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

**frogbeastegg** · 08-22-2010, 16:55

Originally Posted by Martok

They're essentially ~~bullied~~ forced into charging the same price for both versions by the major chains (Gamestop, Wal Mart, Best Buy, etc.).

Which makes sense for America, and not for the rest of the world. There's nothing to stop then doing what all of the other download services do, and set individual prices for different territories. In this case for once (once!) we non-Americans might end up with the better end of the deal instead of the usual price hike.

Originally Posted by pevergreen

Complain about PC pricing when you pay as much as us.

That's the thing - if all PC games were this price there wouldn't be a problem at all. Because they're not it brings relative value into play for anyone who doesn't have a big games budget. What does Elemental offer that makes it worth so much extra compared to, say, Civ 5? The answer is nothing much.

It's a particularly bad time for Stardock to ask people to make this judgement. There's a lot of new strategy games out this summer, including two giant names and one popular niche title. These are the kind of games that people play for a long time after purchase; they're not 10 hour and done forever jobs where an owner would be considering a new title relatively soon after purchase.

Elemental is going to miss out on a lot of potential sales. For a game that's not destined to be a multi-million best seller that's not a good place to be headed.

Anywho, enough about pricing. There's more exciting things to talk about - the game's out early.

The bricks and mortar shops broke street date so the download version is going up early too. There doesn't seem to be an ETA for the download becoming available, just a note that it will be done as soon as possible. If you've pre-ordered I'd open Impulse up and see if it finds anything.

**al Roumi** · 08-23-2010, 10:47

Originally Posted by frogbeastegg

That's the thing - if all PC games were this price there wouldn't be a problem at all. Because they're not it brings relative value into play for anyone who doesn't have a big games budget. What does Elemental offer that makes it worth so much extra compared to, say, Civ 5? The answer is nothing much.

It's a particularly bad time for Stardock to ask people to make this judgement. There's a lot of new strategy games out this summer, including two giant names and one popular niche title. These are the kind of games that people play for a long time after purchase; they're not 10 hour and done forever jobs where an owner would be considering a new title relatively soon after purchase.

Elemental is going to miss out on a lot of potential sales. For a game that's not destined to be a multi-million best seller that's not a good place to be headed.

I agree, viewed in a vacuum of non-competiton -i.e. ignoring CIV5's release in a month, I can see why Stardock by kept EU sales to DD and at higher price -they are an Indie developer with their own DD system after all. But clearly, having 2 city builder titles out so close together is going to force a fair degree of competition. I hope they have diversified Elemental from Civ enough for it to be seen as something other than fantasy CIV. From stardock's point of view, at least they are releasing Elemental before CIV5, if it were the other way round, I think they would suffer more than they likely will.

Originally Posted by frogbeastegg

Anywho, enough about pricing. There's more exciting things to talk about - the game's out early.

The bricks and mortar shops broke street date so the download version is going up early too. There doesn't seem to be an ETA for the download becoming available, just a note that it will be done as soon as possible. If you've pre-ordered I'd open Impulse up and see if it finds anything.

I didn't check this morning before going to work, but I received an email yesterday informing me that I would be able to download the game today. There probably isn't much point checking before 12 or 1pm BST though as I think Impulse only updates at that time.

On the Stardock forum, they said the decision to allow early access to pre-orders was to assuage the pressure on their servers come release day.

**Xiahou** · 08-23-2010, 15:25

I started downloading it last night. I didn't get to see if I could play yet or not though. After I get home from work, I'll definitely be taking a look.

**Crandaeolon** · 08-24-2010, 15:13

Got it. Right now I have this to say: do not buy this game for its MP. Tac battles, quests and probably other features as well have been taken out of release version MP. *sigh* Looks like Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic is still the best MoM'esque game for multiplayer.

**Xiahou** · 08-24-2010, 22:39

They're putting tactical battles back in MP due to the overwhelmingly negative response the decision recieved on the forums. They claimed they did it to keep up the pace of MP.

No time for any detailed impressions yet.... I got to spend a little time with the "campaign"(story) mode, but it's been reworked some for the day 0 release, which I haven't looked at yet. The version I played was ok, but rather uninspired. It kept my interest, but I think the main point was to introduce you to the game. The real substance is probably in sandbox and MP modes. Regardless, I think the final game engine looks beautiful.

**Krusader** · 08-25-2010, 11:59

Been trying my hand at the sandbox mode to learn the ropes...have to say its changed much since beta. Can build farms, libraries etc without needing the knowledge and no watchtowers or barracks either. Also they've removed farms, so took some minutes until I realized I could only get food from special bonus tiles or from irrigation at level 2 city :S
But is there a cap for how many cities you can have? Built 4 so far and I'm not allowed to build a fifth. Also, see sovereigns can only build the capital and Essence plays no part.

So far it seems good enough, but I actually miss some small stuff from beta.

**al Roumi** · 08-25-2010, 15:46

Originally Posted by Krusader

So far it seems good enough, but I actually miss some small stuff from beta.

Sounds liek you are going back to beta3a or something like that. there have definitley been a few chanegs since then. The only way to "get" resources of any kind (even tech and archane research) is through special tiles, e.g. wheat, mineable rock and "old growth trees". There are a couple of buildings that provide "1" research or minerals but they are only there to start you up really. Success or failure comes in controling tiles on the map, which is done by building cities and expanding their influence (which is automatic and happens as they grow, as in CIV4).

Incidentaly, I would probably advise people to hold off buying the game for a bit. Many who have waited till now and didn't take the plunge during the beta seem quite disappointed, to say the least. I felt the same as many of these people did with ETW (I had hoped to buy a polished game) so I sympathise. On my system (Win7 64), it's actually not as stable as beta 4 was...