Quote:
I like the concept. But you have a set of mechanics that do not work with each other very well, a graphics engine that's causing a lot of people problems, a magic system that is underwhelming, and an AI that doesn't live up to the billing.
You take those away and what's left? Pretty much the setting and the concept. Troy's review makes much the same point.
Elemental is a fantastic idea. Is it a fantastic game when you look past the issues? I don't see how it can be - at least, not with by any definition I'm familiar with. I think it's going to be a herculean task to take all these ideas and batter them into a genuinely workable game. Your first post suggested you were fully aware of the scale of the work required, as does your reference to Tom and Troy's reviews, but when you make comments like the one I quoted it seems like you're viewing it from a completely different perspective.
(bear in mind reading this forum right now is like reading off a 56k modem right now so my responses are based on reading pieces).
I don't think Elemental's shortcomings can be fixed with tweaks or small patches. I think there are core game mechanics and AI that will have to be revisited. I think there are things that would normally be reserved for sequels that will have to be put in.
I think I mentioned this earlier but we employ multiple former editors of major review sites who were part of the process. When you're working a long time on a project it's easy to get way way way too close to it and soon, its foibles and flaws become simply part of the fabric.
When I get home, with the benefit of being away for a bit, I'll be able to outline some specific and in hindsight, obvious game mechanic things that will need to be addressed for Elemental to begin to reach its potential.
As an AI coder, the biggest disappointment to me is that I allowed the design to allow so many N^2 variables (I'll talk about this later). So don't think i'm thinking that we can just tweak around the edges to make Elemental what it needs to be. That would be just another version of denial of the problem -- as if we could just tweak it and suddenly it goes from a 3 out of 5 to a 5 out of 5 and no, that's not the case. Not even close.
The upcoming version they're working on, v1.07 is still about working on all the crazy compatibility issues that our engine has to deal with (that deserves a separate discussion but I've been looking at the check-ins and they're depressing to me. I see a lot of "Fix allocation that causes a crash on nVidia driver 1/10/2010" type stuff which makes me wince).
The kinds of changes Elemental will require to meet is potential are pretty big things IMO. Things that we (and myself in particular) were just blind to. Let me give you a couple of concrete examples so you can see what I'm getting at (and this post BETTER post, this is like being back in 1994): My friend Mark Asher on a post on a forum talked about how boring our spells were. I took that to be about the spell names. But it wasn't just the spell names, it was about the spells themselves and how they worked. The way resources are managed and handled is very limiting when it comes to the way the AI has to deal with them (N^2 variables).
Anyway, the point is, we fell in love with a vision of the game that was largely in our minds rather than in reality. The difference here is that Stardock has the luxury of being able to address it. Even if Elemental didn't sell a single new copy, we would still be able to address it.
I truly wish I could ascribe Elemental's launch to cynical greed or something. Cynical greed beats out pathetic incompetence any day.
