So much going on this week and at the same time, so little. A lot of vacations here at Stardock pop up in June since this is one of the prime months here in terms of weather.
On a sad note, Trent (Mittens) had his last day today. He’s off to Salt Lake City to take a position as a designer at a new game studio. We’ll miss him. Combined with the people on vacation, the studio area feels like a ghost town.
My executive planner and marketing manager gave me a “CEO make over” today with a bunch of new clothes. I guess trade show shirts and ratty shorts just aren’t good enough anymore.
Right now, we’re looking at dozens of issues that need to be addressed before we can even do the alpha build of the game. Everything from the fonts looking crummy to setting priority on what should be on the setup.
For instance, if someone wants to create a custom civilization and in there choose “good” or “evil” that’s fine. But I’m having them get rid of being able to have pre-existing factions be good or evil because it would literally double the writing involved for each faction’s back story. While that’s interesting to have, I would rather have more depth per faction rather than half the depth but a mirror universe version of each one.
The screen you see here will likely be significantly altered between now and release. But this gives you an idea of how iterative the process is. I’ll probably eliminate the appearance area and put that into the custom race area. Right now, “design your race” is the only option. There isn’t a formal “choose your faction” area. Elemental comes with 2 built in races and 12 factions but we plan to let people create their own races and factions as well, but that should be a separate area that is a lot richer. If you try to mash too much stuff together, it’s confusing to new players but still too weak for experienced users.
The devil is in the details...
All the best Mittens, hope to see you in a multiplayer game sometime!
Everyone enjoy their vacations you deserve it after all the hard work on DG etc. Get well-rested for the next phases of Elemental!
We need a photo of the dressed up Frog! Also, put yer trade show shirts on eBay!
Great plans, danke for the update Frogboy!
I wonder if all 12 premade factions will be available in alpha/beta?
Will there be any customization capabillity at this point, or will the focus be to get the premade stuff well balanced/tested?
looks good
Yes, but who says they have to be YOUR people who die? You could always use the bodies of your enemies for the undead army as their punishment for being evil! (your good! duh! And anyone who says otherwise is obviously evil....)
See? Easy to do!
The alpha is most likely going to be pretty barebones. It's probably not going to have any story at all, just a basic sandbox map or two and lots of incompletes (spells, units)
That crest editor looks cool. Do you think it would be possible to uplaod some that are done via another program?
Evil and good the eternal question. Like in everything nothing is clear cut evil or good. The the evil overloard he,s doing it for himself. IN his eyes he's good. He thinks this is the ebst way to survive. To everybody else he's an evil B@stard...
I do not know how they will do it if it's going to be clear cut. There usually always neutrals. Then again it could be good versus evil, meaning the Fallens believe in one thing and the Humans believe in another. That's how it could be cut. Not necessarily eveil against good. Just one view against another.
But how do you kill the evil people if you're against using your own living people to do it? It has to start somewhere!
Besides, necromancy in itself is typically considered an evil act, since it's supposed to bind the soul and not give it eternal rest and all that mumbo jumbo
I think there are cemetaries full of dead people....
It could start there....
There is still no proof that the soul is bound. We want proof ... Necro FTW
Now where that box of pills....
No, it's a charity service to those souls. You see, they get really bored sitting around for eternity with nothing interesting to do. You're doing them a service, charity work, giving otherwise idle souls a purpose in their afterlife.
This I can kinda get behind:
Necromancer: So hey guys, what's up?
Restless soul: Eh, nuffin. Bored. Just sitting here for eternity with nothing to do.
Necromancer: Well.. wanna go kill some people? It'll be fun!
Restless soul: I don't know.. sounds like a lot of work. Is it far?
Necromancer: No, no, it's right over there. *points to human army coming down a nearby hill*
Restless soul: Eh, something to do I guess. Come on guys, get off your lazy asses and let's go kill some dudes!
Army of restless souls: *roar*
Oh, I'm not against using living people to kill the bad guys. Also don't forget you can kill bad guys with magic! Your people may never have to lift a finger as you just rain down destruction upon the enemy. Raise an army of undead and use that!
Also does these evil soldiers who attacked your poor defensless women and children deserve paradise? NO! They are getting their just rewards serving you in their afterlife! After they have worked off some of their negative karma they can THEN go to the afterlife... See You are actualy doing them a favor giving them more of a chance to undo the wrongs they did in life and have a higher chance of paradise! *adjusts halo*
Spin doctoring at it's best!
nice post. together with the glimpse of the zoom function in the demigod related journal I get quite interested. hope for some more posts and reports on the early builds.
@ necromancy: it's been said: there are cemetaries. seriously, having no bodies for resurrecting would only be a problem if the race has just into existance. or if there has been an event to not only killed everything, but also turned the bodies into dust. otherwise, who cares if the target died age 80 of heart failure or was murdered at 30 for money? body is body and there is no discrimination among the undead (look at the practical side, you won't have to deal with black or white or that crap anymore. no one has skin to speak of anyway).
Shadowhal, your friendly neighboorhood necromancer. 10^10 supporters and growing.
The only thing about this post that disappoints me is that it looks like there won't be dynamic alignment selection. I think allowing alignment to change during the course of the game would allow for tons of opportunities, both for play style and diplomacy.
That said, I guess it'd be possible to start out as a given alignment but still change during the game. After all, good can turn to evil and vice versa.
yeah, you're right. or at least it seems pretty fixed a priori, this is an early build anyway and it may just determine the alignment you start out with. shades or a scale would at least be more preferable, something akin to GC II.
So, which one it is?...
I believe Acclaim have a studio in SLC too.
He said on IRC that it's the developer who made this:
http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/action/warhawk/index.html?tag=result;title;0
Edit: Yeah, this looks like it - Incognito's HQ is in Salt Lake City:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incognito_Entertainment
just to mention, it is the alpha. so there doesn't need to be THAT much polishing. my only fear is that it won't run on my sexy machine.
I wanted to know, do we have any estimated system requirements? (or is that what the alpha decides)
I'd say that if you can play Gal Civ II, you should be fine. Video drivers appart.
yeah, but I'm not sure I'd really trust my laptop to play Gal Civ 2 and I'd like to see if it can run this. The map also seems more simple graphically than Gal Civ 2, and the zoomed in graphics look like much steeper requirements. I'm just curious where about it is going to end up. (I forsee a very large gap between 'min' and 'recommended' settings)
you make is sound so good, sad there will be only 100 spots open... maybe I can bribe brad with a beek keepers suit?
he doesn't need a bee keeper suit. That guy just picks them up with his bare hands. (he claims drones don't sting, though I'm suspicious)
but seriously, I'm sure beta 0 will be much better. So if you're not one of the "lucky" ones, your first taste will likely be a better one. Don't forget that Frogboy promised that we would ensure that it would not start "fun". (I don't believe him, but that isn't the point)
as a human , i choose to be a fallen and evil, that is all...
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