Tridus

[quote who="dragoaskani" reply="72" id="2711123"]Most beta's don't have you beta test the "final" version...[/quote] If you want to go there, most betas also don't have you test what would by most studios be considered an alpha (at best). Betas 1 and 2 were not "beta" by the standard usage of the term. But that isn't the problem. Betas 1 and 2 got useful feedback and were productive parts of the process. Those existing was a good thing. The bad thing is that there was no beta

[quote who="N3rull" reply="7" id="2711325"]The worst thing about DNF is that whatever the developers did 13, 10 or even 5 years ago is already out of date by a century in the gaming technology calendar. You cannot release a game in 2010 that runs on a modified engine from what... 1997? So basically if anyone is going to actually develop DNF, they are going to have to do it from ground up. Whatever was done about it five or more years ago isn't worth a lollipop now.[/quote]

EB in the US is getting it apparently, so you might try an EB in Canada. Unfortunately they don't have anything resembling a useful Canadian website, so you'll have to call or go in person to find out (and don't even attempt to find a copy there without a pre-order, that's not how they do business). Amazon.ca isn't carrying it either, but Amazon.com is. That might ding you with customs.

After all the work they had done on it, you'd think it would have been released. Of course, they've done enough work to put out at least 3 games, but put out zero. This was a case screaming for a project manage or publisher with the power and desire to force the developers to say "this is good enough, polish and ship it."

AI vs AI really would be a better game. Think of all the time saved if you eliminated PEBCK errors! [e digicons]:borg:[/e]

[quote who="Annatar11" reply="66" id="2711033"]I'd mostly agree with kyogre. The bulk of the beta should be what it was. But, given the scope of a game like Elemental, I do think it would be beneficial to give the testers about a month of a non-changing game, so we can play the hell out of it and comment on issues we really couldn't (pacing in late game huge maps, etc). The content here should be final or near-final, so we can get an accurate representation of the game. It's great

[quote who="Zorbane" reply="57" id="2710937"]Do you know anything about Elemental in Canada?[/quote] If EB in the US is carrying it (and they appear to be), most likely they'll be able to get it in Canada too. The ones near me won't have any unless you pre-order though, because that's just how they are with anything that isn't projected to be a million unit seller. Last I checked Future Shop didn't have a listing for it at all, which is kind of surprising given that their PC game sele

[quote who="Raven X" reply="65" id="2711027"] You know what's worse than being a girl looking to buy video games? Being a guy and getting to the store to buy the game you want and there's some teenage chick behind the counter that can't even find the name of the game you want listed in the computer. If you ask me, anyone who works in a "specialty store" like one that sells video games or electronics needs to know as much about that "specialty" as possible. Unfortunately the people in cha

[quote quoting="post"] I only have 386K. 1.I am curious if anyone knows what size the game is as i don't want to wait for it to arrive in the mail. I want to estimate how many days/hours it will take to download.[/quote] Beta 4 is 1.67GB according to Impulse. That's installed size, I believe the download size is a bit smaller. Release game will probably be larger, but I can't imagine it growing tremendously. I'd be surprised if it's over 2

It's on the to-do list. He mentions in the thread specifically doing something like that. Ultimately this is an optimization thing. You do it closer to the end because when you're focused on making things work, making it faster isn't on top of the list.

I updated the Wikipedia entry. :) You're right. "Tank" and other such terms are all relative. Really, any game that can turn a profit isn't a failure. That's not something I'm terribly worried about in the case of Elemental.

[quote who="jmccrea" reply="39" id="2710734"]Ive already ordered the CE version of the game, but im curious on release day, will I be able to DL the whole game(CE version) thru Impulse, or will I have to wait til I get the game via mail? Also, is your book going to be in Hard cover or just paper back? I always prefer Hard for some reason, but just wanted to know before I order. Is Amazon the place to do that from? Sorry about all the questions, I know you all are busy

I wonder if the other number also includes marketing and the servers that were put up for multiplayer?

$5 million, according to Wikipedia.

[quote who="LDiCesare" reply="59" id="2710719"]Get rid of ALL tiles. I only use the cloth map anyway. Seriously, the tiles CAN be delayed until later, and you can use the cloth map until they are available.[/quote] But how do you generate a random map with stuff on it if you don't know what the "stuff" can be? The tiles aren't just graphical, they contain things that can affect gamplay. It's data that other parts of the game will need. Even the cloth map has to know

[quote who="VR_IronMana" reply="62" id="2710779"] Even if I had a dual+ core CPU, I wouldn't want this. I'd rather all 2, 4, 8, however many of my cores giving their resources to getting me into Elemental not playing out a minigame.[/quote] Well, on a quad core i7 you're more likely to be waiting for disk I/O on at least one core to read XML, so the hit would be pretty negligible. But on a single core (the people who will be delayed the most) any CPU time spent handlin

Oh cool.

Does Impulse support preload now?

[quote who="vieuxchat" reply="24" id="2710448"] Quoting Wintersong, reply 18 Quoting Folcik009, reply 15an interesting loading screenI want a minigame. Even if it's Elemental Pong. +1000 Waiting isn't an issue if I have something to do. [/quote] This is a CPU bound process, using the CPU for something else is going to make it take even longer (and will hit people with single core CPUs the most as there won't be *any* parsing going on while th

[quote who="Annatar11" reply="22" id="2710241"]I think that means that most of us are more realistic. There's some wiggle room between mediocre and better than average more or less based on personal interpretations of that that means in context of features (for some, tactical combat is more important, others want crafted items, others want more stuff with seas). But it basically says that people don't expect a completely new game from beta 4 since the features are set, and are just going to g

[quote who="kyogre12" reply="15" id="2710213"] Quoting father_nurgle, reply 13 Quoting kyogre12, reply 11 Why on earth would you want to do that? So you can run a 3rd party app to play a game that doesn't even require it? For the chat functionality without alt-tabbing, handy for multiplayer once you finish your turn. and browser Except Impulse::Reactor has the same features, and it doesn't require an unnecissary app runni

Either a fake, somebody at Valve having some fun, or a very, very bizzare announcement is going to be made. For my money, it's not the third one. :P

It's interesting how tempered expectations are for the release version of the game, considering that the survey is being taken by fans. That could mean a few things, really.

"Co-op" can mean a few things. It can mean you can just not attack each other, and eventually sign a treaty once the necessary techs are unlocked. It could be like Civ 4 where you can play on a team and are treated as a team for diplomacy and tech purposes. It could even be something crazy like the little known team mode in Starcraft 1 where you actually both controlled the same base/units (that was actually pretty fun, though rarely used).

What's best for Stardock: Buy a copy for yourself on Impulse, then go buy a retail copy and give it a friend. ;)