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.
Tweaking variables is fast. Figuring out *what* variables to tweak to fix some problem that nobody can see yet because we don't have a full game to play against other people (or an intelligent AI) takes considerably longer, and a lot of trial and error.
Starcraft 2 is a good recent example. It didn't sit in the balance stage of development for months because the developers are lazy or incompetient. Getting this stuff right takes time.
ooooo i don't like the release date was thinking will get 1 month of testing (to end 30jul) so we give a clear picture if the game is rdy after all techs are reveled and many features
here are my though about some features i like and don't like :
Technology
for now i love the technology system how you research how you choose everything i just hope there will be alot to reaserch
Dynasty
these needs more love its very primitive now the kids are boring nothing to choose no talents no stats from parents etc
how to upgrade :
the main problem is for me how do i choose a wife ? because shes blond or a chubby ?
every champion , sovereign or hero should have a dynasty skill or talent or the profession at the sovereign creature should have a impact on how and why you choose a wife or man
or the stats should have a impact on choosing wife/man look below
Sovereign/Champions
the main problem for now is the leveling of sovereign and champions its not very big difference when they lvl 1 or lvl 10
i think every champion should get 1 points and 1 essence when they gain lvl or 3 points to make it more fun
Essence
i want power i need power if i want to keep my essence i want some big bonuses
i think only sovereign should get essence when lvl up so its kinda important and he can give a champion essence to cast spells or sacrifice it so a champion becomes a hero or something like that
Stats
its sooo plain the hero or the sovereign is the same in strength when they have 15 str or 25
to fix that add second function for every attribute for example:
str = dmg ,more health or resistance
int = effective spells , faster cast time or something like that or less upkeep for summoning units
dex = more defense , better attack speed
con = more health , more resistance against spells or something like that
cha = cheaper champion, cheaper items from shops , these should matter when you choose a wife it should give a bonus when you have a wife or man with higher charisma or for example
a women doesn't want you if you don't have a minimum amount of charisma
wis =more spell points , some special spells should require minimum wisdom amount or something like that
or any stats can matter if someone will marry you
for example a man wants a women with minimum 13 int and 15 charisma
Items
very simple for now , lets add some enchantments and other features too
Spells
revive land is nice i just hope there will be alot of spells global enchantments, unit enchantments ,combat spells etc
Quest
not much to say here lets first get adventure research
add plz alot quest too
City's
i like it for now how everything works here just the UI is a pain but i hope you will fix it
(i think in general the strategy part of elemental is on a good way just the rpg part is left behind)
Resources
there should be alot of resources that's only i ask
(maybe elementium should be a meteor that drops down randomly after some turns or a quest triger)
You'll also notice that they've only been publically balancing the MP portion.
Starcraft II is two games. The SP they haven't released, because it doesn't need fine-grain balance. The MP game is a highly competitive version, with three sides each of which must be in almost-perfect balance. The slightest imbalance will be found and exploited very quickly, hence requiring a fine-grain balance which Elemental doesn't need.
Yes, but they've been working on single-player this entire time behind the scenes, and as you can see the engine has been done and polished like a dictator's sports car for a good while. Not to mention that even if they hadn't had the engine so polished so early, starcraft's mechanics are simple and predictable completely unlike Elemental's which are vast, varied, complex and ever-changing (We just changed how to found cities in an empire-builder).
Honestly to me it doesn't matter, Stardock could have released the game a year ago and I wouldn't care as long as they kept working on it like they have. It's just for their own benefit that they should wait for a very tight product before shipping so that the review scores and word-of-mouth are excellent.
yeah i completely agree, dynasty really need some work on "living" it, choosing stuff and have consequences for your choices
strategy, that is
right now is just some free champion over time and pretty boring
Ya I don't think Starcraft 2 is a good example. Blizzard thinks that it's some sort of "e-sport" and so they are being anal about balance.
I'm sure once the diplomacy tree is in it will be much more interesting.
Thanks, that's a much more succinct... and effective... way of putting it than I could think of.
like sacrificing my 3 virgin daughters to prevent my capital to be destroyed?
yeah sounds cool
Beg pardon, but isn't that almost like saying that no one's been 'right' about this question yet?
I'm not a Demigod customer, but I learned about its launch saga via the GC2 boards. I'm also not fixated on any sort of marketing natter like "polished" or hardcore-gamer jargon like "balanced." My thing with the sudden-feeling 'hard' RTM date is just that this is my first non-expansion-pack beta and I hoped that the peanut gallery would have plenty of time for input on the game/content level as well as the engine stuff we've been helping with for almost a year.
...
I'd like to mention my favorite aspect of MoM in this regard in case you aren't already strongly relying on this as well as Professions and Talents. The selection of a limited number of spell books from the different branches of magic at the start of each MoM game. I see that Elemental will also have this but I don't know how strong the effect will be. In MoM, because the branches of magic differed dramatically (focus on defense, attack, growth, etc.), and because additional books were very rarely available in gameplay, this aspect of the game served both to distinguish the players in a game and to increase the game's replayability.
Some animations might also help. You haven't shown water and rivers yet - they'll help and an occasional waterfall or babbling brook could be nice.
To me this area makes a lot of difference in a game's polish. Ideally it should include not just descriptions of what something "is" (e.g. a note that something gives "+3 logistics") but also a clickable link within the description to find out about "logistics". When a research tree is displayed and one sees that learning something will enable building say a "Bank", a clickable link on the word Bank would be very helpful to discover what a Bank is in order to decide whether to pursue the research path. Etc.
Edit: Another important point in this regard is careful and consistent wording. E.g. if some descriptions refer to "morale" and some to "happiness" then those must be two separate things. I find simple (to avoid) mistakes of poor writing in some games to reduce enjoyment a lot because they cause unnecessary confusion and break immersion.
How are the concepts polished and balanced marking "natter" ? Polished means time has been spent ensuring that everything is as flawless as possible (within budget / time constraints). Balanced simply means that the different units play fairly against each other - that one player won't be able to dominate everyone else with one specific super unit.
I mean, it's all good and well that you have a secret build that we know nothing about and has everything in it, but then does that mean it wasn't necessary for us to test it?
Edit: Also, I agree with 2 of the previous comments:
-Heroes need some redesign and balance. Make them become more badass as they gain level, and gives them talents that they can choose as they level. Age of Wonder-style talents. Burrow, a mount, flight, a whirlwind-style attack, whatever. Or a bonus to city production, etc. Having to make choices between different funny powers is good, and not all of those powers should be spells.
-We need more items. More different type of soldiers, too. The items that we've seen are way to bland, and way too few. What about a goremaul (giant 2-handed maul), Exalted style? Actually, what about Exalted-style enhanced soldiers to begin with? Maybe summoning will add a bit of spice, but even so, we're quite far from the sheer number of different and flavorful units the AoW/HoMM had available.
-City design: we should have to specialize cities more. Lowering the required number of houses was a good idea, but houses should be more than a pre-requisite for city levels; they should have a secondary effect that makes making more of them interesting. Taxes? Improved production? As for lowering most type of buildings to a single instance per city... well, it contributes a lot to making all cities the same.
I would prefer if we kept the Soverign as the #1 way of creating new cities. Maybe you can have a special pack that you can optionally purchase to harvest these fertile lands, but I think it's important that the Soverign remains the primary method of expansion, since that forces you to choose between imbuing heroes, creating cities, using essence for random events, etc.
If you can easily create other cities via gold+labor then it's no longer the same tradeoff.
I propose that at the beginning of the game there should be no default fertile land. As the game progresses, however, "life" starts to return to the world. Eg, the nations are growing larger, magic is being weaved and returned to the land after it it used from the Soverign, etc. So, after there are 2x cities per player on average, maybe any random square on the map has a .5% chance to turn fertile, or something like that. Then the number keeps growing slowly. Maybe a lot of the times the fertile square might be really close to another city, and it shows that by becomes a free farm or other very basic resource.
Othertimes, it's in some useless place so no one can take advantage of it.
Maybe, a city needs to have 2 or 3 adjacent fertile squares before it can be built on for free. Or a Sovereign simply expends less essence to turn the area fertile (1 instead of 3?).
Anything other than basically having a set of "free city slots" that happen to be randomly scattered around the map.
For starters, SC2 is not that great of an example. Very different directions/end-game goals, though I do get your point. You are correct in that the figuring out which of the variables need adjusting is time consuming..However, if you think in terms of ratio of what is known to be a serious issue vs minor issue, the game-breaking variables that needed adjustment have probably been/are being seen to in the internal beta. I believe we would be in error to assume that those guys working internally are not as observant as the rest of us in terms of the beta. So if you've noticed a problem, then there is a good chance they noticed it too, a while back. It isn't always the case, but I'm willing to bet it is more often than not. They are paid to do a job and let us hope they do it well.
Brad stated earlier that the areas of the game now that are left unfinished are not nearly as time consuming as the earlier (and completed) stages of the game. Which leaves the fluff work and adjusting of known variables. Considering the size of his team and probable work hours per week, I have full confidence that if Brad says its close to gold, then it is just that. This isn't EA , these guys wouldn't say it was ready if it really wasn't.
And to those of you at Stardock, remember..organic diplomacy!
I think essence revitalizing the land is gradually transitioning from making the land livable again, to making it fertile and enhancing resources. I think this is a good thing.
Does that mean that the half of the game that isn't there doesn't need intensive beta testing, or feedback for improvement? That there can't be any major design flaw to, say, the tactical battles - a part of the game that's wholly untested? I mean, the point of letting us test the cloth map part of the game is that a lot of it could undergo design change based on the testers' advice. What makes the tactical battles (or the research/magic system) so different that it doesn't need to go through this extensive phase?
I'm kind of confused by this.
Are you suggesting that the primary beta testing/QA/design is occurring in the public beta?
Most games do not have any public beta. Our beta process, one that has worked pretty well for a decade and a half, has been to provide those who pre-order public beta versions that let us address things like compatibility or game mechanics we're not confident on. They're not designed as the beginning and end of our game design and development process.
We had an extensive (9 months+) beta process in which players could suggest new and interesting game mechanics and we implemented many of those ideas into the game. We had it be 9 months so players could have extensive influence over the development of the game.
But as was said at the beginning of the process, AFTER beta 1, we move into tweaking more than changing. There's no scenario where we would re-design the tactical battle system we've developed based on forum posts. We made clear from early on that the game was heavily influenced by Master of Magic. If you like MoM battles, you'll probably like our tactical battle system. If you didn't, you probably won't.
Talking about gamer jargon wasn't meant as an insult. I make no apologies for deriding the Dark Arts of the Marketeers.
But the point about both sarcasm bombs is that the terms are deeply subjective and hence of little use for an audience of multiple in-groups that don't always know one another very well. To make something "as flawless as possible" means you need testable specifications. Software is a fundamentally linguistic technology, so it has no near-term hope of being able to match the kinds of design specs that can make a jet turbine "as flawless as possible." Not that I think about this shit too much or anything...
Oh I can assure you we have spec'd Elemental to achieve over 8.6 gigajoys.
Okay, I understand better now.
Haven't played MoM; although it looks similar to Age of Wonders, so I think I do. I just hope the heroes will get a major improvement, but #1 implies they will, I think.
The truthiness of it...
So... no flying mounts?
*runs and hides*
I like the sound of 8.6 gigajoys. To be honest I was just hoping for more than 7.5 gigajoys.
Couple things regarding the current research screen.
1) One thing that is taking getting used to is not knowing the full path. I don't necessary need it all mapped out and I like the randomness of rare techs but what is missing in my opinion are hints for obtaining techs. So the first time playing beta 2, I came across a hive and plopped my city down. I knew I wanted to use that hive and there was a building needed to use it, but how do I unlock it? Of course after a few playthroughs it becomes obvious that I go for farming but I could see with 5 full tech tress that even casual players would forget which tech unlocks which.
2) The level on that screen doesn't really tell me much other than if I have a high one, I spent a ton of time on that area. What would be more useful is some indication of what my possibilities are if I used those unlocked techs to the fullest. For example, I am concentrating on the military tree and have unlocked almost all armor techs. Say something like I can outfit my army with superior armor. And if I have not researched any armor, my army couldn't leave a fight alive if the other guys had butter knives and were throwing tooth picks at us.
Quoting econundrum1, reply 40so the real question when do we get beta 2B? Today? 2B or not 2B that Frogboy is the question
It is up. Impulse is delivering my copy now.
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