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Elemental: June 2012 Status

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Elemental: June 2012 Status

from JoeUser Forums

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Greetings! It’s been awhile since we’ve put up an update on where things stand.  So without further delay, here are some answers to questions we’ve received recently:

When will Beta 4 come out? The best I can say is “This Summer”.  It definitely won’t be out in June but might make it in time for July.

What will be in Beta 4? Beta 4 focuses a great deal on the civilization aspect of the game.  Specifically, the way cities are constructed. A third prime resource, essence, will be introduced (grain, materials, and now essence) which will help encourage greater specialization in cities. The graphics and user interface will also see a significant series of improvements for Beta 4 as well.

Will there be a Beta 5? Probably. Depends on how we’re feeling about Beta 4.

Will Fallen Enchantress require Steam? No.  We plan to make Fallen Enchantress available to purchase on Steam. But it won’t require Steam to play.

What is the status of multiplayer? It is our intention to add multiplayer after release but it won’t be available on day 0.

What is the status of modding? We would like to open up modding officially during the Beta 4 phase. No promises though.

Will there be more spells? Yes. We add more spells as we go along.

When will the final game be released? We don’t have a release date yet. But we are hoping sometime this Fall. We want to make sure we have all the time we need to make Elemental: Fallen Enchantress as good as we can make it.

 

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162,362 views 66 replies
Reply #26 from Elemental Forums Top

Indeed, if the last Beta 3 build is "crashing all the time" then we need to hear more from you. From a stability point of view, the last beta 3 build should be pretty solid. I'd want to know if there's a hardware incompatibility that we need to address.

 

Reply #27 from Elemental Forums Top

I was hoping for henchmen that can actually be built and such in a patch while we wait for beta 4. 

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #28 from Elemental Forums Top

But what does essence do??????????

Reply #29 from Elemental Forums Top

I think  essence may be dog poo, and you have to train a special squad to clean it up.  If you don't your troops take a morality hit when they tread in it.

Reply #30 from Elemental Forums Top

Take as much time as you think is right to provide a polished and refined Stardock game.

I got excited with every beta release so far and I'm pretty sure that this time around, the end result will get the golden crown it deserves.

Keep up the updates, I love reading them although I don't comment as often as I would have liked.

Excellent work, Stardock !!!

Reply #31 from Elemental Forums Top

I would like to use my essence to bring Umber back!

Reply #32 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Sarudak, reply 28
But what does essence do??????????
End of Sarudak's quote

Makes people happy!!! ^_^ (no I am not serious)

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Reply #33 from Elemental Forums Top

From a simple Civ look at things then essence most likely affects research.

Reply #34 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Lonemessiah, reply 34
From a simple Civ look at things then essence most likely affects research.
End of Lonemessiah's quote

Hmm?  So, if I build a Library, I get magic esssence, which enhances my magic research.  If I build a barracks, it provides military essence, boosting that research, etc...

That could be interesting.  Shot in the dark, of course, but such a system would be cool - so long as there are tradeoffs.  What would stop a player from doing what we do right now, and building every eligible building?

 

But again, this is just speculation.  But I do like your idea.

Reply #35 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting UmbralAngel, reply 17
I am looking forward to this. I liked how Warlock had lots of variety in bonuses you could attatch to your city, while the only unique thing about your city in Fallen Enchantress is your city level up buildings. Those are pretty bland in most cases, so I never get get attatched to my cities.
End of UmbralAngel's quote

Same here Warlock is a very good game. The only two down sides to it currently is the bland magic system (I only use 4 spells) and the AI is weak but them most of these games in this day and age cater to the carebear players who balk at any challanges,  I recently got the King Arthur bundle from Steam for $12 which included all the expansions and DLC's and King Arthur 2. It was refreashing to play a game Original King Arthur that actully had a challanging AI. Have not played KA2 but I had heard it had some issues.

Reply #36 from Elemental Forums Top

Awesome news Frogboy!

All we can hope for in a game we want to love, is a team dedicated to producing the best game they can, and we got it.

Reply #37 from Elemental Forums Top

I hope you're not stringing me along with the "MP after launch" note... Quit playing games with my heart! :)

Edit: Added smiley to make sure the tone came across as was intended.

Reply #38 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting goodgimp, reply 38
I hope you're not stringing me along with the "MP after launch" note... Quit playing games with my heart!

Edit: Added smiley to make sure the tone came across as was intended.
End of goodgimp's quote

Quote this for the ages:

ASSUME that Fallen Enchantress will never ever have multiplayer.

That way, if things don't work out for it, you won't be disappointed.

The reason we want to put MP into FE is, really, because I want it in. There's no business rationale for it. But so much of the MP is there I just hate seeing it not finished off.

Reply #39 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 39
Quote this for the ages:

ASSUME that Fallen Enchantress will never ever have multiplayer.

That way, if things don't work out for it, you won't be disappointed.

The reason we want to put MP into FE is, really, because I want it in. There's no business rationale for it. But so much of the MP is there I just hate seeing it not finished off.
End of Frogboy's quote

 

Hopefully that stops that discussion, or at least simmers it down.

As to other matters (crashing), I do still get the disabled turn button crash, not often but I do get it. Has there ever been any way to know that you have received the automatic crash report? Have never seen any pop up windows or anything saying "crash info submitted." I suppose next time it happens I'll just submit manually regardless.

And every now and then I get a corrupted view of the trees/foliage, but that usually goes away with a quick scroll in/out with the mouse wheel.

Reply #40 from Elemental Forums Top

I didn't give a rat's ass about MP in E:wom, but I have to admit, as FE is getting better and better my interest in MP for it is starting to increase.

I really hope SD can make this game work financially though. I'd love to see a threequel.

Reply #41 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy,

Will Fallen Enchantress require Steam? No.  We plan to make Fallen Enchantress available to purchase on Steam. But it won’t require Steam to play.
End of Frogboy's quote

Thank you thank you thank you thank you.

Will be buying the game as soon as I get home today.

XD

 

Reply #42 from Elemental Forums Top

Is there a possibility to get a steam key as part of the Fallen Enchantress for free if you preordererd War of Magic deal? Downloading directly from you guys is fine, but a steam version would be super. Especially if there will be achivements. :)

Reply #43 from Elemental Forums Top

Essence is just the generic name for a commodity that breaks the third wall. Essence is essentially virtual cash. it plays on the idea of "essence" being vague and ethereal...which to the characters in-game it is.  But to you it's a 'real' thing.

You will be able to buy dyes for your champions' magical gear, and even new accessory slots for various visual 'upgrades' (they will have no impact on game-play.)  You will also be able to trade in essence (albeit at a very steep rate) to go against pre-orders of future Stardock titles.  There will be a set limit of 50% off, since quite frankly there is no online check against hacks or exploits...it will be pretty easy for people to just give themselves loads of essence.

But hey, 50% off your next Stardock purchase?  Sounds ok to me.

Reply #45 from Elemental Forums Top

Thanks for the update.

In another thread Frogboy said that essence = beer.   So that issue is solved.

Reply #46 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting xaltotun, reply 46
Thanks for the update.

In another thread Frogboy said that essence = beer.   So that issue is solved.
End of xaltotun's quote

essence = beer,
beer = happiness
beer + happiness = research... aha!

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Reply #47 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 39
Quote this for the ages:

ASSUME that Fallen Enchantress will never ever have multiplayer.

That way, if things don't work out for it, you won't be disappointed.

The reason we want to put MP into FE is, really, because I want it in. There's no business rationale for it. But so much of the MP is there I just hate seeing it not finished off.
End of Frogboy's quote

Frankly multi-player is the sort of feature which should be perfect for a moderately priced (ie not super cheap) DLC. Many people don't care about it at all but the ones that want multi-player really want it and in a logical world would be quite happy to shell out 10 bucks for it. You could possibly make it so that you don't need to own the multi-player DLC to join a game, just to start/host one (although that might cut down on revenue too much for it to help fund multi-player development?)

However the world is not logical and many (myself included) have knee jerk reactions against DLC which seems like blatent money grabbing (eg zero day DLC). It wouldn't worry me but I am sure some would say a multi-player DLC fell into that category unless it was very carefully managed to make it clear that multi-player could ONLY be justified and implemented by having it as a DLC.

Of course I could be completely wrong and only 73 people would buy the multi-player DLC in which case I guess we're back to Frogboy's starting point of no business rationale for it. :grin:

Reply #48 from Elemental Forums Top

I would really, really like to hear that no one at Stardock will waste one minute on MP until single player is done. 

Already, there's no force in the universe that could convince me that there aren't at least a few bugs in Fallen Enchantress that are due to MP having been designed in.  Things like autosaves loading like shit, the player not quite being able to move before everyone finishes moving, monsters jumping multiple tiles to attack a group that has been kicked out of claimed territory, units moving and destroying improvements so they can line themselves up for combat, orders being taken while combat is going on... etc, etc, etc...

Of course, I'll play the game that Stardock produces, and no other.  I would even pay for the DLC when it comes out, because I am sure that it will change SP somehow, and I like to play the 'standard'/latest version.

Anyhow.  I'm above all glad that Frogboy and the rest of the developers care strongly about their game and bother telling us what's going on.  Thanks for the game, thanks for updating us about the going-ons, but NO thanks for mentioning essence and not telling us what it's about.

Reply #49 from Elemental Forums Top

i would imagine those are multithread oddities rather than multiplayer oddites tuidjy....

Reply #50 from Elemental Forums Top

Keep up the good work Brad + team!

Looks like you have improved the graphics even further, I like it!