Aeon221

Ballsy move selling Impulse. Seems odd that someone who was previously a champion of the conglomerate model has rejected it so thoroughly. I mean, you've said a million times that you derived significant advantages from having multiple income streams (desktop apps, publishing, retail, games). Why the sudden urge to dump one of the fastest growing segments? I suppose not wanting to run a big company makes sense, but there's no reason you couldn't have pulled a founder

That would explain why the campaign feels as finished as an aborted fetus, and is nearly as ugly. Would it kill you guys to ditch the campaign concept in favor of, you know, not having half finished abominations hiding within the game eagerly awaiting delicious newbies? I mean, seriously, that campaign was bad. It was so bad it made the release version of the game look good. It was so bad it made the GalCiv2 campaign look good!

Your sons are men! Manly men! They just want to love and be loved (in the butt). Bad jokes aside, I fully support allowing the sov to marry anyone of any race or gender. As to how they make babies, magic. If sov's can make volcanos, they can probably manage a baby. And if not, well, there's always surrogates. Or maybe they adopt? Anyway, I see no reason why you couldn't have gay marriage amongst the children of the sovs

I'm waiting til 1.3 to reinstall. I figure by then they'll release that spreadsheet thing (or I'll have gotten around to buying Excel and VBAing one up) and the gameplay will be more interesting and less experimental.

Based on the mind numbingly awful campaign, it'll be that chick who rules Pariden. She is: super magical reclusive angry at the hero a chick That's pretty much all you need to speculate her into the foozle. I'm kind of hoping I'm wrong, and that all the lore from that campaign will be burned in a firey fire of doom somewhere, with something new, simple and less friggen "yay multicu

You can build a transport ship, which is about as useful as tits on a bull. Other than that, nothing.

Essence was a great concept, I wouldn't mind having it back. Mana pool needs to go. Having a pool rewards passivity -- if you do nothing now, you're stronger later. That is _bad_ design. Mana should use a flow system. You generate X amount of mana per turn, and whether you use it or not you have the same amount of mana next turn (unless you lose or gain the ability to produce mana). In other words, the same system used for movement points: just because your 2 mo

Anytime you have a spell, variable, item or tech called SOMETHING #X, you've failed. It's like programming with variables called a1, a2, a3 etc; if you can't give it a descriptive name, you probably don't need it. When adding spells, ask yourself if they are an incremental update of an existing spell, or if they add a new tactical or strategic capability. A +3 movement spell when a +2 movement spell already exists is needless duplication -- if you want the player's capability t

[quote who="Gwenio1" reply="31" id="2902561"] However, per there statements they believe the market for MP for a game like Elemental is essecially non-existant. And they are likely right, if you are only counting the hardcore MP players. Most of it is 'causal' MP players who find is fun to do some times, but do not play enough to make a purchase just to have MP.[/quote] Which is why giving it away for free is the best idea. Those casuals who are only vaguely

You know how some people play SP and not MP? The reverse is true. And those players can be attracted with a low cost well built MP mode. Stardock already has experience building MP for this engine; with the netcode and infrastructure there, it shouldn't take as much time or expense to add in the game mode. A low cost high quality mp option in the tbs and rts genres could rake in some dough and raise the profile of the game around the web. There might be more SP people, but the MP ones tend to

I'm of the opinion that if the game is to be split into single and multiplayer elements with a combined price of $30, the correct distribution is $25 for the single player game and $10 for the multiplayer game. Many more people will buy the single player stuff. That's pretty much guaranteed. So milk 'em. The multiplayer stuff won't be bought by nearly as many people, so the best idea is to price it into the impulse buy range in order to maximize the number of potential players.

Yes! Sins! Rebellion! Enough of this "I smiteth thee with my +3 Schlong Replacement of Utter Boredom" and back to the cold harsh depths of space, where no one can hear you scream (in bed). I look forward to burning traitorous traitors of traitor-y-ness with my Advent drone hordes! edit: Speaking to the DLC business, it's been handled poorly by most of the places that currently do it -- Civ 5 anyone, or horse armo

No quests in MP gimps the modding community, who won't be able to make RPG style game modes for multiple players. Leave it as an option! Choice good, determinism bad!

Relative to Vicky 2, very poor. Relative to World in Conflict, very poor. Relative to Tropico 3, poor. Those are the newest games I've purchased of late. I've not played Elemental in a while due to lack of interest, and am slowly losing interest in even checking up on how it is doing.

I've actually been working to convince the CEO of the startup I'm at to take a more proactive role on customer engagement. Even when done poorly or infrequently, it's an incredible marketing tool. Customers tend to understand how valuable CEO time is, and they react incredibly positively to even limited comment. Frankly, I think you (Brad) in particular do an excellent job of marketing your games and that part of the success comes from your willingness to dive right in. Now, t

Referring to the term reference in reference to a pointer's referencing of the memory address, whose contents can be read by dereferencing the pointer, without referring to the specific language element called reference. In other words, appropriately used loose language inflicted on us by others, don't sue me over it. I'm aware that pointers are faster in some circumstances, that's why I asked if speed was the desired attribute without reference to safety, or if the preference

Noticed that the Civ4 SDK also had pointers everywhere. Do you pros do it because it's cheaper (but less safe) to pass a reference, or is this a bad habit from C? Also grats on bug kill.

Like I said, a C++ SDK is one thing (and something I've asked for before). The proper place for C++ is where the standard user doesn't have to deal with it -- c'mon man, basic rule of code is provide an idiot proof interface! Python is ok for the standard "interface", but Lua would be better. Lua is simple enough -- ok, I guess it's apparently not as simple as I thought, but you can pick it up fast -- and well known, which is an advantage not shared with other options than Pytho

[quote who="Gwenio1" reply="52" id="2880381"] quoting postThe Mod Layer As some people may remember, I was planning to take a sabbatical last year. Clearly that didn’t happen. I am still planning to do this sometime early this year. With Kael and Jon Shafer here now, I am comfortable that the games unit won’t need me to intervene. This will let me create what I’ve creatively named “Mod Layer”. The idea is to create a piece of middlewar

Why upgrade to 7 when it uses twice the ram? So that you can add more ram? Higher clock speed? Overrated! Bigger video card? Who uses 19x12 anyway? My machine is from 03-04 and still runs everything from Victoria 2 (processor hell) to Dragon Age (video card rapist), so I'm not sure what all the fuss is about personally, especially considering how simple, low maintenance and well designed XP is at this point. If you think you need a pimpwagon and you aren't a professional graphical des

Python? Damnit. I hate those whitespace fanatics with a burning passionfruit. Seriously, on what planet was whitespace considered an easier mechanism for ordering code than {}. Other than that element of OMGWTFBBQSAUCE, it's a nifty little language, and I'm excited to have a full engine to play with. You, uh, you wouldn't consider putting the Kumquat out there as open source, would you? I have a feeling you'd make a ton of easy money if you went the

Riposte: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hBV0ApIh_4 Moving away from the off topic garbage, game needs work. Adventure stuff not being limited or competitive or interesting is a big problem with the world.

Can't see the edit button. Anyway the cartoony graphics aren't the problem, it's the lack of mechanical backing. I'd piss my pants if a horde of spiders snuck up on me and I had to wait to retreat. As is, nothing can fight me unless I let it

Ffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuu iPhone an forum ignored my formatting!

Elemental is many things, but one thing it isn't is scary. Wandering the wilderness is never dangerous, unless you don't know that you can retreat before the enemy can get anywhere near you. You're always safe! The monsters aren't scary, they're comical. And the other factions aren't terrifying or awe inspiring, they're just goofy. Fear isn't about big numbers or autodeath. It's about mechanisms and atmosphere. A great example is Eternal Darkness, a game where surprise