[quote]Entering a road or a city usually cost 1/2 MP[/quote] Which is also illogical. Travelling on a road network should cost 1/2 MP [i.e. travelling from one tile with roads to another one]. Entering the network should however cost movement points according to the specific point of entry, as e.g. 2 MP for a forest.
[quote]Which is the most fun part of the game right now. Dont remove the monsters[/quote] My only problem with this is, that they are not supposed to be the "most fun part" of the game. They are supposed to be a nuisance. The AI opponents should be the fun part ... even if they currently are miles away from this. Rabenhoff
In general I get no "reclaim or revive the land" feeling from Elemental in its current form. It feels like any non-space 4x game. Expand your civilization by founding new cities and the influence of these cities will keep monsters at bay. A game concept that could be already observed in CIVILIZATION ... no number needed. It's the first one. I even liked Stardocks initial idea, that you had to spend some essence to found another city (beta 3?). That felt at least a tiny bit like there
No. What you advocate is basically the outsourcing of QA to the customer base or to be more specific that part of the customer base that is willing to do anything to have the product/patch a little bit earlier than otherwise. And while this may be a win/win situation for this group (gets to play earlier) and the company (saving money) it will most likely be a big loss for the overall customer base ... and if other companies or even industries would also switch to something like this -
Concerning the victory conditions ... let's just say, I find them to be very uninspired. They are in general all the same or at most variations on one theme, and that is ... Conquest Ah, the most basic one. And unfortunately also almost the only one as the other victories are - as said - just variations. Diplomacy The variation that is closest to the main th
[quote]Instead of axing, lets talk tweaking.[/quote] Instead of tweaking, let's talk overhauling. It needs more than a bit of tweaking.
[quote]That actually sounds like a fun game[/quote] So it is, if you expect a "tower defense" kind of game. Not on the other hand if you thought you buy a single-player strategy game against a sophisticated AI. And there's a big difference between a never ending mindless spawn of monsters and the strategic reactions of an AI. And one of the main problems with this game right now is simply the fact, that the mindless spawn-hordes of monsters are by far the more dangerous oppone
[quote]I thought this is where the modding community was anticipated to assist but that is hindered due to getting the game bugs /balance ironed out...[/quote] Assist is OK, but here it is rather "do most of the work". Especially for a game that advertised the adventuring aspect so much as Elemental. Why, they could even just have implemented fixed quest hubs offering off-the-shelve quests like "conquer X" or "kill champion Y / B units of player A" and just the occasional uniq
Yes, your memory is correct. I also could not really believe it, that there seemingly were so few quests later on. So I checked the xml-files themselves. Two non-repeatable quest on level three and four each. But both apparently with quite a few possible starting locations. And it does not look much better for low level quests ... but here the alchemy-quest is at least repeatable. Oh, but one small correction. There is only one working level 4 quests. The "Destiny's Tutor" quest is co
[quote]I don't understand how it's not common gaming knowledge that patches generally invalidate old game saves.[/quote] In my more recent experiences with updates it is exactly the other way around. Mostly the developers of a game try nearly everything so that savegames do not become invalid ... or that in general past time spend with the game does not become dead weight. So the industry standard seems to have switched pretty much to "savegame compatibility" over the last yea
Hi, I'm not sure whether this is a particular problem of Elemental 1.07 or something that has been a general problem since the release (as this is my first game that I actively pursue for a longer time, not discouraged by any weird reloading bugs), but I run into OOM crashes with an alarmingly fast increasing frequency. Mostly the either happen when I save the game or reload a savegame. And even if I could somehow explain it in the case of frequent reloads (e.g. due to not era
Yes, it would be mostly OK with me. But Impulse should have a "Warning Pop-Up" before downloading and installing the update. Like "Previous savegames will be incompatible with this version of Elemental. Do you want to continue?". The ... I think it was 1.06 (or was it 1.05) update felt a bit like a sneak attack if you hadn't been up to date reading the forums. ("Hey, why aren't my savegames working anymore?") You had to read the patch-notes on your own before (!) clicking on "update"
Yes, the quest dragon's 96 points of true damage as it is called is a bit too good. It one-shots every unit, the dragon can cast it twice per round and thus six times till anything can get close enough to hit her ... and I think it's female. Thus, if you cannot take him out at a distance (which is also quite hard due to his also formidable defense), only four of your units survive. And if the dragon then also has some company ...?! Well, you better bring your own dragon and fi
I would suggest something more on the line of the Elder Scrolls Series. Have a base amount of HP that's somehow based on your (current / initial) constitution stat (e.g. 2 X constitution) and then get an increase in HP each level that again is based on constitution (e.g. Constitution / 2). Thus, you would not make the constitution stat meaningless as a fixed HP increase per level would do. You would still have an incentive to increase it, but it wouldn't be so compulsive as at the moment.
If you could just see them as children, then it would be fine, but they had very very weird stats in my last game. More like a demi-god than a child. Basically they had the same stats as their level 8 and fully equiped father ... but at level 1 and without any gear at all. And they got his modified essence value as their base value resulting in something around 4,000 essence points taking shards and temples into account. Seemed just a tiny bit weird. *evil grin* Rabenhoff
As far as I know they wanted to fix the damage-multiplier effect in patch 1.07, but ran into some other issues testing this particular fix. So they apparently decided to delay and tweak this bug-fix for some time (hopefully only till 1.08). At least there is some post by one the developers on this ... somewhere. So right now the shards only seem to affect the essence of your units (10% increase for each controlled shard) and allow you to cast certain high-level spells that hav
[quote]It seems like you are completely at the mercy of the random number generator.[/quote] Yes, you are right now. And when it comes to my sovereign and magic the invisible dices seem to be loaded in favour of the AI as well. 20+ intelligence and still hardly any damage at all. Yes, that's my sovereign. Bright as a rocket scientist, but he cannot hit a barn door from 2 meters distance with a fireball. *sigh* Rabenhoff
Click on one of their units / units within a city and go to the "actions" interface ... as if you would e.g. want to access the item shop with a champion unit. The only available option in the case of foreign units is however "talk to", which is just what you want. And yes, somehow they are missing in the "diplomacy" screen. Bug or feature?! My guess would be the first. Rabenhoff
[quote]wth, the reviewer's game has RIVERS![/quote] Well, they are still in the game ... kind of. But sadly only in the tile editor. Rabenhoff EDIT I checked IGN's statement on "how we grade". But how bad is a 6.0 really? It says "passable", which reads like "playable, but not great", but how often do they attribute this or better grades? Or in other words: does IGN have a histroy of grade-inflation, which would make a 6.0 really rea
[quote]Neutral Kingdom Exploit Neutral kingdoms make the world look more populated, and they exist for you to conquer with your new armies and Sovereign. They are also great for you to level up on. Since they exist to be conquered, there isn't much point practicing diplomacy with them, right? Wrong! BEFORE you take them over, drain them of their stockpiles of gold and materials. Just open up the diplomacy screen and offer them a peace treaty. Treaties are valuable t
I'm a bit sceptical on this one. Basically because I don't know whether it would stop me from building or spamming cities at all. Mainly this is due to the facts of why I (have to) spam them right now: Resources - Get them before anybody else gets them ... or in other words, envelope them in your zone of influence as fast as possible. But as the zone of influence expands very very slowly initially, the only way to get resources that are some distance away is a
Having for the first time spend some serious time with Elemental (1.07) I started to pile up notes on bugs, possible improvements or general more long-term modifications. And as I got deeper and deeper into the game, the pile of post-its grew quite large. Too large in fact to post it here in the forum. Thus I have to ask your forgiveness for just linking a PDF file of some fiveteen pages on this topic. *evil grin* Elemental Feedback List: <a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10540
Thanks for the upload. Great work. Its deeply appreciated and lets me start an otherwise dull Friday with a smile. Cheers Rabenhoff
It takes something to admit that one lost oneself in a dream, that seemed so dazzling that one was blinded by its perceived beauty. And for that you, the people at Stardock and especially Mr. Wardell as the essence of this dream, its dreamer, have my utmost respect. I cannot deny, that Elemental bewitched me as well, fascinated by all its ideas and the prospect to finally find a spiritually heir to a great game of the past. But I also cannot deny, that I awoke from my own dream. Somew
[quote]Oh yeah and daily update on progress of patch would be nice. It just enables us to wait that "one more day".[/quote] "One more day" for a "one more turn" game feels about right. Prefererably in one central thread that you cannot reply to directly. Just the updates. /seconded Rabenhoff