6481

Man, that game sounds sweet! This company should put together a game that both honors MoM and the Gamer Bill of Rights!

6482

Seeing this game half price on Stardock’s Weekend Impulse Buy email begs the question:

Has this game been ‘fixed’? Is it playable? Is it worth $20?

6483

It’s playable, but not very good. Wait for the “new” game to come out.

6484

I’m assuming you mean half price on Impulse, but to answer your question, I would say it really depends on how bored you are. Yes, I think it’s been fixed, but it’s not a particularly fun/addicting game at the moment.

If you’re bored and have nothing to play and want to toy around with a TBS, I suppose it’s worth $20 to me. Otherwise, I’d recommend just waiting for Fallen Enchantress, which is looking like it may be what we all wanted Elemental to be from the start.

6485

It’s extremely bland and the AI is brain-dead… I’d wait for Fallen Enchantress.

6486

I would say to wait for Fallen Enchantress also.

But on the other hand there is this:
http://forums.elementalgame.com/403846

Elemental: Fallen Enchantress will be released as a stand-alone game but will be free to all players who purchased Elemental: War of Magic in 2010 and will be heavily discounted for anyone who purchases Elemental: War of Magic prior to Fallen Enchantress’s anticipated Summer 2011 release.

Who knows what “heavily discounted” means but thought it was worth mentioning.

6487

I think the idea was to avoid punishing people for buying Elemental after the cut-off date and making sure they don’t pay more then people who buy FE as a stand-alone.

6488

It apparently grinds Wardell that Steam is so successful while Impulse was not. Why do I suggest that? Because he can not stop whining about it how bad Steam isfor gaming or Valve or whatever every chance he gets.

6489

I thought he was fairly positive about Steam on Jumping the Shark this week.

6490

I couldn’t find a single whine about Steam being bad. He’s saying its quite possible that since Steam is successful, more resources at Valve are directed towards it which slows game development.
Also I’d say that building a game publishing platform and selling it can be catalogued under ‘success’.

6491

He has been complaing first about the market share Steam has, then about Steamworks, then about how Valve should sell of the Digital Distribution side, and now somehow complaining that printing their own money is bad for Valve. This has been a years long process.

I think my favorite part though is where he compares Stardock and Valve and says they are pretty similar…yeah, except one is extremely successful and the other just sold off their DD service because it was too much (i.e. - was not making them enough money).

6492

I think you’ve been spending too long listening to the Brad in your head rather than the one out here in reality.

6493

I saw a copy of Destiny’s Embers used at my local Half-Price Books this weekend.

I almost couldn’t resist taking the book home for the train-wreck factor.

Instead, I will wait to see how FE turns out. If FE is good, I will pick up the book (I assume it’ll still be there) as a show of support.

6494

I’m just so glad that Matt is concerned enough about Elemental to bring such interesting and germane contributions in here. I mean, it’s not like there’s an entire thread dedicated to the discussion of Impulse and its impending sale or anything.

PS - another patch, today. They’ve been rolling out some RC’s pretty quickly, which at least is good to see.

6495

Did we even listen to the same interview? That’s a pretty… interesting… take on it.

6496

I just wish Brad would stop peddling the line that he was only talking to “my friend Ben Sones” when he made the infamous comment about people who don’t like Elemental. It’s weaselly. Particularly as he seems to have few problems admitting faults elsewhere.

6497

Yeah, because everyone else on the internet is damn good at stepping up and admitting when they did something or were wrong.

6498

He’s not a random Joe, is he? And repeating the lie on podcasts doesn’t help matters. It’s one thing to not admit it, it’s another to pretend something else happened. Maybe he’s convinced himself that’s the case.

6499

Here (and elsewhere around the internet), I think he was still riding the fence between comporting himself as Stardock head honcho as opposed to the everyman, indie game guy he had always been. I think he had moved passed regular guy prior to Elemental, but I am not sure he knew it and/or was unprepared to move on. This thread was the tipping point and it all got away from him before he reigned it in. I believe he really tried to make good on everything and if it was still GalCiv Stardock, I believe the uproar would have been far less and the damage would have been better controlled. Stardock was no longer the same company and managing the multiple parts of the company, which there were exponentially more of compared to back in the day, just could not be done in the same manner. Press and previews and buzz became more important than the old word of mouth days. The run up to release was a huge snowball so when the problems were brought to light, that snowball was pulverized against a wall of backlash.

Everyone’s views of his discussions or interviews are a bit (or severely) tainted by the whole situation and that is unfortunate. The moral: Playing with the Big Boys is hard. I think Brad is doing an admirable job of evolving into the new role, but it is still a bumpy evolution.

OTOH, hard to believe as it is, I could be talking out of my ass.

6500

Most game developers don’t shoot off their mouths to the point where they get this kind of critical scrutiny. A word to the wise.