Elemental - Now Fallen Enchantress

[JWIV]

0 day patch due sometime tonight
http://forums.elementalgame.com/392088

In the meantime - there's a wiki to read
http://elementalwarofmagic.wikidot.com/

[Malakili]

So the general consensus is wait?  I'm looking specifically for a game to tide me over until Civ 5 comes out, so basically, something that isn't going to pay off right away is out for me.

[Baldric]

So the general consensus is wait?  I'm looking specifically for a game to tide me over until Civ 5 comes out, so basically, something that isn't going to pay off right away is out for me.

Hopefully the day 0 patch fixes a few things. According to the patch notes, a few of my issues are solved (e.g., weapon costs). So far, the biggest challenge in the pre-day 0 patch game has been the mobs.  Their power scales upwards to a ridiculous extent compared to your sovereign.  

Anyway, I wouldn't buy it (pre-day 0 patched version) unless you are jonesing for a turn-based strategy game fix.  Much like Victoria II, this sucker needed two weeks of tweaking before release.  Maybe the immanent patch accomplishes that tweaking, who knows.

[Kitsune]

Stardock games in general are playable but bland on release day.  It takes a couple months of tinkering and patching before they're shiny polished and at their peak.

[Yegolev]

This one is more in the mold of Demigod than GalCiv2, as far as completeness goes.  But I'm only now downloading the second patch, so we shall see.  I am confident that it will be great sooner rather than later but at the moment it is annoying.  Add to that the fact that I apparently have to read the manual instead of just play the campaign and my ability to get into it has passed my current personal threshold.  If I'm going to read a manual, I really should be reading some EMC pdfs for work.

[Dren]

So, if I'm reading right while avoiding all the tangents, this game has released?  It has a few really big patches to make it playable, but it is released?

Title threw me off.

[Xilren's Twin]

So, if I'm reading right while avoiding all the tangents, this game has released?  It has a few really big patches to make it playable, but it is released?

Title threw me off.

Yes, it is out.  I grabbed a copy from a BestBuy yesterday (go go gift cards).  Patching up now.

[JWIV]

Attempted a clean restart of the campaign this morning after the Miracle Patch.

I started up the campaign, killed some dudes easily enough.  Went up north, killed two darkling camps and got the OK from the Queen to pass through her blockade into the next kingdom.  And the blockade refuses to trigger to allow me to pass.  FUCK FUCK FUCK.  Talked to a few people this morning and they had run into the same issue, so there's definitely something wrong.

Stardock is burning through years of goodwill right now with this bullshit.

[Baldric]

The day 0 patch helped the game.  I was playing this morning, lost track of time, and nearly missed my bus.  I would recommend it if you enjoy 4x games.  If you weren't in the beta, i would  watch the video tutorials, check the forums, and read the wiki. 

[Reg]

I made it pretty far into the newly patched campaign game but now it's telling me I need to talk to Markinn (one of the kings) and when I go to his town nothing happens.

It's just not polished.  If they're going to hand out stupid quests that make you travel all over the place the map should at least have an indicator as to where you need to go. I just don't have the patience for this old school keep track of it yourself bullshit anymore.

[amiable]

Any chance of this hitting Steam?

lol wut

Is that such a bizarre question?  I really like steam, not only for the convenience factor, but for the nice integrated update system, and the ability to get hold of my friends while in game for multi-player.  Is there some reason I should be hating on Steam?

[Modern Angel]

Stardock has their own digital content delivery service called Impulse. It's in competition with Steam.

[Typhon]

So the general consensus is wait?  I'm looking specifically for a game to tide me over until Civ 5 comes out, so basically, something that isn't going to pay off right away is out for me.

Wait.  At least a month.  ... :) which means you get to wait till they've applied a decent amount of polish (if ever).  All that said, I'm not having any issues playing (but other folks definitely are).

[Ingmar]

I haven't had the campaign-stopping bugs other people are reporting, but this is not ready for prime time. It also really desperately needs a real tutorial.

The tactical combat in particular is kind of a mess visually and has some weird bugs. The animations seem half done in a lot of cases, things suddenly jump around without animating at all, sometimes it just hangs up on one unit and won't let you end turn, etc.

[Reg]

Tactical battles sometimes don't end properly. You'll seem to be hung pressing the next turn button and nothing will happen.  If you press the button on the left side of the bottom menu bar it'll usually bring up the Victory screen and let you end the battle.

[Ingmar]

I've had that happen, but I've also had it hang on me on the first or second turn.

[Sir T]

I would drop the campaign to be honest. I restarted it and ran into no issues, but its annoying, does not feature some of the features of the main game and is frankly boring. Just jump into a skirmish against the AI, far more enjoyable.

[WayAbvPar]

Glad I held off on this one. Sounds like it will eventually be a lot fun, but I have plenty to play while they work out the kinks. Pity it won't be appearing on Steam- this is exactly the kind of game I would snap up in a heartbeat if/when it went on sale.

[Modern Angel]

So CEO posts on Quarter to Three, tells people that if they disagree with his high opinion of the game to never buy another Stardock game. Eventually apologizes after a PC Gamer article savages the release.

[Paelos]

I'm amazed that any gaming executive has two brain cells to rub together. Your entire job as a CEO is company direction and PR, and you tell the consumers with complaints to fuck off if they are not entertained? 

[Ingmar]

link? The thread is like 3300 posts. 

[Merusk]

So CEO posts on Quarter to Three, tells people that if they disagree with his high opinion of the game to never buy another Stardock game. Eventually apologizes after a PC Gamer article savages the release.

This is the same guy that pulled some boneheaded maneuver before, isn't it?  Damned if I can remember what it was but I recall it involving ultra-right politics.

[Modern Angel]

Here's the PC Gamer article with the requisite links.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/08/25/elementals-disastrous-launch-stay-well-away/

And yeah, he's a Randroid from what I recall.

[Sir T]

Here's his response to the PC gamer article, for the record.

Stardock’s Response to PC Gamer UK and RPS
By Frogboy Posted August 25, 2010 1:52:32 PM

There was an article posted earlier today on PC Gamer UK outlining some of the frustrations that the reviewer had with the pre-day 0 version of the game as well as a problem he was having with tactical battles.

In the article, he quoted an inflammatory forum posting I made on a site I participate in called Quarter to Three.  This is a site I’ve been a participant in for many years and many of the people I discuss things on there are personal friends of mine.

During one such exchange with my friend Ben Sones, I angrily responded with a statement “Ben, please stay away from our games in the future. I consider it ready for release and if others disagree, don’t buy our games.”

This comment was totally out of line and I apologize for it. It was made in the heat of a ~2000 comment long thread and is not how I honestly feel. Ben’s a friend of mine and his comment that the game felt like a “beta” to him upset me and I responded inappropriately.  I post a lot on many forums and unfortunately, sometimes the things I say are inappropriate or inflammatory.

As the CEO of Stardock, I want to be clear that my comments on the Quarter to Three forums do not reflect my team at large. They were words spoken out of frustration and sleep deprivation and I am truly sorry. We stand behind what we feel is a great product, one that we will continue to support for a number of years.

With regards to a post on Rock Paper Shot Gun, which picked up the PC Gamer UK story, they erroneously point to a 2+ year old URL to a Stardock news item that is no longer active (we switched news systems a year or so ago). Their article falsely implies that we have stepped away from our commitment to the Gamer’s Bill of Rights.

The site, www.gamersbillofrights.org was set up and is run by Stardock. We stand by it.  It is, with some irony, our commitment to no DRM on our DVD release that ultimately caused the rough pre-release experience of Elemental. Several retailers broke the street date and we felt we needed to release our gold version to our customers who had pre-ordered from us as well as to our beta community that helped make the game the outstanding strategy game that it is.

However, it also became clear that the pre-day 0 version of the game was problematic as outlined in the PC Gamer UK article. The official day 0 version of the game, what is available right now, should address most, if not all the issues that have been described.  That said, as is our long-standing policy, we will continue to release updates and improvements Elemental just as we do for the other titles we develop.

I anticipate us putting out regular updates for Elemental for months or years to come based on player feedback, suggestions, and yes, bug reports.

I hope this offers some explanation as to the events that have come up. I sincerely apologize and feel terrible for the effect my forum posting on Qt3 may have had not just on our fans but also my team that has worked incredibly hard over the past 3 years to produce what we hope, is a game that you will enjoy for years to come.

[koro]

I'm amazed that any gaming executive has two brain cells to rub together. Your entire job as a CEO is company direction and PR, and you tell the consumers with complaints to fuck off if they are not entertained? 

Brad Wardell is not just the CEO. He's also one of their head designers and usually in charge of their AI programming. And, occasionally, putting his foot in his mouth in a very public fashion.

[Yoru]

Thread surgery conducted. Those interested in discussions of Brad Wardell's personal politics and how they affect his business may go here.

[Modern Angel]

Here.

If you want to talk specifically about the game, it sucks. It has problems no amount of patching will fix. It's just not a good game. Most glaringly, every race is a human that plays exactly the same? Two rough blobby factions, good and evil? No fantastic stuff that are hallmarks of this sort of game, eg griffons, bat riding spear goblins etc? This is a bad game. The art style is the only thing everyone's complaining about that I like. Slightly cartoony but nice and crisp.

[Hayduke]

Looks like a post I was going to reply to got zapped.  But about AI improving in GalCiv2 throughout its history, I can't say I agree.  The second expansion for GalCiv2 severely messed up AI.  From a flavor perspective it made the game more interesting having distinct factions, but I find it pretty much unplayable the AI is so bad.  A lot of people stick to vanilla or the first expansion because it's a much better game.

It's so glaring I wouldn't be surprised if it was part of the equation for Stardock going with just a human faction for Elemental instead of going the MoM route.

[Modern Angel]

I'm entirely willing to grant that it was probably cheaper and easier to just make humans with different skin tones. Just not good. Really, when I fired it up I went looking for dwarves because I love dwarves. I found the Ironeers or whatever they're called and thought, "YES! Dwarves!"

But they weren't dwarves. They were humans with beards that mined better. No special units. No underground cities. No different art. Just people. Even fiddling with the unit design stuff all you seem to be able to do is make people with hats.

The actual close ups of people are hilariously bad, by the way. They look like pre-Morrowind models, all blocky and chunky.

[JWIV]

There's some things I really like  about the game - the unit design capability is awesome (and needs more) and I like the art design. 

But everything else is really just coming across as unfinished and in need of tweaks or complete overhauls (hey there tactical combat).   There's a good concept with where they tried to take it, but it's pretty obvious this was rushed out _way_ too damn early.

[Ingmar]

Yeah after messing around with it a little more I can't recommend that anyone spend any money on this. It is pretty damn bad in basically every way. The "tutorial" is wretched, the interface is counter-intuitive at best, the AI doesn't do anything at all half the time, the tactical combat is laggy, crashes a lot, and visually the game is roughly on par with Arcanum. It is the sort of thing you could forgive in a Mount and Blade or a Dwarf Fortress, but it is not the sort of thing that you can forgive in a $50 game from a 'real' company.

[Modern Angel]

I don't know. I'm playing it and I'm not certain if it does a single thing better than either MoM, AoW or FFH. The only conceptual thing I really like is the exploration tech tree, which reveals more heroes/monsters/resources as you unlock it. I'm playing a friend's copy because he hates it and my curiosity got the better of me and I've logged quite a bit of time over the past day and a half. Going to keep playing a bit more to get to late game tech but firmly mediocre.

[IainC]

Here's his response to the PC gamer article, for the record.

Stardock’s Response to PC Gamer UK and RPS
By Frogboy Posted August 25, 2010 1:52:32 PM
Several retailers broke the street date and we felt we needed to release our gold version to our customers who had pre-ordered from us as well as to our beta community that helped make the game the outstanding strategy game that it is.

How do retailers break the street date unless you've supplied them with your release client?

[Merusk]

I'm entirely willing to grant that it was probably cheaper and easier to just make humans with different skin tones. Just not good. Really, when I fired it up I went looking for dwarves because I love dwarves. I found the Ironeers or whatever they're called and thought, "YES! Dwarves!"

But they weren't dwarves. They were humans with beards that mined better. No special units. No underground cities. No different art. Just people. Even fiddling with the unit design stuff all you seem to be able to do is make people with hats.

The actual close ups of people are hilariously bad, by the way. They look like pre-Morrowind models, all blocky and chunky.

Pretty sure I mentioned that previously. I now know for certain  people ignore me!


Yeah, I'm severely disappointed.  The game looked to be going in a good direction when I signed up for the beta, but it seems like it got worse, not better, after I stopped playing. (When they first patched-in tac. combat.)  It's not good that some bugs from beta 2 are still there, including crashes because of sound problems (and I Do have the latest drivers, as Dragon Age required them when I reinstalled it.)  I feel like I blew $50 on a game that's only worth $15 right now.

[Ard]

How do retailers break the street date unless you've supplied them with your release client?

Most often it happens at the distributor level, where stores get sent boxes early, with no clear signage saying to keep the product off of shelves until X date.  Places have in theory been getting better at respecting the release dates since there were a large rash of them around the time Mario Galaxy came out.