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Random Elemental journal: December 2009

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Random Elemental journal: December 2009

from JoeUser Forums

One of Sid Meier’s rules of game design boils down to “Prototype, prototype, prototype”.

Forgive me for any unintentional hubris but as far as I’m aware, Elemental is the first commercial PC game that opened that phase of development to the public.

Just this week all kinds of changes have been made to the engine.  So let’s talk about that.

First, for those of you not in the game industry, the thing to remember is that 80% of a game’s development time is spent on engine and assets. The remaining 20% is the actual “game”.  That’s why we have the luxury to monkey around with different game mechanic ideas.

Star Emperor

15 years ago IBM came to me (I was in college) and wanted a “Galactic Civilizations” game but different for something called the IBM Family Funpak. I said “Oh…oh yea, I have a game called…Star Imp..er…I mean Star..Lor- er Star Empir…er Star Emperor. Yea, Star Emperor.”

IBM agreed to pay a pile of money for this game and over a weekend I took my GalCiv for OS/2 code, changed the game mechanics to Star Emperor and voila. A million licneses sold to IBM. 

GalCiv was basically Civilization in Space.  Star Emperor was basically Warlords in space. IBM was happy. Gamers liked it. And I decided I’d do this Stardock thing full time. It totally beat out doing “Truth in Lending” programs for Ford Credit.

Cool stuff in Elemental

image
Quickie concept of updated Diplomacy interaction

For Elemental, of course, we have more than a weekend to whip up our game mechanics.  But that’s half the fun.  We get to play around with all kinds of different idea.  Best of all, thanks to this Internet thing, we can get input from others.

So here’s stuff from this week:

  1. There will only be 1 type of mana. Mana.  Control of the elemental shards will be handled ala Magic the Gathering. A spell may cost N mana but also require control of M shards to cast. This way, players don’t have to sit there and hold shards for dozens of turns to cast a spell and creates a much more vibrant game.
  2. The battle system has been monkeyed with several times this week internally.  The current system has Attack along with a range for that attack.  There is also no longer “fire” or “frost” damage but instead simply Arcane damage and Arcane resistance.  It’s very similar to what Master of Magic except we have Combat speed in there too.
  3. Players will get a cue that the enemy player is about to cast a spell so that they have the opportunity to counter it when in a tactical battle.  If auto-resolve is on, players will be able to set a default amount of mana they’re willing to invest in a given battle. (we’re still playing with this and expect to for months to come  based on player feedback).
  4. Multiplayer diplomacy will get its own UI rather than sacrificing even an ounce of the SP diplomacy UI to support MP.
  5. The campaign is going to be much much more story driven than originally conceived. Cut-scenes between each chapter written by our friends at Del Rey.
  6. The map itself is going to get a lot more interesting stuff in it. This should start to show up in the next beta but basically, the map is too boring right now.  You’ll see.

Now, for those of you NOT in the beta, fear not. You’re not missing out on anything fun. These prototype betas are explicitly designed to be awful so that we can try out lots of different ideas cheaply. This is going to continue on through the entire prototype phase of the beta (which is beta 1 AND beta 2). 

For those of you in the beta, you’re hopefully starting to notice what makes our games a bit different in how they’re developed. We use our software tech like DesktopX and other goodies that allow us to make massive, easy changes to our game mechanics. This way, we can radically change things based on player feedback. 

We can re-do an entire screen in less than 15 minutes (for instance). If there’s anyone in the industry reading this, please feel free to run through the normal way a screen gets changed so that readers can see the contrast. :)

646,865 views 183 replies
Reply #176 from Elemental Forums Top

Frogboy - After Demigod, I seriously think you should do PurplePaladin's suggestion.  Don't do it at release, but add a "public" patch a few weeks later.  :p

Reply #177 from Sins Forums Top

Oh, that would be so great, if any unregistered game had pirates that invaded more and more as the game went on.
End of quote

 

that alone would make me prefer a pirated version over the original. arrrrr pirrrrrates

Elemental: Reforged
Reply #178 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Ynglaur, reply 173
If only we didn't have so many pirates in the beta, we'd have a better game. 

Btw, I know the focus is on land battles, but we really should pirates into the game as some sort of anti-DRM easter egg or something.  It'd be hilarious.  Have them show up on your coasts frothing and foaming (so to speak) at the mouth, only to enter your Library and University locations, copy everything down, and then leave.
End of Ynglaur's quote

:rofl:

 

(Also, I am curious about naval combat, and if/how it might be handled, though I'm sure such a post is lurking somewhere.)

(Perhaps, as a further reference, they could be called "sunforce" or "astralforce" of something, in reference to the galactic civilizations thing.)

Reply #179 from Elemental Forums Top

Spells: I like the variety of spells from D&D/AD&D.  Most computer games, lacking human adjudicators, have very limited spells.  Some games are especially unimaginative when it comes to spells -- they may have 4524352 spells but they're not really different -- fire/ice/electricity/etc; bolt/ball; buff/debuff that damage type, increased range/AoE, etc. etc. etc.  They have all the iterations of combinations of these factors and call those different spells but they're really variations on 1 spell.  Compare those types of spell lists with AD&D -- when you level up and get new spells, you don't just get the same old spell with a little bigger AoE and damage, you get whole new types of spells. 

MoM, with no human adjudicators, had a decent variety of spells, so it can be done.

I hope Elemental puts work into different types of spells, and not just the garden variety we generally see these days.

Cutscenes: I maybe look at the opening scenes once, then ESC past them to get to the game, and generally skip cutscenes.  Dragon Age is the first game I watch most of the cutscenes in (they're so well done and the chars are so interesting the cutscenes have value).  Not sure I'd watch many of them if I replay it.  As I hope to replay Elemental many times (like I have replayed the Civs), cutscenes are way down on my list.  The game creates its own story, I create my own story (via the type of leader I choose, and units/etc.).  I wonder how cutscenes will hold up in replays...

Reply #180 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Nick-Danger, reply 179
Spells: I like the variety of spells from D&D/AD&D.  Most computer games, lacking human adjudicators, have very limited spells.  Some games are especially unimaginative when it comes to spells -- they may have 4524352 spells but they're not really different -- fire/ice/electricity/etc; bolt/ball; buff/debuff that damage type, increased range/AoE, etc. etc. etc.  They have all the iterations of combinations of these factors and call those different spells but they're really variations on 1 spell.  Compare those types of spell lists with AD&D -- when you level up and get new spells, you don't just get the same old spell with a little bigger AoE and damage, you get whole new types of spells. 

MoM, with no human adjudicators, had a decent variety of spells, so it can be done.

End of Nick-Danger's quote

This is so well said!   Make no mistake, gamers are expecting the staple spells as mentioned.  However, we are really looking for more in terms of variety.

Quoting Nick-Danger, reply 179

I hope Elemental puts work into different types of spells, and not just the garden variety we generally see these days.

Cutscenes: I maybe look at the opening scenes once, then ESC past them to get to the game, and generally skip cutscenes.  Dragon Age is the first game I watch most of the cutscenes in (they're so well done and the chars are so interesting the cutscenes have value).  Not sure I'd watch many of them if I replay it.  As I hope to replay Elemental many times (like I have replayed the Civs), cutscenes are way down on my list.  The game creates its own story, I create my own story (via the type of leader I choose, and units/etc.).  I wonder how cutscenes will hold up in replays...
End of Nick-Danger's quote

Yes, efforts should not be given to cut-scenes.   Who will have time watch it more than one time?  Who will watch it more than two times?   There will be, but those should be the minority.

Reply #181 from Elemental Forums Top

For some reason I feel like any reply I make in this thread is just going to be lost in the shuffle (which is odd, because the thread is on page 8 and I've seen threads on other forums go into the hundreds or thousands of pages.)<_<

 

Even so, it reminds me that Stardock are my favorite game developers. As Yahtzee (of Zero Punctuation) has commented a few times: 'I don't play games because I want to extract my own fun, I want to play the fun that was made for me by professional fun-designers.' Instead of bringing more arguments about how I'd like it to be and why, I'll trust that you're going to do your job, and that you'll do it well because it's something you enjoy, and so I'll just say - keep up the good work.

Reply #182 from Stardock Forums Top

Dominions 3 also has an excellent grimoire of non-standard spells, some of which only function as counter-spells.  There's plenty of "does x damage" types, mind, but there's also interesting ones that curse opponents, summon opposing generals to the caster's location, etc.

Reply #183 from Demigod Forums Top

Multiplayer diplomacy will get its own UI rather than sacrificing even an ounce of the SP diplomacy UI to support MP.
End of quote

This is a very good thing. :digichet: