onomastikon

Reply to War of Magic–Report Card in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

Is there any chance, Brad, that YOU post your report card in a likewise fashion?

Reply to Shogun 2 is Freaking Awesome!!!!! in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

Thank you for this post. May I ask a question? I have never played a TW series game before. I just read the review on GameSpot, it was the first time I have heard about this game, since I do not follow prerelease news about anything much, and have (mistakenly?) believed that the previous TW series were RTSs (which I do not like). Anyhow, when reading the review, I was shocked: the game seemed to be exactly everything I would have imagined Elemental should be (except for the fantasy se

Reply to WAR of MAGIC & FALLEN ENCHANTRESS in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="18" id="2913936"]The blandess was a "feature" not a bug. [/quote] I think you are going to regret using this formulation. The abstractness might have been a feature, and one that you may or may not, in hindsight, deem a poor idea. But blandness? No, that was a result of the (suboptimal) way that the abstractness was implemented. At least that is how I would like to interpret what you are saying. Just doesn't seem like the kind of statement yo

Armor and Speed in WOM Ideas Elemental Forums

I'd like to see at least some minor drawbacks to armor for a number of reasons, the two easiest to name being: This would give us more real, serious strategic choices and fewer no-brainers (e.g. more armor is always better), and because we are used to this from most other strategy / RPG game genres. To facilitate this, I would like to see the basic default movement rate for human-sized bipeds to be greater than 1 (for example: 3 or 4), and have all movement scaled accordingly

Reply to War of Magic: v1.3 running log in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

My question was this: Do you mean that in v 1.3 the ratio of HP / Unit will remain fairly similar, but that for that same base unit one would require FOUR population instead of ONE? In other words, will the materials cost of training a unit with X hitpoints increase fourfold, will the population cost of training a unit with X hitpoints increase fourfold? This will have consequences across the board that go way beyond the question of unit balance / glass cannon.

Reply to War of Magic: v1.3 running log in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

[quote quoting="post"]Minimum trained unit group size changed from 1 to 4. [/quote] I can understand some of the concerns listed above, mostly having to do with whether or not this helps or hinders creating glass cannons. What would interest me is this: Would training the minimum basic unit outfit still only (counter-intuitively) require 1 population, or would it require 4 population?

Reply to Beta 1.2 vs The Sins Optimization Project: Results? in Sins Diplomacy Sins Forums

I think Major Stress's point is easy to understand, even for a computer-illiterate person like me. If I understand correctly, the OP was asking this: 1. Does the new patch make TSOP superfluous because it incorporates TSOP's good ideas? or the correllary: 2. Should we and can we run TSOP with the new 1.2 Patch without conflicts? Please correct me if I am wrong, but the answer to 1. appears to be "no". I would like a clear answer to #2 if possible.

Reply to 6 Months after Release: 6 Suggestions in WOM Ideas Elemental Forums

Thank you. @ Kenata: You bring up a number of good questions, let me just briefly say: [quote who="kenata" reply="3" id="2900962"] 1. Terrain. These kinds of mechanics are incredibly similar to those found in the Civ series, though without the addition of tile improvements. [/quote] One the one hand: Yes. While the Civ series has a lot of faults, the way that terrain works *in general* is not one of them; it makes land something worth fighting over. Cur

Reply to Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion Pre-Orders Begin in Sins News Sins Forums

If there is no monetarial advantage to preordering, I will certainly not. As much as I like to support the makers of products I have liked in the past, the only person I will pre-order from now is my tailor -- got burnt way too badly by Elemental: WoM, and that after investing a lot of my time and energy for them in months of Beta. I'll wait for a product (and possibly a few patches if necessary) or some form of substantial rebate.

Reply to 6 Months after Release: 6 Suggestions in WOM Ideas Elemental Forums

Just wishful thinking?

Reply to Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion Pre-Orders Begin in Sins News Sins Forums

Is preordering cheaper than purchasing upon release?

Reply to The Fallen Enchantress Poll in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of the poll is. 2 answers are for people who have either left these forums, will not visit the poll anyway, or are trolling ("will be bad", "what is it" & "care less"). That leaves "Very Excited!" and "Cautiously Optimistic". I suppose if I must, "cautious" would come closest, but after more than half a year of beta EWoM, I do not identify enough with the optimistic part to want to vote.

Reply to Fallen Enchantress: Rethinking land in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="10" id="2896514"] Our focus is making Fallen Enchantress an awesome game. [/quote] This often-repeated mantra is laudable, while it does, at times, remind me of this monty python sketch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNfGyIW7aHM Let's not forget the small interim steps (like making sure QM feedback loops during beta are not quite so idiosyncratic as they were last summer)!

Reply to Fallen Enchantress: Rethinking land in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

[quote who="Alstein" reply="4" id="2896473"]This isn't Civ. I'm not sure having the land do things, outside of bonus tiles, would help the game be any more fun. [/quote] I could not agree less. If having land tiles in your Zone of Control doesn't have any significant effect on your empire outside of the few bonus tiles it my encompass, then there is not much reason in attempting to obtain a large Zone of Control. If land "does things", it not only gives ZoC a raison d'etre

6 Months after Release: 6 Suggestions in WOM Ideas Elemental Forums

E:WoM has been in retail for half a year now, and while there has been significant improvements (especially in stability), I'd like to see the following 6 areas get attention: 1. Terrain . Problem : Zone of Control has only insignificant strategic value; it is of almost no importance if my empire comprises 100 or 100,000 tiles, because the tiles it comprises have al

Reply to Tactical Combat and Special Abilities in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

[quote who="StevenAus" reply="59" id="2894809"] Quoting onomastikon, reply 57 quoting post He suggested that tactical combat could go from being so-so to great just by adding more special abilities to combat. In his opinion the biggest issue with tactical combat was that there weren't many options. Given more things to do, combat becomes more interesting and more strategic. Interesting, I was suggesting exac

Reply to Tactical Combat and Special Abilities in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

[quote quoting="post"] He suggested that tactical combat could go from being so-so to great just by adding more special abilities to combat. In his opinion the biggest issue with tactical combat was that there weren't many options. Given more things to do, combat becomes more interesting and more strategic. [/quote] Interesting, I was suggesting exactly this in 2009: https://forums.ele

Reply to Tactical Combat and Special Abilities in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

The thing I would like to see changed most in Tactical Combat is unit spacing and footprinting in tiles. It really bothers me, especially in the early game, that individual friendly units cannot be or move through tiles which other individual friendly units occupy. It would not only greatly increase options, but also immersion, if a tile could hold X number of friendly human-sized units (say, 16), or 1 gigantic-sized friendly unit (a dragon) before being "full" -- with the number decreasing/i

Reply to War of Magic–Report Card in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

Caveat: EWoM was the only game I have ever pre-purchased and also the only one I have ever had access to at release. I almost always wait a few months for reviews and patches. I also tend to like more retro TBS games such as Dominions, Star Chamber or SEIV. That being said, I'll choose some games which have some sort of evolution I can judge (The Witcher for example) and attempt to choose some recent ones I have purchased as well: AT RELEASE EWoM:

Reply to Favorite map size? in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

I don't play that often, but prefer small to tiny: less end-game tedium (E:WoM bogs down late game), less micromanagement; the early and beginning phases of the game appear more interesting and contain surprises, the later stages of the game are lacking in these to me, and I get more of what I am trying to look for in small maps.

Reply to Diplomacy v1.2 Preview in Sins Diplomacy Sins Forums

Great news! Thanks much! I'd much rather you take your time and get things nice and solid than rush a patch out -- we can wait!

Reply to Design in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

[quote who="seanw3" reply="16" id="2866006"]Pessimistikon, I think you should probably wait for more information before accusing this glass house company of non-transparency. I think the reason there is less specific information here is that there is very little to actually give at this point in the development process. Would it not be worse to announce specifics that end up being changed later in the month? Also, you would know that vanilla Elemental is still

Reply to Design in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

Thank you. To be honest, with one exception, almost all of the elements mentioned in the brief news blurb to which you linked would be something I would have expected in the core game: host of spells, quests, armor, monsters, better combat, optimized economy. While I understand that an expansion should have something "new", the only thing I find "new" here is the concept of lands unsettleable before conquering, or "neutral" factions (demons) that need to be put down. I'd appreci

Reply to Elemental: War of Magic v1.1 Change Log in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

Thanks for making this game much less broken. I think this is a large step in the right direction. Would be keen on more transparancy regarding the direction you see the core game (or whatever you want to call Elemental without expansions) going, and what you feel is excluded in this and included in the scope of the two expansions.

Reply to Troop Statistics and Abilities in the 1.1 environment in WOM Ideas Elemental Forums

Why would this be more complicated than figuring out which tech to research in order to get which building to build so that you can train units with such-and-such armor, as is the case now? This is not a rhetorical question, I am really confused as to the difference. Thank you.