I like the minor improvement idea. They've already mentioned Sword I going to Sword II, but perhaps the verisioning system would be better. And I like the idea of wielding a Sword 2.0 ;) I'm not sure on major improvements being random, though. Having some variability wouldn't be bad, but it needs to be moderated.
Yeah. I can't imagine all of those places typed up their previews on the spot, either. I'd hope they'd go through an editor first. I just hope they're not *all* virtually identical to each other like the last preview. Yes, it was nice a lot of places covered the release of Elemental, but if they all say the same thing, it's really tough to figure out new info (if any). I'm really looking forward to the new info!
[quote who="Lomion Agarwaen" reply="29" id="2348501"]About to walk into a 4hr meeting. I guess I will see the new Elemental news when I get home. [/quote] 4 hour meeting? I've found it very rare that meetings over an hour generate any productivity. Good luck!
Nothing yet...
[quote who="BoogieBac" reply="6" id="2348212"]I'll try and get an internal build testing on XP64 and get back with you....several of us are developing on Vista64 (which works like a champ) so unless it requires a 64 bit version of a app to run, we should be good![/quote] Boogie- you're so nice!
I'm pretty sure SD isn't going to provide support for 64-bit XP based on their responses eleswhere (and thus why they don't list it as a valid OS). Microsoft themselves barely acknowledges its existence. It will probably be a case where, if it works, great. If it doesn't, sorry. At least with Windows 7 out you now have a really great 64-bit option, although 64-bit Vista is pretty good.
Sweetness! I hope one of those tidbits will be on the exact date of public Beta availability. [e digicons]O:)[/e] How often do you guys work over the weekend, anyway?
If Elemental has navies, it should implement the ideas above. I don't remember seeing anything about ship warfare, but I'm not quite as active as others. If navies can't add strategic depth and are enjoyable to play, I'd rather they be left out. Either that, or make them so basic/easy to use that their inclusion doesn't cause any problems. Along these lines, I'd also be interested in knowing whether or not bridges could be built over rivers or not.
The music was good and there are some interesting aspects of the game. But as far as the game play goes, that trailer makes it really hard to tell. I'm going to wait for the reviews first.
Somehow, I gathered that the book development was going to be for Elemental, so this wasn't too surprising. Great concept, though. I'm sure the book ideas have really translated well into the game as you've said, and since Brad is doing the AI, that's even more possibilities for AI personality showing through. Coolness. The Alpha walk-through will be great. I don't know how all of this is juggled (book writing, game development, running a business, working on o
Maybe he's just a bot, programmed by Brad... ;) I have faith in Kryo and SD, but as SD continues to grow, I'd think the responsibility to maintain good communication in the forums would, too. Having a dedicated bug tracking software people could directly submit bugs into could help with time and scale.
[quote who="Ron Lugge" reply="18" id="2327249"]Based on past experiance... Kryo, essentially, will run through the threads and note any discussions and comments of worth, and sum them up in a running summary thread. Ocassionaly this thread will get truncated, because otherwise his enourmouse, overgrown OP causes the forums to break. Lets say that thread XYZ has a useful post "Bla bla de-blah, bla bla". Kyro will note it in his own thread with <
[quote who="kryo" reply="16" id="2327003"]Yeah, we'll add a beta reports category when the time comes.[/quote] Huzzah! Kryo- how do you keep track of all of this stuff? You moderate tons of forums and act as a personal, filtering bug reporting system. Whew! I think it would be pretty sweet if we could submit bugs into an official system. Why? There's a lot of back-and-forth communication that goes on with just a regular bulletin board. For
Will there be a specific forum just for bug report posting? (not that some people won't post non-bug reports in there, anyway, but still...)
[quote who="ChongLi" reply="6" id="2324814"]The religion mechanic in Civ4 is really lame. If they can't come up with a better mechanic than having silly expanding borders that wrap around a city and then take centuries to flip it, don't bother with religion.[/quote] Agreed. It was nothing more than an excuse for a game mechanic. Now, as a game mechanic I don't think it was horrible, but as an actual implementation of religion in a game I wasn't particularly convinced. 
Elemental Forums
It sounds like it will be delayed. Whenever I've seen a SD post on "we're think of delaying to make the game better and here's why" it happens. I'm not suprised, nor do I think this is a bad thing. I've learned that SD release dates are very much a perfect world scenario and we don't live in a perfect world. I'd still love to see more concrete goals of the Alpha/Beta testing conveyed, although the list in the OP are a great start. I also suggested similar sorts
[quote who="Denryu" reply="3" id="2321535"]I am guessing since they have developed a few games, they probably have a process in place of making sure all the testers know how to get them the information they want. My guess is for alpha they will send out emails that will have all the details of what info they want.[/quote] I assume this as well. Thinking about this and discussing it for even the Beta 0 release would be good, though. There will be a TON of feedback, so I jus
I didn't like it- while I'm all for strategy, the high learning curve put me off. It also thrust you into a game world with a bazillion options right from the start, and I like to ease my way into a new strategy game. Also, I'm not a huge historical fan, so that didn't appeal as much to me. Too bad I can't resell my copy... :(
[quote who="Frogboy" reply="9" id="2319224"]I don't think there will be micro-expansions for Elemental. We're more likely to follow the Galactic Civilizations path of things where each expansion acts as a chapter to the story and also adds a ton of new features and such.[/quote] Will there be any plans to provide content or art packs? I could see that being worth some money just to have more options to include when creating units, customizing my sovereign, or to view
Questions: *Could you provide any more information about the various factions or races? Which ones will be playable in the alpha and/or Beta 0? *Could you expand upon the diplomacy system? How similar will it be to other games? How large of a role will it play? *Could you give some targets of what a "typical" game might look like. For instance: -How long should a "standard" game take to play? -How many cities would a player expec
[quote who="BoogieBac" reply="4" id="2293826"] Will thte Epic generator be included in Elemental??? I die a little every time people bring up the E.G. No, the Epic Generator will not be in Elemental, but we'll definatly have some robust event logging to help AAR writers do their thing. [/quote] Boogie- I know the Epic Generator was something you worked long and hard on for GalCiv2 and ended up scrapping a lot of it. But, don't feel bad, as it was
[quote who="Zubaz" reply="4" id="2262269"] why slow it down?If it's a gift for some time in the future . . like buy now for Chistmas delivery.[/quote] Exactly. Or to suprise someone. Or to take advantage of a sale now.
Has any more thought gone into making the e-mail to be sent either delayable or to be sent to the purchaser's account (to be sent later)? Right now, the e-mail is sent instantly, which can be a problem.
Umm...tweet? That's great, Boogie! Whatever works is much appreciated. Any word on that Alpha?
Isn't having a kid to share in cool stuff great? I've found I enjoy good things even more when I have my kids around to share them. I bet Ashley was really excited.
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