After we complete upcoming expansion pack for Elemental: Fallen Enchantress (which we expect to announce NEXT WEEK) we have to do some hard thinking. Specifically, what do we do next? After some trials and tribulations we’ve put together what is, in effect, a Master of Magic style engine (and before someone flips out, I’m not saying FE is just like MOM, I am saying that at this stage, our *game engine* is finally capable of actually making that game which is obviously was not capable of in 2010).
But first, let’s look at the history…
Once upon a time…
After Galactic Civilizations II I wanted to do a fantasy strategy game. I wrote up a brief treatment and had our lead artist draw a mockup of what it should look like:
Basically, I wanted Master of Magic with updated graphics and multiplayer.
During this time, Stardock had the opportunity to publish two games – Sins of a Solar Empire and Demigod. Two opportunities we couldn’t pass up. Meanwhile, Impulse was starting to really take off too.
Now, we’re a small company. REALLY small. People are always shocked at how tiny Stardock is. We might possibly be the oldest independent game studio left (20 years old this year) that still regularly produces new games but the entire enterprise is less than 60 people and that includes our main business – consumer software (Multiplicity, Start8, WindowBlinds, Fences, etc.).
What that meant, back in 2008 is that the team that made Galactic Civilizations had to be spread out to help out on Sins, Demigod and Impulse. To do Elemental, we hired up.
Elemental (and at this point, it was just called Elemental) was going to be a pretty straight forward game. Build cities, capture shards, learn magic, research tech and conquer the world.
Now, Stardock’s game studio didn’t run like a normal game studio. That is, there was really no such thing as a producer or a designer. You either coded or you did art. We had titles but they had no real meaning. Design was handled by the person who was implementing an “area” of the game (for example, GalCiv II did not have a visual tactical battle display in its design, the person who was assigned to code “resolution outcome” wrote that).
And we had a lot of ideas. Why stop with Master of Magic’s design elements when you can also throw in Magic the Gathering concepts, Total War, Civilization IV, Ultima, etc.
Slowly, things began to morph as people had more and more ideas get presented.
The spell system got more sophisticated.
The tactical combat design scope grew.
And the reality was that all this stuff just didn’t mesh together. At one point, we even had underground dungeons.
So when Elemental came out, it was extremely buggy (we had spread ourselves too thin – we had no redundancy) and the individual components just didn’t flow together.
Fall From Heaven
When we looked at what went wrong with Elemental it became clear that we were just wearing too many hats. No one owned the design. No one owned the look of it. No one owned the engine design. We needed to bring someone in who would own the project and enforce their will.
That’s what Kael, the designer of Fall From Heaven was able to do.
Kael (Derek Paxton) didn’t just have great game design skills, he was a senior project manager at Novell.
Originally, we had planned to do two expansion packs:
War of Magic – Fallen Enchantress and War of Magic – Forge of the Overlord. But it was decided that we should do a more ambitious overhaul to the base game and this became Elemental: Fallen Enchantress.
Fallen Enchantress
So with Fallen Enchantress, we ended up with a pretty good fantasy strategy game (if you don’t already have it, GET IT!). We have lots of ideas on how to improve it but the important thing is that we now have a fantasy strategy game engine that is capable of doing whatever type of game we’d like.
And that’s where we’re at. What do we do next? I can tell you one thing, it will not have the word “Elemental” in it. Why? Check this out: [Google Search Results]
That isn’t to say we’d scrap all our work and start over with a brand new design and recreate the millions of dollars in art assets. But it’s not going to be tied to Elemental. But this assumes that our players want us to continue making this style of strategy game at all.
After all, there are some exciting fantasy strategy games in the offing – Age of Wonders 3 I suspect will be announced soon and Eador: Masters of the Broken World looks excellent. Are there enough people who want Stardock to keep making fantasy strategy games of this type to justify that effort?
[Quick aside: What do I mean by “this type of strategy game”?]
Personally, there are two key differentiators in fantasy strategy games that help me define what sub-genre they belong to:
And specifically, the question is: Making fantasy strategy games that involve tactical battles, city building and RPG elements? That’s the niche I think we have here. I don’t think we’ve nailed down the perfect blend yet but that’s what time and experience exist for.
And that is what we’d like to hear from you. Do you like what we’re doing enough to keep Should we continue it forward (and don’t answer “Make Fall From Heaven” its future isn’t tied to this). Also, before someone screams GalCiv III the future of GalCiv is not tied to anything we do here.
Go here to answer:
https://www.elementalgame.com/journals
Discuss in the comments.
I voted MoM 2.... Mostly because I would love for FE to move in that direction with magic, and meaby even technology, the current implementation of technology bores ME. (I feel there is so few real choices in the tech tree).
But in the end, I want Stardock to program the game of they're hearts, chance is, if the dev team feels great about the game, they will work harder to make it so it is even more awesome .
I would like to see each implementation, but honestly I sometimes feel you guys should have some better foundation than FE in its current state, I feel so many coding options are lackluster (like when I see/hear about the details of the abilities and spells, it feels like you guys only have a tenth of the options you should have).
What I am trying to say is, I think the engine itself should be upgraded, smoothed out, and polished upon. Whatever direction that will lead you will probably be interesting and meaby worth the buck (You never know ).
I certainly had my fun with FE with hundreds of hours spent alongside SD trying to post "the best" bug reports on the forum, and I only stay because I can see the distinct potential of the SD current development, but like some others, I feel like there lacks a certain... OOMPH to the current playset.
Edit: And I want to add, Either you add tactical combat, which is fun, and which you follow through in the entire game, or you add a strategic combat, but no matter what, devote your game to the combat, I "HATE" when the combat is like "we don't think the combat should be any deeper, so we have half a combat system"
Sincerely, and with a smile~ Kongdej
I would go in a different direction, in ways I think many would cringe at. Because to me Fallen Enchantress is done and that game satisfies me in what it does, so I want a new and different game. I'm just going to go on a brainstorming rant and see where I end up at. Long meaningless post coming, read at your own risk.
I would love a new fantasy kingdom game, but I would want a different one than any that are already out there. Not completely different, and certainly derived from aspects of other strategy and tactic games I have loved in the past. I don't need another game like Fallen Enchantress, I have that game and it's good, I don't need another game like Warlock, Civilization or Crusader Kings, I have those too. But, some aspects of those games could be added and combined to make a game that isn't out there and I think people would enjoy. I would prefer high fantasy, doesn't have to be Dwarves and Elves, but there are some advantages to using those. People know those races and understand them.
Multiple races, and cultures. Humans are different all over our world, we look different, worship different gods, and do things in different ways. Fantasy races should have that too. Dragon Age had some of this, elves and dwarves had different cultures depending on where they lived. In many games, there are rarely any different cultures among races or all races tend to have once culture. I like the ideas of a strategy game that have to struggle with the issues of culture, migration and immigration, different religions, and diplomacy with different cultures.
I would have one very detailed map, not random maps. One map, one world, one lore. Think Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Crusader Kings or Brigandine, to a certain degree. One map, one place. A single, focused map can give the world real meaning. Wei, Wu, and Shu in the three kingdoms are great examples of factions. Shu in the mountains, Wu in the riverlands and Wei in the plains. Their special troops and abilities played into their geographical strengths. The same could be done with a fantasy model. Dwarves in mountains, Elves in Forrest or what ever races used could be tied to their part of the world and their bonuses would have meaning. Random maps, and even built maps from a random generator lack aesthetics and meaning. Continents don't resemble any real place, hard to be emotionally attached to a place seems so irregular and gamey.
They have memorable leaders and memorable champions. In Romance, the champions had different personalities. Lu Bu was brash, brave and traitorous and Zhuge Liang was cool, calculating and loyal till the end. I think a game where the nation has at least a few assigned champions would build it's lore. Also what this would allow for are dynamic story and interactions. Building and fighting armies are fun, but there is also a great deal of fun from politics. Internal and foreign politics from games like Romance or Crusader Kings. The people who serve your king have their own motivations, so me are loyal, some are not or only for the right price. Some seek out justice, others fame and glory.
I love the concept of a ruined world being rebuilt, but I think that Elemental really did this concept poorly. I felt more like a colonist trying to survive on a previously uninhabited world. There was little rebuilding of the old world, and just building. In Romance you are in a land during a civil war recovering from a dark ages and massive peasant rebellion. In the earliest time line of the game, most of the cities are in a state of decay and are not under anyone's control. You can expand your influence and land by ways other than warfare, expanding into old, ruined cities or forging into new unsettled lands. But even then it should only be in select places that would make sense for a city to be. I'm iffy on that, I think that city building should be limited to only predetermined areas, but could be either rebuilding old cities or founding new ones in predetermined spots.
Because we have a single map, factions in set locations, champions assigned to specific factions we now have the layout to add story and plot elements to the game. Character interactions, some they love, some they hate, those that are rivals or enemies. Loyalties and betrayals, families and conflict not just from the concept of "Me red team, you blue team, we must fight till one is dead!" mentality.
Hexs. They are better in strategic and tactical battle and movement, and aesthetically far better looking.
Combat. When armies do collide, how should they fight? This has been a weakness with the Stardock games I have played, good strategic but very bad tactical battles. And a lot of romance games had pretty bad or overly simple tactical battles. What games have good tactical battles? The new XCOM and Final Fantasy Tactics, along with Brigandine come to mind. But of those three games, only Brigandine had any real strategic gameplay. Does the game even need a separate tactical battle mechanic? It depends on what game you are really trying to make. If you have a great deal of depth, the actual combat needs only to be functional and make sense. I doubt a lot of people play Crusader Kings due to how fun the battles are. Warlock doesn't have a tactical battle map, but it's a game that is meant to be lighter and faster and streamlined. I don't want that game, I have that game and Warlock does what it does just fine. I want medieval fantasy combat tactical battles more in line with the three previous games I mentioned, XCOM, FFT, and Brigandine. Most people don't know Brigandine, think Romance of the Three Kingdoms mixed with Ogre Battle and Shinning Force. If there is to be tactical battles, then there has to be tactical conditions, like meaningful range of weapons, meaningful terrain, flanking and line of sight. Otherwise, don't do it at all.
Creating your own unit was a fun mechanic and I loved it. That being said, it's not for all games. It made the units and races of Elemental bland. You can create your own units, but they all tend to look alike so I am not entirely sure what I really gained from it. I like the idea of being able to equip my troops, but I don't necessarily need every piece of their armor to show on the unit. It's just too limiting visually overall.
One fun thing in a Romance game and Crusader Kings was the ability to start at different points in a timeline. The sandbox nature meant that things start this way, but who knows how tings will proceed. I think a fantasy game could have that too. So we have our little city states and kingdoms building back from a Dark Age following the collapse of a once great empire, building and rebuilding, expanding and developing. Like in Romance, the early years would be filled with many small kingdoms and unused ruined cities, and the latter dates would have fewer, larger kingdoms encompassing larger territory. Also, like in Romance, you could create your own faction and champions to play and have them start in one of the unused cities. In romance, you could build dozens of champions and factions and multiple to your map, you could create entire family lines, husbands, wives, children, brothers, etc. Although a more dynamic one where people are born and die like in Crusader Kings would be better.
You have unbelievable untapped potential in FE. This is the best game that nobody knows about. Think of the Civ franchise Civ I, Civ II, Civ III, Civ IV, Civ V. Think of the HOMM franchise HOMM I, HOMM II, HOMM III, HOMM IV, HOMM V, and HOMM VI. I see the same kind of success possible for the FE franchise (you're right that you may have to ditch the Elemental moniker). Again, there is still so much untapped potential which we have described in this forum ad nauseum.
Full disclosure: I have not yet played WoM, FE, or the MoM series. I have played all 5 previous iterations of HoMM and Fall from Heaven 2. I have also followed the development of WoM and FE on this site.
I am a fan of the Heroes of Might and Magic series, but I like the opportunity that Stardock offers to have such things as tech development. (The HoMM series is just city development with no real tech tree). I prefer strategic versus tactical combat, just like I prefer turn-based over real-time strategy. However, tactical combat isn't a deal-breaker for me (real-time is).
It would be nice for Stardock to continue making turn-based fantasy strategy games. Given the amount of effort put into FE, it would probably work best to continue developing it. You don't need to use the names "Elemental" or "War of Magic" or "Fallen Enchantress", but you could continue developing the world you created instead of making a new one.
Lord Xia:
Is that the intentional end? Excellent read. Thank you.
A fully developed Tactical Expansion {w/ enhanced AI} would be Awesome! Like you say, FE is good as it is, if Stardock could somehow create some Elemental Tactics expansion, I would be all over that, and I think a lot of others would also.
If they made a Tactical Expansion, which could be sold, and then added to FE as an option for modding purposes? Solid investment, guaranteed return on investment, IMHO. Sry, Xia got me pumped up lol...
Bring back hex tactical maps, turn based squad tacticals, more sir yes please.
I think you should consider that they will almost always use the lessons learned here, and as he said, they will use the same engine, and probably some/most of the graphics if applicateable to the new games, so I don't think following the FE development, or following a MoM2 development would mean big differences in what parts of the current FE they use, its the part they need to create to make the next game feel like a full experience that they are interested in... I guess anyhoo..
Sincerely~ Cpn Idiot...
Great to hear that the expansion to FE is on the way - can't wait!
On the subject of what to do next I have a perhaps radical suggestion - Stop listening to other people's ideas altogether!!
After all, nothing truly great has ever been designed by a committee. So pick the team member with the highest mind points, and send them off to a lonely mountain cave, with perhaps some dried goat meat and magic mushrooms. Here they can commune with the great God of Gaming and be inspired to use the excellent engine you've built to create the ultimate playing experience known to man
Cheers, Chris
First of all, thank you for asking and I agree you have a beautiful game engine. One of a kind in fact.
My suggestion? Make a choice:
Either, focus on RPG elements (quests, gear, retinue, etc.) and keep all the battles on the main screen. One unit/champion per square. Then use the battle maps to aid questing (dungeons, buildings, etc.). Random maps and replayability would make you unique among RPGs. You could even use the dynasty system to tie games together as your heir and a family heirloom would begin the next play through.
OR, focus on the tactical battles and move in the direction of Jagged Alliance. Has this ever been done in a fantasy setting?
Make a user friendly interface to install mods to FE. That should be the first priority.
Second priority is to give the moderators all the tolls they require to be able to MAKE a MoM clone.
First of all I would like to say this is the first time I ever left a comment, but I feel this is a great time to write out my opinion on this matter.
FE is an excellent game overall because it taps into areas that most other in the genre does not, so leaving this niche is probably not a good idea. Lots of strategy games are due this year and the coming but so far this is far the only one that I know of that has the following:
- Fully customizable units.
- Fully equip able heroes with RPG and strategy elements.
- others that I may not comment on with further research but so far these are the elements that keeps me coming back to play more.
There are always room for improvement if there is a foundation to build it on and FE is a great foundation.
Here is my opinion on what could help improve to match most mainstream games. I am just going to do an overall touch in each area.
Graphics: Love the different feel but in my opinion more realistic detail in units and characters would bring the game alive and breathing, the dragon should bring fear on both strategic and tactical map so you feel like you can jump of your seat if its ready to blast my units with fire.
Sounds: Need lots more lively ambient sounds for water, streams, volcanoes, etc....
Strategic Map: Again graphics come in play and a better graphic engine can do the work and make mountains look like mountains and the color blue looks and feel like oceans and streams.
Tactical battles: Units have abilities, lots of them are not noticed (an animated sequence would do wonders)!
The best way to notice them is to change how battles are done... First of I am a big fan of Total War and that probably says it all... The advantage of these type of battles is immersion. I love to see my archers on hills or defending walls raining fire arrows as I could defend a city against thousands of enemies with a few hundred archers. Now with magic involve it changes the odds but the walls and hills still come in play. I could go on and on but lets leave it at that.
RPG: This a great element for strategy games and I would be excited to see some RPG games turn to strategy games. I am big RPG gamer since the first Elder Scrolls, Lands of Lore, etc It has come a long way since Elemental but needs to be improved a lot more. It would be great to see a open class type structure like Elder Scrolls, for example if you use a sword and it reaches a skill level of 100 then you can pick perk, etc. Henchmen is a good idea as well but could be limited by Class.
Monsters: This is a big deal especially with RPG. So far Elemental did great in releasing monsters at certain turn. In RPG, monsters does not completely disappear after we kill them off in a certain area, they just keep coming which in turn helps leveling. This can be remedied by random population, different world planes, quicker respawn, respawn due to certain events or at a certain player level. How about an area that we are unable to conquer.
Adding to immersion: Neutral towns after a cataclysm would be viable since people tend to gather up to form up for protection after such events. Adding other races that are a lot more unique since it is a magical world is viable. This can happen by having them to be awaken or created by magic which could also lead to another book.
In conclusion, I believe FE is on the right track. All the foundation is laid, just need some overhaul. It would be very exhilarating to see units that I outfitted with tower shields climbing walls or archers with Igny bows shooting in a arch and raining down arrows on foes below in a trench while knights given order to quench there shields to embrace the incoming death. Then a hero comes out with a mirror shield and repels the incoming arrows back to the archers and learns to use the shield effectively and gets a perk to increase reflective damage. Anyways there lots more I could imagine but these are my thoughts in a nutshell.
My vote was keep working on FE. To add my two cents, I think this question is absolutely crazy! From the perspective of a fan, there's no alternative. I can understand how, from where you're sitting, you could be burnt out on the whole Elemental concept, but I think it would be foolish to turn away from FE now.
It sounds to me like your next step should be to recapture some of the enthusiasm and ambition from the WoM days and turn that into making the next iteration of Elemental an epic one. You have the game engine to make it work. You have, now, an experienced team coming off a great success. And you have a franchise that's on the upward trajectory. You went from "Flawed" to "Solid" and now, with greatness on the horizon it would be criminal to turn off this path.
"What's the next step" isn't the question, of course. More content is a no-brainer, but Stardock can release DLC for FE mostly on cruise-control. Expansion packs are also low-hanging fruit. It's simple to think of enhancements to make FE an incrementally better game.
The question is "What gets you to the promised land"?
To my mind, the question marks lie in modding and AI. Can you open the game up to modders in a way that will allow the community to expand the game's scope and capabilities far beyond what you or Kael could imagine? And can you develop an AI framework that's flexible enough to adapt to a heavily modded game?
That's the challenge, and the real question. FE proved that your team can put out good content and it made real the promise of WoM. If that's enough for you, and you don't want to do the grueling, difficult and thankless work of rewiring old systems to make them better in ways that most people wont ever notice, I can understand that. But that's the work that's on tap to make the next Elemental game revolutionary instead of niche.
Heh.
It seems that I am in the minority with wanting RPG as actually meaning Role Playing Game and not dungeon-diving.
Whatever. :-/
Dungeon diving, quite frankly, has been done and done extremely well - IMHO it will be virtually impossible for Elemental to match a game like Diablo or Nethack or Baldur's Gate. If I want that kind of gameplay, I'll just go play those games.
But I've never seen a game where the hero units actually live at the strategic level. Not just questing, but carry out lives outside of combat that impact their realms. Elemental has the beginnings of this, and IMHO this is the most interesting part of the game-making to explore. Adding more dungeons, more races, etc., is a dead-end because way too many other games already do it better.
I voted to keep evolving FE, but to be honest if there was an 'all/none of the above, I don't really care' option I would have picked that. I've been following the development of this game ever since I first heard about it somewhere in 2008. I stuck around after the EWoM fiasco because the game definitely had potential, and FE seemed to be living up this. Sadly, after about 1,5 years of further development I would have to rate FE about the same as EWoM; lots of potential, but nowhere near a great game.
To be fair, FE is an ok game (EWoM wasn't). It has a lot of interesting features (heroes, monsters, armies, tactical combat, civ building, city building, magic), but imho none of those are good enough to carry the game, nor do they interact well enough to make the whole better than the sum of its parts. Especially the civ building and city building parts of the game are particularly uninspiring and soulless. It's no surprise people rename their towns to whatever their main produce is (troops, gold, research, or mana), because that is all they do. Never do I get the feeling that I am ruling a kingdom full of people, rather than just managing a handful of resource factories.
So I voted to keep evolving FE, because despite its serious flaws it still has a lot of potential. The thing you should focus on imho is first and foremost the civ building aspect of the game. Make sure that you get a feeling for what kind of civilization you are building, and that that civilization has actual people living in it. Make there be a significant difference between a kingdom that is dominated by a single well developed city, and (for example) a nation that consists of a large number of small towns and villages. And make it so that population actually matters, so that founding a new city means you are spreading your people, and that conquering a different race has more effect than a simple unrest penalty. The city building aspect ties in closely with this. You should be making decisions that make sense for a leader of a nation to making. All the no-brainer buildings that just give a (small) bonus to this or that are superfluous, your people would realise they could build those on their own. You should be focused on the big picture; do you give conquered people equal rights or do you enslave them, building military academies to train troops, fortresses and city walls for protection, universities to educate the best and brightest, aqueducts to provide more water for your metropolis, major roads to connect cities, irrigation systems for your surrounding farmlands. It's not bad if it takes a long time to build some of these things, that only makes them feel more significant.
And if you decide to work on something new; Lord Xia's description sounds absolutely awesome. A game like that in a fantasy setting would be something you could play for ages. For the tactical combat, I would love to see a turn based we-go system, like you have in xcom I think, where you and you opponent give orders at the start of each turn, and those are carried out simultaneously.
Thats pretty sound advice imho.
Filling your brain with information and what ifs can, and will, clog the Imagination pipes.
My 2 Kopeks is along the same lines:
How can we, as end-users, contribute {as much as I think a lot of people would like to} when we have no earthly idea what this game engine is capable of?
I for one cannot find any information on this "Kumquat" other than its a bizarre thing you can eat if desperate. Havok is pretty easily found and useable from what I understand {per HF's reference to Sovereign designs}.
So, if I was a new StarDock employee, and Monday morning meeting rolls around and its my first day. Frogboy leads off and turns to me and says:
"So, RuniCaster, what direction do you think we should go from here?"
"How the F should I know Brad, I just started today, I have zero experience with what I am guessing is a proprietary system you based your game engine on or how you guys design games." {I added the "F" for the ridiculousness factor-wouldn't say that IRL}. You tell me, Brad, what CAN your game do, and I'll think about it and get back to you by next Monday's meeting."
Frogboy: "You've got till Wednesday at 11:00 to have something on my desk."
RuniCaster: "Sure, Boss, no problem."
Meeting continues........
I would like to see the continuing evolution of FE and the elemental universe is relatively new and is suffering the teething problems associated with being new however I think given time and effort Fallen Enchantress could really grow to be something great. Their is a lot of potential in the Elemental Universe to make your own "classic."
Well, reading this through three times, and I'm not sure what the question is yet...
Fallen Enchantress is turning out to be the benchmark to beat, imo. It's not there yet...but the potential clearly is.
You include "building an empire via starting new cities on a largely empty world (ala Master of Magic)", though you've added city level up, multi-tile expansion, unit design, monster infested world, and more. So, in this sense, I think you've gone the way of MoM right from the get-go. Sure, you didn't use the same lore, but other than some minor differences, it's SPOT ON!- I would still really love to see summoning spells expanded upon.- I would still really love to see lair recruitment redesigned in a way that you have more control when you want the units to be built.- I would still really love to see more control over where you are able to build segments of roadway, yet without the hassle of micromanaging road building units.- I would still love to see the "spell of mastery" redesigned in a way that was competitive with the AI.
You include "fighting battles strategically (Fall from Heaven) or fighting them tactically (ala Master of Magic)" aswell, as BOTH are important for this type of game. I really enjoy developing units strategically that will have better odds at defeating opponents. Yet, I also really REALLY enjoy the tactical battles and being able to take control of the individual unit's fate". Here too, you're SPOT ON! Just has to be expanded on...- I would really love to see tactical combat improvements. I would prefer to see territorial improvements (line of sight, hills, forests, roads, moats, walls, etc)
So, I suppose if there was a choice to make between FE and MoM, I would answer "Stay the Course" because the two are converging into a single "entity of excellance"!
Which brings me to you're 'specific' question of "And specifically, the question is: Making fantasy strategy games that involve tactical battles, city building and RPG elements?". Again, all elements have been addressed....just needs improvement. The first two I've covered above, but the RPG element is something unique to this type of 4x game and so requires special attention:- I would love to see each champion have an individual RPG story that he/she could follow to attain victory. Each RPG story could have a good/bad path to follow and ALL paths eventually lead the the current RPG victory. Thus, players (and AI) can be hindered as they attempt to accomplish there quests....conflicts over land...and treaties of peace....could occur to allow your sovereign the ability to follow his quests. You chosen path would have bonuses AND penalities to your nation as proceed through the RPG experiance.Ultimately, the goal of adding in the RPG would be to strongly tie together the conquest and spell of masters aspects with the third option of RPG. Thus, all three should be difficult to achieve, yet all three should require all three avenues of advancement: miltary strength, hero experiance, and technological advancement.
If this is achieved, it's going to be the best game ever made. period.
I know this is a lot to take in...REALLY looking forward to your announcement for the expansion.
ps. Really like "Elemental". I would consider it a real shame if you took it out. It's defined this game to date....a great deal more than 'Fallen Enchantress' has. Stardock's image is entrenched within it. Deviating now, imo, would 'admit failure' to a project instead of 'strive through towards success'.
Good luck with the expansion release!
Boatman's post here strikes the right note. Hard to imagine Stardock even thinking of dropping FE. When they write the annals of Strategy Gaming they will note that "What really made Stardock the celebrated Strategy Design House that it became was the publication of the brilliant Fallen Enchantress and its masterful successors Fallen Enchantress 2 and Fallen Enchantress 3."
I don't care about modding (like many, no time, no skill), but I do care about the art style: this alone is worth the price of admission: it is both distinguished and distinctive, stylized in a lovely way, yet has as well a kind of broken down "lived" quality that is extremely effective and evocative. Just excellent. The attractive contact-with-reality roughness could even be taken further -- remember that Aragorn is 87 (!) when he meets the hobbits at Bree, and he's been living rough in the wild for 40 years! The old that is strong does not wither. That's why Tolkien is a master and we ain't. Anyway, FE's compelling and grown up art is a joy.
I haven't played the original Elemental myself, so I'm not quite that sure how this would tie in.
What if every single time not just the world was pre-generated, but also every race, hero, and item?
What if the player got to choose how many of each to make, added a special kind of fighting style for each race, a unique skill for each hero, an ancient artifact among common swords?
Now the answer to me seems to have a bunch of options asking how much the player wants of each, like with how the player is asked how many resources, shards, and opponents they get. Then the generator would start by choosing a bunch of random parts and getting values from them. It's then saved in a general file, let's call it in this case a universe (because you can play multiple times, or multiple worlds, with one). Every single race it generates has it's stat values saved here that was calculated from the body parts. Each body part would contribute something like strength, or dexterity, as well as hit points (larger creatures need more hits to take down). Each body part would also have it's own art files which are added to the value stats so the game knows what the creature looks like.
Let's say we're generating a creature. It has two bipedal legs, so let's say it has a move value of 2.
It has four arms with thumbs, so let's say they have a strength of 4 and dexterity of 3 (+4 from thumbs, -1 from weight of so many arms).
It's skin is made of ectodermal tissue, but this particular type of tissue happens to heal quickly so they get a health bonus of +2 and a per turn health regeneration bonus of 1.
And so on.
Just saying my idea, thought it would be interesting. And just bipedal creatures would be boring. What about centaurs (horse for a lower half, human on upper half) or mermaids or other kinds of creatures? What if the creature was a fire elemental?
I am wondering if the team is suffering from burnout working on the same project for years. I hope not. For me, this is the most interesting game I have ever played. Tons of great ideas above and so I won't bother with mentioning mine.
It would be a pity if you guys move on from this. Would love to download mods for the next decade!
I don't think there'll be a Fallen Enchantress 2 per se. After all, it's actually called Elemental: Fallen Enchantress.
Rather, the scenario I'm most comfortable with is starting with Fallen Enchantress and creating a new game.
People have said nice things about Warlock without realizing that it's an evolution of Fantasy Wars / Elven Legacy. Fallen Enchantress and what we do next would exist in the same world but it would be called something else.
yay for warlock! We want more warlock!
Personally, I'd like to see UI's added to FE that are similar to the Unit Design UI, only for designing new races, monsters, champions and items. The itemmake executable that came with MoM comes to mind. A window to pick an existing model from the game and an editable list of details/traits/spell effects/powers etc. Things that are created are exported to an .xml file in the Mods directory--personally I'd do separate folders in the Mods directory and then separate files so they are easy to trade as packages amongst players.
The existing mod tools that use spreadsheets works, but I'd like to be able to pick the model visually and change colors/effects on it.
I'd also like to see a GUI for editing the tech tree and saving those changes, but there doesn't seem to be a related framework for that to start with.
Adding a UI window during the game setup to check/uncheck stuff (or folders) to be used in the created game or left out would be helpful from a management pov.
For example, champion weapons seem to fall into two categories: vanilla weapons with an attack of 6-12 and endgame weapons with an attack of 18-24. I'd like to add more mid-level items and see a larger variety of spell effects. Also, I'm tired of finding rusty greaves in monster dungeons. A couple of dozen weakly enhanced armor sets would add more variety...
I'd pay a small penny for the editors and the right to trade stuff that's made with them. I wouldn't be particularly happy to pay for someone else's (even Stardock's) package of new weapons, etc. as DLC, unless it included new models that could then be reused to make more items.
gs
General responses and thoughts:
My personal views include:
1. I think we have a good thing with Fallen Enchantress.
2. I think it being called Elemental: Fallen Enchantress is a drag on Fallen Enchantress
3. I would imagine future games would still exist in the same world and continue to enrich the lore.
4. The game design itself would continue to evolve, fairly dramatically.
5. I wouldn't want to call a sequel to Fallen Enchantress FE II or anything like that.
6. I'd picture a future game title being more focused on what YOU, the player is doing rather than what a character in the story (i.e. the player doesn't play as the Fallen Enchantress).
I also think people are going to be pretty pleased (and I hope surprised) at how much improved the expansion pack is. Especially in terms of how tactical battles actually play out and the champion game mechanics. We're getting a lot...more refined in the game design.
Hm... I would be interested in seeing a Fantasy Sci-Fi Type game... >..> Ever heard of a game called 'Space Empires' There could be something there... <.< And the Engine for EFE is sorta perfect for it... I am not saying steal the idea of that game... But you could definitely make a game with customizable ships and everything. And I don't mean like Sins of the Solar Empire Either, I mean a game where you literally research every aspect of the technology, and place the components in a ship diagram to create unique and very awesome ships.
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