Our story so far…
On August 24th, Stardock released the long-anticipated PC strategy game Elemental on schedule…
Except, of course, that’s not quite what happened. Stardock released the game a couple days early to beta testers and pre-order customers – the same version reviewers were given (v1.0) and the results were painful in two basic ways:
1. The new engine that Stardock developed turned out to have a lot of compatibility problems resulting in crashing and out of memory errors for a significant percentage (I’d go as far as to say as many as 30% of users – which is a gigantic number – anything over 5% is considered unacceptable). It’s not commonly known but the engine in our previous games (GalCiv II, The Political Machine, etc.) was developed originally in 1997 and enhanced over the years. Nowadays, most companies just license their engine from Gamebryo (Civilization V, Oblivion, Fallout 3) or the Unreal engine. You are now seeing why they do.
2. The above ensured ruinous reviews but even without them, the game UI and some of the game mechanics just didn’t live up to people’s expectations, and AI issues.
The purpose of this blog is to help answer questions so that we can move forward.
So here are some of the questions / comments I’ve gotten in emails and private messages and on various forums that I’ll try to answer:
Q: What is Stardock’s plan for Elemental going forward?
A: For the immediate future we’re going to go down two paths. First, the v1.0x versions will continue to focus largely on compatibility (crashing or weird video issues) as well as bugs and turning on multiplayer.
Then, we will work on v1.1 which will serve as our answer to player feedback. Enhanced AI, improved UI, a tutorial, updated quest system, new magic system, numerous other tweaks. This version will serve as the basis to make a demo version of the game.
Beyond that, we will be looking at player feedback. That will work towards v1.2 (October) and v1.3 (November). Once we are satisfied that the game has met reasonable expectations, we can then focus on the first expansion pack: Elemental: War of Magic – Book 2, Cerena.
Unlike Book 1, which is fairly short because it’s only meant as a kind of introduction (the game is mean to be played in sandbox mode. GalCiv and Sins of a Solar Empire didn’t even include campaigns, we are generally not very pro-campaign-y people as you can gather, campaigns have limited replayability).
Book 2, Cerena is the excuse to introduce more far reaching game mechanic changes and begin to add in the multiplayer modes we have long been thinking of (from custom servers that yes, will work on your LAN that has no Internet connection) to tactical-only modes.
That first expansion pack will be free to everyone who owns the game at the point of v1.3.
Q: Stardock should just put out an expansion and re-release the game as a Director’s Cut.
A: NO. While we do intend to release future new versions of Elemental beyond the War of Magic series, we will not be re-submitting Elemental “patched and fixed” for re-review.
A lot of people seem to think that Stardock knowingly released the game “full of bugs”. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. As people who have played through the various versions can attest, weird stuff is very machine specific. For instance, the illustrative outline on graphics causes no difference (not even 1 frame) on our test matrix machines and yet results in 20+ frames for others who have, on the surface, similar hardware configurations for us. The PC Gamer UK reviewer ran into a white tactical battle screen that we had never encountered before (nor had it shown up during the public beta).
The low metacritic score for Elemental (about 3 out of 5 average) needs to serve as a long-term reminder to us and anyone else who might think that you can simply put out a major retail game in 2010 with its own custom engine without a massive massive long-term beta program and a long-term QA process. If you can’t do that, then either license your engine or don’t expect people to shell out $50.
Put another way, the blistering feedback on Elemental: War of Magic should serve as a scarlet letter to make us “never forget”. So no, no re-launch of Elemental: War of Magic. It is, what it is.
For fans who are disheartened, look at on the bright side. We will be able to see how much effect word of mouth is. If we do a good job making the game live up to its potential and expectations, then we can see what effect that has on sales. And we plan to share those details with you.
As it stands today, Elemental has sold approximately 82,000 copies.
Q: I heard Stardock is laying off people, I thought your non-games revenue funded the games team.
A: It does. It funds ONE games team. But Stardock has been hiring up across the board to build a second studio. Only Elemental can fund that. “Stardock” is made up of 3 groups: Enterprise software (our #1 revenue source), Consumer software (Object Desktop, Fences, etc.) and Consumer Entertainment (the games). That’s not counting Impulse which is a separate, profitable entity that doesn’t get affected one way or the other by the success of the games or the enterprise software.
Q: Brad Wardell: You should just kill yourself! [I actually did get this]
A: I’m sorry our recent entertainment product didn’t meet your expectations but I don’t think it would be helpful if I manually modified my date of expiration.
Q: Brad Wardell – you have a martyr complex! You always take personal blame for everyone! Get off your cross! [yes, got this too]
A: That is my job. If you’re going to spend years railing about CEOs not taking responsibility when something goes wrong, it would be the height of hypocrisy for me not to take responsibility when things go badly on a launch.
In addition, some of the issues are directly related to my specific decisions.
Q: Your act is getting old. Fool me once on Demigod, fool me twice, shame on me! [got this too in various forms]
A: The Demigod debacle ultimately resulted from a fundamental communication failure between the publisher (Stardock) and the developer (Gas Powered Games). It took us a long time to figure out exactly how the connectivity issue occurred (i.e. many months). Ultimately, and sadly, it boiled down to a miscommunication. When you host a game in Demigod (even now), you are given a dialog for your port #. It was believed by the Stardock team that Demigod handled direct IP connections and thus its raknet based port system would only be used when that failed. GPG, by contrast, thought Stardock was handling direct connections too. It turned out that that port # part (even now) doesn’t have a function and so 100% of connections attempts when to the Raknet system which overwhelmed it.
The reason why Stardock rightly took the blame is because, as the publisher, we should have looked at the beta tester connectivity logs and seen that 100% of connections were being passed to Raknet for the socket rather than the 10% anticipated. Add tens of thousands of users quickly and bam. A different system had to be developed.
But Demigod didn’t suffer from compatibility issues. It was very solid right out of the gate (for pretty much everyone) and was an excellent game on day 1. GPG did a great job making a great game. And Stardock did do a good job making a good backend. But one miscommunication between developers resulted in disaster. Only a much larger beta test would have discovered the problem. The system wasn’t “buggy”. Not that it does anyone any good now, but at least people can see and learn from what happened.
Point being, the situations are not similar.
With Elemental, the issue is the game itself. With Elemental’s MP, the system works because from day 1, Elemental’s servers are just hosted by Stardock. No P2P.
Q: What do YOU think of Elemental?
A: Elemental is the finest game we’ve ever released. Ever. At least, that's what I thought on the day we released it. However, I have come to the painful conclusion that we will have to dedicate more effort to making the game live up to the expectations of our customers as a whole. You'd be surprised how easy it is to confuse the enjoyment of making a game to the enjoyment of playing it.
Q: My post was hidden on the forums! I have a right to post my anger!
A: No. No you don’t. Believe me when I say I speak from first hand experience, there are entire forums dedicated to letting people post about their anger about something. The Stardock forums have never ever been some forum of free speech. And they never will be. If you’re looking for that, you should go elsewhere. I’ve been moderating “forums” since my Commodore 64 days as a “Sysop” and “Subop”. A few toxic users can wreck a community.
If someone needs/wants technical support, has a question, has a suggestion, wants to interact with the community, that’s great. Go for it. But if your purpose is to vent your rage on other users, us, the game, small animals, what have you, the moderates are instructed to take a very dim view of that.
After the release of v1.08 (this week) I intend to instruct moderators to be even more stringent on that sort of thing because we (as a community) need the Stardock developers themselves to participate on the forums.
While I have two decades of people telling me that I should kill myself or that <product X> is a “piece of shit” as well as various wishes that I get cancer and die “bleeding from every orifice) (yes, there are people out there that post these things) my development team are just normal people who are excited to talk to gamers who have cool ideas and we’re not going to subject them to haters (and most haters don’t have any idea they’re being hateful). Rule of thumb: Just treat people as if they’re right in front of you.
Q: You’re getting screwed in the reviews! I can’t believe <website X> wrote <Y>
A: NO. We’re not getting screwed. While some of the review scores do have a bit of “dogpiling” to them (relative to review scores given to other games) I have yet to read a single review that I felt was unfair in terms of the text.
If anything, I feel bad about putting some of my friends through this. It’s no secret that Tom Chick and Troy Goodfellow are friends of mine. The question isn’t how I feel about them criticizing or giving negative reviews of the release version of Elemental. The question is how they felt having to give a negative review of a game of someone who’s their friend? It’s called integrity. I’ll take a 1 friend who will tell it like it is over a 100 yes men.
So when I read the reviews, my first reaction isn’t anger but sorrow at having put people I respect through having to give something I know they were inclined to like and wanted to like through that. It’s also the reason I will not be re-submitting some “patched” version for review.
It also redoubles our collective efforts to live up to the standards we have set. We will be working on Elemental for a long time. We love it. We live it. And together, we will make it awesome.
Now, let’s move past the drama. Let’s do the things that need to be done going forward to have fun and create something that will stand the test of time.
Sounds like some good things commin, I cannot wait:)
Lets get beyond the whining and look to the future.
PS: I highly doubt posting in this thread in a disgusting manner asking for a refund is gonna work.
Stardock does provide 100% refunds to people who have technical issues with the game and 75% to those who just didn't "like the game". The return policy is stated when you bought the game (see sales@stardock.com).
Mr. Wardell you are truly a class act.
I have never seen such openness and forthcoming. Setting release and gameplay comments aside (and I have a ton!)
The spiritual predecessors of E:WM were MoM and MOO1/2. All those games had glaring problems at release. All of them were much better after patching.
Anybody who played v1.0 of MoM knows what I am talking about.
You were essentially set for this drama by unrealistically high expectations and dramatic over-exposure. Tensions run high now days, and the "internets" provide a fast, safe and ANONYMOUS medium for people to vent their frustration.
I sincerely hope Elemental becomes a commercial success. I sincerely hope Kumquat engine matures and is used in many more TBS games.
Ok, one observation. Perhaps the development process was TOO open. It is one thing to involve a cadre of veteran TBS players, and another to have design processed swayed by whimsical winds of the "lumpen proletariat" of the gaming world.
Kind Regards, and best of luck
Long time TBS Veteran
P.S. Make modding as powerful as possible (not XML!) so that modding community can become a very cheap skunk-works for you. Civilization IV comes to mind.
Why do you think this is the best game you have ever made? What feature or aspects are you particularly proud of?
Do you say this because of genre and your attachment to the lore or purely from a gameplay perspective?
Demigod was a ~$40 MOBA game with a dozen eight heroes and somewhat inferior maps due to the absence, for instance, of places to hide for an ambush. With Heroes of Newerth/League of Legends available around the same time or slightly later, it wasn't really worth buying. With Demigod, the issue was *also* the game itself.
It worked for EvE Online. It worked for Fallout 1/2. It might work for you.
I hope extensive mechanics changes will *not* stop with 1.1. The tactical combat system needs work, even though it's got better. Cities need work. In both cases, the system itself needs revision.Balance also needs a huge amount of work.
i must be an absolute gaming simpleton... i love this game...
aside from the late game freeze (corrected in .07 for me), and 2 CTDs, i have had zero problems with the game...
i've felt challenged by the AI (more often than not), found the learning curve to be negligible (hello, Settlers 7 anyone?), and the overall package (UI, atmosphere, graphics, pacing) to be wholly enjoyable...
is the title perfect? not by any stretch of the imagination... is it a trainwreck? for me, absolutely not...
as others have said time and again, EWoM is a game you commit to for the longhaul.. i can only imagine how she'll look in the coming months...
Kudos for doing this, that little thing called personal responsibility. All decisions that companies make come down to personal decisions, decisions made by people, and you and the folks at Stardock have rightly recognised this. It has become the way of game-making to simply release stuff that is bugged and glitches, for publishers and developers to not do their part to address issues, so much so that customers as a whole are so jaded and cynical they don't bother to report much and actually shout down people that do. We've all seen this and we all know there is a difference between being a 'customer' and a gamer: customers merely consume whereas gamers have a real connexion to the games they play, the studios they by from and the people they play with. Much like one other company I can think of, ArenaNet, a company saddled with an abysmal publisher, Stardock actually seems to be a group of gamers making games for gamers.
Even though things started off terribly, Frogboy, you and the rest of Stardock are doing an admirable job. You're also right. We've vented enough and we all recognise what the reality of the situation is and that the Stardock folks are doing something about it and will bring this game to the level it is supposed to be, the level we all want it to be at. Once more, thank you folks for doing this, thank you for taking responsibility and doing your damnedest to give us a fine game. I think I can play it now...even if my saves get erased!
So, the tactical combat...is almost identical to MoM's you know that right? Just needs more bilities.
Holy crap your mailbox must suck. I'd like to meet some of the people who mailed you that stuff and beat the $^&* out of them for that. Honestly, who tells someone they should "kill themselves" because of something like this? Who says they should "bleed out of ..." because of a game? If I meet you on the street, your in trouble.
I just think the whole anti-social gamer mentality has gone WAY overboard to the point of blatant hostility.
Also, these forums NEED moderation. I've seen good games, good forums, and good communities spiral downward and out of control because of disrespect, anger, hostility, and immature conduct. It ruines things for everyone. I support Stardock moderation in the steps they need to take here.
Awesome post Brad! I am rooting for your team all the way to pull this off, which I know you will. This game is an epic undertaking as it melds various forms of gameplay and with the mad modding it will be a staple for many many years. I am just praying that you make many many expansions for it over the years.
That is a pretty sensible position to take, and what I'll tell any of my friends that don't have it. Don't write it off, that would be foolish, it has a good foundation, but don't get it yet. Wait and see.
I like it too. Sure there's things it could do better, minor niggles and a tendency to go boing on occasion but it's still fun, and that's the important part. There's a solid diamond at the core, we just need to whack out a few pieces of coal to let it shine.
I'm telling you, some people will make harsh comments even if Elemental become as perfect as it can be. You need not to take everything personal and just stay in touch with your real fans, the ones that care. Don't forget that most satisfied customers don't post in forums. There is some very good reviews, but we tend to focus only on the bad ones.
I've been with Elemental since beta 2 and, I think, I experienced only 2 crashes since 1.01. There was'nt any game breaking bugs for me. The game is fun as it is, it worths every cent I spent on it. 1.07 is AWESOME, smooth even in the final game stage and full of surprises. Every game is so different. There is always place for improvements and your plan for the futur just keep us excited. By the way, you are doing an amazing job at communicating with us!
Please don't be too quick at taking critics. This adventure IS a success story !
If you want to know why the game was released the way it was you can glean that info. from the past... Look, we tried to tell you and the devs the state of the game during beta but obviously you didnt want to hear it. So frogboy that is the reason and below is just a few examples of it.
______________________________________________________________________________
thread that someone made during beta describing their thoughts - they were told to go play civ5.... https://forums.elementalgame.com/390176
"I suspect you're just not going to like Elemental. Civ V comes out in September though so you can perhaps try that."
[...]
"Frogboy, I think you missed the orginal posters point. He was basically complaining that unit design was not compelling. He stated various reasons for this some having to do with lore (humanoids dominate) and some having to do with gameplay (different weapon and armor types are not different enough to make the units unique and interesting with unique roles for different units). You seem to have been distracted from his valid critique by the overall negative sentiement."
"I didn't miss the point. We like our lore. We don't want elves and orcs and unicorns. The game isn't for everyone."
_____________________________________________________________________________
Another blast on a player giving his opinion....https://forums.elementalgame.com/390127/page/1/#replies
Reply by Crafty.
Quoting _Scooter_,
Crafty said "Well said. Elemental's tactical battles in Beta 4 are nowhere near the level of polish needed to compete with MoM. I don't know how different they will be in the release version, but I'm beginning to wish that tactical battles were unlocked earlier in the beta process to allow more community feedback on the topic."
Frog replies
"Crafty - how much beta testing of MOM's tactical battles did you do? Did they implement your ideas?"
Crafty replies groveling...
"Certainly not. I hope I didn't come across as slamming Stardock or the beta process in any way. I realize the unique depth of Stardock's beta system. I just had to disagree with the notion that Elemental's beta 4 tactical combat is better than MoM's tactical combat. But I am certain that the release version will be a significant improvement, and I'm sure it will continue to be improved after release.So, I apologize if my earlier post came across as rude. It's just that tactical combat is, to me, a huge part of the fun of a TBS game, and it would have been fun to see the ideas people came up with if they had as long to discuss tactical combat as they did other portions of the game.That said, I have a lot of faith that Elemental will turn out to be a great game (clearly -- it's not very often that I bother to pre-order a game!)"
Look, we tried to tell you and the devs the state of the game but obviously you didnt want to hear it. That is the reason. Not your QA team or whatever. Its not accepting criticism. You were too close to the game to see its flaws.
I don't post often, but when I do, I hope it's thoughtful.
I'm not trying to be mean or cutthroat, but why was the game not pushed back until February? You've stated before that the success of Elemental was NOT what floated the company. Didn't you have the option of keeping the team on it until it was polished until it gleamed? (I mean, if that was October, just two months after release, you could have worked until then, and then just sat on Elemental to release. Shut the beta down and sat on it until February without a dollar lost (relatively), right?) So if there was any doubt about the state of the game, why NOT wait?
You could have written the RPG mod, added more flavor, whatever. As it is, I watched these forums through release. A lot of people here said that the game wasn't ready. We all knew we didn't have the Dev build. We knew that. Maybe we didn't know about the crashes, or the graphical glitches, but we knew the gameplay, we knew it had rough edges.
But why not wait? Was anything at stake? Think about it, because I guarantee you someone will say "but you have to pay your workers." But if the game team is paid for by the other divisions, and the team is STILL working on Elemental, then at worst you would delay your profits. You wouldn't lose any money. And you weren't dependent on the profits being NOW.
So... why? I never understood that. I'm not trying to be harsh. I'm just shamelessly taking advantage of the fact that you actually read the forums and talk to your customers.
Thanks
Still eagerly awaiting more news on the promised trog porn.
This is very important.
Also, I really want to give a big thumbs up for locking down unproductive drama threads that have been taking over the board. I'd like to see more of that. If this means that at some point, one of my threads is closed, or my posts deleted, so be it. I'd rather have this board purged of the current jihadist movements and rival sects that have developed. So keep it up. Break out the banhammer and nail the doors shut on deserving threads' coffins.
While I agree with not submitting Elemental:WoM for re-review, I do think it a good--AND ENTIRELY FAIR--marketing move to release an expansion and submit that for its FIRST review. Expansions get rated separately. That's just how it's always been. Starcraft got a rating, and then Brood War got a different rating. Brood War never replaced Starcraft's rating. It is, however, the rating everybody looks at now that it's out. Normally you see games with glowing reviews on the initial release but the expansions are crap. HOMM V and Empire Earth come to mind. Or the reviews are about the same--like, say, Red Alert and Yuri's Revenge, or Rise of Nations and Thrones & Patriots. I don't recall ever seeing a game get hammered on the first release but the expansion was glowing. But that sounds like a good goal for Elemental and its expansion(s).
Anyway, I'm glad Brad isn't manually modifying his expiration date. I hope the developers in the studio aren't manually modifying the expiration date of that gallon of milk in the break room refrigerator, either.
I have bestbuy gift certificates, so I went to get the LE version of the game. They were already gone. I asked an associate if I could get put on a list if more came in or if he could order it and have it shipped to the store (I can't have expensive stuff mailed to my apartment) so he did his thing on the computer and it was labeled "backordered". I asked if that meant it couldn't be ordered or if it meant I got put at the end of a list and had to wait my turn. He clicked on something else and it came up and said it was unavailable for order. So I guess there is a pretty high demand for the game at least in that respect, tho I wonder how many people just bought it so they could jack up the price and resell it. Telling us 82,000 copies have sold is pretty cool. I asked the guy at the store if there was a way I could be informed if someone returned a LE box and he said it would show that in the computer and that EVERY store (locally) was sold out, he even showed on the screen where every store said 0 on hand.
Brad, can we have the straight up on what your plans are with regards to scripting support? Do you plan at this point to add in the scripting support so we can write our own AI, our own complex quests, and modify key elements of the game (like how combat works)? I realize your number one priority is getting the game working cleanly, but I want to know what the future plans are. Does Stardock have a fulltime Python programmer?
I've been waiting for elemental to do my modding in but as it stands I cannot choose Elemental over either Civilization V or Starcraft, no matter how much I want to.
Let it go, it's done move on...what do you want? Lets work on the future.
The reason given was that the studio genuinely felt it was ready for release, but I tend to 75% agree with you. Actually, I think the August vs. February thing doesn't have much merit. Screw the retail. The people who pre-ordered and ran beta did not buy retail, and those are the people you need to please first. Further, it was stated a long time ago in the Galciv2 forums that the profit margin for downloads is so high that Stardock makes more bottom-line profit on downloads even though they make more top-line sales from retail. I would have said I'm releasing it in late September when I'm ready and if Walmart doesn't want to stock it for Christmas then they can go play with themselves.
After years of game developers and CEO's telling me to smile and take it when they delivered a bug riddled pile of poo, I have to say that this was rather refreshing. The IT geek side of me found the discussion of why companies tend to lease game engines rather interesting, and my team lead brain gets a headache just imagining the amount of pain the way things turned out must have caused you all.
This is probably the first strategy game I have played... since Lords of Magic? Damn that was a long time ago. I have been having fun, now that I learned the trick of playing set to "normal" since it seems harder when you set to "novice". That and turning off full screen helped my crashes quite a bit. I probably suck compared to most of the other fans, but I take a silly amount of pleasure stomping on bandits with my army of summoned giants.
Things I'd like to see - more variety in spells, and a way to find spell books in game (maybe a long series of linked quests or some such). Some sort of visual effect on the character models when you enchant yourself out the wazoo would be cool too, and maybe some effects for that really cool magic sword I just got from a quest. Might be interesting to have units that could tunnel through mountains (dwarves, goblins etc), or heck Norse mountainmen who could scale them. Flying units? Flaming arrows?
Granted, getting things stable is number one. People have been putting out some fun mods, I enjoy that aspect as well.
I have moved on. But you have to look at the past to learn. And I think its being completely overlooked that red flags were all over the place. So it surprises me when he says they had no idea what state the game was in. If they would have listened to the testers and not told them to go play civ5...perhaps?
You're missing something. After Walmart doesn't stock it for Christmas, and they wont because they have more games than they have space for at Christmas anyway, Walmart wont ever stock it as a full price game. No big retailer is going to settle for sloppy seconds like that. They make most of their money off the first week sales. The left over copies that sit around on the shelf for a few months are worth squat to them. The turn over might be ok with the online sales, but they'll get butchered in the market mechanics. That's as bad as getting all this bad press they got. Not expanding your market to begin with and having it disappear on you after you gave them a substandard product will amount to the same thing in the end, a small market for your future products.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
