Reply With QuoteMitigating circumstances.Originally Posted by Richard Holt
Depends on the map size. The bigger ones will get a lot more. The smaller ones already have a lot.
Originally, (pre-beta 1) we randomly generated the land masses as well as the map itself and the maps just weren't balanced or "fantasy" at all not to mention you could end up with players stuck on relatively small land masses and such.
So that was when the seed land masses were made to be used to create the random maps with.
In the long term, a better solution is the stamp feature. That is, we create "pieces" of maps that we are happy with and then let the game put them together.
Anyway, the hostility in this thread exceeds my own tolerance for putting up with said hostility (Frank and Matt and their ilk are not worth my time).
Also, to anyone, like you Ben, saying the game is like an "early beta" then well, please stay away from our games in the future. I consider it ready for release and if others disagree, don't buy our games.
Mitigating circumstances.
REALLY high expectations, I'd gather.
I'll definitely get it as soon as the OS/2 Warp version is ready!
But seriously, yeah, this thread has taken a rather bitter turn. I'm anxious to check out the game. While it's disappointing to see this level of complaints, I think Stardock's track record indicates that, even with the issues, it will certainly see superb support, follow-up, and incorporation of user feedback.
aka, if you don't like the game, go fuck yourself.
Yes, but the prices of everything else haven't.
Let's not go down that route
Next you'll start talking about your underground lair and your superhuman abilities :))
What is your role here?
Well then.
Damnit, that's what I get for posting on my IPad. I should have said it will fix SOME issues, which is what I said the first time. Some issues probably will never be fixed because Brad won't see them as issues. Generic spells for example. That's pretty subjective. Some issues may not get fixed because it would take too much work to fix them.
So he's promised a day 0 fix. I will wait to judge it then. I'm having fun but I have fun with games that other people love to crap on, so that's not surprising.
Thanks for the info... and the thread napalm. This should get interesting, haha. More seeds for the large maps is great, though, that's what I primarily play on. Hope you get the "stamping" feature you mention in soon, that'd do a lot for replayability for me.
That's true, $50 today is worth the same as a little less than $60 in 2003. I guess it depends on what you consider "far more".
I'll see what the Day 0 patch brings, although the cut features are already making me a sad panda. But the truth is, Brad, I went from being a "Stardock = guaranteed purchase" to "wait till it's released, matured, patched, and expanded, and pick it up on the cheap" guy.
I'm a little angry because of the number of betas I've been in for MMOs where companies have ended up releasing unfinished products and charged a lot of money for them. This shit will kill the games industry.
Realtime Worlds should be a goddamn warning, not a path to follow.
All that's missing is a *plonk* and you could be Derek Smart.
The claim that there is "no tutorial", it is not accurate. Jannusk, who is an adventurer you pick up within one turn of starting the game, does provide hints on what you should be doing next and on things in the interface you might not notice. I've only played random games, but he also shows up in the campaign (although I don't know what types of hints he gives there).
I wouldn't claim the tutorial is particularly well done, but it is there, AFAICT is roughly comparable to what is available in other games.
Don't be a jackass.
It's actually a pretty usual thought / dialogue between player and indie devs (or at least not big companies) devs. I have seen it an amount of times.
User A points lack of features / mediocre graphics / lack of polish in X game.
Game developer B being honest explains, in nice and good terms (the poor sob), that his company is small and they don't have the same budget as other big companies, so their games can't have features 1,2,3 and well, the graphics are just serviceable. And future patches will fix the bugs!
User A asks "so... then why you ask for the same price (50$) as the big companies, if you offer less thanks to the smaller budget?"
Game developer B usually doesn't answer the question.
You can't ask him not to be himself.
What "ilk" is that, exactly? Paying customers who helped fund your development?
I think you do a disservice to your other games. I'm a longtime fan of Stardock's stuff, and while I know that you guys do a lot to improve your games over time, every one of your past releases have been in much better shape than Elemental on Day 1 (or day 0, I guess).
I've not played anywhere near enough of the release to make a judgement on this game. And I'm not going to judge it based on the beta.
But there's people making criticisms of this game which I just don't think are true. It does not feel like a beta, it does have a tutorial, it does have a decent selection of maps, etc. Okay, there seems to be a few problems with it, but nothing show stopping for me so far.
And Brad's right about one thing, if this isn't the game for you then it's not the game for you. But at least judge it based on the game Stardock have made, not the one a few irritating trolls in this thread have invented.
Loving the game, but there are things that annoy me, like what is the deal with building on the resources? Why does the city always build them last and not in order? I wish it would tell me that the farm that is key to a city's growth will be built after the 5 other buildings I queued up.
I recognize that Stardock may not have the resources to produce a game that's as polished as Civ 4. I'd expect one that's at least as polished as Armageddon Empires or Solium Infernum, however.
(Since I don't have Elemental and have no intention of buying it, this should not be taken as a comment on the actual level of polish in the game.)
I do think that anyone who preorders a Stardock game is being foolish, however--I really don't approve of preorders that can't be canceled. (Yes, I realize that what they're really doing is selling access to the betas. I don't approve of that, either--nobody should ever pay to be a beta tester.)
To defend Stardock on one point, though, there's absolutely nothing wrong with a non-AAA game costing $60.
They offer the game at $50 because people will pay it, not because of the time and money put into it. There is no labor theory of value for games.
Subjective, but a fair number of people disagree with you.
No, it has a campaign that does a terrible job of explaining game concepts to you, and a worthless manual.it does have a tutorial
Not really a fair appraisal of the argument, is it?it does have a decent selection of maps
The longest posts with the largest number of criticisms on this thread have been made by guys who know what they're talking about. Jason, Ben, and co are no more trolls than Tyjenks is.And Brad's right about one thing, if this isn't the game for you then it's not the game for you. But at least judge it based on the game Stardock have made, not the one a few irritating trolls in this thread have invented.
im enjoying the game a lot. i havent been following the game much, so alot of elemental came as a surprise to me. like...
- the main menu UI is very cool. i like the how theres chat/friends list/achievement/maps and mod all straight from start.
- i like the army design in the game. i like how you can make the card art for your units... it really does add alot of 'personal' investment that most 4x games don't even consider. heroic units are where the game has personality.
- the 2d world map is really nice. gives a good macro overview of the game situation. not even Civ IV does this as well.
- i like the miniature look of the 2d map pieces... i dont even go into 3d much because of this.
- i like the random and seemingly luck aspects of some of the adventure/quest game parts. puts more investment in stack party management
- also like the strong monster spawns in mid late game, gives a sense of wilderness that most x4 games dont have. it really lends itself well to fantasy.
yeh i know about the issues with the game and it could be so much better, but the game iis far better than the complaints ive been reading here. and i really am enjoying it alot!
Hey, you've already been told once. Shut your mouth and stop buying Stardock games.
I'll be getting Elemental simply because it seems there's a dearth of ambitious TBS games these days. Good ones, sure, but most seem to keep fairly simple, probably to avoid all these various complications and angry rants. When my money goes toward Stardock, it's to support projects like this, not the bugs, and I have no regrets. I can't think of many other current projects or recent releases like Elemental. They're not flooding the market. So I would rather have a buggy Elemental than none at all. Although I agree, the post release patching seems to be getting a little out of hand, but not just with Stardock. If I remember right, I couldn't even play GTA4 online at release until a patch.
The answer is because the indie is typically designing a game for a much smaller demographic, and needs to charge the same amount to compensate for sales numbers that are going to be a lot lower no matter how polished and well produced the game might be. Or to put it another way: the big companies don't make AAA turn-based strategy games any more because there is no money to be made in AAA turn-based strategy games. There is potentially money to be made in turn-based strategy games with fewer "A"s, though.
I don't have a problem with smaller devs charging similar prices to what the big guys charge when they make a game in Ben's Favorite Niche Genre X, because I know the most likely alternative is to have NO games in Ben's Favorite Niche Genre X. So price is not a complaint that I'd level at Elemental.
Yeah, that's why i was thinking already. Don't buy your games.
I trusted in Stardock because one game. Because i liked Gal Civ 2 a lot.
And i loved MoM even more so i thought GalCiv 2 + MoM = success! And also i read some comments where it was clear you recieved the correct feedback about the problems with GalCiv 2 so they won't be repeated. That, and their position with pc gaming and drm.
But looking back, that was a too weak reasoning. It was only a single game (1) that i liked, so it wasn't like they were a established developer, a "tried and tested" game developer with 4-5 games on their backs, all of them with positive feedback from me. A single game isn't enough proof, statically speaking.
I still think Elemental will be a decent 4X game, with 2-3 patches. But that's it, a decent game.
Last edited by TurinTur; 08-23-2010 at 12:30 PM.
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