Elemental will be released on August 24th. Our “gold” date is August 4th. Our goal is to have the "game” basically done by July 16th. The remaining time will be spent polishing, balancing, tweaking and adding player suggested feedback. We’ll categorize that feedback on things that we think are fun or interesting enough to get into the “gold” version (the version that comes in the box) and then things we’ll make available on release date (the August 24th edition).
What makes a game different from a piece of software is of course, the fun factor. So when I talk about things being “done” I am speaking of the software program known as Elemental. But that doesn’t make it a game. That just makes it a piece of software capable of performing the features of the game. Turning it into a game requires a lot of balancing, usability tweaking, polish and the injection of fun.
Our beta programs have focused largely on deciding what features and directions we need to take on the software so that the final game will be “fun”.
Of course, beta testers, particularly ones who haven’t been involved in Stardock betas previously, are stuck in the situation of not knowing whether we “realize” the areas of the software that need to be changed in order to make it a “good game”. So this post is a partial tour of just some of the big issues that have to be addressed for the software to be a good game.
Below are some of the things on our list:
ITEM #1: Making the sovereigns distinct from one another
Making it so that each sovereign is very distinct in how they play is very important. The way we are going to do this is to make the Professions available and the Talents have far reaching (i.e. not simply “stat boosts”) effects. Thus far, we’ve struggled over which professions to have in the first place.
For instance, the Warlord starts the player off with 2 sentinels. But right now, the Bard only starts you with a stat boost to hero cost. Boring. The Adventurer gives you an extra move. A okay start but still boooring. This will be an area that we will be spending time on after the public beta endsd.
ITEM #2: Making the factions distinct
In a nutshell, The Kingdoms and The Empires are fighting over how the world should be organized. The Kingdoms are (by default) all races of MEN. The Empires are mostly Races of FALLEN. The Fallen are made up of many distinct races.
However, we must make sure each of these races plays differently enough and looks different enough that it is meaningful. This is an area we’re going to spend a lot of time on.
ITEM #3: Usability
There are all kinds of annoying UI issues that get in the way or make the game less intuitive than it should be.
For instance…
Clicking outside the book should close it. There’s a ton of stuff like that. Beta 2-B users will get to see a LOT more stuff that is extremely annoying such as the way spells are managed in beta 2-B. The spell management will get overhauled during the public beta. It’s incredibly obnoxious.
ITEM #4: The Environment is Boring
Based on the plot, the world is decimated. Thus, the lands are barren. However, we are finding this to be oppressive.
Instead, what we are going to be moving towards is a system where the land is spotted with bits of grassland and Fallen land that players can build on without having to sacrifice essence.
In addition, building cities is going to require a Pioneer pack. The player will start with one and it is consumed on building a city. Additional cities will require building pioneers (who can only build on non-forsaken ground) or champions can buy pioneer packs in the shops (giving another early benefit to recruited NPCs).
This makes city building require a little more thought than presently and allows us to address the issue of why can only sovereigns found cities?
Moreover, the art and development teams are both working on a significant increase in the number of environments for the world (we haven’t enabled rivers in the public builds yet because they are cosmetically ugly still). The goal is to make sure the world is an interesting and exciting place.
ITEM #5 DETAILS AND EQUIPPING
In the public beta, the details and equipment screens are combined into a single horrible, usability nightmare.
“The best shareware game UI of 1997!”
During the polish phase, the equipping screen and the details screen will be different (you’ll be able to easily switch between them). This way, equipping units will be straight forward and efficient and the history of the unit and their details can be more easily handled. Plus, it’ll be a lot more intuitive to play.
ITEM #6: Battle Animations and effects
In the beta, all the battle stuff is really basic and dull. During the polish phase, we’ll be adding many many different combat animations, effects, etc. to make battles a lot more interesting.
ITEM #7: NOTIFICATIONS AND UI
This is going to be a big issue in Beta 2-B now that magic is enabled. Players can lose a lot of time because they filled up their spell points inventory and weren’t prompted to do anything about it.
ITEM #8: WHAT IS GOING ON?
This covers a whole lot of areas of the game. But basically there’s a huge lack of UI-driven explanation of what is happening or why something is the way it is. This is an area we will be concentrating a great deal on during the polish phase.
ITEMS #9: COSTS AND BENEFITS ARE CRAZY
How much an item should cost or how tough a monster should be or how hard a certain tech should be to get and so on, these are things that we are aware of and will be focusing a great deal on. Right now, a lot of the values in the “software” were put in by programmers. During the polish stage, the designers (myself included) get to take a crack at it.
Beta 2-A, for instance, changed the game from Beta 2 quite a bit by simply allowing a designer (me in this case) an afternoon to tweak the values.
ITEM #10: TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH UI
The research mechanism is so crummy that it deserves its own item. It’s something we’re very aware of and it’s on our list. I did ask it to be improved some during the public beta phase so that beta testers could at least have a decent idea of what’s going on.
Look at all these screens that tell you nothing about what you picked. HORRIBLE.
ITEM #11: QUESTS
The quests in the game will get better and better during the polish portion.
ITEM #12: Other Player interaction
The AI players still don’t do much. Without the challenge of other players, the game loses much of its potency in the beta. With the Imperial factions disabled, you only have 5 default players and we haven’t enabled creation your own factions yet the worlds tend to be relatively devoid of action.
ITEM #13: Diplomacy
Diplomacy is going to be a major element in the game. It shows up in Beta 3 but it’ll be pretty basic since the AI isn’t particularly intelligent yet.
ITEM #14: NPC and MONSTER AI
The monsters and NPCs just kind of randomly move around right now. This is an area we are going to be heavily polishing to make them be a lot more “alive” than they currently are.
The team has hooked in the ability for me to have these creatures (at least the sentient ones) pop up conversations with the players. This is something that we can have a lot of fun with.
We very much welcome constructive feedback from players. We can’t promise that every idea will make it into the retail gold or even the day 0 release but if we like it, we can put it on our post-release update schedule. So definitely keep posting your ideas or suggestions.
Which we already know is the case.
Please delay the release! I have a very hard time believing you are ready for this. Elemental's launch quality, not its patched-in-six-months quality, will determine 95% of the buzz around the title. A full year delay will be easier to live down than a half finished game. I urge you to do whatever is required in order to orchestrate a much needed delay. We can't go from having not tested 75% of the game to release this quickly. If money absolutely requires a rushed release then I understand, but I still fear for the game.
You already have my money so this isn't a threat. This is an honest plea for a truly necessary delay. Fanboy optimism will not save you. The game will sink or swim with people that have never been on this forum.
While I don't disagree that extra time might be good, the date is already locked (marketing, factories to make the disks, publisher for book, so on so forth). Can't be moved at this point.
They are.
That's not a possibility, that's a fact. However, even if Stardock has a world of amazing stuff we still haven't seen, Frogboy just openly stated that there are areas still in need of massive transformation and improvement, which they intend to get done in three weeks, after which there will be one whole month for polish. That is worrying. A typical game development schedule aiming for an August release would have had the game finished and locked down early 2010, if not holiday 2009. That's the typical schedule that sometimes results in massively buggy games.
I haven't been in a Stardock beta before, so I have no idea how GalCiv2 and SoaSE were at this point of development, but either this genre of game is developed very differently from most others, or Stardock is going to have to be amazing AND very lucky to pull it off.
Actually, SoaSE was mostly the same. Keep in mind, it was developed by Ironclad so it's mostly them who had a lot of sleepless nights getting it ready, but the timetable was pretty similar. But at the same time, Sins also didn't have a whole slew of content still to add. The last beta had 2 of the 3 races, and between beta and release the third was "put in" and the UI was overhauled. Hopefully the plans for Elemental will work as well as they did for Sins, and there will be enough time to go through this rather intimidating list
Yeah but we don't know to what extent really (at least I don't sorry if I've missed a forum post or something detailing this).
Based on some other posts around the forums and my own general concerns:
edit: sorry to hear ppl are working on weekends
That diablo 3 picture is fitting for this thread. That was shown probably a good 2-3+ years before the game's release, and look at how damn clean it is. Time to work your magic, Stardock!
I like this idea. A lot. And other players could get quests to try and steal it from you, or acquire another artifact/spell that negates its power.
What is a weekend?
Hark Frogboy, and listen well to these game forum residents – you cannot possibly complete the game in time for release. Forum denizens know of what they speak. Indeed it may appear that your long time experience with PC games, including the production of a handful of the best PC games of all time, would mean you do know what you’re talking about - IT DOES NOT!
Neither previous in depth explanations of what the beta is and what it is not nor explanations of "software" versus "game" have relevance here! Your vast history of experience has no worth in the face of forum commenters! Elemental cannot possibly be completed in the time frame set forth – the PC game internet forum denizens have spoken. Be well wary of their words.
LOL. Indeed.
This year marks the 16th year we've been doing these open betas and every single one has forums (or Usenet back in the 90s) proclaiming that there's "no way" the game would be done in time - based on their own massive game development experience no doubt.
In fact, in 16 years, the ONLY game that forum users thought was ready was Demigod and that was only because it was so polished early on.
You are partly correct that based on what is in the current Beta there is more than 21 days of work left. But here is the thing Brad as already said on a number of occasions that the betas are not the same as the internal version, they have stuff disabled and some content is being held back. Also the tools would seem to make adding and tweaking content relativley easy and the people beta testing are also effectivley working in QA for them.
They might miss the luanch date we all know this can happen but from this post I think they are clearly on schedule on their internal build at the moment.
The funny thing is that if you look at the pre-beta pictures of Elemental (like, the ones posted before the very first beta build), the UI there looks clean and pretty and not at all what it is now. Difference is of course that Diablo 3 kept its
Is the "polish stage" already under way while we test the mechanics of the game? Or are you really going to be able to do all that in one month? I have not been in one of your betas before, but even keeping an open mind I'm having a hard time imagining such a feat. As mentioned a few times already by other posters, in most other betas all this stuff is done 6-12 months before release, and all of that remaining time is used for balance testing and bug hunting. I really don't think us spending a single week with each beta stage is doing much good, by the time people get used to the changes and able to give accurate and objective reports on it, the next stage is already coming.
so the real question when do we get beta 2B? Today? 2B or not 2B that Frogboy is the question
I love the honesty, please keep up the good work!
For some reason I have this vision of a Bone Ogre in a slave master outfit beating a huge drum while the entire Elemental team is chained to their cubicles like slaves on a Tarthian War Galley.
That's interesting, since in the first "army" thread I brought up the concern that the game might get released when it's not ready due to that sort of pressure, and was told it wasn't a problem. But now we're locked in?
I dunno. I mean we haven't seen 3/5 tech trees, rational AI, tactical combat, or modding yet. It's possible all those things are 95% done and will fit together smoothly... but even if that's true, balance doesn't come together that quickly. People need to play with everything enabled for balance issues to really come forth. That's why Starcraft 2 has taken so long.
So yes, I have my doubts. Not that they can release something that works in the time alloted, but that what they do release will have the polish & balance that only comes from extended playing with everything enabled. (Hopefully they can prove me wrong.)
the humor is nonsense
while surely a developer is expert in developing games is very possible that forum users partecipated in MORE game developements than a developer himself which just saw his own games (not sure but possible)
also its understandable the concern of players who dont really care if the game goes out august or july or september but just want a good game
This should be interesting, I accept your challenge! Lets see how this plays out.
Your prescience is clearly on display by your use of the word "flame" in the title of the thread. Like cheese in a mouse trap!
You used Usenet? Usenet is ONLY for Pirates and Thieves...it doesn't have ANY Legal or applicable applications and NEVER has!!! You damn dirty thieving Pirate!!!
Quick Jafo, he was on Usenet, GET HIM!!!
LoL J/K
Seriously, that was a Joke, nothing more
Very groovy update. And it is nice to know that diplomacy will be receiving a lot of love in this game. It is traditionally a feature in previous games that was rather..lifeless. The total war series as an example, had 9/10 combat (for which it was designed), yet terrible 2/10 diplomacy. I believe diplomacy has to be organic in nature, with many different adjustable variables. I liked what was done with Sins in this regard, however I felt that it lacked the ability to say "no" to a mission given to you in a diplomatic manner. It also had no means of supplying a war effort and receiving proper notice of such an effort. Here is another example: when playing GC2, and a minor race is being destroyed by one of the major races, I give the minor race a powerful warship with which they then use to obliterate the entire fleet of the invading force. Yet what thanks is given to me, whom supplied them with such a vessel? Or even what, if any penalty should be given to me from the force that was destroyed? I mean if my obviously superior (to anything that the minor race has) was suddenly destroyed by an advanced vessel, I would suspect something was amiss!And on a side note ..I see a lot of people worrying about the game's current state of "polish"(not a big fan of that phrase at all..you hear it too often, and it loses its value with each successive use within a given statement), to which I am inclined to add claude os, aperi oculos! Brad has already stated in previous posts, that the major parts of the game were creating assets, which is more or less completed. You know, that majority of things you've not even seen in the public beta yet? Yeah, they've had those completed for a long while. The "balancing" and "tweaking" that needs to be done now is generally nothing more than variable/value adjusting of asset statistics and interface. All of which do not require months of work, more like a couple weeks. If that.It was also stated that the AI is what is going to consume most of his man-hours. As it should. I want the raging Troll/Dragon outside of my town to demand food or sacrifices or something to avoid having it swoop in and let slip the dogs of war and all that groovy stuffs. Also, having some special creatures out there that if killed, enable some sort of sub-plot of revenge for them by their kin/allied. Like you kill an old dragon that just happened to be a "somebody" in the world of the dragonkin, it would then be 10 levels of awesome if you felt a hundred turns later or so (a large of amount of turns to help prevent players from loading the game, so that if they did load the game, it would cost them a decent amount of time to undo their mistake) the true gravity of what you had done...Que flight of the valkyrie, dragon formation: Flying V is a go!Anyway, that is all the musings I have for now.
Wow thats a lot of things to slap together before launch good luck! Great journal by the way!
Very nice break down on some of the things you guys want to work on... Its refreshing to have a Dev staff come right out and say hey we know some of this is not good enough and then give examples... looking forward to where the next few weeks take us..
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