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Elemental: BETA 4 Preview

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Elemental: BETA 4 Preview

from JoeUser Forums

We’re finishing up our work on Beta 4 for a release later this week.

Here are a few highlights:

#1 A general polish pass has been done across the board.  Not quite to 1.0 but significantly better.

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#2 Players will be able to access the Workshop’s Tile Editor

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#3 PLayers will have access to the Workshop’s Map Editor

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#4 The tactical battles have gotten a lot of polish

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#5 There’s been a lot of love given to spell effects and sounds throughout the game

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#6 The game will occasionally design units for you (for players who don’t like designing their own units).

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#7 A MASSIVE pass on performance tuning. This same screen in Beta 3C would have been 11 FPS.

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#8 MASSIVE pass on cloth map performance to make sure the game runs on Netbooks.

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#9 The start of work on the tech trees to make them more challenging (This will be an ongoing thing).

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#10 The Diplomacy system has gotten its first pass at the AI intelligently valuing things (this will be an ongoing thing to improve)

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We have also done a massive pass at both stability and video card compatibility.  Generally speaking, beta 4 shouldn’t crash on you during the course of a game.  However, we are still working on loading games from within a game (there’s a lot of STUFF to deal with there) as well as loading saved games. It’s still far better than beta 3C but it’s not perfect yet.

We have also dramatically reduced the memory foot print but this is an area we will be making substantial improvements during the next week or so (post Beta 4).

When Beta 4 goes out, we’ll go into more depth on the things players can expect us to focus on in particular for the release version.  Given that Beta 3C was only a week ago, I think the beta community will find Beta 4 a major relief (i.e. how much can change in a single week). 

The stability of Beta 4 (our current internal beta of it) is equal to the day 0  version of Galactic Civilizations II and its performance significantly better than the release version of Galactic Civilizations II.

After Beta 4, our code tree gets separated into the version that will be polished, tweaked and bug fixed for the manufactured version (the version that hits stores on August 24) and then the version that will go towards the release (Day 0) version that will be available on August 24th.

As of today, the game is now sufficiently ahead of schedule that the Stardock team is no longer in “crunch mode”.

If you’re still playing Beta 3C, you should stop before it causes permanent damage (it’s pretty awful).

Our main focus going foward is polish polish polish polish polish (including AI, UI, Balance, Spell Work, Special Abilities in tactical battles, Tester requested tweaks, etc.).

Oh, btw, the campaign (which won’t be in the betas) is pretty damn cool and was 100% made with the mod tools and XML (i.e. you guys could make your own campaigns).

Cheers!

193,723 views 128 replies
Reply #26 from Elemental Forums Top

I just say thanks for all the hard work. Can't wait !!

Reply #27 from Elemental Forums Top

Mannnn I can't wait! The out of memory crash, and lack of interesting tactical combat are, as you say, killing my brain in 3C. However, I keep playing because of all the pieces that are already decent there, imagining what you guys are coming up with.

 

Also can't wait to mess around with modding tools to see what kind of stuff I can do in a day and/or week of just experimenting.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #28 from Elemental Forums Top

Awesome, I can't wait to try it! 

Reply #29 from Elemental Forums Top

I just got into Beta 3C about three hours ago (playing since) and i'm stunned at how much fun i'm having learning things and expanding my territory.. And then this! I get all wriggly! I don't have any personal experience yet of any bugs (except maybe that it should be possible to cross parts of mountains, those which are barely slopes/hills) and so i don't really know how great the news is, but it sounds great!

 

//Happy Fan returning to tending to his village

Reply #30 from Elemental Forums Top

This is good news indeed, the time lag  between turns  on a long game had me control, alt, delete, a couple of times thinking my system locked up! Can't wait, here's hoping for early Thurs. release :D !!

Reply #31 from Elemental Forums Top

good job on the performance issues. 11FPS to like 65? WOW

Looking forward to see how the campaign turns out. You guys have been hyping it for a while. Im curious to see the style you go for.

Reply #32 from Elemental Forums Top

cool bananas.. looking good.

when you say video card issues, is the advanced lighting issue fixed completely now?

Reply #33 from Elemental Forums Top

Looking forward to this release.  Every beta looks better and better!  Great work!

Reply #34 from Elemental Forums Top

7 A MASSIVE pass on performance tuning. This same screen in Beta 3C would have been 11 FPS.
End of quote

YAY! got annoyed at reloading games.

least if the game is still got bugs we got an editor to waste more time then galcivs ones ever allowed.

If you’re still playing Beta 3C, you should stop before it causes permanent damage (it’s pretty awful).
End of quote
i stopped about 3 days of playing Beta 3c it might have caused some permanent damage. might not play a stardock beta again if that's the case.

As of today, the game is now sufficiently ahead of schedule that the Stardock team is no longer in “crunch mode”.
End of quote
i was getting worried a bit with beta 3c but seeing how much freaking better beta 4 is i'm happy since missing out on starcraft 2 isn't so bad with waiting for elemental.

Reply #35 from Elemental Forums Top

What's the difference between the campaign mode and the sand box mode we've seen the the Beta's?

 

 

Reply #36 from Elemental Forums Top

VERY Awesome!!!!! I can't wait to get my hands on those Editors!!! Hopefully everything is still on schedule for a Thursday release?

I'm also very glad to hear you're polishing spell animations. Honestly, there are a few spells in 3C that the animations for just don't make any sense at all compared to the names of those spells. I've been meaning to make a post about that and name off the spells specifically but I haven't had time to continuously play the beta and write down the spell names in question. I'll hold off on making that post until Beta 4 now. You'll probably have gone over and changed the ones I'm thinking about.

Keep on truckin, Stardock!!! This is looking better and better with every update!!! :)

 

Reply #37 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting pad152, reply 35
What's the difference between the campaign mode and the sand box mode we've seen the the Beta's?
 
End of pad152's quote

What's the difference between a story book and a book with blank (ish) pages?

Reply #38 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm also very glad to hear you're polishing spell animations. Honestly, there are a few spells in 3C that the animations for just don't make any sense at all compared to the names of those spells.
End of quote
not just the animations that don't make sense but when doesn't a volcano doesn't do anything then...

Reply #39 from Elemental Forums Top

> #3 PLayers will have access to the Workshop’s Map Editor

Any word on the slow (but good) random map generator?


Reply #40 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting strongking, reply 39
> #3 PLayers will have access to the Workshop’s Map Editor

Any word on the slow (but good) random map generator?


End of strongking's quote

 

I'm also curious about this.

Reply #41 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting SpaghettiMon, reply 40

Quoting strongking, reply 39> #3 PLayers will have access to the Workshop’s Map Editor

Any word on the slow (but good) random map generator?



 

I'm also curious about this.
End of SpaghettiMon's quote

hmm what about custom factions...

Reply #42 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting KillzEmAllGod, reply 41

Quoting SpaghettiMon, reply 40
Quoting strongking, reply 39> #3 PLayers will have access to the Workshop’s Map Editor

Any word on the slow (but good) random map generator?



 

I'm also curious about this.

hmm what about custom factions...
End of KillzEmAllGod's quote

 

I'm very interested to see how they've integrated faction customization with the mod tools.

Reply #43 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting xecran, reply 1
Speaking of netbooks, will the game support the rather awkward resolution of 1024×600.  It seems that a lot of games can't, or perhaps it is just the older games I try installing.

The next beta looks, fun, I'm looking forward to the mod tools.  I'm assuming the mod tools are bug free, it's the content integration we are to be looking for?

 
End of xecran's quote

 

I too would like to play the awesomeness of Elemental on my beloved netbook at 1024x600.  Even if it is only the cloth map.

 

  :beer: :frogboy:

Reply #45 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting xecran, reply 1
Speaking of netbooks, will the game support the rather awkward resolution of 1024×600.  It seems that a lot of games can't, or perhaps it is just the older games I try installing.

The next beta looks, fun, I'm looking forward to the mod tools.  I'm assuming the mod tools are bug free, it's the content integration we are to be looking for?

 
End of xecran's quote

 

"Bug free"... I doubt you'll see them claim this :P. Any software developer claiming something is bug-free is just Asking for somebody to uncover a glitch where pressing a combination of seven keys on a full moon means that two lines of code behave in a strange way and somehow result in the destruction of the NHS :O

 

Reply #46 from Elemental Forums Top

Good job but, as i see, there is no unit scaling in tactical battles.

Is this a features that will be added in the final version?

I think that the proportional scaling of units is more important in tactical battles than in the world map ( for realism and immersion in the game).

Thanks

Reply #47 from Elemental Forums Top

Woohoo great to hear you're on schedule ! Can't wait for beta 4 ! I was already pretty happy with the performance on this machine with minimal gfx card (didn't test on my performance machine) and seeing it's like improved 5x, awesome ;)

Feels awkward, I don't want the holidays to be over, but yet I want to play the full version asap :D

Reply #48 from Elemental Forums Top

Fantastic news! :thumbsup:

That means I must speed to give my suggestions on diplomacy now that the team focuses on big gameplay issues.

 

I have 2 questions about things I didn't follow:

- will there be dungeons in version 1.0 or have they been postponed to February?

- has it be already decided what happens when a city is captured? (more specifically when you capture another race's city) Revolt risk, assimilation, deportation...

Reply #49 from Elemental Forums Top

Will we be able to modify art assets and XML in Beta 4?

Reply #50 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting otakucore2, reply 49
Will we be able to modify art assets and XML in Beta 4?
End of otakucore2's quote

You can modify a lot of the art assets now. Some of them are in the file structure already, such as some types of armor.

Off Topic: otaku, is your Avatar the kid from "Home Improvement"? One of my ex's from back in the day was obsessed with the kid and I think she had that pic on a sticker or something.