Hello! I'm new here. Introduction and a Question.

from Elemental Forums

Hello all! I'm very very new to this forum and thought I would introduce myself and say hello, hoping this is the correct place for that, and ask one small question.

First of all: Hello!
These forums here look friendly and pleasant and full of people who are both polite and constructive. Yey! I hope I can fit in ... ;-)

2 sentences about me: I'm a philosopher who lives in Germany. Due to my work and writing books (five published so far, sadly all in German, boo hoo) and my wonderful family, I don't get a chance to game as often as I perhaps would under other circumstances, but I try!

That being said, I am very excited about this game. I love Stardock. Not unconditionally, of course. I love Stardock in the sense that I think, just like any robust relationship requires, giving and receiving constructive criticism is very important (see my post here for instance, https://forums.galciv2.com/127960, for an example). I think there is hardly a commercially successful game designing company which does such a wonderful job with their community and with their products. I guess what I want to say is that I am a "fan" of Stardock, even if that means that none of their individual releases has ever been a favorite game of mine and even if it means that constructive criticism is forthcoming.

I have been away from GalCiv2 from some time, and just stopped by recently to get it over to my laptop now that my desktop died. Then I saw some posts for Elemental, and had a look as to what that is.

WOW!
I am very excited!
My favorite strategy games that I am currently playing are Dominions 3 and Star Chamber. Elemental looks to be better than both, and that's saying a lot. Wow!!!

So I was thinking of preordering, and perhaps joining the beta, if possible, after some encouragement from others here on these forums.

Some questions about that, if I may?
- After reading lots of the hints from Brad about how "agonizing" the beta will be, I wonder if someone like me (who has never worked on a beta before and who does not have a lot of free time on his hands) can contribute to the process or would only "get in the way"? If the latter is true, I would rather wait for the "finished" product rather than detract from its completion.
- Will I have to know a lot about computer programming to help, or will my (I think: fairly decent) knowledge of gaming be sufficient?
- If I preorder now, will I definately be in?
- About how many people will be participating? 200? 2,000?

Thanks and hope to see you around
-o

off-topic
10,763 views 2 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

The first beta will be as Brad says - 'not fun'.  The graphics will be very basic (it will only be on the cloth map, which is the icon based zoom-out map), there will probably be limited functionality and there are bound to be stability issues, although these should mostly be weeded out with hotfixes in the first few weeks.  You wouldn't get in the way unless you posted useless suggestions or spam/trolling on the forums, so don't worry about that.  If you want to wait until the game is more playable, I'd advise waiting for beta 2 or 3 (several months time).

 

You don't need any programming skills, its mainly just submitting suggestions and bug reports. 

 

All pre-orders from now up until a couple of weeks after beta 1 is released (beginning of September) are automatically in the beta, and Frogboy plans to open it again around the new year as well.

 

I don't yet know about the numbers, but I'd guess in the hundreds.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Thank you for the nice replies so far, or rather reply. I have preordered and hope to see you in the beta too, time allowing!

Elemental: Reforged