6081

Did the project stay above water after all the returns? Was there a net loss in sales post-release?

I doubt it, but I’m curious.

6082

There was no justifiable reason to “run him out of town”. He was a game developer that made a game we all desperately wanted to like that fell flat. He tried and failed, I don’t see any shame in that… let alone cause for running him out of the community.

The game’s problems are well documented, but I’m glad at least someone is attempting to make games in this genre. Hopefully they’ll be able to pull this thing out of the fire with the expansion(s) but if not it’ll just go down as another disappointment for me, I’m not going to personally crucify the guy. Sure, I’ll probably not pre-order the next one, but if I hear good things about their next title I don’t have any problems picking it up.

6083

Well its not like “running him out of town” was neccessarily the goal of everyone here who posted something negative, though I’m sure theres a few people who had that goal.

What made me so angry is a combination of things:

A) Feedback that was utterly ignored. Through the entire beta all we heard was “right now it sucks, but its going to be awesome” and “we know X is terrible, but its fixed in the next build.” Those things turned out to be completely untrue, almost to the point of being deceptive. He ignored what everyone was saying for the most part and refused to take much advice and kept saying how awesome it was. Maybe it was a matter of being to close or whatever, but honestly I can’t see how anyone could play the game in beta or at release and remotely think it was fun.

B) GBoR. Its one thing to say something about the industry and its completely different to say something and then when it comes time to put your money where your mouth is you completely back out. I got screwed. I don’t have the budget to buy many games in a year and Stardock screwed me out of a game I could’ve gotten. I knew in the beta it wasn’t looking good, but at that point you were already pretty much locked in. Don’t talk about how people should be able to get refunds for a crappy product and then make it impossible for people to get refunds for your crappy product. Noone, noone likes a hypocrit.

C) It was billed as a successor to MoM and wasn’t remotely. Yeah it wasn’t MoM2, but it wasn’t even a spiritual successor. AoW far surpassed it in every respect. In fact the game has no goal beyond being fantasy and it even fails in that respect. What makes a game fantasy isn’t dudes in plate mail wandering around with a hint of magic and people with funny skin color. Magic was an afterthought and despite people saying it sucked for the entirity of the beta, nothing got done. They wanted to re-invent the wheel. People like wheels, they work. You can add cool rims or different treads, but if your going to make it square your going to have issues.

Maybe the two expansions will make the game fun, but honestly, I fucking doubt it. The whole lore and all the systems in the game are either boring, broken or both. The best thing for the game would be to scrap everything in the background and just let Kael make FfH3 with the engine. Thats never going to happen, so instead we’ll get some half-assed game where I can play as humans or “evil” humans with grey skin who are exactly the same in every respect and I could give a shit about them.

I don’t like the idea of waiting two or more years to maybe get something worth spending money on. How about instead I get a refund? Hell I’ll take store credit and get GalCiv2 and its expansions.

6084

Brad put out a post on his site a few days ago saying it’s still selling decently for some reason. He said it “sold well, but not well enough to do what we planned”

6085

You folks misunderstand–which is sort of what Cory does, but still.

I have no quarrel with anyone who wants to rip Brad Wardell a new one over Elemental. I encourage it. I spent fifty bucks on a game Ive spent all of an hour playing, and that fucking sucks and I’m probably too discouraged to protest more, even though it might be cathartic.

I just take issue with the notion that Brad soaked up the accolades here. He started a thread about his much-anticipated game, and while there were some concerns raised, there was also a lot of backslapping going on. When things got bad, he split…but as others have pointed out, it ain’t tough to find him if you’re interested in making your feelings known. I think he left here with his tail between his legs, knowing full well that for the forseeable future a Brad Wardell post would be like waving a red cape in front of a bull…and again, that may be deserved.

6086

Wooo, cheap shot and a misspelled handle. What did I do to deserve such splendid treatment?

6087

Sorry, didn’t mean to screw up your handle. I edited it.

You just seem kinda tense sometimes. More than I remember from the Cubit days. Perhaps just my mis-perception. Carry on. Cory on. Something like that.

6088

At any rate, the point I’m making horribly–or trying to make, at any rate–is that even with the horrible release state of Elemental, I believe that Brad thought he was releasing a good product. I understand that given the gamebreaking problems with it that this is a real stretch to believe. I also think that it’s an even bigger stretch to believe that Brad knew Elemental was fundamentally broken and decided to knowingly do great longterm harm to his brand for short-term gain. To me that just doesn’t make sense.

So yes, he was here pre-release because he knew this board was excited about his game, and he was excited to bring it to everyone. Then when those Elemental chickens came home to roost, he decided he’d rather not relive even a minor re-enactment of some D. Smart flame wars on his friend Tom’s forum.

6089

I’m glad someone else mentioned this, because I’ve been noticing this, as well. Ever since being featured on the Qt3 Games Podcast, easy going Cubit’s been replaced by arrogant/tense/whatever-you-want-to-call-it Cory. I want the old Cubit back, the one who kicked my butt in Madden 10 (or did I kick his…?).

6090

Bullshit. Only thing that happened to Cory is he got sexier.

6091

From the Paxton self-introduction:

As a designer I love worldcrafting and lore. Elegant mechanics are good, but when we can tie some flavor to them to really make them beautiful and unique they are so much better. Before I could start the feature list for the post 1.1 work I read the Hiergamenon and Destiny’s Embers and made notes on all the cool things I would love to tap into when designing. I want Verga to have a unique ability that makes him feel as cool as his entry in the Hiergamenon describes. I want you to find the strange and tragic remains of a shattered world when you are out exploring. That’s what really excites me.

6092

Not to get too meta, but the only real change is that I’m more comfortable with Qt3 than I was a year ago. I’m much more likely to praise posts/posters, but also more likely to call them out for not making sense and being idiotic or trollish. That can be a good and bad thing. If that manifests itself as increased aggression or comes off as arrogant, then I apologize in advance. Qt3 is the first forum I’ve spend any significant time on, so it took me awhile to get warmed up.

also, TEH SEXY.

6093

Sorry for being off-topic,

But I’m in the same boat as Cory. I started off here meekish because it was someone else’s club, and I was a new guy. But after awhile you get a little tired of old-timers questioning your join date, or trying to make you foolish for an opinion on this or that, and you say enough is enough. I just posted my first f-off type post to a veteran, not because I wanted to but, IMHO, because he singled out my posts specifically (and not others who were saying the same thing about) and kept at it with smart-ass remarks. Been here a couple years now, I think I’m a member who deserves respect too.

On-Topic

I really like Kael’s idea that there should be this ‘destroyed’ world to explore. It’s what made The Lord of the Rings series so satisfying, because they would come upon these ruins that had a back story that took place years and years ago. Even Moria was a fascinating tale, of a glorious Dwarven Kingdom brought down by greed.

Jorune

6094

I agree…it’s the one thing I wish there would be in Minecraft too.

6095

The public beta of version 1.1 is scheduled to start next Thursday, Nov 18th. Paxton documents some of the coming changes here. A short extract with delicious, crunchy numbers:

In 1.1 [the stats] have been changed to the following:
Strength- Modifies damage
Dexterity- Modifies dodge
Constitution- Modifies hit points
Intelligence- Modifies spell resistance, boosts some spells, required for Champions to cast some spells
Charisma- Sovereigns Charisma modifies Champion recruit costs. Champions and the Sovereign give a prestige boost to the city they are in.

That leaves us with the following formulas:
Attack (which is damage) = Weapon Attack + ((Strength - 10)/2)
Defense (which is damage absorb) = Armor Defense
Accuracy = 15 + (Level * 2)
Dodge = Dexterity / 2
Hit Points = 10 + ( (Constitution / 5) * (2 * Level) )
Spell Resistance = Intelligence / 2
Prestige Boost in City = Charisma / 5
…
So if I have 23 Accuracy (I’m 4th level) and you have 5 Dodge (you have a Dexterity of 10) then we both roll from 1 to our rating and the highest roll wins. I get a random number from 1-23 and you get a random number from 1-5, meaning there is about a 87% chance I will hit you.

6096

You’re going to post every bit of info till the end of the expansions, aren’t you? :)

6097

But I haven’t even posted about Toby’s holiday!

6098

It’s worth reading that whole post. It’s clear that Paxton knows what he is doing and I’m excited to see the changes coming on Thursday.

6099

Knocking out the foundations and rebuilding from the rubble was exactly what needed to happen. From the start it was pretty obvious there was no “standard” on which to base any of the stats/items on.

I’m glad they’re doing it and doing it now, as opposed to an expansion.

6100

The 1st expansion is supposed to really be, from what I’ve gathered, knocking over some more rubble, and adding new building blocks in place.

That said, I see good decisions being made, which is a good thing.

To me at least, a lot of Elemental stuff seemed like leftovers from GalCiv, and leftovers that didn’t really fit a game like Elemental at all.