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[forsaken1111]

Them spending so much time on modding tools and such annoys people like me who couldn't give a rat's ass what mod some random guy cooks up and just wants to play a fun game.

[GaelicVigil]

What I hate are the unoriginal mods like from Lotro or Dragon Lance.  It's like, can't you think of anything original?.  I wouldn't mind seeing some non-human races to play as, or more interesting stuff to show up randomly on the terrain while I'm playing.  Seeing the same quests and NPCs over and over and over again gets a little old after a while, don't you think?

[fenrif]

Anybody know if there are any real reviews out yet?  It's a little odd that the game has been formally "released" for 4 days now and there hasn't been a peep from anyone on the game (other than a few blogs).  I wonder if they are giving the company some time to address bugs first.  I'm pretty sure it can't be because there is just loads and loads of content to see. 

Also, I've been looking to see if anyone has begun to release mods yet.  I remember Stardock saying that part of the reason why they had the long beta period was for modders to get some content made to be ready for release.  The sad thing is that I believe modders are going to focus too much of their effort on balancing or "bug-fix" mods, rather than content mods. 

This is a serious problem because I think when Stardock set out to give modders the tools to add to the game, they never really intended the community to focus on modifying the fundamentals of the game, so much as they wanted us to enrich the game with new cosmetic content (new races, creatures, items, quests, etc).  I can see a major headache coming when Stardock releases balancing mods at the same time modders are releasing their own.  Had the game been tight to begin with, the community could focus purely on solid content, rather than doing the work that Stardock should have done in the first place.

I've seen a few reviews... Most of them are basically saying the same thing PC gamer said: "The game is horribly unfinished, wait a few months and then check back"

[nenjin]

This is a serious problem because I think when Stardock set out to give modders the tools to add to the game, they never really intended the community to focus on modifying the fundamentals of the game, so much as they wanted us to enrich the game with new cosmetic content (new races, creatures, items, quests, etc).  I can see a major headache coming when Stardock releases balancing mods at the same time modders are releasing their own.  Had the game been tight to begin with, the community could focus purely on solid content, rather than doing the work that Stardock should have done in the first place.

I like they planned out the basic mod tools like a faction and map creator. Their standard factions blow, at least from a flavor standpoint. So I'm glad they put that functionality in there (even if it's still incomplete, like there being a handful of flaws and tons of cheap advantages.)

My biggest fear is that Stardock is relying on players not to create meaningless content...but that they were hoping we'd fill out the game with meaningful content. Their own spell particle editor warns it's complicated...I don't want to fuck around with learning a mod system just so I can get some magic in game that's halfway interesting and/or balanced. Mod potential never excuses a lack of core content unless you've put that in big, bold letters right on your main page, that your game is intended to be driven by fan content.

I doubt that's honestly their plan, but I still have some niggling doubts. (Insert comment about criminal oversights in magic here)

[GaelicVigil]

This is a serious problem because I think when Stardock set out to give modders the tools to add to the game, they never really intended the community to focus on modifying the fundamentals of the game, so much as they wanted us to enrich the game with new cosmetic content (new races, creatures, items, quests, etc).  I can see a major headache coming when Stardock releases balancing mods at the same time modders are releasing their own.  Had the game been tight to begin with, the community could focus purely on solid content, rather than doing the work that Stardock should have done in the first place.

My biggest fear is that Stardock is relying on players not to create meaningless content...but that they were hoping we'd fill out the game with meaningful content. Their own spell particle editor warns it's complicated...I don't want to fuck around with learning a mod system just so I can get some magic in game that's halfway interesting and/or balanced. Mod potential never excuses a lack of core content unless you've put that in big, bold letters right on your main page, that your game is intended to be driven by fan content.

Yeah, I think you're exactly right.  In fact I remember several times where they stated that the lack of content was intentional.  They said that they would release the game with only a human race because they were relying on the community to come up with the rest through their Impulse server.  So, in the case of Elemental, and what many don't realize, is that this game was built with the philosophy from the very beginning that player-made stuff would flesh the game out over time.

A big problem with this, however, is that without their Impulse-driven mod system they talked about, it will be very difficult for players to get good mods into their games quickly and easily without scouring the internet (and having some basic computer skills on ensuring their mod imports are installed properly).  So most people will end up playing the game as it was not intended, or with crappy mods, without their games quickly filling up with new interesting content.

[forsaken1111]

So their model is "We made a cool engine, build our game for us!" ?

[GaelicVigil]

So their model is "We made a cool engine, build our game for us!" ?

That's exactly how the game was pitched for a very long time.  It was only in the last 6 months or so that they stopped talking about it as much.

This is my #1 problem with the game and goes to the heart of just about all the problems people are having with it.  See, it wasn't meant to be a great game at launch - that's what the community was meant for.  They were supposed to provide the framework for that, but didn't.

[nenjin]

Nah, I think you're full of it on that one Gaelic. You don't commit to a game through 2011 as a pre-text for sitting around and ensuring mod-content delivery happens. They have more to add. It's now a question of whether:

a) They're going to add more bland crap like what they already have.

or

b) They revisit their old systems, revamp them and design new systems to expand the game.

There's a good platform there, and they'd be stupid not to capitalize on all the work they've already put in. Mod content, despite the hype, never ever sold Spore and I doubt it was intended strictly to sell  Elemental. It may have been a bit misguided to focus on mod content delivery...but that might be as much for their own uses as ours. So yeah, a little bit of tinfoil hatness there I think. To have truly fan driven content, it has to be accessible to all fans like Spore was. XML and spreadsheets, for how simple they are for people that understand scripting, is still completely out of the grasp of 90% of their fan base.

[Virtz]

Yeah, I think you're exactly right.  In fact I remember several times where they stated that the lack of content was intentional.  They said that they would release the game with only a human race because they were relying on the community to come up with the rest through their Impulse server.  So, in the case of Elemental, and what many don't realize, is that this game was built with the philosophy from the very beginning that player-made stuff would flesh the game out over time.

A big problem with this, however, is that without their Impulse-driven mod system they talked about, it will be very difficult for players to get good mods into their games quickly and easily without scouring the internet (and having some basic computer skills on ensuring their mod imports are installed properly).  So most people will end up playing the game as it was not intended, or with crappy mods, without their games quickly filling up with new interesting content.

I'm pretty sure people will make mod packs with better mods like for Fallout 3. Maybe even thematic total conversions of sorts. Generally it's not that hard to find the best game mods at all.

[nenjin]

Plus, we're talking bite-sized content here. A single weapon. A single faction. A skins pack. A spells pack. A single quest. Based on how the game already stores this stuff, it's already significantly less complicated than FO3/Bethesda type modding.

[GaelicVigil]

Nah, I think you're full of it on that one Gaelic. You don't commit to a game through 2011 as a pre-text for sitting around and ensuring mod-content delivery happens. They have more to add. It's now a question of whether:

a) They're going to add more bland crap like what they already have.

or

b) They revisit their old systems, revamp them and design new systems to expand the game.

There's a good platform there, and they'd be stupid not to capitalize on all the work they've already put in. Mod content, despite the hype, never ever sold Spore and I doubt it was intended strictly to sell  Elemental. It may have been a bit misguided to focus on mod content delivery...but that might be as much for their own uses as ours. So yeah, a little bit of tinfoil hatness there I think. To have truly fan driven content, it has to be accessible to all fans like Spore was. XML and spreadsheets, for how simple they are for people that understand scripting, is still completely out of the grasp of 90% of their fan base.

Actually Stardock directly used Spore as their example of how this system would work.  I posted links to press releases on it earlier.

I'm not saying that they were intentionally designing sparse/crappy content from the beginning, I'm saying that they were intentional creating "framework" content.  In other words, all of the content that has shipped with the game is supposed to be pretty good all on it's own, but not representative of the entire scope of what they had in mind for it.  I mean, it's obvious isn't it?  Only 1 single race, only 2 factions, maybe a couple dozen NPCs, only a small handful of quests.  Do you honestly think that this is what they thought would satisfy people for the game's entire life-time?

[Sowelu]

Them spending so much time on modding tools and such annoys people like me who couldn't give a rat's ass what mod some random guy cooks up and just wants to play a fun game.

Hear hear.

[GaelicVigil]

Yeah, I think you're exactly right.  In fact I remember several times where they stated that the lack of content was intentional.  They said that they would release the game with only a human race because they were relying on the community to come up with the rest through their Impulse server.  So, in the case of Elemental, and what many don't realize, is that this game was built with the philosophy from the very beginning that player-made stuff would flesh the game out over time.

A big problem with this, however, is that without their Impulse-driven mod system they talked about, it will be very difficult for players to get good mods into their games quickly and easily without scouring the internet (and having some basic computer skills on ensuring their mod imports are installed properly).  So most people will end up playing the game as it was not intended, or with crappy mods, without their games quickly filling up with new interesting content.

I'm pretty sure people will make mod packs with better mods like for Fallout 3. Maybe even thematic total conversions of sorts. Generally it's not that hard to find the best game mods at all.

And that's fine, but I think the traditional-style "go search the web for a few nice mods" approach is probably not going to be nearly-enough to make much of a difference over what Stardock released in the Vanilla version.

For example, the content people got with vanilla Morrowind and Oblivion was quite enough for people without any desire for modding.  Same thing with any Civ game - it stands very well on it's own two feet.  Modding here was mainly designed for adding some flavor to the game, it didn't have to do the work that the designers should have done.

But this is NOT the case with Elemental, the game gets extremely repetitive after a few plays.  I think the Impulse mod network would have solved this issue by streaming stuff instantaneously into your system.  Scouring the internets for mod-packs and the like is far too cumbersome for a game as incomplete as this is.

[Fikes]

Of all the criticism I have seen about the game, the one I don't really understand is the bland options one...

I don’t understand to which standard you guys are holding the game. Yes, there are not 20 weapon options, but what else do you need? What did you have in mind for the game? If you add more you just end up with slight variations, the difference between 6 attack and 5.

I personally don’t feel like there are that fewer enemy types than Civ at least. I guess you could say AOW had a lot more, but they were pretty much copies of each other (every race had the shaman class for instance). I don’t really think that content wise the game is that bad. Civ had like 6 types of goodie huts? 2 of which were not even available in harder difficulties… Sure there is a lack of quest variety but how much can you really do?

On a different note, I am really tired of Stardock blaming their issues on their lack of DRM. They did the same fucking thing with Demigod. No, the pirates are not to blame for your problems! No, stores release a day early is not to blame for your problems! You are the ones who released the game and the “day zero” patch didn’t even come out until 5 minutes into day 2.

[nenjin]

I'm not saying that they were intentionally designing sparse/crappy content from the beginning, I'm saying that they were intentional creating "framework" content.  In other words, all of the content that has shipped with the game is supposed to be pretty good all on it's own, but not representative of the entire scope of what they had in mind for it.  I mean, it's obvious isn't it?  Only 1 single race, only 2 factions, maybe a couple dozen NPCs, only a small handful of quests.  Do you honestly think that this is what they thought would satisfy people for the game's entire life-time?

No, I'm in 100% agreement with you on that. It feels like framework content. Having been following Elemental sparsely up until maybe June, I and a lot of other people missed that sentiment. We knew there was mod content and a mod network...but that goes a long way toward explaining why SD thought a release now was ok. It was a serious, serious miscalculation on their part. Spore failed for exactly this reason. It's fixable, far more fixable than Spore was...but they've forced themselves into 2 months of content creation if they want to meet people's very realistic release expectations.

Of all the criticism I have seen about the game, the one I don't really understand is the bland options one...

I don’t understand to which standard you guys are holding the game. Yes, there are not 20 weapon options, but what else do you need? What did you have in mind for the game? If you add more you just end up with slight variations, the difference between 6 attack and 5.

I personally don’t feel like there are that fewer enemy types than Civ at least. I guess you could say AOW had a lot more, but they were pretty much copies of each other (every race had the shaman class for instance). I don’t really think that content wise the game is that bad. Civ had like 6 types of goodie huts? 2 of which were not even available in harder difficulties… Sure there is a lack of quest variety but how much can you really do?

Setting: Bland. Brad thought it was a genius idea to write a world narrative where in the actual game every name can be substituted. What does that say about his fiction and the writing in general about the game? It's dressed up Fantasy Mad Libs. The random name generator spits out gibberish for everything, down to unit names, which it renames on a per unit basis. The only reason I know or care who the Kraxis Empire is, is because they're the one AI that goes on the offensive in every game I play. I couldn't name all the races right now if I tried, because they're not that memorable.

Elemental is a game that considers its world generic, yet takes its own storyline seriously. Tell me that's not an unflattering contradiction with predictably bland consequences.

The UI: Bland. When you get down to brass tax on the UI, it's panels, with a crappy subdued color scheme trending toward pastel and a font. No scroll work, no real detail work, just the bare minimum with one swipe of the polish rag. Is it a huge complaint? No. It's functional and cleanly constructed. But it's bland.

The graphics. Cell-shading. You have to be really, really good at cell shading to not produce stuff that looks like this. And hell, even Dragonball Z Budokai, which came on on the PS2, manages to achieve character model shading. Bland.

The spells and the heroes: Magic I shouldn't even need to explain. The character system for heroes and your sovereign is simplistic and leads you to two kinds of heroes: casters and fighters. The special abilities are run of the mill, not balanced for the game as a whole, and you don't even get to pick them to any extent. Bland.

The ONLY thing I don't find bland about this game is the map view when zoomed in, and the music. Nothing else about it inspires me on an aesthetic or imaginative level (except the scope of a full game and some of the exploration). And the writing really is just shit, I can't over emphasize that enough.

On a different note, I am really tired of Stardock blaming their issues on their lack of DRM. They did the same fucking thing with Demigod. No, the pirates are not to blame for your problems! No, stores release a day early is not to blame for your problems! You are the ones who released the game and the “day zero” patch didn’t even come out until 5 minutes into day 2.

Yeah, I read that in Brad's little meltdown and kind of just went..."Uhm.....what?" I pre-ordered the 23rd.