ScottTykoski

I will cherish that thumbs up :) Thanks Xia!

I believe we're going to finally be doing our second dev diary video next week....the v1.2 memory stuff waylayed some developers, but was necessary to strengthen the core engine.

To address one of the the OP's questions: The expansion was set to fall to make it better. Besides a handful of folks, and the guys working on engine improvements (memory, stability), pretty much the whole team is toiling away at FE. One of the (many) things that went wrong with WoM was that there was no 'polish' phase. We were getting in key features right up 'till gold (and beyond), where-as with FE, Derek has set up a schedule where the main features and all assets

[quote who="DrAtomic1" reply="6" id="2866470"]Do any of your artists have accounts with Deviantart or any other place where we can see some of their public work and keep track of them?[/quote] Finally got one of my own! http://boogiebac.deviantart.com/ Dunno why it took so long...there's some damn fine art out there. Great for inspiration :)</sp

There's a 1.2 being beta-tested atm to weed out as many memory issues as possible. A new build just went live today if you want to try that (select "Show Pre-release Versions" in Impulse). Please note that you need to have a constant internet connection when using beta builds (wil not work offline). This reliance is taken out for the official builds. Hope the new version helps you get further into a game :)

Design-wise, 'Mana upkeep' is basicially Essence (a limiting resource that can be spent or hoarded), with a considerably less sexy name :) The main problem is that the concept never saw its promised potential (In WoM, Hoarding Essence != badass). Luckilly, FE was designed with several new spells that should fill that void nicely.

I'd wait until next week to hear anything from Brad or Derek on the matter, since they're both in GDC at the moment. I know the team has a love/hate relationship with MP - we love to play it, would love to expand on it, but putting quality time into a feature that less than 1% of the players use is...frustrating (and we do have the numbers from other 4x TBS games to verify this number). From a day-to-day perspective, we're focusing on single player aspects of FE, and ob

TheProgress: Exact times?! Nice :) There's a bug where the last 5-8 frames of the attack animations randomly cut off, so that may be agrivating any 'rigidness' you're seeing with the snake, but I'll have Akil take another look at it. The 'abruptness' of those run-to-idle is the frame-blending tech we need to get in. Right now, one animation will cut directly into another, but with frame blending you'll get around 5 frames of overlap, so the transition wont look like crap

TheProgress: Which animations in that video did you find weak? There are some technical issue we need to overcome (combat units all idling in synch, no frame blending, etc) but the only two animations I have an issue with in the video are the plaguecat dying and Morian's hand clipping through the ground during his attack. That's not to say there are a LOT of animations that need redone or polished, but I am curious which ones fell flat on you in the vid.

[quote]Then I read in the annual report that they plan to backport some of the FE changes into EWoM for people who don't like FE, and its like... WHY?[/quote] I don't know any details, but I believe these will be engine tweaks to improve memory usage, etc.

GW: He's more of a mini-boss type character than a 'lord' level creature, so I doubt he'll be wrapping himself around any castle walls :) GOnna talk with Derek about writing a journal about the stuff we're working on (creatures, in particular)...lots of cool things coming out of the bullpen nowadays.

[quote]Excuse me but 'Entirely New Ways To Die' sounds cheap[/quote] Marketing is giving each push a subtitle. I don't know if the official one is decided but it's certainly not 'Entirely New Ways To Die' ;)

Yeah, mounts won't be given the boot...you can still pick from them when designing units. :)

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/elementalwarofmagicfallenenchantress/index.html?tag=gallery_summary%3Btitle New info in full effect :) Enjoy!

Good lord, what is going on in this thread?! :O Regarding 'More FE Info', you'll find the flow of big information to be through more 'big-name' channels (the gaming mags and websites) than in a random journal here. Ironically, however, we just wrapped up some marketing stuff this week, so that should be finding its way out shortly :)

[quote]What's a mock review?[/quote] You can pay freelance reviewers to do a write up of a build to get a better view of how someone not used to the game will view it...one of the many practices we'll be using this point forward :) I'm glad we're to the point where we can take a healthy look back on what happened with Elemental...it's really a facinating case study on the "small team becomes a large team" tipping point. It was bound to happen eventually, but I wish the less

Given how central it is to the game (and how easilly it can become imbalanced) I don't see us ever being 'done' with the magic system...v1.1 was simply a step towards something we're proud of, with global mana and more unique spells being the focus there. Upcoming versions will continue to build on the foundation, with another major overhaul coming in the first expansion pack.

Interesting...whatever battle occured at the end of your debug.err file is causing a city to change hands, which is then causing a random crash when clearing the unit queue. We'll keep investigating! Thanks Fistalis!

Champion's come with 'default' equipment, meaning those are the items that are used if nothing else is filling that spot. Not trading these is as designed. Not clicking through to the resource below a unit would be a UI bug...noted to the team :)

Looks like an OOM crash. Mind posting your save file so we can dissect it for memory-footprint purposes? Thanks!

Can you actually post your files here for the developers to grab? Thanks! ( https://forums.elementalgame.com/391297 has details on how to report issues, if you need it)

Has anyone else seen this? My tests with 1.09u have shown Regen working in strategic (+2hp/turn) and doing nothing in combat (as intendended).

Charles: Naw, this was my fault...in the campaign I was giving them advanced bows before the regular archery tech, so the player could design archers but didnt have the improvement needed to actually train them :(

Looking into the code, it's definiatly looking at the net resource production vs the raw harvest value. We'll change it for the next build! Thanks Heavenfall!

Unfortunatly, all the debug outpt we've had to put in has made certain parts of the game (end turn, tactical battles, etc) feel extra sluggish. We'll be taking those out ASAP to give back that much needed pep :)