If you’ve ever played D&D with friends, you no doubt got a feel that you were adventuring in a world that was much larger than just your party. Elemental is, in a way, about building that world.
Each game of Elemental is meant to be different and customizable in such a way that players can make those worlds theirs. For us, that means having a world that feels organic. As you build things up, things begin to happen automatically. There isn’t a ton of micro management in Elemental by default (though you can really go nuts if you want). Instead, trade happens largely automatically. You see people, caravans, etc. on the roads you build moving about living out their lives. You will even see parties of adventurers running around dungeons and stirring up trouble.
The player’s skill comes in by deciding how they want their fantasy civilization to evolve – what its focus will be, what direction it will take, etc.
that was a very old comment by frogboy, Its the last I heard too, but they have not really been pushing that recently as far as I've seen. It would be really awesome, but I'm not sure how they would do it without having to create several vastly different layer detail for each model. Not just normal drop in poly count, but on completetly different scales with leaf and grass physics. It would be quite a feet to pull of and have look good, especially on top of everything else they are doing. Perhaps it will happen, I'm excited to see.
I wouldn't be suprised to see it. Just think of Sins. Zoom way out, you see planets + icons around planets. Zoom in a bit, you see ships icons. Zoom in further, you see ship models. Further, you see really high detail ship models. What they are going for isn't to overly different, so they have the know how. Poly counts could be a pain, as could making all those high-rez models... So I would put the chances of seeing that feature at around 50-50.
Displaying the leaves on trees - it was one interesting project on my university. I don't think we should insist on it. However zoom layers are a very good tool. Perhaps it would be nice if it would be possible to store the zoomlevel and use a shortcut to switch to it. As for me if I play GC2, I use mostly 2 zoomlevels and adjust them by the mouse wheel. The shortcut would reduce the time to adjust the view.
If I understand you correctly, you're saying that the zooming in Elemental could work similarly to how it does in GC2. If so, well that's pretty much a given. More than a given, really.. We know there will be a cloth map zoom level, where the terrain and everything on it is replaced by an abstracted representation of it all; and we know that we will be able to zoom in and view the actual world itself - we just don't know how far we'll be able to go, or what detail it will be rendered in.
Note that, while we're shooting for some pretty awesome zooming capabilities, the scale on the main map has been heavilly abstracted. We think it works well, and you can definatly zoom out to the entire map, then in to see the leaves on a fern, but you dont zoom INTO the leaf itself.
Anyways, I'm really proud of the scope pulled off....it took a long time (most of the work up through last December had been engine specific) but I've never seen a land-based strategy game that feels like this.
Lol thanks BoogieBac!
Why would you WANT to zoom into a leaf? Illogical, I say!
Would you say that the zooming scale is similar to Empire: Total War? (if you have had a chance to look at it)
Wow this is all great to hear. Thanks for the update.
Empire:Total War is more along the scope of what we want in Tactical Battles....more of a realistic scale between the world and the units.
On the main map, unit's are more abstracted (a 'realistic sized' unit on a tile would be a dot), but the entire map does some crazy scaling that I have a hard time explaining.
Maybe some screenshots would explain?
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That's great to hear, but man am I getting too hyped up about this game. I'm already expecting it to kick SoaSE in the pants as far as immersion, amazement, strategic depth, etc. All based on a little information about a pre-alpha build. Can't wait to see this engine in action!
Oooooo. I don't know whether to or to for joy. I'd love the game whether or not we could zoom in to see individual leaves on a fern, but the fact that the engine is capable of that means great things are possible
I hope that is a good. Are you suggesting you have played non-land based strategy games that feel like it? or that it is totally unique
Yeah, it's good The system is scalable, not just graphicially, with the speed and size of objects, but in how the game 'feels'.
Lets say you're sending your main hero out into the wilderness...you zoom in and behind that unit to get a traditional 'RPG' feel (think FF7 or 8 overworld map) where cities and dungeons fade in as the fog is broken. Then, to perform some imperial tasks you zoom out, hiding the graphical detail in favor of faster units and more iconic landmarks. Zoom out even FURTHER to get the cloth map for setting empire wide tasks and planning your diplomatic strategies.
Its the seemlessness and scalablity of the engine that really has me excited
Well if it has one of the people who created it excited, (Building something from scratch tends to lower the mystery and excitement value of it for most people) then I'm that much more excited.
Iconic landmarks!? how many different do-dats or other features are you creating? Are there going to be so many that you can expect areas to be littered with 'unique' landmarks? I'm not entirely sure how many 3D modelers you guys have over there, but I imagine that would require a good few after other parts of the game, so thats why I ask.
You mention 'fog' being broken, are you talking about fog of war or just regular ambiance? I really liked the fog of war effect in Demigod (I know that may have been GPG, but still) and I hope that the fog of war in this is at least along the same idea on the non-cloth map version.
I just noticed something. Right smack in the middle of that drawing it says: "Building Costs: 1) Time 2) Gold". Does that mean we won't need resources like lumber or stone or whatnot to construct buildings? That's a little disappointing given the whole "Rethinking 4X Economics thread." I can understand why it might be tricky (if a player has no access to wood and most buildings require wood, they'd be screwed) but I don't think it's unresolvable. For example, there could be several different building costs. Have no lumber, but tons of stone? Your barracks will be built of stone! Have no stone but tons of lumber? Your barracks will be built of wood. Have a little bit of each but not enough of either? Your barracks will be constructed of a combination of wood and stone.
It seems sad to develop a whole new economic system for 4X games, and then not even use it for one of the major economy-related functions (construction).
Boogie- that will be awesome to see how seamless and scalable it can be.
Any chance in the zooming level there could be some presets for that level of detail? So, if I'm doing something up close with particular units, that would be Zoom 100x. Then I could change to Zoom 15x for regional unit stuff, and then I could change to Zoom 1x to see the whole map (or something). I really like the zooming in Sins of a Solar Empire, which is similar, but having pre-set zoom levels makes usuability nicer since I don't have to tire out my scroll wheel on my mouse quite so much!
One of the zooms I've liked the most in TBS games is the Civ 4 zoom, it helped a loot to keep things in scale. Something along those lines would be great (and it sounds like your ideas are pretty similar).
Aw... so we don't get to watch water being sucked through the veins in the leaves? *pout*
So by the sounds of it I was somewhat correct when I said it will be similar to SoaSE zooming. A very far out level (cloth map) which is highly abstracted, A level in which things are icons, the 3d model level, and a more detailed version of the 3d model level. All of which zooms seemlessly in true Stardock fasion!
As far as your question goes Leonon, I would guess it primarily has to do with how powerful an item is. In a tiny map, a crystal or 2 which gives the caster back 50% of his maximum mana per turn would not be nearly as powerful as the same crystals in a very large map. This is because large maps last longer, and thus by endgame 50% of the caster's mana is enough to bulldoze down any defences. Meanwhile on the tiny map, the caster is less powerful since he has much less time to build up his skills and so 50% of his mana would only be enough to arm 5 soldiers with magical weapons. Not to mention, 1 or 2 would be fine for a tiny map, but if you took the same density of that item and spread them across a huge map, it could have 100 or so of that 50% mana regen crystal, which would be very upsetting to the game's balance since everyone would always have full mana. And once again I have rambled on a bit to long with an example... But I hope I got the point across. What works on small scale might not work on a large scale, and vice-versa.
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