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.
User interface is in the eye of the beholder. Between the tutorials and the tool tips and the build in encylopedia I don't know how much more straight forward you can make a game of this complexity.
If Fallen Enchantress gets marked down because the AI doesn't nurse maid the players enough, that will be a sad statement about where gaming has gone.
Reviewers are always complaining that games treat us like idiots. Well here is a game that was made for grown up. It explains what everything means but units have hit points and armor and weapons and dodge and accuracy. It's not supposed to be dumbed down.
No it is not. User interface is in the eye of the designer; whose responsibility is to ensure that it not only displays the necessary information, but also that it elegantly captures the audience by providing access to the right information at the right times. In the context of video games, the user interface needs to direct the end user through the game play intended by the developer's mechanics. This requires a deep understanding of many subjects other than just the specific game in point: psychology, design, and computer science.
Providing information is only one purpose of a user interface. Guiding a user through the intended game play experience by elegantly permitting access to it is the trick.
If Fallen Enchantress launches with a less than adequate user interface, and this hurts it's reviews, that will be a sad statement indeed.
Elegant does not translate to dumbed down.
If I were a lawyer I would point out the a bad UI has not effect on most metascores using the score precedent of Skyrim.
Console games and PC games are two entirely different animals, each requiring a completely different type of user interface due to the radical diversity in their input methods and control schemes. While the UI for Skyrim functions wonderfully on a console, Bethseda's oversight in designing a unique user interface for the PC version did not go unnoticed by the industry.
But it didn't affect their metascore.
lawyered.
Although not by much, it actually does. Each version of the game is scored individually.
Its actually mostly about resolution.
Skyrim's UI is an abomination on consoles too, and is one of the worst console UIs in a long time
Are you sure about this? I have a lot of friends and former colleagues working in the game industry. From what I've heard from them, you are usually under some restrictions on how much different you can make a game from one platform to the next, especially on release. These get relaxed by time, DLC, etc... but it involves a lot of lawyering and programmers stay out of it.
So I've always thought that console ports' interfaces suck because the developers are contractually obligated to withhold from PC gamers what they cannot offer to console gamers.
No it is not.
This would be lol news to me.
Another FAIL from the console gaming market if this is indeed the case. Why should PC games, which are clearly MEANT to be superior to their console counterparts, be artificially nurfed by lawyers and console developers.
It's just plain rude.
I think the UI is perfectly fine the way it is. I do not know what all this complaint about the UI. I've been playing games for years and still have plenty of information from the UI and control as such. If I were rating it on metacritic I wouldn't complain about the UI from fallen enchantress. That said it is about the reviewers on metacritic that decides what it is about.
Let us stay focused on what critics do... I know historically some critics miss the ball on what is going on. For example swan lake got very very bad reviews when it daybued. Also, the editor who rejected the Harry Potter series.
I didn't have problems with the UI on skyrim, but then again my standard for a UI is that it's better from a 1983 game.
So too is the UI extremely flexible modding wise. If you really need a spoon fed interface, make one. The majority of gamers will be satisfied with the current one.
Most 1983 games have better UI then skyrim.
I'd second that. When Oblivion came out, one of the first things that got endlessly modded was the advancement system. With Skyrim, it was the UI.
Plus, both oblivion and morrowind have vastly superior UI to skyrim.
That's because they were made for PC and Skyrim was made for console. Porting over console UI should have given their metascore a 70. The Metascore is illogical and corrupt. There will be many reviewers that give the game extra points for the narrative of FE's development and other reviews that take away points just because it has the same name in front of it as WoM. Just as Skyrim got +20 points for the quality of the last few games that had the same name.
Does anyone wonder why robots are so intent on destroying all humans?
While over consolized, this doesn't explain 90% of the horrible design. Why are there just word labels instead of icons? (consoles suffer from low resolution and looking from afar so labels are WORSE on TV).
Why do lists start at the middle of the screen forcing you to scroll the window (on console or PC) even though there is enough room for the entire list to fit if it starts at the top?
Why is over 50% of the screen wasted space? (especially in magic where you just see a colored sphere)
Why can you see the individual item but not your character and how items are worn on him?
Why are items not sorted such that worn items show up first and are outlined (like in the last 2 elder scrolls games) to clearly indicate they are worn.
Almost every single problem with the UI is NOT related to it being a console port and if solved would make the UI superior for both console AND PC. I would say the reason the UI for skyrim is horrible is because it suffers from the same problem as fable... An "artist" in charge who places their artistic vision above usability and above criticism and would not allow the unwashed masses / underlings to tell them why it sucks
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/11/pc-skyrim-is-a-frustrating-messand-will-soon-be-the-best-version/
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/EricSchwarz/20111114/8890/User_Interface_Analysis_Skyrim.php
I have 3 (three!) different mods just to address Skyrim's UI. SkyUI, Better Sorting, and Categorized Favorites Menu. Without these three, frankly I wouldn't be playing it, in all likelihood.
Skyrim really is a weird beast. If it was for the UI, it should have tanked. Hard. I still hate that every time I want to add a perk, I have to cycle through *ALL* the abilities....
But moddability saved it.
I use the same mods
And it only saved it on the PC, there are no mods on the console so the PC has vastly superior UI thanks to the mods... (oh, and there are things the mods can't fix)
So all claims of "console port UI is not bad UI" run into the problem that the PC is the only platform with an acceptable UI while the absolute worst of it is inflicted on the console players
Anyhow, the UI is not where FE will lose review points. It's the untested campaign and download integrity that are the biggest risk factors for next week.
Actually... this raises a great point.
Why is the campaign completely untested? Next week they should release the campaign as a beta and fix the bugs we find it before going final. (even a 1 week beta for the campaign could mean a big difference)
The campaign isn't completely untested. It has only been inhouse tested. I wouldn't mind play testing the campaign. It just requires us to play the campaign as quickly as possible to give them the bugs so they fix it before other players get far into the campaign
The campaign is a one shot feature. No one will likely play it more than once. If it's not perfect on release, it's not going to be retried. People are just going to play it once and go on to sandbox. There is no patch for this. Thus it must be perfect on release.
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