Couldn't agree more. Very little gameplay balancing appears to have happened which presumably reflects the very low importance that Stardock (and by that I mean Brad) put upon it... and yet to the paying customer, particularly for a strategy game, gameplay balance and having interesting choices and trade offs is one of the critical requirements.

It strikes me that what is required is several large spreadsheets of the various game data along with formula to balance them out mathematically, followed up by in depth play testing to check that what seems balanced mathemetically actually feels that way when played. I'll eat my hat if this has happened at more than an extremely rudimentary level.

Fortunately it is still possible. They aren't going to be able to pick up most of the potential customers they have lost from this release but they can fix it so that those who have already bought it are happy and maybe maintain steady ongoing sales.

Hmm? No, no, not at all. Brad is a Great guy and one of the hardest working Dev's in the business, bar none. I don't know any other Dev, much less a CEO of a multinational corporation, that would take the time out of his busy schedule to sit down and talk with people like he does. I was just stressing some of his business views. I've said in a lot of other posts Stardock kinda got screwed on this one. Brad should of had a lot more time to work on the AI and stuff and it's not really his fault he didn't. He did the best he could in a short amount of time and did a damn good job with it. Sometimes I get a little..hmm, "vocal" or "dramatic" when typing out replies so my posts can come off a little harsher than they mean to.

I love the hell out of Elemental and for the first time since like, X-Com, I kinda consider my-self to be a "fanboy" of something, and that's very Very Rare. Elemental is going to be THE Fantasy Strategy game of our generation when all is said and done. It's well on it's way there now. I can't wait to see what the future brings from Brad and the Team not to mention all the Mods we modders have in the works.

I didn't mean my reply there to sound bad in any way, I was just giving my honest opinion, which is still a good opinion (at least I think so anyway).

I wouldn't go as far to say it wasn't important to them. I know it WAS VERY Important to them actually. Elemental is their "baby", just as it's all of our's baby who's put so much into the game over the last two years. Brad see's things as a programmer and a developer though, and has to take a step back to see things from a "gamers" perspective some times, even he freely admits that, and that's not a bad thing. If he didn't think that GalCiv 2 wouldn't have the incredible depth and AI that it has now. GalCiv 2 is my Favorite space/strat game. Even surpassing MoO2 in it's awesomeness. Like I said it was obvious they got kinda screwed on the release window too. I think if they would of had the extra 6 months they thought they were going to have then none of this hoopla over the game would have happened at all and launch would have gone a lot smoother without the drama involved.

With Brad's latest post, I think he's learned that's not always the case.  Yes, I do agree with you that they were screwed on the release timing.  That said, I think if given the choice between rushing and delaying, you always choose the delay.  Now if I was seventy and had six months to live, I'd be pissed  .  The boxes could have sat in a warehouse, the disks didn't need to be pressed until three weeks prior- so that's a non-issue also.  A rushed game is forever rushed, a great game later is still great.  A game that is rushed but becomes great- those get mixed legacies.  Ultimately though, "it is what it is", and Stardock is going to do a damn good job of making some damn good lemonade out of lemons.  That's the benefit of Stardock's support- and why is it a good business practice- imagine if some other company had put a game like Elemental out at launch in this state, without the reputation Stardock has for improving things post-release.  There would be rioting in their forums- nothing like this.  You see the rioting on other sites that aren't familiar with Stardock.  In the age of the Steam Defense Force, Stardock isn't that well known due to their games not being on Steam.  This is another reason why I'm upset some- Elemental's flawed launch hurts Impulse, which I prefer to Steam, even more now after seeing how Impulse integrates into Elemental.

I don't think the criticism of Impulse is fair.  From what I have seen, the integration of Impulse into Elemental, and the things that are being done, is really, REALLY well done.  It may actually be the strongest part of the game so far- though more mod content is needed, not just maps.   You're right that the state of PC gaming has changed- while DD is great, it does have some side effects- and the "fix it later" mentality is one of those.

I'll say this- I am confident that (assuming GalCiv 3 is next, which it should be now if it wasn't planned that way- GalCiv is the flagship franchise of Stardock, and a good Galciv will undo all reputation damage if done right at launch) GC3 will not repeat the mistakes of the past.  Stardock learns from their mistakes.

From reading Brad's latest post, it seems to me that he doesn't think they did a thing wrong, and everything is proceeding fine, no reputation damage done. The release date was fine, and the game was excellent after the day-0 patch. They will continue to work on it until a larger majority thinks the game is fantastic. Nothing is different from any other release.

It's Impulse "specifically" I don't like. It's that they give developers the ability to put out stuff while easily fix it later. Back in the day All developers had to put out a Quality game because they couldn't just instantly patch it up via instant delivery. They had to put out a bug free fully working and balanced game on day one or it wouldn't sell because it would tank. They didn't have weekly or monthly patches and for the most part unless a sequel was planned once a game was released it was "finished". Single player games didn't "continually evolve", that's what I miss and my main complaint with online services like Steam and Impulse. Not that they don't have their advantages, but they have draw backs as well and it's gamers that pay the price.

I agree Brad's latest post does show that he's seeing what's happening and can admit to his mistakes, and that earns respect in my eyes and why I continue to buy Stardock products and support them whenever I can. Yet another thing that other companies don't do.

I want to see GalCiv3 as much as you do but I wouldn't expect it any time soon. They're going to concentrate on Elemental at least until after the first expansion. From what I understand "Societies" is supposed to be the next big project, but, lets keep hoping for a GalCiv3 some time soon.

See, I had enough experiences with games that didn't work as well as they should have back in the day that I'm much happier with Impulse, Steam, D2D, and the rest.  

Look at the kinds of games it allows!  GalCiv2, the new game Star Ruler, and Elemental--these are glorious games that became or will become awesome only have ripening in the glow of fan criticism and feedback.  Stardock is MUCH larger than the 2-man shop that is making Star Ruler, but indie games (and yes, Stardock is still indie) fill a void for the hardcore gamer where the mass market no longer treads.  

With the exception of big name brands like Civ, show me a game similar to Elemental that has come out by a major publisher/developer in the last decade.  I can't think of one...

Star Ruler is good?  May pick that up on sale eventually- Din's Curse is current indy game of choice though.

When I say soon, I mean 2013 or so for GC3. 

pre-Impulse, people just played the borked games, not knowing any better.  We expect more now because we get more due to the increased competition that DD sites are providing.

Calling Stardock an indie is like calling Butler/Gonzaga indies.  They got enough money to not be an indie.  To me indie is like Soldak or Talewords.

Back in the day, there was this game...  you may have heard of it...  it was called Pac-Man.  Well, it had a bug where if a ghost was chasing you, it would reach a certain point where it slightly overlapped you and you could reverse direction and go THROUGH the ghost, avoiding being caught.  This was a hole in the code that was never patched.  Further incarnations of the game (Ms. Pac-Man, et al) did not have this bug/exploit.

More complicated games, hardware, people, have introduced more complicated bugs.  Fortunately, we have the technology to get them fixed and patched.

The point is that I have no point other than bugs have existed since the dawn of computer programs.  I even remember bugs in my Atari console games Pong and Pitfall.  Stardock has the desire and the talent to make Elemental live up to its potential and their vision.

Ugh.  I still really have no point other than everything is going to be just fine.

You guys are spacing on something.  Everyone with a problem will show up to bitch about it.  Almost no one else will bother.

Big picture, the shit has hit the fan press side, and Stardock has a lot of cleanup to do.  This release was not a catastrophic fuck up though, or 54/46 in favor of the game wouldn't be there.  The lion share of the player base really isn't having a cow over the game, or the forums would be crashing from the overload.

Before anyone has kittens over it, I had the bugged tactical battles that crashed the engine and I marked myself down for disappointed in the poll because I don't like how shallow the tactical combat and army building is.  I'm an asshole, not a fan.  I do have a firm grasp of reality though, something some of you should work on.  This is especially true when so many of you are holding it up to Master of Magic.  Seriously, bitching about instability, poor performance, and shit for brains AI, while comparing it to a game that was released in much the same state at a time when everyone was on the same operating system running 8 bit sprites.  How long is the list of spells that still crash the game?

Worst game for severe bugs I've played in recent history.  Civ4.  It's just one bug that really pissed me off.  The one where it craps out EAX loading up the fucking splash screen and trashes the kernel, hello hard reboot!  They didn't fix it till BTS, they never did fix the broken options.

The crash bugs don't worry me, they will get fixed. The gameplay balance and making the many choices in the game all meaningful is where the real challenge is going to be because there is a lot of work to be done here.

A 54/46 split in the intensely loyal fanbase for a publisher that had huge gamer goodwill (look how gentle the reviewers have been because of this very thing) registered to your own forums is a giant problem.

I agree totally. I never cared about the bug myself (although people who bought the game without being diehard SD fans definitely did) but the design issues concern me deeply.

You know all this game needs is to clean up the detail more and maybe play with the tactic screen a little is all.

Eather way this game is not to bad yet still have alot to learn.

Thanks

Flynn O

Also not trying to slam the game, as I too see the potential for a decent game here.

On the plus side it definitely launched in 'playable' condition, but only barely. What I see it as lacking is any kind of 'polish', the whole thing seems very hastily done and some of the UI / gameplay interface decisions just seem downright baffling. (As in how did anything this clunky make it past alpha testing, let alone beta)

This game doesn't break much in the way of new ground here; we're talking a revamp of the old Warlords concept with a bunch of Civilization-esque tech trees and tile placement added in; so why does so much of this feel like you tried to 're-invent the wheel'?

As I see it, what needs to be done in the next few weeks (months at most) is to first and foremost squash the last of the crash bugs - until I can play for 4 hours+ straight and not CTD once, you have problems. After that, the 'random' maps and overall game AI need serious work along with some possible UI fixes while you prune the remaining text and tooltip bugs out as well.