Stardock Calls Elemental: War of Magic a Complete "Fail"
- Thread starter Tom Goldman
- Start date
You can find out more about all this here [link]http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/09/03/blindness-caused-elemental-release-fail/[/link].
There was quite a big thing about it around the Stardock fanbase. The guy doing the apologizing right now actually caught a load of shit when he started shouting at people on the forums for complaining the game was broken. Since then he's back-pedalled and realised it was a massive screw up. It's a shame really. I like Stardock stuff normally, although I doubt this game would interest
There was quite a big thing about it around the Stardock fanbase. The guy doing the apologizing right now actually caught a load of shit when he started shouting at people on the forums for complaining the game was broken. Since then he's back-pedalled and realised it was a massive screw up. It's a shame really. I like Stardock stuff normally, although I doubt this game would interest
So massive marketing is the sign of a good game? It's the mark of an intended blockbuster, but not of a good game.Galaxy613 said:
I was excited for Elemental but didn't pre-order, and I'm glad I did. I'll wait and see. Stardock proved that they're willing to stick with games long past release (GalCiv2) and they've said that Elemental is no exception, and that they want to do right by the fans. I admire that a lot more than developers who don't deliver, don't even talk about the problems, and release a few DLC's and then stop supporting the game.
It's done when it's done is great and all but take Team Gizka as an example that it's important to set deadlines and milestones. The project was essentially canceled because the team just got fed up and the audience lost interest after like what 6 or 7 years after the initial release of Kotor II.GoGo_Boy said:
So yeah good mantra... with some provisions.
I for one am glad the project lead can own up to the games flaws and is working to rectify them. If only all companies had this attitude of consumers first.
One thing early buyers like me will be getting is that we'll receive the first expansion for free (of course, development on that won't start until all the issues with the current game are ironed out).
To weigh in on the state of the game so far - I haven't encountered any game-breaking bugs with the game so far, although others have, so it's situational. The main problem with the gameplay right now is the UI - I know I wouldn't have been able to get far without reading the forums. Beyond that, some AI weaknesses and certain imbalanced items/abilities can make the game too easy.
Despite this, I still find the game somewhat enjoyable to play, and once the UI and balance issues are addressed, I know I'll be putting in a lot more hours.
To weigh in on the state of the game so far - I haven't encountered any game-breaking bugs with the game so far, although others have, so it's situational. The main problem with the gameplay right now is the UI - I know I wouldn't have been able to get far without reading the forums. Beyond that, some AI weaknesses and certain imbalanced items/abilities can make the game too easy.
Despite this, I still find the game somewhat enjoyable to play, and once the UI and balance issues are addressed, I know I'll be putting in a lot more hours.
The problem as far as crashes are concerned is that Elemental uses a new internally developed graphics engine (Kumquat), and the crashes they're getting tend to be for extremely specific hardware configurations. Even with their open beta, there were still apparently problem-inducing configurations that slipped through the cracks, or were just so specific that nobody knew they even existed. Given time, they might have been uncovered, but without a concerted effort to find them, the programmers just wouldn't have known.GoGo_Boy said:
I do hope they fix the problems and make some good money off of this game, I like Stardock, they're not bad people.
It's ignorant statements like this that make me sad for the future of the game industry. According to the logic of "it's only good if I've heard of it," games like Final Fantasy XIII, Wii Sports, and Kane and Lynch 2 are obviously better than games like Cave Story, Earth Defense Force 2017, Dwarf Fortress, and Recettear. If publishers ever get gamers to believe that rhetoric, which seems to already be the case according to the previous comment, we'll have nothing in the future but post-processing, $20 DLC, and fetch quests.Galaxy613 said:
I'm not smelling roses. Morale is looking pretty low over on the Elemental forums, and a team at Stardock was just laid off who were about to start work on the next game. It sounds like Elemental is financed by other sources of revenue at Stardock and support for that will remain strong. FWIW, in this broken state (mainly it's the impenetrable UI I have issues with) I'm having fun playing it.Xanthious said:
EDIT: Bah... I was just unable to finish a game on a tiny map due to a repeated crash whenever I advanced a turn in late game (but it was fun up to then). Looks like I'm now waiting for patch 1.8.
Yeah, good on frogboy to admit his mistakes. I'm having fun with the game, but I can certainly see why they need to rework it. Feel kind of sorry for the guy though. He was confident enough in the quality of the game that he bypassed PR, and compiled a region version for a reviewer he was friends with. I can't imagine what it's like to be that sure of a product that clearly has this many problems.
It's amazing what a few patches will do in the hands of a dev team that gives a crap about making the game right. As evidence, I provide:
- Rome: Total War. Didn't become the greatest game of all time until the 1.2 patch fixed the release-day issues.
- Europa Universalis 2. Johan Andersson, the lead designer, was also the game's most avid player and he patched on the fly things he noticed when they went wrong. 1.09c (the final version as far as we know) is completely different from 1.00.
- Victoria. Wasn't really playable until 1.03 (although you could make a hell of a fine argument that it wasn't finished until the Revolutions pack, which started Paradox's unfortunate "buy the x-packs if you want the complete game" trend.)
- Empire: Total War. It took 'em until 1.5 but they did finally get that game right. The AI still has major issues but it's a Creative Assembly game. The AI always has issues when they do the development (except Napoleon, which has superb AI.)
- Darklands. If you're old enough to remember it, you know exactly what I mean.
- Rome: Total War. Didn't become the greatest game of all time until the 1.2 patch fixed the release-day issues.
- Europa Universalis 2. Johan Andersson, the lead designer, was also the game's most avid player and he patched on the fly things he noticed when they went wrong. 1.09c (the final version as far as we know) is completely different from 1.00.
- Victoria. Wasn't really playable until 1.03 (although you could make a hell of a fine argument that it wasn't finished until the Revolutions pack, which started Paradox's unfortunate "buy the x-packs if you want the complete game" trend.)
- Empire: Total War. It took 'em until 1.5 but they did finally get that game right. The AI still has major issues but it's a Creative Assembly game. The AI always has issues when they do the development (except Napoleon, which has superb AI.)
- Darklands. If you're old enough to remember it, you know exactly what I mean.
The game IS a failure at the moment.
I love what it's supposed to be, but not what it is. At the moment, it's literally barely a beta of a game. I played it for a while at a friend's house and a part of my brain sent me pleasant memories of Master of Magic and Age of Wonders while the other kept pointing out that this wasn't a good game.
Perhaps I'll look into it again in six months. By that time they might have brought it to a playable state.
I love what it's supposed to be, but not what it is. At the moment, it's literally barely a beta of a game. I played it for a while at a friend's house and a part of my brain sent me pleasant memories of Master of Magic and Age of Wonders while the other kept pointing out that this wasn't a good game.
Perhaps I'll look into it again in six months. By that time they might have brought it to a playable state.
There's a retail release in the US and Australia I believe. OT, I'm glad they've endeavoured to work 'til this is a complete game. What's there shows a lot of great ideas. It has the potential to be great.SL33TBL1ND said: