Mistwraithe

Reply to What I think you guys need to do over the next few months to win people back. in War of Magic Elemental Forums

[quote who="charon2112" reply="66" id="2742024"] Ahh, but it is ready to play...I've been playing constantly and loving it as much as Civ or GalCiv. No, it's not perfect yet (what is?), but it is most definitely "ready to play"...[/quote] We have a difference of opinion then. Which is fine, people often have differences of opinion. What is more relevant is what large numbers of people think and it seems to me that a sufficient number of people are disappointe

Reply to What is your biggest hope/biggest fear regarding EWOM? in War of Magic Elemental Forums

[quote who="Mistwraithe" reply="32" id="2116857"]My biggest fear is that they will release the game too early. This is a huge undertaking for them. An epic game like this with such big expectations needs to be carefully put together and balanced. Then it probably needs to be ripped apart again, refined, put together again and rebalanced. And then probably all that again. And then when the game mechanics finally work smoothly it needs to be polished and fine tuned. Blizza

Reply to Elemental Poll is up: How do you like the game? in War of Magic Elemental Forums

I voted that I like it, recommend it, simply because it seems I needed to vote to see the results. Having now played it I really wish I had voted disappointed instead (or even hate it, only reason not to is optimism for the future). The game isn't finished, and I don't mean the stability bugs - they will presumably be fixed fairly quickly, in a matter of weeks I imagine. Way more concerning is that there just isn't a strategy game in there right now. Strategy games are about multitude

Reply to What I think you guys need to do over the next few months to win people back. in War of Magic Elemental Forums

[quote who="charon2112" reply="55" id="2741202"] Allow me to pose this question...would you rather they had not released the game, and waited 3 months while they work on it? Or, pay and have the game now and at least be able to play it while they work on it and release patches...? [/quote] Wait 3 months. No question. Games are meant to be ready to play when they are released, Stardock's "Gamers Bill of Rights" says as much: 2. Gamers shall have the right that

Reply to Doh! (looking at reviews) in War of Magic Elemental Forums

There are two issues here: Those arguing that the 1UP reviewer doesn't have a clue what he is talking about because he talks about "robust multiplayer" have a good point. That quote on its own suggests the 1UP reviewer didn't really try the game and certainly was quite happy to make stuff up and then write it down. But those arguing that the C+ review mark given by 1UP is wrong are have rose tinted glasses. C+ seems a pretty reasonable grade to me, in fact I would be tempted t

Reply to What I think you guys need to do over the next few months to win people back. in War of Magic Elemental Forums

[quote who="OliverFA" reply="33" id="2740638"]The truth is that we all would probably have made the same mistakes that Stardock did.[/quote] I don't actually agree. I'm a software developer and I run a software company rather smaller than Stardock.We're pretty efficient at development by all accounts (ie customer feedback) and our development team size (ie the entire company) is probably not dissimilar in size to the core team which worked on Elemental (excluding the ar

Reply to Usain Bolt sets new world record by equipping shortsword in War of Magic Elemental Forums

The game needs to make sense. And all paths the player can take (whether it be tech trees, weapon choice, buildings, spells, heros vs normal military) need to be overall balanced but with appropriate trade offs between them. Right now the game is a mess. There is very poor balance between different paths and many things make no logical sense. Champions that have taken hours of building up to be uber level should be able to handle a group of 10 well equiped soldiers which can b

Reply to Saves prior to latest patch (1.06) are now borked in War of Magic Elemental Forums

Wooooh there. That is some serious fanboyism. How on earth is it Sothron's fault that he applied the latest patch? It is Elemental's responsibility to ensure save game compatibility between versions after release. It isn't the players responsibility to go and search forums for whether a patch will break save games. Unless told otherwise it is perfectly reasonable to assume that patches are improvements to the game, and something which stops you continuing a save game which you have al

Reply to Let’s try this again… in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

I am more on the side of expanding the base lore than adding more race assets and distinction. I come to that conclusion for the following reasons: I assume that the 10 factions will be different enough that they play quite differently. I also assume that a player can create their own unique faction with their own bonuses if they want. Each faction is made up of a particular race and this fact should be well publicised through the lore. Logically there should b

Reply to More discussion of Factions and Races (long) in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

[quote who="edpfister" reply="35" id="2605473"]Allowing you to use all the strengths of a conquered people tends to make all the games feel similar which isn't a good direction to go in.[/quote] I agree entirely. If late game everyone has all their front line troops as Orcs, their ranged troops as Elves, their spellcasters as Humans, etc to max out the appropriate bonuses then that is boring and removes many interested factors from the game.

Reply to More discussion of Factions and Races (long) in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

[quote who="psu81" reply="14" id="2605401"]Personally, I am hoping for a great campaign game to play, so the more in-depth stock races/factions there are, the better. I do not use PMEM, am not personally a modder, and have had no success even trying to install the work of others. However, I believe that others of my same ilk are more numerous than assumed. We are not the squeaky wheels that so many modders seem to be, so it is easy to overlook us. This should NOT be co

Reply to Thanksgiving Holiday for Support in Stardock Support General Stardock Forums

No, I used a credit card. There is some confusion with my Stardock email accounts (they have two different emails for me) but the one I used is the main one which has most of my games on it. And it wasn't even getting to the point of Impulse refusing to accept the serial number, I didn't even HAVE a serial number to try! After more than a dozen tries the request serial numbers website finally acknowledged me. My guess is that something had failed and wasn't responding for a few hours.

Reply to Thanksgiving Holiday for Support in Stardock Support General Stardock Forums

That's all very well but why have a Thanksgiving sale to buy games at a reduced price if no one is around to sort out problems when some fool (ie me) buys a game? No serial number in the email, I try to request serial numbers it says my email account isn't validated, I validate my email account it says it worked, I try to request serial numbers again it says my email accoun isn't validated... Awesome! Not [e digicons]#:([/e]

Reply to The lazy AI developer in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

[quote who="Jvstin" reply="15" id="2383243"]I loved Kohan. It kicked my tail up and down for the longest while, but it was definitely a favorite for me too.[/quote] Kohan - best RTS game ever. Still play it online actually although it has got harder to get multiplayer games. Who did you and Tormy use to play as?

Reply to What is your biggest hope/biggest fear regarding EWOM? in War of Magic Stardock Forums

My biggest fear is that they will release the game too early. This is a huge undertaking for them. An epic game like this with such big expectations needs to be carefully put together and balanced. Then it probably needs to be ripped apart again, refined, put together again and rebalanced. And then probably all that again. And then when the game mechanics finally work smoothly it needs to be polished and fine tuned. Blizzard could do it, in fact Blizzard would do it if they we

Reply to Live from GDC 2009 in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

[quote who="arstal" reply="4" id="2115845"]Timegate's still around? You really do need to ask them to put Kohan: Ahriman's Gift on Impulse. [/quote] Thank you! Can I quintuple arstal's vote? It is criminal that KAG (ie Kohan: Ahriman's Gift) still isn't available on electronic distribution somewhere. Best RTS ever - no joke (it helps that most so called RTS games are actually Real Time Tactics games rather than Strategy games). I can only ho

Reply to Why is the player galactic enemy number 1? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Kryo: I didn't consider the locked teams option - I usually miss it because it is on the first screen where you select the map not the one where you actually assign the players to teams (something for the next patch maybe?). That could be the answer, assuming that the AI in the game in question would have happily hit each other if they weren't allowed to ally. Smelly: I don't believe I had the weakest fleet, in fact probably one of the strongest as I am pretty sure I could handle any of

Why is the player galactic enemy number 1? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I'll start by saying I don't have time to play Sins Online. I'm sure it's great but I already have one online game I play (Kohan) and that is more than I can actually spare the time for. I just can't afford the time to get good at another game and with my kids etc I certainly can't afford to play more than one hour of the same multiplayer game. That out of the way, I'm going to complain about the AI. Not that it sucks - although there are certainly areas that it could be smarter. No, my c

Reply to Fleet Cap & Tax Rate On Huge Maps Needs Fix in Strategy Sins Forums

Fleet maintenance as a percentage of income does add to strategy. It creates a trade off between military and economy which matters no matter how large your income is (unlike some games where once you are big enough you don't care how much your troops cost because it is still a drop in the bucket). I do agree that the fleet caps should be adjustable for huge maps. However you may still have the same problem unless the fleet caps go high enough that smaller empires can no longer afford t

Reply to A few questions b4 I buy.... in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Ah Kohan. Now that is a game! Looking forward to Sins too though.

Reply to Gameplay Example: Computer AI in transition in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

I am really surprised that the No Tech Trading option has been implemented to stop AI Tech Trading. I figured it was implemented to stop the game from being a walk over. If they player uses tech trading then they can easily trounce the AI in most games with a reasonable number of players. I'll explain. I find that I always out-tech the AI. I build research buildings, set my research percentage up a touch and set my production slid

Reply to Gal Civ nay sayers turned believers in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

No, Total Annihilation and Kohan weren't turn based. But they were the only Real Time Strategy games which actually had significant strategic depth. Particularly Kohan which IMO is still the best RTS ever created - more so the Kohan 1 games (Kohan Immortal Soveriegns and Kohan Ahriman's Gift) than Kohan 2 but even the latter is up there. Don't get me wrong, there are some very pretty and fun Real Time Tactics games around (eg, Warcraft 3, the AoE series, etc) but genuine Re