I was going to post this as a reply to Frogboy’s “the Elemental all-purpose mega thread”, https://forums.elementalgame.com/396905, but saw that these comments go beyond being only a reply to that post, so here we go.
I will try to make this as constructive as possible, but please bear with me if/when I start to rant.
I am slowly but steadily losing faith in Stardock’s ability to deliver on even the basic promises and potential of Elemental, but hope I will be proven wrong.
To be fair I want to first say that there are indeed great things in the game already. I like the graphics, the art style, the 3D engine, to start. I love the “card” showing your sovereign, the customization of looks ... And on paper all the basics are there: magic, technology research, city building, dynasties, adventuring, tactical combat. But it seems, incredulously enough, like every part has failed to live up to its potential, and on top of all they don’t necessarily even go together. (In addition, there is still much too little content and so unbalanced you don’t want to play.)
We are now quickly approaching one month after release and to my own surprise and horror I realize that I have no appetite for playing Elemental, in the stage it is in. In fact, there are so many far-reaching changes needed to almost every area of the game that you just wonder how the game could ever have been conceived (not to speak of released) like this. (And yes it runs smoothly on my PC, I’m talking game and content.) My thoughts are turning to: it makes no sense. Something must be wrong in the process? Or in the choices Stardock makes on each individual point?
Even Frogboy’s all-purpose thread is symptomatic. What we need after the initial shock and explosion of acrimony and disappointment on the forum is some guidance, order and structure – and a quick number of shots of calming info. I don’t think a “stream of consciousness” from Frogboy was the best idea to get Stardock’s act together. Yes, I know this is presented as a start, but the fact is that the game development and the forum activity are far from in an early phase, and I think it should be taken better into account, as pointed out below. What we would need now already is more like a well-planned series of meticulously written Frogboy posts trying to take control of the sadly more and more chaotic and aggressive forum - and I can’t blame anyone for having hard feelings or starting a rant after all we’ve gone through. And then a series of development posts dissecting what Stardock plans to do, for our comments.
At the moment, the whole approach just seems completely uncontrolled, or else badly managed. Consider this: for years, hundreds of people have made great posts and very useful comments on what they want the game to be like, on this forum. Sadly, Frogboy earlier hinted that he did not have the time to read these posts during early development, during beta and before release (!), but will now try to catch up after release. But except stating that there will be the two expansions, everything is open. What is expected from us now? What is really the point of an “all purpose” discussion? It will be a no-purpose discussion, where people throw out various things and parts of the thread gets hijacked by something that sticks out. All the input already given on every single part of the game, from dynasties to combat to magic to espionage (that we never even saw) is still there, for Stardock to consult, consider and send back in a new form for new consultation by the player base. Are we now going to redo the whole thing again, re-posting the ideas and arguments that were already held in the beta and way before that …! It just starts feeling like we have all been badly wasting our time. And if Stardock did not “have the time” (deign?) to read what was written during the beta phase, how can we expect anything will be different now? Because in fact we still haven’t got any explanations to why the game was done as we see it, contrary to all those great ideas launched by the player base (from global magic to tactical combat to factions, races, etc). Maybe it was not lack of time, maybe some people actually prefer those few fizzling spells to those of MoM and AoW. What do I know when they don’t tell us, and the fanboys keep chirping even when Frogboy regrets the “disastrous” launch.
Since everything is completely open I will just put down four points I hope we’ll get to know more about, and soon, to decide if I even will continue placing any interest in Elemental or just wait for several months to see if Stardock will manage to drag the game out of today’s muckzone of lacking content and bad balance combined with nonexistent AI. (Yes, that is status of v.1.08.)
- When will we get even close to a War of Magic (like written on the box, that I still have not received BTW)? - meaning about 3-10 times as much and as varied magic content, with global spells and hopefully with multi-turn rituals (and all of it balanced).
- Is Stardock going to continue with its “human only” approach to Elemental throughout the expansions? (Yes, why does it seem like only a small modding community is addressing what probably a majority of the player base is interested in?) When I look at the current faction creator I just feel I don’t want to play this version of the game. Maybe not the intent.
- Will Stardock continue with its so-called (and IMPOV anyway de facto not applied) “you are the sovereign” policy, although thread after thread have pointed out that the dynasty system does not live up to its potential as is, that it is counter-intuitive to read that your kid is in line for the throne while there can never be any sovereign succession (as an option), that kingdoms are disappearing and that you gain XP by killing off stupid AI sovereigns whose children never take over.
- Why was no option on espionage included, and does it mean it won’t go into a future expansion (with active actions from spies, not just paying gildar for some passive info)?
It is becoming clear that it will take much more time than I had hoped to get things even on a firm track in the right direction. Almost a month after release I have NO CLUE if Elemental will be the biggest letdown of my gaming life or one of the best strategy games ever. But there was one important piece of news the other day. We were told, almost hidden away in a snapshot reply in another thread than the main discussion, that Stardock has given up on making the game more “epic”. So it won’t live up to the famous dragon versus army pic used to sell it. Won’t live up to Silmarillion, which we were told was the inspiration. Sovereigns won’t be like Sauron in the LOTR film, like we were told countless times. Another area where, incredulously enough, it all seems to just fizzle out. If the answer and end result will be similar on the points above, darkness is really falling over this game. More like: it is falling into oblivion.
Wow....this is very dramatical.
It will rock.
Put your copy away for now and move unto other things. Check back in Jan and see where the game is.
Dude you read my mind. I was actually going to make exactly the same post. Indeed, there have been dozens of well written, excellent posts (especially during the time of Frogboy's vacation shortly after release) that I honestly think haven't even been read. I think I can say this because Brad's recent posts give the impression that he hasn't been reading the forums. For example, a few weeks ago there was a post with dozens of replies on how to change the 1 D damage system. There were excellent ideas about using a normal distribution for damage rolls instead of the uniform one being used now. There were other suggestions equally deep and well supported in that thread. Fast forward to this week and I see Brad talking about improving this system and asking suggestions for it as though the huge suggestion post had never existed. I regularly see people pouring their heart and soul into making brilliant suggestions for Elemental, and yet from the interaction with SD employees, it feels like they aren't taken seriously - or even read. When these brilliant posts were written I honestly thought Brad had someone devote 100% of their time to reading and documenting them. It looks like I was wrong.
I'd just like to address my opinions on your 4 points part of your post
I do think so much more can be done in the magic arena as far as new and better spells, and espionage would be interesting to see (probably in the second expansion pack or something). Both of these issues will probably be addressed by the modding community in some fashion though.
As for the other two points, I rather like the human-centric approach to things , although I do appreciate the mod community's efforts to appease those who disagree. Also, I'd rather see the soveriegn system expanded to make them feel both more personal and more vital than see them abandon the "you are the sovereign" vibe. Seeing the AI's children assume the throne, on the other hand, does seem like a neat idea without leaving that "personal story" feeling behind.
I fully agree here, it seems that when editing tools are released, sometimes the unspoken intention is that the modding community will fix what is broken and it's easy to say 'it's not broken, it's our design' which is laughable when things are very clearly broken, but who can dispute them, its subjective. So off to the free-labor modding community to make the game in the vision we were all sold from the beginning. I have hard time not having this perspective given how things have gone and are going, I really do hope I'm wrong though.
I agree with this, and the dramatic nature really just emphasizes the level this whole thing is at. Some big stuff needs to be done, and a game should never need a few months or even a year to get to the stage that it was intended to be at release (If you use examples like GalCiv and such, you're just giving examples of games that failed in some way on release).
It would seem we have to wait and see sadly, I'd rather put my money on a game that is a finished product on release, and expanded (not fixed) through content added later.
Paradoxical
Forgive me if I'm not agree with you people. First of all, I'm just a gamer like you, not a stardock things. I have lurking to another forums, not even a game forum, but manga forums, novel forums, etc.
What I state here is that every creators, whatever if they are writer, game developer, or the others) have their own concept from the beginning. The community input is... just an input, to give them some ideas, and hopefully expand / give their creation some flavor. Basically, they will only take the things that can be integrate to their creation, or that it fit to their own taste.
The problem is, sometimes, the fans / readers tends to disappointed when their ideas are not taken / used by the creators. I have my own experience on this. it was happen when I talk with my friend, a writer about his book. I give him a lot of ideas, and he tell me that he likes it, but he didn't put my ideas to his book. I was furious and decided to not read his book anymore. But the life will go on. His book was a success in my country, people love his creation. It is only me who dislike the story just because it didn't use my idea.
It is not the Stardock fault if they don't use the fan idea. They have their own concept. We just buy their game to enjoy it. Yes, we give them inputs, but it just... input. They read it, but if they don't like it, it's their right. We should not disappointed because of that.
I, myself prefer if Stardock just stick to their original concept and not dragged to use all the fan idea. Because, the game will lost it's character. Fans idea = Fan Service. They are cool, but if can't integrated to the story / system, the game will fall into fan service game category, and I don't like it.
Forgive me, Brainsucker, (lol!) but can I point out that this is a PC strategy game rather than a great piece of art. I wish it had been a piece of art on a level where your comments had been right, but sadly, it is still being patched even to run on some PCs. As for the creator's intent, the problem is rather that 1. the intent as spelled out by creator is not fulfilled (war of magic, epic, etc), and that 2. it is so bland (and empty really) that it is open to make a lot of changes. Also, the whole idea was to make a very flexible system, why player input makes particular sense.
If they don't take some ideas, that is one thing. But let us then at least know it, know why, and know whether the idea has ever been seriously considered. Then each customer can decide whether to shelve it or not.
sorry for sounding a bit bitter but,
no amount of "art" is going to fix something that is technically unsound. suggestions where given for free, only a fool turns a blind eye on it i would say. As for story... have you even played this "game"?
Comparing Elemental to Mom is like beating a dead horse, but..
I found setting up my 'wizard' with some thought into which perks/spellbooks to pick and then 'choosing' which race to play (knowing each have their own pro's/con's) INFINITELY more fun at the start of MoM than anything Elemental has to offer with its drab options for setting up a sovereign and just no description on what a 'spell' book confers or even a reason to pick 'specific' spell books for tactical/strategic reasons that supplement how you want to play (eg, am i going for heavy unit buffs? debuffing? summoned monsters? damage spells? spells that terraform, and even affect the battlefield?)
Ugh.. Elemental setup is so bloody BORING with extremely generic and mundane choices imo. Yes yes, I know, but it really makes me want to puke in my mouth before I even start my game! I just keep hoping with each patch someone is going to put some love into the beginning and work it from there!
Think the game is beautiful. Has potential. Keeping my fingers crossed and bloody READ THIS AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT ALREADY! Cmon!
I agree almost entirely with the OP.
Stardock have access to a huge number of good ideas already from beta and the many posts since release. The problems have all been pointed out multiple times along with many suggestions for solutions.
What is require now is NOT more ideas.
What is needed now is for all the facets of the game to be moulded into a coherant, balanced and fun game.
This is not something that the forum can do, in fact I don't think it is something that can be done by committee since making a good game is as much about pruning unnecessary features as it is adding features (and large groups, particularly forums just want to add, add, add).
I believe it is something ONLY Stardock can do and only by a small group of very smart people who have a very clear understanding about what made MoM such fun to play (albeit unbalanced and with poor AI) and similarly what makes Civ 4 such a brilliantly balanced game with such great AI (albeit perhaps not as inheritely fun as MoM was). Note that this will be a long process, probably 3 months I would say to create and implement the vision, but it would be worth it IMO.
At this point it is looking increasingly like Stardock don't have a group of smart people with this level of understanding of gameplay in which case Elemental seems doomed to mediocrity. I hope to be proven wrong.
The real problem was we were doing ALPHA testing while they were telling us it was a BETA. What they released is an actual BETA and not the end game. I remember people saying it wont look like a BETA from Blizzard is they were focusing on the game at its core (paraphrasing) all the while it was an ALPHA version.
Alot needs to be fixed and changed before it is released like cities. I hate the city building part of this game. This whole point kills it for me with all the attention focused on building cities and making them look different and having to place houses. (This was implemented because back in ALPHA 2 as people could only build four cities and figured that we shouldn't be able to make four cities look alike). Don't understand why a TBS like Elemental is trying to be a sim-city type game.
Alot of work has to be done before even 1.1 will feel like a normal game release and alot of things has to be ironed out. People have been upset and vocal because we have been fed lots and lots of promises that never see the light of day. If this game was released, being able to do half of what they promised there would be hardly any complaints at all.
Then the games that were shipped are costing extra because of duties if they even arrives is complete and utter disregard for their customers. Don't feed me the line it was all the shippers fault either.
I am glad that some people were able to enjoy the game ... probably because they are new and were never promised anything.
Well, I can't help but continue to follow this closely ... but I'm wondering if an awesome Elemental will be anything more than a pipe-dream.
Hopefully in a year or two, we will have an Elemental that lives up to its promises in a way that makes a game truly fun.
Best game ive played in years, I just love it.
Sure it has some issues but im addicted and loving my time with it.
Have you played Fall From Heaven II on the Civilization IV?? (mod on Civfanatics, beyond the sword expansion)
-
edit: its too bad Fall From Heaven: Tactics is currently a shelved project
I have come to the game late but think the points made by the OP (while rather dramatically framed) seem sensible and well thought out.
+1
SD games have always being slightly boring. With galciv2 it was fine.. as it was based on the equally boring Galciv (to be fair the expansions spiced it up a bit)
But the problem here is they promised more.. they promised "EPIC".. they shameless rode on the MOM name.. did they ever stop people, magazines from calling them "MOM's spiritual successor" ? of course not.. it would hurt sales..
I know the 1dN thread you are talking about. They even responded with a one-liner.. and everyone went nuts.. I told them not to get their hopes up. As i expected it was just a minor change +N.
It's the same with all these threads.. asking fans their opinion.. It's just good business sense to pretend they are listening.. They already have their own plans.. the fans are at best going to affect 0.01% of it. But it's fun though to come up with game designs.. just dont expect any of it to be implemented.. seriously if you expect that.. go make your own game or at least mod EWOM.
LOL, it's okay. Well, I know that. The Art of Elemental is different than the Art of a... book. Well, the technical problem is... technical, but I still consider the gameplay as an art. And, as an art, good art and bad art is always subjective.
Well, I don't say that the game is good at the current state. You can give the idea, but it is Stardock that will decide. And if your idea doesn't even considered by the developer, just let it go. just don't disappointed because of it.
I, myself don't like their previous games. Like Sin of the Solar Empire, but i just let it go. I happen to love this game. But it ust my subjective reason.
So basically what you're saying is that Stardock needs to hire a full time dedicated community manager to handle community 'stuff' like gathering feedback, keeping morale up, and otherwise engaging the community/engaging the developers and acting as a liaison as opposed to pulling Frogboy away for four hours to read forums (or worse, burning himself out by doing it from home) versus doing his AI (and manager) magic.
Ideas are just that, ideas. Yeah, there has been a lot, and sure, there are many threads worth looking over. But I don't recall any of them ever coming up with a unanimous conclusion that something should be done so and so, nor do I expect them to. Most of the times idea threads are brainstorming sessions. We throw things out that seems like it might be interesting, then others do the same, they are pretty much always conflicting. The hope is to have SD looks over them, maybe pick up a few things here and there that they think could be implemented and add it to theirs. Not all ideas will get their chance, somethings might be too impractical, others might be against their view of how it should be, or maybe they thought theirs was simply better etc, etc. There could be hundreds of reasons why something isn't done, and expecting them to give out reasons why thousands of different ideas wasn't implemented is just impractical, not to mention how would you like it if they said, "hmm.. we just didn't really like it." Not exactly the best customer relation line, right? But that's the truth sometimes.
To expect your super great idea (to you) post to be taken to heart and implemented to perfection is just another pipe dream. You got your chance to give input, they saw, but things didn't work out, one way or another. They can only implement one thing after all. Now, you might be disappointing that so and so ideas, which in hindsight seems so much better, wasn't implemented, but saying we should no longer give ideas until they do it is silly. Not to mention that this method of "holding out" never works, at the end of the day all you do is stopping your own input from being considered, there are many who still will regardless, some with not as great ideas... who might actually get implemented. Is that what you want?
In any case, what really gets me is that you're using the "epic dragon battle" thing as the reason, which has been pointed out by many people as nothing but an optical illusion, that "scale" of battle happens in the game now. If this is seriously the "final straw" for you, then good luck, one less idea to compete with mine, heh.
I have faith that Frogboy and his staff arn't being as simplistic as myself. But if the author of the comment that Epic will no longer be a design goal is not being taken out of context or didn't specify, like Epic will not be a goal for numbers of fielded troops, then I am concerned for how much support the game might be reasonably budgeted for the future and its expansions, or if they are leaving it to the mods for content.
There's too many ideas, too many suggestions, too many different directions to take and too many tastes to please. THAT is what's wrong with this game. The devs should shut this forum down and go to work on a game that THEY envisioned and stop putting so much stock in all these suggestions from nerds who think they own part of Stardock because beta and forum participation. Take some advice here and there, let us help test bugs, hear us out when its coherent, thats fine. But a lot of what I read around here is people essentially trying to program their own idea of a great game through Stardock while sitting at home behind a keyboard and doing nothing but whining. Its causing more harm than good at this point. If you don't like the game, don't play it. Let them work. If you have such a clear vision of what this is all supposed to be, go program your own game.
make it like MOM and have a successful game. Add innovation after the fact. WIN.
There's a lot of good stuff in this post Gorgon, well said for the most part. This part is really important though. As we've seen from the two threads on adding "Epic Scale" to the game, bringing in larger unit counts would REALLY Contribute to making the "War" aspect come to life. In my mind, and in the mind of many others, a "War" is something that should take place on a Grand Scale, both in terms of units AND in terms of magic. There needs to be a lot more soldiers shown on screen to get that epic war feeling and there needs to be more spells that do mass damage. Spells that can decimate a whole unit and send guys flying when a huge explosion hits in the middle of their ranks.
I really hope the devs are paying attention to those two posts plus your post here.
Well done my friend. You're rockin it brother!!
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