OT: Starcraft II and Elemental

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

+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"

Mouseclicks? I learned long ago to turn the sound off if there was any chance of elephants or starspawn being in a battle in order to preserve marital bliss...

[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.

[Cosian]

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

[onomastikon]

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.

[WraithLord]

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?

[Gandalf Parker]

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....

Ballbarian's file of replacement sounds for elefant.smp (oliphants)
f_death.sw (1 of the female death sounds) fear.smp (R'lyeh mind blast &
several death/fear spells) sling.sw (slings) vasande.smp (Wyrm, etc).
This is definetly a life saver if your significant other is irritated
by some of the sounds the game makes.

[Gandalf Parker]

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.

[Torin]

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".

[Zeldor]

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.

[Torin]

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.