OT: Starcraft II and Elemental

[sector24]

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.