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Elemental: Updated screenshots

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Elemental: Updated screenshots

from JoeUser Forums

As we reach the end of June we’re racing ahead towards trying to get an alpha out sometime in July along with the beta at PAX.

Here are some screenshots of where things are (some old, some new):

Note: Shadowing isn’t in yet so these are not representative of what the final game (or even the beta) will look like.

Elemental_1244234779

Cities exist on the map itself. Clicking anywhere on the city will bring up the city menu.

 

Elemental_1244581844

Players can zoom in and out as they see fit.  Players design roads ala Simcity but they are built automatically by workers (similar to Civ IV).

Elemental_1244144182 

Players can zoom in very close to cities. Eventually you’ll be able to see your population at work. It’s purely cosmetic but it’ll cool to watch your cities grow and thrive.

 

Battle_lightning_Wide

The tactical battles are very different than what we’ve seen before in these types of games.  The best way I can describe the battles is that they’re tactical with XCom being a major inspiration but designed to be relatively short.  Depending on how well they turn out, we may make the tactical battles an optional mini-game that people can play online if they just want to play a simple arena-style strategy game.

 

Battle_Close_Up
Players will be able to zoom in and watch the battles very close up.  This screenshot is of an internal technology demo so it’s designed to show you what our goal is.

 

We’ve been hesitant to show too many screenshots until the shadowing is in.  Those of you familiar with this stuff know how weak modern games look if you turn off the shadows.  We’ve been working on a shadowing system that scales really well but still looks good.

Also this week we’ve been developing a new type of font system that is compatible with DirectX 9 (we’re not using DirectX 10 or 11 and won’t be until Windows XP is very legacy).  Ironically, DirectX 11 has a pretty decent font system but few cards support it.  But the font system we’re doing will let us have really cool alpha blended fonts on a variety of textured backgrounds.  If you look at most PC games, they either have few fonts or have them on a black background. But we want players to (optionally) be able to read a lot of information on the world they’re creating. Each game will play very differently.

The beta version should be ready in around 60 days. Hard to believe that we’re finally getting close after all this time.  Players who pre-order it will get access to the betas and qualify to have access to the alpha version.

More to come.

193,286 views 103 replies
Reply #76 from Elemental Forums Top

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/galacticcivilizations2/images/0/101/

Here's a shot of GC2:Dreadlords from roughly the same 'time until release'. I meen, the starship dosent even have textures on it :)

We have alot of work ahead of us making the 'fantasy illustration' style look as good as a 'realistic' style, but it's certainly not insurmountable ;) 

Reply #77 from Demigod Forums Top

 You know Aroddo not everyone is impressed with super detailed/realistic looking graphics. Some people, like myself, like the style more. I think it looks great right now and will be even more impressed as things move along.

 Just as you have the right to come in and say it looks like trash, I also have the right to come in and say it looks like a work of art.

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Reply #78 from Demigod Forums Top

the idea of this game seems to be pretty cool.. i hope you will still keep up the hard work on demigod.

 

don't know if i gonna buy this since like demigod very much. :digichet:

Reply #79 from Demigod Forums Top

 TheManick they did not make Demigod Gas Powerd Games did. They pulled off some of Elementals team to help with conection issues with Demigod, but they have nothing to do with any updates or expansion, thats all GPG.

 Elemental is a Stardock game.

Reply #81 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting TheManicK, reply 5
well, i see "stardock" on my game box.

They're the Demigod publishers, not the developers. For Elemental, they're both developing and publishing.

Reply #82 from Demigod Forums Top

This is really good looking!  Thx for the post!

Reply #83 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting TheManicK, reply 5
well, i see "stardock" on my game box.

Yeah alot of people have this mis-conception. Take for instance EA, they publish alot of games but they don't make all (any?) of them. Stardock is deferent then most publishers as they actually care about the games they publish (unlike EA). In the Demigod situation they were contracted to make the Matchmaking and Website for Demigod, but everything else is up to GPG.

Reply #84 from Elemental Forums Top

EA actually owns a rather large number of the developing houses that publish through them.  They've bought them up over the years.

Reply #85 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting rls669, reply 18

Quoting Scoutdog, reply 16I never could get used to the gimp UI.... I suppose if I had the inclination to learn it, I might make some headway.....

UI is the Achilles' heel of a lot of open source stuff -- the last time I tried to use Blender I came away wanting to put a fork in my eye.  Why they don't try to emulate the UIs of commercial packages that have spent many years and many dollars polishing their products, I'll never know.  Being different is not automatically better.

 

Blender's UI was designed while it was a closed-source commercial product.  I think you're looking for this. ;-)

Reply #86 from Elemental Forums Top

The tactical battles are very different than what we’ve seen before in these types of games.  The best way I can describe the battles is that they’re tactical with XCom being a major inspiration but designed to be relatively short.  Depending on how well they turn out, we may make the tactical battles an optional mini-game that people can play online if they just want to play a simple arena-style strategy game.

I'm curious about how that's going to work. Too short and they're too random, look long and some people won't play them.

 

Reply #87 from Elemental Forums Top

nice images, can't wait for the final stuff :)

Reply #88 from Elemental Forums Top

The pictures look really nice.  Keep up the good work.

Reply #89 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Aroddo, reply 24



Quoting Frogboy,
reply 23
The team is crying about the screenshots because they think they look bad. 

"The lighting and shadows aren't even in yet!!! Don't show these!"



Strange.

I told frogboy the same - the screenshots really look bad. And I got promptly trashed by froggy for this, got labeled as a troll and been told that "I don't care about your opinion".

Now he quotes his teammates saying the same I did, which might mean that they are trolls and he doesn't care about their opinion either.



 
Do you realizes there is a big difference between the artist/developer saying their screenshots looks bad and some stranger/outsider saying it right? 

Reply #90 from Elemental Forums Top

yeah, you can say "this looks like crap" when refering to one's own work (and many artists will say something like that for everything that isn't "the best" in their art gallary)   But you don't walk up to others and say "your work looks like crap."  Especially after they already achnoledge that there is still work to be done.

Developers have feelings too!   After I spent hundreds of hours making something look playable, I'd call somebody who said otherwise a troll too, even if my partners in the work agreed.

I think the general idea is "keep your negitive critiques to yourself at least until the game is released and customers are looking for 'reviews' to decided if they want to give money to the developers for it"

Reply #91 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Aroddo, reply 24
[...]
That is wow.
[...]

Quoting Aroddo, reply 24
[...]
That is mediocre.
[...]
The analogy is flawed. While yes, the Elemental graphics is far from perfect but shows an extremely promising direction, it's got an entirely different art direction compared to your "That is wow"-image.

What most of us are psyched about (well.. me, anyway) isn't the actual graphic "umph" Elemental is pulling right now. It's the gorgeous stylized art direction that seem to nearly emulate old 2D graphics, in 3D. And I've always said that lens flare 3D graphics will never be as great as detailed as hand-painted 2D graphics.

Elemental may just force me to eat those words (although I doubt it - but looking at it already, it's going to cut it damn close).

Reply #92 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting landisaurus, reply 15
...I think the general idea is "keep your negitive critiques to yourself at least until the game is released and customers are looking for 'reviews' to decided if they want to give money to the developers for it"

I might buy that if you changed "negitive (sic)" to "non-constructive." What's the point of a public beta if all the devs hear from outsiders is cheerleading?

It might be too late in the schedule to make major changes to the art, but artists are notoriously reluctant to let go of work and who knows what little touches they might really like to add could come from construcive critiques from the peanut gallery.

Reply #93 from Elemental Forums Top

I might buy that if you changed "negitive (sic)" to "non-constructive." What's the point of a public beta if all the devs hear from outsiders is cheerleading?

I agree. At this stage, I feel brutal honesty is the best thing we can give them.

Reply #94 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm not really seeing how the tactical battles are more like X-COM than like every other fantasy tactical battle. Looks almost indistinguishable from MOM, AOW, HOMM, KB, etc.

Reply #95 from Elemental Forums Top

Have the forums turned white for anybody else? o_O

Reply #96 from Elemental Forums Top

No, not for me anyway.

Reply #97 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tourresh, reply 19
I'm not really seeing how the tactical battles are more like X-COM than like every other fantasy tactical battle. Looks almost indistinguishable from MOM, AOW, HOMM, KB, etc.

I admire your ability to tell that from just one screenshot. ;P

Reply #98 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting GW, reply 17
I might buy that if you changed "negitive (sic)" to "non-constructive." What's the point of a public beta if all the devs hear from outsiders is cheerleading?

[...]
Hmm.. Landisaurus in a tank-top...

^_^

Reply #99 from Elemental Forums Top

Hmm.. Landisaurus in a tank-top...

:puke:  Must....Induce........Coma............

Anyway, it looks like the white forum thing is a Firefox issue.

Reply #100 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tourresh, reply 19
I'm not really seeing how the tactical battles are more like X-COM than like every other fantasy tactical battle. Looks almost indistinguishable from MOM, AOW, HOMM, KB, etc.

How could you possibly conclude the that combat looks indistinguishable from MOM, AOW, HOMM, and KB from that one screenshot - especially considering combat in MOM and AoW is totally different than the combat in HoMM and KB. Your post makes no sense.