I can't believe Elemental goes gold in 1 month

i thought the same at first but they change the game very fast

lets first see beta 3 and then judge

Can't judge by Beta 3. Or by Beta 4. I'm not worried about the game's content at all, just a bit about general UI polish, which if they run out of time can be done for day0 patch and subsequent patches.

Read some of Froggie's posts.  Especially the bit about the Sins and GalCiv betas.  Also remember that it was originally going to be released last February and they held it back to do more beta testing ie they could have released it then if they wanted to.

I'm actually very happy with the game i just want to ensure the performance is good. and to see the techs+magic all put together.

They'll probably start work on expansions soon too.

After some balancing this game will be incredibly fun.

Edit Just to note i meant they'll start expansions soon after release etc. i'm looking forward to the next 2 betas and personally i think the game is starting to look really good. Add that to the mod tools their releasing and well this game  will be awesome.

I'm worried mainly about the statistics, character design and item systems. I think I'll make a post on them, actually. They really need addressing.

As long as the game isn't broken (both gameplay and technically), the performace is polished and they keep supporting it and giving us feedback (it's downhearting and irritating when there are serious bugs or performance issues and the devs don't even aknowledge they're aware and working on it)... I hope it will really be released in August 24th.

I'm just worried about this continuing out of memory error a lot of us are having. If it ships with it in the final game, I won't even be able to play myself since a game wont last for more than 200-250 turns.

Hey Lochaber, I can't say 100% that you will NOT experience it live. But what they've been sending us is stuff that is supposed to have some bugs. Because they can then follow the leaks back to where they are, and find the source, and then look deeper. 

They've been stating they know of several memory leaks. So don't fret too much about that. Were running essentially a very fat transluscent program, so they can see what's working down to which visual matrix.. it's not going to be like that when the real one goes live. That will be a spitfire ready to kick tail, and take names. And THEN if you have memory leak issues, those would be something wholly unexpected. The stuff were getting now is generations behind what they've got internally. Hell they have stuff turned off because we might enjoy it. And those leaks now are very likely part of those processes, and underpinnings just being tested are there as a side effect of the process for testing.

It's a weird beta, none of the beta testers have even seen the full game yet, one month before release.

I do hope beta 3 is less buggy, the list of crash bugs keeps getting bigger. See, http://elemental.kryofx.com/

The public beta is not the same as our internal beta. 

Yes, I agree. AFAIK, closed beta are meant to be bug hunting and squashing. While public beta tend for stress test (I've follwed several MMO betas so don't count on me about this regarding non MMO betas).

If people want to sample the full game, wait for the DEMO.

Q1 2011 is still going to be there, for your updating wants.  Based on what I've experienced in Beta, you're going to have a healthy fanbase behind you when you do make changes.  I know it's not all going to be on the same schedule and workflow, but Q3 2010 is not the last word for your game.

On this note, maybe if you posted a Frogboy special ... maybe giving some aspects of the differences... how far ahead the internal is, stress test points, etcetera.. that way we can link to it in various forms.. so when you, and we keep up the repetition that, what were dealing with is a primitive little program, and what your dealing with is a behemoth of epic proportions (in context), then we can share that post with them.

Cause, for those who've watched the videos I've put out for the various stages, I always try to make sure that folks understand, that were playing on a shadow of a game. With 3 the clouds will part a bit, but it's still just a husk that is starting to get animated.

Excuse me while I go scream like a schoolgirl in excitement.

Honestly, I'm impressed with the...is "Hustle" the right word? That makes it sound rushed to me...but it's not.

Oh, well, you all know what I'm talking about!

I think it must have A LOT to do with the game engine; honestly, it looks SO impressive. I'm very excited to work with it...nothing could really ever get me that extra step into modding, but it looks like Elemental just might.


I would say this, onomastikon: the people at Stardock know what they're doing, and they don't have anyone pestering them to finish the game (I lost the game) by a certain time. Based on their track record, I'd say you have nothing to fear. I would agree with the Q1 2011 conclusion if Stardock didn't have this kind of record behind them.

Those who think the release date is too early and only want a 2011 release, they can buy it in 2011, with all patches/mods, while letting other people choose to buy the game 2 months from now.

The right word you looking for is "hassle".

If the game finally gets gold, then you can  "do the hustle" 

Yes as Frogboy said and I believe him because he has always been very open and honest in his posts and Journals, the external Beta we currently have is nothing like the internal version they currently have.

We can see an example in that they have turned some tech tree options off in 2B that are there in 2A. They are testing isolated systems on us and modifying based on our feed back. Anyway it sounds like Beta 3 will be much close to the final game but as we know from the journal will still lack a lot of things that are more advanced internally but not yet entirley ready for us to see.

To be honest I know stardock of old and they won't stop improving the game regularly just because it's shipped. Forgetting the 2 paid expansions, GC2 got free changes and additions for years after release and some of the improvements where pretty big.

Stardock tend not to abandon their products upon release.

Of course anyone who just gets the disk version and doesn't update on impulse will miss out on some great stuff, but the only legit reason for that would be lack of broadband access and anyone who can afford the game and the computer to play it in this day and age should have access to that.

I feel we are being used to mostly test out UI and the various ideas of how to win. 2A was a more traditional 4x game while 2B was more of a RPG and seeing how spells and the magic system methods worked and what could be done better.

Frogboy has said for some time they are testing and tweaking the tactical battles. My guess is they are fairly set woth the core and are just looking at tweaks and what fluff to add to fill it out. Frogbiy has said the AI is the major thing left. All else is easy to add/tweak/remove. Bug crashes will of course be worked on, but they are probably getting some crashes from removing things from the internal build or if the beta is a whole other set, then merging stuff in. That is why I had to laugh when the wrote "It works on my machine". Programmer speak for "I didn't check something in I should have". The other being "Well, it compiled!" when bombing runtime errors.

My biggest concern at the moment is the game design, magic system, combat system, unit stats.. even though they can be changed quickly they feel very unfinished and there's practically days to iron them out now. Unless the internal beta uses a more evolved game design. But why wouldn't they want feedback on it...

I never played GalCiv but Sins is a solid game so I have faith.

The problem with that is that it will get reviewed by gamespot etc, judged poorly and then that bad review will damage all future sales.

This is exactly what happened with demigod, which was badly broken for multiplayer when it was released.

It had since been fixed, but no re-review.

Great game, but poor playerbase and review because they released before it was ready.

http://au.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/demigod/index.html?tag=result%3Btitle%3B1

(6.5)

((Meh I cant work out how to do links on this forum))

Great way to kill any kind of community momentum for a game.  (I was thinking Demigod, as well) [uh, that was supposed to quote AngeloBraz]

I'm enjoying the beta but the release date does seem bittersweet.  I know the internal beta is a lot more complete, but still the scope of the game is just so massive that getting everything knocked out in a month seems nuts to me based on what we peons in the public get to experience with beta 3.

People who have not been part of Stardock betas should really stop worrying about this stuff. Every game we've done for the past 15 years has had posts like these. They get pretty tiring.  

A few examples:

1. In GalCiv, the betas didn't even have starbases in them. They were added after the beta closed.

2. In Sins of a Solar Empire, the economic system in the final game wasn't added until after the beta closed. Imagine Sins of a Solar Empire where crystal and metal resources were finite (i.e. ran out) and there was no game speed option beyond normal.

3. Demigod was pretty solid except for the multiplayer coding which worked during beta (i.e. it certainly wasn't rushed). This isn't an issue for Elemental because 1. It's primarily a single player game and 2. We're providing the servers on day 1 rather than doing peer to peer. We also didn't develop Demigod (it's a Gas Powered Games title) so our ability to deliver updates and respond to player feedback was limited to what GPG could afford to do while working on multiple other titles (by contrast, Elemental is the only game developed by Stardock's game studio).

Anyway, I'm going to lock this post.  They really don't serve a purpose.  The game is coming out on August 24th.  As of July 1st, the game is running approximately 55 engineering hours ahead of development schedule.

People who are non-technical or looking for a demo should wait until the game is released.  I should have a hot key for this speech because I've had to give it so many times over the past decade and a half.