Elemental too Revolutionary?

Sammual

Join Date 09/2004

+12

Elemental too Revolutionary?

I am a huge MoM fan, a big Stardock fan, a huge Frogboy fan and I love at least 95% of the ideas they have released about what they would like to do with Elemental but I am starting to get worried.

So many ideas that take a simple TBS game component and make it complex (Cool as hell and more realistic but complex, harder for an AI to manage, and more prone to bugs and exploits). I am a programmer and have been for about 20 years. I don't work on games but from my experience every component you add doubles the complexity of all other components it interacts with. More and more I catch myself thinking ‘All I want is a balanced MoM with updated graphics’. This scares me as I am always pushing for more complex interactions in games. Why the complete 180 in my thinking? For all the advances in computer gaming I have not found a game that I have enjoyed as much as MoM. What I really want is MoM with as many of the cool ideas that you have announced as you can fit it and balance while still having a game that is fun to play. The programmer in me is getting daunted by all the things you want to add, all the complexity the interactions between them will cause, and all the balance issues I can see. It is starting to sound like it may be too complex to be fun (For a multiplayer game. I can take a LOT more complexity in a single player game then I can a multiplayer game.).

Comments anyone?

Sammual

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I think we can all agree that we'll have a more clear picture on the game once the full beta arrives. Someone may be worried the game will be too complex now, but once you play the full beta you may feel the game is too shallow. One area which has me slightly surprised was hearing the technology trees were relatively small, but being optomistic I'm thinking gamers can expand on the technology trees and other areas using the Integrated Modding Environment mentioned on the home page.

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I think we have the chance for a really cool game. And I would love to see sth completly new...

There are already a couple of ideas floating around. However, it is difficult to focus on sth specific if you don't know exactly how the game has been envisioned. We will have to wait for the beta, adapt our ideas to "reality" ( in a fantasy computer game... I should get a life... ) and go from there.

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Quoting NTJedi,

reply 1

One area which has me slightly surprised was hearing the technology trees were relatively small, but being optomistic I'm thinking gamers can expand on the technology trees and other areas using the Integrated Modding Environment mentioned on the home page.

They told us that the tech trees will be relatively small, but also very unconventional. Instead of "Iron Swords" requiring 100 research points to complete, the devs have said that research into each technology will be (at least somewhat) continuous. You don't research a technology and just move on - you can continue researching the same technology, constantly improving it. I'm hoping you can do so forever, meaning research never becomes obsolete. So even though there will be relatively few technologies, you can do much more with each one than usual.

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