Please : No GFWL inside, please!

They've already said that they're using their new Impulse Reactor. http://frogboy.impulsedriven.net/article/378128/GDC_2010_-_ImpulseReactor_is_revolutionary

Thank you Beric for the link. I heard about this Reactor project but I didn't know that in fact it was a multiplayer platform, I thought it was only something about UI. 

I will look a little more about this Reactor, and if it is really a multiplayer platform it is very nice news!

It is. No GFWL here, don't worry.

awww you mean no acheivements?

Sorry couldn't resist....GFLW could be great if it wasn't so obtrusive....

Yeah I agree. GFWL is a good idea that went horribly wrong at implementation.

Hmm... I would be very surprised that the Reactor (this name rocks!) do not allow archievment rewards for games using it.

I love Impulse and Stardock in general so awesome.

No need for help *and the control that comes with it* from others companies like E.A Microsoft. Blizzard. etc. they all fuck up games they have even the tinyest hand in.

Blizzard is such a sad story.... They used to be one of THE best game designers.... than they started getting greedy, and stopped listening to their fans.... Now everything they touch turns to s....well it goes sour...

It started earlier, but when WoW came along, they just decided to tell their fans to go to hell... they completly stopped listening and just put out what they feel like now. They promise their fans one thing, and than give them something completly different and watered down. They chose to have 2 sides of their racewar, and made each side a clone of the other, so they didn't bother having to balance things. Granted it's made them boatloads of money, but thats only because no decent MMORPGs have come out since Dark Age of Camelot and they have major name recognition.

Maybe they're just listening to their other set of fans? World of Warcraft for example is two orders of magnitude more popular then DAoC (which over the long haul really didn't hold up terribly well), and most of those people don't complain on the forums like the "fans" do.

It's impossible to please all the fans. Even in a small community like Elemental right now, there's a rift in what people want out of the resource system, and some fans will say that Stardock isn't listening to them no matter what decisions get made. In Blizzard's case, the numbers are a lot bigger.

Blizzard does in fact, listen. The problem is that fans are often wrong, especially when a minority group is a lot more vocal then the majority group.  (Like mirroring the factions, which after several years of failing was the best way to fix glaring PvE imbalances.)

Having shamans and paladins available to both sides is in the better interest of game balance. It also allows them to be distinct classes with their own flavor since they no longer need to completely counter each other.

I never played MMORPGs so I don't directly reply but since we're on Elemental Forum and Kryo is in the team:

Game balance may be paramount in MP but it's much less obvious in SP. Having all factions with the same kind of units turns boring, even if some on these boards advocate just that. On the other hand, kingdoms and empires with strong cultural differences, even within the military, make for better strategic options and immersion: some mongol-like fight on horse but have no/poor infantry, some have powerful priests/priestesses/healers, some have egyptian-like war-chariots, some aztec-like don't know the wheel, some haven't archers...

To have these differences either hard-coded into the factions or perhaps as option in the editor at start. Ex: checking "no archers" would give +X points to spend, perhaps to be able to check "horse specialists" or "phalanx lovers" (pun intended for "Alexander the Great" fans! )

Of course, the question of Balance against Strategy depends of the focus on MP. Has there already been a poll to determine how many of Beta-testers here will play MP? As for me, I know I never will.

It's also really boring.

They made undeads into humanoids because it was to hard to balance. That's the main problem with multiplayer games. It's very hard to balance perfectly and keep things interesting & varied.

You need to try and balance the balance, kinda like having a seesaw on top of a card castle.

Having said that, i think Blizzard are awesome, Ive never played a bad Blizzard game.

It's impossible to balance a [fantasy] TBS, if there are races/unique tech trees/various schools of magic in the game. Take a look at Dominions 3. It's one of the best -IF not the best- fantasy TBS game right now, and it's not balanced at all. Is that a problem? My answer is: no.

They also gave them Will of the Forsaken, which was different (giving them back most of their undead immunities) and ridiculously overpowered for years. So much so that it drastically skewed the races people were playing in high end (competitive) areas of the game. Original Fear Ward had the same problem, once word got out about it people were flat out stupid for playing an Alliance Priest that wasn't a Dwarf (and the ratios on old vs new servers showed that impact as more players realized how strong it was).

In a single player game, that isn't a huge deal. In a multiplayer game, making one set of things flat out better then another set of things will result in most players taking the easy road. People want to win, and when you're competing with other players, why gimp yourself?

I expect Elemental's factions to have varying strengths and weaknesses, and some variety. That's good. But if we ever get to a point where X is flat out worse then Y at everything, that's not balanced, and it's bad.

(WoW is fun to watch for balance because with so many top end competitive guilds and a huge theorycrafting community, every advantage gets found and used to try to get ahead. They're in a pretty good spot now, but nobody was particularly happy with the 3.1 "Bring a Death Knight Tank or don't do hardmodes" mess that Ulduar started out as. It was especially not fun for guilds that simply didn't have a DK tank, they were playing a much harder game then those who did.)

Thing is Multiplayer ruins games.

Not saying to not include it saying it should be the lesser not the greater feature. SP makes good strategy games.

Anyways the Other thing is even if they don't take my idea's over resources n some such i wouldn't say they didn't listen to me i know the dev's are listening to us on the forum the reason why?

Stardock Cares they really do they even wrote a 'gaming constitution' they actually care about their fans and are listening to us just look at the Beta's and how they influenced games like Sins of a solar empire. It's greatly changed due to community input. Thats how you get great games when people listen and care and discuss things its the same way in government and in relationships People need to communicate and actually think about other peoples opinions that's why stardock does so well and why our community is for the most part a F***ing good one.

Just noticed this has gone a little off topic, we're all supposed to be saying how much we hate GFWL!

Finally this topic has now no reason to be, as Beric and Tridus explained in first answers Elemental will use The Reactor (this name is awesome!), so finally the game is saved from the Microsoft Claws (and also us by the way)!

NObody mentioned that Impulse Reactor actually does do achievements...

And Achievements can be cool *i hate people whom play Only for achievements but still* I like it when achievements unlock game content and stuff as it gives you somethin to work toward.

Depends what kind of content it is supposed to unlock. I like the WoW achievements in that they unlock cosmetic things, another mount, another pet. These unlockables don't change the game, just something cosmetic. If an achievement is needed to unlock a playable race, or unit or... it isn't fun anymore. You HAVE to do the achievement, or you paid for a game with options you can't use...

Oh no i simply meant Achievements In game that unlocked a special spell or DEV secret or something fun not anything critical to gameplay just jokes and little things like stardock is known for.