ScottTykoski

I wouldn't worry about FE becoming just a 'fantasy war simulator'...it's 100% 4x :) Dynasties were one of the features that always felt undercooked, and while we came up with several cool ways to improve them, it was on the 'other side' of the feature split when mapping out the expansions. It'll be revisited, but we wanted FE to be a solid base, and for that the World, Magic, and Battles needed to be solidified first. Also, while Dynasti

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/elementalwarofmagicfallenenchantress/video/6315008?hd=1 Shes up and running :) Enjoy!

I liked when Jesse posted this bug :)

3rd dev diary will be about magic. Needless to say it was one of the areas that got overhauled in FE. 2nd Dev Diary, which focuses on the World you'll be exploring/conquering, should be showing up VERY soon ;) edti: But to wet your magical appetite, know that several of the items listed have already been resolved (or have been tweaked in a way to solve the annoyances brought up).

TCores: Your warning has been noted :) And yeah, once the separating the engine and game logic begins in earnest, it'll be via scripts, not XML logic flows (which I can certainly imagine are painful to traverse).

I think it should be noted (and perhaps Jon has done this elsewhere) that while the DLL and scripting work is on the backburner, everything we're implementing on the XML-side for FE is being done with the modding community in mind. Many values for the countless new game modifiers are made accessible via XML, so while we may have only 1 use for a new system, Derek is making sure they're implementation can be used a dozen other ways, simply by tweaking that data.

Waiting 1 year to write the Elemental review...a true gentleman :) Thanks for the link!

I've been sitting on my 2nd replacement 360 for a good two years now...hopefully it stands the test of time. This is your 3rd replacement, right ID?

Hey impinc...lets not start pointing fingers (though I think it was Toby, honestly...friggin' Toby). ;) It was decided that we'd like to polish things up a bit more before officially showing the world off (the blocky cliffs are my personal demon to vanquish, but I know everyone on the team has their polish points they want to get in before lifting the veil).

[quote who="Trojasmic" reply="28" id="2935401"]While we're on the subject of maps, will you please improve the mini-map? [/quote] One of the first things we did :) IIRC, that was actually the seed that led to the 'stone and glass' UI style that's in FE today.

[quote who="Black-Knight" reply="25" id="2935369"]Marketing -wise wouldn't it be better to promote Elemental FE as Elemental "II" FE?[/quote] This has been asked internally, but it has to be noted that, given how WoM fared, it's vital that ELE2, when it does come, needs to 'bring it' in a big way. FE as ELE2 would have people crying that it's not different enough. I beleive the marking spin ATM is to push the stand-alone nature of Fallen Enchantress..make sur

[quote who="Sir_Linque" reply="3" id="2935053"]Will WoM get a facelift when FE gets released too?[/quote] Doubtful :( What appears to be a slight tweak (better forests, more ground textures, etc) is always the end product of A LOT of new code, so backporting such things is often undesirable (ie. could introduce bugs in WoM), and impossible for things that require Shader3.

[quote who="LightofAbraxas" reply="10" id="2934747"]I was kind of hoping that FE would have a slightly darker look to it- from what I've seen so far (which is just a little, so I might be wrong), this looks to be the case?[/quote] For sure...making a deliberate step towards a darker tone. Many of our cutscenes are loosly based on the 'feel' of this painting Leo did for fun... <img

Eh, it's like those method actors..."Anything for the performance!" And it may be the only way to get those 'Pink Space Ponies' that players ask for into a Stardock game :)

[quote who="onomastikon" reply="15" id="2934861"]Was that what you were attempting to mimic?[/quote] Yeah, I was going for a subtle 'solar-flare' type of magical arcing across the shards. It's still not perfect, but at least at this point I'm not fighting the numbers, I'm just playing with the refraction map. And your dope suggestion has been 'duely noted' ;)

relmich: Last I heard, but Brad is pretty committed to letting this one cook as long as necessary. We will have a Beta period though, so you'll be able to play feature complete sandbox games for a while before FE goes 'Gold'. [quote who="unacomn" reply="3" id="2934590"]I have one request for animations in FE, namely, in the UI,[/quote] This is on my wish list as well...the static state of the UI does more to dampen the mood than most people would realize (IMHO).

Greetings, Just a short entry this week, since I’m working on cutscenes, which need to stay under-wraps for a while. One of the shots you’ll be seeing when FE hits 1.0 involves...GASP...shards of magic ;) One polish points I wanted to pull off was to have the magic from the crystals wisp off and either dissipate or come back to to the shard. I got pretty close to this effect at a different time when playing with ‘caustics’: the simulati

[quote who="Annatar11" reply="15" id="2934267"]I think the main concept though is to get investors to fund the project before it's started, not to keep it alive after it started. [/quote] This is the crux of what I'm trying to understand with Kickstarter...it's intended to something to get a project going "I have this idea, and here are some rewards if you can help fund its creation." The problem is ensuring people that you're gonna get it done proper, and par

Thanks everyone for your thoughts! [quote who="jecjackal" reply="3" id="2933377"]Could someone define the Kickstarter term for me? [/quote] What Tridus said, as well as the fact that sponsors can receive unique 'rewards' based on what they pledge. If not enough people pledge enough in the allotted time, the funding fails and no money exchanges hands (pledgers don't get screwed, and project creators aren't stuck trying to make a project with X$ when they re

Yeah, it seems like a win-win situation in general. As a developer, you're testing to see if there's a market, involving that market AND raising funding. Players get to participate in the creation process and get unique rewards for their early-adoptership. I'll be curious how many people whare your view. Thanks for your take, Heavenfall!

The dream pipeline is to have the engine 100% done (stable with all of the features required for the design) before any game-specific code is written. Closest you'll see to this is at the end of console cycles when devs have all the kinks worked out of the hardware and they have several games behind them. On the opposite end of the "stuff likely to going wrong" spectrum is when a new game is trumpeting a brand new engine. The smaller guys AND large companies can have issues a

[quote who="Trojasmic" reply="39" id="2932926"]either that or listen to the Beta community who were telling SD that EWOM was a 4 out of 10 before it came out... [/quote] Indeed...what's nice this time around is that, by the time you guys get FE, it will be 100% feature complete (sans polish). No more "How should we implement this?" or "What about this feature?" discussions...you guys will have everything you need to pass gameplay judgement and suggest changes (and we have several mo

...and what Kadrium said. :)

[quote who="onomastikon" reply="35" id="2932754"]how can you possibly believe that you can ensure that FE will be awesome?[/quote] Brad knows the answer better, but besides restructuring the design flow and bringing Derek on for some pro management help, one big step we'll be taking (once the game is feature complete and we're onto the 'polish stage') is making use of 'pre-reviews'. What game developers can do is hire reviewers to do preliminary play

[quote who="Grove12345" reply="19" id="2932221"]...MoM. To me that game had no lore, but i played it for hours on end. I think lore is important but gameplay>everything else. [/quote] Yeah, it really is a tightrope walking that line between 'building an immersive world' and letting the player drive the narrative of their sandbox game. I think the best comromise is to make sure the game is aware of the events that the player is aware of. Gal Civ 2, for instance, gave a lot o