FadedC

It's funny, I really hated Sins of a Solar Empire, but for the life of me I can't remember why....the experience has just erased itself from my memory. I always just chalked it up to not liking RTS space games that much though, so I never really blamed Stardock for it (and I guess they didn't develop it anyway). I also only tried the first released version of it so I don't know how it may have changed. GalCiv though will always have a very soft spot in my heart and is the primary reas

[quote who="psychoravin" reply="26" id="2716319"] The MoM AI just cheated a lot more on harder levels. And you think the ai in AOW seires on higher difficulties didn't cheat as well? The ai performance was never really improved only the amount of resorces it started with an gained during the game were. I too found the ai in AOW:SM and II very lacking. I actually liked the first one but it was stupid as well. But, I can still remember the ai in Maste

Hmm....now that I remember more about AoW 2, I do seem to remember that the AI was definitely lacking. I guess it was only ever challenging in campaigns because of the number of units that it threw at you. That could still be fun though. The sad thing though is that the AI is AoW 2 was still leagues better then the AI in AoW 1. And AoW 1 made lots of promises to improve the AI over time too...... I still think the AoW AI was way better then the MoM AI though, especially at higher

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="26" id="2715869"] Quoting AngeloBraz, reply 25 Although I still think that HoM&M works better in 2D.HoMM V didn't look bad. In general I think that it was a good upgrade. About the 2D, never played IV, hated to death III's style, nothing special about I's and II's... wow, best art ever! I wouldn't mind new games using a similar style. [/quote] In terms of gameplay, I think 3 was my favorite. The first had the be

[quote who="Mtn_Man" reply="17" id="2715816"]And what makes you so sure that Stardock hasn't done that? Brad only said that the AI wasn't where he wanted it two-weeks ago. That's a lot different than saying that the AI was non-existent or completely untested at that time, which is what you're inferring. My guess is that he's been adding the final touches to a largely finished AI and not that he's spent the past two-weeks creating it from scratch. [/quote] Well h

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="18" id="2715656"] Addon for an addon? [/quote] Well at least armored princess was a standalone game. You started off with a new level 1 character and had a new story and at least a few different game mechanics (a dragon instead of demons in a box). Crossworlds doesn't even seem to give that, it's just more stuff to do with your existing character. I never even finished Armored Princess because it bogged down too much at the e

[quote who="Twohawks" reply="14" id="2715794"] However this particular quote no longer applies.. this image shows this is already in the gold version.. I am sure there were other things in the gold version's AI, that was not yet implemented on Aug 5th. futher more I expect more change with the AI by day 0 then are on the disk so a quick update after a install on Aug 24th will give you the current best AI at that time.. [/quo

[quote who="Mtn_Man" reply="9" id="2715705"]Ah, here's the journal: https://forums.elementalgame.com/390262 August 5, 2010: ' This weekend I have to really get on the AI. It’s still nowhere near where I want it to be for release. Heck, it doesn’t even do the “Your civilization makes me laugh, give us 50 gold or we’ll crush you!” type stuff. ' -Frogboy He never said that the AI is "nowhere close to being ready", he said it's nowher

Age of Wonders 2, and Shadow Magic were strong games that I've always felt I never got as much out of as I could have. AoW 1 however was a disapointing disaster, primarily due to horrible balance and AI. It is in fact the primary example that I would give for why I'm afraid of the lack of balance and AI testing being done for elemental.

[quote who="zigzag" reply="11" id="2713570"]There is a new King's Bounty coming out. [/quote] I was all excited about this until I looked it up and saw it was just an addon to armored princess and not an actual new game.

[quote who="Archonsod" reply="21" id="2715373"] Actual beta's are rarely open to the public for the precise reason you describe; most devs don't want to risk sinking their game before it hits the shelves due to negative perception of the beta code, so it's far more common you select a small number of testers and slap a non-disclosure agreement on them to prevent any negative word of mouth leaking out prior to release. [/quote] The thing is that they haven't done

[quote who="rossanderson48" reply="3" id="2715541"]I can certainly answer your title question: AOW:Shadow Magic Killer? By a long shot since this game will have an AI and lots of difficulty levels. Even MOM is an AOW:SM killer in that regards. I don't know what that crap was they called an ai that they put into AOW:SM but I could beat several ai opponents on their highest difficulties. Mainly due to that silly feature of kill the wizard lose the whole game. Sadly Elemental has that

[quote who="MxM111" reply="4" id="2715008"] With release date set on Aug 24, there is no way they will produce good balanced game (or did I miss the change of release date?). However, knowing Stardock, I am sure they will continue working on it AFTER release. In fact their GalCiv games changed quite significantly after releases. [/quote] What was GalCiv 1 like when it was first released? I liked that game a lot, but I didn't pick it up until after it had be

[quote who="SpaghettiMon" reply="1" id="2714986"]The current beta has been out for about 3 weeks now, and even then the beta wasn't anywhere near the most recent internal build as far as features go. They activate what they want tested to get feedback. You'd be surprised how much comes together in the final 3-4 weeks of development. The art assets begin being put in, polished, and replaced. The writing and documentation and tutorials and single player campaign get finalized and put in. Spells

I have fond memories of dying endlessly in Ragnarok as well. In some ways it was one of the harshest games out there, but in other ways there were usually ways around any horrible seemingly unfair death you might experience (though generally the way around it was something pretty extreme, like using scrolls of genocide to wipe unfair monster races out of the game before you ever had a chance to meet them). Traditionally though, roguelike games are created by hobbyists rather then businesses,

[quote who="dragoaskani" reply="10" id="2714171"] No being skeptical and advising someone to wait is actually perfectly logical in some ways. Saying that due to having played the beta you have an idea how the final build is gonna run is ignorant. Anyone who has beta tested many games knows that. I alpha'd wow, it kinda sucked balls during alpha, but the final version got 12 million people hooked. You just never do know how these things will play out, ya know? [/quote]

[quote who="dragoaskani" reply="7" id="2714164"] I have a gut feeling you don't know what you are talking about, and it will be up to you to pull your head from your arse. [/quote] Well none of us really know for sure, we are just giving our impressions (preferably without insulting people). I'm not sure if I'm quite as skeptical as Jareneko is, but certainly there are enough warning signs that advising someone who is unsure to wait a bit before pick

I suspect the game will be stable but I'm generally more concerned about the complete lack of any non internal balance, AI or general gameplay testing before release. If it were a first person shooter that would be one thing, but in a turn based 4x game, that's a pretty essential process. But I guess they can always fix things after release if necessary, and we could always choose to wait to buy the game until later if we don't think it's finished yet. Time will tell.

Imperalism 2 was a great game, I even dusted it off years later to play. I remember being really impressed with the concepts of imperialism 1, but they never really came together and the AI was awful. But imperialism 2 changed all that and had a nice combination of being simple enough to not bog you down and for the AI to kick some serious butt, but to be complicated enough to give you a lot to think about. I still think games could learn a lot from some of the mechanics of tha

[quote who="StevenAus" reply="126" id="2712123"] Quoting phazonfreak, reply 125 Quoting joasoze, reply 123Why does Blizzard do this? To secure better/faster connections, to save money or what? The ultimate reason for everything in this world: to earn more money. Or at least they think it will earn them more money. Getting more money when you already have gazillions is so ho-hum - getting more money beyond a certain thre

Does anyone know what the Galactic Civ 1 beta was like? I was pretty impressed with that game (although I didn't play it until it had been out for awhile) so if that was done without any beta test of it's gameplay it would put aside many of my fears for elemental.

[quote who="StevenAus" reply="113" id="2711751"]I think what's getting in the way here with regards to a near-final beta is the idea that "betas aren't supposed to be fun" which Brad has mentioned a few times. However, testing balance and fun with a near-final beta may be fun, but it also has two perhaps much more important purposes - refining balance and "the fun aspect" on a larger scale, and also giving players (most beta testers are fans) a great deal of confidence in the state of t

[quote who="Tridus" reply="105" id="2711655"] There's no doubt quite a few people here (like me) who didn't buy Sins until after release based on good word of mouth (or for me the demo). So I don't remember that beta. I do remember the Entrenchment beta, which included both systems testing (mines, oh god) and balance testing. Being an expansion that can be expected to operate differently then a new game, but it's clearly not obvious that a beta test won't include a bala

[quote who="onomastikon" reply="75" id="2711329"] Inception was entertaining, if bogged down by gratuitous gunfights and special effects. The lapses in logic were much greater than in Nolan's original masterpiece of 10 years ago: Memento, which had a similar theme but was much more coherent, dramatic, and consistent. Inception got the job done, although I would have liked to see it about 40 minutes shorter and with a bit more narrative stringency. Besides the superfluou

Fairly new here and only recently found out about elemental through Impulse's "coming soon" section. I'm an old school veteran of eagerly awaiting games and reading beta reports. My unfortunate experience has been that 100% of the time when the final beta that the testers get to play with was buggy and unfinished, then there will always be dramatic claims about how much better the internal beta is and how much is being fixed between beta and release. However I have never actually seen a case