Thanks for the kind words.

We have a LOT to do between now and release but it's starting to get there.

agreed, its unusual for someone to say a beta is actually fun (since all the crashing issues that usually occur) but the fact is, this game is awesome and i know we haven't even come close to the full potential of this game yet so i will be excited for the weeks to come with beta updates.

As I had mentioned "One of the top" selling games...not the top !

I had alot more fun with the 3b built. I enjoyed the new building rules (though i dont know how to get food), and good to see the combat is descent and i know will get better.

Ah, yes.  MoM.

A great game like MoM will always have legs.  It is hard to imagine that anything will boot MoM off my HD, no matter how good it is.  I will always have a periodic urge for retro-gaming that no modern game will sate.  So, I'm not sure the measure of success of Elemental needs to be the "dethroning" of MoM. 

While I think MoM is more-than-great, MoM is far from being the "perfect game."  MoM was actually almost unplayable up until v1.31, and there are still myriad balance issues that you could practically drive a truck through.  Further, MoM's AI is so lame as to be laughable.  I'm sure that Elemental will launch as a far more balanced and polished game than MoM ever was.  And, if Brad lives up to the AI skill we know he has, the computer players will make the solo experience more immersive.  (The open beta process is something that MoM did not have and would have greatly benefitted from.)

Those things said, the thing that made MoM more-than-great was that there was always something to do and something interesting popping up at all stages of the game.  About halfway through any particular MoM game, I've already won.  My steamroller is fully in effect.  But, I keep playing because there are still cool heroes to recruit, artifacts to find and create, spell books to win, mercenaries to hire, nodes to conquer.  And, at each point, the game can still surprise me with something I haven't seen in a long time.  That's what keeps me coming back.  If Elemental can bring that same quality to the game, it will be more than successful. 

Insane variety is a killer feature, and (hopefully) Elemental will have it in spades, even before the modding community gets its crack at it. 

Frogboy,

the game looks great and most elements play very well already.   It looks like it has the makings of a classic when its released.  Then just think about what will happen over time.............

A lot of people will follow this game for a long time.  You and your team are doing a great job - very creative and responsive. 

I don't think this game will be the best selling in all time, because let's be honest brainless cookie cutter games like GTA and Call of Duty sell to the masses. However, I think what we have here is a significant evolution, if not revolution, in RTS sandbox games. The Civ games, while good, have remained kind of stagnant. Civ 4 was great, but didn't offer much to the table except for its modability. Civ 5 will be adding some significant changes to the Civ game style, but nothing significant to the RTS genre as a whole (IMO).

Elemental on the other hand, seems to be taking a whole new direction, or at least one not seen since MOM. Even with most systems barely being in for testing, I can already see at least a glimpse of what the Stardock team can mold this game into by gold. One of the reasons I have so much faith in Stardock is they've always been able to push the envelope in directions other companies wouldn't even dare, and they always succeed in exceeding my expectations.

Since this game is a thinking man's game I don't expect it to attract quite the massive audience games like CoD bring in. However, I think Elemental has a big potential niche of DnD fans, Ultima fans, MoM fans, etc that haven't had a game like this for years. These people will probably love the fact that there is a novel written just on the background lore being published by a big name publisher.

This potential niche will also love the fact that this game is very moddable. One of the reasons Never Winter Nights got so big was because DnD and RPG fans could tell their own stories with the game editor. I imagine the same kind of thing is going to be possible with Stardock's tools.

/rant

I just hope everyone remembers how long it took GC2 to get where it is today. Out of the box it was no fantastic game to rave about. It took many many patches and two expansions and patches upon those expansions to get it to the classic it is today.

So, don't go expecting Elemental to be GC2 finished product....I certainly don't. I just expect Brad et al to continue to work hard on improving it over time and give us all the game we hope it will BECOME. Of course my main concern will always be the challenge and intelligence of the ai. I don't care about Multiplayer or balance (to a point) or all that bs. Just a great challenging with aggressive ai solo single player experience with some decent strategy and tactics required to win is all I could ask for.

Exactly. Elemental needs to be All That It Can Be from Day One. Not six months after release when all the buzz is gone. GC 2 is a Prime Example. See reply below.

P.S. YouTube Elemental Teaser Trailer HERE.

Imagine how many sales would have been generated from GC 2 at Launch if it would of had the improvements of GC 2 with only the first expansion. I dare say it would have been hailed as The successor to classics such as MoO and MoO2 and considered to be one of the Best Space Strategy games of ALL Time. Sadly though GC 2 didn't have that and in my opinion it should have achieved That same level of success.

If you want to see an example of a bunch of other "Evolving Games" that are Flopping all over the place, just look at all the MMO's that have launched in the last few years and are floundering now. How many of them were heralded pre-launch as being "WoW killers" and post launch turned into a steaming pile of poo? Granted Elemental is no MMO, but the "Evolving Game" process might as well be the same.

I don't think I've ever seen a game on the market that got as much or more press and sales from an Expansion as it did at Initial Launch, Ever, with the only exceptions being UO and WoW which are both MMO's and had a steady growth of players from launch. The only reason those two games were able to beat the odds and bring in more with expansions than they did at launch is because they are MMO's. No other game genre has been able to do it, not even the best FPS shooters out there. I can't think of One that got more sales from solely an expansion than it did from launch, not even CounterStrike.

The number one things that need to be done are to make sure Elemental is a Fun and Balanced game At Launch and doesn't have any game breaking ways that game-play can be abused or cheated. Everything after that is just icing on the cake. Expansions, Mods, Patches, Free Content...Icing on the cake. That icing will keep the Elemental loyal happy and keep us around, that's a definite. But will it bring in just as many new players with the launch of a expansion? Will it get the same level of press and new customers? Doubtful, very doubtful.

As I said, all Frogboy and the Team really have to do is put together a Fun, Stable, and Balanced game. I have %100 faith and confidence in them that they can do it. We've seen Stardock do it time and time again always with varying degrees of success. I'd also say that Stardock is even more widely known and loved now than they were when GC 2 launched. When Stardock puts out a new strategy game strategy fans take notice and pay attention. Right now they are poised and on the brink of making a Very Huge splash in the strategy gaming market and I think that after Elemental we're going to see a flood of new fantasy/strategy games hitting the market because Stardock is going to prove with Elemental that there is a massive market out there for it if the game is top quality.

All I got to say at this point is....Go Stardock, Go

The first part is certainly true.

The second?  Since when is GC2 considered a classic by anyone?

I would be incredibly disappointed and thoroughly upset if EWoM is anything remotely like the tedium fest GC2 is.  Indeed I'd feel better if no one ever talked about any similarities between the two, other than that they are both SD games, because really, that's how much I've come to dislike GC2, and I know I'm not alone.  Well maybe on these forums I am

This year in computer gaming seems to be nothing more than release of the clones and expansion packs, this is one of the few original games  this year, the only other one I can think of is Distant Worlds.

My issues with GalCiv are well known so I won't go into it other than to say that I'd love the opportunity to go back to the drawing board. With GalCiv II, I felt pretty married to some pretty awful game mechanics because people threw a fit whenever we tried to change them.

I think Elemental will allow us to explore some really interesting game mechanics and to be frank, if we (us and the community) don't like an Elemental game mechanic, it's subject to change.

For example, I'm still not loving the magic system in Elemental and I know I'm not alone.

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="23" id="2691768"]

I think Elemental will allow us to explore some really interesting game mechanics and to be frank, if we (us and the community) don't like an Elemental game mechanic, it's subject to change.

For example, I'm still not loving the magic system in Elemental and I know I'm not alone.[/quote]

I fully agree with Brad about important game mechanic changes. I find whenever I'm building some core template for an idea, be it a photoshop template for Power Cards for D&D 4e, or ironically macros for those very same powers in Maptools. And pretty much everything else with an idea that I have.

I start with a base idea, and then find a new way to enhance it that's just so much better, and then I find something else that makes it better, or faster, and easier to use. Or more aesthetically pleasing. You find yourself going back and forth on an idea, and making it permanent. So this makes me happy about the freedom to fix elementals game mechanics.

As I agree the Magic system.. is a bit lackluster. And just doesn't ... feel right yet. But that'll get fixed, and then we'll all look back on it and Go... oh yeah.. remember when the magic system was like that? Haaaraaable! Or Tactical Battles being so uninspired and leeching of fun that, many people were doing the sad dance.. and now.. it's SO much fun! etcetera.

(Note: Indicators of past or future hypothetical tenses and probabilities are not governed by this time stream and as such may include demonstrably false information or be not so completely accurate.)