A friend of mine visited today, who is also a huge fan of the old Civ and MoM series. We were talking about newer games in that style, that are also playable on not-cutting edge computers. So I showed him Elemental, a quick run-through combat, city management, research, the works.
His words: "Extremely cool, I need to buy this!"
He isn't really a hardcore gamer, but likes the oldschool TBS games. So, you just sold another copy and got another thumbs-up on a game that just 'hits the spot'!
That's nice, I just hope you also told him that while the game itself is good and promising, it is not polished and has issues?
Some people like there games like they like there women "With issues"
(I'm not one of them <.< Please don't kill me hon!)
Some people are in denial of reality or play the game in such a way that the vast number of issues in the game don't bother them. Game can be fun but it needs a lot of work to get anywhere near its potential.
It doesn't necessarily require them to be in denial of reality. They can acknowledge the problems, but at the same time find the experience fun as a whole - warts and all. A person enjoying the story/acting of a movie will be more likely to forgive it having horrible camera work, video quality, etc. They'll still notice it, but by being immersed in what they do like, they'll tune out the problems temporarily. This is different from denial of reality which would be saying the movie has no problems whatsoever. The ability for people to do this differs from person to person though. I'd imagine a person suffering from OCD, for instance, wouldn't be able to overlook any small issue, and would instead allow that issue to nag at them and build upon other issues they found until they could no longer enjoy the experience at all.
In this case, the guy being sold on the game could have very well seen the problems, but at the same time, seen the potential. A good deal of people here have confidence in Stardock to correct the problems in the game, and even improve the areas that aren't problematic over time.
This is a gamble of course, but strategy games are the definitions of taking logical gambles based on expected returns later on. The people that pre-ordered the game expecting a perfect release with every little thing that was ever discussed in a dev journal, for instance, made a gamble that failed. (One could even say this was a rather risky gamble to make given the track record of virtually all games that have been openly discussed since their inception.) It remains to be seen what the return will be for people who bought the game based on the expectations that Stardock will continue to improve on it over time. Given Stardock's track record on supporting games post release, however, this seems to be a rather safe gamble to make.
That said, I do think that the game was released too early, and that there shouldn't have been as many problems at release as the game has. Just the same, I'm one of those who firmly hedged their bets on the ultimate state of the game, not the one it was released in. I still see my investment as a safe one, and hope to see it pay off - for there is nothing quite like Elemental out there on the horizon. (Civ 5, other than being a TBS, is hardly comparable.)
Precisely. Yes, it has problems, but from past experience I simply am confident that Stardock will get them not only under control, but enhance the way beyond that.
I find it a little disheartening to see that every thread with a positive attitude gets dragged down by a discussion about the "issues". The topic started even wrote that his friend visited at his place and they looked at the game together. That should have provided a pretty good first hand impression of the game.
I am sorry if it came across like I wanted to drag down the positive here. I like Elemental, I actually like it very much regardless its problems. It was simple and honest curiosity.
Being dishonest is wrong, even if you're positive about it.
Funny. You say "dragged down" by mentionning issues, I'd say balancing. But it seems that between carebear fanboys and moderators who seems swift in removing threads or posts containing too much criticism, it's hard to come up with a lucid perspective about EWoM on these boards ...
To be fair, that's not true either. There's plenty of constructive criticism here, and you can tell that the majority of the playerbase agrees this game is not in good shape atm.
Normally, most games are fairly intuitive to me. This one hasn't been. I've tried the Campaign, and I can't quite figure it out. It needs a much better tutorial mission that teaches you everything for all the races.
Guys I just got back from my buds house, I played the game over there for 3 hours straight and never had any problems. The more I played, the more I realized this game is awesome and addicting. I guess you can safely say he sold me the game even though I told him about it being released first. Maybe if I played more I will notice issues but as of now, I don't notice ANYTHING, it seems to me it all actually works ok but I want to see more creatures, quests, things like that this game has plenty of room to grow. Now his game is patched up to 1.06 so I supposed most of the main issues were with the earlier release version.
O/T This has nothing to do with the post, and their are plenty of threads it does relate to.
I think its great people are buying it after seeing in motion...thats at least some good news.
Most of the nuked threads were nuked for a good reason, there are lots of constructive threads around that criticize every little detail in a manner that will help Stardock to make a better game. We don't need threads where the main drift is to the "you s*ck" direction.
Congratulations on scoring one sale for Elemental. I did the exact opposite and informed a friend of the state of the game, losing a sale for Elemental. So between us the score is nil.
My brother watched me go through the beta process and he decided long ago to get it once it came out. However, he couldn't do the beta then because he was busy and now is still busy enough that he just doesn't have the time to play it. Don't worry though, I'll nag him until he buys it and he'll thank me for it!
Elemental just sold another copy of Civ 5!!
Had a lot of fun playing this for the past 2 days, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut i think its going to be unplayable for me until they polish it up a lot. The tactical fighting is borderline retarded and I can stomp my way through the entire game with ease. Since this didnt satisfy my video game crave like I had hoped, I used my gift card to order Civ 5
Hoping that September patch is h-e-a-v-y!
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