TCores

Hello Brad, Please consider releasing the source code to War of Magic as part of the release Fallen Enchantress. As a day 0 download to everyone who owns a copy Seven reasons: Rebuild relations with modding community Generate user excitement and foster community growth Ensure the hard work on WoM is not simply evaporated into the ether by giving it a venue that doesn't compete with FE allow users to experiment w

[quote quoting="post"] After they stop patching the game officially will the modding community be able to put out fan patches? Like a lot of the games that aren't good, and then end up being good because of fan patches. [/quote] As one of the people who worked on the Community Expansion project, I can tell you I have no current plans to return the Elemental modding scene. The flexibility of the toolset isn't there and the promise to relea

At this point, GOOD OLD GAMES @ gog.com is the *only* service I will purchase an online game from. Stardock could (but probably won't) pursue gog as a distribution channel unless they retain a financial, legal, or "spiritual" interest in impulse. However, since I still buy games as a physical product, Stardock has nothing to worry about in terms of losing my business. PS: Sorry, digital distribution heralds:

[quote who="Cruxador" reply="34" id="2940024"] Also the "less city micromanagement" in this interview sounded suspiciously close to "dumbed down" or "deemphasized", but it's Stardock so I'm at least far less worried than I otherwise might be.[/quote]  Understanding that FE is meant to be a shorter timeframe, more condensed game with a regional rather than global focus... - cutting the dynastie

[quote who="kenata" reply="38" id="2938373"] Quoting BoogieBac, reply 37TCores: Your warning has been noted And yeah, once the separating the engine and game logic begins in earnest, it'll be via scripts, not XML logic flows (which I can certainly imagine are painful to traverse). They already exist to an extent. Check out quests for a good example of this.[/quote] I know! There was a big discussion about it last year, but I can't remem

[quote who="BoogieBac" reply="33" id="2937744"]that while the DLL and scripting work is on the backburner, everything we're implementing on the XML-side for FE is being done with the modding community in mind.[/quote] We definitely appreciate it! But a word of caution: if you find yourself creating if/else logic in XML (if the player has X token, consult this value) you really need to reassess directions. XML-like scripting languages have been done

[quote who="Jon Shafer" reply="31" id="2937713"] Stardock is really small compared to other "major" game studios. We only have a handful of engineers on the games side, so even minor tasks can eat up a sizable percentage of our resources. As we expand and the technology base is improved we'll have more time and people to work on new features. No promises on where we'll end up or what we'll be able to do, but I feel good about where we'll get in the long run. It'

[quote who="Jon Shafer" reply="27" id="2937339"]Trust me guys, the only thing I want to see more than an awesome moddable game is an awesome, fun game. We still very much want to get to the point where the modders can do pretty much whatever they want, but it will take time and a lot of hard work. If we could snap our fingers and make it happen now we would. Jon[/quote] Thank you for the response! Like the other comments, I appreciate the honesty an

I would appreciate anything so much as a "I have seen this thread and have nothing to say," but more ideally I'd like to see a roadmap of what the plan is. If there is no plan, I'd rather just be told than left in the dark. We hardcore modders have been waiting for more than a year now, very patiently.

1.2 is upon us, Fallen Enchantress is under work. Can we have an update on the DLL support you'd planned post 1.2 and give us some modding powers? I am not confident right now in the future of modding on the Elemental line of titles, at least as I had envisioned it. Please understand I think you're doing great work here, but this is the state of modding in Elemental as I see it: * 90% of the "m

Just checking in again.

[quote who="Heavenfall" reply="10" id="2924373"]I'm on the other side of the spectrum. I think scripting is a huge deal to make modding viable. Right now, the UI is (nearly) unmoddable, the AI is 95% beyond our reach, and there are no scripts. That leaves us with adding content only. We are incredibly restricted in changing the game. That just doesn't cut it for me, and I very much doubt that it will be enough to create a modding community for FE.[/quote] Script

I guess no one knows, in which case, are the dev staff willing to say?

Anyone know yet? I presume there won't be any.

[quote]Became a non-issue when PC titles vanished from the retail space. [/quote] Respectfully, the present tense of this proclamation indicates you and I inhabit different realities. A continued discourse between you and me would be futile and serve neither of our interests.

[quote]Starcraft II players can and do talk to WoW players all the time. It's not just Steam that does it, but Steam's ability to do it is pretty invaluable because it makes the "community" vastly larger then that of any one game. Networking effects are powerful.[/quote] People playing WoW & Starcraft II online are the group I was talking about getting use out of Steam and community features. Playing the single player Fallout, I have zero use of community fe

[quote]Expansions pose the same problems though, and it's only really gotten around because the expansion eventually becomes mandatory to play otherwise you can't find any players (because everybody else has the expansion). That one is hard to solve.[/quote] I agree. Atari had an easier time of it: their expansions to the NWN series brought new content that the modders embraced enthusiastically. The community itself actively promoted the product and moved to

[quote]This will depend on a lot of things, but mostly on the type of playerbase you have. Bethesda's games don't lend themselves well to "horse armor" because only you see it, and it's not a game you're going to repeat a bunch of times. Their pricing also wasn't the best on that. Blizzard sells entirely cosmetic stuff for WoW and they sell hundreds of thousands of units.[/quote] Yes, see my comment here: [quote]3) Maximizing conversions is also essential to DLC

[quote]This is not true at all. One of the best features of steam is the in-game chat, though it does not simply connect two players playing the same game. In fact, when I use this feature, I tend to be playing a different game than my friends.[/quote] While I respect your happenstance, I feel you are an outlier in a world of Xfire & Vent. When playing games, I rarely have the focus to carry on a chat conversation with other people if those people are not involved in the game I'm

These are the three problems with DLC: 1) when people buy it, but don't buy enough of it to justify the cost of making it. 2) when companies make it, but don't put enough work into making it to satisfy the customer purchasing it, causing a loss of good will. 3) when companies make it expecting reams of cash, and forgo other, more lucrative business opportunities to do so. I hope though that no one mistakes me as saying it's always bad; it can be

[quote]I'd wait until next week to hear anything from Brad or Derek on the matter, since they're both in GDC at the moment. I know the team has a love/hate relationship with MP - we love to play it, would love to expand on it, but putting quality time into a feature that less than 1% of the players use is...frustrating (and we do have the numbers from other 4x TBS games to verify this number).[/quote] I'm not even sure how to address the 1% remark. How does Stardock get

[quote]One of the reasons I’m passionate about Free to Play and DLC (DLC has gotten a bit of a bad rap – deservedly so imo but the concept is still awesome) is I would like to see the base price on PC games go down. Way down. -Frogboy [/quote] DLC has problems. Can they be overcome? By the very nature of DLC, the content available in DLC must go down, meaning less bang for the buck. If only five hundred people

Yes. [quote]"all the stuff that already exists in SP that is turned off in MP and that a TBS from nearly a decade ago was able to do in MP successfully."[/quote] They are second-guessing themselves. Where possible, they should leave the option to have these in place in the Advanced Options panel of game setup. Players that want X feature can have it, and if it

Then we agree, Xadie.

Thanks, by the way, for writing it. Your efforts are legend. I don't think I would have made a lot of progress without it.