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[Deon]

But I already did it.

I mean come on. Of course I expected that SUCH A BUGGY GAME would have a not-perfect protection system... But this "impulse" is a shit. I am already online and chatting with other players. Lol.


But it means that it will have TONS of cheaters in no time. So I am not buying it until it has its protection system fixed (or at least until I will be able to go online like a purchaser without buying anything...) and until it has a multiplayer with cheat-protection.

[forsaken1111]

Wait I thought Stardock's policy was zero DRM

[Tilla]

Wait I thought Stardock's policy was zero DRM

Stardock's policy is to constantly lie about what their policy is. See the gamers Bill of Rights article 2.

[Chutney]

And what did he do, use the game's random name generator for every character? Queen Magesta? Uthirmancer? That's someone's name? Uthirmancer? What the fuck. It sounds like a profession, not a name. It would be like if you were named Sculptor Jones. Blacksmith Hawkins. Wainwright Smith.

This is kind of how surnames work in the English language. John Smith, Jack Fisher, Frank Miller. Obviously first names don't generally have anything to do with that but professions do often = surnames. Wainwright Smith is actually a pretty awesome name, though. I am going to marry a girl named something Smith and take her name JUST for the opportunity.
sounds like one HELL of a businessman's name.

[forsaken1111]

Okay, point... those are pretty cool names.

But the names in that example are terrible.

[nenjin]

The names smack of thoughtlessly generated ideas.

Good writers ask themselves, hey, should there be a naming policy? Since names have cultures and cultures have rules and memes? Instead Brad just figured, thrown an X somewhere in the Empire names, that sounds evil.

The name generator in game is almost as generic as it can get it. It basically has a consonant/vowel pattern, with no real other control, so you end up with names like Roogoebona and Ceevurielmon. Again, for taking his own fiction pretty seriously, there are so many ways the game undercuts him, where the setting isn't undercutting the game first. 

The fact that AI created units also get generic first names...and they're all DIFFERENT, just kills me too. Way to make your opponent completely faceless and uninteresting. They all seem to be bald too.

As a D&D campaign, I could see Elemental's setting working, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that's where it came from. It's the kind of thing TT gamers would forgive, terrible generic names and a setting, for the sake of having a game to play. That doesn't translate to the video game market unless you come out explicitly say "we're making a game with a cheesy, forgettable fantasy setting."

[Deon]

Wait I thought Stardock's policy was zero DRM

Maybe it's called a zero "drm", but it works like steam and tries to check different stuff on my PC which I do not like.

[Asehujiko]

Stardock's anti piracy measures basically consist of making people on torrent sites say "don't was your bw, this is shit."?

Well, kudos to them, it worked on me, now they're supposed to suddenly be €60 richer, because that's how piracy prevention works, right?

[nenjin]

A note from Brad.

http://forums.elementalgame.com/394104

Apparently it's now totally good that people are reviewing the game before it's major September update. As opposed to 5 days ago, when it wasn't good.

Also, someone posted a thread on the Elemental forums about a (scathing) review of the Elemental book, and a link to a blog that is supposedly Brad's. I don't know if it was true or not, I didn't research it, but the blog reads like an angry arch-conservative rant page, full of talk about Liberal Media bias and how Fox News does it right...

Unsurprisingly, that thread no longer exists. 

[forsaken1111]

His terrible writing is evident in the 'quick note' as well. Don't they have a PR person who can write this stuff?

[nenjin]

Doubt it. All the news items are posted by devs or Brad. You don't need a PR personal necessarily. PR people are there to separate executives from consumers and others...which you typically only get when you've really become a AAA company. The irony? It's usually because of fall out like this that company owners and execs stop talking and pay someone else to do it for them.

[Deon]

Well I am officially fed with Elemental for now, so it's good I haven't bought it yet. Unability to upgrade units is one of the things which killed it for me. I mean come on, they have levels, it's obvious they should be able to chage a rusty sword on a new one. And it's quite boring because there's no good "game log" so you have to track everything down (and the log with submenus which slowly responds is terrible).

I will wait until it's patched for a few months and then maybe pick it up . Honestly I haven't seen anything special, it has some good concepts, but at the same time it has some terrible ones.

P.S. And I still think that 1.0 is not 1.0 when half of nations have non-working racial traits.

[nenjin]

The amount of content that's presented but not hooked up IS sort of mind-blowing isn't it? It's almost like they dropped half of that in just to reassure people that something was SUPPOSED to be there. Everything in the game is done to about 75%, right down to the custom names you choose not even updating the copy/pasted flavor text of champions, wives and children.

Jesus, even Janusk's name doesn't match what his beta version name was, that still appears on his unit card.

It's playable enough, but this is the most expensive beta I've ever purchased.

[Deon]

Yeah, I still consider it an early-mid beta. I know in which state this game was this summer so it is being developed pretty fast. So I am sure it will become "normal" with time.

[nenjin]

So I admit to some drama mongering in this thread, but I can't help it! The Elemental release is turning into a video game version of Days of Our Lives, or something.

First off, I don't think that the game sucks. I bought it, I like it, and I've been playing it.

That said, the environment in this forum during the runup to release was neck-deep rampant fanboyism. People posted thread after thread praising Frogboy and Stardock for any and all real or imagined features that they expected would be fully implemented and bug-free in the game. Frogboy said that he would be very surprised if any negative reviews of the game were made, and he was talking about the gold version. There was even a thread where people praised Stardock for not doing retailer exclusives and they cheerfully accepted the praise without correcting them, because they didn't want to wreck the carnival mood. Whenever any thread threatened to get even a little negative, it was locked or deleted. When someone posted that the street date had been broken, the thread was deleted and denials were issued that the thread had ever existed or that it was a hoax. Only when a video was posted on Youtube and it got dugg, did anyone acknowledge that it was going on.

I wasn't in beta, so I can't comment on the environment back then, but when the game was finally released, there was a svitstorm on sites and forums, all over the internet. This site, however, was as serene as ever, because the "see no evil, speak no evil" status quo of this forum was still being maintained. Check out the "chick review" thread to see me defending the game like the good fanboy that I am. It was a turkey shoot when most of the other posters had my back.

Fact is, Frogboy likes being praised. I don't blame him, being praised is nice. However, when you are normally hanging in an environment where all you are getting is praised and you wander out into the wild world of internet discourse, you tend to get burned and angry. It's totally forgivable, but could have been mitigated quite a bit if more people around here would have some tolerance for constructive criticism.

Not a few minutes after he made this post I went to give him karma, for being real without being a total prick. I couldn't find the "Give Karma" button....because I"m pretty sure he just got banned.

I'm pretty sure I'm headed that way too, if that's their standard.