Fallen Enchantress at two weeks
Fallen Enchantress has now been out two weeks. So far, we’ve sold about 50,000 units (give or take). This is somewhat below Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion but, obviously, far far ahead of War of Magic during the same time frame.
The biggest obstacle has been reviews. It’s hard for niche titles (and make no mistake, fantasy turn-based PC games are niche) to get coverage. There’s only so many reviewers to go around and the last thing we want is a drive by (i.e. rushed) review.
Tomorrow or Thursday we expect to release v1.01 which has a long list of fixes and tweaks that we’ve found. Probably the most obvious change will be performance which dramatically improved.
The Map Pack
We will be releasing our first-ever DLC for a Stardock game. It’ll be an interesting experiment to see what the demand is. Paul Boyer and I have designed a series of hand crafted maps that will be going up for sale in a week or two for $4.99. If sales of this are strong, we’ll look at doing additional DLC packs. A game like Fallen Enchantress lends itself to content centric DLC and so we’re anxious to see what people are interested in.
The Expansion
We have an expansion planned for early next year. I won't spoil it except to say that it’s going to re-design the way champions are handled in the game. We want the game to generally move towards the power of your champions be a reflection of the power of your civilization.
After the expansion, Stardock will look at where things stand. We have 3 game development teams at Stardock. One is on “Game X”, One is FE related stuff, and one is on mobile game development. Since we’re not likely to get as many reviews as we’d like, we’re going to be relying heavily on word of mouth.
Version 1.1
We very much want to do a pre-Christmas update to FE. That version will be heavily AI and balance focused based on player feedback. We’ll have more details of that as we get closer. Right now, we’re focusing on getting v1.01 out the door.
+ this ..but fix the games bugs before you move on to xpacs and dlcs please. oh can we call it a new years update..since some people not mark xmas on their caladar
Also this +1, very much so. Premade maps might possibly be good, but I live for the sandbox.
BTW: New year also is different in different cultures, so let's call it an update when the earth surrounded the sun 1.5/12 from today on approximately?
I'll just give a big "ditto" to what most others have said. I don't care about static maps at all. More content, please! Monsters, champions, options for factions and sovereigns, quests, etc. etc. I'll most likely buy whatever dlcs and expansions you release as a sign of support for the franchise, as I love this game more than any other game that has come out in the past ten years. I'm anxious to see how the game develops.
If the map dlc includes new content that can appear on random maps, that would be cool.
At the moment, I'm actually most excited about the upcoming Goetia mod, as it'll add a pile of new content!
I'd purchase the DLC map pack even though I don't think it's that great of a deal (seems a little too expensive for that); I do play the hand-crafted maps and enjoy them, but even more I'd like to support you guys at Stardock.
For the expansion, my personal wishlist includes in big bold letters multiple maps in a single game. You know, something like Master of Magic where it had the 'normal' world and the 'other' plane of existence. You could use it for something like that, or an 'overworld' and an 'underdark', or even have full dungeons that you can actually move around in and explore with your champion/etc. The other thing I'd like would be new factions with new character models - things like actual little-person dwarves or whatever would be cool. Oh, and obviously an expanded tech tree and whatever other new features you can shove in there;)
Don't think I'd shell $5 for map packs. There are a lot of other things, mostly already mentioned here that I'd shell $5 for. More monsters and quests would be great - the monsters in the game get repetitive and after several play throughs, you eventually hit all the quests.
Paradoxically, I'd probably also shell out $5 if it meant that the Cartographer's table was a lot more user-friendly.
5 dollars for a map pack ... maybe throw in something else? (if sticking with 5 dollars)
Don't think I'd pay $5 just for a map pack, but I would pay $5 for a map designer - given how cramped the default maps are, I'd really like to add some that give you room to maneuver (and don't let Umberdroths hit you on turn 0).
I too lend my voice to the chorus of people saying that a map pack would be pretty meh for me, but I would almost certainly buy a DLC that expanded the selection of monsters, wildlands, quests, etc, or added factions, or things like that.
You do realise that the game already has a map designer. It's in the workshop area under cartographer...
I support DLC but $5 for a map pack in a game with a random generator and a map editor sounds expensive. Throw in a scenario and I would be all for that though!
No, we can't. Christmas is a date on the calendar, whether you celebrate it or not. You know that "pre-Christmas release date" means December 25th. Why should other people have to change how they look at the calendar to please you?
I imagine, and this is purely supposition on my part, that the people building the map pack are 1) doing it in their spare time because they enjoy it or 2) have less to do with the day to day bug squashing. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
Personally, I'm potentially interested in the map packs. The random map generator is a bit crazy, so I appreciate more realistic maps (based on the Elemental continent). Like all DLC, it's worth is determined by what's in it. I've never understood why people get so upset over DLC. If you think the content is worth the price, go nuts. If you don't, skip it. Simple.
For f*ck sake, you really want people to dislike you don't you? 'Look at me, I'm a muslim, I don't celebrate christmas, please don't mention it around me'. Even if you don't celebrate it, I doubt that there is anyone in the western world who doen't know when it is.
And no, you can't call it a new years update, because it's not the same. A christmas update is usually released just before christmas, when a lot of people have some time off, and might have some time to play the game. A new years update is usually released just after new year, when most people go back to work and have less time to play.
I remember a Stardock where they would have said, "Hey, we made some maps. Here you go."
Adding my voice to the chorus.
Happy with the idea of DLC for FE just not interested in a map pack.
Given all of the posts above if you do go ahead with the Map Pack DLC please don't judge the popularity or willingness to buy DLCs for FE on its sales.
Actually I assumed he was Jewish, but still agree with the rest of your point.
In another post it seemed he claimed both, so it's a quandary. Probably just a troll.
Back to the DLC. I haven't played the campaign yet. Just not interested in it actually. I would reallyl ike something to add more items, more monsters, new game mechanics, or new factions.
Most likely an antimuslim troll or 4chan reject.
agreed
Looks pretty unanimous
DLC = Downloadable Content
Content for FE is monsters, spells, items, & heroes.
Please avoid making the CivV mistake of releasing lots of poorly thought out DLC's with new factions! I'm much rather see a balanced* game with less content than a a big mess of lots of extra stuff
* balance: I mean, in terms of consistency. I don't mind if some factions are just plain stronger than others. That makes things interesting. But the relationship between the different factions and gameplay elements should all make sense. Rather than adding new stuff cause it's cool. .. Sins:Reb seems to suffer from this... from the couple of games I've played, and reading the forums, titans have knocked the game out of shape a bit.
Good work on the patch... I've beenwaiting for the initial bugs to get fixed before playing FE
The existing premade maps are good - if anyone hasn't tried them you should, they're noticeably better crafted than random ones. That being said they're only worth about one play through each, once you've 'discovered' it you're back to randoms - it's good content but with very limited replayability. I just don't think maps stand well on their own as something one would want to pay for; they serve better as an extra thrown into a larger DLC/mini-expansion, along with other more lasting content (say a major scenario, or anything that adds to the random map games like new quests/items/techs/etc).
It seems that SD is decided to go for a DLC map pack, so...
Why don't you first make a contest with scenarios created by the community? Get the 5 or 10 best and include them in the map pack.
Give a copy of the DLC to the winners, and this way everybody wins:
- you can get some money,
- the people get scenarios apart from the maps,
- more people might move into creating content/mods for the game
- the creators have a good incentive (not only getting a free DLC, but to appear into the official DLC as creators)
I know it is not good idea to use people creations to get money, as they are supposed to do because they want, and give it free for the community, but ...
IDK, maybe you might make a poll to find it out...
What I know, is that I'm not going not pay for a map pack that I'm not going to use, but for scenarios, may be (although I started the campaign, and left for the bugs...). But playing a short or a medium scenario can be interesting, apart from playing the random maps...
I'd like to agree with the above posters that, although I like Stardock and I like FE, a map pack is not the sort of DLC I'd buy. Think more along the lines of new scenarios or campaigns. New monsters, new spells, new sovereigns, new races would also be great.
Map packs don't require as many resources to create. You can use its sales to judge the general interest in DLC.
But Frog, would it include this map. Set to Huge. Because this map is awesome.
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