I've had several 400+ turn games with no problems or slowdown...

and what game mechanic specifically does not work?

here are two to wet your appetite(im making a ig thread now)

gipping moves (get 4 instead of 5)

magic stone things don't add damage

Hmm, let's see...

• Diplomacy is one dimensional
• Shards don't work outside of auto resolve combat
• Defense is way too hit or miss (how does a level 4 creature easily one shot my level 9 sovereign with an 800+ CR?)
• Magic is even MORE hit or miss (if I have 4 fire shards and 17 INT how does Melting Touch EVER do 1 damage?)
• AI does insanely stupid things like enemy sovereign rushing a well armed city by himself
• Morale appears to do nothing at all until it bottoms out (only if you take negative morale traits on initial build)

These are only the bugs I can think of off the top of my head and not the major issues with the game design choices.

I have major slowdowns and many bugs but I still enjoy the game. And it can only get better.

Don't forget the non-functional faction traits and sovereign background(s)!

I don't love the game or hate it, I just think it's OK. I do think it was bad business to release it so early and so bug-ridden after people have paid good money for something, or anything you buy, that should be in proper working order. Fortunately they were on the ball with patches and a lot of people have forgiven them for that, but that said, the bad reviews were deserved. I also think all the sucking up is just in the hope that future patches will come thick and fast and I don't think any of it is sincere.

It does make me laugh when I read the responses to some of Frogboy's posts! People are either "lol"ing like it's the funniest thing they've ever read, praising him as if he's said something amazingly philosophical & earth-shattering that only a messiah could say or wishing him a lovely, relaxing vacation....all to the person/company that sold us a defective, below-par product! Now that makes me lol! When did we all become so forgiving??

I don't regret buying it because it's playable as it is and I'm one of the fortunate few who aren't having any performance issues. I'm just a casual gamer though and a lot of the stuff that is obvious to other players isn't obvious to me, so it'll probably just sit on my hard drive for a month or so until it becomes this great game that everyone appears to believe it will.

Let's not get into specific gameplay features please.  This is about how on the business/commercial end this game, when ready, will get a fair chance to shine.  There are plenty of threads for that, here it will just get lost.

It's not even so much about Stardock changing.  Stardock in terms of how it supports games, doesn't need to change.  What needs to change is people's perceptions, and that will take real value being offered.  That is the complete opposite of a "dog and pony show".

This game is a brand new engine, as such, if Elemental is the only game it's used for- it's a failure on that end.  This is why making sure Elemental gets into the hands of people, and is enjoyed by those people, is essential.  That's probably more important in the long term then how profitable Elemental is (and if Brad's comments are true about the pre-order numbers, then the game has already broke even).  If people just remember Elemental as a mess, that might put a serious damper on GC3 sales in 2-3 years (or whatever comes next).

Sorry for helping derail yer thread Arstal

I agree that some pretty aggressive work needs to be done be it deep discounts pretty early in the lifecycle, embracing modders much moreso than most games do (to help patch some of the more obvious holes) and working hard on getting new stuff out there be it an expansion or just content packs.

Some savvy marketing/PR can go a LONG way to repairing the game's currently tarnished image.

Stardock can't and shouldn't do early deep discounts.

a) there are retail agreements that say Stardock can't lower the price for x number of days (Stardock has to do this or no retali space)  If the retailers discount, they can.

discounting shouldn't happen until the game has enough polish, otherwise people will call it a fire sale/act of desperation.  Get it right, then try to get people back.  When people will be wowed, that's when people will buy at discount, sing its praises on other forums, then you get the word of mouth, especially when you announce the expansion.

In a big way, Stardock let me down with this release.  They'll have to earn that trust back if they'd like for me to pre-purchase a game from them again.  The only thing they need to do to 'make this right' & 'win people back' is deliver what was promised.  Arstal mentioned what was done with 'The Witcher' as a possible way to remedy the situation...an excellent idea that I hope is seriously considered. 

I purchased Elemental: War of MAGIC & that's exactly what I want.  Right now its more like Elemental: War of 'smoke and mirrors'.

fixed

And the games market is notoriously forgetful. Just look at Demigod - launch was a complete failure. It's done well enough there's talk of a sequel. Sometimes I think games companies could start shipping turd in boxes at release and it wouldn't make any difference whatsoever ...

I don't know how that myth started because it has never been the case.  Yes, the gold version was in rough shape for a release product, but outright unplayable?  Not at all.  I'm not sure what a company can to do combat a falsity that so many people appear to have unquestioningly accepted as fact.

The perception of fact in this case is as bad as being fact.

It's not fair, but it is what it is.  With Stardock's ability to improve things over time, a re-release or stand-alone XP would gain that goodwill back.

I'm going to disagree with this. If you discount a week after release, what you're going to do is annoy people who bought the game in the first week. That just reinforces the "don't buy Stardock games at launch" perception.

Look at what happened to Star Trek Online when they pulled that stunt. They still haven't lived down the negative reaction. Everybody knows game discounts happen, but they don't happen this fast.

What they *could* do is offer up a DLC coupon to people who bought already or some such. You want to give the perception of increasing value rather then decreasing it.

This, I agree with. In the past Brad had said that making games is 95% engine and 5% game. We've seen now what happens with 5% game.

What it needs to be is more like 85% engine, 5% game, 10% game polish & tweaking. We really needed a public beta 5 that didn't happen, where the full game was assembled and it was just "how does it play in the late game?" type questions.

Stardock's reputation for supporting games after release is good, and they deserve it. But they're also building a reputation for not polishing games BEFORE release, and that really can't happen again.

(On the upside for GC3, if they use Elemental's engine they'll no doubt have the kinks worked out by then and it'll save an awful lot of grief.)