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Elemental: BETA OBJECTIVES AND SCHEDULE

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Elemental: BETA OBJECTIVES AND SCHEDULE

from JoeUser Forums

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This week Elemental Beta is to begin.  It will go out to all users who have pre-ordered it.  For the rest of September, new users will be able to pre-order and join in as well and then it will be closed (people can still pre-order but they won’t get access until we roll out Beta 2.

ALL REPORTS can go here: Elemental BETA forum.

BETA OBJECTIVES

BETA 1

  1. Initial Build: Basic Compatibility
  2. Beta 1A: Initial Gameplay Skeleton
  3. Beta 1B: Initial Economic system Implemented
  4. Beta 1C: Initial AI system Implemented
  5. Beta 1D: Initial Diplomacy system Implemented
  6. Beta 1E: Initial Dynasty system implemented
  7. Beta 1F: Initial Magic system implemented
  8. Beta 1G: Initial Quest system implemented

BETA 2

  1. Initial build provides basic multiplayer (player hosted – client/server)
  2. Beta 2A: Persistent stat tracking
  3. Beta 2B: Stardock hosted option.
  4. Beta 2C: Stardock hosted persistent games
  5. Beta 2D: Stardock hosted persistent universe game (persistent dynasties)[more]

BETA 3

  1. Initial Kumquat3D engine build of Elemental.
  2. Beta 3A: Introduction to Dungeons
  3. Beta 3B: Introduction to Magical Spells

BETA 4

  1. Introduction to tactical battles
  2. Beta 4A: New multiplayer mode: Arena
  3. Beta 4B: Customized tactical battle options
  4. Beta 4C: Super-Duper AI Update to tactical battles
  5. Beta 4D: Polish Beta (extensive and ongoing)

BETA 5

  1. Introduction to integrated modding
  2. Beta 5A: Persistent universe mods
  3. Beta 5B: Third-party Maya/3D Studio importing beta
  4. Beta 5C: Modding group testing

GAMMA

  1. Private Build (only very active beta testers get access to this under NDA)
  2. Single Player Campaign Testing

RELEASE

  1. When the consensus is that this is the best turn-based strategy game of its kind available.

Betas will also include additions and enhancements to previously released milestones (i.e. additional game modes, additions to multiplayer options, additional single player quests, more single player game options, etc.).

imageObjectives of BETA 1 in detail:

  1. We want to know if it runs okay on your computers. If it doesn’t, tell us what operating system you’re running, video card (dxdiag is a useful tool), CPU, etc. The more hardware info, the better.
  2. As has been mentioned, beta 1 will NOT be fun in any way. We are not kidding about this. Our objective with this first build is to get the parameters on which the game runs, how well it runs.

On October 1st, we will have BETA 1A which will implement some of the “game” features that we took out of beta 1 along with a lot of features that we’ve been focusing on since PAX (computer AI, economic AI, research tree stuff, etc.).

The entire BETA 1 (and BETA 2) series will only play on the cloth map (seen above). The cloth map mode will remain the standard game experience for the Elemental beta until the Beta testers (AND Stardock) decide the game is sufficiently fun without having to rely on next-generation graphics. This will take as long as it takes. 

 

Good luck!

237,653 views 70 replies
Reply #51 from Elemental Forums Top

Is it possible to join the beta on later stages (like demigod)?

Reply #52 from Demigod Forums Top

@tesb:

yep :grin:

at every beta release (beta 1, 2, 3, etc) they usually let all the previous pre-orders and any pre-orders that are made for the following ~week to have access to the beta. you'll need to tick the 'show pre-release downlads' in impulse settings to see them though.

this has been my experience at least, so although not gospel, pretty confident that's how it'll be.

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Reply #53 from Elemental Forums Top

Part of the goal with Beta 1 will be to make the game run on extremely low end hardware. I.e. Netbook-level hardware.

Reply #54 from Elemental Forums Top

The oldest computer i've got access to is an athlon 2200+ with ati 9600 256mb and 1 gb of memory. Not sure if they sell any devices which such a low grade setup anymore. (cpu is about 10 years old)

I've got a convertible tablet/laptop thingy, and i'm especially curious how well the game will run in power save mode (with the GPU running on minimal capacity). It would be great for those annoyingly long trips by train.

Do we need impulse etc to run the beta, it would be verry convenient if we could run it from an usb stick (or by copying it from the usb stick to the HDD, so we don't need to download it all over again). Increased mobility of the software increases the devices we could test it on. (over the weekend i'll probably have access to 9 different systems, don't feel like downloading it 9 times me thinks)

Reply #55 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 53
Part of the goal with Beta 1 will be to make the game run on extremely low end hardware. I.e. Netbook-level hardware.

it's like you want me to take public transport.

Reply #56 from Elemental Forums Top

Do we need impulse etc to run the beta, it would be verry convenient if we could run it from an usb stick

use "the download and archive" option in Impulse, put the archive file on an USB stick. You restore after that from the archive, without needing to download the game again.

Reply #57 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting Peace, reply 56

use "the download and archive" option in Impulse, put the archive file on an USB stick. You restore after that from the archive, without needing to download the game again.

a note on that. you can only use the archive made at time of download. if you use an archive you made from the installation it won't have all the files needed to install on a different OS. e.g. and archived installation from XP won't be able to be installed on a vista machine.

saying that i've never had much luck with this feature though. admitedly once because of the above and once for some obscure reason i never fully investigated.

Reply #58 from Elemental Forums Top

Is there going to be a way to keep archives of all the old builds of Elemental as new ones are released? It would be awesome to go back in a year and play a match of beta 1 Elemental, not to mention how much can be learned from having the resources to so intimately monitor the progression of a game. 

Reply #59 from Demigod Forums Top

you can set the archive folder in the settings. don't know what happens when you create another archive. hopefully it appends a date and or number on to the end of the file name.

otherwise it should be easy enough to move/rename archives you wish to keep to another folder.

Reply #60 from Elemental Forums Top

As long i don't play it simultaneosly i can i install the beta on all my pc's?

I've one old  desktop, one mildly old laptop and one new laptop with good graphics performance.

Reply #61 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tormy-, reply 43
While we are at it, what does "Gameplay Skeleton" means exactly?

 Stardock sends over one of their necromancers to separate the skeleton and soul of the beta tester from the body.  The now merged skeleton and soul is then given specific amounts of death magic to remain animated.  The necromancer arrives unannounced and first time beta testers will sometimes fight back thus zombies are usually used to surround the house.  Once the necromancer has finished, the beta tester now an animated skeleton gains an average of 8 extra hours of time for beta testing since there's no need to sleep, eat, etc., etc., .  The rest of the body is carefully frozen in such a method the body is not harmed nor aged.  Once the beta testing is finished Stardock returns the gamer back to original body... Stardock does not reveal the steps for this second phase to protect the intellectual property rights of this beta testing strategy.

For the most part this has worked amazing for Stardock except I heard two individuals received different bodies.  Also there's been a few overweight females which refused to return to their original bodies... thus zombies had to be used again to restrain them. 

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Reply #62 from Elemental Forums Top

Assumeing I can scrape up the money to buy before beta entry closes I PLAN on being the most active beta tester you've got. Because of certain health issues I won't go into I don't have much of a life right now so all I can do pretty much is sit on my rear and play computer games. Go ahead and send me that NDA now if you want :P

Reply #63 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting NTJedi, reply 61



Quoting Tormy-,
reply 43
While we are at it, what does "Gameplay Skeleton" means exactly?



 Stardock sends over one of their necromancers to separate the skeleton and soul of the beta tester from the body.  The now merged skeleton and soul is then given specific amounts of death magic to remain animated.  The necromancer arrives unannounced and first time beta testers will sometimes fight back thus zombies are usually used to surround the house.  Once the necromancer has finished, the beta tester now an animated skeleton gains an average of 8 extra hours of time for beta testing since there's no need to sleep, eat, etc., etc., .  The rest of the body is carefully frozen in such a method the body is not harmed nor aged.  Once the beta testing is finished Stardock returns the gamer back to original body... Stardock does not reveal the steps for this second phase to protect the intellectual property rights of this beta testing strategy.

For the most part this has worked amazing for Stardock except I heard two individuals received different bodies.  Also there's been a few overweight females which refused to return to their original bodies... thus zombies had to be used again to restrain them. 

LoL loved that Jedi, good stuff brother.

Reply #64 from Elemental Forums Top

hm, now that I have seen the "cloth map" I have but one comment on it... can we keep it ? :P (maybe as an option hidden somewhere) Just like it ;)

Reply #65 from Elemental Forums Top

It is said that it WILL be in the game .. when you'll zoom out at max you'll get the cloth map.

Reply #66 from Elemental Forums Top

It is said that it WILL be in the game .. when you'll zoom out at max you'll get the cloth map.

Not only that. In the videos from PAX you can see that there is an option to set the "distance" for the switch from fancy 3D to cloth map. In another video Brad said that you'll be able to play on cloth-map only on low-end systems (so the distance can be zero, one can assume).

Reply #67 from Elemental Forums Top

Yep, and the game is really playable in this state. The more I play, the more I get acustomed to that cloth map. And i've changed two files : the fog of war (made it darker) and the ocean (made it blue). And the visual feeling is just awesome :D Even with those maps that aren't really diverse.

Reply #68 from Elemental Forums Top

Could we get this thread stickied please?

Reply #70 from Elemental Forums Top

Thanks Tridus!