I don’t think this is fair or correct. I think he just got hit with an unexpected degree of the, whatchamacallit, combinatorial explosion / complexity thing. GalCiv 1 is (IMHO) a really well-designed game, but it’s also (relatively speaking) quite simple, which means that taking the rough approximations of what would make a good balance when you started and adjusting them until it seems to work right wouldn’t have been a huge task. GalCiv 2 stepped up the complexity and this made balancing the system and ensuring it all worked together as a coherent game a bigger task… but still something manageable, something that one person could sit down with and focus on until it was right. Then Elemental stepped up the complexity to a level where that kind of tweaking and so on was just not going to be able to transform the mess that it was into a well-functioning game. But I doubt very much it was from a lack of hard thinking; it’s just that he created a problem for himself that the kind of hard thinking he’d done on similar problems on the past wasn’t going to cut it.
jeep
6402
Civ has been so popular for so long, that if making deep 4x games wasn’t hard more people would have done it by now.
Like making a roguelike with a lot of procedural stuff, you think it’ll be easy because it looks simple on the screen, but making them novel and worthwhile to play is a pretty significant challenge.
Still, I don’t mind that he tried, I don’t even mind much that he came up short. I can see why he’d try to time things the way he did, if Civ V was great people would be interested in more 4x games, if it turned out to be pretty underwhelming, that’s a huge opportunity to be the guy who did it right.
It’s the refund bit after all those years of gamer’s rights and so on, he just completely burned all his community goodwill and then some.
Now I get a piece of my own medicine. By ‘tarred and feathered’ I did mean mocking, as I would never wish harm on someone just for creating something I don’t like.
As for FE, my hope lies in the new project leads to steer the game away from SD’s ‘technical’ approach to game design.
I think the odds are much better now than before Jon and Matt joined. Stardock has always been a very good technical company and given it’s roots in business software, that doesn’t surprise me.
Matt and Jon are world builders from what I can see, bringing a new set of strengths to the project.
I think what many people are trying to get across here is this…
No matter how well the next Elemental release goes, Stardock/Wardell already burned the bridge of having a good relationship with many of its customers. Many people here used to talk about Stardock and Valve in the same way, that they cared about their customers.
Then after the whole debacle of the early release of Elemental (admit it already) and the problems with the returns and Brad making an ass of himself here and calling out people who were his friends even…well, many people just got fed up.
Wardell lost me with Demigod and that whole release debacle, along with his company supporting his kooky views financially, so I can not speak from personal experience, but from watching here and elsewhere I think Elemental just pushed a lot more people off the Stardock is great bandwagon.
So while Stardock used to be known for great customer support and so on, they are now the company that released the Gamer Bill of Rights, based on a debacle that was Demigod, and then did not honor it come the next release. Good will has to be earned, not just mouthed.
Marcus
6406
And didn’t he “edit” that same bill of rights?
I can’t quite subscribe to this view (and i apologize for any previous iPad induced spelling horrors) because Gal Civ straddled the line between shareware level gaming and something larger; the races for ex., were comically anthropomorphic and “geeky” and lacked the spark of imagination seen in Master of Orion, Starflight, or Star Control, and the ship editor was while clever an enormous chore for, gameplay wise, little reward. And though i can’t vouch for the accuracy of the statement, i’ve read that Gal Civ’s inscrutably strange economy was so unintuitive and had such unintended feedback loops that even the AI (and Brad Wardel, by proxy) didn’t appear to really understand what was going on. Gal Civ scratched a genre itch long neglected which helped it’s sales, and while the AI may have been above average the overall game systems were still rather rough even after several years and many iterations.
Elemental is not a loosey goosey space game but something that requries Civ - level tile based precision and a deep, designer level understanding of the economic and military systems, which it apparently did not have. With a sloppily thought out military and economic design as it already was it seems then that the AI was equally ignorant of how to play. That indicates that the designers had only a vague outline of their goals and only a superficial understand the gameplay elements they were constructing; almost as if, imo, it were a game designed by non-gamers.
Matt’s many people really is just a minority on a very small gaming site. Need to keep that in perspective. I’m disappointed in Elemental, but I didn’t buy Demigod (which apparently did get fixed- but I hate the genre), and they’re offering FE + the other XP for free for those who stuck with them, so they got two chances to win me back.
Honestly, for now I buy Brad’s explanation on Elemental- that it was overambitious and mismanaged, and crunch/overextension caused him to get delusional on the actual quality of the product (my own spin, based on the forum posts, and I do think Brad bought his own hype some). If Brad solved those issues, I can see Stardock getting back on track.
The bill of rights was edited- and I think much of that was due to people thinking that bad game= broken game. He did offer 75% refunds still, which is 75% more then anyone else would. (I do think he should have offered 100% personally, given that’s how people were interpreting GBOR)
Ultimately though, the only way Brad/Stardock’s going to get people back on his side is the way everyone else has to do it, by making good games. I know some on here pull for him to fail, but I’d rather have a successful Stardock.
I don’t care. A game is a game. I’ll rag on how horrible Elemental is, but if the next game is great, i’ll pick it up. I might not preorder it, mind, but i don’t care about past mistakes if the present is great.
What’s frustrating to me is seeing wasted game design opportunities; how many people get a chance to make a game, and then you blow it by making something so droll and unimaginative? At least fail spectacularly, fail by reaching too far, not fail by not even caring enough to leave the starting gate and have your only criteria for winning or losing be whether or not you beat the spread.
I think maybe you are under estimating the bad press that went out across the internets about Elemental. Do a google search, it was not just this small gaming site.
Ultimately though, the only way Brad/Stardock’s going to get people back on his side is the way everyone else has to do it, by making good games. I know some on here pull for him to fail, but I’d rather have a successful Stardock.
Yes, that first sentence is the truth…along with good customer support. And maybe Wardell never talking about his games again. He takes things too personally and has no ability to share the truth.
And even though I do not agree with his politics (and Stardocks since they are so closely tied), I do not wish failure on Stardock or Wardell. I hope can continue to make games and have a great life. By all means. Calling out Elemental for what is was does not mean I wish them to crash and burn. Elemental could be a great learning experience for Stardock…
Alstein
6411
Oh, Elemental bombed hard, I don’t disagree there. I don’t think people are going to outright boycott Stardock over it, outside of a small minority- especially if they were prior customers of Sins/GalCiv.
I do think a large part of the anger at Elemental wasn’t just that the game was bad, but that it was bad when people expected it to be the next MoM. Brad over-hyped his game, and you don’t do that unless you can deliver. Expectations, including mine, were unrealistic, and I think my expectations were lower then most. (I expected a very good game, on the level of Twilight, that would become great with expansions, not the next MoM)
As for Brad’s politics- I don’t think it gets in the way of running his company, and from every account he treats his employees right, which is something I care more about then his personal politics.
Googled this and read it. OMG OMG OMG THE SECOND GREATEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED
…and based on JMJ’s endorsement, I grew curious and also had to look.
HELL YES!
The councilor slumped to his knees as Grignr slid his crimsoned blade from Agfnd’s rib cage. The fat prince stood undulating in insurmountable fear before the edge of the fiery maned comet, his flabs of jellied blubber pulsating to and fro in ripples of flowing terror.
“Where is your wisdom and power now, your magjesty?” Growled Grignr.
Nothing beats the lithe, opaque nose. I love playing the Eye of Argon game, where each person takes turns reading the story outloud until they can no longer continue because they are laughing too hard.
The fat prince stood undulating in insurmountable fear before the edge of the fiery maned comet, his flabs of jellied blubber pulsating to and fro in ripples of flowing terror or something.
Kael
6417
I was hoping this wasn’t a quote from one of the videos I did last week.
Jag
6418
May as well use it as source material.
Oh good lord, this is wretched. And only the third greatest thing that has ever happened, behind 1)bacon and 2)bacon.
edit: this finally broke me. LOL
Eyeing a slender female crouched alone at a nearby bench, Grignr advanced wishing to wholesomely occupy his time.
OMG, I’ve never even heard of the Eye of Argon. I couldn’t finish reading the first paragraph without giggling.
