Stardock's new game -- Elemental: War of Magic

[Martok]

Excellent find, ElectricEel. Did you watch the teaser trailer as well?

[Martok]

Okay, this is way too cool to *not* share. Brad talks about the game's persistent universe multiplayer mode:

Elemental, like Galactic Civilizations, will have a very in-depth single player world. In fact, in terms of the single player game, it will have a lot more "stuff" to it than GalCiv had (such as a virtual persistent single player opponent which we'll talk more as time goes on).
But it will be in multiplayer that we really hope to bring new fans to the genre.
I love multiplayer games. But I am not an advocate of them in terms of taking resources up from the single player game for most types of PC games. That's because, as a practical matter, relatively few people play on-line. Not because they can't but because it's just usually not worth the hassle.
Playing on-line can take a long time, it can be frustrating and it can often end up as a total waste because of dropouts, crashes, whatever.
To address this, Elemental is going to add some new multiplayer options that we think will really help expand the interest in multiplayer.
One of those options is the persistent world: Empire vs. Kingdom. In it, players choose a side - The Empire or The Kingdom. Having chosen that, players then play on-line with various other players who are trying to help their side - The Empire or The Kingdom conquer the world of Elemental. Each battle takes place on a tiny part of the overall world of Elemental. Their opponents and friends are a mixture of real users and AI users based on what is necessary.
The AI work in Elemental is a little bit beyond what we've done before. We are aiming to provide virtual AI players who are competing in the game like a real player would. These virtual AI players would be able to join games (if no one else is available, real people get first dibs on joining games) and would play much like real people do (GalCiv players have an idea of what we mean).
Part of my work, as the AI developer at Stardock, would be to create lots of these virtual players, each with their own personalities and strategies, so that they're prepared to join up in games and provide varying degrees of a challenge to human players.
The idea here is to let people be able to get into games on-line and play without a lot of hassle remembering that this is an additional option to the other multiplayer modes available.
We'll be talking more in the future about how the Kingdom vs. Empire persistent multiplayer experience works later.

Damn. I have to say, even I'm now curious to play MP in Elemental. And most of you know that that's usually not my cup of tea -- I'm generally a singleplayer-only type of gamer.

But this....this, I just might have to check out.

[Martok]

Another interesting bit. It looks like Brad's going to do beta-testing, AI code-work, and MP modes somewhat differently than what seems to be the norm (and all at the same time):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

One of the first things we're going to be beta testing for Elemental is a new way of doing computer AI. As some of you know, the main reason I got into development in the first place was to write computer AI for games.

Elemental is an opportunity to try some new things. For example, the initial betas of Elemental are going to require the user to be on the Internet to play. The reason is that the computer AI won't be inside the game itself but instead be implemented as AI players on the Impulse game cloud that we're building.

So you would, in effect, start up Elemental like you would a multiplayer game except that the people joining your game wouldn't be people. They would be AI people. And the AI work won't just be in how they play the game but how they behave -- in the lobby and elsewhere with the goal to make them feel like real people (except not jerks).

These AI players will have their own Impulse accounts with their own standings in the rankings, their own achievements, etc. The code won't execute on your machine, it'll be all server-based.

The final version of the game, of course, will not require the user to be on the Internet. We will bundle a number of the AI players in with the game to play single player, off-line games.

But what I hope to do is to build a cloud of multiplayer AI players that I can constantly be updating and enhancing in near-real time based on the data I get back from them on how they were beat, what exploits were used against them, what chat messages were sent to it that it needs to respond to (I'll probably have it respond "no speako English" for the most part).

In the final version of the game, these AI bots will be out there ready to join on-line games. We will give players the ability to discriminate against the robots if they have some sort of anti-robot issue and don't want them joining their multiplayer games. But the match-making system otherwise won't know which players are controlled by humans and which are controlled by the robots.

The nice thing is that for people who are used to playing with strangers on-line, the robots will help fill out the on-line community with people to play against who are explicitly designed to play like people (well like decent people not the people who drop immediately).

I expect the first version of this to be included with Beta 1 of Elemental (i.e. this isn't some "future" thing) which we expect will be out this Spring.

[Xiahou]

The final version of the game, of course, will not require the user to be on the Internet. We will bundle a number of the AI players in with the game to play single player, off-line games.

Phew.
That makes it sound much better. For a moment, I thought they were gonna require you to be online for single-player. I wonder if the offline AIs will be update-able to match what their online versions "learn"?

[Martok]

Phew.
That makes it sound much better. For a moment, I thought they were gonna require you to be online for single-player.

Heh. Yeah, I was wondering there for a minute as well.

I wonder if the offline AIs will be update-able to match what their online versions "learn"?

Probably not, unless there's a special "online singleplayer" mode you can run the game in (which I highly doubt). Given the frequency with which Stardock usually releases patches/updates, though, I suspect the offline AI's will be able to keep up well enough.

[Martok]

With the game almost ready to go into beta-testing and all the new info that's being released in the last few days (much of it in preparation for the run-up to PAX), it seemed an appropriate time to resurrect this thread.

So with that being said, we've got some new articles and previews! Myself, I found the Kotaku article and IGN's discussion with Scott about the game's art to be particularly interesting:


IGN preview

IGN article -- Art of Elemental

Gamespot preview

Kotaku preview/interview


The newer screenshots (especially in the art conversation) look pretty friggin' sweet IMHO. They've come a long way just in the last 3-6 months.

As for the Kotaku preview, I'm extremely interested in how these royal families and their dynastic politics will fit into the game's diplomacy system. It sounds like it's somewhat similar to that in Paradox's Crusader Kings, although admittedly I don't know have first-hand knowledge of CK. Still, I admit to being quite intrigued.

[Veho Nex]

Im getting all gitty waiting for this game.

[Sheogorath]

I've always been a big Master of Magic fan. I strongly suggest that anybody who can't wait see if they can find it somewhere or other. I'm not even going to venture a guess as to whether or not it truly qualifies as 'abandonware' now, since these days almost nothing is.

Anyway, it's a great game. It seems not so buggy to me, and I could run it without Dosbox on my old XP machine. I do remember that the AI could be quite viscous as well.

Other than that...
What, no death magic? One of the best parts about the original was getting a zombie army.

[Martok]

Other than that...
What, no death magic? One of the best parts about the original was getting a zombie army.

I don't know if you'll be able to raise zombie armies -- although one can hope -- but Elemental does have death magic. It's simply the flip side of life magic (which I'll admit I don't think Stardock has done the best job of making very clear). So have no fear; you should be able to indulge your inner necromancer to your heart's content.

[Zenicetus]

I'm a big Stardock fan (well, actually mainly a big GalCiv2 fan), and I've been looking forward to this. However, I'm having a hard time getting enthusiastic about the art style. I've read about the inspiration for the style, but it still isn't grabbing me. That hard-edge outline looks like an attempt at a comic book style, with a washed-out color palette. Oh well, I know this type of game isn't really about the eye candy, and at least it can't be accused of copying anything else out there. Just a minor quibble, and maybe it'll grow on me.

I'm not crazy about the square tile combat system either, but maybe that will grow on me too.

According to Brad's dev journal comments, the first open/pre-order beta is going to be very stripped-down to focus on game mechanics, so I think I'll wait to pre-order until there's a little more meat on the bones. I'll definitely jump in sometime before final release though.

[Xiahou]

From what I've seen, I love Elemental's art style. Here's some new screenies to take in.

I can't wait for the Beta to start....

[Martok]

I'll be honest: While functional, I wasn't overly-impressed with the game's visuals until the last few days. Now, however, I'm loving it.


As for the beta, I'm probably going to hold off, at least for now. Aside from my lacking the requisite patience to be a beta-tester, I'm also waiting for if/when the collector's edition is announced.

[Decker]

I actually stumbled upon this game not to long myself, and like you Martok, am waiting for this game to be released. I personally liked the art style from the get-go. Also, all the features seem to be really cool! The only things I am worried about is the diplomacy and the modding (which I hope is easy because this seems like a good game to mod imho )...

[Martok]

The only things I am worried about is the diplomacy and the modding (which I hope is easy because this seems like a good game to mod imho )...

Well I think you'll be quite pleased with the modding aspect, as the team has already built some pretty amazing mod tools (although I don't know if they'll be included in the soon-to-be-released beta). By most accounts, GalCiv2 was fairly easy to mod -- although be advised that I can't claim first-hand knowledge of this -- and Stardock has repeatedly stated their intention to make Elemental even more so. And unlike certain game companies that shall not be named, generally speaking Stardock has actually come through on what they say they're going to do.

As for diplomacy, I have very few worries about it myself. GalCiv2 is one of a small handful of games I've played where diplomacy is actually meaningful -- although admittedly, I suspect probably not as much as in most Paradox titles -- and I cannot imagine Brad Wardell slacking off in that department with EWM. Indeed, between the recently announced dynasties feature and the just-announced vassals feature, the game's diplomatic system looks to be quite robust.

[Decker]

Oh I know about the modding (I've never modded before and this looks like a really good game at doing a first attempt haha )

And true, I hear a LOT about GalCiv2 (though I've never played any of the games). And wow! That is really cool! The more info on this game that gets out the more I cannot wait for it haha.

Found this a few days ago.
Gameplay Video

[Papewaio]

I wonder if any of Stardock's developers visit here...

Waiting for this one... Looks like I will have to be a very good boy this summer (down under Feb is at the end of summer)...

[Martok]

I wonder if any of Stardock's developers visit here...

A couple of them have said they have in the past, although I don't know if they still do. I kinda got the impression they lost interest after Rome, but I may be mistaken in this regard.

Waiting for this one... Looks like I will have to be a very good boy this summer (down under Feb is at the end of summer)...

Gah! Stardock really needs to update that already....

I hate to be the one to break the news to you, Pape, but that release date of February 2010 is no longer valid. After having discussed the matter with the fans, Stardock decided to extend the beta to almost a full year, and subsequently the release date has been pushed back as well. There's no "hard" release date yet, but right now it looks to be somewhere around August/September of next year.

Personally, I think it's a good thing. However, I may also just go mad with the extra wait....

[Papewaio]

As long as they don't do a Spore I will be ok.

Spore: A game made by TV Executives
Dumbed down for the audience and treats them like criminals because parents want to play it with their kids.

Huge opportunity missed.

[Zenicetus]

I hate to be the one to break the news to you, Pape, but that release date of February 2010 is no longer valid. After having discussed the matter with the fans, Stardock decided to extend the beta to almost a full year, and subsequently the release date has been pushed back as well. There's no "hard" release date yet, but right now it looks to be somewhere around August/September of next year.

Personally, I think it's a good thing. However, I may also just go mad with the extra wait....

If the beta for the last expansion for GalCiv2 is any indication, the Elemental beta will be playable much earlier than the final release date. I was having a blast with Twilight of the Arnor as a pre-order beta for something like 6 months before it went final.

This is a little different because they're building the engine from scratch, but they've been working on it for a while now. I'm just guessing, but I'll bet they have a pretty solid game in beta by mid-Winter, and the rest of the year will be just balance and FX tweaks.

It does take some patience to play a beta where the rules can change with each release, and you have to wait for missing features... but it's better than waiting a year.

[Decker]

As long as they don't do a Spore I will be ok.

Spore: A game made by TV Executives
Dumbed down for the audience and treats them like criminals because parents want to play it with their kids.

Huge opportunity missed.

It's Stardock, I highly doubt they'll blow this

[Xiahou]

Brad's released some early screenshots of the beta.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Looks like Sin(x) of a Solar Empire, to me.

haha

[drone]

I lol'ed. Brad's hilarious, not your typical CEO.

[Xiahou]

I DL'ed the first beta build and got a chance to sit down and play a game. I had a bunch of performance problems and video glitches at first, but somewhere between updating my video drivers, rebooting, and starting with a fresh save game, the issues seemed to go away for the most part.

The game is very barebones in it's current state, but what's there shows a lot of promise for what's to come. To start, I chose my faction, started my game used some essence to found a city. From there, I sent my sovereign across the spider infested lands (seriously infested) to hunt for items and grind for exp. After I got a level, I bumped into another sovereign who was still level 1... and I killed him. By the time I was level 4, I found another sovereign.... and I killed him. Eventually, I found some cities belonging to the remaining 2 factions. I conquered them and killed their sovereigns. Game over.

Along the way, I got to play with the unit designer- which looks like it will be really cool when finished. I also spent time researching tech that unlocked new buildings and weapons/armor to use when designing units.

The AI seems pretty rudimentary at this point. Obviously, it was able to found towns and raise a few troops, but none of the sovereigns I encountered were above level 1, whereas I was level 6 before the end of the game. Spiders were by far the most prolific monster- the only other creature I encountered was a troll. So far so good...


This was the game's title screen:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Decker]

How was the gameplay mechanics? Trade, building an economy, politics, creating and moving an army around??

[Xiahou]

How was the gameplay mechanics? Trade, building an economy, politics, creating and moving an army around??

In a word... "no".

Here's a roadmap for the beta.

Below is the status of where we are on the development of Elemental.

BETA 1

1. Initial Build: Basic Compatibility
2. Beta 1A: Initial Gameplay Skeleton
3. Beta 1B: Initial Economic system Implemented
4. Beta 1C: Initial AI system Implemented
5. Beta 1D: Initial Diplomacy system Implemented
6. Beta 1E: Initial Dynasty system implemented
7. Beta 1F: Initial Magic system implemented
8. Beta 1G: Initial Quest system implemented

BETA 2

1. Initial build provides basic multiplayer (player hosted – client/server)
2. Beta 2A: Persistent stat tracking
3. Beta 2B: Stardock hosted option.
4. Beta 2C: Stardock hosted persistent games
5. Beta 2D: Stardock hosted persistent universe game (persistent dynasties)

BETA 3

1. Initial Kumquat3D engine build of Elemental.
2. Beta 3A: Introduction to Dungeons
3. Beta 3B: Introduction to Magical Spells

BETA 4

1. Introduction to tactical battles
2. Beta 4A: New multiplayer mode: Arena
3. Beta 4B: Customized tactical battle options
4. Beta 4C: Super-Duper AI Update to tactical battles
5. Beta 4D: Polish Beta (extensive and ongoing)

BETA 5

1. Introduction to integrated modding
2. Beta 5A: Persistent universe mods
3. Beta 5B: Third-party Maya/3D Studio importing beta
4. Beta 5C: Modding group testing

They're at "Initial Build" right now. 1A is supposed to be out around Oct 1. I think the purpose of the initial build is just to make sure it runs ok on people's PCs and to stamp out any major glitches. Once that's done we'll hopefully see deeper gameplay start to unfold.

For now, basically all I can do is: Found cities, move about, design and train units, attack monsters/sovereigns/cities/ect, check map POIs for loot, and do some very basic research and city building.

Here's a screenshot:

You can see my sovereign standing near the middle of the map and a scout in the upper right. In this game, I decided not to waste my own essence to found a city and just set out exploring- I found another faction's city and took theirs.

The other two cities also belonged to that faction. Around the time that I captured them, I also caught up with their sovereign and killed him off too.

As I currently understand it, the white rings around my towns represent my area of influence or where my magic has revitalized the land. Within those boundaries, I could found additional towns without having to expend my essence first. If you look close, you can see I've built some structures at the larger town, whereas the other two are still basic settlements.

[al Roumi]

This looks interesting, to say the least.

I recently completed a Stardock survey giving me a 20% discount on Impulse purchases till November 1st, as the game is available for pre-order, I might get involved (if that's not too miserly of me).

I've not been involved in such an early beta before, could be interesting...

The M&B Warband beta is currently monopolising my time though.

[Martok]

Incidentally, ShackNews has a new interview with Brad discussing the game. Some pretty good info to be found.

[Xiahou]

The Beta 1G update was released this afternoon. I've downloaded it, but probably won't have a chance to play it until this weekend. The changelog looks pretty impressive though:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------- Beta 1G Change Log -----------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------
--- MAJOR FEATURES ---
------------------------
**********
* Dynasties *
Overview:
The player can now get married (currently happens randomly) and have children (again, totally random). After 20 turns the children will 'come of age' and become champion units on the map. At this time, the "Arrange Marrage" option becomes available in diplomacy. Daughters will get married into the other faction (you lose her as a unit), but 2 of every 3 children will return to your faction when they grow up.
Details:
+ Added initial dynasty data stuff
- Players keep track of their family tree
- Sovereigns have a random chance to get married
- Married females have a random chance to give birth to a male or female child
- Children "grow up" after 20 turns
- Everything saves/loads
+ Added some basic dynasty debug info to the kingdom report wnd until the real dynasty screen is implemented
+ Fixed some missing ref releases
+ Message boxes release their message data on close so that they don't hold refs to data that they don't need and postpone destruction of the data
+ Fixed gender randomization for children
+ When a child in a dynasty grows up, they now clone whichever of their parents actually exists and are stationed in the first city built by the player
+ Started adding stuff for creating a new unit type and saving/loading it out, basically just an extension of what the AI is already doing when designing their units
+ When children grow up, they now create a separate unit type (though it's still just a clone of their parent's),
and can save/load its info
+ Started hooking up the dynasty wnd, added the dxpacks and some of the classes to the project
+ Added debug messages and asserts to code for making a child grow up, hopefully replacing the crash that Anthony got with an assert and some helpful info instead. If anyone hits the assert, please let me know so I can figure out what the deal is.
+ Added wedding rings picture to marriage message
+ Changed and moved some temp hardcoded strings to the string file
+ Added null pointer check to CUnitType copy cto
+ Fixed crash when a child grows up after their parents have died/don't exist
+ Implemented being able to arrange marriages through the diplomacy screen
+ Fixed some issues with marriage that popped up once this could be done
+ Added report items for births, marriages, and growing up in kingdoms you know about
+ Unhide now calls UpdateControls on the family tree subwnd, if it's shown
+ Added member variables m_pDummyListgrid and m_aStatsEntryWnds
+ Added private helpers FillInfoCardForSelected, CreateStatsEntries, FillStatsArea, and ClearStatsArea
+ Fixed a bug with the type of m_pUnitRelationsListbox
+ Implemented pretty much every part of this screen except for the family tree graphic, which has been temporarily replaced by a selectable list of all the family members
+ Also, all of the list grids are messed up, counting the number of visible entries incorrectly. I think I tracked down where the bug is here, but I wanted to check with other people before I went messing with the code. Once the list grid is counting the entries correctly, though, I checked that the data is all fine, so it should show up correctly after that.
+ Changed stuff to not be the children of cut scene windows, because that totally messes with the resizing of everything
+ Added some dummy controls to act as parents of the controls that were orphaned because of this cut scene window thing
+ Added a temporary list box to the area where the family tree will be displayed, so that functionality could be coded in without the graphic
being implemented yet
+ Added member variable m_pDynastyMember
+ Added AddParentRelation, AddSpouseRelation, and AddChildRelation
+ Added temporary functions SetDynastyMember and GetDynastyMember, which are just being used to flesh out the functionality of the dynasty wnd until the fancy family tree graphic is implemented
+ Implemented the core functionality of the dynasty screen
- However, it is missing the family tree graphic, and instead is using a temporary list grid of all of the members of the sovereign's family that you can click on to get the info for
- Also, I've run into a bug with the list grids where it is positioning the entries incorrectly. I think I know what is causing it, but I want to ask Cari/Jesse before I change any code to try to fix it. After that's fixed, though, the relations info and stats info should stop being positioned funny, and I've verified that the (invisible/poorly placed) data is correct
+ Added global function CreateRandomizedUnitType, which takes a unit type name and pointers to some unit type suggestions and generates a new unit
type out of it, adding it to the global vector of unit types but not saving it to xml or anything
+ However, it's not implemented yet, and just clones the first unit type suggestion for now
+ Fixed size and placement of dynasty screen list grids so that they display correctly
+ Children that have had a marriage arranged are listed as "betrothed" instead of "married" in the dynasty screen
+ Added missing images to various dynasty popups and report entries
+ Fixed some string/image mixups in the report entries
+ Fixed dynasty screen cutscene to display selected unit correctly, with animation
+ Created a new global function CreateRandomizedUnitType, which takes unit type suggestions and makes a new one out of it, adding it to the global
vector of unit types but otherwise not saving it anywhere else. It's not fully implemented, though, and just creates a clone of the first unit
suggestion passed in instead.
+ Slightly changed how stat calculation for units is done to support random unit types better
- Basically made two functions for setting a unit's level: SetLevel and GrowLevel. SetLevel should be called when initially creating a unit, as it looks in the level milestone info to get the stats that that unit should have. GrowLevel should be used on units that already exist and have a level, and it will grow the unit level by 1 and increase each stat by some percentage of the current value instead of looking in the level milestones again. Therefore, level milestones are useful for setting the stats of units that you create at arbitrary levels, but once a unit is created, they follow a different stat growth path.
- Because of this change, unit types created on the fly only need to set their stats when they are created, and don't need to worry about generating multiple level milestones to use as a path for ability growth.
+ Implemented more of the CUnitType function for creating a random unit type
- Randomizes unit stats
- Psuedo-randomizes equipment; basically, for each equipment slot, there is a chance of either equipping the item equipped in that slot by the suggested unit type passed in, equipping nothing, or equpping a completely random piece of equipment that fits in that slot and that the player satisfies the prereqs for.
+ Added line of succession information to the dynasty screen
+ Displayed where the quote for the unit is supposed to go, because I couldn't find a better place for it yet
+ Says how far away they are from the throne, or "King/Queen" if they are the current rulers
+ The succession order updates when people die, leave, or get added to the dynasty
+ Family members displayed in roughly oldest->youngest order in the dynasty screen list box, aka a breadth-first traversal of the family tree
that will eventually be displayed there
+ Implemented saving/loading of all the info in CUnitType in the game save file, for saving child unit types/NPCs
+ This fixes a bug in child unit types where they would get the wrong equipment on load
+ Added short display names for all the unit stats (e.g. Attack = ATK) for places where UI string length is cramped, like the dynasty screen
+ Randomized female unit types no longer get beards and will always equip one of the robes
+ Added a "capital city" for each player, which for now is just the first city built by that player
+ Fixed bug where setting the level of a champion unit didn't refresh all of the stats
********
* Quests *
Overview:
Throughout the course of the game, you'll be presented with the option to help the people of the land by embarking on Quests. Quests may trigger when a unit his a tile on the map, when your kingdom hits a given stat, or randomly.
Details:
+ This check-in introduces the initial (extremely basic) version of the quest system. Each player (both human and AI) has a Quest Manager (the class CQuestManager), which tracks all of their pending, active, completed and failed quests. Currently, active quests are updated every turn to see if they’ve been completed. Quest data is read in from XML from the Game\Data\English\Core Quests directory. The quest data structures are unfinished, but currently consist of a QuestDef, which contains the quest name, description, and trigger information. It also contains a number of QuestObjectiveDefs, which define the conditions that need to be met for the quest to succeed or fail.
+ Added a very simple test quest, “Damsel in Distress”, defined in QuestCityPop.xml, located in the Core Quests directory. When your kingdom hits a total population of 40, the quest dialogue pops up, tasking you with clearing out a swamp bandit goodie hut, which will appear in close proximity to your first city. When it is cleared out, the quest is completed, and a dialogue will pop up congratulating you.
+ Quests are now entirely event- and data-driven. Quests are only updated when specific events occur that may affect them (such as the population of a city changing, a monster being slain, or a goodie hut being cleared), which allows them to respond to changes immediately, without requiring constant condition checking.
+ Added world events for faction population change, and for a goodie hut being cleared.
+ The quest prompt now allows you to decline a quest.
+ Added a flag to CGoodieHut that identifies if it is the target of a quest. To access it, call CGoodieHut::GetIsQuestTarget( ). If the flag is set to TRUE, the goodie hut will not spawn a reward when cleared (as the quest itself will bestow any rewards we may want to give).
+ Added the ability for the quest system to support “fetch quests”, and updated the test quest “Damsel in Distress” so that it spawns a “damsel” item in your inventory, which then must be returned to your capital city to complete the quest. This also shows off the ability for the quest system to support multi-objective quests. As each objective activates, a dialog pops up to inform you what you need to do to complete it.
+ Added an event for when a unit enters a city.
+ Quests can now give gold as a reward for completing them successfully. The “Damsel in Distress” quest has been modified to give 500 gold on completion.
+ Added a new type of Game Object: Quest Locations. Similar to goodie huts, quest locations are placed on the map when you research certain technologies in the Adventure technology path (currently, researching Ruin Delving causes a small number of them to spawn around your capital). They are only visible and useable to a single player (though the functionality to allow any number of players to see a quest location exists). When a quest location is visited, it spawns a random quest, if one is available (currently only the test “Rats in the Basement” quest is set to trigger when a quest location is visited, and it is not flagged as repeatable, so only the first quest location visited will trigger a quest). At the moment, there is only one type of quest location, defined in Game\Data\English\Core Quests\CoreQuestLocations.xml, and it appears on the map with the kingdom inn cloth map icon and tile design as a placeholder.
+ Updated the Kingdom Report window with tabs to switch between the main view and the quest journal, which shows all the quest information for the player (and other players, if in debug mode).
+ Quests can now be flagged as repeatable if we want them to be able to appear more than once during the course of a game. They default to not repeatable, which means they may trigger once per player, per game.
+ Quest items can no longer be consumed or equipped.
+ Added a (very basic) Rats in the Basement quest that can be triggered by visiting a quest location.
+ Added events for visiting a quest location and unlocking a technology.
+ Expanded on the “Rats in the Basement” quest (renamed it to “Rats in the Ruins” to fit in better with the text I banged out for it, naturally we can always change this). It now has you clearing out a Rat Nest goodie hut, which results in you getting a “Dead Rat” quest item, and taking a few points of damage (scratches from the rats). You then have to return the Dead Rat to the Inn you received the quest from, which completes the quest, giving you a reward of 500 gold.
+ QuestDefs and QuestConditionDefs can now be assigned an arbitrary number of GameModifiers, which are applied upon completion of the quest/condition. Both test quests currently in the game, “Damsel in Distress” and “Rats in the Ruins” use them to give quest items, rewards, and (in the case of the rats) penalties.
+ Quest locations now remain on the map after being visited, and can be used in the quest itself (for example, the “Rats in the Ruins” quest has the player returning Inn quest location from which it is spawned as the final objective).
+ Quest data is now saved and loaded properly, and the save game version has been incremented (now at 11) to invalidate old save files.
+ Added a new event for when a unit is killed.
+ Added new quest condition trackers for killing units and building improvements, which allows those actions to be incorporated
into quest objectives.
+ Added an event for when a unit reaches a new level.
+ Quest can now be triggered by a unit reaching a specified level. A unit reaching a level can also be used as a quest condition.
+ Cleaned up the CQuestManager code to make it more modular, and easier to implement new quest triggers.
+ Added a Player game modifier that will spawn Quest Locations for that player, called SpawnQuestLocations. To use it, set the string value (StrVal) to the type of quest location you want to spawn (currently there is only one: QuestLocationTest), set Count to the number of locations you want, set Value to how much you want the number of locations to vary by (for example, if you set Count to 5 and Value to 3, between 2 and 8 quest locations will be spawned), and Radius to how far away from a city the location can appear (this functions as the maximum range; the minimum range is currently hard-coded to 4, and if Range is less than or equal to that, it is automatically bumped up to 5). Each quest location is spawned within the given radius of a random city owned by the player, so that they are distributed throughout your territory. Currently, a SpawnQuestLocations game modifier has been assigned to the Ruin Delving technology (Ruin_Delving_Altar, to be precise), so that when that technology is unlocked, 4 to 6 quest locations are spawned on the map.
******************************
* Faction and Sovereign Customization *
Overview:
Players now pick their sovereign and faction at the start of the game, or have the choice of creating their own. Saved races and sovereigns are saved out to the 'My Games/Elemental' directories of 'Units' and 'Races'.
Details:
+ Added missing AddRef for CCreateSovereignWndMessageData::GetFactionConfig ()
+ Added handling for drag end message for when items are dragged onto the unit scene view
+ Now uses passed-in faction config to initialize the sovereign unit type
+ Saves created unit type to the passed-in faction config
+ Unhide sets the faction spellbook name to TestSpellbook, instead of setting it as a starting spell
+ CopyDisplayTextIntoPlayer saves an internal name for the new faction, equal to the display name for now
+ Fixed bug in SetUnitTypeMale and SetUnitTypeFemale where it would skip unequipping some incompatible equipment because it was removing them while going
through the list and not updating the index correctly
+ Added m_lCustomizationPointsToAssign
+ Added GetPoints
+ SetUnitTypeMale and SetUnitTypeFemale call ResetInitialBackupHairAndClothes on g_pCreateSovereignAppearanceSubWnd, so it will keep the right hair and everything even if that subwnd isn't hidden at that point
+ Remembering hair and clothes when deselecting equipment
- People should play with it and see if it makes sense the way equipping/unequipping things behaves and is displayed now, because I tried out a few different combinations of displaying backup hair/clothes and whether equipment always overrides hair/clothes, and didn't find a way that felt particularly awesome. Right now, if you equip hair/clothes in a given slot, it remembers that when you equip some sort of equipment in that slot instead so that when you unequip the equipment, the hair/clothes are still there. But the entries don't appear equipped when there is a piece of equipment taking that slot instead, and equipping hair/clothes in a slot will still remove the regular equipment in that slot. This makes sense to me when I mess around with it, but other people should say if it doesn't and have other suggestions.
+ Made ToggleAbilityBonus public instead of private
+ Changed Callback to handle clicking and highlighting the same way the entries in create sovereign screen do
+ Made string controls non-transparent
+ Added UpdatePointsDisplay and OnEntryHighlighted
+ Replaced FillInfoForSelected with FillInfoForSelectedAbilityEntry and FillInfoForSelectedColorEntry
+ Changing abilities doesn't update the 3D scene anymore
+ Removed some unneeded refills of the ability and entry lists
+ Changed Callback to handle selection and highlighting of the various entries the same way the create sovereign screen does
+ Added bRecreateUnit parameter to Update3DScene
+ Update3DScene uses CreateRandomizedUnitType to make the unit for display
********
* Magic *
Overview:
You can now build up spell points and spend them on available magic spells. These can then be cast if you're tapping into the appropriate shards.
Details:
+ Mana Types
- Make simpler resource types for 'Fire Shard', 'Air Shard', etc...improvements give those
- List Global Player Resources and shards in the kindgom window
- Weed out Elemental Shards giving special mana types
- Not-Stored Generic resources calculating properly for the player
- easy APIs to grab the mana values from a player+ Fixed a problem with the stamp XML that was releasing too many refs from the tile data, causing the data to be trashed by the time the game tried to place a stamp.
+ Modified the spell casting code so that spells cannot be cast outside of their specified range.
+ Added a new XML tag “SpellType” to the SpellDef, which defines when a spell can be used. If set to “Strategic”, it can only be cast on the strategic map. “Tactical” spells can only be used in tactical battles, and “Universal” spells can be used anywhere.
+ Re-enabled spell casting. Currently, Volcanic Eruption is the only spell that shows up, since it’s the only one that’s had its type set to “Strategic”.
+ Fixed issue with CWorld::RaiseLandAtTile( ) and CWorld::LowerLandAtTile( ) not correctly adjusting the heights of the terrain.
+ Modified the spell casting selection graphic so that it turns red when the mouse is pointing at an invalid target (for instance, if the target is outside of the spell’s range), and green when it’s over a valid target. If the player attempts to cast the spell while over an invalid target, nothing will happen.
+ Added a SpellClass tag to the SpellDef XML, which dictates the conditions required for the spell to be cast. Current classes are “Offensive”, “Defensive”, “Terraform” and “Other”. Offensive spells cannot be cast on a tile that would affect the caster (which prevents the user from dropping a volcano on their sovereign and instantly losing the game). Terraforming spells cannot be cast on a tile with a unit or game object (i.e., improvement, goodie hut, resource, shard, ect.). Unless specified, all spells default to “Other”.
+ Added a SpellTargetType tag to the SpellDef XML, which defines where, and on what, a spell may be cast. Current target types include “FriendlyUnit”, “EnemyUnit”, “Monster”, “Self”, “FriendlyTerritory”, and “Any”. Unless specified, all spells default to “Any”.
+ Champion units other than the Sovereign are now able to cast spells (such as his children, after they come of age).
+ Created Mass Heal and Charm Monster spells, disabled the Volcanic Eruption spell. The Mass Heal spell can only be cast on friendly units, while the Charm Monster spell can only be cast on creature units.
+ There’s now only one generic type of mana, which is used to cast all spells, instead of the six (life, death, fire, water, air, and earth) we used to have.
+ Incremented the save game version to 12, as units now only save one current mana variable, rather than both the current and maximum values for each old type of mana.

****************
* Wandering Heroes *
Overview:
The world is now populated by a handful of wondering heroes, scouring the world for treasure and adventrure. They cannot be yet recruited, but give a nice XP boost if you best them in combat.
Details:
+ Created and added AiChampNPC. It is a class much like the AICreature class, a class to represent a player that is the AI brain for the NPC champs.
+ added faction type FACTION_TYPE_CHAMP_NPC
+ Added m_ulChampNPCPlayerID, GetChampNPCPlayerID(), IsWildCreaturePlayer(id), IsChampNPCPlayer(id), CreateChampNPCPlayer(), and GetChampNPCPlayer().
+ added m_ulChampNPCPlayerID to ctr
+ changed params of CreatePlayer() to also include a bool for whether or not the player being created is the NPC Champ player.
+ CreateChampNPCPlayer() creates a player to control the NPCs. Then creates 5 NPCs and puts them on the map.
+ when setting relations of players and creatures to PERMANENT_WAR, also set relations between the Champ NPC player and other players to be NEUTRAL.
+ added code so that the local player will not get the FIRST_CONTACT message from the NPC Champ player.
+ added a member vector of unit type pointers, so they can be saved and loaded
+ added function called StoreUnitType(), which takes a PUnitType param, and adds it to the vector
+ when Champ NPC player creates their 5 NPC champs from a randomized unit type, it now calls CAIChampNPC::StoreUnitType()
***********
* Leveling Up *
Overview:
You now get points to spend on stats when a unit levels up.
Details:
+ added member variable PUnitStatType m_pUnitStatType, initialized to NULL, set in ctr, SAFE_RELEASED in dtr.
+ removed member variable TString m_strUnitStatInternalName and adjusted code that used it to use m_pUnitStatType->GetInternalName() instead
+ removed code for the BONUS_VALUE part of the screen, since +/- buttons will now affect the stats cur value and there will no longer be a BONUS_VALUE section
+ displayed value for stat is m_fInitialValue + GetAddedValue().
+ GetAddedValue() returns result of m_pUnitStatType->GetAffectPerLevelUpPoint() * m_ulAddedPoints;
+ When LevelUpWnd is closed, stat increases are applied as before.

[al Roumi]

The Beta 1G update was released this afternoon. I've downloaded it, but probably won't have a chance to play it until this weekend.

Thanks Xiahou, I had almost forgotten about this! About time I dipped back in to it...