You know how it goes.
Game company releases game. They put out a series of bug fix patches for a bit and then they move on until it’s time to get you to buy an expansion pack or two until it’s time to do a sequel. If the initial game gets panned or negative reviews, it’s typically abandoned.
And people wonder why gamers have gotten so cynical.
As people in our community know, that’s not how we do things here.
Those of you who hang out here have seen us discussing the upcoming version 1.1 of Elemental: War of Magic. This is a partial screenshot (right side of my screen) of some of the UI updates we’re doing.
For those of you who want to try v1.1 in beta, we plan to put out the first beta in about a week.
Until the end of THIS MONTH (October 31), anyone who purchase Elemental: War of Magic, will get the first two expansions for the game for free (as well as our normal long-term support for the game itself).
The purpose of this entry is to provide space for people who have questions on what we’re doing now versus in future updates.
My biggest wish right now is for sped up tactical combat. The animation is slow, as is the delay between inputing commands and seeing their effect (though maybe that's the same thing). Seeing how the team HP bars decrease well in advance of the action, I don't think it is a calculation display.
Perhaps there is a setting for this I have missed, but since it is dangerous to auto resolve battles I've been spending a lot of the time in tactical combat and the slowness is grating. Of course, it could be my system as well, in which case an option to turn off tactical animation (if I'm not missing it) would be nice.
The quests and notable locations are currently designed where they are way too predictable. After a dozen games the player knows exactly what to expect as each quest or notable location begins. The current Elemental design also brings more work for the developers and modders because it uses Quest_1 = #1 then Quest_2 = #2. As a result creating 20 quests is not only time consuming yet the players will know exactly what to expect from each quest.
THE FIX:
The quests and notable locations should be designed using more of an algebra formula thus the quests are less predicatable allowing the player to be surprised with an uncommon, rare or unique events during a quest. For example while escorting a noble lady perhaps a 10% chance she requests to join your kingdom instead of being returned to her father. Then another example is the noble lady has a 2% chance of turning into a werewolf while she's being escorted. Then another example is the noble lady has a 1% chance of trying to steal from the player. More and more events can be added into what might occur while she is being escorted. Then the second half would be what happens when delivering the noble lady to her father. One example is 10% chance the father gives a random type of armor as a reward. Another example is 10% chance the father gives a treasure map for some burried treasure... thus making use of those islands during random map generation. The list here also can be expanded as well allowing developers and modders to create more quests or notable locations by adding a new option to one of the variables within a quest.
Quest_1 = Quest_Intro_A, Event_W and Event_X and Reward_Y. (Add one variable and the quest is more unpredictable)
Quest_2 = Quest_Intro_B, Event_M and Event_X and Reward_Z. (Add one variable and the quest is more unpredictable)
Personally I hate fighting the same spiders knowing exactly what I will be winning... over and over and over. The fix above allows the quests and notable locations to be more unpredictable.
Personally I hate fighting the same spiders knowing exactly what I will be winning
I don't mean to distract from your good ideas, but I assume I'll lose if I see spiders thanks to that web move that immobilizes me and prevents actions.
Hopefully the combat changes (separating move and fight stats) will allow that to be a hindrance rather than a slow motion death sentence.
You're a genius! Make it so!
On 4 this is really what 1.1 is all about read the other development journals.
Yes! And include dungeon crawls into quests as well!
I don't want more quests if they are going to be of the same uninteresting type we have now. There was a lot of talk about the awesome quest system, but very little awesomness has been seen so far.
But PLEASE don't speed up the animation in the way it was done in patches. Right now it looks just silly.
HP loss before the attack is finished is quite irritiating.
...I wonder how the 1.1 beta --> 1.1 will occur. Just download the fresh version or doing some uninstal/reinstal/file messing. I would gladly try the 1.1 goodies but little affraid about possible later problems.
Although I bought the game about 3 hours before I read this, it has removed any reservations I originally had about not keeping my impulsive side in check. I had decided to wait for 1.1 to come out first (and to test the game via demo or beta if I got lucky), but now I'm happy I jumped in with both feet instead!
Cheers!
In re: NTJEDI's post above:
OH YES THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!!!!
PLEASE STARDOCK--read this one and consider it. It would add a LOT of ambiance and character to Elemental.
Great post calling attention to this--it's been bugging me a long time just didn't know how to put it into words, and your fix seems pretty simple.
I would also submit that a large list of hero names with a subset selected at start of each game will make the heroes more interesting, as you won't encounter the same heroes each game.
I like to play the game as much diplomatically as I can. You see this game was marketed as a TBSRPG, as such my roleplaying is peace until w2ar is declared upon me. I do not just make war against all.
I have been strongly disappointed in the ability of the AI to interact with one another. The extent of AI interactions seems to have on declared war verses another then then they attack each other until one side's Soveriegn is dead.
I would like to see the AI respond in more ways to eachother and ESPECIALLY to the player.
I would like to see the AI who declared war against me to actually defend his Sov and capital city to the point where I cannot walk in to the capital city and just take it and then starve the Sov until I am strong enough to face him.
I would like to see that if I execute another sov of my faction(Kingdom or Empire) that the others of the same faction unite to protect themselves from a similar fate. (Ie. greater resistance.) Think WWI and WWII. I see hints of this in words only... "X thinks it is time for us to wipe out Y" but X does not back that up with action if it was agreed to.
To give a personality to each sov.
They could be one of the following:
Sovereign of integrity
Sovereign of the fork tongue
Sovereign of Greed
Sovereign of meekness
etc...
Thought this was going to be the motivation I needed to pick it up, but Amazon Prime failed me this time and missed the estimated ship date of yesterday. Looks like I'll return and wait for an inevitable Gold/Ultimate/Complete edition.
Damn, frogboy. I was planning to hold out until 1.1 and the demo came out ... but two expansions for free ... had to take that offer. Now I feel like a girl in winters sale, laden with a dozen price-reduced shawls.
*deleted*
I bought through impulse and got directly 1.09. so i could not update. I hope I get the expansions nevertheless?
If you purchased through Impulse, it is already registered. The update requirement is for those who purchased a box copy.
The general idea is that at some point Elemental's price point will go down (it's selling well and in fact sold more units at retail and direct in October than in September) and we want to make sure that those people who bought the game early at $49.95 (or $69.95 for the expansion) don't end up paying a penalty for supporting us early.
I.e. Someday the game will be priced lower but if the expansion pack is $20 that'll put the price back up there. We don't want our fans who supported us on day 1 to feel like they were subsidizing a bargain for future players.
Which played well into my mentality. Anymore my plan for new games is to wait for the "gold" or "complete" editon rather than buy it as soon as it comes out. Figuring its a better deal to get the game + expansions for 50$ rather than 50 for the base game 30 for each expansion for a grand total of 110$. Your offering future expansions to early adopters pretty much destroyed my reasoning for not buying elemental so i bought it lol.
I think with the rise of digital distribution that upgrading will become more normal.
On Stardock's non-game side, what we're doing with Elemental has been our normal business practice for a decade since it's all digital.
If you cut the price too early, I won't be mad. The way I look at it, just because someone else gets a better deal, doesn't mean that I got a worse deal.
I don't know if my opinion is a minority opinion or not though.
Also, I think your non-game mentality has made your games better due to the fact you give more meaningful support/upgrades then any other game company I've bought games from, with the possible exception of Valve. This is also the reason I've been able to stay patient with Elemental's difficulties- I know with you guys, "it gets better" and "you fix your problems". I don't know any other game company that I can say that, as reliably as I can with you guys.
That said, such warm fuzzies are dependent on you keeping it up.
In WarHammer online, they still have missing NPC from the Tome of Knowledge. They won't: Acknowledge they are missing, repopulate them, or remove them from the Tome.
In World of WarCraft from day one, they have ninja looters and pretend it doesn't happen.
You guys are awesome. Freak'n Awesome-sauce because you aren't just sitting back. Not only are you listening, you are asking for input. AWESOME-AWESOME-UNHEARD OF AWESOMENESS!
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