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I´m with Sombre. Those concepts are unbeleivably crappy coming from a proffesional artist.

My expectations for this game aren´t high at the moment, the whole thing seems very uninspired.

I actually think Dom3 has good looking units, but the game as a whole (though my favourite game) isn´t beautiful. If those basic but very inspired unit sprites were accompanied by matching battleground, a slick GUI and good handdrawn images in the descriptions, it could have been a very beautiful game.

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I suppose I third Sombre. While bad 2-D Concept Art doesn't always translate into bad 3-D Units, nonetheless, the concept art is atrocious.

And yes, we are playing Dominions 3: but the graphics aren't horrible. And at the moment we aren't talking about graphics, we're talking about concept art. Completely different things. :)

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I guess happygeeks point was not that the concept art is beautiful, but that it's nothing to care much about. Take a note "concept artist sucks" and look at more important things like gameplay. :)

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Oh I agree. The concept art does suck. How the game turns out overall, though: well I'm going to wait until I get more info on that.

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I'm really surprised the concept art has lowered all your expectations for the game. Have you guys looked at the actual screenshots? The game looks incredible to me; I really like the style and I am not going to pass on it just because the early concept art was bad.

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Oh, don't knock low expectations. They are the key to eliminating disappointment in life!

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Thank you. That was exactly what I was trying to say. Excuse me for being so inarticulate.
And for all it's worth, there are some links to some excellent (and attractive) screenshots as well as beautiful concept art. Here is one:
http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/101/1019369p1.html
best to all
-Jan

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I didn't say anything about my expectations for the game. I'm just saying that concept art is terrible. I haven't looked at the other preview screenshots and art because I don't have any interest in Elemental after playing galciv 1 and 2.

so where is this impressive feature list
 

I found their website to be very uninformative, and these two articals next to useless. short of wading through their forums, which didn't look too promising anyways, where are you all getting the information that has you salavating over this game... you know, those that are. The first artical mentions an 'impressive feature list', can't find it.(bear in mind, i turn off everything on my webbrowser, as such it could be there and i just can't see it, if thats the case, please let me know where)

so far i know i can play it 2D for slow machines, zoom in till i see people working in buildings(why would i want to, especially in a turn based game...), change the terrain with magic, oh and the initial land grab was removed because they believe it often decides the game... personally i find the game is often decided before it starts by strategic placement, availability of essential resources for my nation, neighbors strength, etc. etc. i mean, he who grabs the most land is the one in the best position to do it. Its the nature of random generation, how has that changed?

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Some other guy posted in this thread too.

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Well you were referring to 'all' 'you guys'. I just mean to show that you don't have to be taking the concept art as a reflection of the game's quality in order to think it's rubbish.

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Poor wording on my part I guess. I should have quoted the guy. I meant 'all your' as in all his expectations, the next part 'you guys' was asking if anyone who was complaining had seen the latest screenshots which I think look pretty great for a game in alpha.

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I agree the graphics look pretty great considering. I was a big fan of the graphics in the AoW games too, because though they were relatively simple technologically, they were very rich and lush.

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I think what I like about Elemental graphics is the way it looks like Cell Shading. Also, the comment has been batted around that the game is uninspired. Stardock has wanted to work on this game since they were negotiating the rights to Master of Magic 2. Maybe the comment was directed at the concept art being uninspired, because I cannot imagine a game that has been in design for so long that is using such a great classic game for inspiration could be classified as uninspired.

My only grievance with the game so far is that it is not going to be Master of Magic 2, and there is only going to be two factions instead of lots of races/nations which is one of my favorite features of Master of Magic and Dominions. But I guess we can handle that with what they have promised is going to be a ridiculously easy to use modding system, but really how easy can a 3d game be to mod? In my experience, 3d models, textures are best left to people with experience in the field.

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3D is indeed a pain to mod, but look at Civ IV and Fall from Heaven. If nothing else, I believe the FfH models can probably be reused and imported into Elemental, thus providing some dwarves, elves and dragons.

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Elemental seems to get more like Total War Fantasy and not like Master of Magic.

BTW, anybody tried the Third Age mod for Medieval 2 yet? Seems to be of similar quality like FFH2 for Civ4.

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I'm actually playing the 3rd age mod right now for med2. I like it a lot :).

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The current game art screenshots are not the final results... only where the developers are at this point. The beta version has not even been finished, so I'm expecting the graphics will continue to improve.

In regards to game features I have read in the dev journals the game will have a random game generator, a campaign, map editor, LOTS of modding, and some multiplayer.

The chance to be part of the beta testing for this year is ending soon based on the last developer journal.

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What is this game? I havn't heard of it before.

It looks pretty conventional and boring to me. bleh.

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The main reason people give a crap is because stardock were supposed to be doing MoM2 essentially. But they aren't. They're just doing a soulless fantasy strat game, of which there are many.

It might be good, but judging by galciv - no soul.

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Sombre? This thread has kind of revived my interest in 4X games, and you seem to have good taste in games. I'm curious if you have any recommendations for games that *DO* have what you call "soul." Dwarf Fortress?

-Max

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Civilization IV (especially its Beyond the Sword expansion and Fall From Heaven 2 mod) is the gold standard for 4x games right now. What Final Fantasy is to jRPGs, what Half Life is to FPS, and what Halo is to homophobes Civ is to the 4X genre. Thats not to say its everything for everybody, but it is the best place to begin if you have an interest in that genre.

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If you want to play Civ 4 I'd advice to jump directly to the Fall from Heaven 2 mod. It's very deep and very dark. The manual is a piece of art, and the intro has a background music that makes you almost tremble in fear, it's so thrilling.
Together with DotA for WC3 and Counterstrike for Halflife, it's probably the best mod ever made for a game (Though ME2's Third Age mod also seems to get a 'big' one...).

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I think a game with "soul" is a game for which it is prohibitively difficult to make a good AI. :)

Consider Dominions and FfH2. They're both great games, with a huge variety units, spells, effects, world spells, races, and flavor text. In particular, all of these little bits interact with each other in interesting and complex ways, and if you bring the wrong set of powers to a battle, you will be completely wiped out (e.g. a niefel giant vs light infantry, or a group of fire mages vs an unprepared niefel giant). Each race plays very differently, and it can feel like an entirely different game switching from EA Arco to LA Ermor, or from the Ljosalfar to the Infernals in FfH2.

Now consider Gal Civ. In terms of gameplay, races are only distinguished by the modifiers they get to certain operations (e.g. +20% missile attack, or +10% population growth). The technologies you can research change these modifiers slightly, and only rarely introduce actual new abilities. Combat barely changes through out the game, and the 3 different types of attacks might as well be labeled A, B, and C for all the color and unique properties that they have. So when you research the great new weapon at the end of the tech tree, your attack bonus for weapon A goes from 140% to 160%. Yay. This simplicity and boringness is nice though if you are trying to write an AI, since all you have to do is maximize the product of all the various modifiers. You don't have to worry about teleporting enslave squads and SC equipment and Horrors and miasma dominion and poison resistance and unrest causing rituals and so on.

If a game is filled with meaningful, interesting, and complex decisions, and the player constantly has to think, then I would say it has soul. If the player's decisions can be easily automated, then the game doesn't have soul.

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I found a Q&A on Gamespot, after reading it, all interest i had in this game vanished like a puff of smoke. It was all i could do to finish reading the artical. i'd say calling it soulless is being generous, but thats just me.

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no soul...

sombre you took the words out of my mouth. that perfectly describes my sentiments regarding most of what stardock has put out.

EDIT and on the what has soul/what is soul conversation:

alpha centauri: diversity in army units (not galciv's rock paper scissors). story associated with each faction, and with the game world in general which unfolded as game progressed. the cut scenes when gaining new technology were also very cute. (the galciv robot is completely and utterly stupid).

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Well, I respect your judgments on Elemental. I haven't had a chance to play it myself, but we all like Dominions, and so far according to the people who have played the game, Elemental is soulless and terrible, so I will just keep my money.

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Mindlessly judgemental of a game that is not nearly finished yet. Meh. What are you, some sort of reverse shill?

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Oh wait, these guys have not played Elemental? Then I find their reviews to be soulless and lacking depth.

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Hmm..

Most of the information is found in the dev journals, just off the main page.

http://www.elementalgame.com/journals.asp

Omnirizon, units should be pretty diverse. The unit model is that you manufacture equipment, and equip and train people to use that equipment, rather than having generic units or RPS. It should be quite a lot different from Dominions, but I can see some definite similarities to kitting up thugs.

Here's one of the dev journal entries related to that.

http://forums.elementalgame.com/329473

Doesn't sound very much like either Galciv, does it?

Here's another.

http://forums.elementalgame.com/354240

All I know is that I'm going to try my best to kick the @#$% out of it in the beta period. Some of you should do the same.. although it will definately not be the least bit fun until at least the next entry period, which my guess will be January.

Do what you like. Not everyone liked Galciv much.

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Thanks for the links Kofiman. I have not read the journals yet, but the quoted statement has grabbed my interest by the throat. I have been toying around with an idea for a TBS with this very feature and would love to see it done right. Will be watching this closely now. :)

(I was a big fan of Lord of the Realms II and wanted to take something along the lines of that system and put it in a Dom3-like scale.)

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The thing that worries me in that game is that they seem really intent on modelling the most basic stuff in the game, right down to the material of the equipment. It's just not that conductive to the story, micromanaging everything. But, they might make it work. We'll see next year.

And some people will probably love that aspect of the game.

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Well listen to you guys getting your panties in a twist. It's fine for people to get amped up over preview screenshots and promised features, but you'd have to be some sort of reverse shill to predict the game is, in all probability, going to have the same problem as the previous two strategy games the devs made?

There's nothing mindless about voicing the opinion, based on the preview stuff I've seen and the quality of their previous efforts, that the game seems to lacks soul. Did you think that maybe my voicing of this opinion just might be because I actually want to see a good mom style game and I'm disappointed in what I'm seeing? NO? OK THEN.

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Do what you like, man. I'm pretty sure they'll be plenty of modders around who can write some good stuff.

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Could be. I wouldn't buy a game on the basis that I can ignore problems since modders will sort them out, though. No matter how mod friendly it is.

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Considering this is one of the very few fantasy TBS games being released I'll give my best effort for the game being successful. I'll be doing some beta testing and will do my best to convince Elemental developers to include quality features for the games enjoyment. I've created several topics on their ideas forum already. Last I heard Stardock plans on providing an extra long beta testing with the release pushed backwards to August_2010... so the "problems" will definitely be fewer.

I've never bought any previous Stardock games, so we'll just have to see how well the developers listen during the long beta testing.

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Holy Crap Alpha Game Put Away The Jump-to-conclusions Mat.

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BTW I just preordered. I'm all in. Rumor is that beta is next week :).

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if done properly it shouldn't add any significant micromanagement at all, but does add a nice bit of strategy and more importantly adaptatability to the game.

while each unit can be unique in theory, its not going to happen, the reality is likely going to be each player with a handful of units types that take advantage of their resources and situation, effeciently, which they then produce in mass. you make one unit schematic and then recruit hundreds of units from that schematic. you won't often change these once you have something that works for you unless your situation drasticly changes. And if they are smart, they will let you keep prototypes from game to game.

it allows you to better adapt to the resources you have available, and your current needs, advisaries. In Civ4 if your unique unit is horses and you have none, you are gonna suffer. if you start with fishing and are land locked, you're hurt. in dominions if you lack certain types of gems needed for your nation, or if your nation needs money and is surrounded by poor provinces, resources and you territories are stripped. you are kinda boned.

you see it as lacking a story. more to the point, it lets you build the story. you establish the kingdom, you establish their elite corp, their focus. It works best when a unit type can, through use, become something more than a simple soldier. a hoplite was a hoplite till they became spartans, if you follow. but this takes extreme care to prevent it becoming an overwhelming advantage, rewarding someone already in the lead and things like that.

unless i completely misunderstood you.

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I understand Sombre's concerns. I have preordered and will participate in the beta, though, because I think Stardock can make good games. I loved Galciv1. I think Galciv 2 only added micromanagement and fancy graphics and was rather worthless.
Elemental's storyline also lookds underwhelming to me. There are the good guys and the bad guys. Stardock says there will be more factions, but nothing is said about them. Compared to MoM or FfH2 where there are races which are different without necessarily being morally different, it sucks.

However, the game should not just be moddable. It should be moddable during the beta, and influenced by the beta testers. Galciv's starbases were introduced by players during the beta. So, hopefully we can shape the game during the beta in order for it to become something pleasant.

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Once I realized a lot of people were just making assumptions, I dug through the forums and did some research on the game. From screenshots, it looks like the graphically modding will be done like Spore. You will be able to remodel at the very least buildings in game, which is really friggin cool.

I stumbled upon some more depth to this "soulless" game. Defeated players can become vassals, flip sides, form alliances or claw their way back into contention through good ole conquest.

The more I read about this game, the less it sounds like the game the naysayers are talking about. It's still too early to say whether this game will be good or bad, but from what I have seen so far, it sounds absolutely nothing like the negative comments I have heard. Preference I guess.

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I think most of the 'features' that the game will have should make for a very interesting experience. I am concerned about the quality of the AI at handling these same 'features'.

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That's the only thing I'm not worried about, actually. If nothing else, the AI will be quite competent.

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I'm not into space games so I am not familiar with Stardock titles so I may be mixing things up here. But I recall that people have said in the past that Stardock does a really good job on AI. Am I mistaken?

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Stardock has a better reputation for not only providing a decent AI, but to also continously improve the AI as well. I recall reading the AI will also be moddable, along with many other features. This means the community will be able to continously strengthen the AI opponents.

How I wish we could improve the AI for Dominions_3... ... ... if only to stop them from sending their pretenders into the arena death matches!! Several other AI fixes are also needed, but that's probably the most painful to observe.
:viking:

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If you've got five bucks to waste, buy and download The Corporate Machine, and see how you do against a few AIs on normal. ;-)

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I second that. But I really, really hope that the game will have a decent AI.

By the way. A couple of nice vids:

EWM at PAX 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBRajOQuu6k

EWM "editor" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICOjq...eature=related

EWM chat with the producer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7PZxL1wOgI

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I'm vehemently against the whole 'pre-order' industry concept so I'm relying on you guys to thoroughly analyze the game before it comes out so I can decide whether it's worth buy or not next year. Have fun with the beta!

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i too hope for periodic updates, at the very least so illwinter can steal the good ideas(statisticly they have to have one or two.) although i understand from the site, it will be a few months atleast before people are testing anything but the most basic components of the game.

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You don't get charged until there is something to play. I haven't been charged for my pre-order yet, and won't be, until the beta keys are issued and I register the one I get.