Frogboy

[quote who="StevenAus" reply="10" id="2947805"]How will the AI handle particularly tough Wildlands areas? Best regards, Steven.[/quote] Better than you humans will. Freaking meat.

This discussion really deserves a more lengthy response but I'll try to give you some of the highlights: So as some of you know, Stardock has historically had 3 business units -- the software unit, the games unit, and the distribution unit. From 2000 to 2009, the software unit dominated the vast majority of our energy. In 2010, the distribution unit took the lead at which point we decided to sell it off (we like money too but I didn't exactly get excited about waking up

I wish I had had the opportunity to refine the game mechanics of War of Magic over 10 years like I did with Galactic Civilizations (GalCiv for OS/2 was developed in 1992 to 1994). There's so many different, interesting ideas to try. Some work, some don't. Thanks to digital distribution, we get to take the Elemental world in very interesting, different directions and see what people like. My *personal* preference is that War of Magic goes in direction A and Falle

The main thing is that I want to see v1.3 come out in June and when you add in the beta phase, we have to be careful not to try to stuff too much in there.

I feel your pain. It is something I'm looking out for too. What video card are you using and what OS?

I like a lot of the ideas posted here. Just bear in mind that scope is often a cruel limiter on what can be put in. I don't think it's any secret that I'd like to see dynasties get a lot more love. As a practical matter, the dynasty system needs to be re-imagined and I don't think that'll happen until Elemental: Game 3 (WOM =1, FE=2).

Update: The beta won't be out this week as Kris/Nakor is on vacation this week and I don't want to have to get publishing involved on my quasi-private beta of v1.3. So plan on the following Thursday.

Thanks, SciFi!

Updated.

[quote who="kapeman" reply="18" id="2942700"]So, barring any major issues, when would you expect to put out a beta for 1.3? I am really just looking for a rough time frame. It doesn't have to be exact and I think we would all understand if it slips. Thanks![/quote] I'm hoping next Thursday. It won't be feature complete by any means but some of the gameplay changes are pretty significant and already make, imo, a big difference in the "fun" area.

I was referring to War of Magic specifically. I don't know what we'll be doing with our future Elemental titles yet.

My philosophy is to just try to share with people what I'm working on. Transparency in function. :)

There are no plans to have War of Magic available on any other platforms other than Impulse except for a future Stardock digital store (for its own stuff).

[quote who="Gwenio1" reply="16" id="2941760"] Quoting Frogboy, reply 2An interesting idea. Unfortunately, probably beyond the scope of what I can do in v1.3. How about capping the max number of workers a city can use at the max population it can house? Would that be doable?[/quote] I'm not sure. I like the concept. I am wondering, however, if we might be better off having the limited number of tiles that a city can build per level again.

[quote who="StevenAus" reply="9" id="2941706"]Yes, this is a good point. Don't make statements of apparent fact if there's any reasonable chance of the "fact" not being backed up by actions. In other words, don't promise things that are not 110% set in stone. Best regards, Steven.[/quote] I never promise anything.

An interesting idea. Unfortunately, probably beyond the scope of what I can do in v1.3.

Option E: I'm taking my time on it because I want to. :)

I am leaning towards having the number of specialists stored as part of the individual improvement. Hence, conquering a city may result in players getting a real boon because now you're capturing those specialists.

I was inspired through our experience with the Impulse acquisition actually. Getting 1 person with skill X is a lot easier than getting that second person which is easier than getting that third person and so on. And in a world where finding archivists and monks is likely very difficult, it should get increasingly harder to find more as time goes on.

Essence won't get into v1.3 but if there's a v1.4 that's where I'd like to bring it back. I want the essence mechanic along with champions to be a much more structured thing. You'll see some of that in v1.3.

Personally, I would like to keep working on WOM well beyond v1.3 because there isn't quite the massive expectations with making tweaks that I ran into with games like GalCiv. For instance, I *hate* the economic system in GalCiv 2 but I was afraid to redo it in a free update because there'd been a riot. But with WOM, I don't have quite that pressure because the game has a 56 metacritic score and those who don't like what I do have Fallen Enchantress they can mig

I don't think MP is getting much attention right now. I will say, however, that I did ask about the problem with construction in MP and it apparently WAS fixed but it was too late to make it into v1.2 before the code freeze. I've asked for an update for next week to release that fix to the public. There are two things I want very much but am not sure what the resources around it will be: 1) I really would like to see modding beefed up with actual c++ code provided that

That is certainly a legitimate issue. Strange it wasn't brought up in this thread until now. It's the first i've heard of it.

[quote who="StevenAus" reply="18" id="2933519"]Yes, please Frogboy, don't try to re-write history. You promised a number of things with multiplayer and you didn't deliver. It's one thing to look forward to a much better game in FE. But don't try to pretend that you didn't drop the ball majorly with WoM's MP. I can see now why people believe it would be better for FE to go without MP than for it to be stuffed up like it was in WoM. Bes

We like Parallels on the iMac. :) Stardock technology is in there.