Second try to Elemental after long time

from Elemental Forums

I am a big fan of Galciv 2 , loved the game and loved in past master of magic so i pre ordered Elemental.After reading initial reviews waited 2-3 months before playing.I wasnt totally disspointed , but sum to sum it wasnt a game i really liked so i shelved it.

Now after lots of time , since im sick and got some free time :), i decided to give it a second try, hoping that with the time Stardock had to improve it maybe it finally started to shine.

Not reallly:(

 

the good:

 

1-I still love the art, graphics , the music the atmosphere.

2- The rpg elemnts are agreat + the whole idea of the game.

 

the bad:

1-First and foremost THE AI SUCKS.I cant believe this , in Galciv 2 it AI was superb.And for me its a game breaker, if i ahvent got enemies that act inteligently i dont feel much joy in playing.I was playing on challenging level.Sure they founded cities very fast and had powerful units very fast dont know how, but computer didnt do much with the units even when i declared war and one faction declared war on me. They were just siting in thos cities without any movements.Pathetic, not one decent army tried attack my cities!!!. So with my might of 9 compared to their 50 i slowly conquered 4 of its cities, now im the more powerful.

 

Again i dont get it , was this written by same person as Galciv 2 AI? its just broken and this point is enough for me to break the game.

 

2- Magic seems much to hard to use and not enough powerful. With name "War of magic" i aws hoping to play like a sauron like person , usign magic all time.My biggest problem is mana income , its so limited ,even with my character having the talent to add some, that  if you want to use it in battle as offensive you cant use any enchantements so they dont drain your mana. Im having 5 mana per turn , and each enachantements eats 1/turn.....

Im using magic in battle and its helpful , but imho not pwerful enough.

 

3-The interface isnt very intuitive to me .not a big problem , i am learning but still i find it cumbersome.

 

4-Still some annoying bugs sometimes i cant get somwhere , clicking on sqaure, my units goes to square near it , but doesnt want to enter the square im pointing.After reloading the game the bug vanishes...

 

5- The tactical combat seems to be lacking some focused tactical decisions.I mean there are some liek focusing on most damaging enemy , runing and casting spells, not allowing to be ecircled etc. but its seems to little.Even in Sid maiers pirates the little simple tactical game when fingting on land (yea there was one:)) seemed a bit more tactical , you had clear advantages from falnking enemies, hiding in trees, where using cavalry etc.

 

So all in all i  had a bit of fun playing, but its starting to get boring fast with the AI so dumb and weird.The maddening thing is i still see a tremendous potential and bits I really love...but i felt same half a year ago or earlier , when playing for first time.

I dont think there will be a third try and i wont be buying any Stardock games before reading reviews in future.

 

 

 

 

23,892 views 20 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top


Stick around. The sequel is looking amazing! ;)

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Yea, they never really got the game to be real good.  It was like Humpty Dumpty when it was released, and all the Frogs new developers and all the Frogs hard work, just couldn't put together a great game from that mess.

 

So, they decided to try again, from scratch, keeping only some artwork and make FE.  

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Sure , i will prolly stay interested in Fallen Enchantress, but no preoerder this time, and no buying before reading a few reviews and posts on forums....

On unrelated note i seem to be like a magnet to broken games , whenever i really become interested ina n upcoming game  , it usually ends bad.(anyone old enogh  to remember moo3 ? i was a strong follower:))

Just recently I bought Sword of the Stars 2 , the first part is great.Well with the second part the developers just went wild , Elemental was in tip top shaped compared , here parts of the games arent even implemented!!!Yea some techs missings not working etc.

I think only Deus eX 3 i was follwoing and ended superb just as i hoped or better...

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Well, if you pre-ordered Elemental: WoM, then you get Fallen Enchantress for free.  So, hate it or love it, fuck it, its free.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

oh superb , i feel my love to stardock again, thats really fair .

Hope they can make a great game comparable to galciv2 cause with all the free stuff they give and support for eLemental which i am guesing isnt selling much, they must be atm really loosing some money.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Your opinions on WOM pretty much mirror mine.

At a certain point, we could either spend millions revamping WOM which, no matter what, is a tainted title or we could make a really good sequel and give it to our WOM pre-order group for free. We chose the latter. ;)

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

:) really appreciate as customer, happy new year to you and Stardock :)

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 6
Your opinions on WOM pretty much mirror mine.

At a certain point, we could either spend millions revamping WOM which, no matter what, is a tainted title or we could make a really good sequel and give it to our WOM pre-order group for free. We chose the latter.

 

While I respect what you have done for us as customers, I want to put my $.02 in and request that you keep at least a small team on this original title to continue sorting through the rough parts.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

is there any chance of one more patch for Elemental? 

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

War of Magic is finished, I doubt there will be more patches.  Brad believes it is now a good game.  And I think that at some point you start getting  diminishing returns on the hours they are spending to fix it and how much better they can make it.  They have done their best, but there are some  fundamental flaws in WoM that couldn't be fixed, and that's why FE was made from the ground up.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 6
Your opinions on WOM pretty much mirror mine.

At a certain point, we could either spend millions revamping WOM which, no matter what, is a tainted title or we could make a really good sequel and give it to our WOM pre-order group for free. We chose the latter.

Correct me if I am wrong but as I understand it only those who preordered EWOM in 2010 get the sequel for free. People like myself who preordered later just get a discount and all the other people who bought the game after it was released even have to pay the full price for the the sequel!

I trusted in you and believed that EWOM will be patched until the game is like it should have been from the beginning on. Realizing that EWOM will not be patched until it is the game that was promised and instead of this you starting making a new game the majority of EWOM buyers have to pay again for to get what was promised for EWOM is a huge disappointment!

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Xiskio, reply 11


Quoting Frogboy, reply 6Your opinions on WOM pretty much mirror mine.

At a certain point, we could either spend millions revamping WOM which, no matter what, is a tainted title or we could make a really good sequel and give it to our WOM pre-order group for free. We chose the latter.


Correct me if I am wrong but as I understand it only those who preordered EWOM in 2010 get the sequel for free. People like myself who preordered later just get a discount and all the other people who bought the game after it was released even have to pay the full price for the the sequel!

I trusted in you and believed that EWOM will be patched until the game is like it should have been from the beginning on. Realizing that EWOM will not be patched until it is the game that was promised and instead of this you starting making a new game the majority of EWOM buyers have to pay again for to get what was promised for EWOM is a huge disappointment!

 

WoM was released August 2010. How could you preorder later? Anyway...here 8is a thread with infos "Who gets what?"

https://forums.elementalgame.com/411211

Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 6
Your opinions on WOM pretty much mirror mine.

At a certain point, we could either spend millions revamping WOM which, no matter what, is a tainted title or we could make a really good sequel and give it to our WOM pre-order group for free. We chose the latter.

The problem is that you wanted to make simulator instead of a strategy game, and you did it. There is a simulator of something, but there is no game that you can actually play and have fun. So just a mere expansion will not nessesarily help, the problem is in your / your company's approach to game design.

Say, consider the difference between Sim City and Settlers of Catan (or even better, Spectromancer, but you probably never heard about it).

 

In Sim City:

Game Rules are vague or never explained anywhere - you don't really know what EXACTLY will happen if you do some specific action. Say, you plant a tree near a residential area. It's supposed to increase a cost of a land, but by how much? Also, if it does, does it really give you a bigger income, more population? How fast that action returns an investment? How efficient per land square or per $ it is compared to other options that give about the same effect?

Very high action cost per a meaningful decision - say, your city is overpopulated and you make a decisioin that you need a new residential area. So, you mark land for residential area, make roads, power lines, water pipes etc. That's probably a hundred clicks or more even if you don't consider that you may need an extra power plant because of power requirments, a school, police station nearby etc.

Decision-making is based on previous experience - game rules are something of a mystery, manual says nothing and game makes 1001 extra calculations per your action, you can't really predict what the hell will happen if you will do something. That is, if you didn't play 100 games already. If you did, you have a vague idea that if you make an action X game usually adjusts it's gamestate to something like Y.

 

In Settlers or Catan:

Game Rules are clear and precise - say, if you make a city at some point, it gives you resource A with a chance B, resource C with a chance D etc. You can also get resource A by exchanging 3 resources B for it or through trade with other players.

Low action cost per a meaningful decision - say, you have a deficit of bricks, and so you decide to make a city so to have a relatively stable income of bricks. You make a road and place a city at one of the available spots near the source of bricks. It takes only several clicks. You also need recources for it, but there are many ways to get these resources so that's several meaningful decisions by itself, and these actions are not counted in this meaningful decision.

Decison-making is based on game rules in addition to previous experience - game rules state that if you place a city on that spot, you get bricks with a chance X, and on that spot with a chance Y. So, a bigger chance is better, unless it's too juicy target for a Robber.

 

Your games are usually closer to Sim City while, say, Civilization series is closer to wargames/boardgames. I don't think you can fix it with just an expansion.

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

We shall see, we shall see.  As we are all human, and companies are made up of humans, both companies and humans within those companies can make mistakes.  Frogboy has done everything humanly possible to deserve a second chance for Stardock, and I think most people will give it to him.  One bad game can be an aberration.  Only two games can be a pattern.

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Lantros, reply 12

Quoting Xiskio, reply 11

Quoting Frogboy, reply 6Your opinions on WOM pretty much mirror mine.

At a certain point, we could either spend millions revamping WOM which, no matter what, is a tainted title or we could make a really good sequel and give it to our WOM pre-order group for free. We chose the latter.


Correct me if I am wrong but as I understand it only those who preordered EWOM in 2010 get the sequel for free. People like myself who preordered later just get a discount and all the other people who bought the game after it was released even have to pay the full price for the the sequel!

I trusted in you and believed that EWOM will be patched until the game is like it should have been from the beginning on. Realizing that EWOM will not be patched until it is the game that was promised and instead of this you starting making a new game the majority of EWOM buyers have to pay again for to get what was promised for EWOM is a huge disappointment!

 

WoM was released August 2010. How could you preorder later? Anyway...here 8is a thread with infos "Who gets what?"

https://forums.elementalgame.com/411211[/quote]

 

You are right I got confused with the years because I just didn't realize that it was more than a year ago that EWOM was released. I preordered in 2010 and therefore I'm in the lucky position to get Fallen Enchantress for free but that doesn't change the fact that all the people who did not preorder in time but nevertheless bought EWOM will have to pay again for something they where promised to get with EWOM!

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

But did they go and read reviews first before they bought the game?  Once it was released, it was pretty soon afterwards that most people thought that the game was a disaster.  I'm not particularly criticising, but if you buy a game these days that you haven't checked up both official reviews and player reviews, you're not giving yourself the best chance to get the best games.  It's just sensible to check up to see if a game is all that it's cracked up to be, before placing your hard-earned currency on it.  People who pre-ordered, and to a lesser extent bought early, did not get full information and trusted Stardock to provide a quality product.  People who came after didn't read the reviews, which were almost all negative.

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

Even so the reviewers said that the game was crappy shortly after it was released I still believed at that time that Stardock and specifically Brad Wardell will stay up for their words and make sure the game will turn out to be terrific after a few more patches. And I still believed that for the most part of last year. It was just to the end of last year that I realized that I was maybe wrong in my belief.

Beside that I'm sure that there are lots of people out there who just give a sh.t about what reviewers say and a lot of whom even do not read these reviews in general but read here on the forums and therefore had the same high hopes and believes I had or others who bought the game just because they got word from people like myself about the high standards that Stardock has lived up to in the past and bought the game because of that when it came out.

I think that everyone who bought the first Elemental game should be granted a discount on the upcoming Elemental game Fallen Enchantress.

Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting StevenAus, reply 18
Except those who bought WoM for $2.

 

Yes, not a bad game for £5, love the artwork. I have bought and played worse games that cost me £35.

Reply #20 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Xiskio, reply 11




Quoting Frogboy,
reply 6
Your opinions on WOM pretty much mirror mine.At a certain point, we could either spend millions revamping WOM which, no matter what, is a tainted title or we could make a really good sequel and give it to our WOM pre-order group for free. We chose the latter.


Correct me if I am wrong but as I understand it only those who preordered EWOM in 2010 get the sequel for free. People like myself who preordered later just get a discount and all the other people who bought the game after it was released even have to pay the full price for the the sequel!

I trusted in you and believed that EWOM will be patched until the game is like it should have been from the beginning on. Realizing that EWOM will not be patched until it is the game that was promised and instead of this you starting making a new game the majority of EWOM buyers have to pay again for to get what was promised for EWOM is a huge disappointment!

So you should have pre-ordered earlier and got in on the TWO FREE EXPANSIONS like the SMART ones of us did. ;) Don't blame Stardock or Brad for YOUR mistake. ;) I bought the collectors edition which is still in shrinkwrap for $80 and I'm not whining. ;)