Stardock Calls Elemental: War of Magic a Complete "Fail"

[thiosk]

It is a poor release.

But its way more fun than any other game I've played this year. By a LONG shot.

All of you that claim to hate DRM and huge corporations which squelch creativity? You should make a purchase. Period. From release version to current 1.07, theres been huge improvements, and problematic parts are being reworked-- and support is going to continue, because its stardock and not going under next month.

Actually, despite all the little problems with crashes on weird systems... its a really nice game. Imagine Civ but you are a king and you are hunting monsters on the main map the whole time, while casting spells on your cities.

Its pretty cool.

 

[Dorian Cornelius Jasper]

Considering that this article is the FIRST I HEARD OF THIS GAME. Yeah, yes it is a complete failure. -.-

I sincerely hope this is a joke. But if you're serious, you should probably learn the simple fact of life that not all games are made with multi-million dollar marketing budgets.

 

[Capo Taco]

I'm confused. The only thing I know about this game is that it is meant as a MoM successor, that the lead person in charge (programmer, ceo, producer bla-bla-bla), the big chief, said it's a failure.

And now I want to buy and play the game, when I can only buy 2 games per year (the other being sc 2).

 

[tsb247]

I LOVE Stardock. They have always cared about their products and the people who play them.

You would never see something like this from... Oh, I dunno... Activision, EA, or even Blizzard!

I may be buying Elemental because I know how Stardock works. They will patch it until it is functioning correctly, and then they will supoprt it for a good long time after that. Hell, I think they are still patching GalCiv4!

 

[tsb247]

And now I want to buy and play the game, when I can only buy 2 games per year (the other being sc 2).

How does that work?

 

[DSK-]

Humility? In my developers!?

*pinches sleepykid and himself*

My god! it REALLY is true!

Has the date suddenly changed to 2012?!1

 

[veloper]

It just makes no sense.

They are they're own publisher. What we're they thinking releasing the game in such an unfinished state?
Way to invite poor reviews for no good reason.

Anyone else would have kept working on the game atleast until november, to have it on the shelves before xmas.
Stardock have lost their minds.

 

[oktalist]

I've never heard of these guys, but a CEO who is also a lead designer and an AI programmer? That is awesome.

 

[oktalist]

What we're they thinking releasing the game in such an unfinished state?

The apostrophe! It burns!

 

[Fearzone]

I'm confused. The only thing I know about this game is that it is meant as a MoM successor, that the lead person in charge (programmer, ceo, producer bla-bla-bla), the big chief, said it's a failure.

And now I want to buy and play the game, when I can only buy 2 games per year (the other being sc 2).

If it's a failure, it's a glorious failure and the drama going on the Stardock forums is it's own entertainment, and seeing how and if they will be able to recover from this will be an interesting story to follow.

Second, I can sympathize, I played through the Starcraft 2 campaign and as much as I was looking foward to the game... when done I was not particularly enthusiastic about it. I mean it was fun, but as well crafted and polished as it is I didn't fall in love with it. I am actually feeling more connected with Elemental than StarCraft 2, and when it works as it should am probably having a better time while playing it.

Thirdly, if you have a hard limit of two game per year, I recommend waiting on this one and get it when/if it is fixed from the bargain bin. But I think a fixed Elemental will offer long-term replayability that will last you.

I've never heard of these guys, but a CEO who is also a lead designer and an AI programmer? That is awesome.

Yeah, well, as we can see, it is like a novelist publishing a book without an editor. But what we see now is like George Lucas agreeing that Jar Jar Binks, and a little kiddie Darth Vadar, were two really dumb ideas.

 

[Analogfantasies]

I'm sorry, it's nice that he admitted screwing up, but he ran off to a cabin THEN laid off several employees. Any good will I might've had towards him vanished with that act. I can't respect anyone that has to run off and hide and let underlings do the firing, especially when it was their bad decision making that necessitated the firing in the first place.

 

[JEBWrench]

Elemental: War of Magic is meant to be a spiritual successor to 1994's Master of Magic, a fantasy turn-based strategy game that pitted wizards and their armies against each other in a quest for domination. War of Magic follows much of the same path as Master of Magic, but those that have played the game have come up with a list of complaints, saying it's unpolished, over-ambitious, and that it has poor documentation.

Unpolished, over-ambitions, and with poor documentation? Sounds like a successful spiritual successor to Master of Magic.

 

[Sartan0]

May it become the game Master of Magic was in its heyday! IE- One of the best games ever made. (Eventually)

 

[thiosk]

This game isn't even that bad at launch. I had fun with it, and since then, a rigorous patch schedule has fixed things up tremendously.

That being said, this game is on track for the biggest post-release modification of any game i've ever witnessed. A complete revamp of one of the critical elements of the game-- magic-- is pretty serious, and hints of what I've read so far mean this change is quite welcome.

HOWEVER, this game is dope. Its like having civ in a classic high-fantasy environment-- with critters roaming the environment. Fan mods and actual mods will breathe serious, long-lasting life into this game.

 

[Jadak]

Pretty awesome to see someone man up and accept a mistake.

Would be even more awesome if he'd admitted to it a little sooner, rather than denying that the game was in the poor state that it is for a good week+ after a release. Not so impressive when it takes days for you to finally cave and admit to seeing what everyone has been shoving right in your face.

 

[veloper]

What we're they thinking releasing the game in such an unfinished state?

The apostrophe! It burns!

You missed a more terrible apostrophe. Look at the post again.
Feel the pain.

 

[Tohron]

I've never heard of these guys, but a CEO who is also a lead designer and an AI programmer? That is awesome.

Yeah, well, as we can see, it is like a novelist publishing a book without an editor.

Incidentally, Brad Wardell is now a novelist as well - he released a book (Destiny's Embers) set in the Elemental world at the same time as the game. He did have editors at Random House, but dedicated QA teams are considerably more expensive.

 

[oktalist]

What we're they thinking releasing the game in such an unfinished state?

The apostrophe! It burns!

You missed a more terrible apostrophe. Look at the post again.
Feel the pain.

I didn't miss it. I just thought it was less terrible, somehow.

Grammar Nazi complaining about the wrong form of there/their/they're is so clichéd. But typing we're instead of were is just insane.

 

[laserwulf]

Wow, Stardock just earned a lot of respect in my book. I don't mind mistakes, as long as you man up and admit when you screw up. I think I'll go support them by buying a copy, knowing how good they are about patching.