Frogboy

Thanks!

This is a great post. I wouldn't normally share internal design document material publicly but given the level of thought that was put into this discussion I think it warrants it. This is from our internal document: Roads Engineering leads to a new tech called “Roads” When Roads (the tech) are completed, players get a new trainable unit (Caravans)

If it's red, it means it's not equipped. Not good UI but that's how it works.

TURN BASED but NOT tile based combat.

Saved games from previous betas won't work.

Great stuff. I'm pleased to see that we're starting to get far enough along that we're moving towards the game itself. Just remember, until beta 3, everything is up in the air. Beta 1 and 2 are about putting in the plumbing for the features and making sure they work without formatting your hard drive. :)

Too early to tell.

[quote]What about 4th quarter? It could still be pushed back if need be, but maybe not have to wait until 2011. I only mention it because you skipped a 4th quarter mention both times.[/quote] 4th Quarter is already "booked". It's either 3Q2010 or 1Q2011 (or beyond if we're not satisfied).

Beta 3.

I'm thinking of having it part of the event tree that would be able to be turned on and off in teh options.

Sounds to me that people DO want a tutorial. If that is the case, we'll need to revisit that.

This is an interesting milestone. We're discussing balance now in this thread. The real question isn't whether conclaves need to be buffed or not. The question is whether they formatted your hard drive and infected your network. In beta 3, we'll talk a lot about balance. Feel free though to weigh in on any place holder improvement so that we can get multiple opniions.

[quote who="PeterMSmith" reply="31" id="2592853"] Quoting Barney_130, reply 17If you already think it's going to be out after september wouldn't it be wise to indicate it in the Impulse game page ? http://www.impulsedriven.com/elemental "Realease date : To be determined" or something like this. I would like to second this one. I would rather set the expectation rather than watch a few dates pass.[/quote] From a retail point of view, there is *alway

[quote]There are actually people sending messages like that? LoL , I'd like to see one or part of one, sounds like a laugh riot!!![/quote] Mostly they're from non-beta testers. Some have been from people anxious to get into the beta. Others are people who want us to get to beta 3 (where the graphics are turned on). And still others are people who believe that if we don't release it "soon" that we'll get buried by Civ V and then no one will make a "real" (whatever that means) fan

There is no AI yet. :)

When you get a crash, make sure you get us as much info as possible. See https://forums.elementalgame.com/364285 The more info we get, the faster we'll be able to clean out the bugs. Thanks!

If the beta is any fun at all, then we have done something wrong.

I wonder how Las Vegas would exist in a local resource system. Talk about a poorly placed city. No matter what system we use, there will be people who disagree. Re roads: the point of a game is to have fun. This isn't Sim fantasy civilization builder. It is a strategy game. Roads will be in Elemental but we want to stay away from the situation where players are feeling like they're a construction czar or something. Moreover, requiring the player to constru

See the beta forum, there's instructions there. Cheers.

heh.

Basically, we're going to stay in beta 1 as long as it takes for the game to be reasonably stable. There is no point whatsoever in having a multiplayer beta if single player is unstable. That said, I was able to play completely through today without any problems with Saturday's update. YMMV.

This is from the team: the problem has been resolved[4/9/2010 8:04:53 PM] the issue was that when the empire tree went to add the city entry, it thought the city belonged to another player (the city hadnt changed owners yet) and so it deleted the entry

I like what you've got so far. When we get into the modding beta, what we'll do is create sub-forums specifically for different mods from the beta group. My intention is to have Stardock developers work with mod developers to make sure we provide enough APIs and such so that you can make very different games. I would love, for instance, for someone to make a literal MOM clone with it. I'm a big Dragonlance fan from way back though.

I am enjoying SC2. The matchmaking makes me a little bitter (I'm in bronze but I get "favored" to win high level silver players). I play as Terran. If anyone needs help, I'd say it's Zerg.

The most important point that the beta group has made (and the argument that won us over) was that at the end of the day, Elemental is a STRATEGY game and not a simulation. The game mechanics should provide the widest possible set of options strategically for the player to win. Once I was convinced of it, a lot of things started to make sense. Why are end games such a grind usually in TBS's? A big reason is because each city is so self-contained which means every war is a war of attri