I'm not sure exactly what I can say other than that we are definitely planning on having very large worlds with numerous continents/islands. That is part of the reason why Scott's screenshot existed at all; having a map generator that's smart enough to determine valid locations based on any number of continents and islands is a bit rough to do so it's requiring a great deal of testing.
[quote who="Ilumino" reply="4" id="1926846"]What do you mean by "sandbox mode"? Do you refer to "skirmish" or "quick battle" where you set up pre-conditions against the AI/other players? I've just never heard of "sandbox" used in conjunction with a TBS or RTS.[/quote] Sandbox is actually the traditional gameplay type for turn-based strategy games. There is no set mission or storyline, just a world created from a player's options, inhabited by the number of AI opponents he/
[quote who="vieuxchat" reply="3" id="1926677"] EDIt: and one question .. Is cell shading used?[/quote] No, cel-shading is a form of non-photorealistic rendering where lighting values are calculated for 3D models but then, once calculated, are simplified to a very limited set of colors (for instance: black, grey, and light grey). This creates a really defined set of shading values that give in-game assets a very cartoony look. What we're doing is more of a mix of tradition
The game not only will feature random map generation but our current internal build does feature random map generation. It's nowhere near perfect yet; one of the biggest problems with our approach to map generation is that we want to be able to create really rad looking maps like, say, that of Middle Earth or some of the old-school Final Fantasy games with as little precreated assets as possible. The problem, though, is that getting consistently awesome results takes a lot o
The runes actually compose words that, when translate, are readable in normal english. Paul Boyer, our Art Director, is solely responsible for their existence. Some other sleuths have already started decoding some of the words/phrases: https://forums.elementalgame.com/329016
The developers are typically in the channel a great deal. A number of us are already on IRC anyway, so one channel certainly doesn't hurt. Your best bet for a lively discussion is probably "business hours" (which for a number of developers is around 9am-6pm).
The building of a town is entirely in the hands of a player. Early on in the development we realized that while the one tile city that simply visually expands as players build on to it in a game like Civilization really doesn't communicate the epic scale of a large kingdom that we really want to promote throughout Elemental. So, for a gameplay feature, we're going to have players choose how their town expands when it reaches certain population levels and such so that if you, say, want to make
[quote who="Alfonse" reply="7" id="1925553"] 1: The UI. It seems, well, too polished for this stage of development. One of the most crucial aspects of any UI is that it is made for the player. And until the gameplay is really nailed down, I'd be somewhat concerned to see a polished UI. It suggests that the UI was built while the gameplay was being worked on, which allows for another GC2-like UI: an interface that is not well-designed for playing the game as it was made, rather than as th
[quote who="Annatar11" reply="2" id="1925298"] Trent His is mittens![/quote] This is not false.
[quote who="Sorceresss" reply="21" id="1924443"] The GameSpy preview talks about 5 schools of Magic : the 4 elements + Life magic. No Death Magic ?![/quote] There's death magic.