It is great to be back to the land of high speed Internet connections.
The team got v1.07 out this week which addresses some of the issues reported by players. There’s a lot more to do of course. Here’s a few notes on what’s on our plate right now:
There’s a ton more to add here but these are a few of the things on our mind. It’s been, as you can imagine, a horrible horrible couple of weeks. We’re doing out best to make sure Elemental lives up to its potential which brings me to the final part.
Elemental’s original release schedule was to have the first release (War of Magic – Book 1: Relias) and 2 expansion packs (Book 2: Cerena and Book 3: Magesta).
What we’re going to do is that for users who own the game by a certain date will get (at least) the first expansion pack for free as a token of our appreciation for hanging in there with us. As some long-time Stardock gamers can tell you, our expansion packs aren’t minor things.
Have a good weekend!
You mentioned multiplayer - normally when I look at a game I consider that to be an extremely important aspect, but in this case I hope you consider post-poning it until single player works properely. I can't imagine what kind of flak the forums will see if you enabled it and there are more problems with that than there are with single player
1.07 fixed most of the performance issues I've had, rendering the game playable and fun for the first time, which is awesome =-)
Going with Nick on this one. Don't rush head long to throw out the mechanics you have now. Some of them are decent and good "for starters" and just need to be added to and refined.
Chief, I saw you use the words "Gratuitous Complexity"...there's is no Gratuitous Complexity in the game, just a UI that some people can't grasp or that others say doesn't give Enough Information. If anything it needs information and functionality Added to it, not made "less complex". Go slow and think this through from a deep strategy players perspective. Don't "streamline" it, don't "dumb it down", and don't make it "less complex". People aren't saying it's too complex, they're saying it needs to convey more information and function correctly. I can point you to some great ideas in the Elemental Ideas Section on feedback for this .
Froggy, I know you have been getting alot of flak, I just wanted to let you know I believe in Elemental. So far I have payed for four copys of the game (one for me, and three for my friends). As I have been playing since beta I look at this as beta 1.07. Keep up the fight!
I like all the prompt heads up on issues being worked on. All in all I'm loving the game (when I can keep playing it without a crash) and really look forward to all the content changes and additions. It seems to be like any other game working out it's tweeks. Even the biggest companies release games with bugs it happens. Not to mention it is always impossible to make everyone happy.
Just wanted to say even with the hic ups I like the game alot. I would like to see some more content with the magic system and dynasties. It seems I'm only using a few spells over and over and the others I don't really need to use. I really think the dynasties aspect of the game is great and would like for there to be different ways to raise your children to be more fitting to a roll you would like them to fill (i.e. A melee class, an amazing mage, or a major support for your economy). It would also be great to capture officers or sovereigns and hold them for ransom. But thats just one of the things I really love about this game is that it has so much to build on instead of just being a dead end game.
Minor Factions:
*Kingdoms would want to make them allies (possibly vassals?) while Empire would want to conquer and assimilate them.
*Leaders have unique properties, and once the required dimplomatic steps are taken, i.e. Kingdom makes them vassals/allies or Empire conquers them, the leader of that minor faction becomes a champion with unique qualities in-line with that minor faction's traits.
*As vassals/conquered folk, player gains access to their special buildings and units, ala MoM.
Sounds good . I've only played one game since the beta sadly but should be back to times where i can sit and happily game away for a few hours in about a week's time . Glad to see plenty of patching being done. My big suggestion for minor factions:
Thought 1:
Minor should mean No Dynasty imho.
Suppose sovereign death in enemy territory means heirs take over. Minor faction sovereign death in Any territory except within own borders => minor faction death. No other limits.
Thought 2: (I'd really really like to see this!)
The minor factions have an option to trade for marriages (or, without thought 1, another city) but will Only Do So in exchange for their 'special unit'. If they are wiped out, you lose that unit. If a player conquers them they gain the unit But get a negative diplomacy hit from all other players. Maybe they also lose some diplomatic capital (paying off foreign diplomatis to look the other way perhaps?).Sounds to me like that could result in a lot of interesting diplomacy and skirmishing over minors? Maybe minor territory should also be 'no-mans land'. Factions can skirmish there without a war.
Sound like a good/horrible idea?
About minor factions:
They need to be self sustainable. To be able to function well with just one city.
And that means at lest one golden mine (so they could house defensive army) and maybe some other important resource. It could even be something related to their flavor, and not random.
you guys already put my mind at ease and this puts it to rest cant wait to see the campaign turn into sumthing decent
I think the penalty will be in the new system, too, because, as Frogboy mentioned, some spells will have a maintenance cost instead of using enhancement slots and Imbue Champion should have such a maintenance cost.
oh, on the AI part 1- I'd rather see the minors behave more like majors then the other way around.
Just my own preference, maybe this should be poll before proceeding to see what to try first?
A statue should be made in your honor, cephalo. I was a bit disappointed that Frogboy didn't add a random map generator to that list. It pleases me to see that you have taken up the reins.
As for the AI, I would agree that this should be finalized later, whether multiplayer is activated or not. The AI needs to make intelligent decisions based upon the game mechanics, and if these are going to be significantly changed, then the AI will need to be updated to reflect those changes.
But you are right in your assessment that multiplayer games need to be enabled, if not for anything else than to allow us to play games against intelligent opponents. I also think that some strategies for the AI could be learned from here as well.
_____
Thanks for the update, Frogboy, and keep up the great work. Your dedication is appreciated.
As for the spellbooks during character creation, there are some various posts throughout this thread that offer some nice suggestions and alternatives. One of these is the cost to research spells. This could be expanded upon.
Personally, I believe sovereign creation needs to offer more varieties of sovereigns, not less. I think it would be interesting to allow the sovereigns to choose primary, secondary, and tertiary schools. These can be handled via point buy (primary = 9 points, secondary = 6 points, tertiary = 3 points). The level which you choose determines the rate in which you research, your casting power, and/or what level spells you can eventually research. This would be similar to a simplified "spellbook selection" that MoM offered during sovereign creation.
In addition to above, all schools could be bought for 21 points (saving you 3 points). This would grant you one primary school, 2 secondary schools, and 1 tertiary school. These would be determined by the school you choose. I.e. if you spent the 20 points and chose Fire as your primary school, Earth and Air would be secondary schools, and Water would be your tertiary school.
Anyhow, this is just my simplified opinion and could be explored deeper if it proved a concept that accumulates inteterest.
Changes all sound pretty good, especially the magic love!
However, i'm still waiting for the 64bit version, i know its going to take a while, but it would be nice!
Otherwise, stability is still the major bugbear, especially the ATI Windows 7 crashes and Out of Memory errors that plague the game...
I was pretty excited about the game since I missed Master of Magic for many years
Since my copy of the game has not arrive yet, I read Gamespot review
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/elementalwarofmagic/review.html
It is scoring at 4.0 of 10.0, honestly I am a bit sad with that, but it is valuable / worth to read.
Given my visit to this game forum since early of the years, I trust Elemental team for outstanding service.
Is OK, I will wait for another 2 months to stabilize / polish before I Install it,
Just want to say that Demigod is also many bugs at the time of release, and Stardock able to handle that, yes you can.
My only concern is a game "brand" take times to build up, but can be destroyed in a short while, probably that's the reason
we keep on complaining Starcraft 2 delay I guess.
Oh, yes !! Transform those minor factions into extremely* effective regional Powers -- somewhat like Iran threatens its geopolitical region without being able to project military forces outside of it.
* > Of course, that "extreme" value would have to be scaled in relationship with the A.I.-difficulty level the gamer defines when he selects his rivals, in the pre-game, faction setup.
People care about the campaign? I've never even started it up..I'd be more happy if they put ALL their effort and new content into the main game, the main custom game / multiplayer mode, since thats what we'll play the most anyway.
Otherwise i'd be as dissapointed as i was with the Anno expansions, which basically added a few new scenarios, but almost nothing new to the actual main gameplay. I'd hate to see Elemental do the same mistake. Mission packs should be mission packs, not labeled as Expansions. Expansions should severely expand upon the gameplay features, not just add a 1-run scenario / campaign map.
Well, what they call "campaign" is more a scenario in my book. A single mission that could be part of a campaign.
But ultimately it's wasted effort. How often would I play this one static mission over and over?I think - once.
The GalCiv franchise (and MoM) has always been all about the random/skirmish maps. That's where the replayability is.
But well - it says "campaign" on the box so there has to be at least a lip service given to that. *shrug*
I agree 110%.
Hell. Yeah.
I want a reason to ally with them, or even better a reason to not steamroll them at the first opportunity.
Also, how about expanding a bit their shopping list, maybe adding something unique for each of them?
Or giving MF special mercenary troops that you can hire if you're in good relations with them?
Anything to make them more "interactive".
That can wait. [..and I have an x64 system ] Crash & bug fixes/gameplay enhancements >>> everything else as it is now.
Sovereign death in ANY territory means an heir takes over. If you don't want them to die, you can just reload a save - but if you want some realism and dynastic shuffling then let them die wherever they are..
I am not sure how I feel about Sovereigns losing their 'spell points'... that might make magic more gimped than it is already.
And regarding the moving spell books to tech trees, that might make the Sovereigns feel even more uniform. If it is implemented, I would like to see spell book research become harder.
Please spend time looking at the Master of Magic spell lines and make EWoM's magic lines feel more unique like those. Adding an 'Arcane' of default magic line, and putting all the spells that are similar in there might solve the issues too. I would also add summon hero/champion spells, I almost never see adventurers other than Jannusk in my games.
Keep up the improvements!
One more idea... in MoM you had spell books for each magic school, something similar based on spell levels would be effective in EWoM, so sovereigns would have to research spell level for each school they had, limiting them to all powerful in one school or jack of all trades in all schools.
Stardock is the only non MMO game company I know that develops its games after launch around the player base. A MMO game at launch is more what the company thinks the player base wants vs. a year or two later what the players want now. This is why I love Stardock. The only games I have on my computer pined to the start menu are my current MMO and Stardock games. With that being said here are a few updates I would like to see in the game that I have not seen posted yet.
This and with all the other changes talked about in this post mainly making AI on par with GC2 and fix the memory leak this game could become the GC2 of the turn based fantasy realm.
Nope. Zoom down below cloth map level and back out.
Turn off smart player colors in the options.
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