I just wanted to say that even after seeing it i still vote for local resources over global even though they are fun.
I mearly wanted to show those whom said after the beta the argument would die that they were wrong.
Off to playing game some more lol.
Same here, but again...I think that the vast majority of the players would vote for global, so I guess we will have to mod in local resources when the game will be released. Nothing will stop us!
I'm on the global boat talking to my goat, this is my global vote.
In Deadlock II local resources were fairly annoying and rather unnecessary as cities quickly became self-sufficient. I don't think I'll miss them much in Elemental. I actually saw the use for food in the latest patch while in others food utilization wasn't as clear.
Still haven't seen anything to make me think Global resources are in ANY way better.
Neither have I seen the cry and clamor for it anywhere that make me think a significant number of players want it. If anything reading across forums it seems more people are in the local boat.
So far the argument for the new economy seems to be the same as health care, "You're gonna love it when you REALLY know whats in it... and until you love it you're just misinformed". (sorry for the political aside, but it really seemed the appropriate reference)
There's been enough beating of the dead horse.
I was originally in favor of a very complex economic model. Since then I have been convinced that it adds nothing that the simpler global economy cannot accomplish.
However, at this point it really doesn't matter. Frogboy/Stardock have made up their minds that global resources are much more fun without detracting much from strategy. If you wish to continue beating this horse, don't get mad when no one listens.
This is true, but, we also haven't seen how a "Local Model" would work with an actual fleshed out economy. The economy we have now actually has values and some proper math behind it. Up until this version of the beta the economy has been a skeleton with a bunch of placeholder values.
On the other hand though, so far I don't see a problem with the way it works now either. It seems to get the job done adequately enough without over-complicating things (and I actually Like when things are complicated in games). To be completely honest though, I'd rather see a Robust, Deep, Complicated, Magic and Combat system then I would a complicated economic model. I don't want to need my calculator while I'm playing a Fantasy Game. Maybe for a Sci/Fi Game, but not for Fantasy. Give me High Magic, not High Number Crunching.
Dead horse? Wow, the beta hasn't even been out 24 hours and you're declaring it fate accompli.
Are you in a rush to call it done because it really just isn't popular and you want it to stick? I hope Stardock hasn't made up their mind because the model just doesn't appear to be fun and right now appears to be taking a lot away from the game. They're usually very good listeners but it does seem they're intent to ram this one through in a hurry no matter what anyone thinks.
Also, for the record I have NEVER, EVER supported a complex economy. Not in the early debates, and not now.
I think it should be as simple as possible while being a fun and realistic model of a medeival economy. So far I see nothing fun about the economy nor anything that makes it realistic.
We did listen. As you know. Users discussed it heavily here: https://forums.elementalgame.com/378334
And this is the system that, at length, have developed. We like it. We like it a lot.
The global resource pool with localized tracking adds a great deal of strategic depth, provides greater player control while adhering to the objective of having the game mechanics being intuitive and logical.
You are beating a dead horse. It's time to move on.
Managing logistics of a multi-city empire is no laughing matter. Actually, real world logistics, deployment and supply line management is a very demanding full time job often performed by multiple people.
If anyone here is having trouble imagining medieval logistics management, try imagining the Hudson's Bay company, circa 1780. They had hundreds of different products and trade goods and market trends and resource areas and trade routes to manage and manage in advance, since it took months for a request for more supplies to be responded to. Not correctly managing supplies could result in starvation or death.
If that's too much, start thinking about Rome managing distant provinces. No amount of programming in Elemental will ever make a realistic scenario that accurately depicts any kind of society - only give it the veneer of being realistic. The only goal of realism in a game* should be to make the game funner, and the localized food and the then current city system was decidely unfun. Realizing the city system was broken, Frogboy took a look at why and modified it so food became a fungible resource to resolve the pronblem.
Personally, food being a fungible resource doesn't bother me in the slightest. Why? Essentially all of the cities are a day or two's walk away from one another. One hut fits on one tile. Let's be generous and say that a tile is actually a quarter mile wide (meaning the hut is a quarter mile wide, but whatever: anything larger than that is just patently absurd) A nearby city could be ten tiles away - the most distant one in your empire, probably a hundred tiles. That's two and a half miles, and twenty five miles: a carriage or horse buggy could easily deliver food there so long as there is a road. I've said before I hate micromanaging things: if there's only one possible choice (send the food to the city that needs it) it should be automated for me.
A system where food isn't fungible (global) commits the even more absurd offence of asking me to believe that the cities in Elemental are great distances away from each other (making shipping prohibitively expensive) and vastly increases the size of each tile, which in turn asks me to believe in houses that are 1800 kilometres long.
(*on the other hand, realism is very important in Simulations, which of course elemental is not)
That's not to say I'm not a fan of complexity, I love complexity. I'd just rather the complexity exist in areas of the game that I enjoy, like combat systems and magic systems and research systems and strategical choices and, you know, the typical business a 4X gets up to. Micromanaging peasant's loaves of bread is better suited to Dinner Dash.
...why is it some posts don't show up for me until an hour or so later?
Err, um you jumped in a user started thread about housing and on the 12th post announced you were making food global. This thread is to that point already. I would point out the community actually did discuss it heavily, but I suspect you don't care any more.
Most people continued to talk about housing and the only responses about global food resource was that people liked it the way it is.
I understand YOU like it a lot and have the right to make whatever you feel like, but please don't pretend this is in response to customers asking for it.
Agreed, the decision has been made already, as we all know it. So there is no need to argue anymore. Like I've said, the modders will make a local resources mod anyways.
Would you explain how the economy isn't fun and takes away from the game as is? If you can explain things like this rather than just say 'this is how i think it is' people would be more inclined to change things.
I personally like the economy. I don't have to worry about where stuff is - it all gets taken into account by the game.
Oh and i'm sorry for messing up the spelling of the title just was playing and only came out to say that lol.
Oh and I still support local resources but...i guess they've made up their minds and ignored us.
While i would get angry over it i understand their decision still make's me ticked off though first time stardock ever did this to us testers.
You're not the only opinion that was expressed. They took into consideration everyone's opinion. I think local resource supports shouted the loudest, but not the most.
The most important point that the beta group has made (and the argument that won us over) was that at the end of the day, Elemental is a STRATEGY game and not a simulation. The game mechanics should provide the widest possible set of options strategically for the player to win.
Once I was convinced of it, a lot of things started to make sense. Why are end games such a grind usually in TBS's? A big reason is because each city is so self-contained which means every war is a war of attrition.
By contrast, in Elemental, we'll be able to have a much more dynamic economy.
If it weren't for the beta, we wouldn't have ever thought of a global resource model. This is most definitely a feature conceived by the beta community and now that we've spent quite a bit of time playing it, we love it.
In hindsight, the new economic system in Element seems so obvious. It's one of the most significant improvements to a game's design I've seen come from the beta community in my career.
For every game we work on, there tend to be a few 'AhHa!' moments in production where things come together and we end up accidentally 'play-testing' when we should be working.
The change to the current economic model was on of those moments. It's fun to amass a wealth of stuff then go out and make use of it. The pervious model wasn't fun, and the models before it were too cumbersome.
We've kept all the hooks in so modders can make as complicated a system as they want, so hopefully everyone can be satisfied inthe end
I wholeheartedly agree with the concept and disagree with the implementation. There is less strategy involved in city placement now, less strategy in how I place my buildings. Does this provide a wider set of options for the player to win? Maybe, but you'll have to show me how because I don't see it.
Well I thought the Caravan system was a big fix for this and not whether resources are local or global. Being able to choke cities off from their network will make it go faster, not chipping away at their global stockpile. Playing starcraft it can be a grind to take down a well entrenched and spread out opponent (even though it plays a lot faster). I'd like to see the AI realize when it has a horrible fate and start negotiating for a good surrender or rapidly seek alliances to stay alive. For me it is less that there is a big mop up as it just starts not becoming a challenge. I quit games in Galciv not because they've gone on a long time (in fact I prefer the biggest maps for this) but just because the challenge is gone once my enemies are sufficiently diminished.
Being one of the more active community members here it has taken me by a complete surprise. I know it has been discussed for a long time (and you moved away from the simple global model early on in the "internal debates made external thread". But to say it came out of the housing thread where you came in and introduced the concept and had clearly already moved in that direction is disingenuous at best.
Thanks to both you and Boogiebac for leveling with us and be more honest about this coming from the dev team. For myself if this is the route you're taking both in terms of game model and but especially misleading (whether intentional or not) the beta community about us collectively asking for it. then with all due respect I will probably be a lot less involved for the forseeable future.
<wild speculation>
It appears that the forum is using caching to speed up display of posts. That's a good idea. But it seems that in some cases the cache doesn't get cleared when someone posts, so you won't see the post until the next time it checks. I'd guess its a bug.
</wild speculation>
The overwelming majority of posts was for local and people overall.
If you took polls and could show me numbers to prove your statement it would have been alright they did that for sins of a solar empire but did you no? Then don't say the community agreed if theres still controversy. You could have handled it democratically.
Now it's alright i still like the game but still don't say that you completely and utterly got the idea from us.
I will say I am sorry if your offended by this i just had to state my opinion.
The majority of posts *HERE* was for local. Trouble is, this forum isn't the entire community.
Brad's known to also post at the Quarter to Three forums, and that group came up with wildly different conclusions then this group did back in the first economic discussion. In particular, they didn't like camp 1 and local storage, figuring that it was too cumbersome for the less hardcore TBS players to enjoy.
There was (is?) also a group of people under NDA for the alpha, and whatever those people are saying isn't something any of us would get to see.
There's also the case where the developers simply disagree with the community. It happens. The last software system I wrote used a development process similar to this, and there were times when my users (including managers and directors, aka: people who seriously outrank me) and I disagreed on what the best way to do something was. Sometimes I'd convince them I was right, sometimes they'd convince me, and sometimes I'd have to just make a decision to do what I thought was the best for every user instead of just the vocal ones.
Thankfully for my employment prospects, every time I said "no" turned out to be the right decision in the end, and they're extremely happy now that I did it. Part of why they pay me is that I know what works in software better then they do.
Same thing here. Brad and co know more about designing and selling games then any of us. They listened, and don't agree with you. That's just how the process goes sometimes. Most companies would never have the owner in here giving you an explanation, so you should look at it positively. They definitely heard you.
Ultimately if people are going to get upset every time a set of suggestions doesn't get followed, then people are going to find this a very unenjoyable process. Hell, I'm still disappointed that blunt/piercing/slashing damage appears to have come back after believing it was gone, but what can ya do?
Firstly, about beating the Dead Horse...
Whilst this debate (Argument in some cases it seems,) is purely Academic, I don't mind it on the basis that, for the New Beta Testers like myself, we get the chance to discuss the current Eco Model and compare it to models we're used to, as well as compare our data against the Testers who have been around since Beta 1.
By that token, I think that this particular topic is going to be a warring point for GlobalEco VS LocalEco, which is potentially very bad... I haven't seen many arguments on these forums, and those I have seen seem to get resolved, but this is one thing I don't think everyone will agree on, ever. There is a certain way people either like, or are used to managing their Empires in, particularly for TBS games.
However, I do actually have some well formulated opinions on the matter. (Or at least, =I= think they're well formulated...)
Having played Civ 3 and onward, Ascendancy, MoO2, MoM, and Age of Wonders, I've got a few different implementations of the 'Standard' or 'Local' Economic Model to compare Elemental against. I've got to say, both from a realism standpoint, and from a general gameplay standpoint, I like this model a TON better. The problem with the Local Eco Model is that it takes away a big part of the Strategy from the game. That does sound counter-intuitive at first blush though, so let me explain...
Whether or not you get X Number of cities with DECENT tiles is pretty much entirely defined by LUCK. The Strategy is reduced to the point where you have to try to place your cities on the best tiles you have, rather than as a means to acquire a strategic resource. This FURTHER reduces the amount of strategy, because oft-times, you're forced to sacrifice an Economically good position for a Strategic one, when in fact, those things should almost always be the same thing. Also, from the standpoint that, in History, some of the most seemingly desolate, barren places, are actually GREAT staging areas for Military Strikes into enemy territory, you should be able to hold on to a relatively barren and desolate place. The problem is, those places wouldn't at all be viable to hold on to if it weren't for the fact that Economy doesn't operate entirely on a Local level, and I'm pretty sure it hasn't since the days of the Neanderthal's, bar maybe some specific instances. I.E., once we developed Civilizations, even very, very small and rudimentary ones, there was often trade between tribes, villages, what-have-you. However, looking at a game like Civilization, it's impossible to hold on to a place like that, because of dissent and a large number of other things, and heck, good luck even keeping a city in the middle of Desert without Flood Plains or Oasis that doesn't just starve itself into oblivion. The City wouldn't be a city, it'd be a glorified Fort, one that even the opponent would Raze as soon as they got their hands on it. It also brought about an unrealistic upkeep cost for how poor it was. That costs you time, money, and most importantly I think, Military. By that same token, in those cities, you're incapable of building anything... Now, going back to the Desert City Example, that makes no sense. Look at a ton of Middle Eastern/North African countries, which tend to be situated right in the middle of a desert more often than not. Yet, somehow, they survive, even thrive to an extent. Yet, in Civ, they very clearly DON'T survive, much less thrive. You could also, like someone mentioned, look at Las Vegas and a pretty big chunk of the North American "Four Corners" area in general. Utah, where I live, is a Pseudo-Desert. By the 'Local Eco Model' logic, only about a half or so of this state should be usable. Technology isn't even a factor, since people moved here and lived here before there was even such a thing as Automobiles. They survived here just fine, in basically the middle of nowhere, all because of a non-local economy.
@Rishkith: If you're taking more than 30 minutes in a competitive match of Starcraft, then you and your opponent should be in a dead heat the entire game. Meaning, it takes about 5 minutes is all to break their entrenchment, in a competitive match. Casual matches, however, are very different, being absolutely rife with Static Defenses.
Back on point though, I've been lurking on these forums since around Beta 1B or 1C, and it's been discussed PLENTY, other than just that one thread. To insinuate, outright accuse, the Devs of straight deception and lying is not only a little incensing, even to me, but insulting, again, even to me. And it should insult every Tester in here as well. It's insulting to Stardock, because they would not pull the wool over our eyes, and even if they did, it wouldn't matter, since we'd see through it. (We being the collective whole of the Beta Community.) Two, it's insulting as a tester simply because that's the same as insinuating that they -COULD- pull the wool over our eyes, and by extension, calling every tester, discluding yourself, something along the lines of gullible or just plain stupid.
Furthermore, I have to agree with other statements made here. You've made absolutely no Logical and Constructive arguments as to -WHY- local is better than Global, which is just even more insulting given the prior insinuation, because that forces us, as the Global-Supporters, to assume that you think we're too stupid to 'be worth your time,' therefore putting us in an even more exclusive group of stupidity and gullibility than even those you blatantly blanket-insult.
Lastly, it insults the intelligence, integrity, and decency, of these Forums, this Beta Test, the Game as a whole, and everyone at Stardock, for you to say, 'Because I don't like this feature, I'm going to be a lot less active/stop actively participating in the Beta Process,' without providing any good reason as to WHY IT SHOULD BE DIFFERENT.
I'm sorry if that's too angry, too ad hominim, and too harsh, but you basically just took a big dump on the faces of everyone who's an active, or inactive part of this community, who plays the Beta, and who doesn't actively agree with you, particularly Frogboy, Boogie, and the other Dev's, who pour their time, money, and most importantly, EFFORT into this game so YOU CAN ENJOY IT, and you cheapen it all because of ONE FRIGGEN FEATURE that you can't agree with. I bet if you'd just look at it objectively rather than just argue how your way is better without providing any evidence to support that point, (Read: Being STUBBORN,) you might just find that this system is actually FUN.
Well I am still going to take part in the forums and help out as much as possible i simply am angry over this and will not ever settle on the issue.
For now i will shut up and when modding comes around we'll make a mod with local resources and compare the two.
Until then we will simply have to be silent over it because the game designers decided to run counter to what the majority *I believe the majority* Wanted which is fine i just will not admit it till there's a pole that we are minority on the issue we might be the minority On the DEV team but that's a wholenother matter now i'll drop this and we can stop this silly arguement because it gets us nowhere.
Forum glitch i accidentally refreshed page and it double posted *My fault* cause it ran out of time for some reason *sever didn't respond* Sorry for double post.
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