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Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
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oh, and don't blame the early release on the retailers, that's just bull... the game still isn't ready a few days after the original release date(even without the early street release), so blaming it on that is just a pathetic attempt to clear their incompetence. moreover, Brad himself said that he feels the game is ready, which it clearly isn't, which makes your excuse even more mute... |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
sffrrrom:
If someone does that, you sue them in court. There are deals, if someone releases game earlier, it's breach of contract. They'd have to pay huge fines for that. |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
Yeah, I had a pretty crappy experience with Demigod from Stardock. It was so buggy upon release that it was nearly unplayable - it's essentially an entirely MP game that was launched with unusable matchmaking. Months in it was still just plain *bad*, requiring a potentially prohibitive amount of effort just to line up people to play, which sucked because the game had a lot of potential. The community just withered and died because of it, I've no idea if they eventually ironed out all the problems but it didn't matter because nobody was playing it anymore. It totally soured me to paying retail for a game then doing the beta testing for my trouble. Stardock used up all the goodwill I have, I'm not picking up another game from them until I have some assurance it's polished.
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Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
13: What do you mean by the game still isn't ready? If you mean that it still needs serious balancing and gameplay work, then I agree with you, and did in my above post. My point was that the broken street release date most seriously negatively impacted performance/crashing/unplayability, especially people who tried to play the retail version without patching (because they couldn''t patch yet). Many of those issues have been addressed by now, and I don't see that they really should constitute a black mark against Stardock. On the other hand, the fact that the game isn't really much fun to play at the moment, because its so poorly balanced, should certainly count against them.
Also, whether or not you think close contact by Brad and the others is a good thing or not, it's really the only way for Stardock to pursue their business model as an indie company. There are plenty of large, impersonal corporations out there who take no notice of their fans (cough, EA, cough). Zeldor: No, or at least not in Stardock's case. The fact is, retailers DID break the street release date, and this probably represents a breach of contract. However, suing those retailers who did is impractical (Stardock even stated this themselves), at least for a small independent company like Stardock. Maybe a huge company, like EA or Blizzard, who commands millions of dollars in sales of one product, might be able to pursue litigation. But the reality is that in pursuing legal remedies, Stardock would likely be forced to spend far more money than they would ever see in return - money they don't have to spend to prove a point, like Blizzard or EA do. |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
sffrrrom: [couldn't you pick easier nick?]
No, small companies cannot afford not to sue. They have to be even harder when dealing with people that want to damage their business. But even without that we see that: - game was not ready to be released now, or in a week or probably even few months - they cannot do betas, there are insane amounts of bugs that can be spotted after 15 minutes There are many very serious bugs that are not fixed in 1.05 patch. And Brad thinks 1.05 is a ready product. Database is screwed terribly - you can build multiple limited buildings, have multiple battles with same opponents and collect same loot few times - you just need to click fast enough [or make game run slow enough, easy thing]. Imagine this in MP. And if they cannot make basic stuff like that, how about all hacks and db injects? And I'm not talking about balance or gameplay, which feels like Civ5 mod that adds 100x more huts and make barbarians diversified. |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
sffrrrom, not ready not in the sense of game balance but in the sense of game options not working properly, I gave you some examples in my above post, Zeldor just gave you more. also, I understand that the multiplayer aspect of Elemental still doesn't work, which is another huge issue, considering most gamers buy new games just for the multiplayer aspect...
now, stop with this bull**** about the early release due to retailers! we're now almost a full week after the retailers released the game, Stardock already made what? 2 or 3 patches? and the game still isn't ready! Brad thinks it is, but it is clear he's mistaken... the game won't be really ready for a few months at the very least, sorting out the various bugs, getting all the game options to work as intended, fixing the UI and AI, etc. note that none of these have anything to do with the actual game play, balance, etc(well, part of the AI issue I assume, but the AI issue is huge...) so yes, we're talking about the BASICS not even the more advanced stuff(that usually takes more time, and is the real reason for patches, not to fix basics). |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
Update to tactical battles: http://forums.elementalgame.com/392831
Shards are supposed to increase your spell damage, but currently they do not. This is definitely a contributing factor to magic being so weak. |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
Impassable terrain exists in tactical battles, but I've only been able to make use of it once, and I had 4 or 5 troops to boot, so it isn't terribly thrilling indeed.
The game is indeed in a beta state if anything. Main issues remain. Brad blamed the number of Windows variants and graphics cards. He's certainly right in a sense, but then he wanted to make a PC-only game. And he's wrong in that in ye olde days, there was this mess with sound cards and with extended memory, so... Anyway, this kind of game certainly shouldn't use cutting-edge features that'll bleed the memory out of the game. But then I checked the 'cloth map only' option, so I'm probably biased. (And yes, I'll launch nethack of adom again soon.) As of 1.05, the game crashes often (2 hours max for me). Several posters also report the impossibility to load saved games. Random map generation is unable to provide a decent number of maps, and won't ever be if they stick to their current scheme. They have a patchworkk-algorithm prepared, but it's still ridiculous, as they would have decent map scripts ported from Civ IV if they had just opened the map generation api during the beta. Tactical battles are dull. Auto resolution is pitiful, as I managed to lose a battle by autoresolution (I had about 100+ vs 33 in terms of estimated power), and when I reloaded and replayed I didn't lose 1 health on any unit... Flavor isn't to be found anywhere. AI is dumb. Just researching big armies with big weapons and some armor, and building ONE such unit wins you the game on a normal sized map. Magic is mostly useless tactically, although some strategic spells (teleport, summons) can be useful. Even then, spells aren't balanced. Reveal costs a lot of mana for little benefit, while fire giants can be summoned pretty early and can win you the game all by themselves if you're fast enough at locating your opponent (which only requires building peasants, but I'm usually too lazy to have more than 1 stack at a time). UI is bad. Locating armies/units in needs of orders is difficult. Finding out how to equip your heroes is unintuitive. Also, sometimes, one unit will move out of your stack alone without your wanting nor understanding. This can lead you to lose the game in case 'twas your sovereign who suddenly left his army because there's no army management window. Champions are worthless. They cost so much to equip and will be slaughtered easily by the first squad of soldiers they'll meet that they are a joke. Even putting tens of the +2 attack for 100 gold amulet, cheesy as it is, isn't going to make them useful. I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting stuff. Still, the game will probably be good in several months or one year. |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
The game suffered because:
Developers added, took away, changed features all the way up until the last minute. (No time for polishing those features) It is obvious their internal beta team and the developers did not play it enough to realize there is no fun, balance or point to combat, the spell system, or the various other systems that were thrown in just because. They leaned too heavily on the forums for direction, when they should have known that the Stardock forum goers were going to amount to little more than "yes men" to any idea they presented. They were following a decent course to release at their secondary date of February 2011 but circumstances forced them to release in August instead. Add to that the promises that were not kept. The game that Brad (CEO) talked about is a far cry from the Elemental I received. There is no python, there are barely any modding tools, this is not a spiritual successor to MOM, you can hardly call this a game even because the rules it follows are so bizarre, from spell damage to stacked unit damage to everything else, there is no continuity at all. I paid for beta! |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
The game was not ready for release. In a few words : The AI is terrible, lot of minor bugs, no polish, no balance. It looks like a single player only Dom3... Not really the good way to make it fantastic.
It looks great, graphic design is attractive but there is lot of work to get it enjoyable. But Civ5 is released in 3 weeks, Stardock probably was in need of money and the next time for a release would be in months... So lot of disappointment, hopefully the players will not disappear the next weeks until work will be done on the game... |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
In support of 13lackgu4rd's comment: I think that many, if not most, Dom3 players can accept that game balancing is one of the responsibilities of a game's community. It's also more of a subjective "grey area" than broken features/promises.
If Elemental had come out with only balancing issues, I doubt this thread would have gone in the direction it has. Beta's for ironing out atleast most of the major bugs, and for making sure the game is working well enough to be called Gold. "Crashes every 2 hours or so" should never, ever, be an issue in a Gold version. And this is the second Stardock game that's had this issue. I personally experienced the exact same problem with GalCiv2. They should have just waited for a holiday release. Yeah, it's difficult to have to hold out for a payday, but look at Blizzard and their successes. They wait until a game is actually Gold, before releasing it. I'm not saying that their 1.0 versions are perfect, they've released plenty of patches (itself a good thing, rather than any mark of inferior coding), but they give quality product from day one, without any insulting "take it or leave it" garbage. This whole idea of the community being a second or third Beta team is getting out of hand, and really starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth. People volunteer for Beta all the time, so let whoever wants to, sign up and help out, until the game works. Games are for entertainment, enjoyment, a clean break from work. If I have to work hard just to help a game become playable, on top of my 40+ hour work week, why aren't companies like Stardock paying me, instead of the other way around? |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
After playing the game last night I don't think I have too much more to add about Elemental that has not been said here.
1) Its playable 2) It needs work to be more balanced 3) It has bugs (having said that, no CTD's for me. Also patches are being released) 4) It has great potential and I believe there will be some fantastic mods in time. If you are a picky person and get stinky pants over bugs and games not being polished then save yourself the effort and don't get it now, but do keep following the games (and mods) development. If your a relaxed gamer and like TBS get it, have a muck around and watch it improve over time. I personally enjoy it and especially hope Stardock can bring it up to where the potential says it can be. I do believe this will happen and I'm happy to have paid for it because I do have faith. If this comes back to bite me then I'll lament the loss of time and dollars. However if its improved upon most TBS fans will buy it and be very happy. Overall: Watch this space. |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
Funny I should see this thread after arriving at these boards after being away for some time. The reason I came back here was to see what was new in the Dom3 world since I was so disappointed in Elemental and needed to find something substantial like Dom3 to scratch my MP strategy itch again.
Rather than rehash the details that others here have already so ably discussed, I will limit myself to saying that Elemental is not only an unfinished product, it also seems to be a confused design as well. The game seems to have thrown things together without a thought of how to weld them all together into a pleasing whole. From what I've read, it would seem that this stems from the devs making large changes from build to build. Was there no overall design plan for this game? It doesn't seem like there was. And the game that I first read about and got interested in over a year ago seems to be totally different from the game that they released this week. Add to that the bugs, an unintuitive UI, an unimaginative set of starting nations, just to name a few things, and the whole thing adds up to something that certainly needed a few more months of work and polish. The only bright light I saw with the whole thing was their stance towards modding the game, and the tools that they will give to help that along. And of course the real gem - there is no multiplayer on release. Oh there will be servers set up soon, but really, I would have thought that they would be especially careful to have their multiplayer ironed out and ready considering the much deserved flak that they received over their Demigods game. And yes, I know like others have said that SD will support the title and that they will get things patched and cleaned up eventually. And I do have faith that this will be done. But releasing the game like this when it's not ready just isn't right. And Brad claiming that it is ready is only fooling himself and anyone else enough of a fanboy to believe him. And I think it's going to bite him pretty harshly when it comes review time. While I haven't yet seen a formal English language review on the game yet, other than the PC Gamer warning which was as stated not a review which would come later, there is already at least one brief French review that gives the game a sound 30/100 mainly siting the unfinished and unappealing nature of the game and UI...and the lack of multiplayer being enabled. Oh well, I suppose I'll have to queue up with everyone else, my gaming buddies included, and just shelve this game for a few months to a year and then check back in with it then. A pity though to see SD waste the good vibes that could have been generated for this game by releasing a finished and polished product that would have in turn ensured a much stronger response, and sales, from the gaming community right from the get go. |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
Could you post a link to the French review please? thank you
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Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
Here is a good review of Elemental, also containing a mention of Dominions 3.
http://fidgit.com/archives/2010/08/e...the_review.php Inscrutable? |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
Review aggregator: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/el...l-war-of-magic
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Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
Well, i still can't get this thing to run on the old XPS 1710 so have to reserve judgment but the reviews look atrocious. Surprising the big sites like Gamespot or IGN have held off - guess they like to let the game manufacturers sell more lemons before they reveal the truth.
You know, I read an interview with Brad Wardell one time where he talked about how he made alot of money, was married to a good looking woman, and drove a nice car (something along those lines) - and I thought - what a douche. Well, I can't believe I have been dumb enough to buy more than one game from him. I won't ever be buying or supporting any Stardock drivel nor will I ever pre-order anything again. btw I pre-ordered the hard copy version so have a copy of the lousy 20+ page manual. Classic Stardock tripe: "Urxen: Another Fallen race, they are smaller than Trogs and are less effective in battle, but more productive" Wow, that really fires up my imagination Stardock - wtf - I mean almost anyone could write something better than that. I want my f-in $ back. |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
In theory you can sue them or return the product, I am sure it says "multiplayer" on the box :)
Class-action lawsuit would be so funny, someone should finally do it vs one of the game companies. |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
The gamespot critic must be a friend of stardock because he knows he must do a bad critic and its waiting for to see if patches change the game.
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/...es%3Btitle%3B1 |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
I almost want to volunteer to work for their company just to help. So little effort could improve the manual tenfold, for example.
"Urxen are skittish and frenetic chittering humanoids that worship the fiery monkey demon Bloodfinger (husband of the moon goddess). They dwell in large temple complexes where the braziers unrelenting flames consume the sacrificial victims of outlying villages throughout the dry season until the torrential rains fall." Two minutes of effort for a little flavor, albeit warped. |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
They have huge beta group. If they were able to use any help, it'd be totally enough. There are sever bugs that can be found withint 10 minutes. Still present after 4 or 5 patches.
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Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
"wielding graphics that would look right at home in a Dire Straits video"
thats a good explanation of some of the characters graphics in this review http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3181116&p=1 But to be fair. Apart from these card graphics that look atrocious. The rest of the game looks awesome graphicwise. Most of the bad is the bad timing on the animations. The cavalry animation is buggy, long after it finished moving it stalls making you wait for several seconds. there is no standard in timing for animations. |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
I think SD are making terrible marketial mistakes and are rapidly burning that most important, yet ellusive, coin - their good reputation.
For me personally it's a done deal, any expectations I might have had from SD to release fun TBS games are now completely gone. I gave SD a lot of credit, mainly b/c TBS games are so rare these days and b/c the high praise gamespot reviews gave them. So I tried, I really did to like the GalCiv series but DonC has put it well, it's just lacking sou/fun/"magic" - you name it. So, after years of lurking on MOM2 sites I read this exciting news that SD and Atari are negotiating for SD to do a sequel to MOM. From that point of excitment it was a down hill journey: first that deal blew off, so instead of a real sequel SD was doing a "spiritual" successor to MOM. Still, could be great, but, as time goes by I notice that SD devs don't have a clear concept of how they want their game to be like. I follow their forums, their devs diaries and the fan comments and it all translates to a sinking feeling. No, they won't do PBEM, no they won't take great concepts from AoW/Dom, no-no: they want to do their own game - albeit they still haven't decided what exactly they want in and how the economy, military, combat and spell systems would all bind together to work seemlesly and smoothly. That was my feeling but I tried to tell myself I'm probably exaggerating. Luckily I didn't preorder. I hope there will one day be reall sequel to MOM2, AoW SM & Dominions 3. Or that a good FTBS game would come along. As of now, FTBS genre seems to be withering. Good titles are hard to come by and are growing ever more scarce. |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
Wraithlord,
I don't know about you, but to me it feels like the game still has 6+ months of beta before it should be released. Brad made a money decision to get the game on the Walmart shelves, reputation be damned. |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
Yes, 6+ months for beta, consolidation of game mechanisms and openess to none-fanboys comments re. how to make the game have more flavor, pace better etc. Sadley, the attitude SD exibited so far doesn't paint them as being very open to critisicm.
Oh, and of course they need to add real MP to the game. MP at the mercy of SD server's is not something I'd look forward to. |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
Thankfully, I didn't pre-order Elemental (I didn't want to get involved in beta testing) and I am unlikely to buy Elemental any time soon.
I personally love Galactic Civilizations and bought GC 1, GC2 and all the expansions. Also I have bought several games which I am happy with via there impluse platform. So Stardock have alot of goodwill from me, however Elemental and how Stardock have handled it is a diaster and will no doubt cost them alot of goodwill in the future. I know I would never pre-order a Stardock game but wait for the magazine reviews/demo before parting with my money. There website is very, very scary place to visit, its full of fanboys who stomp on any critisim of the game or any reasonable discussion. If those were the type of players who were giving them there beta feedback, then its no wander it has resulted in what is currently a very, 'average' game. The demo will be out in September, so I will try that and see what I think, I may still buy Elemental but only if Stardock continues its development and turns it into at least a 'good' game. It could very well be the 1st expansion before this is the case. |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
I emailed Stardock for a refund which is what I think we should all do to send a message that we won't put up with their paid beta tactics.
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Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
Yep, I think the correct address is sales@stardock.com
I've heard that Bradell posted that everyone unhappy with the game can ask for refund. Everyone should do it and then pick it from $2 bin at walmart. |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
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What's true is that Brad -- not unlike Johan et al. -- feels that he will and can end up doing his thing, no matter what, and that gives him a certain degree of immunity to criticism. Like Johan et al., Brad has a "real life" in a slightly different context, albeit one that is not quite so different than that a game developer as a schoolteacher is (he runs a software company which also happens to have a small gaming branch); while he has resources and gets paid for Elemental, his bread and butter is elsewhere (various Windows applications), allowing him to create a niche product, if he so wishes. For reasons much like these, the creators of Dominions 3 are also able to say, with a certain degree of reassurance, that if someone doesn't like what they are doing, then they might as well stay away. Unlike the creators of Dom3, however, whose main target group consist of people posting here (in other words, a small, vociferous, fiercly loyal (it seems to me sometimes to the point of being blind), frequently rampant fanbase) -- in other words, the nerds here like you and me --, the creators of Elemental simultaneously wish to be mainstream and reach a much larger target group. I think that is greatly inconsistent and self-contradictory, and I am currently writing a useless, somewhat acerbic post full of well-formulated rantings on their website, mostly because I still suffer from the common delusion that things people write on sites like these will be viewed with patience and goodwill and may even change things in the world. Look for my post there soon. Ah excuse me sidetracked. I too was a member of the beta "team", and Megablob is more correct than he knows. What he doesn't know: We never actually tested the game. Never. We tested parts of it, but what you can purchase now was never played by a human being outside the laboratories of Stardock, and by them only minimally (by their own admission), before reaching your shelves. You read it here first. Ah excuse me again. |
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And otherwise, I completely agree with Wraithlord's sentiments. Are we reading the same forums here? The ones in which there are only a very few people that stand completely behind the devs in all things (seriously, other than gandalf, does anyone fit this mold? And he's at least quite open in admitting it)? The one in which, on patch days, we are likely to see more people complaining about the lack of cave darkness than we are people who thank illwinter for the extra work they've put in to make the game just that little bit better, years after getting it out on the market? The one where the vast and overwhelming majority of games are played using a mod that makes significant changes to the game due to perceived balance concerns that they devs don't really see as a problem for them? You baffle me. |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
Spelling:D
Ha ha, yes it was very sloppy and I am embarrassed to be called a Englishman, which I am...:doh: |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
Sorry, I did not mean to come down on Megablob's spelling like that. I have been having a bad day, little things were and are being blown way out of proportion, and I did not take my medicine. Sorry.
(I do, however, continue to feel differently about the nature of loyalty and criticism on these boards than you do. I see about equal levels of vociferousness and constructive criticism here as on the elemental forum.) |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
I think most if not all of the longtime Forumgoers would be more than willing to buy Kristoffer and Johan a beer, or several, to go with a pat on the back and a "bloody good show".
I certainly would. Infact, if I had the ways and means to drop everything and off to Sweden, I'd make the beer myself (it's not that hard, but I don't even have time for that, lately...). I've found the medium (an internet Forum) to be far more lacking than the sentiment. Also, the audience that Dom3 is directed towards is a small, rarified faction. It's a game made for gamers who have been either ignored or burned (thanks Stardock!) for over a decade. Considering that we're not just gamers, not just fantasy gamers, not just turn-based fantasy gamers, we're some kind of...specialized retro breed of turn-based fantasy gamer/roguelike degenerate bastard hybrids(?)...well, how fine of social graces can you expect from us, afterall? I'm the only one here that I even know is married, and I suspect my miracle of a wife was as relieved to chance upon someone who shared her interests, as I was to find her. I'm forever immensely grateful to Illwinter for keeping this dream alive, but they've taken a heavy burden upon their shoulders by practically being the only bearers of this particular torch. Do we crave more and better? Ofcourse we do. Do we expect more and better from Kristoffer and Johan? Frankly, I don't think anyone expected Dom3. It's a whale of a game, but it's swimming in an empty sea, and I don't think very many people know quite how to act when it also turns out to be a magical fish that grants wishes. How does one even deal with that, let alone thank it properly? |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
+1
with small correction - Plenty of married guys here (me included), see the thread that goes something along the lines of "mouse clicks when playing dom makes my girlfriend/wife/mother in low, angry/sleep deprived/lock me in basement" ;) |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
You say that well and nicely, Honeybadger.
I realize that this is about as niche as you can get, I'm not good in formulating stuff succinctly. I suppose I was overwhelmed a few times here by what I (mistakenly?) took to be long-standing forum-goes with much clout beating me on the head for saying something wrong, and since then (I believe that was 2004, when I joined for playing Dominions 2) I have mostly been a lurker. And now, I bet there will soon, possibly right here, be quite a number of people who are going to give us information on their marital status. I'll start us off: I've been married for ten years (August 2000), and the wife detests computer games of all sorts. Otherwise, we have what appears to be a wonderful time and wonderful kids. In related news, Brad Wardell posted from his holiday house that he loves Elemental and will be sure to address all the bad stuff very soon. |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
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I've actually been encouraged to play more, provided I still give her an acceptable amount of attention, and keep the house from falling apart. My mother in law, on the other hand, is a very avid collector of Harry Potter merchandise, and has owned atleast 3 computers since I've known her, so I'm not getting a lot of grief from that quarter, either. |
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Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
Thanks for sharing Brad's post.
I liked what I read. I think that it would be,if SD would stand by it, a major step in the right direction. However, releasing the game in such a sorry state shouldn't have happened. SD basically punishes it's most dedicated fans, while those sitting on the fence will: a- probably buy the game cheaper (least important) and b- not do paid beta testing, or put it other way, be frustrated with bugs, crashes and inconsistencies. And c- will buy the game with much more content The way the game would be in this 1.1 version Brad mentioned is how it should have been released. Oh, and my wife too hates vidoe gaming in general and dominions specifically. It's the one game she hates most. ( The one game to rule them all ;) ) - I wonder why? :confused: |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
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At my house dominions is like, I'd say, a pet that only I like. For my wife it's no better than a flea infested, bad smelling mongreal and she probably wouldn't mind giving it the occasional kick or downright kick it out of the house :) |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
My problem with Stardock's forums is mostly the suppression of negativity that makes it impossible to see a situation from multiple perspectives. When I want to learn about a game, the most valuable feedback for me is the negative feedback because it is generally the most honest. People gushing about the game is largely meaningless because you're on that game's forum, of course the people there are going to like it. For positive feedback it's better to go to metacritic/gamefaqs or a neutral board.
Even now that the negativity on their boards is overwhelming, every post must contain the caveat that "I love Stardock and I know they will support their game" before being honest. It's ridiculous and I don't see that on these forums at all. Any bashing on these forums is usually people asking questions they could answer themselves with some testing, or from experienced players who forget just how complex and daunting Dom3 is to new players. Even then it's pretty rare. I just finished my first sandbox game of Elemental last night. Tiny map, ridiculous monsters and all ridiculous AIs. I had the game wrapped up by turn 70 but I played until turn 250 to finish the tech tree and check out quests, etc. I finally won via the quest of mastery but I did crush a few nations to get to the quest locations. Now that I have accepted the UI flaws and the quirky behavior and crashes, the game is actually growing on me a little. I see the game's potential for fun given lots of patches or a huge balance mod (like CBM does for Dom3). That doesn't really excuse the current state of the game, but if you could pick this game up at Christmas for $30 that might not be a bad deal. |
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Except my wife actually asked me to chose between this "pet" and her several times. This plural supposedly means she's not too serious about it but who knows? :sick: I had forgotten about this thread WL, thx for reminding it to me, that was one good time when I didn't feel alone with my "household vs dom3" issue :) and Baalz, IIRC the clicking problem was never solved since it's a "physical" one with mouses. Try to move some dozens of blood slaves/gems, at night, with all computer sound off just to realize how stressing this particular noise can be for a nearby sleeping usually-loving-but-never-in-this-case wife ;) |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
The switches dont work?
-s --nosound .......... No sound effects or music -m --nomusic ......... No music --musicvol X ........... Set music volume, 0-100 --clickvol X ............. Set mouse click volume, 0-100 Id have to look at which ones Im using since Ive had the defaults majorly changed for a long time. Along the same lines, there is also a Sound Pack file. The description I have on the Dom3Minions.com link page is.... Quote:
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Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
Concerning forums that dont allow negativity, I hear that a lot. I know people want that but am I just too old-on-the-net to be surprised by that anymore? The only forum with no censoring is going to be your own (and dont be surprised if others dont even agree with that). ANY company whether its games or cars or music or whatever is probably going to delete "unhelpful rants" (in their view) to some extent, which causes complaints about censorship. But Ive just gotten to the point that I take that for granted. If I want the nice view that sells things, I go to the company owned site. If I want the other side of the coin I will look elsewhere. I dont really expect the worst opinions to be on the company site.
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Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
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Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
good tip.
Ive been playing elemental and i have some spoilers. *spoilers* Good to get resourseful and the negative research of magic as racial traits. Theres a power to fast battle move and hit points. Good the power organized for the sovereign (and more moves). And stupid is not bad research spells its not that hot. I got an offensive sovereign last night and worked fine. Started with a spear and armor and positive battle skills. Just killed my neighbour in ridiculous AI. So that dont look good yet. The AI is better now in 1.06, they build better military units but ive never seem them reach metal armor soon enough. Im sure once it get MP there will be mods for balance. And stardocks job is to improve performance as i have to play on tiny maps and because of that. And even then they lag. The thing I like the most is designing my units. Thats a big thing. I made this longbomen wraiths in violet robes. And the armored guys with 2h hammer, "punisher". |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
You are not getting AI confused? I think you need to set it to "beginner", not "insane" for best performance? As you set yourself to "beginner" to have the easiest game, more like in Civ.
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Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
No, i play on hardest settings=ridiculous. And its not scary as it should.
Edit: i found out here a thing http://forums.elementalgame.com/392513 So i was playing with only 1 ridiculous AI. thats misleading. Edit2: No, i was playing against all ridiculous after all. So AI is weak. |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
There is apparently MAJOR breaking news about Elementals release.
Im off to read about it now |
Re: OT: Starcraft II and Elemental
I have and play both ....
Starcraft II is a good example of a very polished game. The campaign is well done and everything works as you expect. That said, it is not much different from the original. At the end of the day, despite probably one of the strongest community and MP interfaces out there, the game itself is a typical 4x RTS .... and I do like it. :) Elemental has some potential but is currently an unpolished gem. Version 1.06 is still quite buggy and the AI just plain sucks... Despite its problems, I am enjoying playing it, but my jury is still out regarding whether it will have permenancy here on my hard drive. I actually stumbled on the Dominion 3 as a result of a post in the Elemtental forums...favorite Fantasy Strategy games to play while Elemental is being fixed..... D3 got a lot of play in that thread and I ended up buying it. I am just scratching the surface, but I really like what I am seeing here despite its dated graphics. It is definetly much deeper than Elementals War of Magic |
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