what should be the ultimate direction of the Elemental Franchise?

I'd very much like to see the Kumquat engine leased for other games.  Top of my list would be a TBS based on the Wheel of Time novels.  A full blown, sandbox 4x game as well as detailed campaigns following the story line.  Red Eagle Entertainment has the rights for WoT games and movies.  They've recently teamed with Obsidian Entertainment to make gameS based on the books.   These games may have an action/RPG focus (just a guess based on articles I've read).  Perhaps they'd consider teaming with Stardock on a TBS? 

Why stop there?  How about a TBS based on Isaac Asimov's Foundation series?  Set in the story-line during the era of inter-planetary feudalism and space piracy. Not much was said in the series as to what occured during this era.  There may be some creative story freedoms as relates to game design?  And there may even exist the potential for another book writing deal? Other authors have written in Asimov's universe.  Perhaps its not so far fetched that a deal could be made to make a game and publish an accompanying story?

One can dream....

The Kumquat engine was originally designed for Society, according to the TTA podcast.  I wonder how it will be used.  Maybe as a loss leader to get games on Impulse?  

Ultimately, games get judged on their gameplay- engine is just a part of that, so they gotta get all of Elemental fun first.

I have to disagree. IMHO RTS games come down to about 10% strategy and 90% CPM (clicks per minute). There are even apps available for RTS games that will put an average CPM number up in the corner that you can monitor duing your games...Starcraft, C&C, Total War.  If that isn;t a major part of the RTS then why do so many RTS players care what their cpm is?

You can make up for a whole lot of strategical mistakes if you are doing twice as many actions as your opponent. Learn the basic strategy, usually not difficult, then exercise your mouse finger. Not very strategic, again, IMHO

The tactical battles in Elemental are flawed most definately, but changing them to RTS is not the answer.

That may be true Ozz, but Total War is a very different type of RTS. It does not play at all like those games descended from the Warcraft model. Total War takes as much from war games and TBS as a RTS can. It's about as slow paced as an RTS can get with a heavy emphasis on simulation.

Polish, polish and more polish. On all levels - gameplay, lore, sound, art, UI.. nothing really feels polished enough yet.

When I first played Sins I was instantly sucked in by the cool factions with a solid backstory. After the rock solid gameplay I was totally addicted for a long time. With Elemental, I sadly don't feel any of that. There are too many factions that are way too similar and lack any kind of personality. Creating a custom Sovereign is equally bland as you can't select powers for them and they basically start out as peasants in rags. The beginning of the campaign doesn't make much sense. Elemental just doesn't hook me in any way.

So what I would like in an expansion:

1) Fewer factions that all have an identity. Sins of a Solar Empire, Disciples 2 and Master of Orion 2 are good examples of games that have cool and interesting factions. Factions meaning races basically.

2) Sovereigns with identifiable, customizable powers. MoM and AoW:SM did this right and that kind of magical customization could still be expanded upon. The Sovereign is your avatar in the game and needs to be more interesting and look more impressive from the start.

3) A solid magic system with magic domains and specialization options.

Our original plan, for what it's worth, was for the expanded E team to go do a sequel to one of our existing titles and have the other half create a new RPG title using the underlying engine elements (the quest system in Elemental is very VERY powerful, just woefully underutilized right now).

However, since Elemental launched in such a deplorable state, that has all changed. Now the plan is for the E team to stay on Elemental for the next 20 months to redeem Elemental in the minds of our customers.

That has to be done on multiple fronts:

1. The Kumquat engine will need to be fully matured. I realize that there's plenty of criticism on some of our design choices (which beta testers were very vocal about but we didn't listen to well enough) but what really did Elemental's launch in for day 0 was the state of the Kumquat engine.  Absolute compatibility/performance/stability has to be achieved before Stardock can really do anything else because everything going forward is going to be based on this engine (think of Kumquat as the strategy game equivalent of Valve's "Source" engine).

2. The magic system in Elemental needs to be overhauled and, over time brought more in line to its original inspiration - MOM.  There are a lot of practical reasons that I think users can think of as to why we didn't just copy the MOM magic system for a 2010 game (same as to why we wouldn't have dozens of radically different races -- think: cost of low resolution sprites vs. fully realized 3D models).  But I think we're just going to have to bite the bullet on this.

3. The combat system in Elemental needs to be overhauled as well. We are in the process of eliminating action points from tactical combat in the free expansion and instead combat speed will determine initiative and so units will move based on that (rather than attacker side then defender side, the turns will be in order of combat speed and the faster the combat speed of a unit, the faster your unit is, the more turns he gets during a given round.

4. And of course, the AI needs to keep evolving to deal with this kind of thing.

This is by no means, a complete list but gives you an idea of what we're going to be doing over the course of the next several weeks, going on months to the basic game mechanics.

I don't think you'll see the battles become like Total War though. If we were going to do that, we'd release it as a separate game or something otherwise it's a bit of "bait and switch".

The thing is, we, and by we I mean PC gamers, need a game to fill this niche. Especially with Civ V's radical design changes (which I think are going to be pretty cool -- I'm a panzer general guy but it's a pretty radical change from Civ IV).  A 4X fantasy game with army groups and magic and the like is a need to be filled just like space strategy (turn and real-time), first person shooters, fantasy role playing, sci-fi role playing, etc.  Just as nature abhors a vacuum, so too do games.

I'd rather have factions that are cultures and groups rather than races. It's a little silly to say the equivalent of "All Asians must be nationalized as part of the nation of Asia". "You're an elf! You can't help us fight evil! It's against the rules!" I think it'd also help give the factions more opportunity to distingush themselves because they're interacting more often. How a faction treats certain races for instance. It also could allow for interesting unit choices. One faction may allow their ogres to be warriors, priests, and rangers. Another may restrict them to peasants. Yet another could restrict them to paladins. This allows the ideals of a faction to be expressed in more creative and interesting ways. What would a strict Spartan-like society do with, say, orcs and trolls? Likely very different than Athenians. This attitude can extend into diplomacy. A faction could otherwise be agreeable to another but be very contentious about certain ideals and policies of each other. It also allows the races themselves to be more than just one-trick ponies instead of mindless cliches.  It allows for interesting intra-racial issues. The trolls of one society may look down at the trolls in another who may feel that the first set of trolls have betrayed their heritage. 

After all, as the man quipped, "...because you humans have a wide range of cultures and attitudes, but krogan all think and act exactly alike."

Edit: Darn you Frogboy and your teasing!

I'd really like to see the mod ability increased enough to work as a general purpose engine. I bought Civ IV due to the Fall From Heaven mod. Regardless of Elemental's release, I think the graphical mod tools, combined with a VERY in depth Python mod ability, would give the ability for major mods, maybe even licensing the entire engine for a full on TBS game.

As for Elemental itself, I just don't feel like the gameplay had a vision. Frogboy and others on the team seemed to talk about a vision of the way battles would be (thousands of humans vs. 1 dragon or 1 Sauron), but that didn't really seem to come across. I wouldn't mind seeing an Elemental 2.0 that takes the vision and maps it into actual gameplay elements, really breaks down what that vision would mean in terms of implementation.

We had a vision. The problem with visions is that they don't necessarily translate into being fun.  The continuous turns tactical battles are one big example of that.  

That's why sequels in games, unlike movies, tend to be better than the previous ones because it's very challenging to make new games that are fun. You end up jettisoning a lot of "good ideas" that turned out not to be fun.  Heck, The Political Machine was originally conceived as a political version of "You don't know Jack". 

2) If you are able to add spells that affect the battlefield much like the volcano one does the main map, make the elements more distinct (see previous part of the sentence) and other tweaks to the general way that magic works, it would be awesome.

3) Initiative...  Not that I don't like the current way of attacker firts, then defender (pure MoM style) but initiative a la HoMM V (just to mention one) is more fun to me. More choices, less cheese.

So... bye bye (for now) to Gal Civ 3 it seems (unless you were getting ready for Political Machine). Altough I'm to miss more that RPG because I'm almost holding my breath for an RPG by Stardock. :/ I haven't touched the quest part yet but I agree it has so much potential in it... and not just because of dungeons.

Brad,

I've been pretty worried since the direction of the changes has been so ambiguous, but it sounds like you guys are aware of the systemic problems that I have been concerned about and will be moving in the right direction!  That's great news.

Keep doing what they are doing imo.

I love the game so much, its the best game this gen imo on any system.

Yes it has issues (AI and Magic need work).

But as of right now I am extremely addicted to this game.

Ironically, if the game had gotten positive reviews overall, we'd be stuck with the current system (ala GalCiv II's terrible economic system).  But now, we're free to make wholesale changes over the long haul. "The pressure" is off"

 The system in some areas is fine - the relative scarcity is nice, the essence mechanics are working fine. The spell lists are a problem - far too many spells follow the rules (i.e. do something that can be achieved via perfectly mundane means - adding defence to a unit for example, otherwise known as glowy armour) and few allow you to break, bend or just plain ignore them (teleport for example. Good start, now why isn't there any spells that allow me to teleport units in tactical combat?) which reduces magic to a 'cheap' means of doing something rather than a fantastical and world changing force.

 The selection of magic books is another issue. There's no real reason not to take every book, beyond the fact that most of the spells are duplicated. Why not give magic it's own research screen but rather than civ, war et al have the different books - fire, earth etc, and have arcane research work in the same manner - research Earth magic then either pick from the available spells or increase your earth level. You unify the two research areas which makes it a lot easier for new players to understand, and in addition a player can tailor their magical capabilities to the game at hand, avoiding issues like having only the air book and no air nodes on the map. Just for kicks, you could also attach an arcane research bonus on nodes for their particular school, making them more than just batteries.

Selecting books worked in MoM because you picked up different attributes according to the number of each book you picked; it works in Dominions as it affects the traits your god's blessing confers. It fails in Elemental because there's no reason not to pick every book, while at the same time no real reason to pick any books, which is hardly fitting for a game styling itself a war of magic.

total wars battles are nothing to do with real time strategy as it is generally known. most people don't even play the game online or competetively. i myself spend most of the time with the game paused while i issue my orders.

really, i hate games that think strategy is the ability to master hot keys and be everywhere at once. we are not losing in afghanistan due to a lack of hotkeys and inferior CPM. real time strategy sucks because of these abstractions. total war is completely different because there is no real time unit building or any of that crud. it's just a completely unabstracted representation of a battle.

really, i don't think there's any other way to do battles other than this and making them play like actual battles. stop worrying whether your turn based modelling system is accurate or nuanced enough and instead just look at real life. people really need to try it before they knock it. for grand strategy turn based is great, but for actual battles there is absolutely nothing to be gained to sticking to turn based abstraction.

Sounds really good. With the production costs of 2010 I think the best approach is to start with minimal resources that are fully realised and awesome. And then add more awesome content in expansions. Three awesome factions with a small but solid spell selection will have exponentially more appeal than 10 generic factions with hundreds of generic spells without a solid magic system.

I posted some thought out ideas concerning a solid foundation for a magic system during beta but the post seems to have disappeared.

Brad, I'm not a rabid fanboy. I've been critical of Elemental while at the same time aknowledging the game's immense potential.

It definitely seems like you are aiming for the right direction. I can't wait for 1.08, and I'm very much looking forward to 1.1, 1.2, etc. Keep up the good work - it's the reason I did not even hesitate about getting a refund, even though money is very tight. I believe in you guys. 

This will drastically improve tactical battles. Excellent new. Now we just need to diversify the number of squares different unit can move so you can strategies hit and run techniques.

The way to think of a "turn" in a tactical battle is to divide up the turn into 10 phases.

Someone with a combat speed of 1 moves at phase 5.

Someone with a combat speed of 2 moves at phases 3 and 7

Someone with a combat speed of 3 moves as phases 3 5 and 7

and so on with a combat speed max of 10.

A lot of the design beefs many people have had with Elemental v1.0 is that the RPG and Strategy components are not well integrated. It's a muddle in places and this really shows up in the tactical battles and the magic system. 

Clearly, one lesson to be learned here is that you can't just pick and choose systems and throw them together. You have to integrate the two together seamlessly. Hindsight is 20/20 but luckily, we'll be able to deal with this in Elemental 1.x and not some future sequel or what have you.

Yes, I agree with this. The magic system is okay. even with the imbued essense. The problem is lies on the spell list and the implementation of the magic system in the game. I don't think that a ruler who imbued the magic essense to his followers is a bad idea. It is the spell lists are just bad and not fun.

I think, it is better if you just limit the player's spellbook to one at the beginning of the game; or two if you don't choose another talents or equipments, and three if you put all negative traits to the sovereign. Don't let them choose all the spellbooks at the sovereign creation.

For the combat... well, I don't know. It is just like Heroes Might & Magic series, but lack of something important. maybe it just because Elemental is not a Heroes Might & Magic Clone; so that type of combat won't give any fun to the Elemental

I can only say this :

Age of Wonder has good combat system, but it is slow pace... and I hate slow pace game.

Heroes Might & Magic has a simple combat system, but it is fun / perfectly fit to that kind of game type. Unfortunatelly, it doesn't fit to Elemental game.

What about Master of Magic battle mechanic?  Hmm... I don't know. It has been a long time ago

So, why not Elemental creates a whole different combat system that fit to the elemental alone? Just be yourself, just be Elemental War of Magic. Make it different and exciting.

I think the gamers in this forum has two version of feel when play this game. the first one is people who love strategy game. They see the game as the other version of Civilization, where the strategy is the first and the most important aspect of the game. This type of gamers think that the game should like a chess. Where everything should be thought logically and strategically.

the other gamers see this game as an RPG game with Civilization flavour. Where they just care to the heroes and their equipments, then hunt monsters to the very late of the game. The problem is what is Stardock's point of view of this game? See it as RPG with strategy flavour or to see it a strategy game with RPG flavor?

For me, Elemental is a game about a protagonist who is a channeler, who lead his people on a post apocalypse world. So, it is always about the protagonist and his citizens. You should always thinking the game from the point of view of the protagonist, the sovereign. What does he need to lead his people in a broken world? first survival, then protection. So you should make the strategy that help that kind of feeling to the gamers. (that what I feel from playing the sandbox mode)

Because the game is focusing to the protagonist, he should always important to the game. From the very beginning (when he has only a settlement) to a point where he has a vast kingdom to lead. You must put him to a different role when his kingdom evolve. From a front lines adventurer / commander to a king of vast kingdom who deal a large scale battle to the evil factions.

As a king, he should stay behind the lines, as when his life ended, the game will over. So, what kind of support he could give to the front lines army when he hides in his strongest stronghold? That's a matter of game mechanic.

The style of Elemental allow the players to role play as the King Arthur, from he has nothing, get the sword of the stone, lead his loyal subjects to glorious battle, recruit loyal knights and create Knights of the Round Table, unite the land, and become the king of England. But even King Arthur will not always on front line although his influence, his strategy, and his presence is still very important to the story. The important thing is the glorious feeling when the player play the Sovereign (king Arthur) as him, not as the King Arthur Faction. that's why heroes are important. Protagonist involvement to every aspect in the kingdom is also important. It is different than other games that focus more on political, chess type of computer game who lead the nation from the point of view of... a kingdom. So... Mr. Frogboy, just makes Elemental, Elemental War of Magic. Not another clone of Civilization or something. Just let it be... Elemental.

Civ's addictiveness + Panzer General style combat is going to incredibly fun I'm thinking.

I didn't take you up on the refund and am going to give it another shot when you've changed some things around.

Brad,

The Dynasty system stays, right? it will get fleshed out better, right?

More resources will be added, right? Better city building, right?

Tactical combat, magic will be improved, right?

Unique Factions, tech trees and A.I.'s ala GC2 complete, right???

If so, you have my money for whatever expansions you put out.  I am liking the game a lot.

Also more special abilities, war machines ( not only the catapult ) and better quest rewards.

Hi,

I have been reading all the comments and have played the game since it was released. I would like elemental with the following going forward....

1. Better Balance, maybe allow the player to set a 'slider' on certain aspects like weapon and magic damage, monster spawns.

2. More 'water' units, allow docks to be built further away from locations.

3. Flying units would be nice, or the ability to make you army fly.

4. Combat need alot of work, maybe have a turn stack that is per unit, a bit like D&D initiative.

5. More HP for heros, maybe they gain per level the amount they have in their stats.

6. Make Inventory more specific to the body which solves Mr T problem

7. I like the dynasty part, but it's need fleshing out more and allowing maybe even internal attempts to take over and maybe even allowing other factions to become part of your kingdom due to marriage.

8. Maybe have less quest locations but don't make them disappear (allow them to offer more quests, maybe even NPC/Other Player quests). You could leave locations the same and have them offer different levels depending on what level you are (rather than reasearch which is odd).

9. Maybe have dungeons that can be explored like the map.

10. Multiplayer!! With time turn limits and more than 1v1 combat (i.e. allow all combat to be done at the end of everyone's 'turn').

11. Maybe build in 'ages' where you can only advance so far and with each new 'age' you see the world get better and you allow the player to have the current 'king/queen' die.

There are loads of directions you could go in but overall once all the obvious bugs are gone hopefully we will have a good long term game.

JD