Explaining what Elemental is to people

from JoeUser Forums
Elemental_1274384621

During the past couple weeks of heavy *playing* Elemental (as opposed to just coding) I’ve come to the conclusion that Elemental is very different than any strategy game I’ve played before.  It’s different in a very very good way. But that is going to be a challenge for “marketing”.

The Technical Game play Difference

In my view, Elemental is simply the natural evolution of PC strategy gaming IF PC games were being made explicitly for the PC still as opposed to cross platform.  Nearly every new title that comes out these days either is made to be cross platform (i.e. for consoles) or it’s using a licensed engine (that is cross platform).

Being a PC-exclusive game with a PC-exclusive engine means that we can assume that we have at least 1 gigabyte of memory to play with  (the Xbox 360 tops out at 512MB and it has to share that with video textures). 

So for this discussion, toss out the debates on the latest video cards versus what’s on a console and all that. Let’s consider the ramifications of having a gigabyte of memory to play with.  What does that mean in terms of GAME PLAY?

  1. It means that I can have lots of unique looking units. This matters because the player, at a glance, can distinguish one unit from another.
  2. It means I can upgrade units in game and have them visually look different. This matters again because, players need to be able to see that this unit is different from that unit without having to click on something.
  3. It means you can have a much wider range of creatures in the game.  Think about that for a moment. Consider any recent games you’ve played. How many different types of creatures were there in it? Even in an RPG. How many?  Not many right? That’s because it requires a lot of memory to juggle lots of different creatures. 
  4. It means you can have a lot of different types of buildings that are visually different.  How many times in recent years have you played an RPG and entered a building or dungeon that was identical in nearly every way to every other dungeon or Inn or whatever? Why was that? Were they lazy? Was it budget? No. That’s not the question. The question was, was that game ALSO available for a console? Yes. It was memory.

BTW, none of this should be considered console bashing. I love my Xbox 360. It’s wonderful for many types of games. But you could not make Elemental for it. Even if you had a $20 million budget you couldn’t make Elemental for the console. It’s not technically possible on the current generation of consoles. 

If I made a game that required a touch screen, that wouldn’t make the iPad a better gaming platform than the console or PC. It just means that particularly game really needed a touch screen.  Elemental requires a PC because of its inherent design. That might change some day but not right now.

The effect on strategy games

In every 4X game I’ve played, the start is pretty much the same. You start building cities/colonies/whatever, harvest resources, build stuff, then exterminate stuff to get more resources and repeat as you explore and expand out. (4X).

Elemental is a fantasy strategy game. In it, you’re in that D&D world you and your friends used to play in. You’re in the land of the Elder Scrolls. You’re playing in Britania, Middle Earth, etc.  But with ONE big difference: You’re not an adventurer anymore.  You’re the King (or queen).  Your attitude towards adventurers (who are IN Elemental btw) may change forever once you see them accidentally unleash a greater demon to rampage across the land.

Now, as a hook (the marketing guys love “hooks”), this is cool but it’s meaningless without players feeling like they’re playing in an RPG world. An RPG world is not simply generic strategy game X with magical units. It should feel like a fantasy RPG world.

At the start of Elemental, like the start of any great RPG (imo) it’s about YOU. Not some abstract kingdom but you are in the game. Beta testers know this.  What beta testers haven’t got to see yet is the importance of recruiting, especially early on, people (i.e. individuals) who have their own backgrounds and histories and most importantly, skills.

Similarly, players have quests they can go on, can get married, have children, arrange marriages, etc.  Now, in an RPG, this is not unheard of.  In Fable, my character got married, had children.  The difference here is that these children will grow up and be able to lead armies or go on adventures on their own.

NOT innovation, just the logical evolution of strategy games

Being able to have a rich fantasy kingdom (or empire) with interesting unique characters, armies, dragons, economics, diplomacy, quests, etc. isn’t some “new” idea. This is where PC strategy games were already heading to or would have if “cross platform” design hadn’t started coming into play.

Starting in Beta 2, beta testers will begin to help us mold the game towards its public release and then, over the next year, two, or three, let is continue to evolve as new concepts and ideas are considered.

251,575 views 152 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Try telling this lesson to a friend :) I was expecting a few phrases to tell my wife why I am wasting all this time on this forum :)

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

By the way - I love the sound of this. I want creature lairs to be alive and developing, I want mercenaries, I want heroes to found cities :)

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Hmm, they didn't cover dragons in medieval economics. Dammit.

PS:  So we're finally the guys who are giggling at adventurers as we hand them Wooden Longswords of Suck+1 and point them at the Menace to Global Civilization? Man, we suck.  At least theres always more adventurers.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

If any game had written on the back of the box: NOT A CONSOLE PORT it would vastly increase my buying chances :)

It's not just for PCs. PS3 games that arent Xbox ports tend to be better too.

I think people understand that games built specifically with its platform in mind tend to be better because of it, and its definitely worth making sure they know this is the case.

 

 

 

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I think what's critical to making the game feel alive from the beginning is to make a world that persists, grows, and evolves irrelevant of whether the player is in the game or not.  At the beginning, the player should only feel as though they can make a very small difference in the world and as they grow more powerful, find themselves acting upon smaller forces in weightier ways.

So what do I think this living world will need?  Well, first off the current prestige/population system is completely dead.  I think you need to see the remnant survivors of civilizations scattered throughout the landscape searching for food, battling monsters for their lives, and in general eeking out a living.  Right now, they are a complete, lifeless abstraction.  If I recall, Brad mentioned that there will be upwards of 64 opponents.  If this is the case, fill up all of those slots early game with remnant bands.   

Essentially, make them the equivalent of a neutral monster band with a rudimentary AI.  Getting people to come to your city would be a matter of confronting these bands of survivors and coaxing them, bribing them, or conquering them.  If your prestige is high enough in a city, you would actually see some of the survivors march to your city and request to join your kingdom.  Fail to court them fast enough and you might see some of these bands get cut down by roving monsters.

Also, to make a living world means to give all of those monsters and dungeons a purpose.  And I don't just mean background information.  Give dungeons and monsters rudimentary motives.  If a tribe of trolls are living in a dungeon, give them a rudimentary AI and have them react to their surroundings.  Have them overpopulate a region, begin to starve, and spill over into a neighboring kingdom in search for food.  Have a dungeon with banshees and phantoms who are attracted to particular stimulus like, say, city's with happy citizens.  Have those banshees and phantoms attack and cart away civilians and make the dungeon in which they inhabit grow and become ever more terrifying as their numbers swell.

Right now, I've seen Brad talk a whole lot about making a living world, but so far I really just haven't seen any description of how he will do it.  We'll see.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

During Beta 1 the game hasn't felt remotely like what you described there. You're putting a lot of expectations to Beta 2 now. :)

The concept is spot on though, the game you describe in this post sounds wonderful. In the betas so far however it has felt exactly like the 'generic build cities and grow an empire' game you described. Fingers crossed.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Demiansky, reply 5
I think what's critical to making the game feel alive from the beginning is to make a world that persists, grows, and evolves irrelevant of whether the player is in the game or not.  At the beginning, the player should only feel as though they can make a very small difference in the world.

So what do I think this living world will need?  Well, first off the current prestige/population system is completely dead.  I think you need to see the remnant survivors of civilizations scattered throughout the landscape searching for food, battling monsters for their lives, and in general eeking out a living.  Right now, they are a complete, lifeless abstraction.  If I recall, Brad mentioned that there will be upwards of 64 opponents.  If this is the case, fill up all of those slots early game with remnant bands.   

Essentially, make them the equivalent of a neutral monster band with a rudimentary AI.  Getting people to come to your city would be a matter of confronting these bands of survivors and coaxing them, bribing them, or conquering them.  If your prestige is high enough in a city, you would actually see some of the survivors march to your city and request to join your kingdom.  Fail to court them fast enough and you might see some of these bands get cut down by roving monsters.

Also, to make a living world means to give all of those monsters and dungeons a purpose.  And I don't just mean background information.  Give dungeons and monsters rudimentary motives.  If a tribe of trolls are living in a dungeon, give them a rudimentary AI and have them react to their surroundings.  Have them overpopulate a region, begin to starve, and spill over into a neighboring kingdom in search for food.  Have a dungeon with banshees and phantoms who are attracted to particular stimulus like, say, city's with happy citizens.  Have those banshees and phantoms attack and cart away civilians and make the dungeon in which they inhabit grow and become ever more terrifying as their numbers swell.

Well said! :thumbsup:

Additional notes: Random events. Having a wide variety of random events [not only quest/natural disaster related events!] would help making the game world feel alive as well.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

you arnt supposed to judge beta 1 ^_^

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

NOT innovation, just the logical evolution of strategy games

Honestly, I'd have to disagree here.  Even the "logical evolution" is still venturing into new territory and trying new things.  That is innovation.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Sir_Linque, reply 6
During Beta 1 the game hasn't felt remotely like what you described there.

Really? Now I wish someone had mentioned at some point that beta 1 wasn't supposed to be fun.  :|

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 10

Really? Now I wish someone had mentioned at some point that beta 1 wasn't supposed to be fun. 

 

Its just human nature Brad... Try not to let it bother you.

 

Quite frankly I'd be surprised if Beta 1 felt like anything at all... Being basically an "Alpha" as it was.

We did have plenty of warning that Beta 1 shouldn't be played to have a good time. It should be played to try and help in the creative process and make the best game possible.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

I am really glad that elemental took this way. I for one love TBS and especialy fantasy one. It has been so long, since we have got decent TB fantasy game.

All this what I have read, made me really smile and so excited for release. I for one hope, that you will continue to develop and expand elemental world for few years with expansion and modders tools, so this game will get old very slow.

It would be really great, if you provided more and more tools for moders and also implement some of the best stuff which is going to be out there into official releases. I think out there are really great people with fresh ideas, stories etc...

Also, I would like to thank all of you at stardock that you have choosed this way and making games with love and interest in gaming and not only money.

 

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Sir_Linque, reply 6
During Beta 1 the game hasn't felt remotely like what you described there. You're putting a lot of expectations to Beta 2 now.

The concept is spot on though, the game you describe in this post sounds wonderful. In the betas so far however it has felt exactly like the 'generic build cities and grow an empire' game you described. Fingers crossed.

In all fairness, even in the very first version of Beta 1, Elemental was one step away from "generic city/empire builder" - you started not with a generic city or settler unit, but a customized sovereign who's essentially an RPG character on his own.

Granted the sovereign serves the same purpose as a settler or a scout in Civilization, on his own the sovereign doesn't alter gameplay that much from your standard empire-builder - but it's an important first step, hopefully the first of many RPG-like additions to the strategy game formula.

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Elemental is a fantasy strategy game. In it, you’re in that D&D world you and your friends used to play in. You’re in the land of the Elder Scrolls. You’re playing in Britania, Middle Earth, etc.  But with ONE big difference: You’re not an adventurer anymore.  You’re the King (or queen).  Your attitude towards adventurers (who are IN Elemental btw) may change forever once you see them accidentally unleash a greater demon to rampage across the land.

I, for one, believe the above statement from Frogboy is more than sufficient evidence that Elemental will approach, if not achieve, what Demiansky suggests.  Comparing one's game to such classics as Dungeons & Dragons, Bethesda Softwork's Elder Scrolls series, Tolkein, etc. is lofty indeed; however Brad&Co. don't seem to be the "hype type."  Just check the MetaCritic Scores of the games they've been directly involved with.

 

Reply #15 from Demigod Forums Top

Wow, this intrigues me. I'm looking forward to it!

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 10



Quoting Sir_Linque,
reply 6
During Beta 1 the game hasn't felt remotely like what you described there.


Really? Now I wish someone had mentioned at some point that beta 1 wasn't supposed to be fun. 

I tried to stifle the ROFL, and my head almost 'sploded...XD

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

Thanks for creating this developer journal... it can be used as a point of reference for all those future postings when the console lovers show up asking for a PS3 version or Wii version.

Reply #18 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Demiansky, reply 5
I think what's critical to making the game feel alive from the beginning is to make a world that persists, grows, and evolves irrelevant of whether the player is in the game or not.  At the beginning, the player should only feel as though they can make a very small difference in the world and as they grow more powerful, find themselves acting upon smaller forces in weightier ways.

So what do I think this living world will need?  Well, first off the current prestige/population system is completely dead.  I think you need to see the remnant survivors of civilizations scattered throughout the landscape searching for food, battling monsters for their lives, and in general eeking out a living.  Right now, they are a complete, lifeless abstraction.  If I recall, Brad mentioned that there will be upwards of 64 opponents.  If this is the case, fill up all of those slots early game with remnant bands.   

Essentially, make them the equivalent of a neutral monster band with a rudimentary AI.  Getting people to come to your city would be a matter of confronting these bands of survivors and coaxing them, bribing them, or conquering them.  If your prestige is high enough in a city, you would actually see some of the survivors march to your city and request to join your kingdom.  Fail to court them fast enough and you might see some of these bands get cut down by roving monsters.

Also, to make a living world means to give all of those monsters and dungeons a purpose.  And I don't just mean background information.  Give dungeons and monsters rudimentary motives.  If a tribe of trolls are living in a dungeon, give them a rudimentary AI and have them react to their surroundings.  Have them overpopulate a region, begin to starve, and spill over into a neighboring kingdom in search for food.  Have a dungeon with banshees and phantoms who are attracted to particular stimulus like, say, city's with happy citizens.  Have those banshees and phantoms attack and cart away civilians and make the dungeon in which they inhabit grow and become ever more terrifying as their numbers swell.

Right now, I've seen Brad talk a whole lot about making a living world, but so far I really just haven't seen any description of how he will do it.  We'll see.

 

Some of the requirements you put above would mean that even RPGs aren't "living worlds".  I don't know what role playing games you've played (pen and paper / computer) but I can't ever think of one that involves giving "motives" to the various monsters.  Why did the trolls leave their lands?  I don't think having an apparent motivation (even in an RPG) is any sort of basic requirement for a "living" world.

I also don't agree that the world shouldn't focus on the player.  The player is the star of the show.  The objective is to make a strategy game that feels like it's playing in an RPG world.  An RPG world does not mean SimFantasy. :-)

Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top

Your holding out on us and not just a few things(lots)... YOU BASTARDS! XO NEVER EVER FORGIVE YOU!(WEWO!)

 

But seriously I love these journals! Ah a game only meant for my godly custom pc.... mmm YES! }:)

 

I love RPG's and love TBS games, I think we are gonna have a WINNER! Thank you for actually CARING ABOUT MAKING GAMES GOOD AND not just the damn money! :thumbsup:

 

Reply #20 from Elemental Forums Top

Why did the trolls leave their lands? I don't think having an apparent motivation (even in an RPG) is any sort of basic requirement for a "living" world.

 

Why DID the trolls leave their lands?

Reply #21 from Elemental Forums Top

I see what he was trying to get at - "evolves irrelevant of whether the player is in the game or not."

I think the key to the 'living world' feeling is seeing non-player actors in the game interact independent of the player. That's the flaw in many RPGs and strategies: The AI doesn't feel like it's playing for itself. It generally feels like a game equivalent of The Truman Show, with the AI acting out a script for the player. From the Elder Scrolls to Total War, many games are guilty of this because the devs don't even consider it.

X-Com: Apocalypse I'd give as a good example. In it you're meant to save the city from an alien invasion. They'd rarely attack you directly. Alien ships will come and plant agents in a building, which starts the organization owning it being infiltrated. The infiltration level then grows exponentially over time, and when it hits its maximum the organization turns hostile to you. If it's a weapon manufacturer you can't buy from them, if it's the government you no longer get funded, if it's the police your stuff will be shot at by their cars, lots of different results.  To prevent this you either shoot down the ship before it can plant them, or send a team to clear the aliens out. The difference is that you aren't forced to. Even though each time you play it through you do pretty much the same things, because of the way you're given the option to do nothing about the aliens and bide your time, it feels organic, like you're in charge and you're taking the initiative.

Reply #22 from Elemental Forums Top

Couple o' things...

1. I think the main reason that everyone loves making their own Sovereign/Civ is because they want to enter this new world totally free of preconceptions. Procipinee is 'someone'...the others Sovereigns are 'someone'. I think that's saying something about Elemental as a whole - here is a new world, ready to be explored. Why not explore it as your own character? In this, I agree with Brad - the RPG is, indeed, about the player. The star, if you will.

2. What excites me most about Elemental...is the randomness of everything. I want that band of adventuring miscreants to unleash some infinitely powerful force, only to watch as another adventuring group trumps it. And when they are en route to conquer the Evil Being of Kill, I will have my gathered troops and wonder if it'll be enough. It's immersion that I can't wait for...because in all of the fantasy games I've played, I've been someone. I've been an adventurer, I've been a god, I've been an alchemist who lives in an isolated tower somewhere. I've never even thought of what it must be like, to be that big power in some distant city, while I'm in some cave filled with chained demons and contemplating which button to press, knowing that one could easily unleash them on the countryside. I think THAT is what I really want to see.

3. My biggest dream for this game? I want to build a true city. In AoW:SM I got to build a city. It was a thing that took up one hex, and the surrounding hexes at higher levels, and those surrounding those for farmlands. I'm not in the Beta, but I have looked at the pics, read the journal entries, etc. I am looking forward to establishing some small frontier outpost, and watching it grow...until that outpost is a massive, sprawling city, nestled between those two mountains, or in the curve of a massive lake, or taking up the coastline of a peninsula. I want to see this world, and know that my city and mine alone is the haven of my people in this world, a beacon of hope that we can triumph.

No other game, thus far, has done any of this for me. GalCiv had some random events - loved those - but it always felt 'programmed' to me. Dragon Age came close, and most of the conversations had me thinking seriously about what my character would say. But even as I've played a god, or that lonely alchemist, in the back of my mind I knew that I'd have no impact on the world, truly. Can Elemental be the game that I just can't stop playing?

We shall see |-)

Reply #23 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting strager, reply 20

Why did the trolls leave their lands? I don't think having an apparent motivation (even in an RPG) is any sort of basic requirement for a "living" world.
 

Why DID the trolls leave their lands?

 

(I have to. I'm sorry. I'm so very, very sorry. I'm about to wrong you all horribly. Please forgive me.)

 

To cross the street.

Reply #24 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting HuaynaCapac, reply 21
I see what he was trying to get at - "evolves irrelevant of whether the player is in the game or not."

I think the key to the 'living world' feeling is seeing non-player actors in the game interact independent of the player. That's the flaw in many RPGs and strategies: The AI doesn't feel like it's playing for itself. It generally feels like a game equivalent of The Truman Show, with the AI acting out a script for the player. From the Elder Scrolls to Total War, many games are guilty of this because the devs don't even consider it.

X-Com: Apocalypse I'd give as a good example. In it you're meant to save the city from an alien invasion. They'd rarely attack you directly. Alien ships will come and plant agents in a building, which starts the organization owning it being infiltrated. The infiltration level then grows exponentially over time, and when it hits its maximum the organization turns hostile to you. If it's a weapon manufacturer you can't buy from them, if it's the government you no longer get funded, if it's the police your stuff will be shot at by their cars, lots of different results.  To prevent this you either shoot down the ship before it can plant them, or send a team to clear the aliens out. The difference is that you aren't forced to. Even though each time you play it through you do pretty much the same things, because of the way you're given the option to do nothing about the aliens and bide your time, it feels organic, like you're in charge and you're taking the initiative.

Yes, you've hit the nail on the head.  Also, X-Com: Apocalypse was actually a perfect example!

My point to Brad isn't to antiquate the player.  My point is to make the player feel like he/she is actually part of something that is active and alive, rather than something that just looks active and alive on the surface.  And when I say, "Give monsters motives" I don't mean put them on a couch and have them talk to their therapist about how their troll dad tried to eat them when they were baby trolls.  I mean give them simple objectives so that they are behaving purposefully and participate in the game world rather than sitting in a dungeon waiting patiently to be slaughtered so that they may yield loot.  Brad, you said something awhile back about Galactic Civs 2 that impressed me greatly.  You mentioned that one of your favorite things to do while you crafted the Gal Civ 2 AI's was to sit back and watch them compete with one another irrelevant of the player.  Well, I'd like to see the same thing in Elemental, but not just with the sovereigns.  I'd like to see it in a lesser degree with all "actors" too.  At the moment, the latter is all I'm seeing in Elemental, and it's nothing new.  It is precisely because I have played so many strategy and fantasy games that the same old tricks don't fool me anymore.  I was there playing Ultima 1 and Civilization 1 too.

I've DMed D&D campaigns for a very long time and I've never used components and my players take the game very, very seriously.  I spend days building a world with nation states and religions and historic vendettas.  When the campaign starts, I kick it into motion and cut the players loose to do what they please based on their character's fealties and personalities.  My objective, each time, is to make a world that doesn't revolve around the players (like the Truman Show, as Huayna so aptly mentioned).  Orcs don't just happen to be raiding a village so that they can be killed by the players.  They came for livestock and trophies to demonstrate their status amongst their tribe where there are women and children orcs.  If the players have killed many men who live in a city at war with their own, they leave a lot of widows and fatherless children in that city (some of which seek vengeance on the players a decade later.)  I never stack "challenge ratings" against players--- they will run in to whatever happens to be appropriate to the location they are traveling through and if its out of their league, they catch the fast train out of town.  In other words, there are no "canned adventures" waiting to happen. 

In the end every entity in my campaigns have a purpose and motive which makes the world feel alive.  It's seems what you are suggesting so far, Brad, is that a world that only looks real on the surface is good enough.  Well, maybe for a lot of people it is and that's fine.  But in the end, what is more interesting and enrapturing?  An abstract number ticking upward predictably in your city to represent population or roving bands of desperate survivors who you have convinced that your city is the best place to settle?  Monsters waiting patiently in a dungeon to be slaughtered or a troupe of Trolls that strike at the weak, flee from the strong, and crave fresh livestock?  Dungeons that exist for the sole purpose of strengthening the player and his/her opponents if it is overcome or dungeons that are the homes of fiersome beasts that, if defeated, may grant the players some advantage?  I imagine in all cases it is the latter. 

Reply #25 from Elemental Forums Top

I utterly agree with the journal. Console gaming nearly destroyed fantasy rpgs and strategy..

 

And i love the direction elemental is heading sure i had my disagreements with the economics etc. but overall its Great.

 

and i love how your implementing NPC's to recruite and the whole thing of it being about you in general Elemental appeals in a way no game has in along time to me.

 

So thank you for the wonderful concept andfor allowing us the community to help shape it and mold it into what we all want and all love.