I was playing Galactic Civilizations II last night. I hadn’t played it in a very long time and was stunned by just how much…awesome it has in it. That awesomeness didn’t come from the original design. It came from years and years of iteration and frankly, labors of love.
The problem I see with Legendary Heroes is that it’s really hard to do iteration like that. After all, it’s technically Elemental: Fallen Enchantress – Legendary Heroes. It’s a mouth full. No one calls GalCiv II “Twilight of the Arnor”. It’s just called GalCiv.
But Elemental got off to such a rocky start that for good or bad, we don’t really call it Elemental anymore. If the quality and fandom that supports Legendary Heroes could somehow be applied to Elemental that would be great. But it’s not. It’s barely applied to Fallen Enchantress.
Frankly, from a purely a branding perspective – i.e. the THING that people remember playing, we basically call it Legendary Heroes. It’s just really hosed up.
Then you have the DLC situation. The DLC for Legendary Heroes doesn’t just sell well. It sells insanely well. There’s a huge demand for it because the installed base of the game we call Legendary Heroes (but is really Elemental: Fallen Enchantress – Legendary Heroes) keeps growing.
I know some people don’t care about the name. But the reality is, the single biggest thing holding LH back is the brand confusion. I’ve seen people on various forums say that LH is probably the best fantasy 4X that is currently available (though Age of Wonders 3 is looking pretty awesome).
So we have this great fantasy game that we have the budget to keep iterating on that is artificially held down because no one really knows what to call it.
I'm for the "Elemental X" format, or MoE. I liked EWoM too though.
So I bought Elemental at release, or pre-ordered even, I can't remember at this point. I didn't like it, and never played it that much. Then Elemental Fallen Enchantress came along...for free, thanks for that Frogboy. I played it for a bit, but life distracted me, and I did not get back to it. Then this FE: Legendary Heroes (LH) comes along.
At this point, I just wonder do I have to play Elemental Fallen Enchantress (FE) first, then LH, or is FE contained in LH? Yeah, I am confused.
Just play LH. The tweaks they made to it over FE are generally embraced by the community. So the only thing missing is FE's scenerio, but even that is in the 1.4 beta patch, which you can opt in to via Steam (or just wait until it's officially released):
https://forums.elementalgame.com/448866/page/1/
-HM
Thanks for the info. I will wait for the 1.4 patch.
I dunno. Market shpiels baffle me. I'm jaded with corporate America as it is, it takes a clear fact to convince me of something. I am renowned among my friends for holding grudges forever -- I will never forgive Sony for rootkits, so I am boycotting Sony to the end of my days.
I can forgive disasters, though. I was a Trekkie before Star Trek V, I am still a Trekkie, but yeah V was horrid. Similarly, I hope someone can someday do justice for Master of Orion IV ... I can look past what a disappointment MOO3 was. I have doved out of my until-then lifelong loyalty to the SimCity series with the latest release, as I boycott any games with constant-Internet-connection DRM ... but if there's a future SimCity game that ditches it and isn't so dumbed down (as SC5 looks to be from reviews, even were the DRM not an issue for me) I might return.
I've been a Stardock customer for the better part of a decade now, and I won't ditch it for a bombed release now or then so long as it doesn't become too chronic ... well, I might if Brad pulled what a lot of publishers do with bombs and essentially tell jaded customers to eff off and instead confessed that ... yeah, that wasn't what had been promised and he spent I'm sure a bajillion dollars developing FE and LH to give us early orderers for free. Its a real shame, I think, that such basic honesty and integrity are so hard to find among game publishers these days.
Whoa whoa whoaaa!! Hold it right there Frogboy - don't drop a titillating tidbit like that, and then don't give some details. The new game that is being worked on, are we thinking RPG? Stratetgy? Tactical? FPS-Stealther? Rogue-like? Action-RPG? Elemental take on Dota? Elemental: Beach Volleyball? What are we thinking here?
By the way: I an renouncing the rights to any royalties if Stardock decides to pick up Masters of Elemental
I'd be happy to be offered a job, if they somehow need help on their marketing, finance or creative department. But they can take any of my ideas they want for free.
I guess I fall into the give the finger attitude and say embrace Elemental.
Every game you guys release in the next five to ten years will probably be pre-faced with something like "2010...Elemental:Ware of Magic...blah blah.. number of design flaws and bugs...blah blah".
However if you release a sequel to Elemental with all the design improvements and knowledge gained in making a fun fantasy game then it becomes your franchise again. And Elemental becomes the growing universe that had it's early growing pains that slowly matured over time.
Elemental II: Destiny's Collide
Elemental III: No Sub-title it's earned it's place
Otherwise drop the Elemental franchise and go more the shadowrun tilt where magic and technology collide
Sorry, but I find this thread somewhat amusing (and almost insulting). You never escaped from the Elemental name or the WoM release. The attempt to change people's perception by trying to call the games something else (if that's what you really thought you were doing) did not work. Picking a random Legendary Heroes review, which ended up being the GameSpot one, the very first words of the review are "Elemental: War of Magic" followed closely by "expansion" several times. This is an expansion for Elemental and everyone knows it. Everyone I know still calls these games "Elemental" when referencing them in general. LH isn't selling well because you escaped some imaginary "Elemental(TM)" brand death, it's selling well because it's a decent game. There are lots of games that sucked before being fully realized by expansions or later patches, they didn't try to hide behind new names, because people (most of them anyway) aren't stupid enough to fall for that, and assuming we are is the almost insulting part. "Dur... what? This is an Elemental game??? Give me back mah monies!1!"
I can't tell if you are honestly confused by your own naming system going forward or if you just wanted to tell people you are selling lots of DLC. Is this a humble brag?
Elemental: The intended version
HE HE HE, love this one.
I love the name Elemental. I'd say stick with it. If you absolutely must, someone mentioned Masters of Elemental. I like that one, too. Or Masters of Elements, The Shards, Masters of Shards, Shards of the Elements...
Maybe do something to tie it in with the galactic civilizations brand? Make it into magic civilizations or fantasy civilizations or legendary civilizations (or elemental civilizations even)?
You'd get Fantasy civilizations - WOM, Fantasy civilizations - FE, Fantasy civilizations - LH and so on.
Regardless, I was quite pissed when WOM came out and sucked (i'd really looked forward to it and was therefore extremely disappointed) but you guys did right by your customers afterwards and I think LH is a great game. I still buy all the DLC to support Stardock even though I don't play it a whole lot anymore.
I'll buy Galciv3 and I'll buy a new elemental game however you'll end up naming it, just so you can keep showing other companies how you're supposed to treat your customers.
"Civilization" is just too analytic a term. Too... science-y. It belongs in a sci-fi piece, not a fantasy game. Don't you think?
You've got a point there, but on the other hand Civilization is pretty much the only strategy game EVERYONE knows and I still think it conveys a sense of "a-game-like-gal-civ-only-fantasy". I'm no marketeer though, it's just what I came up with. I'm fine with Stardock sticking to the elemental brandname. It'll always remind me of the way they turned a disappointment into a great game.
I remember clearly how Frogboy made a case that he did NOT wanted Elemental to be "GalCiv but in a fantasy world". He wanted to strech his gamedesign chops into new directions, and try not to just constantly recreate what's already been done. Doing that is worthy of EA, nor Stardock.
Legendary Civilizations is not bad. LegCiv lol. Still like MoE (Master of Elemental).
Elemental: The revenge of the pink bunny slippers.
Elental: The search for the lost lollipop
But seriously, I think the best title would be Elemental II.
Civilization has released a couple of less than stellar versions, yet they keep the name consistent.
Elemental II: This One Doesn't Suck: A Legendary Heroes Sequel of Fallen Enchantress.
Elemental: Dawn of Legends
I think, for practical uses, the series is stuck with the Elemental name. My own brain is a bit slow and stuck, I admit ... but as was pointed out earlier in this thread, reviewers still use it and while all acknowledge WoM was a bomb, many have been more favorable to FE and LH but still refer to them as being in the Elemental 'verse.
One thing you could do is when you're ready to do a new Elemental 2 in about 5 years time, you could cut the price of LH to super-cheap, and let folks see for themselves, maybe even free. (have to pay for DLC)
___
Here's what I like
First I like Elemental: fallen something, like fallen enchantress, it uses what you already established and can build on it
Elemental: Fallen (whatever)
ex. Elemental: Fallen empires; Elemental: Fallen heros; Elemental: Fallen warriors; Elemental: Fallen age; Elemental Fallen mages; etc
Next I just like elemental and a second name; elemental might be damaged right now, but I think a sequel if its good, wouldn't just undo the damage done by Elemental: War of Magic, it could result in good publicity and press
Elemental: (whatever)
ex. Elemental: Age of wrath; Elemental: Time of sorrow; Elemental: Master of the shards; Elemental: Rise of kingdoms; Elemental: Reborn
Next I like Master(s) of Elemental, it keeps the name and also harkens back to MoM
Masters of Elemental: (whatever)
ex. Masters of Elemental: The shard war; Master of Elemental: Age of Heroes
Next I like something new, a complete rebrand. However, to complete the rebrand you should use hexes. Then even with the exact same style of game play and artwork anyone; you could say it is a different game because "It's obviously a different kind of game. It's hex based and Elemental was a tile (or square) based game"
Something New: Total Rebrand
ex. The Fallen Age: War of Mages; Fallen Empires vs. Kingdoms reborn; Fantasy Civ; Legendary Civilizations; Fantasy Realms; Fantasy Empires; Frogboy presents: A Derek Paxton design: The Fantasy Kingdoms: Hex based fantasy 4x: With heroes AND armies; or finally A very dangerous make believe world of magic, swords, strategy and heroes
That's my take on it.
Hmm ya I like that take on the elemental name formula.
Elemental: Fallen _______
Good stuff!
+1
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