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

**Xiahou** · 06-13-2010, 00:16

Originally Posted by Beskar

You know, that game looks so good, i might actually having to install Impulse in order to play. Though, I would prefer a non-Impulse version or is there a way to play the game after you bought it without having impulse on?

Edit: Just pre-ordered it and actually installing Impulse now. I am going to do what I did Steam, and just only load it up when I want to play a game from it.

Once the game is installed, you only need Impulse to update it. You don't need to have it running or (afaik) even installed to play.

Edit4: "Cannot download datafile" that is the error message I am getting when I am trying to play.

Find a way past that yet? I got lots of CTDs early in the beta, but I never had trouble launching the game.

**Beskar** · 06-13-2010, 03:32

Originally Posted by Xiahou

Find a way past that yet? I got lots of CTDs early in the beta, but I never had trouble launching the game.

I haven't. The residence I am staying at gets its internet through the Universities. The plus side is a cheap (£75 per year), unlimited, very fast internet (speeds of 6-10mb/s contantly).

Downside is, everything needs to be configured to use the internet in the proxy settings. While some games and programmes seem to work perfectly fine (Left4Dead, Steam, MSN, Firefox, Borderlands since MadMoxxi DLC), others don't (Games by EA, adobe flash installer plugin, etc). It seems this datafile is one of those things which fail to connect, thus making the beta inoperatable. Also, the datafile is meant to be part of the anti-piracy Stardock have in place for the beta, so it is something they will not be removing. I asked over on their forums anyway.

**al Roumi** · 06-15-2010, 17:59

Originally Posted by Beskar

Also, the datafile is meant to be part of the anti-piracy Stardock have in place for the beta, so it is something they will not be removing. I asked over on their forums anyway.

That sounds like it could be a bit frustrating....

I pre-ordered a while ago and have been playing around with Beta 2 for the last couple of days. I don't think you should feel like you are missing much yet.

Its a very clunky beta with zombie AI and basic issues (innability to save/reload) abound, over half the game is disabled for the Public beta.

That's the thing, they are still running a private beta before passing something out to the public. I can completely understand this from a marketing point of view, but it does tend to make the pre-order Beta a bit less meaty than one might (naively) imagine, and more like a PR stunt. Also, as the IP is still being built up (or in fact dictated by Stardock -not the beta players), there is such a wide constituency of opinions on what type of game Elemental should be that the forum discussions tend to be a bit rambling.

As far as i'm concerned, the game is shaping up to be an interesting 4X city based strategy game. The plans for tactical combat leave me a little cold, I'm not clear how they will work in practice or sure I'm too keen on them (this is one area where stardock has just decided for tiself what to do, which is of course their right!), but then no tactical combat has yet made it onto any public beta.

The game's premise of rediscovering and re-creating mankind and its civilisations (as if an appocalypse had occured in 1400 or so) means that the setting is very much Medieval/early renaissance tech, plus a helping of Magic and a side of pulp fantasy.

I am still highly dubious of the quality of the book which will accompany the game. As i think I posted before, I think its an interesting thing to do, I just don't know if a game designer's comparative advantage lies in novel writing.

I would also be very surprised to see anything released this summer. The repeated and heavy hints about "ready to take the time to make it right" etc strongly indicate to me that this won't be released before Feb 2011.

**Alexander the Pretty Good** · 06-15-2010, 18:18

Yeah, between comments here, on the Elemental site, and on RPS I've decided to hold off on pre-ordering and just play the final product.

**Beskar** · 06-15-2010, 22:13

ok, I got around to playing this.

In short - It is Civ4.

It is the whole square city expansion system, turns, etc. Includes these odd random quests. Have a "hero unit" which goes around doing stuff.

**Xiahou** · 06-15-2010, 23:28

Originally Posted by alh_p

Its a very clunky beta with zombie AI and basic issues (innability to save/reload) abound, over half the game is disabled for the Public beta.

What?? Or more accurately, outside the zombie AI, what???

I save and reload often... there's an autosave feature that's already in and functioning. The only limitation is that you must exit the game and re-launch to load the game. It has to do with the way the worlds are currently being created.

I've never heard a word about a public beta- where are you getting this idea from?

Edit: Beta2A will be out this week:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**al Roumi** · 06-16-2010, 10:26

Originally Posted by Xiahou

I've never heard a word about a public beta- where are you getting this idea from?

Ok, it's not a public beta. But because Stardock obviously can't send out un-quality assured code to its consumers, they are also running an internal Beta testing schedule. The Beta which pre-order customers have access to is in between a "public" Beta and an internal Beta. Essentially, it's very similar to Mount and Blade's development although Elemental is (currently) less complete/polished and hence less fun to test/play than Mount and Blade was.

Originally Posted by Xiahou

What?? Or more accurately, outside the zombie AI, what???

I save and reload often... there's an autosave feature that's already in and functioning. The only limitation is that you must exit the game and re-launch to load the game. It has to do with the way the worlds are currently being created.

Ok, well I've had a problem loading a saved game from a manual save file. Manual saves work fine. I've also had numerous other bugs, e.g. combat not triggering (and freezing the game) when attacking bandit hut. Plus graphics problems where city buildings jump about a bit or fail to be drawn by the 3d engine when zooming from cloth map to terrain.

I'm not making a big deal of these problems, my expectation is that the Beta isn't much fun and won't be for a while. Stardock are clearly keen to ensure no one is under any illusion to the contrary -as in your last post's spoiler.

Edit: I'm very pleased that they have at least fixed the memory leaks

It's an interesting experience being involved in the Beta though. I followed M&B's development very closely for over a year before its eventual release. Stardock are more consultative (or at least informative) than Taleworlds were, but it would be naive for anyone to think the pre-order Beta community really has that much sway over the product -Stardock have some very strong ideas on how the game should be. I should perhaps also be clear that they have every right to follow their vision, they are clearly the professionals!

**Xiahou** · 06-16-2010, 20:47

I'm not making a big deal of these problems, my expectation is that the Beta isn't much fun and won't be for a while. Stardock are clearly keen to ensure no one is under any illusion to the contrary -as in your last post's spoiler.

It's an interesting experience being involved in the Beta though. I followed M&B's development very closely for over a year before its eventual release. Stardock are more consultative (or at least informative) than Taleworlds were, but it would be naive for anyone to think the pre-order Beta community really has that much sway over the product -Stardock have some very strong ideas on how the game should be. I should perhaps also be clear that they have every right to follow their vision, they are clearly the professionals!

Actually, I sometimes worry that they listen too much to the community. There's been a couple of occasions where it sounds like they've been talked out of doing things I thought sounded good by the community.