Philocthetes

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="21" id="2610026"]... Ah, I sometimes forget what's in your build versus what's in ours. We've had minor factions in our builds for some time. They're crucial to getting rumors on what champions are running around, getting rare items, etc. I'll see about making them available for beta 1Z4. Or at least some of it.[/quote] One of the things I admire most about y'all is your flexible, open approach to game development. But every silver lining

[quote]... It would remove finite control over what was built where, but then being able to plan the perfect city detracts from the requirements to adapt to your situation. Although we'll need good city invasion mechanics for that to be relevant.[/quote] If I'm following you correctly, that's another reason I'm losing my love for the current mode of building up cities. At the moment, I'm particularly reminded of the things Tyrion Lannister did to defend King's Landing towards the end

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="55" id="2608204"]Probably next week.[/quote] Folks who've never worked in or around software development probably have no real appreciation of how much respect you deserve for the "Probably" there. I admire it greatly.

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="20" id="2608315"]Does the name matter in any way? Or it doesn't matter as you could change it as needed (Frogboy surely wouldn't sound very Elementalish, you know).[/quote] That's a really good example of why I think the Do 'Em Now thing is unreasonably hasty. I've written many NPC sketches over the past 30 years, but I never wrote one for a 'canon' game/module without having a lot better idea of the context than I yet have for Elemental. If I posted som

[quote]I'd like markets and housing to be organic. Really, why am I building houses for my peons? I'm some sort of god emperor here, they can decide where they want to build a house themselves. I'll be too busy building castles, barracks, training yards, the meat and potatoes of public infrastructure. Individual domicile construction is something the citizenry get around to themselves.[/quote] I've been having illegitimate fun playing blocks-and-tiles with the beta, but

[quote who="TarponCrest" reply="7" id="2598258"]If I Pre-order when will I be able to down load a beta version? or am I to late for that?[/quote] The Stardock 'tradition' has been to enroll new preorders at each major beta milestone. Beta 2 has been postponed for various reasons, so there was a brief window where post-Beta 1 preorder folks got beta access. As far as I know, there will still be new enrollment windows for Beta 2 (more cloth-map-only pain, but with multiplayer) and Beta

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="6" id="2608193"]... You can submit them whenever you'd like but the odds of them being used greatly diminishes over time.[/quote] That's disappointing. We barely have a game UI now and know only scraps of the lore. Good NPCs to include in the RTM libraries should be detailed enough to stand out as individuals, but that's really hard to do when you basically have only five crayons in a box built for 64.

[quote who="Raven X" reply="180" id="2607990"]... Well, see, in my opinion (and I know I'm going to sound like an a-hole here) but to me those people who Aren't Here On The Forums don't really give a rat's ass about the game. To them it's just another game they'll buy, play, and move on to the next one. They are spending money just like we are, sure, but if they don't care enough to at least look at the forums and Maybe give some input then the Dev's Shouldn't Care what these people may or ma

[quote who="Raven X" reply="168" id="2607839"]... No reason to be sorry, Pigeon. I agree with you on everything but me being "in the minority". Go back and count all the replies to this thread alone and you'll see it's more like 50-50 at this point. Aside from that I agree mostly with what you say. I still want some customization though. ...[/quote] This latest pseudo-poll kerfuffle has me wondering if there is a 'silent majority' of folks who are just playing the beta, reading around

[quote who="Island Dog" reply="4" id="2607807"]I don't believe I can do a refund to a winner, so I would assume if someone had won who already ordered they could give their key to a friend or family member. [/quote] Ah, that makes sense. Here's hoping that annoying web sprawl helps drive sales. I don't use it, but I do read about it, and apparently it can reach out and touch the real world. <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0428/Star-Trek-s-William-Shatner-for-Governor-Ge

[quote who="Thrawn2787" reply="2" id="2607505"]Shame I don't have a facebook... and that I've already preordered [/quote] I admit, I'm both an 'old guard' beta (preordered) guy and a fervent Farcebook resistor. But I really hope that any pre-order folks who do waste time on Farcebook have an equal chance to win this prize.

[quote]What exactly does lore mean in this context?[/quote] The devs are the only ones who can really answer that, and the might well not have entirely made up their collective mind. For me, lore is important because I've long wanted to see a dev 'manifesto' for metaphysics (magic) that at least remotely resembled Brad's old thread on Integrated Physics. Immersive game worlds need comprehensive world views, and a TBS game in a magical setting needs a rich set of both rules and

If the random winner has already pre-ordered, will he or she get a refund?

[quote]Perhaps I am overreacting. [/quote] I'm no fan of mega-publishers like Random House because I believe that on the whole they are dumbing down popular fiction in ways that would shame Charles Dickens' publishers. But I'm pretty confident that Brad et al are assertive enough that Stardock will have its way with the project(s). Take the currency name for example--RH apparently liked the made-up word "rigma," but some combination of forum hecklers and Stardock devs led to

[quote who="NTJedi" reply="119" id="2606665"]... Since the poll regarding factions has 80% of the gamers choosing "The one I create myself"... I would lean towards customization. Even gamers who won't be interested in customizing their own race can tweak an existing race or choose one of the popular races made within the community.[/quote] I'm a sceptic of so-called scientific polling, and that data-collector thing was only a poll by virtue of UI text. It missed many

[quote who="Tridus" reply="9" id="2606583"]I don't agree with the second part of the order. Gameplay is king if you want to make a long-lasting game, absolutely. But when I look at games I really got into or games I remember, it wasn't because of art. It was because of the story and the characters (aka: lore). Not the art. It doesn't matter what things look like if I don't care what happens to them. [/quote] Same for me. Alpha Centauri art struck me as overly dark and somet

[quote]Luckily, The Hiergamenon will also be integrated into the game itself as a virtual book. Thus, clicking on a city or an NPC or a monster will bring up its entry in The Hiergamenon. [/quote] Sweet. (Sweeter still if the virtual version has some 'data driven' connections to individual games, mixing in player-made names and important history notes like Ancient Monster Z was attacked by Sovereign X and now wears said sovereign's skull on its charm bracelet.)

[quote]I think the living world will get fleshed out when Stardock creates the next level after the cloth map. I don't really think the cloth map mode is meant to be living/moving. It is so that people with low end or older systems can play also. [/quote] Yes and no. The plan as I understand it is to keep the 3D stuff in-house until the mechanics are solidly 'fun' for most testers. To me, that most certainly includes the 'living world' theme, and I fully expect to spend muc

[quote who="Nick-Danger" reply="58" id="2606252"]More lore in the initial release, increase customization in the expansions?[/quote] That's how I'd like to see it.

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="2" id="2605571"]What magic? [/quote] Oi. You rotter to the Nth. There's never going to be an Integrated Metaphysics dev journal, is there?

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="93" id="2605347"] Im readin all yo comments but Im still confused! People sound like they are talking about factions when they say races and that they want many factions or many races and all of them to be well devloped. Do people mean like Gal civ where factions equal races or like in Civ where factions are 'subraces'? Or do they mean races as in dragonkin and lizardmen? In Civilization there's only 1 "race" (Humans) wit

[quote]Are Draginol and Frogboy one in the same person? [/quote] Yes, Brad (Stardock's owner & senior dev) has two forum handles. The hints I've seen in the old lore are that Draginol is Froboy's evil twin. Sometimes I suspect that it's really Tired & Maybe Cranky Twin, on account of most Draginol posts I see are later in the day, Michigan time.

I saw this 'late,' but I'm glad to see several folks typing much along the lines I would have. As usual, PigeonPigeon says much that I've been thinking and does it a bit more clearly than I probably would have. I completely agree with MagicwillNZ: [quote]Now wait a sec. It was a little premature to even have that poll, factions flat and undetailed as they are right now. Improving races is absolutely fine, but not at t

[quote]Oh damn...I haven't visited that link for ages....I didn't know that the polls will be hosted there. I guess I will visit that link on a daily basis from now on. [/quote] Me too. Makes me want a poll on how many folks missed that poll.

[quote who="Sareln" reply="15" id="2602730"]... Elaborate on this GW Swicord please? I'm not quite sure what you're getting at, toss me some hypotheticals.[/quote] Well to start with, "Research Technology" vexes me immersion-wise. The word technology reeks of the modern scientific world view, which I quite enjoy in real life but hoped to see left out of this particular fantasy setting. Then there are phrases like "reach the next level" in the city report that could easily be rep