Brad had posted about his own personal opinion of the multiplayer in Elemental.
The idea of adding tactical battles as a separate multiplayer game mode sounds neat, I guess.
Having recently played Master of Orion 2 multiplayer I can to some extent understand where they’re coming from when it comes to long tactical battles slowing down the game.
But the tactical battles are one of the parts of the game I hope will be fun, and I would be willing to suffer some waiting in multiplayer if the battles are exciting. Wouldn’t it be possible to let players who have pressed turn over look through their kingdom reports and such while waiting for the others to end their turn? Or allow battles that include the Sovereign (or possibly champions?)
I’m not sure I like the idea of letting the other players watch ongoing tactical battles, since that would give them information about the shape of another player’s army and what spells they have available.
Technically, NO one should have access to it yet. We’re setting up for pre-loading it and the beta group is seeing this invalid registration.
Now how Kerzain managed to access the gold version I have no idea. He’s charmed I guess. :)
The beta group will start to get access to it hopefully this weekend or Monday at the latest.
Hey Brad, what happened to the dungeons? Are they in?
edit: and thhe 64 bit version of the game? Next patch?
Only in the abstract sense.
As for 64-bit, yep, it’s coming. We did eventually get Intel to get us a 64-bit version of Havok but it was too late in development to get it in for day 0.
Mmm i see the green light in your message, so i know you are still here :). I will ask a few more things:
-Magic item making? None right now i think? Perhaps in a future patch?
-Relationship between dinasties and diplomacy? Can you ask a faction to marry another one or stuff like that?
-I never understood one thing of the magic system. What happens with the “permanent” spells, the enchaments? Do they have a mana upkeep? Any kind of limit? The same with summoned creatures.
The way I think this worked (at least up to and including Beta 4) was that each spellcaster had a number of enchantment slots equal to their Essence attribute. Each enchantment or summon used up one of those slots, but no mana upkeep.
I have no idea if this is changed in the release version, though.
Edit: I also support magic item making! Preferably in-game and not (only) in the mod tools :)
Oh, i remember the slots in the bottom part of the UI, but i think they filled up the sub-window, instead of being limited to Essence (at least in the graphical sense, perhaps the limit was already in, gameplay wise).
And yeah, i want to forge the One ring, in game :).
Well, it’ll be $103.45 because of tax+customs when it reaches my country :(
KevinC
1969
That was a good read. I can see where he’s coming from in some cases, but I still think the better approach would have been to have things he’s concerned about (powerful quest items, tactical batltes in MP taking time) disabled by default, but allow the host/server to turn them on.
People like options, having options taken away not so much. I understand where Brad would be concerned about what reviewers would think if in MP someone got a powerful artifact and dominated, or someone got bored waiting for a tac battle, but those concerns could be resolved by having a little warning when enabling the feature. “Warning: Enabling quests/artifacts can greatly change the balance of the game once those artifacts are discovered. For balanced competitive play, we recommend leaving this option disabled”.
We’ll see where Stardock goes with it after release, though. I know they’re planning on investing a lot of development time into the game post release, I’m just an impatient bastard I guess.
We TBS coop players may be a minority, but we really do exist :) Nothing, for me, can approach the fun of playing a long-term TBS game coop with my friends.
The last piece of the AAR has answered some of my questions. Trade and techonology treaties, alliance, non agression pacts, possibility of marry children.
KevinC
1972
… and in the world of EVE, it was as if a million voices cried out at once - in joy, because their cargo inexplicably made it to it’s destination, unmolested.
JM1
1973
Whether or not you can marry children is a dealmaker for you?
azzl
1974
It’s an under-served market segment.
JM1
1975
I guess it balances out the usual “WHY CAN’T I SHOOT CHILDREN” crying.
Only once I can install Elemental 1.00 or higher…
My poor registration, once so splendid, with mighty thews and flashing eyes, able to wield Beta powers beyond imagination, now reduced to being an invalid…
Taranis
1977
Its the same for me, when I first heard about Elemental with all its great features then found out it had MP, I was ecstatic!!! I pre-ordered the game way before the beta started so I could follow the game’s development. I talked about the game endlessly with my friends to get them excited enough to purchase it at release.
Now, I’m still excited for the game but knowing MP is stripped down my excitement level is pretty low in comparison and I haven’t mentioned Elemental to my friends for quite some time, even now when the game is about to be released. Hopefully down the road Elemental will be the MP game I want it to be, but for now it looks like Civ5 is our best bet for TBS coop goodness.
Uh? I never said it was a dealmaker.
edit: but azzl answer is a good one.
JM1
1979
I was making fun of you even having questions about marrying children.
Do we have to marry children? seems a bit ‘preachy’ somehow? And why are lots of people that seemed to be on the beta now not able to get the game(or something)?
