I don't think mods would want to write their stuff in C++ to be honest. The ONLY reason that mine are C++ is to make it so that people can have some surprise in how the AI works. The more I use python, the more I like it. I dream of a future where some modder is making an RPG with the Elemental engine.
Speaking for myself, I'm a Python newbie. But I think what you see is our desire to make Elemental a game but also a platform. We've seen this with RPGs like Neverwinter Nights where modders could keep creating interesting things. That's what we're hoping to do. I don't think, at release, Elemental will have anything close to that kind of modding capability as it will be the result of months/years of migration of C++ to Python based on experience. Now, that said,
I love C++. I'm learning Python now. The main advantage of Python is that it doesn't have to be compiled so a user can just make a few changes to the text file and it works right then and there.
In Elemental, there are two types of mana that are not held within shards: Life and Death magic. Life magic makes use of the energies created by living things. Death magic takes something that is living and harvests the energies created from the transition from life to death. The reason why the lands of the Empires look so mangled is because the natural ecosystems in their territories have been totally perverted. Men can choose to take the path of death magic j
When people create their own custom factions, they'll be able to pick and choose how they choose. The moddability of the game will likely expand with updates after release even further as we want to make more and more of the game moddable via python. Not just because we love you guys (and we do) but because it will allow for a lot of interesting expansions and such to be made later if we make the core engine easy to modify in interesting ways.
The beta stress test will determine the final numbers.
[quote]Empires = Fallen, Kingdoms = Humans[/quote] There are no humans in the game. There are men but they aren't humans. That will be understood better later.
The fate of hedge walls will rest with the beta testers. :)
The team is crying about the screenshots because they think they look bad. "The lighting and shadows aren't even in yet!!! Don't show these!" But I think it's worth showing these because people will want to see how the engine progresses through development.
For the next FAQ, I'd like to respond to questions from the forums. Do you guys have any questions?
I'm curious what the reaction would be if the defendant had been a billionaire - i.e. someone who could easily afford the damages.
I was not aware that Demigod was "broken".
The book's publisher will be making a formal announcement at the end of the Summer where there will be a lot more details. We would like to have an extreme edition or whatever of Elemental that includes the book. We'll see.
Just thought I'd mention unofficially here that we plan to have a hard cover book available at retail that takes place in the world of Elemental at around the same time the game is released.
[quote]I love this idea of a cloth map and making it 100% playable on that map. That way if you have horrible system requirements you can still enjoy this game.[/quote] That is indeed on of the requirements we have. You will be able to run Elemental /basic (i.e. /basic is a parameter) and play the entire game symbolically on the cloth map. If it's a good game, it should still be fun in that mode.
[quote]And not to be a pain, but could you shed a little light on whether LAN/Hotseat/PBEM multiplayer will be available? You made a lot of people concerned in your getting back to Elemental post.[/quote] LAN almost certainly. Hot seat maybe. PBEM, not sure yet.
[quote]That is frickin' huge! I can't wait to try out those large maps! PS- Did Soren mention anything about Civ5?![/quote] Soren's at EA now. He just got done working on some "Spore" game. We don't know anything about a Civilization V other than hoping Firaxis is working on it. Civilization (the game) is why I became a game developer in case you're wondering just what level of worship I have for that game.
[quote]I can't wait for 64Bit Elemental! The question is... will I have to buy it twice (32bit/64bit)? I can see why it might be necissary, but I'm not sure I'd be willing to.[/quote] No, both versions would come with Elemental (when you buy Elemental you're getting both versions no matter what you'd just run a different EXE).
BTW, one thing to remember: It's not playing orcs or high elves that made MoM have each game feel different. It is that players had massive amounts of choices from. An Orc and an elf and a dwarf are nothing more than a faction with different presets at the programmatic level. The only reason we don't have 30 different "races" is because of the lore we want to work from.
Elemental is a turn-based game. Not an RTS. Even the tactical battles are turn-based, they're just continuous turns (ala The Corporate Machine).
Dear users who have mistaken Stardock's anti-obnoxious copy protection stance as being DRM free: Galactic Civilizations I, Galactic Civilizations II, Sins of a Solar Empire, and every Demigod beta so far have ALL had DRM in it: activation. In addition, virtually every piece of software, for the past 6 years has had this as well. We don't, however, put it on the CD versions and will continue that policy. Game Object Obfuscation allows us to do the above without havi
Well, when you play the sandbox game you make your own world and can import your own mods and mods created by others. But in the campaign, the goal is to tell the story from the perspective of both Men and Fallen.
The tactical battles will be something that will evolve a lot as we get feedback from the betas.
We're defining it as users who have purchased something. We have millions of Impulse accounts but a lot of them are using freeware programs or shareware.
[quote who="b0rsuk" reply="25" id="2101463"] Quoting mickeko, reply 24 Quoting b0rsuk, reply 23Hehe, this looks a lot like Folderview from KDE4 on Linux. Actually you got it the wrong way around... It's folderview that looks alot like fences. Are you sure about that ? When was the first version of Fences released ? I can't locate any relevant information, but the earliest references to Fences I've been able to find (version beta 0.96) come from Feb