Fallen Enchantress at two weeks
Fallen Enchantress has now been out two weeks. So far, we’ve sold about 50,000 units (give or take). This is somewhat below Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion but, obviously, far far ahead of War of Magic during the same time frame.
The biggest obstacle has been reviews. It’s hard for niche titles (and make no mistake, fantasy turn-based PC games are niche) to get coverage. There’s only so many reviewers to go around and the last thing we want is a drive by (i.e. rushed) review.
Tomorrow or Thursday we expect to release v1.01 which has a long list of fixes and tweaks that we’ve found. Probably the most obvious change will be performance which dramatically improved.
The Map Pack
We will be releasing our first-ever DLC for a Stardock game. It’ll be an interesting experiment to see what the demand is. Paul Boyer and I have designed a series of hand crafted maps that will be going up for sale in a week or two for $4.99. If sales of this are strong, we’ll look at doing additional DLC packs. A game like Fallen Enchantress lends itself to content centric DLC and so we’re anxious to see what people are interested in.
The Expansion
We have an expansion planned for early next year. I won't spoil it except to say that it’s going to re-design the way champions are handled in the game. We want the game to generally move towards the power of your champions be a reflection of the power of your civilization.
After the expansion, Stardock will look at where things stand. We have 3 game development teams at Stardock. One is on “Game X”, One is FE related stuff, and one is on mobile game development. Since we’re not likely to get as many reviews as we’d like, we’re going to be relying heavily on word of mouth.
Version 1.1
We very much want to do a pre-Christmas update to FE. That version will be heavily AI and balance focused based on player feedback. We’ll have more details of that as we get closer. Right now, we’re focusing on getting v1.01 out the door.
oh, yes...
well said
Meh. Finished? Really? Game has some rough spots, but is surprisingly addictive. I would not consider it incomplete (Especially in comparison with most products of the same type in this developer environment).
Multiplayer has more cons than benefits in my opinion:
a) Who has 10-20 hrs to spend on a multiplayer strategy game? These games are taking me like a week of playtime
Multiplayer means balance, balance does not always mean fun. Nerf this, Nerf that... I WANT to call a jack a volcano in the middle of someone's empire. I WANT my stack of doom to cloudwalk into a newly placed outpost and obliterate anything. BTW, I wish there was a mechanic for limiting stacks of dooms. Even if I like it.. they're a bit much.
Anyway, I'd spend $5 on a map pack. I like the lore "world" map, and I got a free game that I've spent 100+ hrs on already.
1 movie-on-demand = $5 for 2 hrs. My entertainment is worth ~$2.50/hr. Anything that provides more value than that (100 for free) is definitely worth supporting.
I'm ok with multiplayer as long as it has its own forum with a large banner reading "NO BALANCE OR OTHER GAMEPLAY CHANGES WILL BE MADE TO ACCOMODATE MULTIPLAYER".
Those changes wouldn't be needed, outside of some bug fixes. Just let the MP folks mod the game and play that, and maybe if they need a few things, mod those into a patch.
And yes, the more I play this game, the more I feel that many things weren't entirely finished. There's a really ambitious, probably overambitious game, that feels rough with many things seeming obvious choices and many rough spots. Doesn't make the game bad, but it's just a bit disappointing to me that this game isn't fulfilling even half of what it could be. (I think it's obvious I'm hitting the downside of the "Chick Parabola" right now though)
Expansions will likely make this game reach more of its potential, so I'm not too worried about it, and it's not like the game is bad in its current state- it just needs work and either an excellent base game mod or some expansions.
I'm happy with the gameplay so far, it's been worth the money. (more so that I can say of Diablo 3... fucking waste of money) The potential is good, so it will only get better.
And guys, where are all the user maps you say? I will kill for some good maps, the random ones can't compete with a well designed map. So a DLC with actually GOOD maps is more than worth the money. Especially if it's only like 5 bucks. DLC in this game could actually be all we need, since it's not exactly mainstream. So if they keep giving quality content, go for it. Hell, they should maybe consider "outsourcing" talent temporary for DLC's, so talented modders etc. could get paid as well if it's quality.
I'm looking for an experienced gamer or a developer to give me an honest opinion-- will FE ultimately disappoint me if I take the plunge and invest hours of my time (much more valuable to me than the current $27 Steam price tag) into trying out this game? Should I wait a year and see how development progresses?
I've read the (sparse) critic reviews and the (widely varied) user reviews, and I've heard the usual knocks against FE. According to some reviewers, FE is the Fantasy 4X game we've been awaiting for 10 years. Per others, it's an unfinished piece of junk.
A bit about my tastes to help you answer my questions:
-One of my favorite games of all time is Gal Civ II (started playing about the time TA came out), a game that left me with a tremendous amount of respect for Stardock. But I'm a bigger fan of fantasy than of sci fi. Together, those two statements provide the ONLY explanation as to why I'm even considering getting a game with such mixed reviews as FE. Generally, I find critics to be far too generous in doling out so many reviews with scores of 90+.
-I don't have time to try out a new game every month. I find one I like, and I play it for several months. I buy maybe 5 games a year, and I end up playing only three of them. I'll dust off the good ones (like Gal Civ II) once a year for many years, and have a blast.
-Nice graphics make many games more enjoyable, but I don't really care about it in a 4X.
-Lack of tactical elements in FE"s battles doesn't bother me because I see it as a strategy game (Gal Civ II players, you know what I mean).
-I'm not interested in hunting down and reading user-created information about how to make a game work, or downloading a user mod to make a game playable. I expect the developers to provide a game manual to explain the rules, and I'll figure out how to apply them successfully. I'm not going to read "FE Master's Guide to Ruling the Planet" or whatever.
Thanks,
Rej
It's easily worth $27, ($20 on Steam right now). Given your crtieria, especially so- this game will last you a good while.
There are problems, but Stardock has started the post-release patch cycle, and that will improve the game. Most of the problems are balance-related.
I've been playing this game since April. The vanilla is still holding my interest, and I look forward to trying mods.
I would not recommend Fallen Enchantress to everyone, but I think that you may enjoy it. It has bugs, it has serious balance problems, and you will need to either spend months, ask questions or read guides in order to get every nuance of the innumerable strategies, tricks, and workarounds.
I have a number of play-troughs posted on this board. You may want to take a look.
This is the last one. It may give you an idea about how you will like the game. Don't try to read the whole thing, just the beginning.
Hi Rej_Draeger, I'm in a similar position to you in that I'm a GalCiv II fan without much time for playing lots of games; I also came to FE without having played or even really having heard of War of Magic. I pre-ordered during the Beta after being impressed by what I saw on the forums.
Firstly, if you enjoyed Twilight of the Arnor then Fallen Enchantress feels more "finished" than TA did on release. I'm thinking mainly faction differentiation here - TA had problems with the custom tech trees that were still being fixed (by modders) when I came back to it last year. By contrast, nothing in FE's 8 default factions feels that unfinished and all are competitive as player or AI sides, and even the two removed-but-not-really premade factions are fine.
The AI opponents are in a similar state - they're capable of enormous idiocy at times, and have a few annoying cheats available to them which I assume are unintended and will be fixed, but generally they have the cunning & capacity to surprise (disclosure: I'm not the best player in the world, so YMMV) that the GalCiv opponents had, without the sometimes game-spoiling problems that a couple of the AI personalities in TA exhibited. No-one fails to expand, or develop cities, for example, at least not on the settings I play. Where it falls down a bit is warfighting - in a recent game, for example, Yithril made a perfectly-timed declaration of war against me when I was over-stretched, fighting two other wars on opposite sides of the map, and most of my empire was divided from my capital and main fortress by his territory. However, he then conspicuously failed to exploit this, failing to capture several undefended cities until I could move defenders into position - by the time he took one of my cities, I had captured three of his and was beginning to steamroll him. I'm not too bothered as I have faith in Frogboy's AI coding, and this was only playing on Normal, but it's an example of how there's more work to be done. On the other hand, I have been outwitted a couple of times by AI players I thought weren't a threat.
I learned the basics of the game over about three test sandbox games during the Beta and my biggest downfall was failing to see that the sovereign settled the first city himself (I'm not sure what I expected to happen, I just got swept up in going around killing monsters and thought I would obtain a city or a settler or something sooner or later. Then I died). Once I got to grips with founding the first city, getting research going and TURNING OFF AUTO-TURN everything went remarkably smoothly. This was without the benefit of a manual or a worthwhile tutorial, so I expect it will be pretty easy to get going now. The forums and user guides are full of useful tips and worth a look, but are not essential reading in the sense that the game is unplayable without them. Same for mods - they're well worth looking into, but not required.
Your biggest requirement seems to be replayability, though. As far as I'm concerned, they pretty much have that nailed - at any rate I keep coming back to it. I haven't yet had one of the massive, epic games that GalCiv was famous for, but then again, I only actually had four or five of those playing GalCiv. The next level of enjoyment down - fun, tense games that you come away from feeling that you spent your time well and now you want to try playing this race or those settings - that's definitely there.
MisterAedan, Alstein, and Tuidjy:
Thank you very much for your thoughtful responses. I think I'm going to give FE the benefit of the doubt and make the purchase. I guess it comes down to having faith in Stardock and community members like you guys, that this will, like Gal Civ II, evolve into a top notch 4X with immense replayability. I generally don't give developers more than one chance (time of release) to work out most of the bugs, but if I'd held strictly to that, I probably would never have gotten so much enjoyment out of Gal Civ II.
Here's hoping...
Hey Stardock,
I've been following the Steam sale for this Thanksgiving holiday and I noticed that Fallen Enchantress had consistently appeared in Steam's Top 100 Sellers each and every day of the event! Not only that title but the Sins: Rebellion & GalCiv's have also found a place on that prestigious list.....
So congratulations!
Well written and I agree!
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