So we're starting to put together stuff for the alpha.
This week we're putting together the list for the private alpha group (basically a lottery).
The exact day of the release of the alpha remains to be seen. Part of it depends on the weather up at Higgins Lake (where I'll be on vacation until early next week). If it rains, I'll be going home sooner which means the alpha will likely come out a bit sooner. If it's nice, I'll be staying a bit longer and the alpha will have a couple more days to bake. Kind of a reverse groundhogs day.
In either case, we plan to start making public to those interested in seeing the sausage factory that is game development our internal bug reports.
Those of you not used to a Stardock beta will find these quite...something I suspect. Most people don't realize how games are made.
A game, at the end of the day, is a piece of software that is tuned to be "fun" where fun is a debateable concept.
On a new property like Elemental, that means the software is taking a bunch of technologies that have been developed over the previous year or two and integrated together.
If a game takes say 3 years to make, 2.5 years of that time will be spent on the underlying tech. The lsat 6 months spent putting that tech together into a working "game". That is where we are now, taking the techs and integrating them together.
You'll be able to see all our foibles in the journals area starting next week as the good, bad, and ugly of the game's develpoment starts to come together.
So if you have any questions for the August FAQ, post them here.
Cheers!
Well August is almost gone, and none of my questions have been addressed, so I will be so bold as to include 2 last ones before time is up! Thank you in advance.
- Diminishing Returns: For balance reasons, many games include diminishing returns in tech structures and unit/building composition. This also has some basis in reality -- almost everything involving achievement or performance, and hence everything modelling achievement or performance, is asymptotic. At the high ends of the scale: If putting X amount of energy is required for person P to run 100 meters in T seconds, then 2X is required for P to run in T-2%; much like only 10% of the world's population can bench press their own weight 10 times, only 1% can bench their weight +25% 10 times, and less than 0.0001% of the population can bench twice their weight 10 times, while 0% of the population can bench three times their weight ten times. What algorithms will Elemental be using to make sure that the more powerful end of the scale stays rare and hard to reach?
- Building: One of my biggest dislikes of the Civilization series was that only one building of each type was allowed per city. No matter how big your city is, you can only have 1 temple, or 1 barracks, or 1 hospital. That drives me crazy. I would like to be able to have a city with 10 temples, or 10 barracks if I want to -- with diminishing returns. As long as there are plots left in a city, can we have that in Elemental?
OK last day last question!
- Time: In most of the screenshots, we can see that buildings, units, or tech require X number of "days" to complete. Yet apparently, you also want to be able to erect dynasties over generations and hence tens of thousands of days. Taking scale of map size (for travelling) into account, what turn length do you feel most comfortable representing?
So, will the August FAQ turn into the Sept., FAQ? There were a TON of really great questions in here.
Were the August questions found unworthy of a FAQ? Or is PAX interfering with your FAQing?
Yes, I realize how bad that sounds!
Well we're into September but I still have some questions -- I hope I haven't offended? I'll just continue here, if I may?
- Are You Human? Brad has indicated many times that he wants AI personalities that play and feel like real people. If so, that could be one solution to a problem many 4X games often have, and one to which Brad has also made reference many times (yet without, it seems to me, having made it clear exactly what truly satisfying solutions to the problem might be forthcoming), namely: End Game Tedium (EGT). EGT often results when a player is clearly more powerful than the AI or the other players, yet needs to slog through dozens of often tedious turns, "mopping up". EGT can also result, IMO, when MicroManagement becomes painful due to end-game hugeness; I don't have any suggestions for that right now. Yet for the first EGT cause, one could imagine that most AI personalities should and could react like many human players might -- they should notice when one player, particularly a human player (?), is growing dangerously powerful and appears to be coming threateningly close to running away with the game; if there is an option to be toggled on or off to let player(s), both AI and human, be able to see who is how close to which victory condition, then when this option is toggled on for some AIs, those AIs should react when it sees a player approaching to close, or a player's speed of approach accelerating. When this happens, those AIs should be able to gang up on that player, much like humans might whisper "Don't trade with Bob! He's getting too powerful! Let's take X and Y away from him and divide it up!" The AIs should be willing to take risks, cooperate, and step back from certain short- or middle-term goals they had set in order to stop a player, particularly a human, from walking all over the rest -- particularly in the end game. What do you think? What other steps (besides having various victory conditions) will you, Stardock, be taking to avoid EGT?
It's almost October, and I am just wondering if the questions that have been posed here have been deemed unworthy of attention? I could imagine that the people at Stardock want as much constructive criticism as possible as early as possible, do you think that some FAQ will be forthcoming? Thanks much!
I assume someone looked at these questions, but I'd love to see them answered, too!
Don't worry! Stardock does read these questions! Yes theres always the feeling of "umm im getting no attention", but trust me they listen/read. Sometimes they come in and enlighten us. But theres so many questions that fly at them that they cant respond to all of them. It would take up so much of their time. Though if your really need some answers sign into the chat in Impulse ie Stardock and Elemental rooms for answers either Stardock or other people will answer. But ya might have to wait a few minutes for a response...
Since I cannot get past the introductory screen in the Beta (immediate crash), I still feel compelled to have some sort of discussion regarding the questions on gameplay content!
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