IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview

[Sombre]

Well if that's the case it's sad that the parodies are way better than what they had.

[vfb]

Oh hey, I forgot, this is an astoundingly entertaining read:

http://elementalgame.com/journals.asp

Frogboy rocks! Love the 'scope, man.

[theenemy]

I'm spinning in my grave! Can't this game come out already?

[ghoul31]

Originally Posted by theenemy

I'm spinning in my grave! Can't this game come out already?

You aren't dead, so how can you be spinning in your grave?

[Fantomen]

Originally Posted by ghoul31

You aren't dead, so how can you be spinning in your grave?

When people discovered he was the enemy, they buried him alive with a laptop and a internet connection.

[theenemy]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

When people discovered he was the enemy, they buried him alive with a laptop and a internet connection.

Haha

They actually tried to smash my head in with the laptop(an Acer Aspire 8935G btw), then left it there when they thought I was dead.
I got the internet connection by plugging in a Staff of Storms into a radioactive dinosaur corpse.

[Foodstamp]

So far the beta group has a been a little disappointing to me. They want things taken out like perma-death for Sovereigns and want things added like Legolas elves. I hope the only version of an elf we have in the game is a pointed-ear head atop a spear. And when your Sovereign dies, I hope the game formats your computer.

[LDiCesare]

Originally Posted by Foodstamp

So far the beta group has a been a little disappointing to me. They want things taken out like perma-death for Sovereigns and want things added like Legolas elves. I hope the only version of an elf we have in the game is a pointed-ear head atop a spear. And when your Sovereign dies, I hope the game formats your computer.

Perma death for the Sovereign is not an issue to me. Game over on sovereign death is. It's a gameplay issue because Brad Wardell says himself the ai will have lots of computation to do to avoid being killed and therefore he's looking for ways to make it hard to kill a sovereign, which means he's designing the game around a core feature and then trying to work around that core feature because the ai won't handle it.
The current implementation of sovereign death is also particularly annoying: When you kill a soevereign, all his cities just vanish (but not the units).

Now many players in the beta think game over on sovereign death is a good idea, and I haven't seen anyone asking for Legolas elves on the beta forums.

[Foodstamp]

There are many threads asking for stock fantasy races. The reason I like the idea of the Sovereign dying = game over is because the sovereign is supposed to represent you, and also it adds an element of danger to the game that makes it more exciting. The cities vanishing is lame, and I hope they change that.

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by Foodstamp

There are many threads asking for stock fantasy races.

It's not unreasonable expecting fantasy races since it's a fantasy game. In my opinion it doesn't have to be stock fantasy races, but anything is better than having only human good and human bad.

Originally Posted by Foodstamp

The reason I like the idea of the Sovereign dying = game over is because the sovereign is supposed to represent you, and also it adds an element of danger to the game that makes it more exciting.

Adding an element of danger with the Sovereign dying can be done without meaning instant game over. The dominions series did it correctly because the death of the pretender has a serious penalty.
In Elemental I'd hate to suddenly lose a game because another player got lucky casting a volcano or because some Balrog was released by independent adventurers. Whether or not a player loses the game by the sovereigns death means the sovereign will be more and more likely hiding deep in a tower during middle and late game.

What other recent TBS games makes you believe tying a win/lose event to a single unit would be successful?