Topic: Elemental: War of Magic (new game from Stardock!)

[MysterD]

Wardell on Day 0 Release.

[MysterD]

Wardell responds to some comments on Elemental's forums about...
PCG's reaction to Elemental "being broken";
RockPaperShotgun's recent article;
and also to some things he said on Quarter To Three Forums.

[idolminds]

Tom Chick isn't happy about that whole mess.

[MysterD]

Tom Chick isn't happy about that whole mess.

Wow - what a shit-storm this is turning into! 

Seriously, though - if the distributor presses the game into print and that's reported as "Gold" and what you get in the retail store, whatever's on disc is what can be reviewed. That's just my 2 cents.

If there's a newer patch out that they got their hands on - then it's up to the reviewer if they want to review that instead.

*shrug*

EDIT:
GiantBomb is picking up on the madness.

Looks like this whole ordeal w/ Elemental is gonna spread like wildfire.

[sirean_syan]

Mistakes or not, this can't bode well for future developers wanting to go with Stardock for publishing. I imagine Gabe Newell treated himself to an extra bucket of fried chicken tonight in celebration.

[MysterD]

Mistakes or not, this can't bode well for future developers wanting to go with Stardock for publishing.

That's two big games in a row published by Stardock w/ a rocky launch - Demigod and now this Elemental.

I imagine Gabe Newell treated himself to an extra bucket of fried chicken tonight in celebration.

ONLY  one extra bucket? 

[idolminds]

Yeah, it sucks for Stardock...and well, everyone. I guess for Stardock they better get this stuff patched up in time for releasing the demo. If they can do that it might save the day, otherwise this will be another game that gets trashed at launch and then fixed up well later on that few people pay attention to.

From what Im reading of peoples impressions, the game is good once you get past some of the bugs (which I think a lot of them are being blown way out of proportion). Reminds me of Borderlands PC: Good game if you get past some of the borked shit. And even Borderlands still has a lot of those things in place (like, oh, that fucking UI), where Im fairly certain Stardock will fix the issues in Elemental.

[idolminds]

---------------------------------------------------------
----------- Elemental v1.06 Change Log  ------------
---------------------------------------------------------

**********************
* Gameplay / Balance *

+ Cost of weapons increased in terms of gold and materials
+ Monster leveling tops out earlier so that there aren’t crazy powerful monsters late game
+ Training time increased for the more sophisticated weapons
+ AI will focus more on training soldiers rather than building up their cities if under threat
+ General AI improvements
+ AI smarter about training units in cities based on their current resource situation
+ AI more effective at determining who to go to war with
+ By default, the AI opponents added in the Choose Opponents window get difficulty set based on the World Difficulty
+ Campaign: Markinn now gives tactical HASTE spell instead of strategic SUMMON ROCK GIANT spell
+ Campaign: city leveup bonuses for TECH KNOWLEDGE and ARCANE KNOWLEDGE now suppressed in campaign
+ AI sov's are now using an HP adjustment multiplier based on AI difficulty settings

***********
* Battles *
+ Hooked up the projectile follow camera code to obey the Auto-Move Camera in Tactical option.
+ Adding message boxes to explain why spell casting fails.
+ Fix to repick targets in autoresolve when a counterattack kills the attacker.
+ Fix to make targeting picking more intelligent (to be sure it doesn't pick invalid targets).
+ Auto selection of the next unit in tactical battles should no longer occur if the game option for not auto selecting is turned on.
+ Tactical action cost modifiers for everything except for movement (which can have buffs) should now be 1.
+ The tactical action cost of special abilities is now 2.
+ All tactical actions use up to their cost, except for spells which require at least 2 action points.
+ When a tactical battle closes it now sets the cursor to be an arrow.

******
* UI *
+ Fixed Map Notifiers only placed for resources your faction can eventually tap (ex. won’t tell kingdoms about wargs)
+ Trade Equipment Wnd tweaks so that summoned creatures show up in the scene views better.
+ Hooked up new entries for the actions list, vitals list, and other basic image entries in main game wnd contexts to act more like buttons (highlight and have a click down state) to indicate that they are clickable

*************
* Bug Fixes *

+ Fixed the infamous "white screen" in tactical battles that occurred on a very specific hardware/driver/OS configuration.

+ Fixed a problem that would cause the particle effects to disappear after alt-tabbing out of the game when running in full-screen.
+ Fixed a DirectX warning in Tile Highlight Graphic
+ fixed uninitalized UNIT pointer in AIMessageBox (caused a debugger crash, probably fixes random crashes users have witnessed)
+ Fixed bug where linked pioneer improvements were getting the multiplier bonuses from their linked cities twice
+ Changed around the values grabbed for some resource breakdowns so that they match getting rid of this double bonus
+ You can no longer build pioneer improvements on resources outside of your ZOC, even if they are adjacent to a city, to prevent them from getting destroyed if they can't get absorbed in time
+ Adjacent pioneer improvements to cities now get absorbed into the city the very next turn, instead of 2 turns after they became adjacent
+ Fixed bug where custom empire factions designed in the faction designer wouldn't have a valid tech tree
+ Custom factions now get the appropriate wall set, and change their name to "Kingdom of" or "Empire of" appropriately
+ Fixed a bug in the faction designer that caused the race spinner to not match the actual race being displayed
+ Shortened the text in the caravan info cards to make it less likely that text entries will overflow to the next line down, and got rid of some old text that doesn't mean anything to how caravans work anymore, and got rid of some hardcoded strings, and moved the hardcoded quote to the different caravan/trader unit types
+ CMapGenerator no longer generates race starting position for tactical battles, since they aren’t used in that mode and were causing debug messages to flood output as the random land tile buffer isn’t getting filled after the first tactical battle map is created.
+ Campaign: Fixed oddity where reloading a save would reblock the pass between New pariden and Gilden.

NOTE: This version is not totally compatible with Saved games from previous versions. YMMV.

Its great that they are so keen on updating the game, and its apparently making big improvements in just a few short days. However, it seems like ideally they should have had a period during the beta test where the game is "final" and playable and have the testers play it for a week or two to catch all these rough spots. THEN go gold. I don't think the beta testers were ever allowed to do anything like that.

[idolminds]

Tom Chick reviews the game.

[MysterD]

OFF-TOPIC:

From what Im reading of peoples impressions, the game is good once you get past some of the bugs (which I think a lot of them are being blown way out of proportion). Reminds me of Borderlands PC: Good game if you get past some of the borked shit. And even Borderlands still has a lot of those things in place (like, oh, that fucking UI), where Im fairly certain Stardock will fix the issues in Elemental.

Have their been any Borderlands UI mods for the PC version? It surely could use an update and some improvements. It's like one of the only weaknesses in the game.


ON-TOPIC:

Its great that they are so keen on updating the game, and its apparently making big improvements in just a few short days. However, it seems like ideally they should have had a period during the beta test where the game is "final" and playable and have the testers play it for a week or two to catch all these rough spots. THEN go gold. I don't think the beta testers were ever allowed to do anything like that.

Let's hope Stardock can keep patching the hell out of this one - since it sounds like it's much more stable than what it was out-the-box. Down the line, I'd like to give it a whirl.

Though, yeah - I still wonder why they shipped Beta 4 on disc, if they didn't want people playing it - especially since the game had NO DRM. We all know Day 0 Version was the first version they wanted in people's hands - so, why didn't Stardock wait and just press that version on disc?

[idolminds]

1UP review

Linking this one because its funny. The reviewer is terrible.

The sheer variety of structures and units (including the ability to design completely new units with a construction interface) is awesome, but it sure would be nice to get an alert message when those structures (or units) are done being built so your cities aren't sitting idle until you happen to check on them.

In the last screenshot of the review you can see icons running down the right side. Those are the event alerts including, oh hey, when structures and units are done.

Combat, for example, can be either auto-resolved, or fought mano-a-mano via a tactical interface. But how to control units in that tactical interface is left completely up to you to figure out, as are things like what special abilities enemies may have, how to cast spells using your heroes, and even how to retreat. If you want to put in the trial-and-error effort to figure this all out, God bless ya, but I just auto-resolved every battle -- I've got enough things in my life to make sense of without having to try to learn to play Elemental.

Left click unit, right click to move. This was too hard for him to figure out. But "I've got enough things in my life to make sense of without having to try to learn to play Elemental"...aren't you a game reviewer? Isn't that your fucking job?

Well, the A.I. problems are fixed to some degree by the robust multiplayer (if you can find friends willing to slog through the ugliest visuals since finger-painting class)

The finger painting crack is just retarded, but this quote proves be basically didn't play the game. There was no multiplayer in the beta, and the multiplayer servers won't be online until next week. So...how the fuck can he make that statement?

[MysterD]

WTF @ 1up's review...

[idolminds]

A note from Brad

Greetings!

I'm pretty far from a good net connection so I'll keep this brief 

Let me say that I'm glad that most people seem to like the game.  This message, however, is for those who are disappointed with Elemental so far.

Stardock is not just a game studio but it is also a publisher.  What does this mean?  Well, historically, the way it works is a game is released and if people don't like it, they're supposed to buy some expansion pack for it that "fixes" things that people thought should be in the original version.

We don't have to do that because we're both the studio and the publisher.

That means we can release free "expansion packs" for Elemental until such a high percentage of players love the game that only then can we discuss sequels or paid expansions.

Having had the opportunity to finally get out of the office for the first time in months has let me look at the game (and ahem, play the game for crazy amounts) of time from a new perspective.

I should also say that regardless of sales or reviews, our commitment to Elemental will not be affected. As some of you know, most of our company's revenue doesn't come from developing games. Even if the game didn't sell another copy, we would still continue our update schedule.

So what will be the concrete results of this?

1. In September we will release v1.1 which will be the first major revision to the game that takes into account the feedback we're getting from players. This will be a  pretty substantial change. In particular, character creation, magic (think, shared mana pools),

2. We are going to go ahead and make a more traditional tutorial. I'm not a fan of tutorials but some of my grognard friends have had trouble figuring out the mechanics which means to me that we have to do something about that.

3. We are going to move Book 2: Magesa out of a future expansion pack and into the base game in a future "mega" update, likely late Fall.

4. As mentioned on the forums back in July-ish, we plan to make a new DVD gold master available to those with limited Internet connections later this Fall.

5. As discussed (I think) last Winter, I will be taking a sabbatical this Fall specifically so I can dedicate time to AI and modding so that others, long after me, can use the Elemental engine to create other things (you will need to know Python to really go crazy with it).

6. I will NOT be ceasing my postings on other forums.  The guys on Qt3 and Octopus Overlords and elsewhere are my friends. I'm no more going to stop posting there then I would stop going out with my friends to movies and other "public places" where, heaven forbid, someone datamining my comments might find a "gotcha moment". Those people are my friends both on the forums and outside the forums. Interacting with you guys is a major reason I like making games in the first place.

7. To those reviewing the game: I would urge you to review the game prior to v1.1. I say this because v1.05 (the release day version) is the version of the game that was originally released and if that version of the game is considered flawed then my view is that Stardock should suffer the consequences for that. We appreciate the kindness and patience many people have shown.  I just think game studios, including Stardock, need to be conscious of what they release and not expect to "patch themselves out of trouble". I do believe Elemental is, by far, the best game we've ever made but I also agree with most of the criticisms I've read too. The state of PC entertainment has changed since 2006 (when we released GalCiv II) and it is our responsibility to stay with the times.

In short, we love this game. And we love this community.  We're not going to be leaving this game to work on some other game.  We're with it and you guys for the long haul.

I won't be around to answer questions until next week so I hope this answers some questions.

[Quemaqua]

Good note.  As much crap as seems to be surrounding this one, I'm still really looking forward to playing it.  I did have fun with my limited time in the beta, and I know for a fact things have improved quite a lot beyond what I played.  So whatever the problems, I have no doubt there's a solid game there.

[idolminds]

Looks like the reviewer at Neoseeker liked it quite a bit.

[MysterD]

G4TV -> 2 stars (out of 5).

IGN -> Why they have not reviewed Elemental yet.

[idolminds]

You know, its kind of weird how several sites have decided to hold off on reviewing the game until its patched up. Most other games they would just throw up a review of "This shits broke. Final score: 1/10" and be done with it. Does stardock have that much good will saved up with these places? Is it partly because its not one of the big genres that everyone is going after (Turn based strategy games aren't going to be flying off shelves, except Civ) so there is no rush?

[MysterD]

You know, its kind of weird how several sites have decided to hold off on reviewing the game until its patched up. Most other games they would just throw up a review of "This shits broke. Final score: 1/10" and be done with it. Does stardock have that much good will saved up with these places? Is it partly because its not one of the big genres that everyone is going after (Turn based strategy games aren't going to be flying off shelves, except Civ) so there is no rush?

I don't know what it is, Idol. But in the past, yeah - most reviewers would go ahead and review whatever version is out there and NOT hold off.

Maybe they feel sorry for Stardock b/c this is two games in a row they published that should've been in a better state out the box? (Demigod and now Elemental).

I think some reviews ain't up b/c the MP isn't up yet, too...

[MysterD]

PC Gamer -> 70%.

[idolminds]

I can't tell if this is worrying or encouraging...

(I'm up north on vacation typing on an extremely slow connection so bear with me)

I don't think people yet fully realize the completeness of Stardock's fail on Elementa's launch.

I'm going to write more about this but not only did we think v1.05 was ready for everyone but we felt v1.0 was too. That's the level of disconnect/poor judgment on our part we're talking about.

If the game had come out in February, it would still have been a disastrous launch because lack of time wasn't the issue. It was blindness, sheer blindness.  We felt the game was finished. And I speak of v1.0, not v1.05.  Blindness.

There will be massive consequences for Stardock's game studio.  I'll be talking more about this when I get back. But the game wasn't released early. The game was released poorly. Head in the sand syndrome imo.  I've read the reviews as much as possible given my hideous internet access up here and I agree with them. We just didn't see what they were talking about. We thought any complaints would be about polish points or something.

The point is, the issue here is far far worse than many of you think it is. I wish it was an issue of the game being released too early. That's an easy thing for a company to "fix".  Elemental's launch is the result of catastrophic poor judgment on my part.

EVERY competent software developer knows that the programmer must never be the one deciding whether the program is done. Yet, my love of Elemental broke my self discipline and I began coding on the game itself in vast amounts and lost any sense of objectivity on where the game's state was. I normally only program the AI on our games so I can keep a level of distance from the game itself to determine whether it's "Ready". On Elemental, I was in love with the world and the game and lost my impartiality.

We'll do better.

[MysterD]

Holy crap at that post, Idol.
I don't know what to make of that, either...

[idolminds]

Wait, theres more!

[MysterD]

Stardock will be working on Elemental for years to come. Literally. Let me be specific: Stardock will NOT release a new game next year. It'll all be Elemental related.  Releasing it in August wasn't a financial decision. Hell, Stardock's games aren't funded by PC game revenue. I wanted you guys to get the game ASAP.

Does he mean a patches for Elemental? Expansion packs/DLC's? Or both?

[idolminds]

Patches. There is no way they will try release expansions until the base game is solid.

[MysterD]

Patches. There is no way they will try release expansions until the base game is solid.

Since Stardock does plan to sent updated disc-version to owners - we don't know if it'll cost money and if it does, how much - I wonder if they'll also re-release the game in a more patched-up state sometime down the line, on disc.

Hell, many companies are re-releasing games later on disc w/  Gold Editions, GOTY Editions, Ultimate Edition, etc etc - why not have Elemental do the same?

[idolminds]

They probably will do that once everything is worked out.

More Brad

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.

Yikes.

Further down that thread:

I think, for starters, the first expansion pack for Elemental - Book 2, will have to be given away for free to the people who already bought the game.

In my mind, that's a START. So, anyone who sticks with is going to get at least one free expansion pack out of it. And it won't be some piddly "look, it's a new campaign". Think Dark Avatar level expansion.

[MysterD]

Sounds like giving away an Expansion Pack is a nice way to thank early adopters of Elemental for buying Beta-in-a-box.

But, knowing there is a Book 2 expansion coming, I can only wonder when next year the inevitable Elemental: Gold Edition is coming.

Good luck to Stardock w/ trying to fix this game AND expand on it already...

[idolminds]

Brads back from vacation

Heads rolling at Stardock?

[idolminds]

Layoffs are the real deal.

Wow, this has turned out horribly.

[MysterD]

Layoffs are the real deal.

Wow, this has turned out horribly.

Oh, that majorly sucks.

[idolminds]

In that same thread.

Elemental's success doesn't impact whether Stardock will be doing new games or expansions to Elemental. It does, however, impact whether Stardock can afford to have a second games team. Our objective was to be able to develop two games at once. That goal will have to be postponed.

So it sounds like the people they brought in to start a second game development team are being let go. That sucks, but at least the sky isn't falling.

[MysterD]

GameSpot -> 4.0 score (out of 10).
Kevin Van Ord is reviewing and blasts the game.

[idolminds]

Big post from Brad

Q: What is Stardock’s plan for Elemental going forward?

A: For the immediate future we’re going to go down two paths. First, the v1.0x versions will continue to focus largely on compatibility (crashing or weird video issues) as well as bugs and turning on multiplayer.

Then, we will work on v1.1 which will serve as our answer to player feedback. Enhanced AI, improved UI, a tutorial, updated quest system, new magic system, numerous other tweaks. This version will serve as the basis to make a demo version of the game.

Beyond that, we will be looking at player feedback. That will work towards v1.2 (October) and v1.3 (November). Once we are satisfied that the game has met reasonable expectations, we can then focus on the first expansion pack: Elemental: War of Magic – Book 2, Cerena.

Unlike Book 1, which is fairly short because it’s only meant as a kind of introduction (the game is mean to be played in sandbox mode. GalCiv and Sins of a Solar Empire didn’t even include campaigns, we are generally not very pro-campaign-y people as you can gather, campaigns have limited replayability).

Book 2, Cerena is the excuse to introduce more far reaching game mechanic changes and begin to add in the multiplayer modes we have long been thinking of (from custom servers that yes, will work on your LAN that has no Internet connection) to tactical-only modes.

That first expansion pack will be free to everyone who owns the game at the point of v1.3.

Q: I heard Stardock is laying off people, I thought your non-games revenue funded the games team.

A: It does. It funds ONE games team. But Stardock has been hiring up across the board to build a second studio. Only Elemental can fund that.  “Stardock” is made up of 3 groups: Enterprise software (our #1 revenue source), Consumer software (Object Desktop, Fences, etc.) and Consumer Entertainment (the games). That’s not counting Impulse which is a separate, profitable entity that doesn’t get affected one way or the other by the success of the games or the enterprise software.

[idolminds]

This should be interesting to listen to: Brad Wardell on the Three Moves Ahead podcast.

[MysterD]

IGN -> 6.0 score (out of 10).

[idolminds]

More stuff

Just posting this for the people that might have already bought the game and didnt install/register it yet. You will want to do that before Sept 30th.

What I'd like to see happen is for Elemental: War of Magic to continue to be refined with its existing game mechanics largely intact other than the change to the mana system and UI update scheduled for v1.1.

Beyond that, the evolution of the Elemental TBS would be delivered via expansions, sequels, etc. like every other traditional game. This way, we can introduce pretty substantial gameplay changes without people feeling like the War of Magic version is some sort of test tube of game design experimentation.

For brevity, call these A, B, C where A is Elemental: War of Magic and B and C are some sort of future expansions.  B would be free to everyone and C would be free to those who own the game by September 30th.

Free expansions! And hes comparing them to the GalCiv expansions so they will probably be rather...big.

[idolminds]

Wow, this is kind of a big deal.

Stardock Taps Fall from Heaven Creator to Lead Game Development Efforts

Fall From Heaven 2 is probably the most popular mod for Civ 4, and it turned it into a fantasy game. Seems like a perfect fit to help fix Elemental.

[MysterD]

Best wishes to Stardock Corp and their new employee to fix the living Hell out of this game. I really hope they call pull this one off.

[MysterD]

Elemental Forums -> Frogboy's new post.

New Interface - pic:

You know how it goes.

Game company releases game.  They put out a series of bug fix patches for a bit and then they move on until it’s time to get you to buy an expansion pack or two until it’s time to do a sequel. If the initial game gets panned or negative reviews, it’s typically abandoned.

And people wonder why gamers have gotten so cynical.

As people in our community know, that’s not how we do things here.

Those of you who hang out here have seen us discussing the upcoming version 1.1 of Elemental: War of Magic.  This is a partial screenshot (right side of my screen) of some of the UI updates we’re doing.

For those of you who want to try v1.1 in beta, we plan to put out the first beta in about a week.

Until the end of THIS MONTH (October 31), anyone who purchase Elemental: War of Magic, will get the first two expansions for the game for free (as well as our normal long-term support for the game itself).

The purpose of this entry is to provide space for people who have questions on what we’re doing now versus in future updates. 

[idolminds]

1.1 open beta starts next Thursday (11/18/2010)

The post talks about some of the changes they've made. Sounds good.