Elemental:Expanded Edition (E:EE) is going to be a mod that expands and changes the gameplay in Elemental to provide a deeper, more strategic game than the original.
While I have a ton of ideas for how the gameplay (as it stands now) in Elemental can be improved upon, the ultimate goal is to make the game more fun. While I will continue to post my suggestions for incorporation into the "Vanilla" version of the game, I would like to start getting a team together, so when Beta-5 comes around this summer we can immediately start work.
The initial version of E:EE will be to create a backbone version of the mod while sticking to the canon and lore of the Elemental universe. Essentially it will expand upon the game, creating more in-depth systems for everything from Quests, to Diplomacy, to Magic without altering the story (or at least altering it as little as possible) and vision that Stardock has worked so hard to prepare for us.
Once this initial version is complete and released to the public, this "base" mod can be used by other mods as a starting point for more comprehensive mods, as well as an expanded version of E:EE.
One of the key goals of the mod, is to make it modular. As different aspects of the mod are completed, they will be released independently for use in other mods.
If you've read any of my threads on Multi-Racial species, mount changes, terrain, etc. you have at least a general idea of where I am looking to go with E:EE. Other changes will include a re-work of the Magic system, expanded diplomacy, and major changes to the tech tree. That being said the goal of E:EE (as stated above) is to make the game more fun- If something doesn't work, or the majority of the dev team feels its a bad idea, than I'm all for changing it. I'm not here to be a leader per-say- this is going to be a community effort- I'm just here to keep the team communicating, and contribute as part of the team.
Right now I need everyone I can get on-board. We will need everything including:
moddelers
texture guys
2-D artists
writers
play-testers
designers
anything else you can think of
If you are planning on creating a mod yourself, you might want to consider getting onboard with E:EE - We plan to make it fully available to all modders to use as a base (and further modify as they see fit) for their own mods. Why should 2 people be working on the same task just because they are working on different mods?
UPDATE 1: I have registered a domain, and set up some basic hosting for the mod-site. Once everything is ready up-to-date information on the mod will be kept at https://www.elementalexpanded.com
UPDATE 2: Already generating some interest from a few of you - I have launched a forum and a wiki for the project on the website above to help us track the mod. I'll have more stuff up for it later - for now I'm gonna go test some elemental!
I'm interested in assisting in the expansion of NPC's, namely tweaking AI and gameplay so that they do more than just wander around. Since it has already been stated that each one has its own AI, there should be a substantial amount that can be done with this, especially if money can be tracked per character.
What I am thinking is enabling them to start their own businesses, interact with players on a contractual basis, and gradually develop themselves based on their character type. For example, mercenaries will form mercenary companies, merchants will trade, loremasters will create magical artifacts, administrators will set themselves up by a resource (which they then sell to traders), ect.
i am thinking of making a more in depth system for the RPG side of the game that meaning it has an insane effect on Npcs empires anything really attached to that. that's if Elemental's rpg side isn't appealing to me i think it won't have the depth i would love, but the areas that would be left to fix later would be terrain, magic, economy and combat. i might not change how the terrain works though.
Mis-post....
Now that we have a good idea of the final game, I'm starting to think more about what I want to do for mods. I'm debating about throwing my efforts to support this group or another group, or just doing my own thing.
The main areas I want to improve on are:
1) Overall gameplay depth, more options, more things to do, more decisions to be made
2) More character / story / life in NPCs, quests, etc.
Hey all...
Been a week or two since I've been on- been really sick (in hos.). I'll still be working on E:EE when I can but for the next month or so at least I am not going to have more than occasional access to the net (I'm home, but the meds I'm on keep me knocked out most of the day). Sorry for the delays all- I had hoped to have some assets available today
So now that I've played the release of Elemental, I would definately like to see an expanded edition. I would like to help in a variety of ways and though I have experience with game modding, (Europa Universalis, Total War, etc.) I'm still a bit new to all of it. I'm a novelist, fluent writer, and long time D&D DM so I can definately help with literal script and quest dialogue. Let me know where I might be of use!
Same here, I've been wanting to help as well. If you would have me, my services are still available as I stated months ago. lol
Edit: I've decided I'm going to do my own mod, with it all going back to the original ideas of Elemental: Camp 1 economy, large scale battles, and song of fire and ice type espionage.
But I would still love to help out on this.
I plan on putting my ideas up when I get them all ironed out.
Any news about this mod? Doesn't seem to be much acitivity
I will "do something about the situation" anyway and more or less keeping with the canon suits me fine.A good game does not need zombies and unicorns and pink fairies - it needs good gameplay.Whether Race ID1 looks human, orcish, or elven... that's purely an art asset issue to me.The gameplay is where they must be different or you can roundfile all that pretty art.
What I do is designing "systems" like this or that and script/code.
Whenever I use formulas/numbers in such a design, they are completely arbitrary.It's pointless to try and set up the perfect balance at the design stage without knowinghow exactly the code will work in the end and which workarounds / limitations will exist.
And no matter if I'm "part of something" or not, everything I do will be modular anyway and if at all possible, use a library call / DLL system. Will have to see what's possible. It's such a waste of coding time to hardcode some hack that will only work with your own modand is impossible to adapt to others.
Of course, the AI will also have to learn how to deal with the new features. Goes without saying.No idea how that will turn out but in the end it's all down to math and teaching the machine to assess andunderstand situations. Figuring out what to do isn't even the hard part. It's letting the AI figure out it'ssituation so it can choose the most optimal means to improve it.
Oh, and I'm useless with anything that is in any way related to graphics or sound.I did some 2D editing but only to unprettify overyly artsy (and therefore obtuse / blurry) elements.
Given that the OP hasn't been around for the last month or two, I'm not holding my breath. =P
I don't know how to mod the code (yet anyway...) But I am a good writer, and love good stories. Quest could have more text, and tell a story as avatar progresses through quest. I just finished helping with the english translation/playtest of Nehrim (German total conversion of Oblivion / TES4.) And I have some free time now. Shall we plan some epic quests and storylines?
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