This week Elemental Beta is to begin. It will go out to all users who have pre-ordered it. For the rest of September, new users will be able to pre-order and join in as well and then it will be closed (people can still pre-order but they won’t get access until we roll out Beta 2.
ALL REPORTS can go here: Elemental BETA forum.
BETA 1
BETA 2
BETA 3
BETA 4
BETA 5
GAMMA
RELEASE
Betas will also include additions and enhancements to previously released milestones (i.e. additional game modes, additions to multiplayer options, additional single player quests, more single player game options, etc.).
On October 1st, we will have BETA 1A which will implement some of the “game” features that we took out of beta 1 along with a lot of features that we’ve been focusing on since PAX (computer AI, economic AI, research tree stuff, etc.).
The entire BETA 1 (and BETA 2) series will only play on the cloth map (seen above). The cloth map mode will remain the standard game experience for the Elemental beta until the Beta testers (AND Stardock) decide the game is sufficiently fun without having to rely on next-generation graphics. This will take as long as it takes.
Good luck!
I am excited that the Beta is coming out, even if I wont be taking part until minimum 3 or 4 because I cant see myself being of any real help in the 'not-fun' portions of the Beta. Kudos to the rest of you though.
Are you going to have artificial load on the game to simulate graphics at low, medium, and high to judge how well it will work on systems right now, or are you waiting for that until the graphics are put into the game to test that sort of thing? That was a long sentence.
Yeah the AI tweaks that happened throughout the beta of Galciv 2 were pretty amazing and the continued ai tweaks just made the game solid. By the way why does Poland get a continued and ongoing beta?
That's a great breakdown of objectives. I hope adding in pieces at a time aren't terribly difficult to do, but if it's done modularly (and potentially with modding in mind), that shouldn't be too painful.
Looking at this schedule, I'd be amazed if the game arrived before Fall of 2010. Having lots and lots of builds with a large pool of people, and still staying on pace would be impressive. If each sub-milestone took 1 week, that'd be about 25 weeks to complete, and this for sure would take more than 1 week per minor build.
Despite the length it may be in Beta, it will be an awesome experience. I'm hoping to help as much as I can and can't wait until later this week for it to officially start!
The first thing I'm going to do when Beta 1 comes out is post on the forums complaining how it's no fun MU AH HA HA HA HA!
Until I actually play it, I refuse to believe you!
I think you should go ahead and just let everyone know that the game isn't going to be released August 2010. Seeing how ambitious you are about the game (which is a good thing IMO), I wouldn't advertise anything sooner than Q4 2010. A game like this needs LOTS of time for polish. 6 months can make a huge difference (just look at Demigod, 6 more months in development would have done wonders for the game).
Bingo. I expect that what they are aiming for is to get the economy and gameplay of building your own kingdom straightened out. After all, when learning any strategy game, half the challenge is just propping up your own economy; you can't even think about taking out an opponent if you can't master that.
So I expect a lot of focus on testing various ways of managing the kingdom itself before they introduce the other half of the game: conquering enemies.
Ruh roh, we leave for our 10th Anniversary trip on 9/30.... Hmmm.... Trip/beta/trip/beta...
"Oh honey.... Sorry, but my boss says I have to bring my laptop on the trip"
OMG, I didn't even notice that...Imagine...a 100-1,000 player persistant (One turn per day?) game? ...Probably just you can bring your dynasty of channeler/some heroes from game to game though, which is still damn cool.
EDIT- As for AI, I believe someone already said the AI will just be very very stupid.
I will so try elemental on my netbook
------------------System Information------------------Time of this report: 9/17/2009, 09:15:06 Machine name: MINI-PC Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.090206-1234) Language: Swedish (Regional Setting: Swedish)System Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer INC. System Model: 1005HA BIOS: BIOS Date: 06/18/09 17:28:52 Ver: 08.00.12 Processor: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N280 @ 1.66GHz (2 CPUs) Memory: 1016MB RAM Page File: 644MB used, 1797MB available Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)DX Setup Parameters: Not found DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.5512 32bit Unicode
shall I try on my Amstrad ??
That would be without any problem IF the game is download only (like it was the case for the Twilight of Arnor expansion). But if the game is planned to hit retail store, I fear that it may be another story: when starting manufacturing process, delivering to retail store ....
So in beta 1, the AI will already be as good as the one from MoM was ? Good to know !
Why do you think so?...because of the tact. battle system? I don't think that it will be so hard to beta that part, but we shall see...
That would be pointless imo....perhaps the beta testing will be "fast" enough. If it will be "slow", and the devs will have to tweak/fix/upgrade lot of things, they should change the release date in early 2010, but not sooner.
great!
so now i won't only be spam refreshing looking for news on elemental but jumping back and forth to my mail box too.
also i now this may sonud perverse but i quite enjoy the beta's here. this will be 3rd or 4th i think. you just have to see the fun as helping make a great game as apposed to playing it.
one question, i know it's far to early to apply any time scale, but i was curious as to the rate expected for 1a, 1b, 1c, etc...?
oh, an w00ts again for beta beginning.
1a starts Oct 1st, it's been said somewhere or other.
While we are at it, what does "Gameplay Skeleton" means exactly?
Thanks for clarifying frogboy
I understand that there will be threads with configurations that don't work. But doesn't the fact that the game works on some system useful too? In this case, we need some threads with configurations that were successfull.
So we start with the compatibility test. I will try Alt-Tab too. Earlier I had a suggestion - an autosave in cases, where the application loses its focus (due to problems with GC2). Even if alt-tab works fine I would like to recommend that feature.
another question related to Peace Phoenix's point.
i've preordered WIN 7 and have a:
EEE901
ACER travelmate circa 2005
and my main desktop (ATHELON 2.5ghz)
all currently running XP
is it of any use to try beta on all of these with both XP and win7?
i'm guessing yes but as it'll be a bit of work (and a lot of bandwidth.
i'm wondering how wanted the info will be???
And dual-screen. Many games go fullscreen but when I hit the edge it goes to the next screen instead of scrolling. Quite annoying
Good point, piderman.
I'm not sure if Elemental will support it, but being able to run it in Windowed mode and even being dual monitor-friendly would be great. I'd love to be able to take parts of the UI or menus and place them on my other monitor.
The screenshot in the OP shows it running in a window. I'd love to run this in dual screen mode!
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