I put "review" in quotations because it's not, really. Mr. Chick explains as much himself. What it is, though, is a fascinating look at the game from a game reviewer who apparently has a working history with Mr. Wardell. I think it's a good read.
I wonder if Frogboy has seen it, and if he'd weigh in.
I hear you. My one big complaint with Elemental is the manual. It's basically a pamphlet. It should have been 4 times as big, I really want to know all the details about this game...
Blizzard was waiting to release games until they were extremely well polished long before WoW came out though. In fact they have only released one non WoW game since then, which is SC2. It's not about how much money you have, plenty of big succesfull game companies release unfinished games all the time, and Blizzard didn't spring into being as a succesfull company. It's about knowing that the extra time and money you spend working on making a great and well polished game will pay for itself many times over.
That is your opinion, and obviously millions of players and many reviewers do not share your opinion.
I don't even like SC, but I can appreciate, as a fan of other games, having a new and improved version of a classic. Originality is nice but ultimately having fun and feeling like your money is well spent is important.
A new version of X-COM is in the works. Instead of being a squad-based tactical turn-based game, it is going to be a first person shooter. That is not X-COM, that is an abomination, it's a slap in the face of PC gaming fans and the history of PC gaming. The people inolved with this should all be strung up by the balls for trying to capitalize on the name "X-COM". What real X-COM fans want from one the the most beloved games of early PC gaming history is the same style gameplay with a modern UI, modern graphics, new content, and maybe some cleanup/enhancements on the classic formula. They do not want an RTS, they do not want a FPS. By your logic, a new version of X-COM that was similar to the original would be crap? Please...
I feel the same way about Fallout 3 - it is dookie. It is an abomination. It *might* a good game to some (I own it, it is mediocre the same way Oblivion is mediocre - to me) but it is NOT Fallout. Fallout is an isometric classic style RPG, not a shooter with RPG elements.
I can't wait for Diablo 3. It will be a new version of more of the same with some tweaks, new classes, etc. Mostly it'll still be diablo. It will be an amazing gaming experience. Most people who like the series cannot wait for it to appear. You gonna hate on it for being more of the same? Please...
First point: Master of Magic went through something like three major patches- back before the internet was common, when you had to get a floppy disk or something. This is not new.
Second point: I've found a few different versions of this quote, but "A late game is only late until it ships. A bad game is bad until the end of time." I'm thinking this isn't a bad game- it's a good game that isn't done yet. On the other hand, Master of Magic (pretty much the target audience) is still a massively broken game and people still love it. (AI grossly stupid. Game is a mass of loopholes thinly separated by strands of game mechanic. Game could actually mangle your OS on the disk, and if you don't play in DosBox maybe it still can.)
I consider labels like "Fanboy" and "apologist" and "hater" no more useful than "balding" or "fat". The question is not "am I an apologist", the question is "am I right?" (I own zero Stardock games, I wasn't in the beta, I'm new here. I hope for good things. ) And right now... I feel it's worth learning now, while they work on patches and someone puts together some sort of online fan manual and whatnot.
You make a fair point, but the flip-side of that argument is that if they're not able to give us the same quality as a big developer like BioWare, Valve, or Blizzard, then they shouldn't be charging the same price (granted, Elemental was $10 less than StarCraft II). I don't necessarily agree with that argument, but I can certainly understand the reasoning behind it.
Really. Blizzard games do well because they buy the press. Seriously? You believe this?
You do realize that some of Blizzard's most successful games had wide open betas with no NDA long before the games ever released, and that word of mouth based on the fact that the average blizzard game is more complete and fun than many finished games while still in beta results in a huge amount of sales?
Blizzard games are very well designed, very well tested, very well balanced, and the bottom line is they are fun. That is why the sell copies. Not because they buy the press. When is the last time YOU bought a game because of an advertisement? I'm sure some sheep are influenced by ads but most sensible gamers use a variety of critieria before making gaming purchases.
You also realize that Blizzard didn't spring up out of nowhere to dominate? They had to start from scratch like everyone else. Their philosophy on game design and approach over the years have lead to hit after hit and got them in the position they're in today.
Polish does cost money. I've read Brad stating quite a few times that Stardock does not depend on games for money because their other products do well and they can take their time to develop stuff, yet they put out unfinished games that lack polish. Something does not compute. Stardock might not be Blizzard but they're also using a smaller team with less over-the-top games so as things scale, there's seemingly no reason why SD couldn't do 2-3 months of polish (before, not after release) on something like Elemental where Blizzard would do 1-2 years of polish and redesign on something like D3.
Amen, the thing felt more like a sales brochure than a manual - it told me very little. A 100% waste of tree.
RAT
Tom chick's review was brought up in the forums a week plus ago in another thread. Unless he has done another review based off the latest patch version. Basically he didn't understand squat about what was going on and was confused...there was a math implementation problem for him and a vent of frustration.
Now a week plus ago the forum dwellers here gave short shrift to Mr.Chick,now the disgruntled seem more to be spouting off about unfinished,unpolished,unintuitive,unhelpful,unpleasant,unsubstantial,unglamorous,unsophisticated,undone and should be uninstalled.
Personally I am enjoying the game after the 1.06 patch,have had none of the crash issues some people have talked about. But I don't try and power through a given game crushing all in my way and wracking up a score of game wins already.
I suppose the inept would find a game that is nearly unplayable to be a good game. Sadly for those who like to understand and use the game mechanics are a bit let done by an obviously unfinished broken product. After Demigod this is the last thing Stardock needed, well that and the utter travesty of a companion book.
It's more than a simple math problem. He could have problems using a keyboard and his criticisms on the game and the release as a whole are still valid. The attempt to discredit unfavorable opinions about the game, and implications that we should just uninstall rather than having our say and provide feedback to make a better game, is pretty insulting. It paints neither Stardock nor their fans in a good light. A more mature response would be to accept criticisms without trying to deride people's opinions as just being wrong.
Well more importantly, the math was broken at the time. There were parts of it that he didn't understand (the fact that percentage bonuses multiplied instead of adding), but there were other parts that were genuinely broken (the fact that educated gave 5 times the bonus it listed and the fact that all modifiers were applied twice instead of just once).
Actually, no. That old thread was about the first part of his 'Game Diary', taken by forum members to be a review. The link this thread refers to is the actual review. Also, even in the game diary he raised more points than just math.
Sadly, I have to agree with the points above (which I heavily cut to save space). Especially the beta. While it was awesome to see the mechanisms arise out of the forum discussions, it was very sobering to see the process stop far before maturation. And the 'look through the keyhole' approach was a bit unnerving. But I have to admit that I do feel responsible as well - for much the same reasons you had I didn't vocalize my concerns, so didn't do anything to prevent this mess. And one thing I haven't read here since release bothers me - if I remember correctly, Brad during the beta once said that the gold-version (on the CDs) is in their experience the one many in-store-buying customers stay with, never really updating. Now I only have to imagine what state that version was in, a version weeks older than even the two-days-before-official-release-release version. Those people are going to be ...
That said, I also do think this game will become better. But remembering GalCiv2, the variety I'd like (spells, tech, troops...) will probably arrive in an expansion or so. For now I will wait for a few weeks to see what happens - the next patches will certainly clean up the more immediate problems with mechanisms, crashes etc. That will be a good start.
What I find hilarious and maddening at the same time is the "manual" is identical to the one in the beta that had the word "draft" splashed on every page. Yet another example of Brad's chicanery.
The real manual is the 560 page companion novel to the game...
Thank you because this is so true ! If you read back at that time, people deemed MoM as unplayable, crippled with bugs. I remember how the game would crash every time I was summoning the 10th unit in tactical combat;-). Even now 1.31, there are some things that do not work. From Wikipedia:
"Early versions of Master of Magic's were riddled with bugs and had a terrible artificial intelligence (AI), frustrating a lot of reviewers with its crashes and ignorant enemies. Despite that, it was announced as the Runner-up Strategy Game of the Year by Strategy Plus magazine, coming in behind its older sibling Master of Orion.[5] A few patches later, version 1.2 corrected a lot of the bugs and added some tweaks but there were still game crashing moments. Bill Cranston of GameBytes also savaged other aspects of the game, constantly comparing it against the 1991 hit computer game, Civilization.[6] He said the gameplay was mostly repetitive clickings of the 'end turn' button throughout several hundreds eventless turns. Other complaints on his list also include Master of Magic's magic not being as crucial to winning the game in a straight forward manner, as compared to Civilization's technology. The potential of racial strife was less than fulfilled as military units of different races can co-exist harmoniously even though subjugated cities of a different race can rise up in rebellion. Coming Soon Magazine! however reviewed the same version and called it a must-have for strategy fans with great gameplay and lots of spells. "
But, today when I look at my original box of MoM (bought it again from Gog because I don't want to get the hassle to get it running myself via DosBox), I thought : 1992/3, and noone has done better.
I think it will be the same for Elemental . I just hope the bad press doesn't deserve it until it really shines.
Yeah, my feelings exactly. I know this game will become significantly better because of how vigorously stardock supports its titles post-launch. That sort of dedication does make answering the question "Is the game finished and ready to be released?" a lot harder than it is for other developers. For stardock, they really have to ask themselves that question as two seperate ones. The answer to the first question is more obvious for them since they continue to improve and patch games long after their release- they don't just tweak balance and fix bugs but add features and improve large portions of game mechanics including the AI. This makes the second part of the question much more difficult and I think they got their answer wrong this time. I'm not too upset because I know it'll be great in a short while, but many purchasers are understandably upset because they do not share that confidence. I hope they stick with the game long enough to experience what many of us know it will be in a few months, but I can understand if they do not have that sort of patience. A publisher shouldn't expect to rely on the good will of their existing customers when deciding if something is ready for release.
I agree with the reveiw totally. I've played it for days, but I should not have to try to figure out what simple mechanics, rules, and UI via constant research. I've told all my gaming friends that I recomend they do not buy it, and that if it ever does happen to be patched up to a fun, playable game, I will tell them to buy it. But as for now, I feel like I've purchased a car with just wheels and a frame; a difficult steering wheel and stick shift to figure and, and have been told "Passenger seats, rear view mirrors, turn signals, and a paint job will be available free (if you want to drive it around till then).
This is so sad to me, when, with just a couple more month of testing and polish, it could have been released with 4- 4.5 revewis. Now, I'm affraid it will get 3 star reveiws with "stay away for months" added. . .
Being forced to choose between 2 bad choices (Aug was too soon, Feb is too late), they decided on Aug. (I'm tempted to say they made the wrong decision but don't have enough info on why they ruled out Feb -- there may be something that truly made that not an option)
Had they been able to hold off release for a few more months I think we'd have seen a sufficiently well balanced/polished/stable Elemental.
So, it's not that SD are a "...rookie player in the big leagues..." but that they screwed up and didn't give themselves enough time to show their mettle.
Now you could say that painting themselves in the 'Aug or Feb' corner is a rookie mistake, but I'll argue that even the pros are entitled to a mistake or 2, and that I don't see any other big mistakes SD has made regarding elemental.
So, I don't think of SD as rookies in the big leagues, but rather as pros who are merely smaller and more streamlined, but as puissant. I think their game is sufficiently "...step[ped] up...", and had they a bit more time we'd have seen that at release.
The test for my argument is the state of Elemental in a few months -- and I'm betting we'll see a game that holds its own vs. the 'big boys'.
As an aside -- I think Brad knew, as did some of us, a few months before release that Elemental wouldn't be ready for release in Aug. I think that's one reason he reacted so strongly to posters that questioned whether Elemental would be sufficiently polished by Aug -- he knew it wouldn't be up to snuff but for some reason he'd already ruled out a Feb release so he was left to make the best of what he knew was going to be a bad situation, and that bothered him. (I prefer a 'knew Aug was too early but had no real choice' to a 'didn't realize he wouldn't get it sufficiently ready for release by Aug' conclusion as the latter insults his experience in making games)
I wonder why a February 2011 release would have been "too late". Like you, I "don't have enough info on why they ruled out Feb".
On August 25, Stardock CEO "Frogboy" declared, in the Elemental Journals section :
" I can tell you this: Regardless of whether Elemental gets good or bad reviews or sells well or sells poorly, this game is the ONLY game Stardock’s development studio will be working on for 2010 and much of 2011. One of the benefits of being a small, privately owned company is that we can focus on things for reasons besides quarterly earnings. "
If we base our speculation on that declaration, we can surmise that a February 2011 release was not ruled out because of financial necessity.
Personally, I am OK with the August release. I would have preferred February, but I enjoy the game as it is now -- at the end of August (version 1.06.???).
And let's keep in mind that Tom Chick stated this, in his August 28 review :
" You can certainly play Elemental right now. It works in that it will only confound you some of the time. You can found empires and go on adventures and have battles and conquer a map and admire your little growing cities. It's in no worse shape than Empire: Total War, Hearts of Iron III, Star Trek Online, Age of Empires III, or Operation Flashpoint when they were released. "
I disagree with him on that. Some of those games (Empire: TW) were more polished at release, particularly in how they delivered themselves to the player. Star Trek Online is a joke, AoE had adequate testing and polish and notice how the really big dogs, that deliver thoroughly polished games aren't listed there?
Everything with a timing element in Elemental is off; the end of turn/start of turn stuff, many transitions from one thing to the next, the entire campaign at Day 0, all that stuff lacked enough polish that I not only noticed, I cared. These are not just typos (of which there are many) or a unit animation being backward. This is stuff like core game play mechanics not developed beyond the "we've got a rough idea how it plays out" level. The fact there's not even a flag set for capping your inventory capacity on heros?I agreed with the review, but he's being generous there. Other games in the AAA market akin to Elemental were way more polished than this. The fact they have a dev log saying that developers haven't spent significant time playing the very game they released to the public speaks volumes about how the process of release went. Stardock may not be able to or choose to afford to hire testers, but that means they should have stayed in beta that much longer. Or at least had a "is this polished enough to present" beta phase....called an open beta.
Oh boy...we have to talk. Have you played Fallout 3? It is by far, one of the top three gaming experiences in my life. Going all the way back to pong. It is an absolute classic. I have played, and love the first two, and I realize that 3 is completely different from 1 & 2. But Bethesda created something that is just awesome.
For those very rightly pointing out that Master of Magic was a ungodly mess of bugs and addlepated UI at release, bearing in mind it was a HUGE risk at the time given that big name fantasy TBS games really didn't exist in any great numbers at this point.
Heroes of Might and magic (the original) was 2 years off and it's predecessor King's Bounty (which I originally owned for the Apple //e) was ancient history insofar as PC gaming goes (3 years). In addition, it was a vastly more complex and ambitious undertaking than that franchise or any I can think of until Age of Wonders and it's ilk. Highly selectable magic builds, numerous distinct racial choices, huge and diverse spell selection, etc.
Yes, the game was released with far, FAR too many game breaking bugs. But it had polish coming out it's wazoo. Right clicking to get contextual information was a HUGE innovation as far as I recall.
So we could easily make the argument that time has softened the MoM fan's opinion of the game, building it up with each passing year. And to an extent this is certainly true. But it broke tons of new ground and with a tremendous sense of style and panache thanks to the outright genius of Steve Barcia. Elemental, while possessing a massive potential both from Stardock's loving support of their games and the huge potential modding community, has failed to break new ground. This isn't necessarily a direct condemnation, but it certainly detracts from the myriad of excuses... the UI SHOULD have followed industry standards insofar as the accepted UI paradigms.
I am a HUGE Star Trek fan and been playing computer games longer than some people here have been alive. When I heard of Cryptic's Star Trek Online I screamed and started to shout out in joy in Klingon. (Well, that is an exageration I only know a few brief lines in Klingon.) I saw the vidoes and it reminded me of Star Fleet Command and that suited me. A Complicated game for a MMO with ground based aspects and customization of spaceships! I was ready to set warp to FUN. 4 Days after launch I never played the game again and I got stuck with a Life time membership that I wish I could sell for $50.00 or a copy of Civilization V.
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