Anyone else playing the Fallen Enchantress Beta? (Elemental: War of Magic followup)

[bentheman939]

Just wondering if anyone else is participating in the beta? I have been playing for several days now, and its coming along really well. Definitely shaping up to be what Elemental should have. There's still a long way to go, but its already much more playable and fun than WoM ever was.

 

[zinfamous]

I haven't played sine ~1.2. Hell, even then, I enjoyed that buggy mess.

I'll likely give it a go when this is released in full.

I tried to play 1.3 a bit after release, but so much with the economy and mechanics had changed, not to mention the AI was now kinda smart, I couldn't get very far.

 

[bentheman939]

Fallen Enchantress is an entirely different game. Its up to version 0.76, and its completely fun and playable. The AI is a little easy, and there are some tedious game mechanics and UI issues, but its MUCH better than WoM was. Give it a try if you get the chance

 

[zinfamous]

Fallen Enchantress is an entirely different game. Its up to version 0.76, and its completely fun and playable. The AI is a little easy, and there are some tedious game mechanics and UI issues, but its MUCH better than WoM was. Give it a try if you get the chance

it's a story/campaign mode, right? That's what Elemental was missing all along. the "first chapter" of the tutorial was pretty good, as incomplete as it was, and while they always said they would release more, i assume that has long been scrapped since they moved on to this, right?

 

[stevty2889]

it's a story/campaign mode, right? That's what Elemental was missing all along. the "first chapter" of the tutorial was pretty good, as incomplete as it was, and while they always said they would release more, i assume that has long been scrapped since they moved on to this, right?

It's more like a standalone expansion, it's still Elemental, but with some big changes. There will be a campaign for it, just like WoM, but so far in the beta just the randomly generated maps are released. They've made some big improvements. I like the level up system for champions a lot better, the quests and quest rewards are better. Overall it's a lot more fun.

My main pet peeve still hasn't be addressed though, as you still can't cross water, unless you choose Earth magic to raise land (ie Teraphorming spellbook in WoM).

 

[Chiropteran]

Just got the email.

Dear Stardock Customer,


If you're receiving this email it means you purchased Elemental: War of Magic before November 1, 2010.

Elemental: War of Magic was a game we had very high hopes for. Unfortunately, it was a disappointment both to us, as well as to many of our customers. Stardock's success in its nineteen years of existence has been because people know when they buy something with our name on it, it'll be excellent. With Elemental: War of Magic, we failed that expectation.

For the past year, Stardock has been working on something new -- Elemental: Fallen Enchantress. We went back to the drawing board to create not an expansion, but rather a new game in the Elemental universe.

Fallen Enchantress is currently in beta. The beta has already been added to your Stardock account and the final version will automatically be added free of charge on the day of release.

 

[Martimus]

I played it the day it was released, but the removal of the unit queue really just made the game not fun in the beginning stages and I stopped playing and haven't gone back. It is more like Civilization now, which upsets me. Stardock 4X's have always been superior to Firaxis 4X's when it came to gameplay mechanics, and this feels like a step backwards to me.

 

[cirrhosis]

Oh man, how i loathed Elemental: WoM. My first Stardock game was GalCiv1, so you can imagine my disappointment when I finally admitted that WoM was a horrible mess of a game. I can say that if it wasn't for the (free!) offer of Fallen Enchantress, I'd never purchase another Stardock game again. My verdict?

Oh, my gods.

This is actually fun! And more complete in a beta form that WoM was when that went gold.

There is lots of depth here, but also lots of room for improvement. This is the game I wanted back in '10. Paxton's involvment with FE has definitely been all for the better, I feel he is going to do amazing things with the final copy.

The OoM bugs still happen but it is to be expected at this stage. I can say though that this beta is far more stable than WoM ever was. I think thread optimization is still an issue but am confident it will be worked on.

As for beta stuff, I was intrigued to discover a giant fortress in a region, full of high leveled monsters. I worked my way over to invade it, killed everything after while, but found out I couldn't settle the area. It was a shame since the area had Twilight Bees, three shards, and a bunch of orge/darkling camps. Any ideas how I could have settled it? I was playing Yithril (Fallen) and didn't have any spell to make grain grow.

Really looking forward to playing again later this weekend.

 

[thespyder]

Oh man, how i loathed Elemental: WoM. My first Stardock game was GalCiv1, so you can imagine my disappointment when I finally admitted that WoM was a horrible mess of a game. I can say that if it wasn't for the (free!) offer of Fallen Enchantress, I'd never purchase another Stardock game again.

I have had a lot of good experiences with Stardock and so would not begrudge them a bad game. And admittedly Elemental was released WAY before it was ready. But to nix a production house that has produced games like GalCiv and Sins of a Solar Empire merely for one bad game is, in my opinion, a bit extreme. Be cautious of the next game? yes. Shut them off? why?

That's kind of like unversally condemning the Raven's kicker for missing that last field goal even though without him the Ravens wouldn't have gotten to the playoffs. In other words, just plain stupid.

 

[cirrhosis]

I have had a lot of good experiences with Stardock and so would not begrudge them a bad game. And admittedly Elemental was released WAY before it was ready. But to nix a production house that has produced games like GalCiv and Sins of a Solar Empire merely for one bad game is, in my opinion, a bit extreme. Be cautious of the next game? yes. Shut them off? why?

That's kind of like unversally condemning the Raven's kicker for missing that last field goal even though without him the Ravens wouldn't have gotten to the playoffs. In other words, just plain stupid.

Ironclad Games was principally behind Sins - SD produced and distributed it. Sins is a terrific game.

Reflecting on your quote of my post - I'll give you that my word choice was extreme - I was focused more on how I felt with such a shitty Elemental experience fresh in mind. It was sort of a rude awakening after thinking one of my favorite studios could do no wrong but then goes to do precisely that. That experience definitely made me reconsider future SD purchases.

Fortunately it's been a couple years and with FE in a good state, I'm willing to sweep the past under the rug.

 

[thespyder]

Reflecting on your quote of my post - I'll give you that my word choice was extreme - I was focused more on how I felt with such a shitty Elemental experience fresh in mind. It was sort of a rude awakening after thinking one of my favorite studios could do no wrong but then goes to do precisely that. That experience definitely made me reconsider future SD purchases.

Fortunately it's been a couple years and with FE in a good state, I'm willing to sweep the past under the rug.

I am there with you on that. Elemental was a huge let down. And coming from SD, totally unexpected. Even to the point where I am not going to pre-order stuff from them where in the past I might have. Shows what reputation can really do in the industry. And hopefully a lesson that they learned (sounds like they did) the hard way.

Anyway, hoping that FE is worth the time. Haven't played the demo, but I have hopes.

 

[Martimus]

I will admit that I preordered both Gal Civ 2 and Elemental, since I enjoyed GC1 so much it was the game I played more than any other until GC2 was released.

Elemental was very disappointing, and I could not see how Brad thought it was so close to release during the beta stage since it was so buggy and just plain unfinished at the time. I thought maybe he had a much more complete version than I did, but alas I was wrong. It is now pretty complete, and the gameplay mechanics are actually pretty good now, but it is still pretty uninteresting. I really like the mechanics of the original Elemental, but I wish they made it more interesting. Fallen Enchantress is the opposite for me. I don't really like the gameplay mechanics, but the world itself is far more interesting. I have to deal with gameplay mechanics I don't like to check out the interesting environments and characters, where as in the original (once patched many times) I have to deal with uninteresting environments and characters to use fun and interesting gameplay mechanics.

 

[Pens1566]

Just got email today. Looking forward to it after reading these impressions though.

 

[Ganeedi]

Hmmm, I didn't get the email about Fallen Enchantress yet. I'm going to have to double check at home when I actually purchased that PoS that was the original Elemental WoM.

 

[LintMan]

Just checked and I haven't gotten any email yet. I definitely purchased before the cutoff date because I was one of the pre-order beta testers.

I gotta say I'm having a hard time getting excited about FE. The end of the WoM beta was like watching a rain wreck in slow motion, helpless to prevent it. After that, the game was so non-fun for me that I never really went back to it after the disastrous release. Except the one time I went back in after a number of patches and saw some of the issues I had reported in the beta were still there.

I'm hoping FE is good and I'll check it out when it's done, but I'll pass on the beta.

 

[thespyder]

I haven't gotten the email yet either, yet I was a pre-order. However, in dealing with StarDock before, I am sure that if you alert them to the situation, they will rectify it immediately. Their Customer Service is among the best I have seen in the industry. the last issue I had, Frog_boy answered, so.....

 

[you2]

I received the email a few days ago (actually over a week ago) but havent' downloaded it yet.

 

[Cerb]

Can soft focus/bloom be turned off? It looked like it might be a neat game, until I got to the screenshots.

 

[Martimus]

After playing the game more today, I am starting to like it more. It does crash somewhat often though.

 

[Ganeedi]

I havent gotten the email yet so I logged into my Stardock account. It says i am eligible for FE free due to the purchase date of WoM - pre November. As maybe mentioned already, the FE release is beta, and they are slowly ramping up the invites, so it says i should expect an invite sometime soon.

To be honest, i'm not really interested in the beta. I'll wait for full release on this one.

 

[stevty2889]

As for beta stuff, I was intrigued to discover a giant fortress in a region, full of high leveled monsters. I worked my way over to invade it, killed everything after while, but found out I couldn't settle the area. It was a shame since the area had Twilight Bees, three shards, and a bunch of orge/darkling camps. Any ideas how I could have settled it? I was playing Yithril (Fallen) and didn't have any spell to make grain grow.

If you clear out the region, and beat the boss, you can settle it. The wild area's are definitely one of the additions I'm liking a lot. I actually had to force myself to stop playing and go to bed last night. There is still work to be done, balancing, bug fixes etc, but this is shaping up to be a lot more fun and enjoyable in beta, the WoM ever was. If they hold up on their end, and actually wait until it's finished this time, I think it will turn out good.