But won't the game's quality speak for itself once it is released?

I think the hardest part in selling it to the media will be overcoming the negative inertia from WoM. If the reviewer sites (or in this case, previewer) can keep an open mind about FE as a new game, I think it will do well. It will be really important to highlight all of the various, significant improvements in FE, because on first glance, I don't know that someone who hasn't played WoM for a while would visually see much difference between the two. That's not to say graphics in FE are bad, it's just the art assets are fairly similar. The UI hasn't changed terribly, either, but I'm hopeful it will get some love between now and Fall-ish.

Bummer about no beta release this week, but hopefully next! Have a great trip to CA, Brad.

None of us have any idea if the build they're showing off is ready for public viewing.  We've never seen that build.  

Also, it's not being shown for review, but preview.  Preview pieces are inherently written about unfinished and, very often, feature incomplete games.  It's how you generate buzz.  They need to show off the Beta 3 build and get a bunch of reviewers to write about how WOM crashed hard, but FE makes it look like SD has learned their lesson and it shows a ton of promise.  Then a ton of new people show up here and, as Brad asked, we help the newbie throngs see the potential in the game while beating down the inevitable "WOM sucked, so this will suck too.  Everything about your company sucks.  Even the state of Michigan sucks because of you" style crap.

If they feel Beta 3, with its new faction differentiation changes, shows enough of FE's promise to warrant previews, then now is as good a time as any.  If they wait until they have proven beyond a doubt that FE is really really good, it's too late in the process to generate pre-sale buzz.  

As soon as the tactical combat is more fun to play that autobattle, I will be all over the net singing this game's praises.  I think after seeing the next beta might be the time, I hope.

Hmm.

Alright, I suppose now is exactly when they need to start the preview buzz ... all the talk of reviews made me think that they were allowing journalists to write actual REVIEWS about the game, which would be a bad thing imho.

But certainly pre-game hype and buzz from Stardock itself is a good idea at this juncture

Keep in mind there's a month's difference between our build and the showcase build.

I do not agree that this is too early to showcase. Showcase builds are often extremely limited builds, almost like demos, that show off concepts. If you've got an hour of great gameplay, you've got a game to showcase. And FE has an hour - and more - of awesome game. The problem with FE currently is lack of replayability (every faction is the same) and lack of meaningful choices (cities and techs). Those can easily be smoothed over in a showcase build, imho you are unlikely to understand those issues unless you play more than several hours.

A showcase is 10 minutes of Frogboy going - yes, that's a wildland. Yes, this is a combat. Yes, that is Derek Paxton and Jon Schafer and we also brought back Galciv 2 team. Here's some magic. Here's a bunch of different weapons in the unit designer.

That's my point. The graphics have improved (and I like the style), but it's just not so radically different that a person that played (and likely hated) WoM would look at FE and think "This is a much, much better game" just by looking at it. Given some recent comments about increasing the art assets by using higher resolution samples and better anti-aliasing, I think the differences should start to be more obvious. I also hope there's some adjusting of the UI. It's usable, but not particularly fancy/artistic, and very similar to the WoM interface. I'd love to see some additional clarity on stats/info as well as an interface that scales well based on resolution size and is perhaps customizable. And a pony.

Perhaps in a separate blog post I can write about the nature of marketing as marketing is, sadly, more important to the success of a product than the product itself.

As long as a product meets a certain threshold (let's say in this case, a Metacritic of 80) then its success is largely dependent on a multiplier M (marketing). All this falls apart if you get less than 80.

Now, the case of Fallen Enchantress, from a *marketing* perspective is much like the case of Star Wars: Episode 2.   Episode I "The Phantom Menace" was much anticipated. People had extremely high expectations for it.  When it failed to deliver, it got creamed by the public.  It actually got far lower scores than it would have if expectations weren't so high.  

Now, going into Episode II, they had to deal with the legacy of Episode I.  When you look at what is said about the Star Wars saga today, you see endless criticism.  From a marketing perspective, it means that Lucas was never able to change the narrative about the prequels.

Narrative in marketing is all-powerful. When you only have 500 words to write an article, journalists and editors will tend to focus on writing a narrative.  

We have an uphill battle to overcome the narrative on Elemental.  The first step was for us to release an early beta of Fallen Enchantress that demonstrated that we were on the right track. That's where we're on now. The question isn't whether FE beta 2 is a great game or not. That can only be determined when it's released.  The issue is ensuring the millions of readers who never played WOM but *heard* of Elemental negative aren't given generic media pap on FE (because unlike with WOM, where the narrative was universally positive, the media won't be writing previews on FE that are anywhere as positive as the preview coverage of WOM was, it'll be much more tepid).  

Therefore, our job is to make sure the final version is so good that it overcomes the existing Elemental narrative. If Star Wars: Episode 2 had been an insanely great movie, I suspect the disappointment from Episode 1 would have been greatly lessened.  

But between now and release, we have to rely on word of mouth from people who have actually *played* the betas to set the narrative.  It is our hope that Beta 1/2, while still early, demonstrate without question that the game is not just moving in the right direction but is, for most people, already very fun and on its way to being potentially amazing.  Obviously, if someone doesn't feel that way they should say whatever they think is accurate. 

War of Magic sold about 1/10th the number of copies of Galactic Civilizations II did and 1/20th the number of Sins of a Solar Empire.  So it's not as if there were huge swaths of people who played it. They've only HEARD of it.

Anyway, if you guys think there'd be interest, I can talk about the nature of how marketing works in the games industry. Note: I'm not a marketer. But I've been in this industry for 20 years close up. 

I would say FE is more in the 7.5 range right now.  It's good, it's solid, but right now doesn't have the replayability to push it to 8.5 nor the wow factor to push it to a 9+.  I certainly think that you guys can make it great.

Well good luck to you and your team.

I'm hoping it al turns out well.

I think if the game was released (polished) at 0.78 it would get a 5.5 or 6/10.

I think if it was released at 0.86 it would get a 6/10.

While we are playing with the different pieces of the game, I think it will shift between an average of 5.5 and 6.5 based on personal preferences (of the masses).

The key aspects that will bring it from a [5.5-6.5] to a [7.5-8.5] or higher will be as following:

1. Meaningful choices (truly unique paths in various stages of the game. Heroes, techs, cities, etc)

2. Unique and Flavorful Factions (Different races that play differently as a HUMAN as well as an AI)

3. Awesome User Interface (better build ques, better road visibility, better army visibility, better unit selection, etc)

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Now for the Disclaimer.

I want to be clear that I think FE is MUCH better than WoM. 50% better or 100% better ... potentially infinitely better.

The problem is, is that this is in terms of content, not 'critic analysis' AND I think that the original score was given a fair amount of mercy points from certain critics.

I think the original WoM would have gotten a 2/10 or a 3/10 if not for its potential. And it had awesome potential.

It was breaking new boundaries, and for that it got a few points for originality if nothing else. It DESERVED that 5.3 over a 2 because it was BRAVE enough to push those boundaries.

However, for the purposes of FE, we won't be given any originality points, any leeway ... we will be judged cautiously, and perhaps even harshly.

If FE doesn't shine in all three aforementioned points, I doubt it will get more than a 7.5 at best.

The things you mention as basic framework, are actually something that is relatively easy to change, and will get smoothed out in the balance and polish passes.   

IMO, I think the game is in the high 7's range for me.  It needs some interface love and the aforementioned balance and polish passes to get to the high 8 or 9 level.    Honestly I love playing it, and choose it over other games I have on my computer right now.    I want this to succeed for SD and for my own selfish reasons that I want to see expansions and additions to the game.

edit:  So do I understand correctly that we will be getting Beta 3 next week?