mastroego

Frankly, the game looks very good at this point. It seems to have (almost) all the features people were expecting from EWoM before its release (I mean that in a good way). Reception is hard to predict though. I assume a good chunk of the people who are into this kind of games already bought EWoM at the time, so they're going to get FE for free. Sure they can voice their (likely, I repeat, at this point) appreciation but they're not going to "vote with their wallets".&nbsp

They're winning me back. Granted, it's all theory still, and I still know I'll miss fantasy races, flying units and all, but it's starting to look as if everything else they're putting into FE might actually be truly enough for an unexpanded/unmodded game. And, seeing how skeptic and critic I've been over the past year, I believe it's saying a lot. Flavor text, art, sounds and all those little additions are *critical* to a game's success. S

Ok I'll break my silence because what's fair is fair: it DOES look good. VERY. I still think that to be a worthy MoM successor it should have the same level of diversity in the basic fields (so I mean number of spells, races, flying and "swimming" units and so on), but if it's fun from the get go, and what's missing can be added in an expansion (even a non-free one!), then it'll be forgivable.

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="16" id="2981605"] Feel free to go away and never come back. As a nerd, I know when to pick my battles. You apparently don't. If you played GalCiv I v1.0 then you might have a point. You obviously didn't. My point was that NEW games (feel free to name the last brand new PC strategy game of signficant scope to come out as in v1.0) often have their share of problems. Galactic Civilizations 1.0 for Windows was not a masterpiece to pu

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="13" id="2981522"] The difference, of course, was back then, no one had high expectations so GalCiv I's relative...crumminess didn't create the kind of nerd rage we have today (though with the difference being that GalCiv I's AI was a lot better). [/quote] Of course, let's keep the denial mode and blame the "raging nerds" who are actually "nerds" enough to be your customers. Let's conveniently overlook the fact

[quote who="Heavenfall" reply="1" id="2978855"]Flying units, both strategic and tactical. I don't really care for naval fighting, but if it's done as smoothly as it was in Shogun2 I'd be in on it. I would also like to see one more realm, for example underground. And I'd like to see the game opened up some for mod scripts. Edit: And also, I'd like to see much more fantasy elements. Not just king X who begat queen Y who built a new city. I wa

Right, the map issue. I won't even try FE if it doesn't come with a true map generator. I don't care about engine limitations or whatever. And really, I can understand the engine has given its share of problems, but, I mean, just look at the GUI. Is that the engine's fault, too? We would react much more friendly (I, personally, would) if it weren't for this ongoing full-scale-denial thing.

Exactly. No product is ever perfect but there has to be a line somewhere. And wherever that line is, I'm sure WoM crosses it on multiple instances. On top of that, people have shown patience by waiting an year, believing in the additional Stardock's claim that the game would be repaired. I still have a faint hope in FE, but if another customer loses his patience, well, it's simply understandable imho.

[quote who="Murteas" reply="1" id="2977215"] A little late (after over a year) to ask for a refund, don't you think. [/quote] He may have waited for the promised fixes to arrive. Seems like a fair request, especially after having "granted" the developers the time they supposedly needed to repair the game.

Exactly. See why others and I remain skeptical: denial goes on. Crashes and removed features I could have lived with - to an extent - IF the surviving mechanics made for a fun game. The real problem was never the engine: almost every single design choice in Ewom is flawed, poorly executed and disjointed from the other ones. This is why patches are helping little and in some cases making things worse.

[quote who="Sir_Linque" reply="44" id="2975953"] I hate this kind of defeatist attitude. Defeatism never leads to success. One reason people like Brad make it big is that they don't quit after the first setback. [/quote] Nobody denies that it's turned nicely for Stardock. It is *us* who got an unplayable game. I trust Brad can make his company thrive, but about making his games work... not so much, at this point. See, keeping the resolve and the attitude is good

Yep, it's mind boggling. Game advertised as the best ever by Stardock: within a few gaming attempts many of us were aware that it was a complete failure... and that it was beyond fixing. All that was going to happen with these clumsy attempts to patch it was pretty much written and foretold repeatedly (yet it's still been painful watching this unfold throughout the course of the year). FE might be a different beast. So far,

[quote who="AlLanMandragoran" reply="27" id="2974873"] I think you're missing the point. Some of the people "bitching" have spent hours if not days of their time playtesting, modding, AND reporting issues. The fact these severe issues make it through QA into a "final" patch is frustrating beyond belief. I understand there is a difference between a drive-by forum poster who says something like "GAWD, this game sux" and someone like Heavenfall or others who have invested an

Also, no one's asking for a total clone . What would be reasonable to expect, is a game with at least a comparable amount of options and inventiveness. But as long as you go the other way in every field (less races, less types of movements, less spells and so on) there's little reason to be hopeful for a comparable level of fun.

[quote who="louist" reply="171" id="2973794"] Quoting HallowedBMyName, reply 169 Quoting Souls-Stream, reply 164 Can you name me 3? One is graphics, obviously (2010/11 game vs. a 1995 game); can you name me 2 more? It doesn't require DosBox to run. And... Hm... Err... [/quote] I rest my case. See, we all knew FE was going to lack MoM's diverse races, flying units, item crafting, dimensional tra

[quote who="StevenAus" reply="117" id="2972732"]This is kinda what I feel. I'll still probably enjoy FE, but at least "on the surface" it could have a more diverse spell list. However if the AI can use all the spells in the game, that would be a big improvement on MoM, but when solely comparing the diversity of spells/races/abilities, MoM is still ahead. [/quote] Sound argument, but so far we've been given no real reason to assume FE's AI will be better t

[quote who="Murteas" reply="104" id="2972309"] I'm not suggesting people just be happy, but at least think what it would be like for someone to read your post who is working on the product, is your post more likely to encourage them to do better or discourage them and make them feel like it isn't worth the effort. [/quote]Frustration is legit even on the customers' part. After all we were all more or less "lured" here by the whole "MoM successor" spin - something that ca

[quote who="heyhellowhatsnew" reply="55" id="2965532"] quoting post War of Magic: v1.3 With Summer here it is time to get v1.3 of War of Magic out the door and start thinking about v1.4. I had to push some of the things I wanted to do in v1.3 (notably rewriting the tactical AI) into v1.4 as I ended up spending a lot more time than anticipating improving the overall “feel” of the game. Okay, it's been almost a year and the tacti

Well my one, true concern here is that I'm starting to see history repeat itself. Very shortly after EWOM got released I -personally at least - realized that the game was, for the most part, a failure, and that it was beyond fixing. Brad wanted to fix it anyway and I can understand that, on a human level, but logically... well, very few are even playing it at all at this point, and even in these forums we witnessed people say that they held hopes

[quote who="Goontrooper" reply="6" id="2963031"] This shows a real lack of long term vision for the entire franchise. Why oh why are we still talking about and working on WoM AT ALL if there is no long term, concrete plan to make it a truly different game than FE? Why do we WANT to even consider making it a different game? Why not just make one great game, with FE being a direct evolution of WoM instead of this weird parallel development we are seeing. [/quote] I agree

[quote who="LightofAbraxas" reply="110" id="2930561"] You see, those are just eight examples off the top of my head. Someone actually getting paid to do this should be able to come up with upwards of 30 of these kinds of technological intersections. That's what I mean by 'nuanced tech function.' And you're right, the other two aspects of my first post would be just refraining from naming the techs as explicit descriptions of the bonus they provide you or me

[quote quoting="post"] 6. Cross category prereqs- Techs that require techs in other categories. You can’t rush to big weapons in Fallen Enchantress like you can in War of Magic. You need some civilization techs (blacksmithing) before you will be able to produce metal weapons and armor. You need Literacy in the civilization category before you can learn the adventure tech Ereog’s Journals. Won’t don’t techs do now? They don&

I think, as a customer, I've been through all the possible phases with Elemental's release: excitement, anticipation, then mild disappointment, partial denial, criticism, then total rejection, anger, bitterness, and everything else. Not second-guessing any of that, of course, since Elemental *was* a massive disappointment for me, and after some particularly ill-phrased comments posted by the developers on these forums, I thought it would be best to just forget all about this game and

For the first time after the launch, I feel something like actual hope for the future of the game, instead of theorical hope. More depth, and stuff that makes sense . At last! Color me intrigued and moderately hopeful at this point. Now if we could only get a non-linear, interconnected tech tree too.....

[quote who="VR_IronMana" reply="24" id="2911439"] I don't think I could drop $100 on a game, even if it was the perfectly updated incarnation of MoM or the like. Now, $70 with some "extras" - that I've done. [/quote] Considering that I've been waiting 10 years or more for a game even half as good as MoM, Torment, or BG2, and considering that by now the chances of ever seeing something like those again <span style="text-decoration: underline