Frogboy

[quote who="Satrhan" reply="105" id="2640165"]Frogboy (or any other dev), is the vassal system still in the game? Because I haven't heard anything about it for a while and I saw somewhere that you are redoing the diplomacy system, and I was wondering if the whole vassal system was included in those changes?[/quote] Neutral cities are in. :) The diplomacy changes are mostly related to the AI. I have to have the AI do a decent job on that and I'm not in love with the traditional

[quote who="edpfister" reply="67" id="2640255"] The long, hard, scary time consuming feature is the AI. It’s the one feature that could delay the game beyond August 24th. Personally less than 3 months from now seems way to soon. Maybe you guys can get the game done by then but what about testing, polish and balance. There are huge things that are barely in the game or completely non-existant (tactical combat and magic) that can have huge impacts. I

In the long run, the pirates are going to wreck the experience for everyone else. People have been screaming about Ubisoft's DRM but you know what? Their sales are WAY up on those titles versus the titles that don't have that DRM. Every publisher I know of is seriously looking at what Ubisoft did. Look how many people are perfectly happy with Steamworks in their games already? Sure, you just have to be online to play the game (thus far, I have yet to see a single Steamwo

One sad fact of history, medieval armies for tragically short of air support as well as air transport. And while a fantasy world with dragons, demons, and a handful of other creatures that fly can be very useful, they are exceptionally rare.

[quote]Just as a curiosity, what is to stop a company from selling their product several months earlier online than its available to retail? Or would retails be less likely to allow you to buy shelf space after its already been several months on the market?[quote] They'd be less likely in the sense that they wouldn't carry it.

[quote]Well, the AI and the core gameplay. But the alpha game took care of creating a fun gameplay, didn't it?[/quote] Yea, the beta 1 phase has turned out to be even more crucial than we had thought it would be when we first set it up. I wonder how many people remember what the game was going to be like originally. The enhanced design is just so much more enjoyable to play. One example: Recruitable NPCs were not in the original design. That came from the forums.

[quote]Stardock won't do that, nor do they need too. As Frogboy has said many times, and been quite right in saying, they aren't pressed financially like other companies are. They don't need to rush anything to meet someone else's time-frame. Their money comes from other sources.[/quote] Correct. Though, on the other hand, I'm not going to push the release date back for some wizbang new feature that could just as easily be added post-release. My main concern is ma

[quote who="XeronX" reply="3" id="2639011"]Okay I am confused. I know you guys said a holiday release was not possible because it was booked? Obviously I am not in marketing lol. But why, what does booked mean, is it that your factory cannot develop the tangible products during that season, the retailers can't/won't accept it then, All you folks are busy getting drunk off spiked egg nog ? I am just wondering what the semi-specifics (if you can't go into detail)

Sorry esrever, I wasn't meaning to address you quite so specifically. What I am trying to address is the general question of the graphical style. We don't like the tendancy of these types of games to be littered with "stuff". We prefer having a cleaner look both from a game play point of view as well as aesthetically.

[quote who="Tormy-" reply="75" id="2638541"] Quoting Frogboy, reply 49- The only time consuming part left is the AI since it has to play "the game". I think that balancing will take some time as well. [Beta3] [/quote] Balancing is something that will go on for years. There is no perfect balance and I make no promises that the game will be perfectly balanced. The only promise I can make is that we will do our best to make the game FUN to play (particular

[quote]The individual elements are beautiful, but as said above, they seem 'detached'. This is because of the lack of shadows in many places. I mean, it's not that you need shadowmaps or extreme detail, but at least a bit of ambient shadowing/darkening in the terrain underneath. This is further pronounced in #70 where you have snow (white) vs rocks (really dark), and the white tone of the snow is further accentuated by what seems a specular highlight, whil

We didn't demo tactical combat on this tour.

BTW, if you guys want to know the most likely thing to cause delays, it's going to be AI. Having a challenging AI that doesn't cheat is a lot of work. Especially with islands.

[quote who="Beric01" reply="57" id="2638202"]Frogboy, I understand you really care abut the AI, and I respect that. However, it really seems the AI is becoming the long tentpole in Elemental right now. I understand you want to work on it yourself, but if you really want the game to be both complete and have good AI, perhaps you should have another member of the team help you? I just really want this AI to be a top-notch TBS AI, if you understand what I mean. [/quote] I have mult

A big part of our objective for Elemental's art style is that in a screenshot you would say "That's Elemental". So many games go for the "Realistic" art style that it's easy to confuse one with the other. In Elemental, you are, after all, zooming in from multi continent view down to seeing individual people living their lives in the city. That's a huge scale level that I think pays off as you are building your own world in the game. Moreover, in a game where there are so

[quote who="Omnax1" reply="51" id="2638158"]I am not saying you can not do it, you can. And I know your build is much further. But there is still alot of feedback on all the stuff which is not implemented. However, I know how you care about your games, and I am sure, you will do things right. It just seems to me, that elemental will come all together at the last while. 2,5 month? Does not seems like you are expecting to do any major changes, which is fine with me, because I like th

[quote who="seanw3" reply="112" id="2638125"]I find the textures enjoyable. #70 looks good but maybe it shines better in animation as opposed to a still frame. Personally, I see a huge difference in the editor movies we just got and this picture. I will still hold my judgement on good or bad graphics until release and even then I really just don't put that much into graphics. [/quote] That picture was from the editor. :)

[quote who="Tasunke" reply="27" id="2638129"]is anyone helping you with the AI this time around?[/quote] Yes. My team writes up lots of worker functions for me to make use of. In GalCiv, I had to write those functions myself. Moreover, since a lot of the AI is data driven, we'll be able to make a lot of tweaks to it from playtesting a lot faster.

[quote who="Grove12345" reply="17" id="2637552"] oh well another week. aint too bad. not like a month i dont really see an august release. I mean first public beta coming up and bound to be lots of request on combat and exploring and such. Going to take time to tweak or erase and redo alot of gaming mechanics.[/quote] :) At this point in the project, we're not really looking to "redo" game mechanics. That is what the 9 month Beta 1 phas

I think some of you are thinking that we are using the public beta as the primary bug testing/compatibility testing system. That is not the case. While feedback and bug reports are very helpful, the primary purpose of beta 2 is to get feedback on gameplay (as well as see if there are edge cases in performance and compatibility). [quote] August 24th is still too early to me... lets have a look. We still havent got: Multiplayer (there can be problems witch co

[quote who="Tasunke" reply="37" id="2637929"]Do they cost 0 mana because there is 0 gameplay effect to having a magical garden vs throne of skulls wasteland?[/quote] Exactly.

The ridge having a line like that is part of the illustrative art style (it's not supposed to look realistic, it's supposed to look illustrated).

Can you explain how the screenshot in reply 70 is "boxy"? I guess I'm not understanding what you're looking for. I look at #70 and see a lot of detail.

[quote who="TarponCrest" reply="51" id="2637506"]Wow Super!! but no creature, monster, npc editor? no plot editor (conversation, quests, etc), and ummm... Tactical maps can be edited and designed as well right?, Dungeons, caves, merchants, ok ok. I know I want to much but yea please if at all possible would love to be able to edit as much as possible. Thanks so much for the effect editor that is fresh and new can't wait![/quote] You can make

You did this to me.