One of the things that has been driving Demigod beta testers crazy is that they aren't used to how Stardock does betas. A lot of them came from the Gas Powered Games community so they don't realize that Stardock betas tend to be very primitive.
With Elemental, we may drive the point home by having the first beta of the game only use the cloth map instead of the actual game engine for game play. The idea is, if it's a good game, it should be reasonably fun even without fancy graphics. Then for once we could get people to fixate on the key features of the game rather than piddly details.
The other benefit it would have is if we could make the whole game play on the cloth map too, people with insanely low end systems could actually play the game. Imagine people playing Elemental on a netbook for instance?
So that's what's going through our crazy minds today.
This is an SD product... I'll enjoy it whether it has the fancy graphics or not (assuming, of course, that the cloth map is functional...)
I'm all for the gimped painful mechanical action with a Zen approach. I think it is best for testing the core elements and getting people to focus on them and not the bling.
Agreed, its entirely possible to play chess and checkers with nothing but ripped up toilet paper just because the base mechanics are well known and easy to grasp. If those mechanics are not up to snuff, it wouldn't matter if your king and rook were made of solid gold, the game would still be crap.
Absolutely go for it... I'm a big fan of the smallest possible set of functionality being released for end-users to mess around with as soon as is humanly possible.
If it's a cloth map and stick figures, fine! Particularly considering most of Elemental's value will be in the gameplay mechanics which we could be testing from the get-go.
You could even release without a tactical battle system (altho from screenies I think you already have something there?) and just have beta 0 or 1 being purely strategic with auto-resolve.
Regards,
Kul
Well, GC2 allows you to play only with the tactical view, where everything is icon. Strangely, it makes easier to spot tiny enemy fighters than when using the 3D view. And it allows to have a better view about what is happening in the game.
I wonder how many regular GC2 players are playing essentially with the tactical view, since it allow a better overall view of the situation And I wonder if the same won't be also true for Elemental, especially when using large/immense/insane map settings for epic game: A zoom out view that allows to play the whole game is invaluable to streamline gameplay on big maps.
Sounds like a good idea here, also.
What caught my attention was the dungeon with creatures, treasure, and a dungeon level. I am wondering if that will be implemented similar to how it was done in the Warlords series where if you defeated the defenders you would receive a random treasure like troops, money, mana? I always enjoyed having extra things like that to discover and battle as it breaks up the tedium and gives you some little extras to enjoy.
However it works, it sounds promising .
I like this idea. It also means they might be able to get the demo out sooner
They'll probably just start out with all combat being auto-resolved, and add in actual tactical combat in a later beta.
Brad,
An initial "Cloth-only" beta sounds good, particularly for keeping testers focused. I'm reminded of one project at work where a requirements-elicitation meeting was derailed because the client kept talking about what text she wanted to see on "the sidebar" in our prototype interface. Never mind what data types and processes the system needed, "the sidebar" became the priority for an amusing amount of time.
Anyway, my wife and I are quite eager to assist in any early/pre-beta testing you want community help with. We love these kinds of games, and we know how to break software
Thanks,
Keith
Mr Brad I just love the idea.
In anycase beta testing should be for what the developpers need feedback on. I for one will test whatevber you want me to test. I find the idea of helping making a game (even if it is very limited help) an incredible activity.
Keep up the good work and sign me up!
All hail the Frog!
Sounds like a good idea to me. Get the game system working first, then add the bells and whistles.
Sign me up! Heck, I'd still be playing Master of Magic if I was computer savvy enough to get it running on XP. Also, the Warlords series ROCKS! (especially Warlords 3, not so crazy about 4)
Zaisha, you don't need to be computer savy. Just download a program called "dosbox" > get the windows version. The most you need to be able to do is drag and drop. Drag/drop dos-box into your MoM folder using the right mouse button to create a shortcut (or the other way around), then simply grag/drop one of the icons onto the other (usually best with the MoM shortcut to Dos-box) again with the right mouse button and pick "open with" and BOOM! you have the game.
you can do it in reverse as well (dos-box shortcut into MoM's directory)
No navigating Dos screens required (the no. 1 reason people who arn't comfortable being 'computer savvy' steer away from dos-box)
to get MoM to install you might have to drag-drop the install.exe file as well, but that is the same process and the actuall installation wouldn't have changed from when you did it back in the day.
DosBOX is your friend I didn't have any problem firing it up in DosBOX when last I tried (couple of months ago), but then I got mildly addicted to Dwarf Fortress.
[Edit] To be on topic though, I would love to get in on some early testing. The only reason I haven't pre-ordered yet is that there are still months before the planned beta timeline and I'm squirreling cash away for a car purchase. But I could certainly cough up the cash to get in on something even earlier (and would!).
Not that it's been much of a problem, since I know DOS, but still!
Scrap fancy and just include the cloth map.
Not completly kidding, since i liked the Dominions 3 map.
Thanks muchly! I'm not that afraid of a dos command line, (I was there back in the days of yore when it was the only way) but I was under the impression that the main problem with getting MoM to run was it's greed on the inner 64k of memory. I had a devil of a time getting it to work at the time and that was the reason why it didn't work on early windows versions. Things might have changed in the mean time though.
Ah well, time to dig out an old CD. Gotta be well-prepared for Elemental.
I'd also be in favor of releasing stand alone components, similar to Spore:
*Creature builder
*Hero builder
*Spell builder
*Building...builder
*Race customizer
etc. Even just starting with these individual ideas would seem pretty helpful, as they'd be sub-screens of the main game and could be more easily individualized.
While eye-candy is nice it almost always doesn't make or break a game. Bad gameplay mechanics however will. I never liked the style-over-substance approach. So no problem with me if you go the way of the Dwarf Fortress (although the cloth map does admittingly look better than ANSI graphics).
I'm in total agreement with working on the features and gameplay vs eye candy. A cloth style map wouldnt' bother me at all. Eye candy is nice and all but Other than a few minutes of going "ooh, ahhh" I don't pay it any attention. Just as long as I can figure out what is going on! Gameplay and the game itself is what's really important.
I'd love to help beta test (shameless plug) and I've already pre-ordered! *adjusts halo*
Rawr!
I'm not sure I'd notice, I just want it now! As soon as it works, I want to test it, and I love this idea, get a lot more focus on the game.
xthetenth returned! It has been months!
That makes sense for small betas. It's akin to the agile coding process SCRUM where you roll out completed features every X weeks (usually 2-6 weeks) and those pieces are fully functional, but the product as a whole isn't. It's turning your beta users into an extension of the QA group, but focused more on usability/fun than whether a feature matches spec.
I'm all in favor of it personally. Many rounds of early feedback in small chunks is better than limited rounds of massive feedback (typical beta process).
OH MAN! somebody said it! SCRUM! I never actually thought I would hear it outside EA or some other big company like that where they have consultants tell project leads how to manage their development processes
Not to nitpick, but the zoomed out view would be "strategic" and the zoomed in view would be "tactical". It's very clear what you are saying though. I play GC2 about 50% of the time zoomed out.
I have to concur. Each element should be tested as a stand alone system and then as a complete package.
I would be very happy if I could try the game mechanics. It is exactly what does the great game. We are trying to develop a RPG board game with a friend. We use similar approach for our betatests. Nice pictures are nice pictures, however if the gameplay is bad, no graphics can save that. If someone does not like it, no problem, there is no need to install the game unless it is complete with all features. I suggest however to add some warning dialog to the beta, because I have no doubts someone will install the game and will be disappointed because he will not bother his head with reading forums.
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