Elemental - Now Fallen Enchantress

[proudft]

Personally, I'm in the 'separate the art from the artist' camp.

I have no problem separating art from artist, for say, Wagner.  But he's dead and not getting any of my money or appreciation.

Someone still alive?  Yeah, they need to not be a complete dick to get those things from me.

[Yegolev]

I like how Sky asserted that Elemental is art.

[Sky]

I like how Sky asserted that Elemental is art.

In terms as loose as a Bangkok whore.

And really, I'm still holding out some hope for Kael.

[Murgos]

And really, I'm still holding out some hope for Kael.

It takes a great team to make a great product.  You can survive one or two incompetents if the rest of the team is solid and able to pick up the slack and you've got good leadership.  But, if the incompetent is the guy with the authority?  Doomed.

You can be the greatest baker in the world but when the guy in charge says, "You know?  What this cake really needs is a turd in middle of the frosting." it's hard to make it work.

[Ironwood]

Yes.  That.

[Zetor]

How involved were these guys with Demigod? All I know is that the game was my first experience with MOBAs, and turned me off the genre completely.

Personally, I'm in the 'separate the art from the artist' camp.

I have no problem separating art from artist, for say, Wagner.  But he's dead and not getting any of my money or appreciation.

Someone still alive?  Yeah, they need to not be a complete dick to get those things from me.

I totally misread Wagner as Winger. The internet has broken me.

[Sky]

That's why I'm holding out hope, not exuding it. Kael was in charge of FFH2. As much as Brad has said he's (Kael) in charge of Elemental, he's clearly not.

But really, a lot of people here played a lot of Warlock, and that game was weak compared to FFH2 or Age of Wonders. Kael doesn't have to knock it out of the park for a win in my book, just minimize Brad's impact enough to make a fun (if imperfect) game.

[Reg]

Give it up. Every time they`ve released a video demoing the new game it just shows the same crappiness that was Elemental.

[Yegolev]

Kael needs to put this project in the bag and look for a new job.

[Sky]

Kael needs to put this project in the bag and look for a new job.

Agreed.

At Firaxis.

[JWIV]

Kael needs to put this project in the bag and look for a new job.

Him and Shafer should both run.

[JWIV]

And off we go with the silent launch

http://www.elementalgame.com/fallen-enchantress

Fallen Enchantress is now live.  Also, on top of Brad's many failings, he seems to think people that aren't Sinj want to download their recompense copy  from his website as opposed to Steam like GOD FUCKING INTENDED. 

It is however on Steam if you want to buy it.

[Amaron]

I doubt Steam lets you give out free keys.

[Stormwaltz]

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has their un-review up.

I haven't played enough to agree or disagree, but their conclusion is:

There’s variety in each world the game generates but not a great deal of character. For all the fantastical spells and monsters whizzing about, it’s a bland, grey place. Maybe ugly is the word I’m looking for but it doesn’t seem quite right. Empty, maybe, like the lore. The lights are all on but the room is barren. Forests are colourless lumps and the wild lands, home to the deadliest creatures and large neutral armies, look too much like placeholder graphics to inspire any dread or mystery.

Despite some effective scene-setting at the opening of a new game and paragraphs of charmingly needless flavour text scattered throughout, Fallen Enchantress never inspired me. I didn’t feel a sense of struggle or purpose, and that’s mostly due to the disconnect between so many of the game’s features. It might seem odd to complain about a game that’s a construction of disparate systems shortly after writing about loving the very same, but Fallen Enchantress makes me feel like I’m doing most of the work and doesn’t inspire confidence that what’s happening behind the interface is particularly intricate, complex or interesting.

The other fantasy strategy game I’ve been playing this year, Warlock, is much more lean, but also compact and tight. Elemental is baggy and unfocused in comparison, although some people will undoubtedly laud its ambition.

[Sir T]

Email I got today

Dear Stardock customer,

My name is Brad Wardell. I'm the President & CEO of Stardock.  Two years ago, you bought a game from us called Elemental: War of Magic.  We had great hopes and ambitions for that game but, in the end, it just wasn't a very good game.

Elemental was an expensive game. You probably paid $50 or more for it. And you trusted us to deliver to you a good game. $50 is a lot of money and companies have a moral obligation to deliver what they say they're going to deliver and frankly, Stardock failed to deliver the game we said we were going to deliver.

While we did update Elemental: War of Magic (you can still download v1.4). Its design just wasn't adequate to make it into the kind of game it should be. So we decided to start over. From scratch. We made a new game called Fallen Enchantress.

So even though it's been two years, we haven't forgotten about you.  This week, we released Fallen Enchantress. It is a vastly better game and, we believe, lives up to the expectations set for the original Elemental.  This game is yours. Free. It's already been added to your account.

You can download and play it by going to {redacted}

We hope you enjoy Fallen Enchantress.  Please feel free to visit the Elemental forum at www.elementalgame.com if you wish to talk to me and the rest of the team. We're there and very interested in your feedback.


Thank you for being our customers and your patience.


Sincerely,

Brad Wardell
President & CEO
Stardock -

I don't have any particular opinion of Brad Wardell like some people have, so I think this is an incredibly decent move to be honest. Too many companies would have just shoved out a full price remake and been done with it. Anyway, I didn't have time to play the beta so I'll give this a whirl.

[Sky]

That RPS review could apply to FFH2. The best part of FFH2 was usually the stories I made up to go along with the action, because there were some cool building blocks in the units and situations they'd get into. The world itself (Civ 4) was pretty bland and uninspiring.

If I could swing a full-price game, I'd be all over this right now.

[Ingmar]

Email I got today

Dear Stardock customer,

My name is Brad Wardell. I'm the President & CEO of Stardock.  Two years ago, you bought a game from us called Elemental: War of Magic.  We had great hopes and ambitions for that game but, in the end, it just wasn't a very good game.

Elemental was an expensive game. You probably paid $50 or more for it. And you trusted us to deliver to you a good game. $50 is a lot of money and companies have a moral obligation to deliver what they say they're going to deliver and frankly, Stardock failed to deliver the game we said we were going to deliver.

While we did update Elemental: War of Magic (you can still download v1.4). Its design just wasn't adequate to make it into the kind of game it should be. So we decided to start over. From scratch. We made a new game called Fallen Enchantress.

So even though it's been two years, we haven't forgotten about you.  This week, we released Fallen Enchantress. It is a vastly better game and, we believe, lives up to the expectations set for the original Elemental.  This game is yours. Free. It's already been added to your account.

You can download and play it by going to {redacted}

We hope you enjoy Fallen Enchantress.  Please feel free to visit the Elemental forum at www.elementalgame.com if you wish to talk to me and the rest of the team. We're there and very interested in your feedback.


Thank you for being our customers and your patience.


Sincerely,

Brad Wardell
President & CEO
Stardock -

I don't have any particular opinion of Brad Wardell like some people have, so I think this is an incredibly decent move to be honest. Too many companies would have just shoved out a full price remake and been done with it. Anyway, I didn't have time to play the beta so I'll give this a whirl.

Fuck him. His gamer's bill of rights nonsense says you should be able to return games, and then his company wouldn't let me return Elemental.

[Kitsune]

Similar complaints could be aimed at Galactic Civilizations; the game really didn't bother much with context or plot.  Still a good game in my book.  I downloaded Enchantress, only had a little free time to play it but it seemed okay.  Need a much longer session to form a good opinion, but I can definitely say that what I saw was head and shoulders better than Elemental.

[Maledict]

To be fair *anything* would be better than the original Elemental. The last time I saw a game released that buggy, broken and undeveloped was back in my Atari ST days.

[Xilren's Twin]

Giving this a try since it was a freebie, and while thus far it's not that different from Elemental (which is not a compliment) Im willing to give it the ole college try.
Made a custom archer leader and what do you know, ranged is still overpowered.  Still, at least this way i think i can get into the meat of the game.
My overall take on it is the world just lacks flavor - the graphics are bland, the knock off civ and MoM feels generic, it just doesnt seem to have much "character" to it and thus far, has not generated the kind of "one more turn" feeling the best strategy games do.

[Merusk]

The character in almost all 4x fantasy and sci-fi games comes from one thing.  The races.  With races you can do cool thematic builds and units and have a lot of fun.

Your basic generic "Archer" units become halfling slingers or flying draconians with a fire-breathing attack and require some different balance mechanics.  You can do a lot more with hero units and powerful specials.  Everything revolves around the story and background for that particular race and makes for a lot of fun, IMO.

When it's all humans it lacks even the flavor of a Total War game and does indeed become generic.  You find the best build for a type and crank them out.  There's no creativity because there's no flaws or bonuses to balance around.   What made life easy on the designer makes the game boring as shit for the player.

To me that's why Warlock was good but not great.  There were only 3 races and the "theme" wasn't followed-through quite well enough.  Each race had a generic unit that fit in to a slot, or a best unit for that slot.  They were so close but didn't take it to the next level and fell kind of flat.  It's still worlds beyond what Elemental did, though.

[Speedy Cerviche]

Someone needs to mod in Dominions 3 races into this game. Even just a half dozen of them.

[Sky]

Or FFH2. 

[Sheepherder]

The character in almost all 4x fantasy and sci-fi games comes from one thing.  The races.  With races you can do cool thematic builds and units and have a lot of fun.

The character, as you describe it, is irrelevant.  Civilization II had none.

[Maledict]

The character in almost all 4x fantasy and sci-fi games comes from one thing.  The races.  With races you can do cool thematic builds and units and have a lot of fun.

The character, as you describe it, is irrelevant.  Civilization II had none.

That's why he said specifically sci-fi and fantasy. Civilisation games already come with the worlds biggest lore book ever just from their names. (And even civ games have added unique bonuses and units to civs as the series has progressed).

Character in fantasy and sci-fi games of this type is *everything*.

[Sky]

Actually, I find vanilla civ boring as hell because it lacks character. FFH2 set the bar, and if Stardock didn't allow Kael to recreate that, Stardock fucked up again.

Is the game moddable? Maybe someone can do FFH3 as a FE mod. 

[Maledict]

I don't want to sound horrible but would it be possible for you to not mention FFH for maybe a month? It gets slightly repetitive you know...

[Typhon]

Sometimes a drum is worth beating.

I'm really trying to like Elemental for Kael's sake, but I'm just not feeling it.  As Warlock adds more races, I'm liking it more, so I'd have to say that Merusk is right.  Civ version of races is national special units... and if there were more of these, it would probably be a more interesting game.

[Threash]

Warlok added more races?

[Kail]

As DLC, yeah, they added elves.  And there's a few special units they've added via DLC, too (like lizardmen).

[Reg]

I don't want to sound horrible but would it be possible for you to not mention FFH for maybe a month? It gets slightly repetitive you know...

If he's going to keep up his man crush on Kael I think he should at least join the rest of us suckers who bought the crappy game.

[Sky]

I don't want to sound horrible but would it be possible for you to not mention FFH for maybe a month? It gets slightly repetitive you know...

Sure. But I need a bribe, in the form of the game gifted to me on steam.

Otherwise, I'll have to start playing FFH2 and post about it daily.

 

[koro]

Do it anyway. I need an excuse to get back into FFH2, especially since I'd have to relearn it.

[Stormwaltz]

If he's going to keep up his man crush on Kael

WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?

[Merusk]

Well I downloaded and installed it.  It's back to being stable but the interface, game mechanics and overall play remain Elemental.  It was ok before Warlock and CivV came out and I needed a new fix.  Now it's just unfun, byzantine and the creepy avatars are just sad-looking. 

I don't even get why it's called "Fallen Enchantress" because there's no story that I can see.  Maybe that's just because I'm getting my shit kicked-in on "easy" because research and building still take forever.  Meanwhile there's an army of trolls outside my border with a strength of 105 while the best units I can build are strength 3 and my avatar is a 6.. so if I let my city lie fallow and not evolve or grow I might be able to whittle-down the trolls by throwing bodies at it.

I doubt I'll fire it up again after only playing about an hour.  Pity.