Care to name names? Which of the developers who worked on Elemental should be fired? Or if it’s just a question of numbers, what is the minimum number of firings that would satisfy you? As I recall there was also a round of layoffs directly due to Elemental’s disappointing release but that obviously wasn’t enough to satisfy you.
(If someone could post the names of the Elemental development team, that would be helpful.)
What if Brad felt he was the one mostly at fault? Kinda hard to fire himself, though, yes, he could just step back completely from any design responsibility and instead manage his employees (old and new). That kind of sounds like the current situation, to be honest.
I’m personally OK w/ what Stardock is planning despite being disappointed twice in a row (Demigod and Elemental)…the only part that irks me is that the official line seems to be somewhere along the lines of :
“Wow, we sure screwed up but don’t worry - from a business perspective we still made money! In fact, we’re so dedicated to our fans that we’re going to work on this game until we’re technically in the red! You fans should be thanking us!”
…just STFU and let the game speak for itself if/when it gets good.
Mazuo
6385
Fully agreed. Maybe the hysteria can die down now.
Quitch
6386
I enjoy the Stardock consumer report and am glad they’re continuing to publish them. From what I read about Elemental in it they appear to have made all the right choices following last year’s disaster. I am actually excited about the expansion.
It’s exactly the situation.
EDIT: Well, not really exactly. He’s still involved, he just has other guys ostensibly sharing the heavy lifting in terms of design direction.
And if you read Brad’s blog about what went wrong, he admits he was too involved in its development (check the 3rd diagram, all the orange boxes were him).
He also says that Elemental is/was so broken, it’s unfixable. On the one hand, I’d like to take that as an honest admission of culpability (which it likely is), but another part of me feels like it’s his way of dodging the accusations it being released too early.
I am no fan of the way Brad conducted himself immediately post-launch nor the way a lot of people got screwed out of legitimate refunds, but he is trying to do more than sweep it all under the rug. Maybe that’s because he can’t, but there it is anyway.
He still thinks that book he wrote is good, though. That’s a problem.
He should be tarred and feathered for that at least.
It’s possible the company fanboys have created a reinforcing echo chamber around him as far as that book is concerned. The idjits managed to push its Amazon rating above the apparently deserved 1-star.
Oh grow up. What should happen to him is that he should be mocked for writing a crappy book. That’s happening, so all is right with the world.
Bill can correct me if I’m misunderstanding him, but I’m pretty sure he meant “That’s a problem because it means he’s kinda delusional” as opposed to “That’s a problem… someone must be tarred and feathered.”
That is what I meant exactly. Although if anything it speaks to Brad’s self-admitted inability to remain objective about something he has invested a lot of himself in. Still. That book.
KevinC
6392
You read a book written by a software engineer… what did you expect, exactly?
I really don’t mean that in a flippant way. Kudos to him for trying, anyway, I certainly wouldn’t have had the balls to do it.
Balls would be knowing it sucks and putting it out anyway just to say, Fuck you, someone may like it. This is more along the lines of narcissism-coated bad taste.
Raife
6394
This is more along the lines of Eye of Argon.
Kudos? Really? You should show your support by buying 10 copies.
jeep
6396
Which we said when it was in beta, when it was released, after every patch, etc. It still crashes to desktop after a hundred turns for me.
The very first thing he said when he admitted it was a disaster was ‘no refunds, I will make my customers whole’ but:
- Gamers shall have the right to return games that don’t work with their computers for a full refund.
- Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
I’m not even really pissed about Elemental any more, but I’m not using Impulse even though I really want to play some of the games in their rpg catalog because I’m not giving him any more money
KevinC
6397
Heh, now why would I want to do that? I’ve yet to see a game-related book that wasn’t awful, and those are at least written by… well, writers. A game book written by a software engineer? No thanks.
Again, what was anyone expecting when they bought it?
Enidigm
6398
It’s also clear that Brad doesnt IMO think hard about designing game systems. The guy who made the indie game Bronze basically prototyped all the game rules in excel and only later put brush to paper and made the game. Elemental is a soulless game made by someone who thinks game design is 90% process and staff management and all the rest of the rules about little men hitting each other with swords (which the kids seems to like) can be written in after a few power lunches at the end of development.
The booj more than anything reflects an almost delusional lack of perspective. Your so cool you can design a game and write a full length novel at the same time? And you refuse to fully grok that they both turned out horrible, and why?
Blips
6399
Every time Brad mentions replacing something from the game with a new “funner” system, my expectation of FE drop.
At this point I’m hoping that I’ll be blown away, but I’m expecting a pretty disappointing game.
More like “thinks little of”, it seems. But whatever, it’s what worries me too. I mean, how can a software engineer fail to see gameplay as a systems design problem needing the same kind of architecture & analysis work any other systems design problem does?
