Let’s start with where things currently stand at Stardock in our remastering and reimagining of Elemental.

1. We have ported the underlying engine and code base to 64-bit.

2. We have upgraded the graphics engine to DirectX 11.

3. We have brought over the Dynasty system from War of Magic (yes, this game had full on families, dynasties, and magical breeding).

4. We have brought over the crafting system and global inventory from Sorcerer King.

5. We have reexported the original textures at much higher resolutions.

6. We have updated the shaders so the terrain will look a lot better.

Here are some in-progress examples:

Wishlists = How much we can do.

There is a lot of work ahead and the size of the team we get is based on a simple formula: Wishlists x $10. So for instance, if we get 50,000 wishlists, we get $500,000 to work with. In the first 48 hours, we got 7,000 wishlists, which is pretty good. That’s $70,000 added to our budget. You can see how spreading the word on the game will be extremely helpful to us.

 

Now, these numbers do have an expiration date. I want to write that in case someone from the year 2043 finds this post and the game has somehow racked up wishlists made by our robot overlords. So, think of it as the wishlists we accrue before release.

We’ve left a number of these slots open so that the community can contribute to this list and we’ll add to it over time to keep the community informed on where things stand.

Now, let’s take a look at some of the things we are already working on.

Graphics Improvements

The graphics of this game weren’t great in 2010. Time hasn’t improved them. When we made the original game, we were in a constant conflict on visual style vs. memory cost vs. time to figure it out. We ultimately ran out of time and ended up with a visual look we didn’t love. It was, however, distinct.

We have already done the hardest part: Move the engine to 64-bit and DirectX 11.

The next hardest bit is to port our assets to FBX so that we can work with them in modern tools. Our character models were extremely low resolution and even updating the visuals, where we could mess with the textures, is challenging if you can’t work with it in a modern app. Games have changed a great deal, but the tools used to make them have changed even more.

Localization

The original game was not just English only, but it was hard coded in absolutely insane ways. The actual data had the strings in them.

Has to become. . .

so that we can localize the text in string tables into other languages. This is a big and unsexy task, but it is a prerequisite. We plan to support English, German, Russian, Chinese, French, Italian, and Spanish for starters and would like to make it easy to add additional languages if needed.

Modding

Elemental was designed for modding, but it was not good at mod management. I had a ton of mods I personally made for the game that got wiped out in a later update and it was pretty annoying. I can’t even imagine how annoying it was to others.

This time, we’re modernizing mod management via Steam Workshop and it will be handled in such a way that an update to the game can’t blow away mods. Or I should say, it better work that way.

So what kinds of mods would we expect?

1. Maps (the game has a powerful map editor built in)

2. Quests

3. Items

4. Tiles

5. City Improvements

6. Locations

7. Units

8. Campaigns

The original design for the game envisioned players being able to share (via Impulse) “modules” with full adventures to the whole community. Not to mention letting modders create their own lore and even full redesigns.

Now, how much we can do with this depends, again, on wishlists. We will keep people up to date on where we are.

Your Wish is Our Command

As the wishlist count grows, more features can be evaluated for inclusion. Please talk to the other gamers you know who remember these games fondly and find others who will enjoy them anew. Tell us what you’d like to see. Stay tuned!