Stardock’s much anticipated PC fantasy strategy game, Elemental: Fallen Enchantress is about to go “gold” and its official release date has been set as Tuesday, October 23rd. The development team at Stardock, led by Derek Paxton (Fall from Heaven) with a campaign designed by Jon Shafer (Civ V), unveil Fallen Enchantress, a strategy game that brings the kind of detail and richness normally only seen in RPGs.
The world of Elemental was once filled with magic. All peoples made use of this sorcery; with it they built great kingdoms – Malaya in the south, Hallas in the west, fabled Al-Ashteroth in the East – all magnificent, and vastly different, civilizations. Then came the Titans, immortal beings who sought control of Elemental, and the magic contained within it. They waged war amongst the people, the land, and themselves – and in the process turned men into their vassals. Seeking control of the world’s enchantment, in the end they destroyed it. At the last great battle, the land itself was broken. Civilization perished, and the Titans vanished from the world entirely. There were survivors. This is their story…
Fallen Enchantress brings the story to players in this rich, story driven strategy game. Create a sovereign with unique talents and abilities along with a faction to align yourself with in an effort to bring the world under your control. Experience a challenging start as you attempt to conquer the land you intend to claim: monsters, bandits and other beings of dread await you as you set out to explore your territory. Other factions are pursuing similar objectives, raising the stakes and deciding the ultimate outcome: who wins, and who dies.
Fantasy strategy gaming on a massive scale, Fallen Enchantress hosts unique factions, unlockable unit designs, unforgettable quests and with randomly generated worlds and multiple paths to victory, you will never play the same game twice.
To learn more about Fallen Enchantress, please visit www.elementalgame.com.
Hi all,
I've been reading the forums and journals since War of Magic. I've never played a beta. But I definitely am going to buy Fallen Enchantress the moment I can. I can't wait to start playing the finished game.
Thanks for all the hard work Stardock. I have a feeling I won't be disappointed.
Ten9
It is quite funny and addictive game and I really enjoyed the time in Beta. I like Stardock culture, SD is one of my favourite SW companies so far...and FE could be another great piece in the puzzle:)
Hope it does well...good luck, FE!
Actually, I won game by quest victory day ago, in 0.983 version, on Hard difficulty level. I started quest chain with 15-16 level heroes and finished it with 18 level as I remember, last boss was two-shotted with melee attacks of just one hero with Path of Defender (even not Warrior or Assasin) buffed with two spells from support mages. Please note that I used very few magic (and don't used direct damage spells at all), so major magic nerf in 0.984 won't affect this. So yes, game can be easily won, and total imbalance is still present. It could be won even more easily by wiping AI factions because their defense is much weaker than quest monsters, I just played "good guy" in that game.
Regarding CTDs, I've seen much less CTDs since 0.983, but still have 2-3 after Alt+Tab from game and switching back after some time. Some other situations where I have CTDs before just replaced by horribly degrading game performance, so I need to restart game anyway.
And yes, monsters still ignore AI. Yesterday I spend entire evening just to observe AI behavior near AI and player units/cities. Yes, it seems wandering monster can raze AI city, but it seems like pure accidents - monsters wander in random direction and if there accidentally happens to be AI city on dragon's way, it's doomed. But player units/cities are actively hunted. For example, there is cave bear sitting in his cave. About 10-15 turns I observed several AI units like scouts, pioneers and some minor armies wandering near it. But every time when I tried to move my scout in, he was attacked.
If the monsters treated the AI exactly the same way as they do the player, then it would be fine.
They will have to be very careful. If there is something wrong with the game, anything at all, then Steam will rip it to shreds and spit out the bones.
Well, I think that most of the forumites have played the game for too long. If you've got 200+ hours on your gaming meter then the perspective will be very different than from reviewers and gamers who try the game out first time (some reviewers might be active betas though)
Just under 30 hours played, I would say the game is ready for launch, for the reasons:
1) No apparent game-breaking bugs. I've had no CTD's during the 30 hours on beta 5. Just once the ocean disappearing bug (cosmetics) and occasionally slight slowdown. Nothing to prevent launch IMO
2) Good AI. Just from newbie perspective of course. AI usually gets worse when one accumulates gaming hours . Can be improved in patches IMO
3) Balance is good. And have improved hugely from the first beta 5.
4) Good game
Reasons not to release are mainly gripes from design decisions
1) Obsolete units/items as tech progresses
2) No random spawns
3) Awkward(not fun) levelling up mechanism for heroes
The simple monster AI code as Frogboy explained awhile back is actually unbiased in that respect (if we don't factor in potential issues from having simultaneous turns etc). After all it's just a dice roll modified by world difficulty that determines whether or not a monster is going to attack.
It's just that "random" behavior is not going to necessarily be perceived as "fair" most of the time, case-in-point is a monster freed from its lair simply ignoring an adjacent AI settlement because of a lucky roll and then bizarrely going after the player's 20 tiles away.
I think the monster AI should be very aggressive to anything in its territory, and only go outside its territory if it has built up a massive force. I think anything in a certain radius around monster dens should be attacked or destroyed if it has a 50 or 60% chance or more of destroying it (the only monster who wouldn't move would be the one starting on it) which means empty towns would mostly be targeted by anything bigger than the smallest group of the lowest level monsters, and outposts and resources will always be targeted UNLESS there is a FUNCTIONING Warden Outpost?
Frogboy, what's wrong with monsters getting a "I'm extremely hostile and actively target any intrusion on my turf" radius, a smaller radius for stronger monsters, and then as monsters accumulate or lairs upgrade the radius expands, meaning the land becomes more hostile if you don't eliminate the nasties?
Why should there be a roll: 90% (or whatever) chance I attack this nearest settlement or 10% chance I attack the human player on the other side of the map? And why should outposts and resources only be targeted when the monsters accidentally "bump" into them? I mean, they have been placed on their turf, right? Dalek exterminate should apply here.
Monsters placed after the game has started should be more discerning (as in requiring a higher chance of victory), but still have some sort of turf radius where they are a LOT more aggressive.
This game is a piece of art, a masterpiece that is still improving! I'm a happy fanboy!
That's right, enjoy what you get
Sincerely~ Kongdej
I will say this, for all the little tidbits here and there that players hoped FE would still include before release, the AI is far superior to the AI in MoM, and that alone speaks volumes.
Great job Stardock!
Ya, it speaks volumes about you.
MoM AI was awful, so giving FE credit for being superior to awful is just sad.
AI is not hard to beat even on ridiculous. AI still needs some work but most games have weak AI's so this will not be unusal.
Okay, but the people saying the AI/game is too easy are hardcore players. You only represent a very small minority of players. I am one of the hardcore players and have been making a mod just for you guys. So we can play at a much higher difficulty with a much more aggressive AI and almost all the content features anyone asks me to add, like a full RPG leveling system. The vanilla game is just not quite aimed at you guys. Modding is going to be the only way to satisfy people like us.
The most important thing for a game being a commercial success is the INITIAL impression.
While hugely improved over WoM, the game is still not quite what it should be and has the potential to be.
It is very close but I do not think a mere 2 weeks are going to be enough to do sufficient polishing before going gold.
I find the current beta very polished. I've been away from the forums a bit playing Torchlight 2. It's awesome but I bet its beta testers would have said it needed more polish too.
Over at CivFanatics, they would say that Civilization V, latest version, is still not polished enough for release.
I'm reading the same forums you are. And as someone who spoke out against WOM and Demigod publicly and got flamed by the fanboys at the time, I think I have some credibility in my opinion that this game has long since crossed the threshold of being excellent.
I hope you are right Xan.
Fallen Enchantress has two problems left. One is minor, the other is huge.
The minor one is that heroes (Sovereigns and champions) are always more effective at everything than trained troops. But the developers have made great progress in Beta 5 on that one, and anyway, that's a problem that can only influence early reviews POSITIVELY.
The second problem is a lot more serious. Because of something in monster/AI interaction, the player can be attacked, without having made any mistakes, as early as turn 30-50, by monsters that he cannot scratch, let alone defeat. Fortunately this does not happen every game. Unfortunately, when it happens, it is beyond frustrating, especially if it happens enough that you learn to recognize it. This can SINK a review.
The good part is that the developers are working on this, and will probably fix it by release. If they do, the game can get REALLY good reviews from 4X people.
Do I wish the game was more polished? Hell yes. I'm already enjoying it, so of course I would love someone to be enhancing it even more. But honestly, FE is ready for release... and if the second problem is fixed, it may do very, very well.
This is what I worry the most about. The game can seem unfair and arbitrarily difficult, and that makes it seem poorly made. Some of these monsters might be impossible for a lot of players hundreds of turns into a game.
Can someone define "polish" for me? If we're talking about a clean interface, then Civ V was polished the day it came out. If we're talking about having lots of bells and whistles in the UI, solid AI, and perfect balance, then yeah they're still working on it.
I don't know, I think about polish meaning minor things like fixing minor graphical bugs, clear and clean UI, making sure tooltips say what they actually do, having all abilities work as designed, balance minor combat things, like weapon damage, accuracy. Little details like that. But Brad or Kael surely have a better definition.
For me, there are two really major area of issues.
1. Bugs which force me to restart game - world elements (water, chests, lairs, even places where I can settle new city) disappearance from map after save/load or long gameplay, extremely low performance after 3-4 save/loads or long gameplay, disappearance of action bar in combat (sadly, can't describe exact steps to reproduce).
2. AI/monsters interaction. Seeing AIs freely moving through hordes of roaming monsters and having my own units attacked by anyone is not fun. Cities attacked on turn 50 by Fel Dragon and Obsidian golem suddenly coming from unexplored terrain and ignoring AI on the way is not fun even more.
All other issues can be polished later but above just kills wonderful game for me.
Also I hope that released version will have tutorial or at least help screen with keybindings and guide to camera moving and switching camera views (if it possible at all).
Polish is a metaphor from making a car. It is the last minute detail to the exterior and is the main thing the customer sees. It is Balance, UI, Graphics, Bugs, Pacing and Fun. Making sure all of these things are as good as they can be is generally what boosts the metascore. I would put AI on the list, but too many games have gotten into the top 95% with terrible AI by comparison to FE.
Obviously you never played with the MoM multiplayer patch. AI basically received 3 turns for every 1 you took. MoM AI was decent for a world of expansion. It fell apart when borders clashed.
Stardock has the expansion AI aspects completed very well. There is still lots of work on the diplomacy side.
So ya, it does speak volumes.
Thanks for your support.
The AI and monster problem is completly different. The argument is not that the ai is making bad choices, that can be fixed. The problem is that there is an underlying core engine mechanic with simulatneous turns that breaks all sorts of things about the ai and even some stuff with the player. Anyone right now can go play a game and on end turn keep your unit selected and move the unit right at the start of your next turn and essentially make that unit invulnerable to interception.
You can't go in and change the code and tell monsters to be "more aggresive" when they can't even intercept a unit. There are two distinct levels of randomization here the random roll to determine if a monster or npc attacks a unit and whether or not a collision/interception happens when those units move.
This has been the main discussion thread for this topic
https://forums.elementalgame.com/432712
Also problems like this I would attribute to the mechanic -
https://forums.elementalgame.com/423829
Mods and patches can easily fix the first problem, nothing but a core engine change can fix the second. Elemental is not a traditional "turn based" game it is a hybrid turn based simultaneous movement game. The problem is that all the code that should be there to handle the inherent problems with simultaneous movement aren't there and its causing all sort of anomalous problems one of which I believe is the AI going tower build crazy. Go play with cheat enabled, reveal the map ctrl-u, then hit ctrl-z and watch the ai play the game. Leave your computer running for an hour or so and come back and follow an AI player and watch it move, also relative monster behavior and movement to that npc, and you will see the issues first hand.
I.E. It is a "We-Go" system without the distinct phases
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turns,_rounds_and_time-keeping_systems_in_games#Simultaneously-executed_and_clock-based_turns
I think even further at the root of this problem was the mutli-threading deisgn philosophy. I think it was a great idea but anyone who has written any IPC (inter-process communications) code can tell you the signaling is incredibly complex, If you ever learned C and got really turned around by semaphores this is essentially whats going on but instead of multiple processes its a single process with mutliple threads, same signaling problems. I applaud them for really going for broke with multi-threading and designing an engine from scratch, I just wish they had time to get it to its potential.
Very good point jam3. Simultaneous enemy move is a big issue. TBS means turn based strategy. It means each player takes a turn not a rapid real time strategy that is paused until the player hits "turn" and then it happens real quick and pauses again.
One more issue to add to the list of things that NEED to be solved before the game goes gold.
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