BiffMan

[quote who="Netaddict45" reply="5" id="2400960"]I don't like the idea, to be honest. I've seen lots of games where achievements are just replacements for depth, and are used for unlockables and some such. I'd much rather have flavor text and art be made available immediately, or not at all. [/quote] I'm just envisioning something that's just fluff on top of the actual game. We're going to be spending an inordinate amount of time in beta (supposedly hooooooribly

I hesitate to bring it up since I've always thought they were a little cheesy, but they're also very compelling and I do find them to be a guilty pleasure that I enjoy racking up. If done correctly (the Lego Indy & Star Wars games are good examples) then they do add another layer of fun to normal play. I seem to recall that there were efforts underway to get an achievement system going in Impulse, but has thought been given specifically to having any in Elemental? I pe

I haven't actually tried to run fraps or anything yet, but my graphic cards (Xfire ATI 4870s) are really running awfully hot in the game. Comprable to what I'd get from running a modern FPS or such and very reminiscent of how Gal Civ 2 was before the frame rate throttle option was put in.

I'm hoping he was being sarcastic. That or he never played games of that era. Intro rocks and should totally be left in as an optional opening for the release version.

[quote who="Sycraft" reply="11" id="2377795"]http://elementalbeta.wikidot.com/ [/quote] Sweet. You rock!

Interesting. Definitely seems that the cursor needs to not be a 3D object, or at least not be floating off the ground, because no matter how well it's done, it's still going to lead to confusion from some angles. I think the idea from another thread of having the square the cursor is on light up so you can see where it is, would be the best way to go. Can't have misclicks in a turn-based game since that could spell the difference between heading off an attack against a city

[quote who="elmo3" reply="5" id="2376568"]Is combat in yet? Tried running over spiders and trolls but they ignore me. [/quote] Upon further investigation, it appears you can only initiate combat with your soverign, not with an individual military unit. They can still get attacked though if the mob randomly moves onto you, just can't get them to start an attack.

Cool, that's exactly what I had. Two new towns, neither with anything built in them or any units stationed in them and no LOS. Possible that's by design I guess, thanks for figuring out the common factor.

I'd noticed this in passing a few times, but tried to nail it down. The mouse pointer is hitting a fair amount more up/left of where it's displayed. The arrow shows where I was pointing when I right clicked to select a move to location and it selected the square up and left of where I was pointing.

I'll see if I can reproduce it and screenshot it this time.

Multiple turns later, they're both (two cities right next to each other) fogged out. I could see the influence ring around both, but that's it.

My own settled cites have a line of sight (no fog) around them whether they have units or not, but my captured cities are fogged out.

[quote who="themocaw" reply="2" id="2376826"]I think even those would be more intuitive as listed as "4 tiles" instead of "1 square," but that's just me. Possibly, if the whole square vs. tile thing were more explicit when placing your first building, it might not even be an issue. [/quote] Agreed that there's no real benefit to using different names for the different sizes and it'd be better to just say that something takes up X spaces of whatever the smallest unit is. Can

[quote who="Winnihym" reply="49" id="2376636"]Do we have to cosine any agreements?[/quote] Groan... But good one. [e digicons]|-)[/e]

[quote who="elmo3" reply="5" id="2376568"]Is combat in yet? Tried running over spiders and trolls but they ignore me. [/quote] Yes, as long as you have movement points left on that turn, when you move on top of them, you should get a screen showing the relative strengths of the units and prompted to attack or run.

[quote who="NTJedi" reply="5" id="2376205"]I also agree... however a few special units such as druids or rangers should not have penalties for sight in forests. [/quote] I like that, and you could extend that to dragon or other flying units having no sight penalty for mountains or such. Or increased visability range like a scout would have.

You sir, are a complete and utter goofball. For that, you have my deepest respect. *kneels*

[quote who="landisaurus" reply="2" id="2375898"]Light of sight should totally be effected by mountains and trees. Problem is that tall mountains should be able to be seen over short mountains and that sort of thing. Lots of complex stuff that could exist there.[/quote] From the PAX pics, it seems they might have a bit more terrain detail in the non-cloth map version so hopefully some of that complexity is already there and it'd just be a matter of coding some standard LOS

It's not particularly tough to figure out thus far, but is there any sort of manual doc available for the beta that I may have overlooked?

After messing around a bit, I find it odd that trees and mountains aren't reducing my LOS when exploring the map. Seems that I shouldn't be able to see the other side of a forest just as well as I can an open plain. Might add a bit of extra flavor to the map if exploring were affected by terrain.

Was impressed with that myself. Very fun. Install went fine, game fired up fine, now just need to finish work and then figure out how to play this sucker. :)

Wow, thought I was late to the game, but coming through at a healthy 900KB/s. Woot! Sorry honey, but my free time and sleep time are now completely spoken for between this and The Beatles: Rock Band. [e digicons]:grin:[/e]

Ruh roh, we leave for our 10th Anniversary trip on 9/30.... Hmmm.... Trip/beta/trip/beta... "Oh honey.... Sorry, but my boss says I have to bring my laptop on the trip"

I know this is supposed to be the painful version, but I can't get over how cool the cloth map graphics are. But I promise to flog myself if I find I'm enjoying it too much.

Thanks for the outline and I really like the staggered addition of gameplay elements. Should make it much easier to focus on specific areas of the game. Have really enjoyed beta testing previous Stardock games, and can't wait to get started again!