While Elemental comes with two races -- Men and Fallen, each of these races are split into 6 factions each (12 total). Each of these factions has its own technology tree and own spell book to make each faction play very very differently.
The thing to remember here, these are groups that have been split off from each other for a long time now and they have evolved in very different directions.
I said before that I've been elf-obssessed as an in-person RPG player. What I think we're still missing here is enough info on how the built-in, single-player stuff (the Elemental 'canon') will relate to both the planned content-sharing features and the multiplayer stuff. Will people who want to use Elrond as a model for their channeler be pushed towards single-player mods or persistant multiplayer games? Or is that an entirely misguided question?
Mmmmm...
nope you said "You cannot have a fantasy game without Elves" and i asked why.
Almost all fantasy strategy games out there have the "classic" races (Heroes of M&M,Kings Bounty,Age of Wonders,Disciples...) and only Dominion stayed away from that Tolkinesque aproach,so am a bit bored always having same races again and again, so I would prefer something new,different and if possible,unique.
Not trying to take anything away from Stardock here, but there are, in my opinion, ways to avoid stereotypes in fantasy games besides chopping out the stereotypical parts (in this case the standard fantasy races) entirely. Why not include unconventional interpretations of classical fantasy races, or create entirely new races? I mean Medieval/ancient humans have got to be the most stereotypical race in fantasy, almost every fantasy has them, even those that do not have elves, dwarves, undead and the like. Besides I deal with humans all day, every day, if I wanted to play a game that only has humans I'd pick up a historical RTS, I want something fantastic in my fantasy games. Something besides flashy magic and unfamiliar geographical features (which are also very common, stereotypical if you please). In any case to conclude with my main point if stereotypical fantasy races are boring, humans have to be the most boring and overused of all.
Now, don't get me wrong, the game still looks awesome and I certainly will be preordering it. The "humans only" thing strikes me as an odd design choice though, especially considering the inspirations for the game. It would be a little like making Total Annihilation 2 without robots, no? In any case I very much hope that Stardock changes its policy and includes "canon" races besides humans, even if they aren't elves, dwarves and so forth and even if they come in expansions.
Your analogy doesn't work at all. TA was ONLY about robots, remove them and there's no game. OTOH, removing the classic non-human races from medival fantasy changes nothing. If you really think about it, the "good" ones were nothing more than different aspects of humans anyway. You have your haughty, delicate elves and your stubborn, durable dwarves. The "bad" ones get more flavor, but can also just be grouped as monsters of the fallen without any loss of flavor.
I like the idea of Human and Fallen. Leave the 'other races' to the MODDERs, community and perhaps expansions and updates.
Will be interested to see the tech tree & spellbooks for each. Perhaps a variey of spells/tech/units that only they can use and then a general type as well.
Your analogy doesn't work at all. TA was ONLY about robots, remove them and there's no game. OTOH, removing the classic non-human races from medival fantasy changes nothing.
I would have to disagree with you there. Robots are an integral part of TA, non-human races are an integral part of fantasy (I think so at least). Furthermore they are an integral part of practically every game/story Elemental draws its inspirations from. All I said was that it struck me as an odd design choice. You are right on your latter point however, removing classical non-human races doesn't change anything, removing all non-human presence (bar some neutrals) most definitely does.
If you really think about it, the "good" ones were nothing more than different aspects of humans anyway. You have your haughty, delicate elves and your stubborn, durable dwarves. The "bad" ones get more flavor, but can also just be grouped as monsters of the fallen without any loss of flavor.
Well, I couldn't care less if the races are "classical", but humans are decidedly as overused and stereotypical as any of the other Tolkien-esque races and it would be nice to see something fresh. Understand that this isn't an attack on the game, rather a personal preference. The only reason why I would prefer official non-human races over modded ones is for quality control purposes. Most great mods take a great deal of time to make and oftentimes they are plagued by internal issues (fights, team members disappearing etc.) such that they are never released.
I've mostly only spectated mods in the games I've played, but from that POV, I couldn't agree more.
I'm *really* hoping that there will be a true Elite Class of user content that Stardock have thoroughly reviewed, sent back for cleanup, and finally blessed, with popularity on the boards being clearly secondary to Stardock's own opinions (I love democracy in real life, not so much in game design).
The very best user-made stuff should mesh near-perfectly with the Elemental story (no elves, hobbits, etc.) or should provide a relatively complete replacement experience (the LotR Overlay, the Belgariad Overlay, the WoT Overlay, etc.). Perhaps complete replacement overlays will be so demanding that they will never be able to make the final leap from Gold to Platinum, or whatever. I'd probably mess with some Gold content, but I mainly want to be able to subscribe to one update stream that has quality control as good as the base game. Not that I'm demanding or anything...
And perhaps another category of user-made content that is on the same level of quality as SD content, such that if you ran across the content and didn't know better you'd just assume it was included in the game. Personally I would be inclined to add in a few custom-made races like elves or dwarves or sentient pigeons, so long as they are done well enough that they pass SD's own internal quality control tests.
My last post was basically trying to say what I read in your first sentence. The only reason I didn't try to work in non-human and non-fallen playable species was that Stardock seem pretty intent on that as a distinguishing feature of the Elemental story, which makes sense to me even though I didn't often play humans in tabletop RPGs.
Yeah, I get that, but that doesn't mean SD can't judge the overall quality of player-made content separate from the story. After all, in skirmish mode players will want to create their own stories, not recreate Stardock's campaign.
This is why I'm completely ok with them skipping non-human races, although the fallen can't possibly be humans even if they started out that way. I never like playing the humans either, they have an inherent boring quality in being the only real things in a fantasy game. The more they're buried by other races, the more pointless it is to have them in the first place.
A very real benefit of not having elves, dwarves and sentient pigeons in the game is that humans wont be as likely to get the shaft in play time. It's shown through to the finished product in quite a few games. The human side being poorly play tested sucks.
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