Elemental: War of Magic

[JEDI]

what was wrong w/Supreme Commander 2?

 

[Daverino]

While admitting you're wrong is nice, that still doesn't make up for the total failure of software engineering.

Really, in what other industry would a mea culpa like this fly? Consumer electronics? Automotive? Imagine if it was aerospace? No, the fact that the CEO could do any of the things he admitted just indicates that the company is broken. I don't care if his intentions were Swiss Pure, if the CEO has the ability to circumvent QA then the outfit is doomed to repeat these mistakes until the culture if fixed.

I posted way way way back at the beginning of this thread that people should take a wait and see approach to the title because of the shoddy QA on Demigod.

 

[paperfist]

I saw this game in the store last night and it looked pretty cool as a builder type of game. Went home and read some reviews and forum posts and found out that it was buggy, released way to earlier, but that they were working hard on patches.

I own Demigod... So can anyone tell me what the status of this game is now, is it playable and a worthy buy or is it headed down the same path as Demigod?

 

[Martimus]

I saw this game in the store last night and it looked pretty cool as a builder type of game. Went home and read some reviews and forum posts and found out that it was buggy, released way to earlier, but that they were working hard on patches.

I own Demigod... So can anyone tell me what the status of this game is now, is it playable and a worthy buy or is it headed down the same path as Demigod?

It is still very buggy. Is Demigod still buggy though? I thought it was pretty well fixed by now. (Although it wasn't developed by Stardock anyway, so it isn't the greatest comparison)

 

[tedrodai]

It's gonna take months to get this game straightened out, if they do it.

 

[Martimus]

It's gonna take months to get this game straightened out, if they do it.

I don't doubt that they will do it. They continued to update Galactic Civilization 1 for 8 years after it was released (no it wasn't that buggy, but they kept adding new features).

GC2 wasn't as polished as it should have been when it was released either (although not as bad as Elemental) but it would be hard to find a more polished game now. 3-4 years of updates seems to do that for a game.

Stardock will likely continue to update the game indefinitely, since that is what they have done to all of their previous big releases. They have stated that they will not release any games for another 18 months at least, and that all of their effort in that time will be to improve Elemental (not just to fix bugs, but to add features and improve gameplay.)

 

[BladeVenom]

While admitting you're wrong is nice, that still doesn't make up for the total failure of software engineering.

Really, in what other industry would a mea culpa like this fly? Consumer electronics? Automotive? Imagine if it was aerospace?

Buggy software is the norm in the software industry, sometimes it never gets fixed, and you usually don't even get an apology. Did Bill Gates ever apologize for Winodows ME, or Vista?

So at least he apologized, and based on Stardocks past, it will get fixed.

 

[paperfist]

It is still very buggy. Is Demigod still buggy though? I thought it was pretty well fixed by now. (Although it wasn't developed by Stardock anyway, so it isn't the greatest comparison)

I gave up on Demigod, trying to play online at the time was an act in futility and as you know online was the only way to play. I haven't played it again since the first 6 months of ownership.

I know they didn't develop it but as I recall they took over the game after release and were responsible for patches and updates. They made a lot of promises then, that patch x.x would fix the net code and it didn't. They seemed more concerned with nuking Erebus then fixing what mattered.

Great game, poor delivery.

 

[zinfamous]

http://forums.elementalgame.com/394855/get;2753375

He made another good comment later in the thread as well.

that guy sounds pretty awesome. kinda makes me want to pick up this game...when it's cheaper, of course. 😉

 

[zinfamous]

anyway, I have some random email from stardock saying that there is a new patch for this. Does it make it playable?

this is why I searched out the thread here.

also, stardock annoys me--I only have it b/c of cheap SoSE, but it likes to run at startup (I thought I had removed that) and it pops up with ads rather consistently on my desktop. annoying piece of software.

 

[Jadow]

I am REALLY intrigued by this game and it sounds fun, but I'll wait till about 10 patches come out, and let other suckers by it for $50. At $30, I may be interested, certainly not at $50.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Isn't this ultimately supposed to be super customizable like you could truly design your own world and cultures?

 

[Martimus]

anyway, I have some random email from stardock saying that there is a new patch for this. Does it make it playable?

this is why I searched out the thread here.

also, stardock annoys me--I only have it b/c of cheap SoSE, but it likes to run at startup (I thought I had removed that) and it pops up with ads rather consistently on my desktop. annoying piece of software.

I fired it up last night, and it seemed to run ok. It didn't crash on me, and things seemed to work as they are intended. I only played about 20 minutes though.

 

[tedrodai]

anyway, I have some random email from stardock saying that there is a new patch for this. Does it make it playable?

I took a quick look at the release notes (v1.09), and it looks like they're making progress. However, this game was so bad at launch that I'm not even going to bother firing it back up yet. The release notes say things like: "The starting side in a tactical battle is now chosen randomly. (...) This is a short term change. In the longer term, we are moving to an initiative system..." Also, the CEO posted below the notes that 1.1 will be a complete overhaul of the strategic AI system. They still need plenty of patches yet. It looks like they enabled mulitplayer though.

 

[paperfist]

I fired it up last night, and it seemed to run ok. It didn't crash on me, and things seemed to work as they are intended. I only played about 20 minutes though.

Let us know when you get to log in a few more hours please. Civ V isn't holding my attention and this game looked somewhat similar in nature.

 

[Malladine]

I am REALLY intrigued by this game and it sounds fun, but I'll wait till about 10 patches come out, and let other suckers by it for $50. At $30, I may be interested, certainly not at $50.

dude whatever your avatar is it looks nasty.

 

[zinfamous]

well, I went ahead and picked this up last night, as various tutorials and comments had me rather intrigued.

After ~5 hours....I think this game is rather fantastic. There are certainly some clunky issues--I can't keep an army selected as one unit? --when it goes into town, i then have to re-select individual units to keep them grouped, and selecting single units when exploring (to equip or trade) will remove them if you choose to move on your next command.

scrolling isn't very responsive on the map, and the idle units don't seem to have a working guard/fortify function if they are out on the map.

Anyway, it's a gorgeous game. You can tell a shit-ton of effort has gone into it. I'm only working on the campaign right now, which is a rather unique story-driven version of Civ (with magic of course...), so a lot of the functions are disabled due to story based advancement.

I particularly like how you can design individual units and save them--much like ships in in space 4x4 game. I haven't seen this feature in a build/strategy game like this before. Pretty cool.

version is currently 1.09e, and I've yet to have a crash (Phenom II 965be, Gigabyte 790 (on-board audio), 2x2gb DDR3, 5850). The major update coming up is 1.1, and supposedly lots of mechanics with battle and such will be changed, balancing of units, perhaps.

Anyway, I'm currently quite happy with this. Haven't enjoyed a game this much in quite some time, I must say.

The demo of Civ 5 has bored me to tears, twice. This, as non-functional as it is reported to be, is an excellent alternative. Of course, I have no comparison to how it was at release, nor can I compare Civ 5 to the demo (is production in the full game as slow as it is in the demo? I've heard the complaints...but never imagined that it would be as bad as the demo...).

Anyway, this is making it much easier to wait until X-Mas or later for 1/2 off Civ5 with plenty of extra content/patching.
😀

 

[paperfist]

Anyway, this is making it much easier to wait until X-Mas or later for 1/2 off Civ5 with plenty of extra content/patching.
😀

Civ V is going to require a lot more content and patching then we'll see in a year to make it anything like Civ IV as far as playability and features go 🙁

Since you played the Civ V demo how does Elemental compare to it? Or if you've played Civ IV how does it compare to that? Thanks!

 

[cirrhosis]

So Stardock just hired Kael from FFH as senior producer for Elemental and to oversee future expansions. After the major disappointment of post-launch support, this is looking good. I'm pretty excited to see what's in the next few patches.

 

[Martimus]

So Stardock just hired Kael from FFH as senior producer for Elemental and to oversee future expansions. After the major disappointment of post-launch support, this is looking good. I'm pretty excited to see what's in the next few patches.

What is FFH? I would like to know who this character is.

As for how this game is like Civ 4: I like it better than Civ 4. I prefer more sandbox, and Stardock gives it in this game in comparison to Civ 4. It is very similar to GC2, in that you can specialize each city (planet in GC2), and each unit (ship in GC2). The quests and some of the diplomacy options are new though, and the AI isn't up the GC2 standards yet either.

 

[paperfist]

What is FFH? I would like to know who this character is.

As for how this game is like Civ 4: I like it better than Civ 4. I prefer more sandbox, and Stardock gives it in this game in comparison to Civ 4. It is very similar to GC2, in that you can specialize each city (planet in GC2), and each unit (ship in GC2). The quests and some of the diplomacy options are new though, and the AI isn't up the GC2 standards yet either.

You like it better then Civ IV and not V?

Fall From Heaven which is one of the most popular mods for Civ IV

http://kael.civfanatics.net/

Kael was also working on a stand alone FFH game, but he said funding was an issue. He actually offered to help out with Elemental from the beginning http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=297964 but was turned down.

It's pretty interesting (I don't know their backgrounds) on how these modders are joining major game studios.

 

[zinfamous]

Civ V is going to require a lot more content and patching then we'll see in a year to make it anything like Civ IV as far as playability and features go 🙁

Since you played the Civ V demo how does Elemental compare to it? Or if you've played Civ IV how does it compare to that? Thanks!

I looove Civ, and very much prefer Civ IV (though I haven't spent much worthwhile time with BtS as others have).

I've played Elemental for what...4 days now? I'm enjoying it more, primarily due to the small RPG aspects in terms of leveling and equipping your heroes. Though, I wish we could equip regular soldiers as they go along. Maybe that's possible? It isn't in the campaign, anyway.

I've started a normal game, and am only in the very early stages. Not everything is completely intuitive--selecting research area, factor within that area when it becomes available, and some of the controls are still clunky, but I totally dig it.

The various factions do need more individual personality, though.

 

[Martimus]

You like it better then Civ IV and not V?

Fall From Heaven which is one of the most popular mods for Civ IV

http://kael.civfanatics.net/

Kael was also working on a stand alone FFH game, but he said funding was an issue. He actually offered to help out with Elemental from the beginning http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=297964 but was turned down.

It's pretty interesting (I don't know their backgrounds) on how these modders are joining major game studios.

I haven't played Civ 5, so I can't compare the two. I do like Elemental better than Civ 4, but I just like the style better.

I prefer the far superior AI, and the lack of AI "cheating" (where it can do things you can't to make up for the poor AI) that GC2 and Elemental have.

I also like that you can customize your strategy on a much lower level than Civ. While I have played a lot of Civ 4 (with all the expansions) and had a lot of fun with them, you can build everything in every town and there is only one of each improvement. Plus you have set units you can build, and a single tech advancement completely changes everything about your civilization. In GC2, (and now elemental, but I haven't played as much Elemental) if you need more production in a location, you can literally build more factories at the expense of other buildings. (Elemental is similar, although not quite the same 🙁 ) You also research specific military improvements where you design your own units using the components that you researched, which gives you very customized units. The AI actually makes good use of these, and gives you a good game. I prefer this play style to the Civ playstyle, but I like playing Civ for the more mindless one-more-turn fun. It is more relaxing due to the simplicity of it.

EDIT: I am making the assumption that the AI will get better to the point where it is pretty good, like it has on previous Stardock games. At the moment it doesn't seem that good yet. The GC2 AI is pretty good now, and they continue to update it to add new tactics years after release. I just wish that initial release was as good as how their final product games are. At the same time, they never really have a final product, as the GC1 game literally had multiple patches 7 years after release giving the AI better tactics, and smoothing edges.

I did crash playing the game today. So it isn't quite stable, although it may be for others. One enemy will make my system crash whenever I fight him. I might have to autoresolve to avoid this.

 

[zinfamous]

I should also mention that as of now, the tactical battles really are quite repetitive, and somewhat stupid. The AI is attrocious--the enemy will just march down your line as you pound it with magic and archers.

Though, I suppose some of that is compensated by the fact that my archers only seem to hit ~15% of the time. Though i think that's a specific unit type, so could be high agility/dexterity---whatever that is for this game. Now, if that is the case, then kudos to elemental for adding that type of component.

I never got that very specific unit vs unit matchup advantage/disadvantage in the Civ games.

 

[zinfamous]

OK, so I've spent a bit more time with the primary game.

First thing, the AI is really, really bad in the current version. I think I'm on normal difficulty, but the Computer kingdoms are atrocious. One guy demands 20 gildar from me or he attacks (chump change, and still quite early). I say no, he declares war. i proceed to take my piddly little army (unequiped, barely-leveled sovereign, weak starter hero, a few units), and proceed to occupy 3/5 of his towns in 3 moves, then after a bit of leveling and more summon spells, wipe him off the map. Then another rival faction declares war on an ally, I ignore it. Then threatens me for even less, declares war, and manages to wipe out my ally. So, I just started the process of wiping out his armies and heroes.

It seems I'm no a small map--most kingdoms are grouped really close, and I feel like I'm barely to the mid-game and already 4/7 factions appear to have been wiped out. So, there definitely needs to be more balancing here, to allow you to actually develop much further in the game.

Heroes need to level better--experience for other tasks (finding loot pots or something), or just a general 1 pt experience per turn, more for battles and such, and need to get a pool of HP/MP for each level. They can be overpowered early on, then it appears they become quite useless later--either no HP and overpowered attack, or worthless attack/defense with a big pool of HP.

It seems the developers are planning to implement some of these with the imminent 1.1 update, so that sounds awesome. Also a general mana pool. As it stands, you just need to summon a few critters and send them off to do all your fighting. They can take on most anything early game. Research and spell learning also seems to be waaaaay too fast. As awesome as many of the mechanics in this game are, it really doesn't have the epic feel that the Civ games do.

that being said, I'm still having a shit-ton of fun with this game. The art style was at first too cartoony for me, but I really dig it now. I wish there were more cell-shaded style games (really enjoyed those X-Men games for PS2).


Also, what needs to be said, for those waiting for the big update or drop in price before purchasing--the developers are giving away the first major expansion to current owners. This one should be designed by that Kael guy. So you may want to jump soon if that is appealing to you. Still probably several months down the line, but possibly well worth the 50 bucks once the balancing issues are fixed and if that really does add the content that people seem to expect.

Other updates include an expanded campaign (the story mode, currently only one book). I believe they have several more books planned for the future, not sure if they will be DLC or like the expansion, some portion will be made available free to the "beta testers" 😀 (they did seem to imply this)

I didn't jump on this for the bugs and serious issues, but it looks like I'll be able to take advantage of all those benefits when they become available.

Also, 64bit version will be available at some point (will free for anyone who downloads any current version.) This supposedly allows massive hugenormous maps with shit-tons of units. (utilizing more than 2GB of Memory)