elemental's teething pains

This game has potential, I think it could be a great replacement for MOM (which I actually still play).  For me it took about 6 tries to figure out the controls and even now it is still confusing.  The game crashes for me during combat, which is not so bad if I remember to save just before a battle. 

Since i am playing 1.06 here is my review 6.5/10 dimond in the rough.

This game has potential to be a fun 4E game, but because of the crashing, interface issues, and non-intutitve game play I have to give it that 6.5 out of 10.  I realize that someone let this out of the gate early so they pushed it out the door.  But, no excuses for what essentially is a beta release. 

Yenkin

I have those crashes in the battle also...

happends when I click on an artifact  etc...

very very irritating

I crash everytime i found my first city, without fail. I create a custom soveriegn, start the game, walk around, and found my city and it just crashes. I can't even play!

Running windows XP SP 3. got a quad core with a decent video card. I was able to run it before 1.06.

The game feels unfinished. Releasing it at that stage was to early. They could have done this if they marketed it as being "open beta" or pre release version. Those who don't wanna wait get what they want, while others might wait. In return people won't be as dissapointed. The waiters will recieve a polished product + this is the version that will be reviewed, and those buying when still in prerelease/beta won't be as dissapointed either, as they expect some flaws and will definitely contribute in finding bugs and game flaws.

I did buy the game, although I'm not very fond of turn based combat. Appaerently those behind SINS also contributed here, so I expected a more or less unique strategy game with some good ideas in it. SINS also had a very good interface. Although Elementa's isn't that bad, it could do with some improvements. I will be more cautios when buying games made by Stardock in future, making sure I buy the game when they are in a more finished state, and I do hope they will "finish" Elemental, else I will be dissapointed.

My biggest  issue with Elemental is dmg caculation and especially the stacking of units. High armor can be way to effective. A stacked unit consisting of cheap troops could be made near invincible. When stacked, they should still act as separete. By that I mean, each rolls their own attack which can be countered, and attacks on them should be with their own defense. Stacking might give a percentage bonus though (depending on how many they are). As it is now, it completely ruins game balance.

Unfortunately this is the state of PC game design.  The more patching to HDDs in consoles is the norm, the worse console releases will be as well.

Developers (by in large) release a completely unfinished product (unplayable in many cases) with the promise that it will become a complete product in the future.  Nobody is asking for a perfect piece of software.  There's always going to be some issues that arrive after hours of gameplay.

What consumers DO rightfully expect is at least a playable product.  Crashing to desktop repeatedly is a deal breaker.  Balance issues and other bugs aside, if you can't play the game you spent $50 on, that is an issue.  One that should be resolved before release.

I can appreciate the CEO's recent apology for making a jackass of himself after being called out for releasing a beta-level product.  But what we needed to have happen was an apology for releasing a beta-level product. 

Too many promising small companies rush out their products and then wonder why the market is dominated by giants like Blizzard and Bioware.

Here's to hoping that Stardock will fix this like they normally do.  But here's also to hoping that they take enough of a credibility hit this time that they improve on their nasty habit of using patches as an excuse for failure.

/two cents

I bought the game at a big box store. It worked out of the box and like all new games comes with teething pains. Meaning it crashes periodically. So like all strategy games I save often, then save even more often. Yep the stacked units seem broken. Computers are powerful enough that they could do each separate part of the stack. Stacked armored archers are very nice. Really expensive but can beat up other stacks no problem. What they can't do is take on tough monsters.

Keep hitting Magnar with his elemental that hits everything on the board for 10 hp then his other creature that hits everything on the board for 10 points, meaning just about everything dies quickly. Can't stress enough that invest in your con as you gain huge amounts of hp each level if your con starts high.

Chris

There are many problems with this game because of early release, but they are being addressed through MANY updates. This is basically the best DRM in my opinion. Imagine the headache of hacking this game and trying to get all of the update goodness! Damn dirty pirates!

the game is great with the 1.07 patch, finished my first game yesterday and it seems to run much smoother on my archaic system as well.

This game should have been named Elemental CRASH.  Between the out of memory errors and other unexplained crashed, the game is more a teaser then a possibility.  About the only way I seem to "play" is to keep reloading the autosave and going the few turns before the next crash.

This is the second game I have bought via Impulse which is by Stardock.  Both had great potential.  However, both were obviously released WAY too early.  It's quite obvious Stardock has not learned the concept of play testing.  Instead, just release it, grab the initial cash and hope to heck that the customer base doesn't scream so loudly that future revenue from the game isn't destroyed due to horrible reputation.

Personally, I'm about done with Stardock games.  Stop releasing games before they have been play tested and fixed accordingly.

Just to waylay any thoughts that maybe it's my 'archaic' screwball system, my PC is able to play such games as WoW and Aion without issues not to mention quite a few others,

I have issues playing game in version 1.07 game totally freezes up on me cant even ctrl alt del  have to manually reboot to get out of game..seems to happen after using lower land a couple of times as well as in combat.

my system is i7 w 6 gig ddr3 ram a gtx 470 and i run games like everquest2 with no issues.

hoping for a new patch addressing the freeze ups and crashes soon please.

So, I really love the potential I see in this game but it is currently unplayable for me.

I have started roughly a dozen campaigns, and 20-30 turns in on average while scrolling a short distance on the map the game will crash.  I have tried to soften graphics settings (though I should not have to with my machine) since this ALWAYS occurs during a map scroll.  I reinstalled the game as long shot as well.  1.07 has not helped a damn bit.

I am closing to giving up because I refuse to save every time a draw a breath.

Does anyone have a suggestions or known fixes?