“Expansion Packs”
In the time before digital distribution, you had “expansion packs”. It is a concept that has survived well into the digital distribution age.
You’d release say Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar as an expansion for people who had the game and then Galactic Civilizations II: Gold Edition for new buyers. Similarly, we released Sins of a Solar Empire: Diplomacy and Sins of a solar Empire: Trinity for new buyers.
So why was that done? The answer is, in the old days, there was no sure fire way to tell if someone had the original game. So you had to offer a second SCU just for those people. On the business software side, all kinds of efforts have been made to try to get new editions down to a single SCU including installers that sniffed for the original version, send in a copy of your manual, you name it.
A New Team
Fallen Enchantress gives us the opportunity to have a very different fantasy strategy game than War of Magic. While the original intent was simply to eliminate an unnecessary SCU (we can simply have Fallen Enchantress with an upgrade price for people who have War of Magic), in this case, it lets us make an even bigger break from War of Magic because it has a new Lead Designer (Kael instead of myself) with Jon Shafer helping as well as we begin pre-production of Jon’s new game along with many other changes. It’s still Stardock but it’s a very different Stardock than what made War of Magic (or GalCiv II for that matter).
I’m still filling the role of studio lead developer and Executive Producer but we’re actively seeking out industry veterans to take over the role of lead developer of Stardock Entertainment.
A New Game
There is also another advantage to Fallen Enchantress being its own game rather than an “expansion pack”. And that is, it frees the team to make radical changes to the basics of the game while allowing War of Magic to still be updated on its own source tree. A user of Fallen Enchantress won’t have to have War of Magic to play it and can treat War of Magic as a separate game.
This will be the same case for the third entry in the Elemental world which won’t be out for a long time still (but will be free for people who got War of Magic before the end of October 2010). It’ll be its own game as well not requiring War of Magic and Fallen Enchantress but be available at a sharp discount to those who have the previous entries in the game world.
The Changing Market
A few years ago, this wouldn’t be possible. Retailers would have refused to carry just stand-alone expansion. There were exceptions and the Company of Heroes series did a lot of good for our industry by paving the way here. Supreme Commander’s “stand alone” expansion helps as well.
Of course, no one has brought more attention to the changing digital model of PC games more than Blizzard with its recent release of Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty which will have two additional stand-alone games in the Starcraft 2 universe.
Will this be a good thing for PC gamers? I think it depends on how it’s handled. Personally, I’d like to see people get discounts if they have other chapters in the series. That’s going to be our model for the foreseeable future but part of that is because we have our own digital distribution platform (Impulse).
thanks but i cant find any of his work on bing or google.
http://archlimit.deviantart.com/
THanks for the first part, for the second part I hate Serah Palin and never voted for her. For people making comments about tax payers dollars being wasted etc... it depends on your point of view but yes I really did do it over the copy protection that was placed into Empire At War due to the fact it would not let me run a Microsoft product called Process Explorer. Securom decided that this product was not acceptable to them and I had to remove it even though it was a legal product provided by Microsoft which I use to monitor what is running on my PC due to potential spyware. Since they did not care that their program would not run on the PC and was told to go away by their support in the end I had to take a different route which I was then contacted by Lucasarts attorneys. Weather you believe me or not is irrelevant, and what I said earlier to Ellament as well is irrelevant as someone pointed out I missed part of the write they wrote. I will admit I did not read every sentence in it but more or less glanced it over as I was working at the time.
As a side note, I recommend you take some effort to read over your posts in the future; the information flow is a bit tough to follow.
Call the Maryland State Attorney General's office.
How do you know you won't be able to? FE is taking the base of Elemental, improving the things they think need to be improved, adding a bunch of content, and standing on its own. Just because it doesn't require E:WOM doesn't mean that it doesn't contain E:WOM's core inside of it.
I have a question.
Seeing as how the expansions will be stand-alone games also. Will those that in the future buy EFE on its own get a discount on EWOM?
I ask because I'm sure I'm not the only person that's been drawn to a game by a sequel/expansion before.
I'm extremely glad to hear that Kael will have substantial freedom to re-write the game mechanics. For all that I like Elemental's vision, I've been very let down by its implementation in the game rules.
Good. I hope to see a better game in that expansion.
Considering that Brad explicitly said in the first post that everyone who purchased before end of year gets Fallen Enchantress for free, and everyone who purchased prior to end of October gets the following game for free, your fears are wholly unfounded.
I for one actually hope that they do all three games as distinct styled games in the same IP. I don't need three different but similar Fantasy Empire builder games. I've had one that did me just fine for the past 15 years. Give us a more dedicated RPG (ala Baldur's Gate) for one of them.
Wow. Five pages of comments later, and I reach the end. I haven't reached enlightenment though, just a little amazed at the seeming inability some demonstrate to comprehend a message explained so many times..
To the topic at hand however, I for one am looking forward to Elemental Fallen Enchantress. I don't think the distinction of 'stand-alone' really has that much to do with anything: Its still an expansion (i.e. additional content, and gameplay elements) to the original game. So in whatever form it arrives, I'll be eagerly anticipating it.
I've played Dawn of War, which had a very clever stand-alone system, which preserved the game experience of each of the expansions in the series. The more expansions I owned, the more races I could play, and the more special units I could field. It also opened new campaigns, maps and scenarios. However I could choose to play any one of the expansions or the original game if I so wanted, limiting myself to the content released up to that point.
I'm going to guess that Fallen Enchantress will be similar. E:WoM will still be developed and patched, there will still be benefits to owning both E:WoM and FE rather than just one or the other. They will both link together in some way - whether it be characters, maps, campaigns, dynasties, nations or in-game items. Yet I'll be able to play either 'game' with just the content released for that title, if I so choose.
I think this is particularly relevant..
The whole idea of a 'New Game' is marketing terminology referring to the 'stand-alone' nature of Fallen Enchantress. I don't think its implying that FE will leave E:WoM behind and be an entirely separate game in the sense of gameplay, style and character. Rather, its going to bring new life to the Elemental franchise.
(topic covered allready, I just didn't see page 3-5.)
So... uh... Jay! More info!
I still dont quite get why it has to be a new game... I dont want to have to choose to play either EWoM or FE, I want to play EWoM with FE content, as an actual expansion. I dont care if it's free or not, that isn't the point. How do you know you won't be able to? FE is taking the base of Elemental, improving the things they think need to be improved, adding a bunch of content, and standing on its own. Just because it doesn't require E:WOM doesn't mean that it doesn't contain E:WOM's core inside of it.
I think the thing worrying people is the idea that E:WOM will continue to get updated as a separate game after FE's release (as stated in the OP). This leads to the obvious question: after FE gets released, and both games continue to get patched separately, will E:WOM get any cool additions/changes/etc. that FE doesn't also get?
If "no" then there's no problem. No matter how many patches and additions there are, we just play FE and forget E:WOM with the confidence that we're not missing anything.
If "yes" then there's a problem - to get the whole experience, to benefit from all the awesome stuff Stardock does post-release, you'll have to not only play FE but downgrade back to E:WOM sometimes to check out the separate new stuff there, essentially forces you to make a choice between the games or try to play both. I really don't think Stardock would do this, but the wording of the OP leaves some room for confusion and could certainly be interpreted this way, hence why some are worried.
This is GREAT...........3 games for the price of one. Plus all the wonderful banter on this forum...............I'm blessed
YES 100% you explained it perfectly... that is what worries us. SD did not specify clearly what was going to happen.
PS: I really don't see why that is so hard to understand for some people.
It makes me wonder if Kael and Jon Shafer maybe just can't see doing anything with EWOM and want to start from scratch.
It also seems a bit early to be talking about heading up a new team for a completely new project/game when there still seems so much to be done to EWOM.
I just don't really buy the whole, "we don't need expansion packs in this day and age" story. Who is going to keep an older, more inferior game installed when an updated, far superior version comes along and if each "expansion" is going to be released as a standalone, won't that add a lot of duplicate files being installed with each game?
Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy to be receiving this new game for free, it's just I'm a bit suspicious about the reason behind going for a standalone when so much of the base is already installed with EWOM.
TBH.. standalones are simply better business sense. People are more likely to buy a stand alone than an expansion simply because there is no prior purchase required. If its purely an expansion he's limiting his target audience to anyone who has already bought elemental...(the majority of which get the expansion for free). So it makes huge sense to make it stand alone and open up your potential customer base to anyone rather than a limited base whom the majority of is already getting it for free.
I have my qualms with stand alones.. but like usual brad thinks like a consumer and fixes my biggest complaints of the particular model of sales. Offering discounts for people who already own Ewom but who aren't already getting the expansion for free.
If that's the case, so what? The important thing is to get the best game that Stardock can do, not to make it worse with what we have now.
It's not like you have to pay money to uninstall your game either. I think you're worrying a little too much about nothing.
I'm expecting something along the lines of Kohan: IS and Kohan: AG , though Timegate did that for different reasons (they released the same game with slight tweaks many times to get out of their contract- which was with the same company who screwed Brad in the GalCiv I days)
I may be a bit off base with this idea, but I am getting the impression that Elemental didn't quite turn out the way Frogboy wanted it to. As such, they will still refine the original game, but the want an opportunity to try and get back to an original idea of the way things were envisioned. That's at least the impression I'm getting. It may also be a test to see what their engine can do. Just some speculation.
What bothers me about this thread is the number of people (one even threatening to bring the law into it) demanding their free expansions. Now I understand perhaps slightly how that can happen, but for me Brad's original 'pitch' was more an apology to people who bought the game before it's release and was a great offer. 'Sorry guys for messing this one up, here have the next couple for free! Oh and I'll extend this offer a bit so other people can check it out now whilst the publicity is so bad if they want to'. Which I think was marvellous, I've never seen a company react this way (at least not without several letters of complaint and a threaten to sue and returning the faulty product with a SAE).
It was a great community spirited thing to do. And Kudos Brad and Stardock.
To see all these people whining and complaing and demanding their right to their free game because of the (rather clear I thought) wording of the post.... It makes me sad.
Gavadel
One word: Relaunch.
A stand-alone expansion (which is an oxymoron ) is treated as something closer to a new game then a standard expansion is. As such, it will be more likely to get some new reviews, which will almost certainly be better then the original ones.
If they get this expansion right, they want to be able to sell it to people who don't have Elemental. That's easier to do if its perceived as a new thing then if it's perceived as an expansion to a disappointing 2010 game.
(Being standalone also takes care of existing customers. If the expansion changes things in a way that people who already have EWoM don't like, they won't be forced into using it because both versions will be available.)
It makes perfect sense from a business standpoint considering the very rocky launch EWOM had.
I am very much anticipating all the good things FE will, hopefully, bring, but I am also getting a bit apprehensive about Elemental.
I would really like to see something more concrete in terms of what is arriving, and when. I know it is bad form to ask for release dates that will probably just be broken, but seriously:
Is 1.2 very far away? Does it bring the love? Elemental is shaping up nicely, but if I have to wait until August to see the totally awesome art come together with the potentially cool gameplay and the, at the moment, but hopefully to be improved, less inspired writing I'm gonna be sad.
Just that. Sad. No tantrums. This is just taking a really long time to get interesting. If Elemental were a girl I'd shrug my shoulders, call a cab, and maybe hook up with her in a year if she got her shit together.
A relaunch does make sense with EWOM's history and does clarify the situation here and I'm sure with the team they have now it will be superb!
I still don't quite get what it's got to do with "the days before digital distribution etc" as expansion packs are still the norm, but a relaunch makes sense and if the end result is the same then that's fine.
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