Tarkhan
King
Thats the sort of thing that makes me buy Stardock's stuff. They are HONEST with their customers, and don't just get their marketing department to sugar coat anything that gives them bad press.
Elemental War of Magic
- Thread starter delijoe
- Start date
Thats the sort of thing that makes me buy Stardock's stuff. They are HONEST with their customers, and don't just get their marketing department to sugar coat anything that gives them bad press.
warpstorm
Yumbo? Yumbo!
Honesty or spin?
The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made.
The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made.
I wondered too for a second. Well if it's spin, I'd rather have this spin than the faceless, cold and exagerated-hype spin of the big players.
Akka
Moody old mage.
If it's a spin, it's spinned into their game and business decision, because there is still no DRM in Elemental, and there is still a truckload of patches coming down, and GalCiv2 has been supported for years without a cent to be paid.
A spin like that just look a bit too much like the real deal to have any difference in the end.
A spin like that just look a bit too much like the real deal to have any difference in the end.
DirtyFinger
Prince
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2008
- Messages
- 369
best wait until the sales price matches it's gamplay worth.
5 one year from now.
5 one year from now.
Maniacal
the green Napoleon
Version 1.09 is apparently out.
I haven't actually played yet, just familiarized myself with the menus and all. Gotta say, never seen so stylish and eye-friendly interface and menus, looks so good. Character creation also seems interesting, better than any actual RPG I've played, but I haven't played that many. I believe Stardock can fix this game up, what ever shortcomings it may have. These RPG 4X's are so rare, that I can't quite pass it up for that reason alone. I'll see soon though, if the game turns out to be complete disaster.
Psyringe
Scout
Odd. To me, the graphics look totally bland. They made me wish for well done 2d graphics (e.g. Homm3) instead of blurred 3d graphics with washed-out textures, and characters with wooden animations (the shopkeeper for example). I also found the UI pretty horrible because it hides information when you need it and doesn't give the player the tools needed to manage an empire (though supposedly patch 1.09 added a city list, which would be a huge step forward).
But I do think that Stardock has the potential to fix this game, it just won't be easy.
Much sooner in my opinion. The improvement from 1.00 to 1.09 is amazing, and in just a few weeks time.
I don't need to have faith and believe this game will be great. I am seeing with each new patch that the game is growing fast and becoming a classic.
Well, I only said that menus and interface are stylish and eye-friendly.
They are very clear and polished looking. Color is used well and buttons make fun sounds. Font is also very good. There's not too much of anything, stylistic simplicity. But I do quite like the art style and animations, even if bit clunky. For 3D graphics very clear. I played a bit today and I find that this game has such enormous potential. There's a lot of stuff that is well designed and quite polished, but need bit more polish. Game balance is off and some technical problems exists, but those don't require nearly as much work. I don't quite understand why Elemental got so bad reception. I don't find this to be in any worse shape than latest Civ, and at least Elemental feels compelling. I haven't really played Elemental enough yet to say this, though. The research system seems interesting and I got into tactical combat few times, which I didn't even know to exist in this game. Very pleasant surprise, but it all depends on exactly how well it's designed, and that's quite hard to say for at this point.City list indeed seems to be in the game. I agree, that perhaps the UI isn't that accessible.
Psyringe
Scout
Okay, if we take usability out of the equation and talk solely about the UI's style and use of colors, then I'll agree.Well, I only said that menus and interface are stylish and eye-friendly.
The game you're playing already went through several patches. At release, about 30% of people were unable to even run the game (Brad's own estimation). The people that could play noticed lots of problems: The AI kept suiciding itself by sending its leaders on skirmishes into your territory, tactical AI was non-existent (its battle plan consists of "fire ranged weapons or cast spells if you can, otherwise run to the enemy in a straight line and attack him" - there is no look-ahead, no move evaluation, no recognition of danger, and some things the AI does are simply braindead, like repeatedly casting paralyze spells on the one unit that's paralyzed already), the spells available were too similar (no distinct "character" of each element), most monster units only differed from another in which absurdly huge offense value they had exactly (instead of giving them different abilities to make battles interesting), and the clunky and unintuitive UI made playing the game a chore rather than a joy. While there definitely are parallels to Civ5, I think Elemental did deserve the criticism. It's rather that Civ5 apparently had way too lenient reviewers.
But that's no news. Game reviewers have become an extension of the publisher's marketing department, 99% of games reviews aren't even worth reading. From time to time, one of the titles with a not-extremely-high profile (preferably one from an independent publisher who doesn't pay ads for the site or magazine) gets bashed to maintain the illusion of a balanced reviewing process, and in case of Elemental, some dogpiling happened. But as I said, imho Elemental's bad reviews were justified - it's the difference to the glowing Civ5 reviews that's so disconcerting.
Ah... yeah, I don't know anything about the first days of Elemental, I may understand the bad reception better now. I mainly meant the actual players and not the reviewers though, I haven't read any Elemental reviews and only read Tom Chick's Civ 5 review.
I have the advantage of not expecting anything from the game, in fact expecting it to be quite bad, bought it just because there aren't similar games other than MoM (maybe AoW?). So the game's very pleasant surprise from what I've seen so fars. For Civ 5 I had high expectations and almost pre-ordered it and I don't really ever pre-order. Now I don't want to play the game. I think it's partly because of the high expectations, but a lot of is due to the actual problems of the game. Also the rebel me wants to play games of smaller companies and shun the big titles.
Despite this, I really think Elemental has great potential. All the problems are about tweaking, polishing and expanding current features, like adding new spells, I feel. Nothing seems to so big problem, that it would require too much time to fix in reasonable time frame and with their resources. Perhaps the AI is the biggest challenge.
I have the advantage of not expecting anything from the game, in fact expecting it to be quite bad, bought it just because there aren't similar games other than MoM (maybe AoW?). So the game's very pleasant surprise from what I've seen so fars. For Civ 5 I had high expectations and almost pre-ordered it and I don't really ever pre-order. Now I don't want to play the game. I think it's partly because of the high expectations, but a lot of is due to the actual problems of the game. Also the rebel me wants to play games of smaller companies and shun the big titles.
Despite this, I really think Elemental has great potential. All the problems are about tweaking, polishing and expanding current features, like adding new spells, I feel. Nothing seems to so big problem, that it would require too much time to fix in reasonable time frame and with their resources. Perhaps the AI is the biggest challenge.
MajKira
King
it could be a very enjoyable game for mee but bugged out already at full speed
Im feeling disgusted
I like the game mechanic very much but was not able to fullplay becauz of buggin out
Im feeling disgusted
I like the game mechanic very much but was not able to fullplay becauz of buggin out
DirtyFinger
Prince
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2008
- Messages
- 369
yeah, well, but the less any game actually does right, the more potential it has.
in the case of elemental the potential is gigantic because they
ed up about anything about it.
MajKira
King
but like empire total war too much buggin out of intrest
what if they never to manage it full gaming (etw stll caused ctd after latest and last patch, since startin on napoleon not supported anymore and it took long for making 6 patches for etw
you could jus forget elemental war of magg
what if they never to manage it full gaming (etw stll caused ctd after latest and last patch, since startin on napoleon not supported anymore and it took long for making 6 patches for etw
you could jus forget elemental war of magg
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