OT: Starcraft II and Elemental

[Doo]

Elemental will be great, it may need more time but the engine for a fantastic 4X game (in whatever guise the modders wish to take it) is there.

[Torin]

I dont think it will be that great. Just ok.
The graphics look good, but combat mechanics looks very simplistic.

Once I know the mechanics of Dominions 3 then some of the other games looks worse somehow.

Just attack and defense? I remember playing Warlord 2 tough where the units just had Strenght. I doubt they will use an open dice so it will be the strongest unit wins always.

And other thing I noticed in the videos is that buildings are finished in just a couple of turns vs Master of Magic where a granary took like 35 turns to complete. I dislike the spam of buildings just dislike the spam of techs of Gal Civ 2 where you had laser, laser II, etc. Master of Orion tech tree is ok, just laser and you can modify it later when you get more tech (auto fire, A Piercing etc.)

And finally, even if Frogboy gets angry, the factions looks lame.
Good guys and bad guys. You get to design your won tough. I think i would.

[delacroix]

I'll probably write some impressions once Elemental comes out and I've had a few days to see how it plays. I'm a bit hesitant with the game from what I've seen in the beta, but it's still the beta so it's not fair to judge quite yet. I liked a couple of the attributes of the game, but there's some notable glaring shortfalls that need to be addressed too before I'd recommend it to anyone. (eg. combat has been bare-bones so far, so no one other than the devs has seen how it'll play out with unit special abilities or all the graphical effects). Stability has been poor for me as of beta 4 as well, so hopefully they do end up ironing out the crashes by release.

I agree with poster above about the factions; they all look bland and kind of the same.. just tan-skinned humanoids, gothic humanoids, some red-skinned humanoid and a blue-skinned humanoid. The concept art looked a lot more stylistic and seemed to accentuate differences in the appearance of the races, but the in-game units just don't have an appealing look so far.

Also, the faction capabilities are poorly documented. For example this is the strength and weaknesses of one of the factions, Umber, in beta 4:
Strength- caravans build roads faster
Weakness- -20% tech knowledge

That's all. I don't know about anyone else, but I can't say I'm excited about building roads faster as a racial/faction ability. I'd hope the factions will be a lot more unique than that. I'd prefer to see factions to be as varied as the races of Master of Magic, or Dominions, or Heroes of Might & Magic town types versus difference among Civilization games. At least Civilization had the excuse that it isn't a fanstay-era game and all Civs are human so they couldn't have factions that regenerate, or fly, so I can be a bit more lenient with a game like Civ having similar faction capabilities.

[DonCorazon]

I had a bad feeling about elemental when I saw the factions were like Kingdom of Galdor, Kingdom of Minos, Kingdom of [insert generic fantasy sounding name]. And I am making those up b/c I don’t feel like looking to see what the actual ones were but they were just as bland and indistinct. By way of contrast take a look of the old map of the World of Greyhawk for some inspiration – Hold of the Sea Princes, Caliphate of Ekbir, Bone March, Abbor Alz, etc.

And I am guessing in Elemental one will have some generic trade bonus, one will have a generic research bonus etc. Stardock is like a soulless robot. I like the flavor and eccentricity of games like AD&D (1st edition) or Dominions, with all the weird rules and exceptions that make it difficult to reduce everything to numbers. Stardock games feel like spreadsheets with shallow-cliched themes pasted on.

I pre-ordered elemental and cannot get it to run on my laptop so I am the first to admit I could be wrong. But hearing these reports seem to confirm my fears that it is going to have as much flavor as a rice puff.

[Foodstamp]

Originally Posted by DonCorazon

I had a bad feeling about elemental when I saw the factions were like Kingdom of Galdor, Kingdom of Minos, Kingdom of [insert generic fantasy sounding name]. And I am making those up b/c I don’t feel like looking to see what the actual ones were but they were just as bland and indistinct. By way of contrast take a look of the old map of the World of Greyhawk for some inspiration – Hold of the Sea Princes, Caliphate of Ekbir, Bone March, Abbor Alz, etc.

And I am guessing in Elemental one will have some generic trade bonus, one will have a generic research bonus etc. Stardock is like a soulless robot. I like the flavor and eccentricity of games like AD&D (1st edition) or Dominions, with all the weird rules and exceptions that make it difficult to reduce everything to numbers. Stardock games feel like spreadsheets with shallow-cliched themes pasted on.

I pre-ordered elemental and cannot get it to run on my laptop so I am the first to admit I could be wrong. But hearing these reports seem to confirm my fears that it is going to have as much flavor as a rice puff.

This guy nailed it. I would only add that I think Elemental WILL be a good game a year or so from now. If they only give us XML for modding, I am going to be PISSED.

[das123]

First off, someone asked about Distant Worlds. Grab it!!! Best 4X space game ever made and getting better and better with each patch.

Regarding Elemental, I still hold high hopes for the game at release but I certainly empathise with the comments through this thread. Couple of things need to be said though:

1. Brad, the MD of Stardock, is basically on the forums every day as FrogBoy giving feedback and sharing the development of the game. I have never seen this level of openness from a developer. Bloody brave to face up day after day to defend what he is doing. He mustn't have a soul because I would imagine this to be a soul destroying exercise.

2. The screenshots of the final game do look much better than the Beta. So the world looks to be fairly immersive. Jury still out on racial diversity and tactical battles.

3. Like many here I think the game will end up being great after it has gone through a few versions and mods. But I also really believe it will be very good on release next week. A few lucky individuals managed to get their copies early through an error with the passwording and they are reporting that the game is fantastic.

4. Modding is based around XML but there will also eventually be Python as well.

[sector24]

Originally Posted by das123

3. Like many here I think the game will end up being great after it has gone through a few versions and mods. But I also really believe it will be very good on release next week. A few lucky individuals managed to get their copies early through an error with the passwording and they are reporting that the game is fantastic.

Can you provide some links? Good reviews would be very encouraging.

[das123]

Originally Posted by sector24

Can you provide some links? Good reviews would be very encouraging.

Here are some links to a couple of guys that downloaded it...

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-t...postcount=1920

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-t...postcount=1922

Not a lot of specifics but I'm heartened.

Also I felt very comfortable after reading the GameShark interview with the developer...
http://www.gameshark.com/features/74...ad-Wardell.htm

[LDiCesare]

Originally Posted by das123

2. The screenshots of the final game do look much better than the Beta. So the world looks to be fairly immersive. Jury still out on racial diversity and tactical battles.

But the spell learning interface seems to be mostly the same as in beta, and it realy sucks.
I found the game more interesting to play only with the cloth map to be honest. the graphics hinder play more than they help, managing to make it hard to distinguish fluff (worthless rocks or scrubs) from gameplay element (ores or forests).

[sector24]

Good find! Ironic that the guy got in trouble despite providing a pretty much glowing opinion of the game and the only data point which indicates that the game might not be a flop. You would think that they would want a counterpoint to all the negativity/disappointment going around.