I think this article at PCGamer is a little slanderous and overtly malicious. Gratefully the problems he complains about I don't even experience myself. And I have usually been a skeptic here. Articles like this one are only designed to hurt and not help. The article is disguised to help buyers by steering people away through blown out of proportion accusations and statements. I believe the game needs work but not on par with the writers complaints. I don't believe its a disastrous launch. That statement is overblown and an outright a lie in my opinion. I am not a fanboy but I know a good game with potential when I play it. It just saddens me that there are players out there with chips on their shoulders or vendettas.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/08/25/elementals-disastrous-launch-stay-well-away/
I have to say I love the game but this review is right. I am running the game on a pretty beefy rig and getting numerous crashes and slow downs. I expected a greater level of refinement from stardock as their last games were stable as anything. I mean Victoria II is more stable on my machine then this game without a patch which is crazy with paradox's track record.
Is Elemental fun? Yes. And I'm not talking about 1.05, which came out too late last night for me to play. I'll get to that tonight. But 1.01 was already a lot of fun.
Is Elemental a buggy mess? Inaccessible to more casual players? A niche product that will require patience from dedicated gamers? Absolutely.
I knew a month ago that there was no way it would truly be ready this month,but the realities of PC game sales is such that developers don't finish them before letting them loose. It's just the way it is.
From my standpoint as long as the game is fun and is supported for long enough to matter, I'm happy enough. Stardock has the most to lose and if they see the kind of sales they want and need, then it should be okay for them too.
PC Gamer, on the other hand, is just looking out for gamers. People praised them when they knocked Ubisoft games for the DRM in their latest titles, but now we slam them for telling the truth?
The launch had issues, no doubt. Many of those issues have been fixed or improved with last night/this morning's patch. To me, with the new patches, it's going very good.
It does seem that there is a definite bias from the gaming "press." Case in point, Empire: Total War. It was a buggy mess; far worse than ANY buggy mess I've ever played. Six months after release, the game still wouldn't load at all. And from the forums, a lot of people had these problems. Where was PC Gamer's warning then? In fact, what gaming mag/site gave any poor reviews to Empire at all? In fact, PC Gamer UK gave it 94. 94!!!!! For a game that couldn't run, at all, on some PCs; even those who could run it still had a broken mess. Yet, http://www.gamerankings.com/pc/942966-empire-total-war/index.html
At the same exact time, Demigod came out - a game with far fewer bugs, from an indie developer. Many of the reviews I read cited how much fun it was, but attributed low scores due to release week issues. http://www.gamerankings.com/pc/944424-demigod/index.html
It simply seems the "press" holds indie companies to MUCH higher standards than mainstream companies.
Today's Day-0 patched release runs great (for me). It feels a lot like GalCiv. It's not perfect; it has bugs. But it's certainly not worthy of the aforementioned post.
And as for "Ben," well, the customer is not always right. Sometimes the customer is a douchebag, and sometimes it's Ok to let the customer know that the customer is a douchebag and that said douchebag should *bleep* off.
But to be fair, the PC Game "press" is a joke, and has been for years. Holding them up to ANY manner of professionalism is to hold them to a standard far beyond their capacity. It just boggles my mind that so many reviewers, who are supposedly looking out for game buyers, praised Empire:TW so highly.
I don't see that article as overly harsh in any way at all. Most of what he said is true. No matter what kind of spin is put on it, Elemental is far from a "finished" game. It seems rather obvious that it was rushed out to beat Civ 5 release date. In doing so it has many glaring issues, I still cannot play the game on a top of the line machine with more than 20fps. It doesn't even seem to be using my graphics card at all. I also have numerous crashes and errors.
I think the main problem is that after GalCiv, and seeing the quality of game that we all know SD is capable of, and after reading the many heartfelt articles about the "Gamer's Bill of Rights," Elemental just doesn't live up to that level or that expectation currently.
I have no doubt that it will reach those levels, hopefully soon. SD is second to none when it comes to customer service, that is one of the reasons why I am not banging my drum and screaming at the top of my lungs. If this were an EA game, I would definitely have a different tone. I must say though, that how it currently stands, Elemental is definately the buggiest and most unstable game I have bought all year, without any doubt. I really hope that they fix these issues quickly, and that this doesn't hurt the rep that SD has built. I consider myself a SD loyalist, however SD must remember that loyalty is earned not blindly given.
Sincerely,
A loyal but concerned Stardock customer.
I agree with the article. Ive effectively shelled out $100 AU to buy into a beta game. The first patch fixed bits and pieces and allowed me to see the potential of the game. But the memory leak, the seeming after thoughts just drag this game through the mud.
I remember Master of Magic taking about 4 years to reach the stage it got too and becoming a classic, but that was over 15 years ago. That sort of crap should not happen now, especially when the template for the game is pretty much there concept wise. Sure, add some bells and whistles, tinker with it, put your slant on it, but for gods sake, make sure the thing is stable.
Hopefully Stardock is not going the way of all one shot big successes. Those that believe, because they got it right once, they can fling it out quicker with the next and still make capital off their reputation. It takes one lousey game to sink a company like Stardock, who are not big enough to absorb such losses.
However, I am still holding to the belief that I will see the spiritual successor to one of my favourite games of all time work and be the game it is meant to be.
Only problem I have about it, is the double standard. Because StarDock is/was known for putting out finished/polished games and is a smaller indie company when they don't it's a huge deal and they get slammed to hell and back, but when the big guys do it, the ones that people expect to have buggy launches they get a pass and a glowing review...
The article kept mentioning 'the rest of the industry' as if PC games have been all perfect at launch recently when buggy launches have actually been the norm for a while now. Don't think it's fair to point the finger at Stardock while ignoring how buggy 90% of PC games have been in recent years.
Paradox games also take years, and in EUIII's case, 2 expansions to get to a good state.
People need to remember how hard games like this are to do right.
If you would have asked me yesterday I would have told you the same thing...stay away until it's patched. I couldn't even play it past a certain point yesterday...that's pretty much broken in my book.
Maybe you didn't encounter that problem, which I am glad (honestly)...but it's obvious PC Gamer had the same issues I had and stay away until patched is absolutely the correct advice.
This is my system BTW:
Q6600 C2Q
4GB 1066mhz Ram
260GTX Core 216
Windows 7 64bit
The article is right. Game seems to have been rushed badly. Plenty of repeatable problems from people with fairly up to date systems. I have both the whited-out tactical battle screen and the CTD after 200 or so turns. Both still happen on 1.05.
I wholeheartedly agree with Vogar.
All you fanbois speak of overreaction and bias of the one who wrote the article while you obviously perform biased reading and overreact yourselves. Yes, the statement was taken out of context, and yes a large portion of that article could have been worded more appropriately. BUT:
Quote: "we want to warn you to stay away from the game for now."
Quote: "Brad wants people like me to stop buying Stardock games. I have a different suggestion: we should stop buying Stardock games at launch."
So basically he is just stating that one should better wait with the purchase until the game is playable and enjoyable not only for a few but MOST of the players, and that he'd rather buy SD products later than not at all. How is that hateflinging or whatever you call it.
I'm also a big SD fan and WILL buy the game. But once it is in a state that I for myself consider enjoyable.
I am very excited at the potential of the game, but I have not tried playing it since Monday; this was the first Stardock game I bought and I was underwhelmed by the experience. It would have been a good idea if they plastered "Pre-release version" across the start up screen so everyone would know the state of the game they were downloading and would expect to find issues.
I think the PCGamer article is very fair considering the circumstances. I was impressed that the writer said he was going to hold off reviewing until a stable version was available; he must really be a fan of Stardock because I have never seen that happen before and I have been reading computer game magazines for decades; since the days when they would print snippets of code in the magazine so you could write your own (mostly text-based) games. The typical response of a reviewer is that they only review the release candidate, what people buy, not patched versions of games.
I have watched the game play video a couple of times now and I am (still) extremely anxious to play the game and especially to try out the mod tools. However, I believe I will wait until the weekend before I try playing again; because I hope by the weekend they will have corrected most of the issues. I think they will because I imagine the devs are updating code like crazy right now. I hope the bad spelling and grammar I found in Monday's release has been fixed as well because, although it was unintentionally funny, it made me very sad inside... like a little part of my brain died.
There does seem to be a double standard where big-name releases from major publishers are given a pass for similar things that Stardock is getting slammed for. I think part of that might be due to the same reason that Best Buy broke the release date with impunity: Stardock doesn't have the clout to protect itself. I doubt that publications are paid-off outright, but I'm pretty sure that they're well aware that if they're overly critical of certain games from certain influential publishers that they'll find themselves at an editorial disadvantage when their competition suddenly starts landing all the exclusive stories. Stardock just doesn't have that kind of pull.
"People need to remember how hard games like this are to do right. "
Then extend the sodding release date!? would you buy half a car?
Sorry but i am no longer willing to make up excuses because i am loyal to Stardock ... it's not like this is their FIRST ever game and it's not like there haven't been hundreds of complaint threads in previous forums before this .... IF i'd paid say ... 20-25 pounds for the game than yes, but when im payin CONCIDERABLY more for a DIGITAL title than i am for a BOXED copy (i live in the UK to clarify) then it had damn well justify the asking price and i am done being complacent, forgiving and making up reasons and excuses on thier behalf.
Now perhaps PC Gamer feel the same way? Ele is not the first SD title they have reviewed and perhaps they are just a tad fed up aswell!
I've never understood why cars are the go-to analogy for video games.
I don't mind the PCGamer one as much. I think something got taken out of context, but I'm on that boat with Paradox now. I'm not buying anymore of their products at release after HoI3 and Semper Fi didn't seem to fix anything. But I find Elemental to be complete and works just fine, well, did, before the one patch broke the archery, but that was supposed to be fixed with the hotfix. To each his or her own. I still have faith in Stardock and would recommend Elemental to others in the current state. I'd just tell friends with ATI cards to give it a bit, until the OOM bug and other issues are resolved.
Well how about half a cuisinart then, the analogy still holds.
I don't buy that...just about every game from Stardock was reviewed extremly high by PC Gamer, for instance Sins got a 91 from PC Gamer.
And to be perfectly honest this is one of the worst releases I have seen in a long time. I can't even remember the last game I had that was bugged to a point where you simply could not progress.
Obviously this is my own personal experience, which may be different from yours.
I don't see how this article can be considered malicious, rather laced with genuine disappointment in the discrepancy of what Stardock's policy used to be and the way it presents itself today, and I can totally understand where the author is coming from. He is not saying to never ever buy Elemental, but to hold of now and to wait for a more polished version of the game.
Because it is a simple way of saying would you pay for half of something, relating to an item that for the most part people pay alot of money for and expect to work from day one.
Therefor it triggers the same thoughts and feelings that are being conveyed, which in turn gets the reader thinking in the right way.
Given that all you could get from my reply was that single quote and no defense against the rest ... i needn't say anymore.
I don't know, I've seen plenty of major publishers release games less unfinished then elemental is and get blasted for it in the reviews. In fact if anything I think Stardock is being treated less harshly. The review is giving them a lot of faith in saying that they feel the game will eventually be good. If a major publisher had released a game in this shape, I doubt they would get that.
I don't think the guy even played the game out. I think he went forum hopping and got mad because someone told him to STFU with his complaining and then he went back to PCgamer in a rage and just degraded the character of Stardock and Brad et al. They should SUE PCgamer imho....I would. All he basically did was rant about "don't buy this game" boo hoo hoo. He gave basic information anyone would know about the game itself but he was more interested in blasting Stardock than doing even that.
You can't play this game 5 minutes and have an honest opinion about the ENTIRE game or experience. I questioned a guy the other day who said he fininished it in 12 hours only to find out he did a lot of "end turn end turn end turn" just to get to the finish. That's not playing or experencing everything it's just a rush to a review.
I take little salt with PCgamer reviews anymore anyways. I am a fan of Tom Chick though and hope he has more diplomacy when he gives his review of the ENTIRE game not just out of the box. I wish William Trotter were still reviewing games he was the best.
I think it's par for the course to be honest. Very few PC games have a perfectly smooth launch these days. I think the only companies to consistently pull it off are Valve and Blizzard, and they're clearly the exception.
It's because the big studios are the ones buying all the advertising which is where the magazines and sites make all their money. As a result game magazines are very hesitant to publish an overly critical review of their flagship games (particularly the ones with big advertising budgets) for fear of the ads being pulled and losing all that revenue. Stardock, on the other hand, is an indie studio with a small advertising budget, so consequently they are less reluctant to be critical.
Edit: this comment was made in the context of the discussion about there being a double standard, which certainly there is and is easy enough to understand if you follow the money.
Oh that is just utter bullschitt. Creative Assembly (Total War series) and Firaxis or 2k games whichever (Civilization series) have gotten away with a lot more especially Creative Assembly with crap trash games being released out of the box and they get fricking 90% or better scores as the reviewers allow them crap build releases out of the box. They overlook every CTD and bug and flaw in them. Hell even Paradox got away with it for awhile.
It's the small developer that gets the flying fickly finger of screwing in the review world. The Majors get a golden ticket pass like they were going to the Willy Wonka Factory.
PC Gamer isn't the publication it used to be, that's for sure. Things went downhill fast after Greg Verderman left. He was pretty much the last of the "old guard".
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