IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

http://pc.ign.com/articles/101/1017713p1.html

O-M-G! Sounds awesome:D
If Stardock manges to pull this one off I definitely will prefer EWM to Dominions:p

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Don't blaspheme.:nono:

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Ooooooh. I'd read some interesting stuff about the game before, but it fell off my radar a bit. The removal of the oft tedious initial expansion phase sounds excellent. Furthermore, the thing that really stood out for me from GalCiv 2 (in what was, to be honest, mostly a fairly by-the-numbers 4x game) was the personality and variety the AIs had in diplomacy, so that they're designing the game to take full advantage of that is superb. This one is firmly on my to buy list now.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

I will be very cautious about buying this, since I've been burned by Stardock in the past. On the other hand, I can hardly resist at least *trying* something that claims to be inspired by MoM, now can I?

Hopefully there is a demo.

-Max

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

If that thing has a map editor that you can use to create the kind of maps those screenshots feature, I'll be buying it for that reason alone.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

I am theenemy and I am here to ask you a question:

Is a man not entitled to prefer a different game than Dominions 3?

"Nay!" say the followers of Dom3, "Thou shalt worship Dom3 and it alone!"

"Nay!" say the Halo fanboys, "Halo iz teh bezzt gaym evaaah!!!111!!!ONEE!"

"Nay" says Jack Thompson, "Video games are evil and will make you an idiot. Just like 'The Jerry Springer Show' and 'Teletubbies'"

I rejected those answers. Instead... I chose something different. I chose... the impossible. I chose... Elemental: War Of Magic! A game which hopefully will have a decent AI, a system to outfit your own units and magic so strong that you can bend the nature to your will.
And if you prefer EWM... it can be yours aswell.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

The bolded words make the use of past tense ("chose") in this post pretty funny. :)

-Max

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Me too (with regards to online activation being sneaked in with GalCiv2 patches). Having 2D/3D map options built-in seems a nice feature though.

Other alternatives to consider could be the Age of Wonders series (though a little dated, they do have more thrills in the graphics department compared to Dominions) and King's Bounty - The Legend (a tribute to the classic King's Bounty game where you control one hero and recruit troops - real time strategy movement and turn-based combat with attractive graphics and plenty of quests but impeded by a laughably bad translation).

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Eventually I'll have to pickup this King's Bounty... overall opinion seems to be good.

I hope it has multiplayer and either a map editor or a random game generator. And big maps... big maps are important! :)

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

I believe this screenshot might answer your question:

http://www.draginol.com/images2009/K...omedHarbor.png

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

No multiplayer, no map editor. It's a single-player game with fixed maps/quests which are randomly populated with opponents and treasure - rather like a real-time version of Heroes of Might and Magic where you only control one character. The main attractions are building up your character (and his army) and exploration/quest solving.

Size-wise the maps are medium-size but packed with detail, making them seem larger.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Max: How were you burned by Stardock? They seem to be very upright and open-eared (for a successful software company).

Which is not to say I also have my doubts about E:WoM, simply because there were many suboptimal elements of GC2 that turned me off fairly quickly, and because E:WoM also seems to want to incorporate some of these. Also, what appears to be a new focus on family dynasties doesn't tickle my fancy (I don't want to micromanage weddings throughout a 4X game). I just don't want it to have the elements of CivIV and GC2 I don't like. Otherwise, it looks VERY promising!

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

That doesn't answer the question, he was talking about the hand drawn style maps I would guess.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Blah, blah, blaaa...
I chose to prefer it:p I havent actually played the game yet;)

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

No multiplayer? Then why does this topic(http://forums.elementalgame.com/362366) exist? And it WILL have a map editor. Misinformed mucho?:confused:

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

I think half the people on this thread are talking about Elemental, and the other half talking about King's Bounty. Since it appears most of the posts referring to the (lack of) multi-player and map-editing features are in relation to King's Bounty.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

I was under a different impression.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Astral Wanderer was responding to my comment on Kings Bounty... based on his response I actually won't be buying Kings Bounty.

I've been following Elemental "very closely" and I know it will have multiplayer, a random map generator and a map editor. :)

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Elemental: so good it breaks time itself?

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!:D

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

But its not Tuesday!

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

I know that Stardock tends to get a lot of kudos from players, but in my experience they've been *awful* as a company. I finally gave up on Demigod, which could have been a great game, because of the extraordinarily bad problems they've had with their online play.

Still, to this date, after months of poorly timed announcements claiming they'd fix the problems and blaming customers for any remaining problems, their forums are populated by unhappy users who can't get Demigod working properly. Brad Wardell has not helped the situation at all, insulting the people for whom the game still does not work (like me) and treating us like haters instead of customers who would like to enjoy the game they've paid for.

There are enough players who *are* working and who keep propping up the company that Stardock appears to have considered their work done and have moved on to the Elemental project. So I will remain quite wary of this title until I read reviews.

And don't get me started on Impulse. I tried installing Europa Universalis III on Vista 64 using Impulse and it made a mess of my computer, installing game files on my root drive and leaving bizarre, incomprehensible messages. I received zero support from Stardock, despite posts explaining in polite detail the problems. Not a single response. Their Impulse forums are scary with unanswered complaints. I finally had to download a patch available from the game developer, extract it myself, and figure out which directories to install its files into in order to get my Impulse product to even run. Last time I buy anything from Impulse.

Elemental sounds truly exciting and, like many here, I look forward to trying it out when it's shipped. And I have been quite happy with most Stardock products in the past. But you have to judge a company not by how they respond to things going smoothly, but by how they respond when things don't go well. I will be far more careful spending any money on a Stardock product next time around.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Demigod wasn't developped by Stardock. They published it and used some programing resources scheduled for Elemental to woek on Demigod to fix what was crappy software in the first place.
On the other hand, I can't say I like Impulse very much, it's been quite unstable.
I am mostly afraid that the Demigod debacle made Stardock afraid of the multiplayer aspect and it looks like they won't provide the ability to play LAN but all multiplayer will have to go through their network for Elemental. What with some upload speed limits making MP unavailable for many players. All this because Demigod used P2P while Elemental has no reason to and will probably be a classical client/server.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

lolwut?

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

I look forward to seeing how the (ultimately) Python 3.x oriented engine for Elemental will stack up with my upcoming epic adventure with the C++ oriented engine on Scallywag for my Roguelike plans in terms of what is possible and how. :cool:

(With the ever so nifty looking Torchlight engine Preditor as the darkhorse in the race! :fight: )

Will very likely pre-order this in the near future...maybe take advantage of the DD+Retail box option depending on how much that will hit me for shipping...

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Yeah, I'm pretty familiar with the whole history of the product, GPG's role and the 3rd party P2P layer. Stardock just isn't a very smart company. The way they handled the Demigod fiasco was extremely disappointing and illustrated pretty conclusively (to me, at least) that they had no idea what they were doing as they continually posted embarassing messages claiming they'd solved the problem.

I get the feeling that they rely too much on Impulse as a quick turn-around patcher and it causes them to publish builds first and test later. The fact that they are developing this product in-house does not inspire me with confidence. :cool:

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Indeed their uusal development policy is to publish beta builds and have them tested by the public. They were unable to adapt to the more usual way Demigod was developped and still behaved as if the product was in beta when in fact it was not. They developped GalCiv and Galciv2 the way they develop Elemental and the end products were solid.
It's also much easier to develop a product you know than sending people who don't know a code base and have them fix problems in this unknown code. The latter often causes as many bugs as it solves since developers must first learn what the code really does. I doubt it tales less than one month to get accustomed to any code base of significant size, so the first month of patching by Stardock people would probably have hurt as much as it helped. This shouldn't be the case with something entirely develeopped by them.

I'm still wary about the multiplayer part but I don't care much for it, ad I think an Elemental MP game would be tedious if the game's anything like MoM or Civilization. It'll be even more than tedious with tactical battles being played between other players in real-time, basically making anything more than a duel uninteresting to me.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Yes, I literally feel that Stardock fears multiplayer as much as the goblins feared the Balrog. I hope others here on these forums such as myself will be contacting Stardock or posting on the Stardock forums requesting LAN, Hotseat and PBEM. Stardock will become more and more experienced with multiplayer stability each time they attack this demon.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

http://www.elementalgame.com/Artwork/Worker_Concept.jpg

this just doesn't get the epic fantasy juices flowing...but i won't give up hope yet

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

See? Complain about sexual exploitation in the Dom3 ads, and that's what you get.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Man Eddie from the Munsters is looking rough these days.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Is that average joe pretending to be a adventurer? Or just a miner?

Doesn't exactly get the fantasy juices flowing...:doh:

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Let's face it - it's just really ugly. And someone put a lot of effort to make it look really bad.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Actually, Sombre got it right. I was never into building the battle maps or AoW:SM style maps. I guess my wording was a bit vague.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Here, now he's more friendly looking:

http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w...er_Concept.jpg

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

i'd like to see how many books that would sell if that were the cover a fantasy novel.

"The Epic Adventures of Manfred, the Flabby Pear-Shaped Master of Hammer, Pick and Mini-Shovel, and How He Avoided Callouses with his Gloves and Still Managed a Pasty White Complexion With No Sleeves Due to the Elvish Runes Surrounding Him With an SPF 30 Enchantment"

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

What are you guys talking about? This guy is hot as hell*eternal embarrasing silence*

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

I wonder where you found that picture. It's, well, like... I mean... even in my mother tongue I can't find an adequate word that wouldn't be offensive.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Well, I thought it was some sort of joke at first. You know, take Stardock's babe-a-licious chainmail-bikini succubus artwork and gimp "Brad the Worker, Digger of Small Ditches" onto it, leaving just the frame from the original. So I had a look around. I found the original here on Stardock's Elemental page:

http://elementalgame.com/media.asp

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

yeah, it was no joke. just an illustration of how stardock products remind me of someone that, you think you are understanding and relating to, but then they say something and you realize you are on a totally different page.

lets see who gets it - blizzard?
http://ui10.gamespot.com/2025/barbarian.png

or stardock?
http://www.elementalgame.com/Artwork...rs_Concept.jpg

hehe, well, like i said elemental "sounds" good, but if they think Manfred the Doody Shoveller or the Weaponless But Well Armorered Warrior is what gets people "juiced", well then i am not going to get my hopes up.

i better start getting my clicking fingers in shape for Diablo III... :)

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

On the other hand, individual units in Elemental don't need the same level of detail as those in Diablo. Plus there's always a difference between 2d concept art (or sketches in the case of Stardock) and the 3d result. So it may still look good in the end. Although I have little doubt Blizzard games will be much better-looing than Stardock.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

To be honest I find both styles a little off-putting.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

I like the overall art style of the game.

Concept art is a lot different than the end result.

For instance, in 0 A.D. we went from this:
http://www.wildfiregames.com/0ad/alb...hp?pic_id=6267


to this:



http://wildfiregames.com/0ad/album_i...p?pic_id=12141


I know this is just one example, but Stardock is a fully staffed paying studio so I am pretty sure the end result will be acceptable.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Considering it's concept art released to the public, I think it's an absolute garbage. If a paid artist did that I hope they had a deadline of 30 minutes for 10 sketches or something, because I think there are 13 year olds doodling on their desks that could do a better job than that.

If I was in their marketing team I would be demanding they take that **** offline.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

I still disagree. I think it is hard to concept for the final look they are going for. The art team chose an artist, Alfonso Mucha, who would be very difficult to mock up starting art for. His style is completely different than anything we have seen in a game before and I could see how the concept art team could run into an issue of the concept art being more detailed than the abstract finish.

Keep in mind too that at the very least Stardock's space games have looked terrible all the way up until a few months before release.

To give you some examples of the final result they are going to go for, here are a couple of pictures by the artist whose style they are trying to mimic:

Here is my favorite painting by the artist:

http://oliveloafdesign.files.wordpre...mucha-moon.jpg

and here is one from the seasons panel:

http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thin...=l&tid=2389712

The concept art may not be pleasing to the eye, but how do you ask someone to mock up something in this style? Especially considering I have only ever seen one piece Mucha has done that portrays a man, and all of his images are very basic, the artistic styling primarily being the flowing of the bodies and color.

Finally, who cares what the concept art looks like as long as it conveys the point to the 3d artists? Probably the only mistake Stardock made was publicly displaying the concept art for fan critique.

They should have just had a guy come in and do some Warcraft looking stuff for the publicly released concept art.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Much as I think the guys in armor don't look good for a 2D drawing, they are certainly ok for a 3D artist to work from.
However, the guy with a shovel has a real problem in terms of proportions. If the 3D guys model a shovel that small, it will look ugly.

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

I agree with you on that, and the more i look at the concept art, the more I agree it could have been done a lot better, even for the end style they are going for. Maybe it is like sombre said and they were under a ridiculous deadline, or maybe the guy doing the concept art normally doesn't do that kind of stuff.

I think I know which guy is doing it, if you go to stardock's website, there is a gallery of guys working on games, and one of the guys is working on 2d icons that look similar in style to this concept art. Maybe they told him to do it even though it is not his normal field of expertise?

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

The last couple dozen or so remarks seem to me exceptionally odd -- not because I have different aesthetic tastes than most of you, but because we are all here playing Dominions3, arguably one of the best MP fantasty TBS games around -- and (arguably) the game I have played longest with the worst sound and graphics I have experienced since 1990.

I cannot imagine anyone liking Dominions and caring a whit about its looks or sound (I have to turn the sound off).

Re: IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview
 

Dom3 graphics (those actually made for dom3 rather than relics) are much, MUCH higher quality than those sketches. It's true that it doesn't look amazing. But it doesn't look horrible either. It just looks low budget and basic.

That concept art looks horrible. Not low budget. Just terrible. I mean it would be a fine effort for a random fanart amateur with no training or skill as an illustrator, but to come as publically distributed concept art for a game?