Exactly two months to go!

from Elemental Forums

Dear Mr. Frogboy,

It is now exactly two months before the official release. As things stand now, how optimistic are you about the chances of Elemental releasing in August?

elemental
13,219 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm fairly optimistic, more so than before. Beta 2 has been a huge step ahead from Beta 1, clearly the guys at Stardock weren't kidding when they said their build is a lot ahead of ours.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Not long ago he said they were ahead of schedule.  We will see...

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Frogboy takes the relationship with players very seriously. I'd be extremely surprised if they didn't make an august release, and very surprised if it wasn't on the date specified.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future. ;P

Personally I wouldn't mind if its september. August has enough warm nights to spend otherwise than playing computergames. 

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

cant be september, they already said that can only happen in august or in feb when they have some sort of slot scheduled

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm pretty sure at this point the release is locked and they can't delay it. To be honest I'm not worried about content as much as I am with overall polish.

This may be a personal thing, but when I look at the UI in the latest HOMM and then at the UI in King's Bounty, I'd say a lot more care went into making the King's Bounty UI good and pleasant to look at. By contrast, HOMM's is functional and that's about all you can say for it. The same is currently true with Elemental. It gets the job done, but that's as much as I can say about it.

There are other minor polish issues that add up, too. Things like if you win you still have to end your turn before it shows you that you won because the engine evaluates everything at beginning of turn, not being able to exit from city build mode by clicking outside the city, weird options (even if I uncheck "Enable Music", it still plays until I uncheck "Enable Layered Music"), not being able to load a game in the middle of one...

So my main worry now is that they'll spend most of their time on content and the remaining features, and not have any to give the game the polish it needs.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 6
I'm pretty sure at this point the release is locked and they can't delay it. To be honest I'm not worried about content as much as I am with overall polish.

This may be a personal thing, but when I look at the UI in the latest HOMM and then at the UI in King's Bounty, I'd say a lot more care went into making the King's Bounty UI good and pleasant to look at. By contrast, HOMM's is functional and that's about all you can say for it. The same is currently true with Elemental. It gets the job done, but that's as much as I can say about it.
End of Annatar11's quote

Annatar did you bring up some "suggestions" in another thread with respect to the UI?  I saw another thread where a poster who claimed he "had some background" talked about UI colors, placement, etc. and Brad specifically responded saying he was forwarding to his team.  If you have some specific ideas you should post them in a thread....

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 6
I'm pretty sure at this point the release is locked and they can't delay it. To be honest I'm not worried about content as much as I am with overall polish.

This may be a personal thing, but when I look at the UI in the latest HOMM and then at the UI in King's Bounty, I'd say a lot more care went into making the King's Bounty UI good and pleasant to look at. By contrast, HOMM's is functional and that's about all you can say for it. The same is currently true with Elemental. It gets the job done, but that's as much as I can say about it.

There are other minor polish issues that add up, too. Things like if you win you still have to end your turn before it shows you that you won because the engine evaluates everything at beginning of turn, not being able to exit from city build mode by clicking outside the city, weird options (even if I uncheck "Enable Music", it still plays until I uncheck "Enable Layered Music"), not being able to load a game in the middle of one...

So my main worry now is that they'll spend most of their time on content and the remaining features, and not have any to give the game the polish it needs.
End of Annatar11's quote

Funny you should bring up King's Bounty:P

But seriously, I have to agree with you about the UI. It gets the job done, but beyond that, it's nothing special. Looking at some of the old screenshots from this interview: http://news.bigdownload.com/2010/06/15/interview-stardocks-brad-wardell-gives-us-an-elemental-update/ I actually thought they were new at first because the UI seemed more polished.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

http://news.bigdownload.com/photos/elemental-war-of-magic-1/1136945/#1136945

Yep. It definitely looks a lot better overall. Some things can be moved around of course, like the minimap going up top or something, but if I was going to make a UI suggestion, it would just be "Make it *that*."

Why's it funny I should bring up King's Bounty? I mainly did it because I remember having a forum debate with someone and comparing HOMM and King's Bounty UIs :P

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 9
http://news.bigdownload.com/photos/elemental-war-of-magic-1/1136945/#1136945

Yep. It definitely looks a lot better overall. Some things can be moved around of course, like the minimap going up top or something, but if I was going to make a UI suggestion, it would just be "Make it *that*."

Why's it funny I should bring up King's Bounty? I mainly did it because I remember having a forum debate with someone and comparing HOMM and King's Bounty UIs
End of Annatar11's quote

Do you not remember Hortz? Actually, now that I think about it, I don't remember you being in those discussions. He was a troll who basically thought King's Bounty could do no wrong and that Elemental should be exactly like it. He also claimed that good animations are more important than anything else in a game. He got banned, but since then comes back every now and then with a new account and makes the same claims. Here are his posts: https://forums.elementalgame.com/posts/3740155 And one of his alias' posts: https://forums.elementalgame.com/380624 Read a couple, they're quite funny.

EDIT: On topic, I agree, my suggestion would be to make the UI like the old on in those screens.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Oh, I read Hortz' threads, just didn't click right away. Good laughs on IRC were had reading those.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting kyogre12, reply 10
EDIT: On topic, I agree, my suggestion would be to make the UI like the old on in those screens.
End of kyogre12's quote
I like that old UI.  Well, the part where it lists the number of champions could be dropped and maybe a few other items, but generally it's pretty nice.

Many games end up with customizable UI that are pretty darn fancy/nice.  I expect the same of Elemental once you folks put your minds to it.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 11
Oh, I read Hortz' threads, just didn't click right away. Good laughs on IRC were had reading those.
End of Annatar11's quote

Hence my thinking it was funny you brought up King's Bounty:P

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting kyogre12, reply 13



Quoting Annatar11,
reply 11
Oh, I read Hortz' threads, just didn't click right away. Good laughs on IRC were had reading those.



Hence my thinking it was funny you brought up King's Bounty
End of kyogre12's quote

Good old Hortz....:w00t: