Elemental all-purpose thread

zx81-Amd64 · 2010-08-09T02:51:58.000Z

Timsfker:

I can just imagine the placeholder voiceover guy reading this discussion and feeling sad, not only because the fans don’t like him but neither does his boss =(

Yeah, maybe he just wasn’t ‘feeling it’ on the day, or had a cold? He deserves a second shot at it, a chance of redemption to prove his critics wrong.

Dan_Theman · 2010-08-09T07:35:11.000Z

Well, the silver lining for the placeholder voicework guy is that his boss for his day job is hearing/saying “don’t quite your day job” ;)

KevinC · 2010-08-09T07:37:31.000Z

A day job, in this economy?? :)

The fact that we’ve spent almost an entire page discussing the voice work on the intro movie tells me that the 24th needs to hurry up and get here so we have something more substantive to talk about. I was spoiled with the near-weekly beta updates.

KevinC · 2010-08-11T20:00:49.000Z

Seems as though Elemental will be a success financially, at least. I saw this post by Brad on the Elemental forums:

"Brad":

For what it’s worth, Elemental has sufficient pre-orders such that it’ll break even on August 24th.

That’s gotta be good news for a niche, independently published PC strategy title, especially when it’s a new franchise.

Strato · 2010-08-11T20:20:32.000Z

Part of me wants to give Brad a hug after reading this in the same thread

Look. I’m biased. But I’ve been making games for a long time.

I lot of the people who buy our games are like me. We grew up on Ultima IV, we loved MoM, we loved Xcom. Some people would play those games and not like them. That’s fine. There’s lots of games that cater to that huge demographic.

Elemental is for us.

I’ve got years. I’m not working on any games other than Elemental for a long while. It is that good.

I was happy with the beta, it lived up to its reputation that it would be unfun to the point that I was happy to just sit back and look in on occasion to see what was happening. Hopefully things go well in the final week and a bit before release. I’ll be waiting to the point I’m trying to tie up loose ends in my gaming backlog. It just sucks I’ll be away from home for quite a bit by the time the CE arrives on my doorstep.

Drastic · 2010-08-11T20:25:59.000Z

Brad Wardell:

I know I care about voice overs. It’s one of those things that budget isn’t an issue on. I agree, it sounds like Torgo to me too.

I’m relieved this turned out not to have been just me. If it had been just me, I would start worrying. What if everyone started sounding like Torgo to me when it really didn’t?

That would be a good troop-demoralizing curse. You can use that for flavor text if you like!

arakyd · 2010-08-11T23:28:13.000Z

Brad Wardell:

Indies like us release games when they can safely be released (and not a moment later <g>) whereas most public companies release games based on the needs of shareholder value.

Thanks for that insight into “indies like us.” Fortunately for those of us who value quality, you don’t speak for indies in general, or for that matter public companies, or even private ones.

Razgon · 2010-08-11T23:32:14.000Z

arakyd:

Thanks for that insight into “indies like us.” Fortunately for those of us who value quality, you don’t speak for indies in general, or for that matter public companies, or even private ones.

Other than letting everyone know that you don’t particulary like Brad Wardel, whats your point? He didnt say that, he just said “indies like us”.

Anyways - I’m super excited about the changes Brad has stated is making it into the release day build, and the comment about continuing work on Elemental. What I am most excited about, is when he remakes Temple of Apshai with the Elemental engine :-D

Scotch_Lufkin · 2010-08-12T03:41:23.000Z

arakyd:

Thanks for that insight into “indies like us.” Fortunately for those of us who value quality, you don’t speak for indies in general, or for that matter public companies, or even private ones.

Who are you?

kerzain · 2010-08-12T03:54:14.000Z

He’s the voice of quality.

Dan_Theman · 2010-08-12T04:17:23.000Z

kerzain:

He’s the voice of quality.

So that’s what the kids are calling it these days? Never would have guessed ;)

marxeil · 2010-08-12T05:03:01.000Z

arakyd:

Thanks for that insight into “indies like us.” Fortunately for those of us who value quality, you don’t speak for indies in general, or for that matter public companies, or even private ones.

Are you referring to SD’s products being of low quality or Brad’s posts? What are you so angry about?

Matt_Bowyer · 2010-08-12T05:17:36.000Z

Whatever it is, he thinks he can count himself among the gallant few opposing Stardock, I guess. I’m just confused.

KevinC · 2010-08-12T05:28:19.000Z

arakyd:

Thanks for that insight into “indies like us.” Fortunately for those of us who value quality, you don’t speak for indies in general, or for that matter public companies, or even private ones.

Thanks for stopping by. I find your post incredibly insightful and feel like you’ve made the thread better by not just your substantive contribution but by your mere presence alone.

I’m not quite sure what rock you crawled out from under, but it sure would be swell if you went back.

Matthew_Bramblet · 2010-08-12T05:45:55.000Z

Eh, he’s been beating that drum for a while; apparently it’s so much fun to be a self-appointed contrarian.

On a more interesting vein, another post from Brad pointed out what could be the best long-term feature of the game: it’s massive modability.

Brad Wardell:

The reality is, and let’s be real, Elemental is going to be the fantasy TBS game for awhile. I’ll probably break down and buy Civ V from Steam at some point (after a lot of SC2) but realistically, you could make Ultima IV with Elemental and share it with others seamlessly. I don’t see anyone else offering that.

We’ll have to revisit the whole beta program thing after this since people were really expecting some sort of demo to comment on tweaking rather than participating in a real beta like the techies of the old days understood. But we’ve gotten so much good feedback. I think people are going to freak out at the final version. It doesn’t just play differently. It’s visually very different. And that was the whole point of the beta.

That part about the beta was definitely true. It was quite a deep look into the sausage factory to see the bits and pieces of the game, more than many game “beta” tests, which often seem more about PR than anything else.

Dan_Theman · 2010-08-12T06:01:49.000Z

Matthew Bramblet:

On a more interesting vein, another post from Brad pointed out what could be the best long-term feature of the game: it’s massive modability.
That part about the beta was definitely true. It was quite a deep look into the sausage factory to see the bits and pieces of the game, more than many game “beta” tests, which often seem more about PR than anything else.

Agreed, on both counts. This isn’t to say I don’t like other fantasy TBS games, but modability goes a LONG way in a niche market. As for the Stardock beta vs. “check out this pre-release” beta, I think it wound up being a bit of a troubling spot for some people and generated far more grief than there should have been. I think that Brad et al did fine in warning the public about the unfun and most testers gave lip service to understanding what was being said. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean the message actually sinks in.

Disconnected · 2010-08-12T06:41:01.000Z

Maybe call it an alpha next time?

Farscry · 2010-08-12T06:44:47.000Z

I joined in on the beta from day one, preordering Elemental as soon as preorders originally went live (maybe a slight delay; I was moving right around that time so I had to wait and order after the move to make sure I didn’t screw up billing/address stuff).

Elemental’s beta has been the best beta process I’ve participated in, precisely because it was a nuts and bolts (sausage factory, whatever) beta and not just a demo. I got to watch the game develop from essentially a tech demo to what is nearly the finished product (and soon, the finished product itself!).

Stardock was very very straightforward about the beta from the start, and anyone who was taking it to be the traditional style of “beta” testing was ignoring the developers’ journals and statements.

I’ve had a fun time just watching the game come together over the last year, it’s been educational for me and very interesting to get to watch the mechanics tinker under the hood for so long. :)

August 24th can’t come soon enough, but it’s been an interesting ride since Beta 1 regardless!

KevinC · 2010-08-12T06:47:09.000Z

Disconnected:

Maybe call it an alpha next time?

I don’t think it would have helped, it just would have changed the content of the posts to something along the lines of:

“OMG, Stardock is going gold right after Alpha?!?!?! Their beta was only 2 weeks, this is going to be a DISASTER!”

There’s really no helping generic internet stupidity.

EDIT: Er, I don’t mean to say that people who are/were critical of the game in Beta are stupid by any means. This thread on Qt3 had a lot of great feedback, even when a lot of it was negative. I’m referring more to the Stardock forums than anything.

Jon_Shafer · 2010-08-12T06:55:12.000Z

Regardless of how Stardock handles this sort of thing, there will always be complaints, ranting and internet drama. That’s just the way it works, and it’s the reason why nearly every company plays it close to the vest when it comes to unfinished products.

Jon