Elemental - Now Fallen Enchantress

[ffc]

And as for Demigod, that was pretty fun on release, its just the netcode kept crashing from the number of pirates trying to log onto the servers.

No.  Pirates contributed to the initial registration/activation issues which were resolved by cutting off pirates' access.  The continued multiplayer problems were squarely on Stardock.  This was previously covered in a thread here.

You could play Demigod singleplayer straight out of the box and have fun with it. I know I did.

There was no single player; the alternative to broken multiplayer was to play against incredibly stupid bots.  Glad you had fun with it, though you stand alone.

Rerail edit:  Paying to wait for an Elemental overhaul/fix is not for me.  I doubt I'll give Elemental a second look especially with September 21 around the corner.

[Maledict]

Even after you fix all the bugs, iron out the stability issues, and balance some of the core silliness (like magic and champions being worthless), fundamentally there are some core design choices at the heart of this game that will prevent it from ever succeeding in the way MoM or AoW:SM did.

i) Terrible graphics. I'm fine with the art style they chose to go with - it's not particularly my taste, but it's a coherent style. What I am constantly perplexed at is how *boring* the world is - who thought that dull brown would be a good default colour for the world? It's a fantasy game, it should sparkle - it shouldn't be so dull that Civ looks more exciting and inviting. It is the blandest 4X game world I've ever seen. Haven't these guys heard of colour?
 (Linked to this is the fact it doesn't seem to be able to generate a huge amount of terrain - where are the jungles, the snow covered peaks, volcanoes etc - it seems to be missing a huge amount of staples for a fantasy world!)

ii) There aren't enough critical choices. The tile caps for cities is an attempt to get players to think about what they build, but fundamentally there simply aren't enough options when playing to make the player choose what and where to develop. The game needs a *lot* of extra techs and buildings.

iii) The game is fundamentally un-fantastic. Every race is a variant of some pudgy faced human, and your units are groups of people wearing armour +1 and spears +1 etc. There's no element of magic or fantasy in it - compared to every other fantasy 4X game out there and it pales by comparison. It's almost a medieval Civ game rather than a magic & fantasy Civ game. We've replaced dark elf warlocks, armies of dragons, shadow demons and frostlings with fat faced peasants in brown clothing. You don't even have flying units for goodness sakes...

iv) The core of the tactical combat system is basically worthless. MoM & AoW:SM worked because of the huge difference between units and the massive number of spells and abilities that could come into play - Elemental just doesn't have that. The system needs a massive overhaul to start to present some real complexity and decision making in tactical combat, because right now there just isn't the ability to do that.

I got a full refund from one email, and I'll maybe give it a look over in 6 months time, but right now this game seems doomed to me. Civ 5 is going to roll right over it. I'm sure someone is going to create a kick ass mod for this game that will fix this, but until they do this game is definitely in the top 5 list of gaming disappointments. I'm really not sure how so many bad decisions got this far in the game without *someone* loading up Master of Magic and realising how fundamentally ****ed they were.

(Possibly this is one of the problems with only allowing beta-testing to pre-paid folks. People who are pre-ordering are the ones who are already your firm fans, and are the least likely to offer coherent criticism in a way that isn't just shrieking).

[Maledict]

Sorry for the double post, but just reading through the threads linked answers one of my questions ta least. The beta testers were complaining about the state of the game, they just weren't listened to. Brad's discussion of why and how that happened is at least reassuring in the scale at which the game needs changing:

I don't think Elemental's shortcomings can be fixed with tweaks or small patches. I think there are core game mechanics and AI that will have to be revisited. I think there are things that would normally be reserved for sequels that will have to be put in.

I think I mentioned this earlier but we employ multiple former editors of major review sites who were part of the process. When you're working a long time on a project it's easy to get way way way too close to it and soon, its foibles and flaws become simply part of the fabric.

When I get home, with the benefit of being away for a bit, I'll be able to outline some specific and in hindsight, obvious game mechanic things that will need to be addressed for Elemental to begin to reach its potential.

As an AI coder, the biggest disappointment to me is that I allowed the design to allow so many N^2 variables (I'll talk about this later). So don't think I'm thinking that we can just tweak around the edges to make Elemental what it needs to be. That would be just another version of denial of the problem -- as if we could just tweak it and suddenly it goes from a 3 out of 5 to a 5 out of 5 and no, that's not the case. Not even close.

The upcoming version they're working on, v1.07 is still about working on all the crazy compatibility issues that our engine has to deal with (that deserves a separate discussion but I've been looking at the check-ins and they're depressing to me. I see a lot of "Fix allocation that causes a crash on nVidia driver 1/10/2010" type stuff which makes me wince).

The kinds of changes Elemental will require to meet is potential are pretty big things IMO. Things that we (and myself in particular) were just blind to.  Let me give you a couple of concrete examples so you can see what I'm getting at (and this post BETTER post, this is like being back in 1994): My friend Mark Asher on a post on a forum talked about how boring our spells were. I took that to be about the spell names. But it wasn't just the spell names, it was about the spells themselves and how they worked.  The way resources are managed and handled is very limiting when it comes to the way the AI has to deal with them (N^2 variables).  

Anyway, the point is, we fell in love with a vision of the game that was largely in our minds rather than in reality. The difference here is that Stardock has the luxury of being able to address it. Even if Elemental didn't sell a single new copy, we would still be able to address it.

I truly wish I could ascribe Elemental's launch to cynical greed or something. Cynical greed beats out pathetic incompetence any day.

So it is at least a good sign that he recognises it's not just a few tweaks needed to fix the game. If the CEO is saying fundamental core mechanics need to be redone, you know something is wrong. My concern would be that the multi-player aspect of this game is dead - it's never going to get a large audience now after this launch. The best folks can hope for is a rebuilt game next year at some point, that provides a kick ass single player experience.

It's good to see the CEO admitting it needs more than tweaks to become good, and that the core gameplay is wrong, but also incredibly depressing.

EDIT: Slightly amusing how even after the CEO and main designer of the game is saying it's in a terrible state and needs severe core changes to become a good game, peopel on the forums are still protesting PC Gamers review of 70% and saying it's a good game with no real faults. The levels of emotional committment peopel get to games is scary sometimes.

[Sir T]

(Possibly this is one of the problems with only allowing beta-testing to pre-paid folks. People who are pre-ordering are the ones who are already your firm fans, and are the least likely to offer coherent criticism in a way that isn't just shrieking).

That's not true AFAIK. Those who preordered could Beta, but there was beta testing going on even before preorderes were allowed. (And for the record I never beta tested it) I do however call foul on the idea that people who are enthusiastic on the game could not offer criticism on making the thing better. Enthusiasm is not a crime. Or are you suggesting only people who hate Stardock on principle should beta test?

No, the real problem with the beta test was that at no time were the beta testers allowed a full working build of the game. They were given pieces of the game to test, but there was not "ok, here's a working copy of the full whole game. Tear it to pieces" Without that no-one could report on how the game worked as a coherent whole. That said, the serious GPU problem that effects me WAS flagged and ignored.

There was no single player; the alternative to broken multiplayer was to play against incredibly stupid bots.  Glad you had fun with it, though you stand alone.

The engine was solid, that was my point. And, btw, you can't say "THERE WAS NO SINGLEPLAYER!" and then in the next sentence "THE SINGLEPLAYER WAS BAD!" Of course there was singleplayer, you played matches against the AI. That's singleplayer, and frankly I'll take bots over incredibly stupid cheating humans anyday.

[Maledict]

That's not true AFAIK. Those who preordered could Beta, but there was beta testing going on even before preorderes were allowed. (And for the record I never beta tested it) I do however call foul on the idea that people who are enthusiastic on the game could not offer criticism on making the thing better. Enthusiasm is not a crime. Or are you suggesting only people who hate Stardock on principle should beta test?

No, the real problem with the beta test was that at no time were the beta testers allowed a full working build of the game. They were given pieces of the game to test, but there was not "ok, here's a working copy of the full whole game. Tear it to pieces" Without that no-one could report on how the game worked as a coherent whole. That said, the serious GPU problem that effects me WAS flagged and ignored.

Yes, I mentioned that in my second post. The beta testers were complaining, they just were ignored. (Which again, Brad has mentioned in his mea culpa posts). I was looking for a reasonable excuse as to how this could of gotten through a beta process like it did, and Brad fortunately explained how. Not only was the beta testing process flawed, as it was basically the alpha game engine they were looking at, but also it wouldn't have mattered had they got the game - Stardock was utterly convinced the game was good to go. Heck, Brad personally compiled the game to give the Euro PC Gamer reviewer an early copy of 1.0 as he was sure it was a great game to review!

The reason I lept to thinking the beta process was flawed was because, having been in numerous beta's, one flaw I have seen on multiple occasions is that a large group of fanboys will quash any criticism of the game. That clearly wasn't the case here.

[ffc]

(edit - spoiling Demigod discussion)

Regarding Elemental's world having Too Much Brown™, check out this gameplay video.  At 1:18 Brad says the land looks pretty brown and boring and the other developer agrees it is desolate and dead.  They go on to say how the world comes back to life over time but Brad's final and somewhat joking comment regarding the world is, "Bad first impression you start on people, ha ha ha."  

[Sir T]

(edit - spoiling Demigod discussion)
Again, no.  Gas Powered Games developed Demigod so the game itself which you liked (I liked it too!) is credited to them.  Stardock was responsible for the broken multiplayer part.

As an aside, Demigod is a multiplayer game.  Just like Starcraft without a campaign, or LoL / DoTA / HoN.  Playing multiplayer matches against bots does not constitute a single player game.  Sure you can play the multiplayer game alone but when Demigod's human multiplayer was nonfunctional it unfortunately went to the same place all bad games go.  
[/spoiler]

The only reason I brought up Demigod was the rant title above which said "WD amidts it's another Demigod" I argued, successfully I think, that that was an unfair and inaccurate comparison. Elementals problems are different. And the multiplayer was not "nonfunctional" as some people did always manage to have games, "semi-functional" might be more accurate. Now enough about it, please.

[Soln]

(edit - spoiling Demigod discussion)
Again, no.  Gas Powered Games developed Demigod so the game itself which you liked (I liked it too!) is credited to them.  Stardock was responsible for the broken multiplayer part.

As an aside, Demigod is a multiplayer game.  Just like Starcraft without a campaign, or LoL / DoTA / HoN.  Playing multiplayer matches against bots does not constitute a single player game.  Sure you can play the multiplayer game alone but when Demigod's human multiplayer was nonfunctional it unfortunately went to the same place all bad games go.  
[/spoiler]

The only reason I brought up Demigod was the rant title above which said "WD amidts it's another Demigod" I argued, successfully I think, that that was an unfair and inaccurate comparison. Elementals problems are different. And the multiplayer was not "nonfunctional" as some people did always manage to have games, "semi-functional" might be more accurate. Now enough about it, please.

Comparing it to Demigod is probably inaccurate since SD didn't develop it. 

[ffc]

Seriously Sir T you aren't making any sense.  You defend Demigod's multiplayer by blaming pirates, which was wrong.  Then you say Demigod's engine was good, which has nothing to do with Stardock.  Then you want to stop talking about Demigod but continue to do so after I spoiled the off-track discussion.

Stardock messed up Demigod's multiplayer.  Stardock messed up all of Elemental.  It's pretty simple.

[Sir T]

Comparing it to Demigod is probably inaccurate since SD didn't develop it.  

And you are the one that did it in the first place. I'm sorry your anti-stardock ranting lead you to a bad place.

[ffc]

In addition to Brad's comments from 1:18 - 1:45 about Elemental's overwhelming brownness, this gameplay video from 1:30 - the end gives an interesting glimpse into what may have been Elemental's beta process regarding bugs leading up to release.

[jakonovski]

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/65443

Looks like Wardell started fixing things by laying off some coders.

[Maledict]

It's aparently their other game team. Elemental was suppossed to provide the revenue for Stardock to support two full time games teams, and obviously after this disaster that revenue simply isn't there anymore. Not sure exactly what the other game was going to be though.

[sinij]

Frogboy's response to:

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/65443

It is true.

Elemental's revenue was anticipated to provide the revenue both for our main games team's next project as well as a second team. Unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen so we've had to start laying people off.

No one is being fired. None of these people did anything wrong. Stardock is a small company and each person here is truly amongst the best and brightest.  So you can imagine how much it sucks for all of us to lay off anyone. We haven't had to lay anyone off since our migration from the OS/2 market in 1998. It would be great if we can bring as many of these people back over time if the studio can afford it.

No one involved on the core components of Elemental is affected.

Elemental's rocky launch can be summed up (IMO) as follows: Our QA process was insufficient to handle a brand new platform (Elemental = Kumquat 1.0 versus say Galactic Civilizations II was using Pear which was the same engine, modified, from 1997's Entrepreneur) + my own catastrophic poor judgment in not objectively evaluating the core game play components.

[sinij]

The reason I lept to thinking the beta process was flawed was because, having been in numerous beta's, one flaw I have seen on multiple occasions is that a large group of fanboys will quash any criticism of the game. That clearly wasn't the case here.

I too participated in beta and liked core gameplay; but universal flaws, such as stability, squad combat, resource and city management, interface, bland magic combat were all reported to death. To death.

[Stormwaltz]

I wonder how many of the layoffs were the aforementioned liberals. ¬_¬

[rattran]

Umm, does anyone else think he's going a bit overboard in the self-crucification? I feel bad even watching this trainwreck, and it's certainly making me less likely to pick up the game in 6 months.

[Sir T]

Umm, does anyone else think he's going a bit overboard in the self-crucification?

Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking too. He's really going over the top with it, and he would be better served putting a sock in it at this stage.

Latest patch really improved performance for me, btw. It really does seem like a month of giving beta testers the full game, and listening to them, would have really improved things a whole lot.

[Lantyssa]

I wonder how many of the layoffs were the aforementioned liberals. ¬_¬

I'm sure none of them.  No one plays politics when eliminating positions.  That would be unethical.

No, I'm not bitter...

[Modern Angel]

Umm, does anyone else think he's going a bit overboard in the self-crucification? I feel bad even watching this trainwreck, and it's certainly making me less likely to pick up the game in 6 months.

Thanks, yes. That's what I was saying before discussion turned to how rad it is that a guy is being self-reflective. He's really not. He's being self-pitying and flagellating himself for not seeing what a dog the game was prior to release.

[Ghambit]

I wish he'd stfu and perhaps pay his coders with his own money instead of laying them off due to his own personal fuckups.

[jakonovski]

I wish someone made a Hitler clip of Elemental's launch.

[Demonix]

This whole situation is such a shame;  Here we've been, BEGGING for a re-imagining of MoM, and this is the best the industry can do?  Even worse is the fact this came from the guys behind GalCiv, which was such a tight 4x.

I was really looking forward to this game and now I'm worried it's just going to get forgotten in the holiday rush, festering in a pile of its own shit.

[JWIV]

I wish someone made a Hitler clip of Elemental's launch.

The damn distributor of the film got its panties in a bunch and bitched at Youtube about them a few months ago.

http://www.geekosystem.com/hitler-downfall-parody-youtube-takedown/

[Modern Angel]

Good. It stopped being funny after attempt three thousand.

[jth]

I preordered this almost an year ago for the beta, tried the beta every now and then but it wasn't really playable and I'm still waiting it to be finished enough to be playable, if ever. Anyway I almost forgot that the preorder included a boxed version and I guess they must have some extras since I got two of those in the mail today 

[Sir T]

I got my limited edition Boxed set today, as it happens. Its got some really nice stuff, a nice Cloth map, a REALLY nice dragon figurine and some books and a soundtrack CD. One of the better LE sets I've gotten, its fair to say.

[Wasted]

I got my limited edition Boxed set today, as it happens. Its got some really nice stuff, a nice Cloth map, a REALLY nice dragon figurine and some books and a soundtrack CD. One of the better LE sets I've gotten, its fair to say.

So everything is good except the game huh?

[Stormwaltz]

Cross-posting here and in the Civ4/FFH2 thread, because people will be interested.

Good Old Games is releasing all three Age of Wonders games.

[JWIV]

Cross-posting here and in the Civ4/FFH2 thread, because people will be interested.

Good Old Games is releasing all three Age of Wonders games.

They'll be on Steam and Impulse as well.  Course, I found my old disks and have been playing Shadow Magic again, but snagging it on Steam may be the right call if the price is right (I can't stand disk check).

[Tebonas]

GoG has no disc check and no running client needed.

If I have the option, I always go GoG. The really seem to care with their games (presentation, available goodies), thats something I like to support.

[Pezzle]

And GoG has MOM for 6 bucks!  16 year old games   

[JWIV]

This just got a bit interesting -

http://www.stardock.com/about/newsitem.asp?id=2056

PLYMOUTH, MICHIGAN - October 12, 2010 - Stardock Entertainment, developer and publisher of award-winning PC games, announced today that Derek Paxton has joined the studio as senior producer and will oversee Stardock's ongoing development and expansions of the recently released fantasy strategy game, Elemental: War of Magic (www.elementalgame.com).

Paxton is the creator and lead designer of the Fall from Heaven series of fantasy strategy games. Prior to joining Stardock, he was an external consultant for Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword and contributed to several of Firaxis's games including the recent Civilization V.

[Tebonas]

He is "immersing himself in the world of Elemental" right now. The state the lore is in right now, we are lucky if he isn't suicidal after that.

Jokes aside, that might be a good thing for Elemental, but it likely kills Fall From Heaven 3 for Civ5. Don't know if thats a fair trade.

[Paelos]

He is "immersing himself in the world of Elemental" right now. The state the lore is in right now, we are lucky if he isn't suicidal after that.

Jokes aside, that might be a good thing for Elemental, but it likely kills Fall From Heaven 3 for Civ5. Don't know if thats a fair trade.

God help us when Sky finds out. He might slit his wrists.