Races?

no (kinda yes)  There will not be any additional races in the base game.  However it is being created so that we can add our own custom races and models.

I'm sure they thought long and hard about it.   MoM had your classic D&D races at the time (the insectoid races have mostly vanished, but the trikrin or whatever they were in D&D used to be fairly standard).  They still had not yet been over done then, however, so inclusion of any excuse to have so many races would make people sad. 

In this day and age you basically have dwarves, orcs, elves, and maybe a cat-person race, making you exactly like everybody else, or you have something that isn't the above and you suddenly become outcasts with races to which nobody can relate.   So rather than monkey with all that business that is pop-culture fantasy races, and risk hurting feelings when Mary Sue's favorite fantasy race isn't included, stardock obviously went with just mechanics and left the adding new races to us.

I maintain that actually making good, viable races will be a bitch, since we'll have to make the models (and textures for those models) ourselves. Let's all not get carried away with the whole "You can make your own races". I can't see myself downloading -any- new races for a very long time, let alone be able to make my own.

I just forsee an endless swarm of "These har ar de elves, I made a flag, recolored it, and gave them overpowered bonuses, ktxhbai" using the same base models. Blargh.

Well, it really depends on how they do it.   I've seen some very good models in mods.     Maybe I hang around too many people that are aspiring to be developers, so they have access to the right tools. 

In general I'd assume we are given basic skeletons, so we wouldn't have to deal with animations.   And maybe its because I'm something of an artist so my view of it is scewed, but texturing really isn't that hard.   It takes a lot of time (going back and fixing things that don't look right on the model) but it isn't really that hard >_>;

I have faith that within a year or 2, most of our default races will be covered in a reasonably decent quality.    The point I was trying to make if somebody says "I want elves", "I want orcs", "I want aliens", "I want amazons" or anything else like that, stardock has opted to say "ok... go make it yourself.  We've given you the tools"

I am going to be ensuring that the base MoM races are available for players in something of a decent quality, if I've got to contact a collage and contract a 3D intern myself.  ^_^   (I know I could do it at UAT, I'm pretty chummy with their intern-making guy, and there are plenty of  desperate collage students that would create high-quality work just to have a recommendation via internship on their resume)

Stardock said they would filter them for quality.  They also inplied that they would create additional ones themselves (they said 'by fans or by us' ).  So I would suggest only taking from the 'high quality' bin to avaid the 'har be elves' you mentioned, luckmann.

Somehow I don't think collage students would be much help if you're looking for someone to create 3D models

 

I would love to get started on creating the 3D models now for Elemental yet I haven't heard any official response on what we need to know so they will be compatible.

you obviously don't hang out with the right college* students.  I'd be doing interns anyway, so it would be late collage ready to be "professionals."

Like this:   Cor Project.   All collage students, many below the age 23 at the time of making it. Looks pretty professional to me.  Like seriously, download a trailer and tell me it doesn't look professional even though it is entirely modeled, textured, and animated by collage students.  Its a mod, so the programming isn't all them, but they did a lot of work including the transforming mechanics.

I'd use screenshots from a project I've personally worked on to prove my point, and I SHOULD have a good 3D turn table animation, but since I personally don't do any 3D or animation I have not kept close track of it. 

I also should do that was-high school student I mentioned:  obviously he isn't now, but I would watch him enter and win 3D animation contests with no problem.   (he got a paid ride through school by an animation studio though, so he's an exception)

This student isn't bad, though he doesn't animate.   I'm too lazy to keep looking up people, but the point is that collage students are exactly the people who would be creating quality product, since anybody older who is passionate enough about it to actually create something probebly has a job in the 3D animation field already.  It is a portfolio builder for those who want to get their foot in the door, so creating something for a game like Elemental:WoM a needed step for those promising students that want to be paid for it someday.   Being young doesn't make you not-good.  In some cases, Collage students have been making 3D models for as long as the professionals because of how young the tools are still.  (both professional and student would have started playing with the tools only a few years earlier)

Do I think I could compare to the highest graphics seen on PS3, 360, and PC games like Bionic commando, Red Alert 3, or Bioshock?   no way, but do I think I might be able to get a set of models that could almost be as good as that horse demo'd for us?   maybe so.  I think collage interns could at least get close to that level.   The poly count really wasn't that high from what I can tell, and thanks to the art style of this game, a good artist might be able to cover up for a poor modeler.

Allowing players to create new races is great, but as Luckmann said there could be a serious balancing issue if some players try to make overpowered ones. Custom races isn't new to Stardock though. GalCiv2 for example allows the player to make new races and solves the balancing issue by giving each one x number of points to spend on abilities. As long as those abilities are balanced, no overpowered races can be made (until a mod adds unbalanced abilities that is).

To be honest I wasn't even aware you could go to school to study how to make collages

Sorry, I couldn't resist. The word you're looking for is college. A collage is a work of art composed of lots of materials pasted onto a single surface

I love how landisaurus spent all that time on a reply, because it flew right past him. Can we get a big d'oh?

:p

Yes, of course. I'm not saying that no-one can do good models - obviously they can, otherwise we wouldn't have commercial-quality models in E:WoM already. I'm just saying that most can't. Which happens to include me. //sadface.jpg

There's many, many mods out there that are great. But for every great mod, there's a hundred average ones, and a thousand worthless ones. They may say that "Anyone can do their own race", but you can argue the same thing in GalCiv2 - with the difference that in GalCiv2, you don't -have- to make your own models. Everything is, f.x; "inside that ship there, my peeps gots likes, eight legs and a trunk".

I wonder if we'll actually get a 3D-model program with Elemental. I somehow doubt it. But yes, you're entirely right - In a year or 2. In a year or two, god-knows-what-I'm-doing-at-that-time. In two years time, this world may not even exist anymore. I could've been killed in a riot or stopped gaming due to the time constraints induced by my political position. Again, sadface.jpg!

They did? I have a vague memory that there was going to be some kind of ranking system for mods. Of course, I'm not going to download anything that doesn't fit into the main game like a latex glove smeared in vaseline. I'm incredibly, ungodly picky about my mods.

Apart from a few mods that give me additional options in civilization creation, a few political parties (which I had to modmod myself because it also included a vast number of retarded parties) and well-made "flags", I don't use any of the GalCiv2 mods, despite it's modability. They just don't 'live up' to the level.

You don't need to apply a mod to add unbalanced abilities. You just need to actually mod your race properly to begin with. Opening up their .xml-file, you can add any amount of any ability, without restrictions. I see no reason why this wouldn't be doable in Elemental, aswell, since they're apparently going to be built around roughly the same idea(s) when it comes to modability.

i'm sure E-WOM will be great-i must because i pre-ordered it but the lack of non-human races is one reason i hope that someone else makes an actual MOM2.  when compared to MOM, the race thing along with the creation of a custom wizard are the things i will miss most in E-WOM.

I'm pretty sure they did indeed. I have no idea where I read it, but I'm almost positive that a couple or a few months ago one of the devs (maybe frogboy in an interview?) said that Stardock would probably create and offer additional races for download as extra content sometime after release. They definitely see the demand for it, so knowing Stardock they will probably help to fill it. Though I don't think any non-human/fallen races would ever be officially made to fit into the story.

How'd you figure that "the creation of a custom wizard" is somehow missing from E:WoM?

 

i thought i read that they would be canned.  or am i getting them confused with heroes?

I'm not sure, but no one ever said anything about canning custom wizard creation, ever... Honestly we don't have very much information about how hero recruitment and/or creation will work. They haven't really told us anything one way or another about it, although we know there isn't going to be a hero-recruitment tavern.

As PP say, we just don't know a lot. But being able to create your own Channeler (that's 'wizard' for you MoM-freaks) is pretty much a given, while it hasn't been explicitly stated. The reason I think it hasn't is because (I think) it's so much of a given.

Well, it was a bit vague.   But based on what frogboy said, it sounds like the model browser and such are going to be a part of game UI.   Frogboy confirmed that the custom-content features are going to be in the beta, so you'll be able to help give them your standard.

I'd imagine that there is some sort of streaming feature that lets it so somebody could enter a battle with their custom models, even though the other players don't have said models.   Otherwise nobody would see your awesome models until it was so high rated that everybody downloaded them.   (again, I think there needs to be an enforced cost-to-strength ratio, so that nobody can have broken custom units)

yeah it is.   I wonder how much exactly you're going to be able to customize.

MoM's customization was pretty simple, just name him, pick his skills/spellbooks, and pick his portrait.     Honestly I'd be happy with just a few different options to play with in terms of clothes and a color picker. 

Don't forget hull type. Some folks will want to play a female channeler, or maybe even an hermaphrodite or a neuter being (maybe channelers are too special to be able to reproduce). Some readers think of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Chieri in the Darkover stories as a kind of science fiction elven race, and they have no fixed gender.

And by some you mean you?

:p

On a more serious note, there's nothing saying that channelling is hereditary, so reproduction - why not? I'd love to seed a score of mortal progeny with my 62 wives.

Hmm...

"The story of Elemental: War of Magic begins with an immersive single player campaign with you being the only person in your kingdom with the ability to channel magic through mysterious shards of magic that are scattered across the world. These shards, a result of a tremendous cataclysm that occurred a century prior when powerful beings waged war across the world, are the source of much of the world's magic." http://www.impulsedriven.com/news/1135_Stardock_Announces_New_Fantasy_Strategy_Game_Elemental_War_of_Magic

It only says 'person in your kingdom'. Oh the possibilities!

Glad to see that there is so much stimulating discussion going on about this game.  I've been looking for a proper MoM sequal for years.  They did great with MOO, so I imagine that they'll do a great job with MoM as well.

 

Sounds like the modification and editing engine built into the game will be a lot like what they have in GCII, and Stardock has always been really good for offering updates, patches, and expansion packs. 

I was hoping to see elves, dark elves, humans, draconians, etc in the game.

 

Thri-kreen were the bug race.  They called them klackons in MoM and MOO2.

Yeah, like I said.   I'm sure Stardock didn't want to bother creating all of those, so the just went with "human" and the rest can be added later.

Yeah, what ever happened to those guys.   Back in the early 90s they were in everything (they were a standard playable race in most of my D&D PC games for example, most noteable Dark Sun games), but now I can't even think of a prominant Thri-Kreen like race.   I haven't even seen many bug people in Dr. Who or other sci-fi shows.  (there was that ant woman in Dr. who in the Master episodes, but she was pretty minor)