Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Shadowgandor]

After playing this game, I bought Dominions 3
 I've played it before...back in 'those' days...but I've changed

 We should play a Dom3 multiplayer match sometimes ^^

[a1s]

We should play a Dom3 multiplayer match sometimes ^^

There's a new game being started right now* in the PWYB subforum. You should sign up.

_____________________________________
That sounds urgent, but it will probably be gathering for another week, so no rush.

[SeaBee]

Watch Brad apologize and shuffle his feet: http://forums.elementalgame.com/394855/page/2/#2753014

Watch Stardock delay multiplayer (an on-the-box feature) a bit longer: http://forums.elementalgame.com/394652

Putting the above posts in spoilers via copypasta in case they mysteriously vanish:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(I'm up north on vacation typing on an extremely slow connection so bear with me)

I don't think people yet fully realize the completeness of Stardock's fail on Elementa's launch.

I'm going to write more about this but not only did we think v1.05 was ready for everyone but we felt v1.0 was too. That's the level of disconnect/poor judgment on our part we're talking about.

If the game had come out in February, it would still have been a disastrous launch because lack of time wasn't the issue. It was blindness, sheer blindness.  We felt the game was finished. And I speak of v1.0, not v1.05.  Blindness.

There will be massive consequences for Stardock's game studio.  I'll be talking more about this when I get back. But the game wasn't released early. The game was released poorly. Head in the sand syndrome imo.  I've read the reviews as much as possible given my hideous internet access up here and I agree with them. We just didn't see what they were talking about. We thought any complaints would be about polish points or something.

The point is, the issue here is far far worse than many of you think it is. I wish it was an issue of the game being released too early. That's an easy thing for a company to "fix".  Elemental's launch is the result of catastrophic poor judgment on my part.

EVERY competent software developer knows that the programmer must never be the one deciding whether the program is done. Yet, my love of Elemental broke my self discipline and I began coding on the game itself in vast amounts and lost any sense of objectivity on where the game's state was. I normally only program the AI on our games so I can keep a level of distance from the game itself to determine whether it's "Ready". On Elemental, I was in love with the world and the game and lost my impartiality.

We'll do better.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As I understand it the MP enabling patch has been put back to next week as the priority was to first resolve these performance and other issues which would impact both MP and SP play. -- Neil Banfield, Stardock

[Sowelu]

Wow.  Props.  They came right out and said that WAY earlier than the postmortem phase, which is pretty cool.

respect++

On the other hand, this had better not turn into one of those anger-apology-anger-apology relationships.

[nenjin]

Now THAT is a mea culpa.

I can almost hear the shredding of fan boy minds and souls over on the Elemental forums.

Now that they've come to terms with reality, they can start actually making the game they envisioned. I'm quite disturbed that they honestly though 1.0 was ready. It's good they can admit to that yes, but....that's sheer blindness and a total disconnect between people developing the game and the experience of the gamer. That is the worst flaw you can have as a developer.

Brad's lucky SD is a self-publisher. What he just did there is pretty much verboten elsewhere in the game industry.

[GaelicVigil]

Watch Brad apologize and shuffle his feet: http://forums.elementalgame.com/394855/page/2/#2753014

Watch Stardock delay multiplayer (an on-the-box feature) a bit longer: http://forums.elementalgame.com/394652

Putting the above posts in spoilers via copypasta in case they mysteriously vanish:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(I'm up north on vacation typing on an extremely slow connection so bear with me)

I don't think people yet fully realize the completeness of Stardock's fail on Elementa's launch.

I'm going to write more about this but not only did we think v1.05 was ready for everyone but we felt v1.0 was too. That's the level of disconnect/poor judgment on our part we're talking about.

If the game had come out in February, it would still have been a disastrous launch because lack of time wasn't the issue. It was blindness, sheer blindness.  We felt the game was finished. And I speak of v1.0, not v1.05.  Blindness.

There will be massive consequences for Stardock's game studio.  I'll be talking more about this when I get back. But the game wasn't released early. The game was released poorly. Head in the sand syndrome imo.  I've read the reviews as much as possible given my hideous internet access up here and I agree with them. We just didn't see what they were talking about. We thought any complaints would be about polish points or something.

The point is, the issue here is far far worse than many of you think it is. I wish it was an issue of the game being released too early. That's an easy thing for a company to "fix".  Elemental's launch is the result of catastrophic poor judgment on my part.

EVERY competent software developer knows that the programmer must never be the one deciding whether the program is done. Yet, my love of Elemental broke my self discipline and I began coding on the game itself in vast amounts and lost any sense of objectivity on where the game's state was. I normally only program the AI on our games so I can keep a level of distance from the game itself to determine whether it's "Ready". On Elemental, I was in love with the world and the game and lost my impartiality.

We'll do better.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As I understand it the MP enabling patch has been put back to next week as the priority was to first resolve these performance and other issues which would impact both MP and SP play. -- Neil Banfield, Stardock

This is just really odd.  I mean, how can you be that blind?  It takes a person only a few minutes of play-time to feel like something is terribly wrong.  It may not be apparent as to what that is, but the level of polish just feels so far below anything else that gets released these days it's difficult to not see it.

I wonder if Brad doesn't just have a case of Peter Molyneux syndrome and he hasn't realized it.  That's what I've been seeing out of this whole debacle.  It's suprising it took him over a week to finally admit he had a problem.

On a kinder note, I have been enjoying the game a little more now that I have set my expectations lower.  The role-playing elements are quite fun.  I like that I can have my own character involved in all the events of the game, it does feel a lot more intimate that way.

[Tilla]

There's also this in the same thread as the first post, where Brad goes on some more about it.
http://forums.elementalgame.com/394855/page/4/#2753375

[Deon]

I actually understand him too but it's a dangerous business, making something which costs money. I hope he doesn't give up and continue.

[nenjin]

Well he's put up with almost 2 weeks of undiluted flak from everyone, from his fans to reviewers to his friends to (I'm sure) even his own employees. If he were going to have an emo melt down, he probably would have done it by now.

This stuff is like a pendulum. Swaying back and forth between the extremes of "we got it right" and "tear it down! it's wrong, all wrong!" We'll see if they're stable enough to keep the pendulum in the middle where it needs to be.

Although man, I still can't get over the sheer hubris and lack of attention to the GAME that made them miss it. I don't want to call them lazy or unprofessional...but damn, did no one even sit down for 2 hours with the 1.0 version? They need to fix that oversight, or the next year will be the same misdirected or unguided development as before. They have to approach the next year as creating a cohesive product, and not just getting the systems to work right. There's a lot of work toward that already, some stuff is really clean. But from a flavor and mechanics standpoint, the game needs to pull it all together. 

[Viken]

Its heading that way.  The massive list of bug-fixes and changes to the game with the 1.07 patch is almost inspirational. @.@''

[Granite26]

Its heading that way.  The massive list of bug-fixes and changes to the game with the 1.07 patch is almost inspirational. @.@''

Which is out now

Journal

[subject name here]

awesome i can finally run the game at a playable run frameout without sticking to cloth map mode forever.

[Fikes]

As much as I'd like to believe in Stardock, this is following the Demigod pattern almost exactly.

Release a broken game
Deny broken status
Forum Nazi mode
Realize your game is broken appologize   <---- You are here
Release patches, post as CEO
Get bitched at by community
Go emo on the forums
(repeate above steps 3 times)
Give up

[forsaken1111]

Well gonna give Elemental another run today and see if the patches have improved it to a usable state at least.

[SethCreiyd]

I'm having a bit of trouble understanding why they're allowed to have a listed feature on the box that isn't actually in the gold edition of the game.