I'm befuddeled by the logic at times.

Don't worry. Regarding Elemental on this forum, all you'll hear is a deafening silence.

bugger off and quit trying to troll when the guy asked a legitimate question.

Damion from the things that have happened, the game being released when it was with the amount of bugs it had it's okay really. Elemental WOM was the first game they built on with this new game engine they are using. They knew bugs would rear their ugly heads, compared to 8 months ago the game has improved drastically with the patches and feed back they've gotten from players who play the beta versions.

Yes Elemental is a rough jewel but it's slowly and carefully being polished into a brilliant gem. Elemental had a bumpy and rough start but from what I've seen it's improved over the patches. Most larger game companies would have abandoned the game at this point and allocated resources to another game. Most larger game companies don't even release 2 or 3 patches. Brad (Mr. Froggy) doesn't seem to wanna give up on Elemental WOM I guess for the same reason of being a person who creates games because it's his passion, he likes making games because he enjoys it but also likes to make games because other people will enjoy it as well.

Some games start off with a few bumps in the road and later on improve as they are patched.

Personally, I would like to keep working on WOM well beyond v1.3 because there isn't quite the massive expectations with making tweaks that I ran into with games like GalCiv.

For instance, I *hate* the economic system in GalCiv 2 but I was afraid to redo it in a free update because there'd been a riot.

But with WOM, I don't have quite that pressure because the game has a 56 metacritic score and those who don't like what I do have Fallen Enchantress they can migrate to.

I feel I have a bit more freedom with WOM.

The only reason there wouldn't be a 1.4 or beyond would be, to be perfectly honest, if people hate v1.3 and it's a pure flame fest.  I really care about the forum stuff which is why flame wars and such have a pretty big impact on me. It's not good business I know but then again, neither is doing v1.3.  Basically, I'll keep working on WOM as long as the vocal majority continue to support WOM's development / I have time / Windows doesn't become incompatible with Visual Studio 2008.

Brad, WOM 1.3 needs a few things to get this to a great game in my mind, and I don't think it's an easy task!

• Tech Tree & Item Redesign/Balance (ie: Why not move mounts/adventure packs out of the combat tree and get rid of the war staff? Why have the combat tree be so dominant/important for success? etc.)
• Magic Redesign/Balance (ie: All the components exist, but there's no five-star spell besides teleport, and tp is stupidly OP - should have a range limit, be a tier 4, and have a lesser tier 2 and tier 3 with max ranges of 10/20+int/2 or something)
• Tactical Redesign/Balance (this one I have no ideas, eagerly awaiting yours!)
• AI tweaks after the prior 3... cuz that's so much new content!

That said, I played a great game today. It was over about 100 turns in, but I kept going to see what was new in 1.2 (new quests! nice work on the city developments too, they feel much more orderly/polished). Crashes/OOM are much less frequent than previously, and AI is notably smarter - just not *that* smart yet - I question the speed at which they move to groups. I spotted the first 4-man team in Altar after I had 9-man longbows in half-plate.

I still think this game has the most potential of any turn based strategy game I've played, though!

Truly commendable for Stardock to continue working on this game. It's a great game that just needs some polish (or Polish polishers). I love it best when I have a group out in between a couple mountain groups and tilt the camera up and see the cities beyond, particularly when the shards are lit up shine into the sky! As far as I am concerned, the graphics are very cool. Keep up the great work!

Personally, I'll take a 1.4 and beyond for EWOM

EWOM, is the game i bought some 9 months ago and EWOM is the game I wanted, When i bought EWOM I had no expectation of their ever being a FE or third game game (whatever it will be called).

I've got a feeling that FE is going to be a totally different game then EWOM  and that's ok.

I just want the game promised when i bought it in Augest of 2010. That's what got me excited not FE (although that sounds like it might be an ok game too, don't get me wrong).

Beakie

I'm getting close to wanting to buy this game.  The overall premise sounds really good.

Won't buy from Bethesda?  Huh, I really like their stuff.  Interplay?  Do they even make games any more?  Old days of Interplay was good. 

Most of us are getting FE for free. As such, it's not really being abandoned at all. It's them going back to work with lessons learned so that the second attempt comes out right. FE also has Kael running the project, which is a good sign for TBS fans.

Ultimately people just want a fun game. With how things stand right now, I think FE's got a better chance of being that game then a patched WoM does. I might feel differently if I had to pay $40 for FE, but I don't.

I don't really think WoM needs all that much to be fun.  Yes, I have bitched a billion times about its flaws, but it really just needs a few things to be fun.  Random events, better and more quest, more variety and interesting special sites (things like the ogre camp that was taken out and minor factions) along with some gear balance, would really make a huge impact in the fun department.  Those changes won't make a perfect game, but it would make a fun game.  I think it can be done, and I think Brad will try it, so I am excited about 1.3, and hopefully a 1.4 and 1.5.  FE is going to be a different game, so why not have 2 good games in the same world? 

That could be me I guess... well I think my problem is that no matter if WoM is patched to 2.0, it will still be brown, flat and have boring factions. And by then we will have FE which we already now know looks awesome. I will get FE for free but that's not really the thing, I'd gladly pay for it if I had to.

If Brad wants to keep updating that is cool, WoM could become a really good platform for modding.

And people who say "I bought WoM and I want that game to be great, not this other game" I really don't get. If Stardock produces an awesome fantasy TBS, does it matter if it is called WoM, FE or Pigs in Space?

I'll take what I can get.  Odds are, I'll be playing whatever the better game is once FE is out.

If I'm playing WOM post-FE, this means either FE bombed, or you did a miracle job with WOM.  

Personally, I think WOM is fixable in its current state, but you'd have to fix a bunch of major design flaws, and possibly re-work the fundamentalis in some areas.  The biggest problems are combat (both tactical and non-tactical combat fail), and research (current system overvalues research production, largely at the expense of other stuff)

I agree, whats wrong with Bethesda anyway? Its like some people think its hip to complain about game developers and publicly announce how they don't buy anything made by a specific company. I'm sure everyone at Bethesda will just cry themselves to sleep when you don't buy Skyrim Damion, have fun not playing some of the best RPG's being made today.

what do you hate about the gal civ econ system? I liked it personally.

I'll be sure to start a poll once 1.3 comes out. Unfortunately its the loudest speakers are usually negative on forums so hopefully enough positive feedback is given (so the vocal minority doesn't overrule what could be a generally positive experience).

I'm a big Steve Jackson Games fan, GURPS, Car Wars, etc and back when Interplay was putting together the first Fallout game, they licensed the GURPS combat system from SJG with the fees to be paid when the game shipped.  Strangely, shortly before the game went gold, SJG was informed that Interplay wasn't going to use the GURPS combat.  GURPS allows you to target individual parts on a body and gives the percentages for hitting each part and the damage and shows what problems the target would have if you hit, say, their gun arm.  Considering the VATS system does the same thing, and at the time SJG was a small board game/role playing game company, they didn't have the money to fight Interplay. 

I've never forgiven Interplay for it and haven't bought a fallout game since.  Like I said, I can carry a grudge. 

Jesus, that is a grudge.  I played GURPS years before Fallout came out a couple of times, I don't think it was quit good enough to hold a grudge that keeps me from playing some of the greatest RPGs ever made.  Seriously, those old Interplay/Troika/Black Isle/Bioware games are the shit.  And what about Bethesda?  Are they guilty by association?  I'm glad I don't hold grudges like that.

let me put my position as crystal clear as possible

I spent damn well near 50 bucks on this game looking forward to see were stardock takes WOM, I will be INCREDIBLY pissed off if  it turns out that stardock abandons WOM for FE, please dont stop at 1.3,  as was posted above this game can certainly be fun it only need a few thinks in it

thanks for listening and keep up the good work stardock, especially you brad, the amount of work you have done is just awesome dont give up on this game !!

I just want a game that's as awesome as GalCiv2 but with a fantasy setting.

As long as the game has great support for the modding community and solid multiplayer it will live on for years.  Just look at Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne; it's World Editor is one of the most powerful map editing tools ever created, which even allows for triggers in JASS code; which is, admittedly, low-level, but still allows for a very powerful variety of maps.  It was released in 2003 and is still going strong, all because of that map editor, and the efforts of the extensive modding community who continue to produce tools and mods for one of the greatest games around.

Elemental's modding community may be young but is still making some impressive mods, also new building models and a traits system for weapons I believe.  Who knows what they'll create next?  As long as we leave an open window for customization and modding, this game will be able to appeal to anyone, and will live on in video game fame for years to come.

Well, I'm glad someone's positive about modding.

Warcraft 3 also lets you use mods in multiplayer, which Elemental doesn't.

At a guess, he might hate it because it is poorly designed and has some really bad properties mathematically speaking, that are rather counterintuitive. (And not limited to idiocies like clear breakpoints - e.g. "people can except taxes up to 79%, 80% however...". Or was it 69%? Some time since I played last. If you want to delve into the really ugly parts, just consider what the optimal way to develop your planets is to maximize your economy and let that be your starting point for a further investigation). And, of course, an economic model for a world-spanning empire based on stockpiling electronic credits makes absolutely no sense at all, but that's an abstraction that is completely acceptable in a computer game that is supposed to be playable. But Frogboy might consider the abstraction a bit too simple.

HOWEVER, from a practical perspective players playing intuitively will find the economic system in GalCiv and GalCiv2 working well enough, easy to manipulate to achieve desired goals, and fairly transparent, so this is something that the player is unlikely to be annoyed by unless he goes looking for it or is mathematically inclined (or a games' developer).

As the game's developer, Frogboy will know all the good reasons for why the economic model ended up the way it was in the first place, and many of them will have been good reasons also in retrospect given conditions at the time, but he'll constantly see how it could be so very much better with a fundamental redesign - and know that tinkering with it in a patch or expansion would at the very least frustrate the fanbase.

A good example of something that is both bad, ugly, easy to hate if you consider it from a game design POV, and fun to play at the same time.

I just got back into 1.2a.  It is enjoyable but the difficulty has been ramped up a bit from when I last played (playing on normal).  I am happy with the general chnages so far and also looking forward to enchantress.

The problem I see is that I think most of us can agree that knowing what (little) has been announced for 1.3 it's hard for me to imagine how 1.3 can make this game fully better/more fun to the point where there will be universal praise and the subsequent continuation of work on it. So what are we supposed to do then, praise it just so we can hope for 1.4 and beyond?

And considering how few people are working on EWOM now.. how long will any of these changes come. I honestly think Brad et al are doing as little work as possible on EWOM now hoping that FE will so awesome as to allow people to forget about how sucky EWOM is and just move on to FE and it's subsequent iterations.

What I don't get, after Brad's repeated statements that he/SD doesn't need the money, is why they were so quick to rush into FE and almost completely abandone EWOM to the point it took so bloody long to get 1.2 done (and even so it's still flawed) and god only knows how long it'll be until 1.3 comes out even though they originally said it'd be very quickly after 1.2.

It's funny because I so bought into SD, that the openness and honestly, and subsequent failure to back any of it up as far as EWOM is concerned, makes it more difficult to swallow the disappointment than just getting the typical zero feedback from other companies. I've never been so saddened by a state of a game, and lack of delivered promises, as I was with EWOM  and I think it's because I bought into Brad and SD being so seemingly (and historically) pro-customers.  The thing I've avoided doing is literally compiling a list of what was said/promised (or heck, put on the BOX of the product) that was never actually delivered (on time or at all!).. I think I'd give up on SD if I did that. 

But yet, here I am. Hoping and waiting for 1.3 to make things better. but yet, here I am hoping and waiting for FE.  One thing you're good at SD/Brad is selling hope. Please don't let us down .... 

And remember, sometimes saying less is better. Put your heads down, stop promising us shit you're not 100% sure you can deliver on, tell us only "it'll be done when it's done as quickly as we can" and deliver on it. That'll go incredibly far in restoring your image/name with the community that cares so much, especially those, like myself, who had little experience with you before EWOM.

I can't give Brad or Dereks view on all this, but from my point of view it boils down to "How good can a game with a 53 metacritic score become through traditional updates." Tweaking existing systems and adding new stuff is one thing - major overhauls to the core game require an entirely different pipeline. In-flux builds of FE can be gruesome to behold

Not to say we did 'abandon' EWoM...most of the development team was on updates through v1.2....but at some point those major changes had to be made, thus more people were shifted over to FE.

Anyways, hopefully we can get Beta1 of FE out soon so you guys can see that side development coming into fruition. Its fun having our time to polish and do the game justice, but it's always more fun to get it into the players hands and see what they think