RPGWatch Feature: Elemental Review

[figment]

I've only played a couple of hours and have found it difficult to get into. The review sounds as fair as it could be and perhaps optimistic as DArtagnan says. I do have some confidence in SD fixing the technical problems since I think if they were to leave it in its current state would be disastrous to the companies next game. Whether they can fix the design is a separate matter but I haven't played enough to bash the game design too much.

I preordered on a lark because I wanted a new strategy game and CiV was still months away. I'm feeling disappointed right now but will probably give it another chance in a couple of months. Unfortunately for Elemental, CiV is around the corner and unless Firaxis releases a similarly unplayable game it will probably win the mind-share war for turn based strategy for the rest of the year.

 

[rune_74]

Did you miss the part where I stated I think the game will eventually be modded into decency?

I know about the tools, which I also happened to make very clear in my post.

My point isn't about whether or not it will eventually become a good game. My point is what it is, right now, and what Brad has been saying in public for years.

You might think it's perfectly fine to release a hollow shell, and expect paying customers to actually create all the good stuff - but I don't.

Is it bound to happen? Sure.

But it will take MUCH longer than you seem to think. You don't just put out content until you get a great thing going. You have to test things, and you have to actually know what you're doing, when adding features.

You don't add spells "easily" - because it's not about tweaking numbers. It's about creating diverse spells, that have specific and unique abilities. The vast majority of spells in the game, as is, are completely generic and feel like duplicates of each other, with different names and not much else.

You think that just because they've provided tools, it will be easy to create MoM-like spells?

No, it takes a lot of work from the right people - and then it needs testing from the community. If it was just about the magic system, then maybe we'd see something in a few months. But we're talking about pretty much every subsystem in the game, except perhaps city building - which I think is OK.

At least 6 months until this gets anywhere near MoM 1.31.

That's not glass half empty. That's eyes wide open.

Whats with the attitude in your post?

MoM 1.31 took about a year from the initial release of MoM which at the time was a buggy mess. Which really has nothing to do with the current release just some interesting info.

The tools are important because they are part of what the game is, a moddable engine. I know tha spells have to be balanced, and in time they will be through revisions. This is Stardock, they don't just throw it out there and walk away, hell they put out three patches in one week, 16 hour days to get them out. Granted they had to be put out, but they are listening and adjusting, so I have a large bit of faith things will get better and better. That is what eyes wide open is, not just the negative side.

 

[Eron]

Everyone says not to bring up Blizzard cuz they have the money to release when its ready, but even before they did, and before wow, they did..

Sorry, I don't care.. If the game is not ready it should be delayed.. Bottom line..

 

[rune_74]

Before wow, they had a little game called diablo and warcraft.

 

[getter77]

As a very, very early pre-order---I can't help but reckon they would've done far better to go with the Feb 2011 release instead of this half-cocked notion of bumrushing Civ V/strange book dealings/etc as I just can't believe Stardock was in SUCH a tight corner as to have the release happen in the way it did at this time.

The issue wasn't supposed to be filling up an "empty" core---from the very onset it was supposed to be about expanding further upon a solidly realized gameworld.

I now can't help but wonder how it might've gone in a parallel world where there was no campaign to the game at all, or any other trappings they've tripped on, and Stardock had instead just focused on creating the most robust, free-range 3D SRPG Engine and content building/integration streamliner ever and explicitly gone the direction of user empowerment while only keeping everything humming and expanding in the background codebase technically----like a far, FAR more ridiculous NWN DM arrangement.

 

[SveNitoR]

Brad has been a bit too busy with his Elemental book maybe.. (which seems pretty awful, btw: http://www.unamommer.com/?p=109 )

Haha! That was hilariously bad. :lol:

Seriously everyone. If you haven't read that review, then do it.

 

[SveNitoR]

MoM 1.31 took about a year from the initial release of MoM which at the time was a buggy mess. Which really has nothing to do with the current release just some interesting info.

I never played it (though I bought it through GOG). But I heard there are quite a few game breaking bugs still. Correct?

 

[Zloth]

Everyone says not to bring up Blizzard cuz they have the money to release when its ready, but even before they did, and before wow, they did..

Sorry, I don't care.. If the game is not ready it should be delayed.. Bottom line..

True. In fact, that's a huge reason WHY WoW got so big so fast. MMOs kept coming out in a horrible state. (Anarchy Online had to close it's servers for something like a month AFTER release!) Blizzard's reputation of only putting out pretty solid games got everyone exciting that a game would come out that actually works day 1. And they pretty much did it, too.

I don't think I would quite agree with your bottom line, though. As long as the fun outweighs the bugs fairly well, the game is ready IMHO.

 

[DArtagnan]

Whats with the attitude in your post?

MoM 1.31 took about a year from the initial release of MoM which at the time was a buggy mess. Which really has nothing to do with the current release just some interesting info.

The tools are important because they are part of what the game is, a moddable engine. I know tha spells have to be balanced, and in time they will be through revisions. This is Stardock, they don't just throw it out there and walk away, hell they put out three patches in one week, 16 hour days to get them out. Granted they had to be put out, but they are listening and adjusting, so I have a large bit of faith things will get better and better. That is what eyes wide open is, not just the negative side.

What attitude are you referring to?

I'd like to keep this non-personal, if we can manage that.

I'm not talking about technical stability, I'm talking about consistent and fulfilling game design. MoM, even upon release, was infinitely superior to Elemental, as an entertaining game.

You think it's a GOOD thing that they've had to release patches so quickly, without testing them very well?

It's not about spell balance. It's about spell diversity and the sensation that each "school" feels unique and cool. They don't and they won't for a LONG time - because such a thing isn't trivial to accomplish.

Check out the unit design system, just for kicks. You can sit there spending an eternity trying to figure out what unit to make, because it's all so generic. You can equip with gear, but then you realise that a cloak that gives 2 defense costs 5 times what a leather shirt costs, which ALSO gives you 2 defense.

I'm telling you, they spent tantamount to NO TIME at all, actually designing this game. They just constructed it, and put together a mish-mash of features - until they had a semblance of a game. But there's really no game there. Just a bunch of ill-thought out systems. THAT's the problem.

Once again, my complaints are not about Stardock not eventually fixing their broken shell of a game. It's releasing it in this state, and insisting in public that it's quite ready - so people buy it hoping to get a complete game.

Oh, and to clarify WHY I think it's such a travesty:

Stardock are self-funded! Brad has been boasting eternally about the advantages of being the boss of when something gets released, and they have plenty of resources. They had the opportunity to release in february 2011 - and the Civ excuse is pure bullshit (6 months after Civ and being fantasy will ensure absolutely minimal competition), and let's not forget the apparently incredibly bad book Brad released AT THE SAME TIME.

Eyes wide open?

There has to be some kind of limit to what people will swallow these days, please.

 

[Scrav]

Despite their claims, Stardock must have money issues at the moment. I wouldn't be surprised if their Impulse framework is having problems as I've seen Steam directly compete with prices against them (50% of Kings Bounty once, quickly followed up with 75% off by Steam). Not to mention the mass region locking for non US customers.

Elemental itself feels quite… empty. I'm not convinced that the each of the systems integrate with each other either. The campaign itself would have been better left out all together, as it could turn off some users due to the poor implementation.

I'm one of those users who doesn't really care about mods. I don't particularly want to see a user fix that the developers should have done in the first place.

Stardock had a good reputation, but this doesn't come close to the quality we would expect from them, and this is a worrying sign.

 

[Galaad]

I admit I was quite hopeful it'd release in a better state but I have faith that they'll turn this into a gem...

As a side note, everyone seems to forget that even when WoW launched shortly after people were upset about lack of updates... and so the site www.patchtimer.org was born. Not that I dislike Blizzard or anything, but memory can be quite selective at times it seems.

 

[Twotricks]

All problems with Elemental could be fixed if Stardock would reduce the price to 20$

Far less complaints and more patience for patches.

Because honestly 50$ is price of AAA production game. Elemental is good game , real good. But its far away from polish a big money company brings.

I see them making quite more profit this way. And more profit means more dedication to patches.

win win

 

[DArtagnan]

I admit I was quite hopeful it'd release in a better state but I have faith that they'll turn this into a gem…

As a side note, everyone seems to forget that even when WoW launched shortly after people were upset about lack of updates… and so the site www.patchtimer.org was born. Not that I dislike Blizzard or anything, but memory can be quite selective at times it seems.

World of Warcraft had a completely consistent and thoroughly worked-through design.

We're talking a different realm of competence.

 

[Eron]

True. In fact, that's a huge reason WHY WoW got so big so fast. MMOs kept coming out in a horrible state. (Anarchy Online had to close it's servers for something like a month AFTER release!) Blizzard's reputation of only putting out pretty solid games got everyone exciting that a game would come out that actually works day 1. And they pretty much did it, too.

I don't think I would quite agree with your bottom line, though. As long as the fun outweighs the bugs fairly well, the game is ready IMHO.

I can live with that.. Especially with a couple of after market patches. Releases like Elemental are detrimental to these production houses that we want to see succeed so badly..

 

[rune_74]

Hey guys, thought you might want to see what Frogboy(Brad CEO) had to say today:

Greetings!

I'm pretty far from a good net connection so I'll keep this brief

Let me say that I'm glad that most people seem to like the game. This message, however, is for those who are disappointed with Elemental so far.

Stardock is not just a game studio but it is also a publisher. What does this mean? Well, historically, the way it works is a game is released and if people don't like it, they're supposed to buy some expansion pack for it that "fixes" things that people thought should be in the original version.

We don't have to do that because we're both the studio and the publisher.

That means we can release free "expansion packs" for Elemental until such a high percentage of players love the game that only then can we discuss sequels or paid expansions.

Having had the opportunity to finally get out of the office for the first time in months has let me look at the game (and ahem, play the game for crazy amounts) of time from a new perspective.

I should also say that regardless of sales or reviews, our commitment to Elemental will not be affected. As some of you know, most of our company's revenue doesn't come from developing games. Even if the game didn't sell another copy, we would still continue our update schedule.

So what will be the concrete results of this?

1. In September we will release v1.1 which will be the first major revision to the game that takes into account the feedback we're getting from players. This will be a pretty substantial change. In particular, character creation, magic (think, shared mana pools),

2. We are going to go ahead and make a more traditional tutorial. I'm not a fan of tutorials but some of my grognard friends have had trouble figuring out the mechanics which means to me that we have to do something about that.

3. We are going to move Book 2: Magesa out of a future expansion pack and into the base game in a future "mega" update, likely late Fall.

4. As mentioned on the forums back in July-ish, we plan to make a new DVD gold master available to those with limited Internet connections later this Fall.

5. As discussed (I think) last Winter, I will be taking a sabbatical this Fall specifically so I can dedicate time to AI and modding so that others, long after me, can use the Elemental engine to create other things (you will need to know Python to really go crazy with it).

6. I will NOT be ceasing my postings on other forums. The guys on Qt3 and Octopus Overlords and elsewhere are my friends. I'm no more going to stop posting there then I would stop going out with my friends to movies and other "public places" where, heaven forbid, someone datamining my comments might find a "gotcha moment". Those people are my friends both on the forums and outside the forums. Interacting with you guys is a major reason I like making games in the first place.

7. To those reviewing the game: I would urge you to review the game prior to v1.1. I say this because v1.05 (the release day version) is the version of the game that was originally released and if that version of the game is considered flawed then my view is that Stardock should suffer the consequences for that. We appreciate the kindness and patience many people have shown. I just think game studios, including Stardock, need to be conscious of what they release and not expect to "patch themselves out of trouble". I do believe Elemental is, by far, the best game we've ever made but I also agree with most of the criticisms I've read too. The state of PC entertainment has changed since 2006 (when we released GalCiv II) and it is our responsibility to stay with the times.

In short, we love this game. And we love this community. We're not going to be leaving this game to work on some other game. We're with it and you guys for the long haul.

I won't be around to answer questions until next week so I hope this answers some questions.

 

[getter77]

Wardell's response is about what I expected. I just wish it'd shipped later so it would've projected a "rally!" slant rather than an "assure!" one : /

It should get there though eventually, with hopefully no further backsliding like the Hex loss, and I don't regret my pre-order. By the time I get around to actually playing it, good times should roll!

They seriously need to sweep up the novel mess under the carpet though, lol.

 

[JDR13]

rune_74, thanks for posting those quotes.

4. As mentioned on the forums back in July-ish, we plan to make a new DVD gold master available to those with limited Internet connections later this Fall.

Glad to hear that. I was seriously thinking about getting Elemental, but all the negative reactions from members here scared me away from it. I'll just wait for the revised retail version instead of buying it now and having to constantly patch it.

 

[rune_74]

rune_74, thanks for posting those quotes.




Glad to hear that. I was seriously thinking about getting Elemental, but all the negative reactions from members here scared me away from it. I'll just wait for the revised retail version instead of buying it now and having to constantly patch it.

The way it is right now, it's a good game if: You don't have any of the crash problems and you have a decent computer. There are alot of balance issues as well as some weird quirks. I personally like it, but I only play for a bit and then wait to see what they fix next. Lots of interesting mods out there for it already.

edit: Corrected some typos...guess there was a reason this keyboard was 10 bucks

 

[elikal]

I appreciate the effort to write a review this in-depth, but unfortunately the comments regarding things like the magic system/spells, is a clear sign of not having played the game enough. The same goes for the hollow faction/racial differences, the pointless unit customization, and things of that nature.

It takes a while to see how void of design this game is, currently, but I can recommend the official forums and the thread on QT3 forums, where people have played the game a bit more extensively.

I only played ~20 hours or so, but I definitely recognized deeply set flaws in the design, within the first few hours. The only conclusion I can think of, is that they basically just made the engine functional, and it doesn't seem like they've spent any time at all, actually thinking about the implementation of the various features they've taken from other games in the genre. Then again, Brad once said that 95% of the time to develop a game, is spent on the engine and coding. Well, that's what they obviously did here - and the few percent spent on game design, should probably have been done with an actual game designer.

So, my advice is to take this review with a grain of salt - as I think it's way too optimistic.

After having played the game extensively the last 5 days, I can only agree. The original review here seems way to optimistic here. Not for the bugs, but for the voids in the game. The ultra short campaign, the lack of direction and difference in the sandbox game - where in the end one sandbox game is like any other. It is also the totally out of whack difficulty. Often the other factions had only 1 or 2 cities, another time I really worked hard and met an enemy kingdom/empire with 5 times the size and a super army several times my strength and it was virtually impossible after such a short time for the AI to have that without cheat. Too many times in "easy" I was overwhelmed with masses of armies. The balancing here is nuts, and this game needs MONTHS to patch not weeks.

And indeed, from a $50 game you expect more. If it were ~$30 I would not be so angry, but fifty bucks is a lot of pot, and I expect more from it. (Hearing the campaign is mediocre and only 6 hours, doesn't help either, btw.)

 

[DArtagnan]

After having played the game extensively the last 5 days, I can only agree. The original review here seems way to optimistic here. Not for the bugs, but for the voids in the game. The ultra short campaign, the lack of direction and difference in the sandbox game - where in the end one sandbox game is like any other. It is also the totally out of whack difficulty. Often the other factions had only 1 or 2 cities, another time I really worked hard and met an enemy kingdom/empire with 5 times the size and a super army several times my strength and it was virtually impossible after such a short time for the AI to have that without cheat. Too many times in "easy" I was overwhelmed with masses of armies. The balancing here is nuts, and this game needs MONTHS to patch not weeks.

And indeed, from a $50 game you expect more. If it were ~$30 I would not be so angry, but fifty bucks is a lot of pot, and I expect more from it. (Hearing the campaign is mediocre and only 6 hours, doesn't help either, btw.)

Yup… To me, it's not about the 50 bucks I spent - though I must say, I don't appreciate Brad's "It's ready" statement because it was a factor in me taking the plunge.

Nah, to me it's more about the way Stardock is doing this on purpose - and that people are ok with it.

That means we're sending a clear signal that it's OK to release a completely bare-bones construction kit, and expect players to fill out the game - whilst the developers are slowly fixing and shining it up.

If only more people were pissed, I wouldn't have to be. But if this is where the state of the industry is headed, then I'm going to have to give up supporting it entirely.

I could say the same for Paradox and their EU engine games, as they tend to be pretty messed up as well, but at least they have a somewhat strong design behind them. The Total War series suffer similar issues, but also have decent designs and are generally not technically flawed to this extent.

But, more and more developers are actively exploiting their customers, and what's worse is that customers are being unfathomably apologetic on their behalf. I don't really care how hard it is to make a good game. It used to be doable, back when budgets were small and returns weren't in the millions. It used to be doable in 1-2 years, with games that had fantastic designs, and the worst bugs were squashed within the first couple of patches.

There's nothing technical holding games back, and no one told Brad to be such an incompetent designer. They're self-funded, so I really don't see ANY reasoning that can excuse the state of release.

Right now, people in droves are actually PRAISING Brad, because of his letter posted above. They're basically THANKFUL that Stardock is PROMISING to fix the broken game they released, and took their money for.

How does that work exactly?

A promise is nothing but a promise. Not that I don't think they will try to fix it, but they're obviously incompetent game designers. Even if they EVENTUALLY manage to fix it up, they're still not to be praised. Praise needs to be earned, and you don't do that by taking money from people, selling broken software.

I guess I could release what I've got available for my personal project, which is completely non-functional as is, and then I could simply promise to support it indefinitely.

So, pay me 50$ bucks please