Philocthetes

[quote who="Tamren" reply="12" id="2115704"]If fine with anything as long as we don't have to rely on plot coupons.[/quote] What's a plot coupon? [quote who="mrakomo" reply="13" id="2115752"]... Good, however the size of the map may be important too. Perhaps more important than turns is the number of cities (worldwide, not just player ones). The more cities in the world, the higher reward. As a hint may be also used the worldwide income (income of all nations), strenght of the

[quote]GMs become inportant when the players step off the beaten path and the GM has to figure out how to continue the story in way the players want to go. [/quote] Indeed. One of the most fun story arcs I ever reffed began with my players getting wildly spooked by what had started out as a very minor magic dagger. They made the thing into such an object of fear that I had to spend the week before the next session inventing an entire back story, a new villain, etc. If Elementa

[quote who="Cuddlelump" reply="3" id="2114620"]...But its not quite what I was talking about really, I was thinking of making more of a Baldurs Gate type RPG. ... [/quote] I get it now. I have a wording twitch about games like Baldur's Gate--I don't think anything is a real RPG *unless* there's a referee whose goal is to wrangle an ongoing story out of his or her plans and the reactions of the players. Total table-top bias, I admit. I'd not heard of Carcassonne and had t

Stupid double-posting thing. Doh!

[quote who="bleeba" reply="25" id="2113391"]...So when we think of buildings- would it make sence that at least some of the benifits derived from them effect nearby towns in some way-so absolutly every town does not need a grainery? [/quote] Now that's a neat idea--I've never heard of a game with a sort of 'regional hybrid' between local and global improvements. If that's workable dev-wise, it would surely go a long way twoards helping population centers look and feel unique.

NTJedi has suggested that the multiplayer mode(s) include a referee role, which he calls " Overseer ." I don't like that title at all, but I very much like the idea and suspect it might be the only way that some of us hardcore singleplayer types could get drawn into online play. Seeing you raise 'the same' subject as a question of modding depth makes me wonder if there might be a back-door route to the general goal even if the vanilla multiplayer has no referee rol

[quote who="landisaurus" reply="5" id="2105738"]I kinda imagine a council would be along the as the 'governers' discussed in other threads, except by different names. That would allow you to monitor and assign tasks to each of the different 'brains' of your kingdom (or is it channelerdom?) beyond just city management.[/quote] Right after more info on magic system plans, I want a basic outline of how champion units will work. Fenhiro's basic concepts could probably work out with

[quote who="NTJedi" reply="7" id="2104680"]...I'm hoping spells can have one or more types of costs associated with casting spells. ...[/quote] I'd like to see something like this also, especially if it also can be connected to quests. And now that this forum has been active for more than a season, I'm really, really wondering just how locked down the magic system plans are. The longer the devs make us wait for some basic parameters, the more time we'll have to become too fond

[quote who="Tamren" reply="10" id="2102967"]The beauty of a DM controlled story is that the story ends when the DM says it ends. ...[/quote] My favorite thing about refs in table-based RPGs is that they have the power to 'break the rules well.' Having a role like than in an online TBS-RPG fusion could definitely draw me in, provided I found a ref whose style I liked. I'm especially intrigued by the idea of a game that could have a ref who did not need to actively work every tu

The few hints we've had about essence so far leave me with the impression that it will have just a few uses and probably no direct spell-like effects. Essence retained means a 'stronger' channeler unit (my guess is the strength is in how much mana you can handle at once--more essence means more mana flow). Essence 'invested' means either restored/cleansed lands or an enhanced champion. Maybe combining an essence investment with a mana-fueled spell could do some things like mak

[quote who="alway" reply="1" id="2099868"]...Also, I think it might be frowned upon to kill a mugger in the street, while bloodying him up a bit with a less lethal weapon would be seen as much more civilized.[/quote] That depends entirely on the alignment rules for the game/civ scenario. If a culture values peace above all, conflicts that yield bruises are signs of weakness and blood is a clear marker of failure. But if obedience to law comes first and coercing gifts from a weaker per

[quote quoting="post"]... Do most people prefer a more direct approach when it comes to magic, or do they prefer magic of a subtler sort?[/quote] Both, please. And I especially like the idea of putting a mass population to sleep. That could be awesome fun in combination with a spy/thief type of champion.

I wonder if the engine could support real variety here that would enable different factions to have very different basic patterns for settlements, kind of like the way in the Wheel of Time the city Carihien is extremely rectangular, while the city Caemlyn is more 'organic' looking. I definitely like the idea of using 'irregular' building shapes to effectively require some planning when you're working on a grand capitol.

[quote who="LDiCesare" reply="18" id="2097618"]If leadership just enhances the ai, drop the idea. People who want to play effectively will never invest points in it and handle battles manually. Make it give bonuses to the troops morale or something like that instead.[/quote] I think I'd agree if you'd said "play competitively," but for someonone like me who tends to treat TBS games like massive virtual toy soldier sets, the idea of a leader unit that you can polish up to be a real hel

[quote who="dfalken" reply="7" id="2096722"]AH, I was unaware that it had already been discussed. Oh well. I don't see that the connection would have caused a problem as this game would have been set far in the past when compared to the GalCiv games. No tech... I had just remembered hearing something about a possible connection and wanted it clarified. [/quote] It's been discussed, but I'd hardly call it "clarified," and I'm not always sure I'd want

I'm still hoping that the Elemental story is beside the GalCiv story rather than before or after it--for two main reasons. First, even though I love a great many hard science fiction writers, when I'm in sword-and-sorcery mode, 'technology' really rubs me the wrong way. Second, and perhaps more importantly, I don't believe it would do either game series a service to make them tightly connected at the 'UI content' level. Close narrative connections between GalCiv and Elemental would doubtless

Could someone give some detail on this "faction grinding" stuff? My PC gaming interests are extremely narrow, so I've never cared about any online multiplayer and I don't do RTS on account of liking to think before I click. In some ways, the "persistent worlds" talk reads like marketing vapor-language to me, but when I think about Elemental as an effort to bring some 'RPG' attitude to the 4/5X TBS experience, I really wonder if the online side of Elemental might offer a TBS-RPG contex

[quote who="Gnats3" reply="13" id="2095874"]Having a mix of game-lore excerpts and real quotes depending on the situation would be great . I'm not sure exactly how the games in Elemental are set up but for example if you had a map/campaign that specifically followed the storyline, you could use the excerpts, and for "normal" skirmishs you could use real quotes.[/quote] That's a really neat idea, and I hope it isn't too hard to code. But I wonder if we have the same idea abo

[quote who="BoogieBac" reply="14" id="2095282"]... - Population growth hooked to rations ... [/quote] Here's hoping rulers can set some limits on ration flows. Some of us definitely want some outposts to grow very little, if at all. And hopefully a taste thing like that won't inevitably be a weakness that AIs can exploit to take us out. [quote who="BoogieBac" reply="14" id="2095282"]... Pretty dry stuff, but note the last one [/quote] Noted with gratitude; patience is

[quote who="landisaurus" reply="10" id="2095572"]... Each world? Just, how many worlds are there? can I interpret this as confirmation that there is more than one? (I'm glad to see the quote thing is already planned)[/quote] I'd about bet that the phrase refers to game instances, not worlds within a game. But I'm just trying to protec myself from disappointment when I learn that there's only the main map, no other planes, no territory on moons, no islands in the sky

[quote who="BoogieBac" reply="12" id="2095143"]... I'm working on the Essence code ATM.[/quote] Dev Journal thread on this soon, maybe?

[quote who="piderman" reply="9" id="2093051"]How can I install these avatars when I have Flash 10? I don't have to uninstall it and install 9 just to upload an avatar I hope? [/quote] From what I've read, that's the case. If you know of a box that hasn't been updated, you should be able to sign in from there and do your avatar change without needing to re-jigger your own machine.

Stardock are based in Michigan. I'm pretty sure that for them, June is definitely still spring. They can get *frost* in late June. (I'm a North Florida native, and we whine about frost in March, which thankfully doesn't happen that often.)

If dev time were pollen-plentiful (spring has sprung down here in North Florida), I'd want a really good improv system instead of a score. No matter how much I've liked some of the music for a given game, I've always ended up running my own tunes separately because I get a bit tired of the same several tracks over and over again. Then again, storage is cheaper all the time and MP3 files don't look nearly as bulky as they used to, even at a decent bitrate. Semi-seriously, I'd l

[quote who="Fenhiro" reply="14" id="2090087"]I've been wandering where that thread was... been trying to find it for days.[/quote] If you don't already do it, I highly recommend adding site:forums.elementalgame.com to your search terms at your favorite engine. That thread is the first hit for "weapon mechanics site:forums.elementalgame.com" at Gurgle.