kenata

[quote]You can however create multiple interpreters. Then you just need one for each thread (as previously discussed, it is unlike the scripts themselves will deal with multithreading), though depending on how that works out with sharing the script-code it may have too big of a memory footprint.[/quote] The scripting language does not necessarily have to support multiple threads. In general, you probably would not even need multiple interpreters, though I am certain using only one wou

I think the quest system is one of the most interesting parts about Elemental, as it allows the addition of interesting story elements to the normal sandbox game. Looking at the quest "Swapped At Birth", this is one of many different potential event triggered quests, which could add some very real dynamics to the game. For Instance, you could have a quest that starts when you found a new city wherein the city was placed on an ancient unholy altar and is cursed in some fashion until you find a

[quote]I don't want to sound rude , but i have to ask : Will you and Stardock continue to "clone " the gameplay mechanism of the older titles , like you did with Galactic Civilizations series ( Master of Orion clone ) Elemental : War of Magic ( Master of Magic clone ) upcoming RPG ( Realms of Arkania or Krondor series clone ??? ) ?[/quote] I think this is an unfair assessment. To call GalCiv a clone of MOO is a moderately shallow

[quote]This is why I wish we could hammer home the difference between a publicly traded company and a privately traded company. Privately traded companies can do whatever they want. I always see people trying to ascribe to Stardock (or Valve for that matter -- another privately traded company) motivations that only make sense when you're talking about a publicly traded company.[/quote] I think this is a matter of the changing social norms within our societies. As most busi

[quote]Also you said making a strategy game in 2011 for PC is some shocking niche thing? Civ 5 made Steam over 21 million dollars last year. In 3 months. Lets get real.[/quote] I know that to the inidividual 21 million seems like a lot, but what is the profit actual profit margin for the company? In all honestly, Brad is completely right. If you look at the top sales on steam, only two are strategy games and those two are a sequel to a highly acclaimed and venerable series and an expa

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="170" id="2882559"] Quoting Cruxador, reply 169 Quoting Wintersong, reply 168 Quoting ne_zavarj, reply 166Stardock will never succeed to make a good RPG game . Never . They can only make good 4x RTS games , but nothing else .Yes, the only know to make RTS like Starcraft expansion.There's no need to go making fun of him. It's a legitimate concern, even if he doesn't have the English to express it articulately.I'll make fun of anyone as idiot as to d

[quote]Stardock will never succeed to make a good RPG game . Never . They can only make good 4x RTS games , but nothing else .[/quote] LOL! I know how you feel. Honestly though, I am really interested to see what they think up for an Elemental RPG, as I think it would be cool if I could walk the streets of one of my own cities ;)

[quote]A medieval warfare game where heavy cavalry provides no bonus for charging? Hell, fix only this (and flanking) and I'd love the game.[/quote] A long time ago, there was an idea floating around with Updated Weapons to have an Updated Mounts mod to add a charge ability to the all the mounts. The general idea was going to be to cut the units move cost by like 75% and give a huge attack bonus( like 100%) as well as a huge defense debuff. If people would like to see something like t

I am fairly certain the spell target gets the modifier, thus if you cast it on a stack, it will apply to the leader unit will hold the modifier. Therefore, if the leader leaves, then the modifier is gone.

[quote]Have you given thought to spells cast on an entire stack? I don't remember the capabilities, but a strategic spell that gives +15% or so in any stat category would probably add some interesting flavor the the enchantment tree. It doesn't need to, but I think these kinds of spells are best if only lasting for a single season. Alternatively, it could be cast during the actual tactical battle. We can definitely create some of these stack enhancement spells. If you have speci

[quote]Black Isle/Troika made some great RPGs in the day, Arcanum and Torment are among my all time favorite games.[/quote] I loved Arcanum, and even with its flaws, consider it to be one of the best RPGs ever made. Planescape: Torment definite was a cool game with a good story line, but had too many points in its character system where I felt like a mechanic was too OP not to spend points on. Wisdom giving an xp bonus was just craziness.

[quote]Let me also add that Python is a pretty standard scipting languages used in modding WoW, Civ IV, Mine Craft, etc . . .[/quote] I would highly disagree with this statement. If you actually compare the list of game supporting Python v. those supporting Lua, you find that games tend to use Lua much more often than Python. However, this is not the same for non-game applications which seem to prefer Python to Lua. Honestly, of your examples, WoW uses a mix of Lua and XML for scripti

[quote]You may have a point. If we are given access to C++ on top of it all, then perhaps the easier of the two languages would be better as an intermediary step. It seems like Python is almost used as a replacement language to C++ based on how powerful it is. On the other hand, if someone is going through all the trouble of building a mod, is the difference in complexity between the two languages really that appreciable? It seems kind of small compared to the scope of actually building somet

I have gone through most of these posts and find there is a lot of support on all sides. It is interesting to see the various points for each side in this. My thoughts are fairly straight forward here, as I think the mod system should eventually be a three part system. The first part, which we already have, is the XML data section, where new content is added using a data driven methodology. The second part is the scripting part, and could be done effectively in either Python or Lua. The final

[quote]The community here is fantastic. I know it's one of the things people I know from "the industry" comment on regularly. I remember last GDC talking to some guys at another studio and we were trying to theorize why the Stardock community forums are so much better to participate on than the typical one. What we want to strongly discourage, or more specifically, what I want to strongly discourage is any temptation to personalize things as well as trying to zap any melodrama or

[quote]Absolutely. On casual games or smaller games the expectations are less. On console games, the expectations are higher but things are still a lot less personalized than they tend to be on the PC. Look at Quarter To Three, for instance. I was a regular on there for 9 years. At trade shows, I either organized or at the very least attended most of the dinners and such. And for what? As soon as we put out a game that didn't live up to people's expectations some people there becom

Trog, just remember to go easy on these resources as they are not hidden in the city screen. One of the reasons Heavenfall and I stopped using this method was that these easily get out of control and can make looking at the city details screen unpleasant. As I said previously, I used a similar method when attempting to do the wizard's tower mod and found that even 2 or 3 of these can get annoying.

[quote]I define an RPG as a game with choices which have moderate-to-extensive consequences on the plot and/or setting* (including NPCs) and its (/their) reaction towards the character you play. Character sheet is one of the places where those choices are made, especially if it's more than just choosing combat talents (see: fallout 1/2/NV's special and how it affects some of the quest outcomes and solving possibilities). But it shouldn't be limited to character sheet. [/quote] I don't

[quote]How terribly disappointing. Stardock is beginning to look like the crash and burn game studio of the decade. I've been patiently awaiting a "finished" product to show up after an expansion or two, but now, instead of making incremental inmprovements to a mediocre game, we now have a very good chance at receiving three, separate, mediocre games. Where is the logic in this? The world of Elemental isn't even very exciting. It is drab, monontonous and boring. I don't want three games

[quote who="troglyte" reply="5" id="2879947"] Quoting kenata, reply 4 I used to use this method of enforcing mutual exclusion on buildings, but as heavenfall rightly points out, the AI will get some multiple of this resource due to the difficulty settings. This is one of the reasons I put my building mod on hold. There appears to be a work-around to this. If you set a negative production bonus in your unique improvement equal to the resource production in your cityhub, the two

[quote] There is no direct xml tag to make buildings be mutually exclusive. You can work around it for the player by applying a local resource to the cityhub, then demanding that resource for the building. But the UI won't display it well, and the AI will ignore it on anything but the lowest settings.[/quote] I used to use this method of enforcing mutual exclusion on buildings, but as heavenfall rightly points out, the AI will get some multiple of this resource due to the diffic

[quote quoting="post"] I have been experimenting with building my own improvements, and they more or less work how I would expect, but with the exception that I cannot seem to make an improvement build *outside* the city. It is always confined to the little green squares which are adjacent to the rest of your city. So what does this parameter do if not that? And is there a way to accomplish what I am trying to do? thanks. [/quote] I have attempted this myself, and ca

[quote quoting="post"] Does anyone know of a way to hold / root a unit (with a spell or effect,) without them losing their turn completely so they could still attack or cast a spell, with the XML? As far as I can tell minimum combat speed = 1. I know about ChanceToLoseNextTurn; it's not what I'm looking for. Thanks. [/quote] As far as I know, there is no way to make a unit incapable of moving. As NJ stated, you can up the cost for movement to s

[quote] War Staff: this seems to have lost its +1 Move at some point (just checked the 1.5 XML). Is this intentional or an opps? I personally liked that the War Staff gave an increase in movement, and would vote for its return. Spell Sub Class Tag: I noticed these, where did you find the info on how to use them / the list of possible ones? They look to have greatly improved the AI's ability to intelligently use the we

To do this, you can try to make 0.5 for str. I would suggest using powers of 2 and 5 (0.5, 0.25, 0.2, 0.4) when doing decimals as other values will probably be a bit wacky. As for going back to the old style essence, I believe that this is all hard coded and thus not moddable.