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.
I was the one pointing out at "that" thread that the things happening now and the things that happend at the Demigod release were one and the same.
And i still think they are one and the same, even at the lessons taken field.
Or just listen to the BETA guys, me included that said it wasn't ready...
I think they had contracts they had to fulfill. Never mind! What is done is done. Version 1.07 is stable enough for me and it is great game already. Let us focus forward and let us stop crying! Two weeks to fix the worst was great job and I am looking forward next gameplay changes.
I absolutely agree with this approach.
Wow..just wow...God's zoo is big, isn't it?
Oh yes...I like this. We are here to help Froggie! The game is far from being perfect as it is now, but it will be a "classic". It will be amongst the 3 best fantasy TBS games. I am 100% sure about this!
But if you (frogboy) agree with most of the reviews, what is it that you love so much about the current state of the game?
Hey Brad,
Couple of notes. None of which are to bag on you, or the game or the team.
1. The White Tactical Battle screen.. Uhm actually, I reported it time after time during Beta. Not to mention it was in my beta videos. And I also made sure to provide dropbox files, for it and even went so far as to include screen shots.
1a. So if you didn't know that, then there was a failure somewhere, because it was reported.
2. I'm glad you're looking into the environment at work you've created around yourself. And to find out if it's just to hard to report the hard truths. By that same token, as a beta tester, none of us were getting paid. So there was never an expectation that our opinion on release dates was something to be an option. Because you said as much. Which I do believe you mentioned, as taking responsibility for. As for other companies, that I've tested for over the years, no matter how accurate the beta-tester was about the state of the game or it's readiness for release. Game companies for whatever reason do NOT listen to the testers. Often because of the nature of being several builds behind the current ones.
That's something that maybe you should look at internally. Cause if you had asked that all critical question of the testers. Is the game ready to go live. And several other questions, like focus polls. You could of avoided this entire thing. Maybe you should get someone to act as a bit of a compass with the state of the games. Cause if you had asked if it was ready. Based upon what we had seen. I would of given you my full honest unbridled opinion. No. The game was not fun. The things you implied that were waiting to make the game "Fun" with the release. Really were Not all that fun. Hell in order for me to have fun, I had to spend a few hours modding in my own fun. And in truth going through XML code is tedious as a customer. Just to find the fun.
3. Which then goes to a greater vision. You had said in the past, your vision of the game was going to alienate customers. Non-traditional fantasy. That you approached things as an engineer, not necessarily as a famous Will Wright, or Sid Meier designer. Well you don't need to have visionaries of their quality on the deck. But, this game clearly needed a fantastic vision. Something that would rival Master of Magic. Fantasy Civilizations with flavors of D&D. Those are great, but it certainly doesn't feel like what came out. From watching videos of MoM, Elemental isn't it's spiritual successor. It's got it's own identity. And it didn't include the great things that MoM did right.
That's a big issue. As games come along, with "new" IP's.. they still look back at predecessors. To learn from what they did right. Not just from a commercial point of view, but what was fun, what was fantastic. Look at the MMO markets. You know why WoW is so popular? They found a great art style that was pleasant to watch, and easy on the computers. They looked at all other MMO's that had come out before it, and then went about crafting a game that was compelling and interesting. But they learned from Everquest, and UO, and other games... and they took an incredibly popular IP.. (which was bitten off virtually wholesale from the entire Games Workshop library, but tweaked enough to see "Original", and eventually did in a sense become that.) and ran with it. But they also stayed true to the philosophy of not releasing the game until it was ready. Though ironically, that game when I beta-tested it.. I knew immediately it was going to be a mammoth. It was highly addicting, and was simply fun.
Elemental. Has this theoretical FUN just waiting to be unleashed. But, I'll be truly honest Brad. It' needs a more coherent vision realized. And I'm not saying it "Has" to be my version of fun. But I've been a pretty good barometric for what was going to be popular. And I kept seeing what I thought would be fun. Because of the potential. But the game I was playing.. (while testing).. really wasn't as it was.. it was the potential.
4. Learning from the mistakes.
To me, you've got this one in the bag. You've take the responsibility for well... everything.. from the bland game that you "Felt" was the best one you've put together to date. To having made a catastrophic mistake in being to close to the game by being a programmer. And not sitting back and looking at what the game was playing as. But as part of the catharsis of this entire process. I think you need to search inwardly to find the answers to these issues.
5. Translating the dream in your mind into the virtual realm. But also realizing that your customers have dreams as well. And while they don't all match, and often frequently do not. Listening to them. Putting together the equivalent of an action team, to focus on finding the "FUN" of the game. Who are able to dispassionately distance themselves from saying "Yes" this is great. To being honest. And that goes back to being critical in the way you process the entire presentation. I don't know if you're familiar with Sanya "Tweety" Weathers, or Scott "Lum the Mad" Jennings, who were critical of various MMO's, but who ultimately ended up in the industry. The one thing that you were sure of as a reader of their rants. Besides that they brought the funny. They also told it truly like it is. Punches were NOT pulled. Well you have testers out here who if you would of indicated you would of listened too.. would of been just as blunt, and truthful. So you need to foster that in future processes.
6. Stardock will learn from this. No doubts about it. Easily one of my favorite companies out there. Still are, and have been.
7. And I as a preorder customer, I'm happy having invested in the future of Elemental. And I for one do NOT want a refund. Because.. of the potential I see in this game. A lot of the stuff mentioned, reminds me a LOT of a great D&D campaign. I relate things to D&D for fun, because I've been DMing now for 28 years. And know what's "Fun" and what gets people interested and having fun. From interesting monsters, to situations, to how to bring battles to the edge, where they player isn't sure they are going to win, so it's got a greater emotional impact. Riding that razor's edge. And I see that Elemental is one of those games where the DM has a LOT of great ideas, that just don't translate into the game play. But the players, kept playing because of the camaraderie. But they all agree that the game isn't that great. And then.. a new DM comes along, and just buffs the HELL out of the game, and starts running sessions that blow everyone away. Finding that cinematic awesomeness! So where I see Elemental, possibly going.. is based off of it's potential. But I accept that I may be disappointed through this process. That what I think you guys need to do to really make the game pop.. may not be what your interested in doing. Okay, I accept that. But please, please, please, please, please! Listen to your customer's. And your preorders. We came in early, and there were MANY ideas from that time, that would of made a truly fun game. (Part of my belief about Elemental being just the bees knees for potential.). Well maybe you should contact some of them again, and talk with them live. You've done it before in the old days when trying to solve problems by calling them. Well cull your lists of people who seemed to have good ideas. Get some consensus live. Human to human interaction. Not just a massive compiled super list.
8. Keep on, keeping on. Your actual loyal customers, will still be here. Because we know you'll make it right. And not like that CEO from Domino's pizza who gets choked up about the pizza from the guy in Minnesota. Because that seemed disingenuous. And while you got a barrier around you to a degree, your honesty is truly compelling. And we'll still be here.
Thanks for your Time.
Sincerely and Respectfully,
William
Good on you Gorstagg! Telling like it is while being straight from the heart. And that combination of logic and passion, is unbeatable in my opinion, in all things in life.
Best regards,Steven from Oz (no, not the movie ).
Damn Brad, leave the game as it is.
If I'm already this addicted to the game, after a few weeks and patches I'll have no social life at all...
Girtsagg said: Lots of wisdom
Man, you made a great use of those words.
As a gamer, thats the only thing i´m interested in. Thats the reason, why i bought the game last weekend, although i know all the issues. Thats why i´m a stardock fan, since the release of elemental. (Never heard of stardock before) Everything else is stardocks business. Even now the game is fun.
So...thx for your honesty and frankness and thx for the game and all the work. Stardock got a new Fan!
Intarweb translation for the next generation: "The launch sucked, and could have gone a lot smoother...like silk or something"
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Draw a line under it, and here's hoping the next year brings better things. Best of luck!
What about all the beta testers back in June who were telling you? You and Istari both responded to us by saying flat out that we didn't know what we were talking about, that the game was "far ahead" internally of what we had, and that you would simply ignore feedback about it in the future.
It turned out that we actually did know what we were talking about, and nobody at SD wanted to hear it. I really hope that next time if you get that kind of feedback someone will step back and take an objective look at if there's anything to it.
The plan for the future of the game looks great, but man. This didn't have to happen if someone said "maybe those guys on the forums have a point" instead of just seeing us as whiny cranks looking for stuff to complain about.
Also - What patch will MP be enabled in? 1.1?
Warts and all, you (Brad) and Stardock need to learn all the lessons, or mistakes will be repeated. Life kinda does that to you - if you don't learn a lesson you are extremely likely to make the same mistake. Since you've already made great steps in addressing many of the issues, why not all? Not much extra pain, for much extra gain.
You're on the right track!
Best regards,Steven.
There is something to be said about supporting a game for the long haul. Most developers only support their games for a year to a year and a half. You guys simply entered a market largely dominated by the Civilization games and Elemental is ultimately being compared to GalCiv2 and Sins. I will keep saying its a great game, because it is. It will be an amazing game when you fix all the problems.
Personally I think what you did stands out in the crowd. There aren't really any fantasy 4x games out there. The game is good to begin with and it has great potential.
Best regards to you Brad, and a little sugestion.
As you said a re-relese makes no sense. But after the game is as you want it to be tell your marketing dep to send a couple of game copies to those reviewers. Don't write anything fancy just send the game as it will be 1.3.
Agreed.
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'd Really like that as well, also including the model and animation plug-ins we need. I know the Havok tools out currently work for 3DSMax, but both the Dragonlance Modelers have done their very excellent work in Blender and we're well underway to having many models completed. The faster we can get the tools we need the faster we can add a Lot more to the game and get Major Mods and Total Conversions done. Some of these mods no doubt would be good enough to actually drive people to Buy Elemental so they can play the Mod. I know more than a handful of people who have boughten the civilization games just so they could play Fall From Heaven and I know some people who got Med2:TW just so they could play the LotR Mod out for it. Even though admittedly it's a rare occurrence, a Great Mod can actually Sell a Game, and I fully expect that could happen in Elemental's case.
People, what is the point of "I told you so" and "why didn't you xyz". What does it matter now?
I for one would prefer more productive discussions along the lines of "what now?".
For example, I want extensive modding through python,
including being able to change GUI and make new screens.
Including changing the way Heroes level.
Mods add serious value. Look at EU3 and plethora of Mods which make it worth re-playing. Look at Civilization IV (Fall From Heaven anyone?).
The other seriously glaring issue which isn't talked about by Mr. Wardell, is Random Maps. They are absolutely essential for re-playability.
There are tons of other issues, but recent posts suggest the game is being majorly re-worked in the right direction. (that is becoming a strategy game with RPG elements rather than an unfocused array of features).
Internet rage is a bit like road rage, people tend to forget all standards of civilized behaviour on the internet and loose all sense of perspective. I mean wishing someone dead because your disapointed in a game you bought from them, not sure I'd want to stay on a forum where that sort of behaviour was tolerated. I perfer a somewhat more mature level of discussion.
Just to say I'm really not to bothered by initial problems with Elemental, that's because I know it will be fixed and will then still get lots more love from Stardock even after that.
I know Brad and his team take real pride in their work which is why they are so disappointed with themselves over this release. I too believe that Elemental will be a great game in the end, because I don't believe stardock will stop until it is. I'm already having fun with it, although I acknowledge it does have many issues, my wife is already moaning about finding me on the computer whenever she turns around.
I've enjoyed seeing this game develop and will enjoy more seeing how it evolves over time. At the same time I can understand why 1.0 got such bad reviews and think there is still some work to do clearly.
Anyway enough beating yourself up about it Brad and team, just get on with fixing it and I for one will be happy to stick with you. You made mistakes you've owned up to them and now your doing your best to fix them and make it up to your customers, we can't ask for more at this stage.
(think you also fell for the big DirectX fib.....that you don't have to worry what hardware is hidden beneath it).
The tactical portion of the game seems very weak. Another game I very much enjoy is King bounty (ap/l) which does not have city building but mostly tactical combat. I tried to figure out why it seems so much stronger in that department. I think there are a couple of reasons. First the actual combat options seem to be more varied. You can place obstacles; mix long and near combat (in a fashion more varied than simple archers allow) and perhaps the grid format make movement options more limited; the ability to isolate or corner off an ind. opponent is more limited.
A few suggestions to try (at least internally to get some ideas on possible changes)
a) some sort of polygon during tactical combat only (hexagon or octagon)
Greater range of movement between troop types (some can move 5 some can move 1 during combat)
c) Ability to surround enemies with two armies; if done so they enter the battle field at different locations
d) Spells that can create different type of defenses (either obstacles that block attackers; or fog that hinder range) during combat
e) More unique special attacks for troops (charge for calaery that can only be used once or twice during combat; of course then you would need calvary type of troop); troll or similar that can throw rocks with >> damage but are very vulnerable to fire (of course enemies would now need better ai to know to target them with flaming archers or fire spells); ... (there are many possibilities here)
-
Any way those are just a few ideals (I'll repost in the main forum).
It matters for future releases. Stardock could have avoid some problems with the Elemental release if they have listened a bit more to some complaints made by beta testers.
As Frogboy has written in reply 16
Since he wants to find how things have happened, it may be useful to remind him some things that have happened in the beta phase and that could have prevented the desastrous launch.
Thank you again. I really really enjoy the game when it works. I'm a fan of Stardock & Impulse. This is not hating or bashing.
As I've been reading this thread, I've had some thoughts. (Background - 10+ years as developer->lead->architect->prod manager of a _non-game_ shrinkwrap spftware dev selling to other devs). Obviously, my opinion is just one voice.
The choice not to license another graphics engine was expensive and irreversible. It was bold, and I appreciate it, but it's the core problem, it sounds like. Based on my experience, I've noticed two concerning things:
1) The game has numerous bugs that are not listed on the roadmap I've seen in your posts. Especially when going into tactical mode, things break on my machine quite frequently. I think I've gotten 2 hours of uninterrupted playtime before, but that's the most before something breaks. I've played on every patch release so far.
2) I'm too much of a lazy ass to get debug reports to you. I tried, but pastebin wouldn't take it and filebin wasn't responding. So I gave up. If I'm an ex-developer & a Stardock fan, and you're not getting my reports, then that means there are a lot of bugs going on that you don't know about.
I'm sure you've already thought of all this, because you're a lot smarter than me, but here are some suggestions (that will make me sound almost as pretentious as I am):
Sorry to ramble on, but I've been thinking about you guys. I really like the story where someone makes a bold move and it pays off. I hope that's what this story is, and that this is just Act II. I have a feeling that of all the folks who have tried this, you are in a uniquely ideal position to make this work even after problems.
Good luck! We're all rooting for you (and for us, because folks like y'all give gamers hope not only in the future of gaming, but in the future of the industry).
Honestly, the inability to send a bug report more easily/quickly has kept me from doing so.
Considering how often it happens, they ought to have something automated (kind of like Windows does). Not sure how feasible that is, but you'd get a lot more bug reports, and it sounds like they're needed considering Brad's post about not having gotten enough feedback from enough different configurations.
But, it's probably too late for that at this point.
What about Bugzilla? Bugzilla is free and it's ridiculously easy to install and set up. For help installing you can ask me personally.
i only read part of the pages since there are 5 but...
i think in the expanson pack there should be more enemies. Also i have been running into super powerful creatures taht can take down a town that has 5 guys stanioned there. also they were upgraded and experienced so that bugged me. also whenever i meet another empire/kingdom the value is worth around 20,000 value and nothing i can do matches that. Another thing i noticed is that the empires/kingdoms have power and reputations in the thousands while mine havent gotten above 200 woth around 5 cities and 20-30 men. is it normal or what
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