the computer AI.

and (from an earlier post The next phase)

This will allow me to focus my time on design and AI on the game

but

I won’t go into any details on that expansion since our new Producer will be heavily involved in the specifics of the design.

Oh, and the “Paxton joins Stardock” announcement said

Stardock CEO, Brad Wardell, will serve as the executive producer and lead AI developer on Elemental.

and not to forget (from a post dated October 4)

#4 … I’ve turned over the design of tactical battles to others on our team

It’s challenging to parse even from the full messages what Paxton’s actual design role will be. His role as Senior Producer is clearer.

In the new post Wardell breaks down the responsibilites of the designer, the producer and the executive producer and talks up the benefits and the necessity of separating these roles. From what I’m able to gather, Paxton’s role still seems to be a mix of producing and design.

It’s very interesting from a psychological point of view that at no point does Wardell come out and say e.g. “Paxton will be responsible for the general game design of Elemental.” even though this seems to be the implied message.

Why does it matter what the game design role of Paxton will be? Because that determines what the Elemental players can expect from the game in the future. A Wardell design is not the same as a Paxton design. Obviously a lot has already been set in stone by Wardell but now we’re interested in what kind of changes and new features will get implemented.

5950

Hear, hear!

Why would Paxton even want to implement again the same lore and mechanics? That would be a waste of his creative abilities. He’s already spent years and years within the same fiction. Surely he deserves a change of pace after all the pleasure he’s given us.

I find it troubling that fans often want creators to keep doing the same exact thing. We already have Fall from Heaven II and it’s not going to disappear. Shirley, a new work would be much more exciting for both the audience and the creator. People change and want to move on and apply the lessons they’ve learned in new work, not to keep endlessly reworking their old output. That way lies spiritual death and Being George Lucas.

It is absolutely also in the fans’ best interest to allow creative people the mental freedom of exploring new fictional vistas instead of being forever chained to their previous successes. The resulting work will be more stimulating and delightful than the regurgitation of old, increasingly frayed favourites.

I hope none of you take this personally, I mean these purely as general observations. I see no fanatical excesses of the kind I describe in this thread.

5951

Doesn’t sound from the latest post like he’d be making lore decisions one way or another on the game anyway, even if they were of a mind to change it, so the point seems moot.

New settings/lore seem like they fall under the purview of the modding process…assuming the game ever becomes something a significant number of people become interested in modding.

5952

The podcast Three Moves Ahead Episode 86: Logistics, Supply and News covers Paxton’s move to Stardock from 1:30 to 8:20. Troy Goodfellow and Rob Zacny share our concerns and hopes.

5953

http://news.bigdownload.com/2010/10/12/interview-we-get-stardocks-brad-wardell-and-derek-kael-paxto/
Based on this comment from Mr. Brad:

It seems that the AI in Elemental is multithreaded a some level (one thread per civ, or one global thread?), and is turn independant. The AI has no “turns” concepts, and this explain why you can get popup windows on top of other popup windows (like save), the AI don’t care (or know) as such things as modal windows, turns, or anything else. This is sexy in a world-simulator way. A direct result (seems) that if you give enough time, the ai can do better moves (or maybe have more time to remorse about bad moves?).

The comment of “dungeon master” (director AI, if you use Valve slang) smell like namedropping, but is also sexy. A normal ai is just a fictional contender civilization that want to conquer the world ( Civ5 civilization). A dungeon master is not that a /game master/ is a dude that control the game, and is tryiing to make so the players have a damn good time playing. We have bad experiences with making games easier for the sake to make the game playable ( Oblivium auto-leveling, others…) but we have good experiences with the dungeon master spawning interesting stuff and sending that into the players direction ( Valve “director ai” in L4D). If thats more than a name dropping, is interesting, if only because is new idea in civ games. …or is new to me, I have never seen a civ game launch a ice age “just because” (yea, we have nuclear winters, but there are triggers, are not launcher “just because”). Is a RPG’ish idea, and a possible avenue for improvements, maybe.

5954

Monthly paycheck?

5955

Yes, I agree Wardell will pay Paxton to turn Elemental into Fall from Heaven III.

5956

You could fix Elemental’s Lore. The diplomatic dialogue in GalCiv II is what made the races seem more unique then they were. You can also adjust other things as well.

That said, the Fallen in particular in Elemental disappointed me with not being different enough.

I really hope the game doesn’t become FFHIII, I do want something different. That’s not a knock on Kael or FFH.

5957

I want FFH3, if only to have a “real” FFH game. Like, free-of-Civ4 FFH.

Since Elemental has no soul, it’s fine with me if Kael plays Frankenstein with Elemental and zaps it to life with the exact same stuff that was in FFH2.

It won’t happen because Brad wrote a godawful book, but one can dream.

5958

It was a mod or something.

5959

Wardell explains what the job titles mean at Stardock.

It really depends on the company and really even then it depends on the project. In my experience, the Designer sets up the broad strokes, the Producer is the one who makes it happen.

A good Producer is a pre-requisite for a good game. And a good Producer is heavily involved in the design.

At Stardock, we have the term “Lead Designer” which sets out the broad strokes of what the game is. The lead designer sketches out the basic mechanics and general rule sets. The Producer is the one who makes it really come to light.

At other companies, the Designer is all powerful and the Producer merely carries out their vision. Since I’ve never considered myself a real “game designer” the position of Lead Designer (which has been my role) has had a lot less power than it might have at another studio and instead the team and the Producer flesh out the concept. My “power” comes from the role of Executive Producer since that’s the part that sets budget and manages the product (as opposed to project).

Anyway, the thing to take away from this is that every studio has different ways of doing things. Since we’re historically an engineering-driven company, we have a tendency to put more power into the hands of those actually doing the coding.

The downside to our system, which is something we’re addressing, is that it leads to designs that are often soulless or generic.

On a personal level, my long-term objective is to be neither the designer nor the producer on any of our games. Rather, I would be the executive producer (the guy making the overall requirements – i.e. we’re making a PC, turn-based, strategy game set in a fantasy world and you have 36 mnoths and $3 million to do it and I’ll work with you on design and write the AI.

Looks like Paxton will have a lot of say in the game design of Elemental.

5960

On a personal level, my long-term objective is to be neither the designer nor the producer on any of our games. Rather, I would be the executive producer (the guy making the overall requirements – i.e. we’re making a PC, turn-based, strategy game set in a fantasy world and you have 36 mnoths and $3 million to do it and I’ll work with you on design and write the AI.

I too want to do this.

We are doing a remake of Masters of Magic, incorporating all that was loved in it, from crazy over-the-top spells that can end the game, to insane monsters and diverse races living in two separate planes. You should be able to make magic items, and there are crazy-ass strong heroes running around as well, from all races doing all kinds of crazy stuff - throw out any notion of multiplayer balance other than everyone can go monkey-crazy!

hey - its not that hard!