This is going to be long. I beg for forgiveness up front.
So for those of you just tuning in, Elemental has just completed a marathon 8 month Beta 1 cycle. The purpose of which was to explore all kinds of new game mechanics and try different things out. It went so well that in our next game, I’d like to bring the beta people in even earlier.
For Beta 1, we stripped out the graphics engine forcing users to play on a “cloth map” interface. We went through considerable lengths to ensure that beta 1 was unpleasant to play. The goal was to get people to think about what makes a good game rather than thinking about graphics or features per se.
From that marathon beta we got a incredible amount of feedback, online discussions, and lots of debates. We read them at length and they made us think about a lot of different things that we hadn’t thought of before.
So what was the impact? Below I’m going to walk you through the tangible differences to the game based on the betas and the beta tester debates.
No one will ever agree on the single best way to make Elemental. No matter what we do, there will be dissatisified people. It’s inevitable because (and I consider this unfortunate) the gaming industry has reached a point where there is a severe lack of what we call “new IP”. That is, games that don’t include a roman numeral after the name. Worse, when we do get new games, they’re increasingly designed to work on both PC and consoles which means that their feature set has to work on the lowest common denominator. As a result, Elemental has a lot of hopes behind it.
But we have to be careful. Anything designed to be all things to all people is doomed to failure. So with Elemental, we’ve had to really consider what the game is about and focus on that game.
Camp #1: The Settlers Camp
This is the camp I’m nominally from. That’s where you mine resources which in turn get processed into one thing and then turned into another before being used as yet another. The economic system in Elemental was (early on) very much like this. You mined metal. This metal was processed into metal bars which in turn were turned into weapons, armor, etc. Which in turn were shipped to where you wanted to build the unit.
This was one of the concepts that the beta program jetisoned. Not because it was a bad idea but because A) there is a “Settlers” game already and it would so overwhelm the rest of the game.
Camp #2: The Master of Magic Clone Camp
I am nominally part of this camp as well. This camp’s input tended to be “Master of Magic had X” and that itself was enough to argue that Elemental should have it. While Elemental is almost certainly the most similar game to MoM since MoM itself, it is, by no means, a clone of it.
Camp #3: The Fall from Heaven Camp
The popular Civ IV mod has lots of fans (myself included). There’s certainly plenty of items in Elemental that are similar to what is in Fall from Heaven since both ultimately are civilization style games.
Camp #4: The Panzer General / Magic: Total War camp
This is the group that argued, quite correctly that with a subtitle “War of Magic” that it made sense to focus on the warfare elements of the game.
Camp #5: The SimFantasy camp
The term isn’t meant to be dismissive of those who would like a truly organic world. At the one extreme, you have Elemental as a board game and at the other extreme you have Elemental as a fantasy world simulation.
So what are some of the big changes that occurred because of the massive beta?
In no particular order:
With Beta 2 expected in the next couple weeks, we’ll have a pretty good idea whether release is going to be this Summer or next Winter. (Fall is “booked” at retail). I personally believe that late Summer is still likely but we’ll see. Beta 2 will give us a pretty good sense of where things stand.
The big questions in our minds will be the role of the NPCs in the world and the role of quests in the world. Their inclusion are the most obvious “differentiators” for Elemental. We’ll be balancing and enhancing those features for years to come.
Glad to hear the tactical battles are turn based instead of RTS. I bought the game many months ago and have been joining in the beta but for some reason i never even realized it was originally supposed to be RTS tactical battles. Definitely would have felt like bait and switch so glad you didn't go that route
After hearing more about FFH from these forums I decided to give it a shot. Really enjoying it so far.
Elemental should be a unique game and not a clone of any others, but one thing that has impressed me so far about FFH is how unique every civilization and race is. It provides a lot of replayability and discoverability. It's also actually kind of fun that it isn't all that well documented so you feel like you are continuing to discover things as you play instead of understanding it all from day 1.
I have to say I'd be amazed if Elemental can really hit the late summer date. I know the beta is different from the versions you play, but there are so many game concepts that are just initiated in the beta and not fleshed out that I think there will be many months of balancing work before a successful release.
Looking forward to the multiplayer beta
- Icehawk
It is a shame that none of us actually got to try out the tactical battles from an RTS standpoint, we might have had different opinions. Thank you for the update.
isnt total war 1 of best series beacuse of battles and nothing else shouldnt this game have best battle
"But when we played through tactical battles it just came back over and over again to discussions on the forums where users were understandably expecting combat to be more along the lines of Master of Magic, Xcom, HOMM,"
eh thats not new you have good story you have many new great idea for this game but why ruin all of that with we all seen in milion games type of battle:turn based
dont get me wrong i love turn based but moving around field even i continous turns gives you some extra feling while you play and after i dont remember neither 1 battle i played in turn based
eh maybe in wrong i talk of non magic game but i would like to see battle on field with magic involved it would be great maybe not seen before
Can't say that I really care one way or the other if its Turn-based or Real Time... I'm awesome at both.
If it were Real Time I'd hope for a Turn based mod...
Since it's turn based I guess I'll hope for a real time mod.
I just like to change up the rules from time to time to keep things fresh.
I like turn-based for the obvious strategic possibilities. I also like Real time because combat feels much more frenetic and visceral in real time.
As long as I can slaughter enemy armies and feel bad-ass doin it, I can't complain.
I am a big fan of x-com, mom, and langrisser etc.. but the screens of all those guys fighting that dragon looked epic! I'm all in support of turns/tiles but please don't lose the epicness shown in those pictures.
every time you guys say x-com i get uncontrollable anger thinking that the next x-com game is gonna be a fps.....is it just me?
Wow, am I the only one here who enjoyed X-com Apocalypse's real time/pause combat?
I'm not saying there is anything inherently bad with tb combat but it has been known to get tedious in multiplayer depending on army size and how quick your opponents are. Hopefully we can manage civ functions like production and diplomacy during our opponent's turn to alleviate problematic tedium.
As much as I love me some Baldur's Gate (67 playthroughs! Yes, I have a problem. Send help.) I prefer my controllable TBS battles to also be TBS.
No. It isn't. I want to hit people until it's a Tactical Battle game again. Won't happen though.
Yeaaaaah. I don't know what's wrong with me. Don't think I care at this point either.
good stuff, good stuff...
Well i can see the pro and cons for turn based vs continous turn/real time, but this change is quite sudden for us, as tactical battles were not really dealt with in the past journal entries (for someone like me that is not involved in forums discussions ).
I might add it's weird to change it before any tester could test it,
thanks for bringing up this fallen from earth mod for civ..i have never really messed with mods on it but gonna try this now.
Well, I half like this. Turn based is good, since the rest of the game is TBS.
But tile based? I don't like tiles. Especially square tiles. They create lots of oddities and weirdness in unit movement speeds and attack distances. There isn't a lot of granularity in movement speeds, units get drastically faster with a single tile increase, and diagonal moves increase speed still (hexes fix that one at least). AoE attacks are also problematic, the next size up for an area attack from hitting one tile is hitting every surrounding tile, which is comparatively huge. Whereas without tiles you can set blast zone sizes with a lot of granularity (5 meters, 10 meters, etc).
Can you ditch the tiles in combat and let units move/attack freely like they would in an RTS while keeping the TBS turn nature? That seems like it'd be great.
I missed the switch from RTS to turn style, and I'm really disappointed. I'm not saying I won't enjoy the turn style - I was just really pumped about the Lords of Magic style of the game.
To me, turn style fights are a bit too hardcore, and it scares me that it might hurt the size of Elemental's potential audience. I just don't care to spend a huge amount of time deciding who should be on what square - I'm a Summoner, I order my legions, I don't care whether a foot soldier stands two feet to the left or right.
I really like Tridus's idea too - ditching the tiles and make it more seemless. It worked really well in Valkyrie Chronicles, for example.
Well I know from my Experience, while I loved the X-Com line and think the world of the IP. The first time I opened Apoc I was like "What the hell is this shit". Turned out it wasn't a bad game at all. But many a time did I fnd myself missing X-Com 1 and 2.
And P.S. I hate when people refer to BG as turn based. Yes I know therre was a turn based engine under the hood and combat was built around a set amount of time per cycle. But it was so much of a point your guys in the general direction and send them charging. After holding back long enough for the initial Fireball. I loved the game don't get me wrong.. But to me it is a stripped down RTS more than a souped up TBS.
Gimme Chess over Checkers any day.
...And it isn't bait & switch to, well, you know: announce that tactical combat will be continuous turns, and then change it to completely turn-based and tile-based because you're afraid it might be too much of a bait & switch?
I don't get it. If that's the reasoning that was used to come to this decision, then you need to have your logic board repaired Not to mention that there are enough TBS games out there with real-time tactical combat that people should not assume one or the other. If there were other (reasonable) reasons, then sure. If you were worried it'd be too complex to do well (for example I can imagine that flying creatures could pose many challenges), I could begrudgingly accept that. But this bait & switch business is the best example of irony I've seen in a long while.
Personally, I'm greatly saddened by this news, but I'll live. I do enjoy turn-based combat, too. Personally I was envisioning combat being presented kind of like TW battles (even if the mechanics were totally different), and TW-like combat with fantastical creatures and magic would be so much fun.
But, if you must go this route, then please:
Please listen to Tridus! Sure, square/hex based combat is still fun (HoMM III is among my favorite games of all time), but the smaller the smallest quantum of distance is, the more freedom we have. For example, combat in AoW was, I believe, based on tiles, but they were so small compared to everything that AoE effects could vary well enough.
Edit: On another note, I have to admit that the decision to simplify the resource system is probably for the best. It's of course hard to judge with so much of the game still missing (here's to hoping beta 2 changes that!), but I think I agree that it'd have drastically altered the focus of the game away from what most people will be looking for. I'm interested to see if any adventurous modder will come up with a good settlers-style resource system though, it'd be really fun to experiment with.
I play it as a command-pause. Pause, issue commands, pause as needed. I might be cheating in some peoples eyes, for doing so, and not simply letting the game run as is, but my reflexes aren't good enough for that.
It is absolutely a Real-Time Combat system. You can pause it, though.
You know if someone could actually pull of a Good "TRUE" TB without the uses of tiles and Hexes I would love to see it. Problem is it seems as soon as you remove the tiles everything converts to a RTS. It's like once you remove the tiles not having any kind of scale to work with throws things off for alot of people.
I am a sad panda
I was desperately hoping this was going to be the next we-go game. Guess I am going to have to mod it.
Oh, and everything that was said about square base turn based tile systems +1.
The problem with turn based is while it allows you to think about what you are doing it ends up being far far FAR FARR!!! to bloody gamey.
all sorts of stupid maneuvers happen that are really rather crap, (fast cavalry run round your front line and attack wizzard, while your fast cavalry stand there and watch cause it isn't your turn)
Hopefully there will be some of X-Coms reactive turns included. (damn I hope WE-GO is implemented for multiplayer)
please please please go and have a look at laser squad nemesis, its something of a spiritual sequel to X-COM made by the Gallop brothers. I am only talking about the turn system (and anything else you like).
http://www.lasersquadnemesis.com/ there is a demo available here.
Or the combat mission series as another great example of WE-GO.
http://www.battlefront.com/products/cmak/cmak.html again a demo is available here.
Seriously this offers us the time to think and avoids the issue of gamey tactics/immersion breakers.
Having had that little rant though I am glad its not a RTS....although a port/mod of myth 2: the fallen lords would be really cool!
I'm glad that you added another combat mode on! The XCom way is good! Cause my friends are starting to get interested in Elemental... and hopefully they will buy it! Yes yes we could of had it like Total War, control your empire in turns and then combat in real time but hey it will still be better than just WATCHING COMBAT!
Now I really like the siege idea of taking away resources from your total pool. Hopefully similar to the Rise of Nations plundering too... love that game!
I can't wait to see the final design of NPC's in game!
I say launch the game for Christmas! (Family will be pissed!)
Now for my forgiveness... (big juicy expansion for Elemental and GCIII!)
Between Total War style combat and the typical tbs combat, I'd take Total War style in a heartbeat.
Now, if we can get something akin to Warhammer style combat, which is Total War in turn based, ahh...
It's not the RTS that puts me in the Total War camp for battles, it's the importance in formations, morale, positioning, charging versus standing to take the charge, everything that makes Total War a badass combat sim. Get all the important stuff into a turn based system that plays as fluidly and I'll be in heaven.
Turn-based is fine with me. But, FWIW, real-time battle are also ok, if and only if:
1: There is a speed control.
2: You can ISSUE ORDERS WHILE PAUSED.
Take away either of those two and I'm out. Except for the Total War series, every real-time or "fast-paced" game I've played since the mid-eighties has been a bust. Don't like time pressure and don't have good reflexes (any more). Play to relax, not play as a caffeine surrogate.
Do these two and it is close enough to turn based (at least in SP) as makes no difference anyway. Run a few seconds, pause, issue orders, run a few.... etc. Total War battles are like that.
One Elemental-specific argument in favor of turn-based -- it will give us time to enjoy the fantastic spell-effect graphics I think/hope they are working on without getting nailed by an AI that doesn't get distracted.
Agree with the guy(s) above who said that there is plenty of RTS available elsewhere. Its the turn-based crowd who have been starving the last decade of so.
Haven't played Baldur's Gate, so I don't know what exactly the continuous-turn system would have been like. Anything like HOMM5 ?
I kind of like the first camp. If I would like this game to be like any other game, I would pick Mount and Blade:Warband, since it is the most natural game I have played in a long time. It still has its issues, but there are a lot of game mechanics that are natural and aren't obvious game mechanics.
What I wish this game was, was a game that tried to balance through natural means, and not something that changes game mechanics in a unbelievable fashion to attempt to change some balance. I like to keep the suspension of disbelief, and most strategy games lose that very quickly. (M&B:WB has done the best to maintain it of the games I have played since "The Dig".)
If you can somehow make the game mechanics seem natural, or have proper fiction surrounding each "strange" game mechanic (like in Mass Effect where infinite ammo was explained in a logical manner), then I would be happy. Those games are always the most fun for me.
Neverwinter Nights also used this system, along with the sequel. I like that way of playing, although I hated the arbitrary party limits of those games as they made no logical sense in the game world (only to add balance, since it doesn't make sense that 3/4 of your party would just sit at the bar while the remaining 3 of you would try to save the world.)
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