The Design a Spell contest was launched today. I'm excited to see your ideas. I know a lot of people will want baselines to create within, after all its hard to design an implementable spell if you don't know exactly what can be done. But I encourage you to forget the technical limitations for the moment and just design spells that you would love to play with. Sure it means that some great ideas might not make it to the final 5 because they aren't practical, but I would rather see those dream spells and spend some time to see if we can make them, then limit everyone's creativity.
Remember we need spells for outside of combat as well as in combat and that we will have global mana by the time these spells are implemented (one mana pool that all that player's casters share). We are looking for a mix of a good strategic function and cool flavor.\
Good luck!
http://elementalgame.com/contest
I just hope to see a Necromancy spell that resurrects a deceased spouse or child!
Pet Sematary, eh? =P
Next, in Elemental Forums: "Oh noes! 1.1 is not yet MoM 2!"
I'm always impressed when I watch a talk about education on TED, but here is one with a business twist that I think is worth watching, if you haven't already...just putting this out there for anyone on these boards that may be interested. It involves scientific studies about motivation and creativity and how it relates to problem solving in a business setting. Enjoy...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y
It's on Youtube , but part of the TED network that has a huge amount of educational talks given in a global forum.
By the way, it's about 18min or so...a little on the long side, so watch it when you have the time.
"CONTEST PERIOD: The Design a Spell Contest ("Contest") starts on November 11th, 2010 and closes on December 13, 2011 at 12:00 PM Eastern Time."
More than a year to submit a spell? How nice of you to give us time to think!
Haha, I didn't catch that. I came up with a basic spell; Famine. If I had a year to think of something... interesting, I'd have come up with the grand-daddy of all Fantasy Spells.
actually this is the correct info from the page
'Contest moderators will choose the top five most creative/implementable spells. The top five will be posted and you, the community, will choose the winner! Submissions must be received by December 13, 2010 at 12:01am"
harpo
See, I don't care about a graphics card... I've got a pretty damn good one. Not the best, not even top of the line or brand new, by any means... But by any means, it's still pretty damn good.
That's why I'm not going to submit a spell... Unless...
Dear Derek,
If I win... Can I get a copy of the Heirgamenon and a copy of Destiny's Ember's for free instead?
I wrote a huge
I wrote a huge reply expanding on this. Then I accidentally hit "reload" and the forum ate it. I wish this forum software saved drafts...
Basically, my point was: look to Magic the Gathering's color system. MTG has five colors, and each one has a strongly established "flavor", backed up by assigning mechanics to one color or another. For instance, most of the spells that kill a creature outright are black. As evidence that the colors are well-defined, Magic players have strong intuitions about which color a given spell belongs in (and sometimes complain that spells have the "wrong" color); conversely, if all I tell you about a Magic spell is that it is blue, I've just vastly reduced the sort of spell that it could be (for instance, it's not going to deal direct damage to a target).
Limiting each element to a well defined domain of influence would give each element much more personality than they seem to have now; they would mean something instead of just being a bunch of different slots to fill. I think a good metric is one I alluded to earlier: if I describe a spell to you, you should be able to tell me which elements it must belong to (there could be multiple if the spell works in more than one domain).
You tend to have some really good ideas/thoughts on things. Submit a spell if only for the sake of having a cool spell implemented into the game.
Do we know the same me? As in the... I mean the... Hmmm, how to articulate this....
You think I have good ideas!?
I haven't had a good idea since Beta... I know how to produce results... Out of other people... I know how to rationally and politely argue a point... But good ideas? Nononononono, you must mean someone else...
But... You quoted my post... That must be a misquote.... There's just no-.... Hmmm...
Well... I have a few ideas.... But I'm saving my ideas... Because I have something better scattered amongst the clutter-ridden recesses of this thing I call a brain... Somewhere........ I just gotta find it.... I should write more stuff down...
But seriously, I'm not going to bother unless Derek or Brad or someone at Stardock can promise me that, IF I, by some miracle, win, I'll get my prize.
To bring Elemental on par with similar turn-based strategy fantasy games, there needs to be an ability to summon new units into tactical battles once they started, and also a mechanism to polymorph units.
I just want to re-inforce Derek's point from before, this contest is just here because we think it will be fun for the community. The spell wishlist/feedback forum is different in that it is a place where you can share cool ideas for spells and mechanics, however, we aren't looking to simply pull spells from there directly into the game.
This contest is so someone can look at a spell in the game and have the joy of saying "I came up with that". Also don't take a desire for community involvement as us being devoid of ideas for new spells or content. We have plenty of ideas but we also realize how important the community is to our products and want to involve you whenever possible.
Basically, have fun trying to win free stuff and don't worry, we are working on the game all day every day, sorry that there was a lull in dev journals keeping you up to date with whats going on internally here but there is a lot of work to be done
My spell does not show up, but i submitted it and now it allows me to edit it but I cannot see it in the list
It will not appear in the list until it is moderated. This could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few days depending on the time availability of our moderators.
Bara
Edit: beaten
I second Mandelik's sentiment. The Spell I'd like to see is listed there...Spell/magic reflect!
GJ Mandelik
Get a grip, I've never seen a chance to win something met with such disdain. A contest doesn't invalidate previous ideas, nor does it mean those ideas weren't considered and then tossed out, obviously that thread was created for a purpose, by Frogboy himself no less. Just enjoy it for what it is, a fun contest in the community and a chance to win a prize.
According to that thread itself:
Which implied to me that spells might very well be taken off that thread and put into the game. When the contest was announced, that purpose seemed in doubt. And now this:
confirms the redefinition of the purpose of the thread. I am a bit annoyed, not because Stardock is giving away prizes, but because I feel mislead about the purpose of the original spell suggestion thread. My annoyance is not more or less than if spell suggestions were being solicited (again) without a prize. I feel like I wasted my time contributing to that original thread. That may or may not be the case - maybe it had some influence, maybe I'll see that influence in the game at some future date or read about it in a dev journal - but I don't see it right now, so I feel like my time was wasted. When you feel like your time is wasted, you are allowed to be annoyed.
Many of you read way too much into a contest to win something and are taking this attempt at getting ideas into the game way too seriously.
For me, the gripe is not about getting ideas into the game. It's about the sustained refusal on Stardock's part to take the magic system seriously as content that should underpin and shape every other aspect of a fantasy TBS with the subtitle "War of Magic." A game world based on a magical cataclysm was a fascinating idea, and seemed fully worthy of aspiring to be MoM's 'spiritual successor.'
Now we seem well on the way to a medieval wargame with a secondary 'technology' system that's mostly about fancy graphics as alternatives to a tried and true hail of arrows or heroically-wielded battle axe. The magic just ain't magical. Getting some player-designed spells into the game is no substitute for ripping out the essence mechanics entirely; they were what gave the project its potential to become the new leader of the genre. I can understand not believing in magic in the real world, but I'm stumped as to why the devs seem to not believe in it as a fundamental part of this project.
For dummies:
https://forums.elementalgame.com/386025
The purpose of this thread is to let players suggest spells they would like us to use. (which doesn't mean "We are going to post anything you post here. We will just consider anyone we like by whichever reason and use it in any way we seem possible". Seems easy to uderstand.).
The Rules
A given spell must be something that the computer AI can reasonably be expected to use as well. (should be easy to understand too)
---------
So stupid wouldn't be the word I would use to describe whining about a promotion/contest because there happens to be a thread about spells too (and that is NOT negated by such). By that same logic, no possible contest could be done as all possible topics about the game have at least a thread in these forums. Even the soldier's breakfast is mentioned a couple of times (you can blame me for that one).
And to suppose by a promotion/contest that Stardock is doing A or B when we/you actually have no idea of what's going on really on Stardock (hell, Kael just arrived and 1.1 isn't out yet!!!), are wasting time. And there I was thinking that some of you didn't like to waste time.
Here's the crappy thing about language. The above quote could mean a number of things. It could mean that Brad created that thread just to tease us into believing that our input is actually being considered, only to give us the finger later. Or it could mean that spells as they are posted in that thread will not necessarily be taken 'as is', but the spell ideas, and what more of the community seems to want will be taken as a guideline for designing the different aspects of the game.
How you choose to take it depends on which way you like to fill your glass.
If Stardock wants to hold a lottery to give away a video card and a few gift certificates, I'm fine with that. if you entered the contest and need a new video card, best of luck to you, I hope you win. But the time for fantasy thinking about what cool stuff Elemental might have was either back in the beta days, or after we reach a more polished state of the game. If you try to mod a spell, right now you are stuck with a pretty narrow range of options, and to get interesting spells like what people are talking about--and I've enjoyed reading the entries--we need spell mechanics for things other than unit stat changes, direct damage, or changing location.
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