Elemental - Brad Wardell Interview @ Shacknews

Dhruin

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I'm not sure if we'll cover Elemental in the long run but any time Star Control 2 gets a mention is worth a post, in my opinion. Brad Wardell talks about their fantasy turn-based strat game Elemental and then, for a bit of fun, slams Games for Windows Live in Part 2. Here's a sample:
Brad Wardell: Yeah, so games like X-Com, and Star Control 2, and of course Master of Magic, we love those games. And so we take bits and pieces, and we take our own ideas of things we wanted to see in games. I think the family tree feature of Elemental is pretty much something that we're bringing to the genre that's fairly unique.
Shack: Talk about that tree.
Brad Wardell: Well the idea is that, in these games, it's pretty normal to have heroes, and you can recruit heroes in this game as well. But we wanted the player to have more diplomatic tools than the usual treaties or tribute or whatever. And instead, while you are immortal, you can get married, have children, grow old and die. And you can actually arrange marriages and that kind of thing, and they'll have offspring that are a genetic blend of the two.
As an example, lets say I'm playing as the Altar, and we have an AI player, and their daughter is married to my son. She becomes a part of my family; I can control her, she's a unit in the game. Royalty in the game are actual units that you just get. Well, now she's my unit. Alright, I have her in my capitol city, and [she] just has babies or something. Or what do you know, she gives a 25% morale boost to any army she's in. Maybe I'll send her off with the army. Uh oh, she died. Well guess what, the other player's going to declare war on me because I killed their daughter.
More information.
 
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I'm wondering why you wouldn't cover Elemental? You covered Fantasy Wars and it's expansion and that's a TB strategy game. This one sounds ten times better. An upgraded MOM with elements from Civ, Gal Civ and maybe just a taste of Star Control 2.

So far I'm loving this royalty thing. If he actually pulls it off and it works as intended then that could make for some very fun and interesting games. Take his example of a leader dying and the country he ruled is torn assunder due to a civil war for the crown. I would love to see an AI do that. It would add a whole other strategy to the game other than marrying your opponents daughter ;)

I hope hope hope he isn't blowing smoke up our behinds. This just sounds crazy awesome:
Brad Wardell: There's also combat. There's quests in the game. There are NPC adventurer parties running around this world. Your army will be a guy; you'll see this little party of adventurers run into a dungeon. Something will go wrong, and pretty soon a giant dragon emerges from it chasing them off. And you're like, oh crap, now there's a dragon loose in my kingdom that I have to deal with.

How cool would that be to see some AI go in a dungeon and then a few turns later a dragon emerges. Randomness that makes sense. Actions and their reactions, not just a silly dice throw and a dragon pops up. There's a reason to why that dragon is there in the first place. I love it :)
 
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You also covered King's Bounty, another strategy game. This one has at least as many rpg elements as King's Bounty. The sovereign character levels up, gains equipment and skills, but he can actually participate himself in battle and if he dies the game is over.
 
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How cool would that be to see some AI go in a dungeon and then a few turns later a dragon emerges.
A. Very cool.

I just hope you can go into that dungeon as well.
 
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Brad Wardell: Oh yeah. A lot of my friends that are game designers--they look at themselves as artists. I am not an artist; I rip off from every game that I can.
Ok, I loved that response.

I've been checking on this game for a while. The art style I'm not a fan of, but hopefully gameplay is as good as I think it'll be. This is in my 'must buy' list.
 
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Interesting interview. Lots of innovative ideas, and it's nice to see someone looking beyond the "AI is always overpowering and has more resources, so it wins, and when it's losing, it cheats" methods that tb strat often uses to make playing against computer opponents more 'challenging,' when in fact it's totally predictable. Looking forward to this one.
 
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With the way many of us at the Watch bow at the altar of MOM, I don't think it would be out of line to cover this game. I swing by Stardock's site once or twice a week, so I can keep an eye open. Unfortunately, most of the news is coming out of their forums, making it a little harder to stay abreast, but I'll pay a little closer attention if that will help.
 
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I agree, if you covered a overrated pseudo-rpg like king's bounty you should cover this game, also Stardock rocks (GalCiv2 must be one of best PC games ever), that reason alone should be enough :p
 
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Because of this interveiw I'll be keeping a closer eye on this game. If I run across anything I'll let you guys know :)

I've been waiting for a sequel to MoM for over a decade. This sounds like about the closest thing to a sequel we'll ever see. Age of Wonders was close, but this is much closer.

I was truly dissapointed that all of their energy went into MOO and MoM was left in the dust. Moo was a good game, but it was nothing when compared to MoM(don't bite my head off please. I just hated that they never did a MoM 2 and instead we got a 3 MOOs). Why do I feel the need to visit my mom on a farm right now? ;)
 
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No problem - we can cover it. In all honesty, I was just hedging my bets because I hadn't really been paying attention to the details and didn't know how much interest there would be.
 
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I'm currently playing an early Beta of the game, It's a bare skeleton just to test system requirements. There are some nice features and I like how things are progressing especially how Research , Buildings and Units are created.

Shaf
 
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Stardock are incredible when it comes to listening to their customer base. If they just let enough persons test it and give intelligent feedback i think this will be great :)
 
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Stardock are incredible when it comes to listening to their customer base. If they just let enough persons test it and give intelligent feedback i think this will be great :)

Well, they've had a pre-order for about a year if I'm not wrong and beta just started, where everyone who preordered before October 1 are in beta. They probably have a few hundred, if not thousands (though most probably don't test it that much), beta testers and they plan to have it in beta until next august, allowing more people into beta early next year, if I'm not mistaken.

So, yeah a lot of people get to give feedback. :)
 
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I'm not sure if we'll cover Elemental in the long run

Please do. I realize it's not a strict RPG but it does have many of the same gameplay elements as our favorite RPGs. Any turn based game with even light RPG elements is worth covering in my book.
 
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Sorry for the necromancy, but, according to Brad Wardell, Stardock is developing an RPG based in the same universe as Elemental. I recall Baldur's Gate being mention as a reference point. So, a party-based RPG from a strategy game developer; I hope they can bring back some of the old Gold Box magic.

http://forums.elementalgame.com/368697
There are literally hundreds of pages of backstory, histories, adventures, and lore that have been put together. Elemental: War of Magic, will be the first game that makes use of it but the RPG we’re starting to work on will make use of it too and there are other games in the design process that will exist on it.
 
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