It'll still be a couple of hours. Bear in mind we're between gold and day 0 so we're having to put this stuff together. We weren't even planning on being here today.
Tom Chick has been a friend of mine for over a decade. I take his views very seriously. If someone wants to just cast him off as "some guy" it would be, IMO, their loss. People need to read these things with a bit more context in mind. Tom is trying to communicate that the game needs to clearly explain where the underlying numbers come from. I think that is very legitimate. Unlike GalCiv where the numbers were just plain voodoo, Elemental has the Hiergamenon
Some of us just got up.
[quote who="solidsmooky" reply="90" id="2720910"]Hey Frogboy, I am the person that made this topic and I am wondering if you could answer just one of the main questions for me? I really appreciate you coming in here and addressing the subject by the way. I respect a team that stands by their work no matter what: My question is this. How much improvement/bug fixes are there from the gold to "in-between version" and how much improvement/bug fixes are there fromt he gold to day 0 patc
I would be very surprised if the reviews of Elemental are negative. Very surprised. Elemental is, by far, the best game Stardock has ever produced. That doesn't mean it's perfect or doesn't have its share of rough edges. But it is, imo, the best game we've ever made.
Just to follow-up, let me say that I agree with most of Tom's facts. We DO, intentionally, multiply bonuses. If I could get away with it, I'd have bonuses provide exponential bonuses. The idea is for improvements and such to provide a bigger bang. The numbers, in the game do work fine, even in the gold version. The UI just needs to be much MUCH better about conveying how this stuff works for those who want to dig into the numbers via the Hiergamenon.
[quote who="Slainangel52" reply="63" id="2720653"] Quoting Frogboy, reply 60Hi guys, Let me add some points here: 1. Tom Chick is one of the top gaming journalists in the industry. He's not just some guy. 2. He is reviewing the gold version (he is NOT playing the day 0 version). I.e. He is NOT playing a beta. 3. While I would quibble with some of the content (yes, we multiply bonuses. We multiplied them in Entrepreneur, we multiplie
Hi guys, Let me add some points here: 1. Tom Chick is one of the top gaming journalists in the industry. He's not just some guy. 2. He is reviewing the gold version (he is NOT playing the day 0 version). I.e. He is NOT playing a beta. 3. While I would quibble with some of the content (yes, we multiply bonuses. We multiplied them in Entrepreneur, we multiplied them in GalCiv, and we multiply them in Elemental and have throughout the beta). 4.
[quote who="charon2112" reply="51" id="2720132"] Quoting Twohawks, reply 42 Quoting charon2112, reply 38can I just ask one thing? Are these the final graphics...? What we are seeing now, if not final are very near it.. they chose an artistic style based on Alphonse Mucha works, you can read more in a interviewe with Stardock's Scott Tykoski from Aug of 2009 on ign http://pc.ign.com/articles/101/1019369p1.html there has been other discussion both on these
This time we were prepared for that possibility. Hence having an update ready to go and having the MP servers DOWN prior to general availability.
Even from my version to the day 0 build there's a ton of changes that just don't show in my screenshots but you guys will start finding out tomorrow what I mean.
We are getting reports that the street date for Elemental has been broken. This is one of the downsides of being an indie, we lack sufficient retail clout to get retailers to take our street dates seriously apparently (same thing happened for Demigod). As a result, we plan to make Elemental available to beta testers TOMORROW (Sunday) as well to pre-order customers ASAP (either tomorrow or first thing Monday). However, because I have to re-task the IT team to do this, I'm going
[quote who="Fading_Suns" reply="29" id="2719917"]Argh! The wait is killing me! I want to play! What happens if an enemy sovereign is killed in your territory? I'd imagine that they wouldn't escape that easily, but what happens to their kingdom? Does control fall to their children, or does it become a neutral kingdom?[/quote] They would die and their faction would be inherited by someone else.
Tomorrow. Beta testers get it early tomorrow, Pre-orders get it midday tomorrow. Everyone else Tuesday.
I wish flying units were widely available in the game. It would make AI coding a LOT easier. :)
When in doubt, wait for the demo. That's what I do. $50 is too much to spend if you're not sure IMO.
There's more to come.
It is connected to the IRC chat.
Every sand box game of Elemental effectively IS a campaign. See: https://www.elementalgame.com/journals?page=2
[quote who="Twohawks" reply="37" id="2719177"]I love the posibility of additional (I am going to call them modules) modules / campaigns both retail and non... this gives us as users the ability to make and trade them.. Can you imagine what a kind of a module a Stardock staffer or seasoned fantasy write could do given time? he is an interesting question how long/many man hours did it take to make the campaign?[/quote] Hard to say how long it took to do the
[quote who="AllegroMonkey" reply="34" id="2719171"] Quoting Frogboy, reply 30One other thing I noticed they're doing -- they name every single person they train. Every guy. Interesting. So an army of 50+ named toons? That'd be rather comical!! Bob, Jim, Tony, Tim, GO TAKE THAT CAVE![/quote] It's even more comical because they named them after characters from other game. Mario, Zelda, etc.
[quote who="Storm" reply="31" id="2719166"] The day 0 version limits players to only 12 units per army Why the decision to limit the number of units in an army? Was it purely for 'fun' or a technical reason? Well if it makes you feel better, people will be able to make and trade their own campaigns with you. The whole campaign was made with the included modding tools. Oh I know, I've watc
I'm the mod master. So knock yourself out. At the risk of hubris, no one knows the XML stuff like I do.
One other thing I noticed they're doing -- they name every single person they train. Every guy.
[quote who="AllegroMonkey" reply="28" id="2719156"] How are your boys enjoying the game thus far? [/quote] They like it but I don't think their standards are as high as ours (my oldest is 13). I watch him play and wince constantly as I see him play in a very foreign way (there's no real time constraint on the game so he's trogging around with a massive MASSIVE army -- think 50+ units). The day 0 version limits players to only 12 units per