Frogboy, I know this is not part of BETA 2 but is there any word on if PBEM will be an option?

If this is still on the block for discussion - I hope! Thanks.

It's on our list (PBEM) but no promises if it'll be ready be release.

One of the things I admire most about y'all is your flexible, open approach to game development. But every silver lining has a cloud...

Also, I personally don't feel like the magic system has been there in any critique-useful way so far. That might be because stuff I'm thinking of as functional gameplay elements are actually 'content' from y'all's POV. Or maybe I've been onto something for quite a while with my pathetic begging for an Integrated Metaphysics post. Hopefully 'content' plus whatever you're considering to be under/before content will work together to make the game's magic clearly magical and distinct from the mundane crafts and purely physical combat.

Hoody-hoo! All Hail the FrogBoy and vassals!

ThreeKings, I do not think that you used the right expression, imo it must be:

All hail Frogboy and his BRAVE DEVELOPERS!!

Just my 2 cents

Soulless drones? Hmm, surely not.

Boogie and Draginol are far too awesome. (Though we all know Draginol is just Frogboy after lots of NyQuil, so eh.)

Indeed.  

Effectively the way to look at the Elemental beta cycle is that Betas 1 and 2 are more akin to traditional "alphas". Normally, they would never go out the door where people could see them.

Beta 3 is what represents what people would really normally see first and begin to critique for balance and such. 

Beta 3 needs to come out approximately 90 days prior to release.

But as people have seen, we're not rushing Beta 1 until we're all happy with it. Beta 2 will be very short (just testing out the infrastructure) and then we get into beta 3 where we start the GAME testing.

Another way to look at it would be like this:

Beta 1/2: Engine Testing.

Beta 3/4: Game Testing.

Beta 5: Getting things ready for modding.

Typically, the game testing is 90 days prior to release. You can almost set your watch to it (GalCiv, Sins). Even on third party games (though Starcraft 2 is having a much longer game beta than is normal but Blizzard is also testing Battle.net).

FrogBoy- For your next tile you should just call it "Alpha" to prevent confusion.

What next title? After Ewom Froggy is going to retire a bazillionaire and open a school of game development...

YAY we all get class together!

again does anyone have any idea when beta 2 is actually going to come out, so i can pre order before then, even a month would help.

most likely in 2 weeks or so. We have 1 more 1Z at least.....

Hm....maybe that September release date doesn't sound too far-fetched after all. Let's hope that 1Z4 will be stable enough.

I may have missed mention of this in earlier posts/topics, but will there be a hot-seat mode available?

Probably not. Maybe eventually.

I am wondering how much ressources are needed to get a working hotseat mode available after a working PBEM mode is made available.

I think hotseat is the easiest MP mode to implement, so I'll be surprised if it's not included in the final game.

On an unrelated note (although some-what similar to having no hotseat) ... I find it very odd that a game with Online Campaign COOP will NOT allow for split-screen COOP.

Its ... quite frustrating for one, such as I, that rarely likes to combine gaming consoles and the internet.

I can't even imagine why you would want/need such a feature. If split-screen was to allow two people to play on the same computer, how would each player control their units with only one mouse and keyboard?

KVM, probably.

Most games on a console, I don't know why they don't do split screen. But we're not on a console, and very few people have a KVM and need to split a computer.

Oh, here's one for you. If you have only one computer, get a virtual machine and run two instances of windows XP. Use KVM to swap the keyboard and monitor. That way you can play on the same computer and use the same monitor. Not quite splitscreen, but hey.

You mean cooperative campaigns? Great idea, I didn't know that such things were planned. Another reason for implementing a hotseat mode (splitscreen would be too complicated to do, I guess).

I don't understand. Even with a KVM, you cannot have multiple people control the same computer simultaneously. And what is the point of split screen if each person can't control their part of it at the same time? Computers simply aren't meant for that kind of thing. I'd much rather Stardock not waste their time trying to code in support for multiple mice and keyboard support...

I think the days of hot seat gaming are over due to the ubiquity of personal LANs, portable PCs and houses with multiple PCs.

I want to say that I saw a topic concerning LAN support.

Edit: An argument could be made that PBEM is obsolete as well, but there is the issue of being available simultaneously.

Also, how big is the market for PBEM? (That is not a rhetorical question.)

In regards to currently non-priority MP modes, I'd rank them in my personal order of preference as:

1) Non simultaneous play  option; that is, have the game hosted by a server and allow players to login, take their turn, then wait for everyone else to come in and take their turn as well. Perhaps have a host setup option of a turn limit as well, if a turn isn't taken within 24 hrs, those players turn button is hit automatically for them.

Combat would almost by necessity have to be autoresolve, but that's fine.

Also, ideally, this very same game should also allow for simultaneous turn play if everyone DOES login together. Perhaps at game creation time, there can be a toggle to allow non simultaneous play or not.

If this option was implemented, it'd negate a lot of my own need for PBeM, although I still wouldn't say No.

2) LAN play.

3) Hotseat

4) PBeM* -- This is ranked 4th only on the assumption that Non-simultaneous turn taking IS implemented. If that is the more difficult option to implement for reasons I can't see, then the order shifts a little. This moves up to my first position instead.

Quick Edit: In answer to poster above me re: PBeM, I think it'd be difficult to get a real representation of this, but I can tell you that a group of friends and I used to play PBeM AoW, AoW2 and even some Civ4 if we couldn't make it for real online play. We would still definitely take this option if presented, as several of us are across different time zones now.

I've also seen other requests in these forums and in comments made regarding Elemental interviews elsewhere querying PBeM with a chorus then of other askers also making themselves known.

So it certainly wouldn't be a deadweight feature.

That said, I'm just infinitely glad there will be MP at all. I'm sure I still would have liked Elemental anyway, but not for nearly so long. MP greatly increases the longevity of a game for me, so I <3 that already such efforts are going into it and wouldn't feel any need to complain (too bitterly ) if not a single one of my alternate MP features was on offer. But if they CAN be done, even if it's post release, then Yay and Happytiems!

That would be something like the Civ4 "pitboss". A good idea that can be used instead of PBEM in most cases.