Jovai

Join Date 11/2010

First Post, First Stardock Title

A bit ranty...

To the Elemental Community and anyone else who wants to read my ranting, First Post -

So, I didn't really know anything about Elemental. I heard about it in passing over at CivFanatics. I am still trying to figure it out, I kind of lurked around the forums, looked at the site trying to figure out what the deal was. What the hell was Master of Magic? Conceptually it sounded really damn cool, this Elemental game. I heard it had a lot of problems, but Civ 5, honestly was boring me. I love the premise with the TBS/4x games though so I was kind of hungry for something.

After all the horror stories, and nay-saying from reviews and various posts on the forums throughout the World Wide Web, I wasn't sure it was something I wanted to burn fifty bucks on. I REALLY wanted to like the game though, I thought the ideas, on paper were fantastic! I mean my favorite genres at this point are Strategy and RPGS... mixing them together into some sort of weird hodge podge sounds like recipe for awesome.

So, I read a lot about it because this guy has a tendency to have free time on his hands. Opted to take the plunge hinging on one thing, this frogboy guy keeps posting regular updates. He's apologized about the release, Stardock is taking steps to fix this broken game. Hell, that's enough of a reason right there in my mind to make a purchase. It's pretty clear, to me, anyways, that there is an incredibly unusual commitment to turning this project into something worthwhile. So, I gave Stardock my money.

Honestly, I haven't even played a whole game yet. It's not been particularly buggy for me. I think the interface is wonky, I think with all it's customization it's pretty clear that there's a way to min/max most of it. So it probably doesn't make for much variety, yet. The art style is quirky, I think most the game is actually. I think I LOVE it. Oddly enough, just because of where I see it's going. I am definitely going the route of optimism for Elemental, it is definitely a dice roll purchase, but I'm crossing my fingers. There is NO recent game like this, that has got me excited! I just hope the guys like me that are trickling in purchases keeps the company chugging along on their project, and maybe in a few months it's going to be the game I think it's going to be. And either way, there's still enough there for me to muck around with that I'll probably get my hours of entertainment out of it. Hell, it's just a handful of movie dates for the Mrs. and I...

Best of luck to the devs!

elemental

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I think you have described most us. The premise and possibilities are truly fantastic. There is a pretty major update coming (hopefully soon). Hopefully between the update and future expansions the game is truly become what everyone is hoping for and has envisioned. As far as dedication, this was also my first Stardock purchase. So far I am pretty impressed with their communication with the community. They recently hired a new Lead Producer to focus on making Elemental great.

My eyes are bleeding from reading that you did not know what Master of Magic is and was. It is almost 20 years old and I still play it. You can find it on most of the top 100 PC game ever lists. I would have put it higher.

Here is one list http://top100.ign.com/2003/61-70.html

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As Frogboy's secret lovechild, I welcome you to the boards. The game is fun and has a lot of ideas, hopefully they will implement them better with upcoming patches and expansions.

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Come on now Lord Xia, it's not so secret.

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Quoting impinc,

reply 3

Come on now Lord Xia, it's not so secret.

its a secret to me, it means somebody's being cheated upon.

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You must play Master of Magic. It is a game where you are a Master of Magic. This entails that there is Magic there for the Mastering. Go now, and Master some Magic.

I should be in marketing. I could sell ice to Inuits in California who need to cool their drinks on a hot day.

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Hehe, my story is the same, only I got in while they were still offering first 2 expansions for free

I tried to play the campaign but after a few hours the interface and lack of polish just made me quit. Not to mention the story so far and quests are just so very uninteresting and boring while missions are easy and without risks.

As for free play I am waiting for 1.1 before I start that.

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only I got in while they were still offering first 2 expansions for free

wha? I wasn't aware this was ever going to expire. That is so they can get in the polish you mentioned to be lacking. Its a matter of principle to them to ensure their customers have a certain amount of quality.

P.S. currently (pre-1.1) 'free play' is actually a lot more polished and playable than the campaign. If you have not done that yet, you likely should.

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Quoting landisaurus,

reply 7

only I got in while they were still offering first 2 expansions for free
wha? I wasn't aware this was ever going to expire. That is so they can get in the polish you mentioned to be lacking. Its a matter of principle to them to ensure their customers have a certain amount of quality.

P.S. currently (pre-1.1) 'free play' is actually a lot more polished and playable than the campaign. If you have not done that yet, you likely should.

You still get the first expansion for free, no matter when you purchase the game. The second expansion is free to early adopters. That is a relative term, but I imagine that if the child is less than two years old when you adopt them, the condition should still be satisfied.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

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Quoting landisaurus,

reply 7

Yep, it expires.

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I've been a Stardock customer since the very first release of Galactic Civilizations. I am a big fan of turn based strategy games and there are few companies that still make them, fewer still that do them well. In fact I have virtually never bought a shrinkwrap game off of a major publisher in the last several years (and I used to buy dozens a year). This because I find most of them very heavy on graphics and golly-gee-wiz, and extremely weak on depth of game mechanics. The marketing department of these billion dollar corporations can easily market graphics, but game play is not something they can easily sell, if they even knew what that was, which of course they do not.

Stardock is in a different boat. They like the games they produce. I expect they are producing the games they are because these are the games 'they' want to play. And they support their games like no other company I have seen. Even Bethesda pales compared to the durability of support one gets from Stardock.

Don't think I am some sort of gushing fanboy. Stardock is a small company that tackles some seriously ambitious projects, and that means inevitably that some of their game features will be very rough for a while, and some things can wind up quite buggy. But there are few companies where you can be certain that those sorts of problems will actually be addressed. Stardock is one of the few you can count on.

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econundrum1

Join Date 04/2007

+36

I think the interface is wonky, I think with all it's customization it's pretty clear that there's a way to min/max most of it. So it probably doesn't make for much variety, yet. The art style is quirky, I think most the game is actually. I think I LOVE it. Oddly enough, just because of where I see it's going. I am definitely going the route of optimism for Elemental, it is definitely a dice roll purchase, but I'm crossing my fingers. There is NO recent game like this, that has got me excited! I just hope the guys like me that are trickling in purchases keeps the company chugging along on their project, and maybe in a few months it's going to be the game I think it's going to be. And either way, there's still enough there for me to muck around with that I'll probably get my hours of entertainment out of it. Hell, it's just a handful of movie dates for the Mrs. and I...

Best of luck to the devs!

I think this sums up my own feelings about Elemental pretty well. I'm looking forward to seeing what it evolves into, I see great potential. I also feel stardock is a company with a reputation for not abandoning their games after release. Which is why I have no doubts they will keep on working on it until it is a truly great game. It is a pity they had to release it in such a poor state but what's done is done, lets move forward.

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Ah, if you haven't played Sins of a Solar Empire or Galactic Civ II (complete) you're missing out!

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Quoting landisaurus,

P.S. currently (pre-1.1) 'free play' is actually a lot more polished and playable than the campaign. If you have not done that yet, you likely should.

I know it is, but I do not want to get into learning the rules since they are about to be changed. And 1.1 beta was supposed to be out almost 2 weeks ago so I just waited.. and then waited some more

Actually, if I do not find 1.1 to be good enough, I will probably go away for a few months and come back when 1st expansion is out

It is not like there are no other games to play.

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econundrum1

Join Date 04/2007

+36

GCII by the way particularly with both expansions is more addictive than crack. On more than one work night (before I got married) I've accidentally sat up all night because I couldn't stop deciding to just play one more turn.

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ElanaAhova

Join Date 09/2008

+105

Hello jovai,

Your story is similar to mine. i spent a lot of time on the civ fanatics world. Especially like Fall from heaven, and Wyre's historical mods of civ4.

And, like you, I I did search before i made the leap of faith into Elemental: War of magic. The current version 1.09e is playable, and shows such promise. And the frogboy, who is actually ** my ** secret lovechild, finally won me over with his posts, and his history of dialogs on this site.

I had heard rumors that kael might possibly be joining the EWOM team. And that has convinced me that My leap of faith will take me in a wonderful direction. I think all of us are in for a wonderful ride!

BTW, did you see the spell creation contest?

Again, welcome, enjoy, participate, and have fun.

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Quoting econundrum1,

reply 14

I've had nights like that...

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econundrum1

Join Date 04/2007

+36

Quoting ElanaAhova,

reply 15

Hello jovai,

I had heard rumors that kael might possibly be joining the EWOM team. And that has convinced me that My leap of faith will take me in a wonderful direction. I think all of us are in for a wonderful ride!

BTW, did you see the spell creation contest?

Again, welcome, enjoy, participate, and have fun.

Actually your a bit behind Kael has already joined and is in charge of patch 1.1.

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ElanaAhova

Join Date 09/2008

+105

econodrom1 wrote:

Actually your a bit behind Kael has already joined and is in charge of patch 1.1.

True, I was mixing up my tenses. "I had heard..." sorry for confusion....

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Speaking of GalCiv... Holy crap that game is hard... Like MoM was... Except MoM's difficulty was actually... Well, I dunno how to articulate it... I just get stomped on Normal in GalCiv. I can win on Beginner no sweat now, to the point where it's no longer a challenge, but jeez... I'm certain I'm just doing something wrong, but man, it's hard.

Jovai, you should consider yourself a little lucky. Guys like me who've been around since the Beta have just been waiting... And waiting... And waiting... We may take a month or three away from the game, but we've been coming back, on and off. But now, a super-short tale of how your faith is justified.

I took one of the aforementioned breaks from Elemental, shortly after its official release. The release was rather... Rocky, as you know, and it left a bad taste in many a Beta-Tester mouth, my own included. I picked the game back up again at the end of September. While the gameplay itself had not changed very much, one rather major thing had...

The game was STABLE. It was finally playable beyond turn 150 without any crashes. I'm sure the brunt of the stability fixes came before I returned to the game, but I got to see them get mostly completed. While we still deal with Out of Memory crashes, it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be. I can sit here, on a long weekend, play a game through to completion, and start one or two more before even risking OOM Errors. 1.1 will offer more Stability fixes, as well as the first major gameplay change.

If you find yourself disenamored with the game in any short amount of time, then give it a long amount of time, come back, and you'll be much happier with the state of things when you come back.

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