bugger off and quit trying to troll when the guy asked a legitimate question.

Damion from the things that have happened, the game being released when it was with the amount of bugs it had it's okay really. Elemental WOM was the first game they built on with this new game engine they are using. They knew bugs would rear their ugly heads, compared to 8 months ago the game has improved drastically with the patches and feed back they've gotten from players who play the beta versions.

Yes Elemental is a rough jewel but it's slowly and carefully being polished into a brilliant gem. Elemental had a bumpy and rough start but from what I've seen it's improved over the patches. Most larger game companies would have abandoned the game at this point and allocated resources to another game. Most larger game companies don't even release 2 or 3 patches. Brad (Mr. Froggy) doesn't seem to wanna give up on Elemental WOM I guess for the same reason of being a person who creates games because it's his passion, he likes making games because he enjoys it but also likes to make games because other people will enjoy it as well.

Some games start off with a few bumps in the road and later on improve as they are patched.

Brad, WOM 1.3 needs a few things to get this to a great game in my mind, and I don't think it's an easy task!

• Tech Tree & Item Redesign/Balance (ie: Why not move mounts/adventure packs out of the combat tree and get rid of the war staff? Why have the combat tree be so dominant/important for success? etc.)
• Magic Redesign/Balance (ie: All the components exist, but there's no five-star spell besides teleport, and tp is stupidly OP - should have a range limit, be a tier 4, and have a lesser tier 2 and tier 3 with max ranges of 10/20+int/2 or something)
• Tactical Redesign/Balance (this one I have no ideas, eagerly awaiting yours!)
• AI tweaks after the prior 3... cuz that's so much new content!

That said, I played a great game today. It was over about 100 turns in, but I kept going to see what was new in 1.2 (new quests! nice work on the city developments too, they feel much more orderly/polished). Crashes/OOM are much less frequent than previously, and AI is notably smarter - just not *that* smart yet - I question the speed at which they move to groups. I spotted the first 4-man team in Altar after I had 9-man longbows in half-plate.

I still think this game has the most potential of any turn based strategy game I've played, though!

Personally, I'll take a 1.4 and beyond for EWOM

EWOM, is the game i bought some 9 months ago and EWOM is the game I wanted, When i bought EWOM I had no expectation of their ever being a FE or third game game (whatever it will be called).

I've got a feeling that FE is going to be a totally different game then EWOM  and that's ok.

I just want the game promised when i bought it in Augest of 2010. That's what got me excited not FE (although that sounds like it might be an ok game too, don't get me wrong).

Beakie

Won't buy from Bethesda?  Huh, I really like their stuff.  Interplay?  Do they even make games any more?  Old days of Interplay was good. 

I don't really think WoM needs all that much to be fun.  Yes, I have bitched a billion times about its flaws, but it really just needs a few things to be fun.  Random events, better and more quest, more variety and interesting special sites (things like the ogre camp that was taken out and minor factions) along with some gear balance, would really make a huge impact in the fun department.  Those changes won't make a perfect game, but it would make a fun game.  I think it can be done, and I think Brad will try it, so I am excited about 1.3, and hopefully a 1.4 and 1.5.  FE is going to be a different game, so why not have 2 good games in the same world? 

I'll take what I can get.  Odds are, I'll be playing whatever the better game is once FE is out.

If I'm playing WOM post-FE, this means either FE bombed, or you did a miracle job with WOM.  

Personally, I think WOM is fixable in its current state, but you'd have to fix a bunch of major design flaws, and possibly re-work the fundamentalis in some areas.  The biggest problems are combat (both tactical and non-tactical combat fail), and research (current system overvalues research production, largely at the expense of other stuff)

what do you hate about the gal civ econ system? I liked it personally.

I'll be sure to start a poll once 1.3 comes out. Unfortunately its the loudest speakers are usually negative on forums so hopefully enough positive feedback is given (so the vocal minority doesn't overrule what could be a generally positive experience).

Jesus, that is a grudge.  I played GURPS years before Fallout came out a couple of times, I don't think it was quit good enough to hold a grudge that keeps me from playing some of the greatest RPGs ever made.  Seriously, those old Interplay/Troika/Black Isle/Bioware games are the shit.  And what about Bethesda?  Are they guilty by association?  I'm glad I don't hold grudges like that.

I just want a game that's as awesome as GalCiv2 but with a fantasy setting.

Well, I'm glad someone's positive about modding.

At a guess, he might hate it because it is poorly designed and has some really bad properties mathematically speaking, that are rather counterintuitive. (And not limited to idiocies like clear breakpoints - e.g. "people can except taxes up to 79%, 80% however...". Or was it 69%? Some time since I played last. If you want to delve into the really ugly parts, just consider what the optimal way to develop your planets is to maximize your economy and let that be your starting point for a further investigation). And, of course, an economic model for a world-spanning empire based on stockpiling electronic credits makes absolutely no sense at all, but that's an abstraction that is completely acceptable in a computer game that is supposed to be playable. But Frogboy might consider the abstraction a bit too simple.

HOWEVER, from a practical perspective players playing intuitively will find the economic system in GalCiv and GalCiv2 working well enough, easy to manipulate to achieve desired goals, and fairly transparent, so this is something that the player is unlikely to be annoyed by unless he goes looking for it or is mathematically inclined (or a games' developer).

As the game's developer, Frogboy will know all the good reasons for why the economic model ended up the way it was in the first place, and many of them will have been good reasons also in retrospect given conditions at the time, but he'll constantly see how it could be so very much better with a fundamental redesign - and know that tinkering with it in a patch or expansion would at the very least frustrate the fanbase.

A good example of something that is both bad, ugly, easy to hate if you consider it from a game design POV, and fun to play at the same time.

The problem I see is that I think most of us can agree that knowing what (little) has been announced for 1.3 it's hard for me to imagine how 1.3 can make this game fully better/more fun to the point where there will be universal praise and the subsequent continuation of work on it. So what are we supposed to do then, praise it just so we can hope for 1.4 and beyond?

And considering how few people are working on EWOM now.. how long will any of these changes come. I honestly think Brad et al are doing as little work as possible on EWOM now hoping that FE will so awesome as to allow people to forget about how sucky EWOM is and just move on to FE and it's subsequent iterations.

What I don't get, after Brad's repeated statements that he/SD doesn't need the money, is why they were so quick to rush into FE and almost completely abandone EWOM to the point it took so bloody long to get 1.2 done (and even so it's still flawed) and god only knows how long it'll be until 1.3 comes out even though they originally said it'd be very quickly after 1.2.

It's funny because I so bought into SD, that the openness and honestly, and subsequent failure to back any of it up as far as EWOM is concerned, makes it more difficult to swallow the disappointment than just getting the typical zero feedback from other companies. I've never been so saddened by a state of a game, and lack of delivered promises, as I was with EWOM  and I think it's because I bought into Brad and SD being so seemingly (and historically) pro-customers.  The thing I've avoided doing is literally compiling a list of what was said/promised (or heck, put on the BOX of the product) that was never actually delivered (on time or at all!).. I think I'd give up on SD if I did that. 

But yet, here I am. Hoping and waiting for 1.3 to make things better. but yet, here I am hoping and waiting for FE.  One thing you're good at SD/Brad is selling hope. Please don't let us down .... 

And remember, sometimes saying less is better. Put your heads down, stop promising us shit you're not 100% sure you can deliver on, tell us only "it'll be done when it's done as quickly as we can" and deliver on it. That'll go incredibly far in restoring your image/name with the community that cares so much, especially those, like myself, who had little experience with you before EWOM.