More Uniqueness to the Factions
people like varied text, saw folks comparing Procipinee’s attitude towards the fallen in comparison to Relias
“I don't get the complaint that the factions aren't "memorable". They each seem to have their own quirks to me. Procipinee opens every first contact with an Empire with something equivalent to "I will f***ing end you!", and seems to be the most likely one out of the Kingdoms to go to war. Her text alone seems to infer that she's one crazy zealot toward's wiping the Empires out. Though she's as friendly as she could be toward's other Kingdoms.” (http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=73945&page=29)
ask for unique buildings, tech, units, spells, etc.
“I'd like this more if the kingdoms weren't all so samey”
“One thing that I think they should have taken from Alpha Centauri is the way that the voice overs for the various techs and wonders really fleshed out the factions. Right now it feels like the world isn't exactly generic fatasy but not really fleshed out either.”
“Also, I still can't believe that every goddamn unit you can produce (that I've seen, at least) is a fucking human with a different outfit. GC2 had a bunch of different chassis' (is that the right plural form?), games like Alpha Centauri had plenty of different base templates to build from...but this seems to just have "human" to build from.”
“Well... if you research the right upgrades, you can unlock the ability to create darkling and ogre and spider units and stuff? But you can't modify them. That's all I got. I do hope more crazy races are in the works.”
“Some basic simple visual differences between different faction towns would just be nice. "Tarthans" I think are the most distinctive faction but their towns don't seem very "Tarthan", and neither do much of their game mechanics.”
Not just uniqueness to the factions, but more personality overall. Listening to Leonard Nimoy in Civ4 never got old. Fallout and Baldur's Gate populated their fantasy worlds with wonderfully entertaining characters. Borderlands, despite being a bit derivative, oozed personality from its intro movie and never let up. Gal Civ/Gal Civ2 had great humor (even in the repetitive diplomacy screens). Sins just felt cool.
More than UI enhancements and bug fixes, it's a game's personality that has always kept me coming back for more. Elemental has a decent engine, and things happen. But it's just dry. There's no humor, no quirks - no real personality.