Frogboy Frogboy

Oh I’ve got all year

▼

Oh I’ve got all year

from JoeUser Forums

As mentioned recently, I occasionally get flame mails from people who don’t realize I work at Stardock. They think I’m trolling against Elemental.

So to be clearer, my point is simply that we have all year or years to get this game where we want it. I’m in no hurry.  I bloody want a game that if I hung out with the guys who made Age of Wonders Shadow Magic, Master of Magic or any of the other games of the genre they’d say “That’ll do, Frog, that’ll do.”

As Boogie mentioned, we’re working on the discussion system. Now you might wonder why a strategy game would have such a sophisticated conversation engine under the covers.  Well, for one thing, what if 5 years from now some guy wants to make an RPG that uses the Elemental engine? We need to be ready for that. We need to support that.

Plus, as the AI developer, the AI shouldn’t just play intelligently, it should let players know it’s playing intelligently. Though, admittedly, this time, the text is being written largely by our friends at Del Rey (Random House) rather than my meager abilities.

I don’t want to sound like the game has some sort of utopian vision behind it. I know at some point we’re going to release this game – probably next Summer or Fall but the point is that that is going to based on a consensus of the beta testers.

I look at Elemental at something we’re going to work on for years to come. So yea, I’m saying right now that the release date is a bit arbitrary because I plan to keep working on it years after released. Don’t expect any sequels to it any time soon either.

The engine being made for this game is just such a joy.

Consider this:

From 1997 to 2006 we had one engine called “Pear”.  It was a 2D sprite engine that got updated to support some 3D for Galactic Civilizations II.  Working with Elemental is just ridiculously enjoyable.

Now, for those of you not in the beta program, don’t feel bad. Right now the “game” is so bad that several users have reported hemorrhaging.  We hope they make a full recovery.  If I had had my way, they wouldn’t have gotten the cloth map even but rather an Ultima IV style map.  Green dots on a black background should be more than enough I say.

The next beta, due out the Thursday after Thanksgiving, is the first one with any diplomacy or AI in it.  We’ll see how it goes.  After that, we start supporting multiplayer.

Some users have asked us about a console version. It won’t be happening. I love my Xbox 360 but until 1080p is allowed as a minimum standard and mouse support normal, a game like Elemental won’t be happening on the console.

Have a great weekend.

105,515 views 48 replies
Reply #26 from Elemental Forums Top

" don’t want to sound like the game has some sort of utopian vision behind it"

 

 

Too late man, too late.  Expectations.  They're here.  I'll give you 5 years.  Tops.  (Course im back to playing EU3 MMP so I'm happy to wait..others may kill me).

Reply #27 from Elemental Forums Top

@The RPG with elemental argument:

To me an RPg from elemental doesn't seem that big of a stretch.  Playing a mainly channeler oriented game already seems a lot like an RPG, plus the game has objects to interact with, heros, and the combat system will hopefully be pretty adaptable.

 

 

As for the game itself, I haven't really had a chanceo t play it much, (first came some CTD's that were probably due ot graphics issues, now there are some CTD's from the game apparently looking for stuff in the wrong C or D drive).  The plans for the game do look interesting, though.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #28 from Elemental Forums Top

I don't think the Unreal Engine is really a good example of what most game engines are like. Since it is intended to be sold to other developers, it has to be more flexible than the majority of engines which are kept in-house.

Reply #29 from Elemental Forums Top

I think we deserve to have a good RPG that is more along the lines of "build your army to fight against the big bad army" where you are actually able to tactically fight such decisive battles, rather than being forced to control only 4 people, and normally only take those spelunking missions.

(I have no problem with Spelunking missions, it is where a few skilled men go where Nations know better than to invest time and manpower ... and either defeat the ancient creatures of legend against the odds, or die nameless and without honor)

(I only wish that the process of building up your army to eventually face the giant army (and the final battle itself) were made far more interesting (on scale based upon numbers involved in combat and controlled)

Reply #30 from Elemental Forums Top

Maybe some thing in between : you don't play one of the sovereigns but one on the heroes that are hired. And you have some kind of missions and such. Imagine what could be done in a fantasy settings like DarkSun !

Reply #31 from Elemental Forums Top

I look at Elemental at something we’re going to work on for years to come.

This is a PURE win. I can't list how many games, which I played, could become awesome, if only the developers could spend a little more time on them. Look at Starcraft; apart from it's low system requirements, what do you think is the main reason it is still so popular? 'Cause Blizz cared for this game for so long that they just balanced it. (Game) Balance + (race) uniqueness = win.

About rpg elements and the dialog system. I really don't think it's a good idea to force a 4x-strategy-game engine to handle RPGs, FPPs, etc. That said, I consider dialog system to be important for strategy games. Why? Remember that not all games build using this engine have to be massive scale 4x; think about something more like a tactical-game ala Warcraft 3. As the scale gets smaller, single units are much more crucial, and that allows us to implement some player-environment interaction - ie. dialog.

Reply #32 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm so very pleased to see that the engine is being created so thoughtfully.  I think some people are forgetting, or simply don't realize, that a game engine isn't nessecarily an FPS engine, or an RPG engine.  A game engine is only limited by what its creators designed it to handle.

If a game is an arrangment of parts, then the game engine represents all of the available parts to build the game.  Even if two games use the exact same set of parts, if they are put together differently you have 2 unique games (basicly games of the same genre with similar mechanics).  The Unreal engine is primarily comprised of parts to create realistic graphics and close up action oriented real time games with physics.  These games tend to be first person shooters because those are the games that are the easiest to create with the available parts.  But RPGs and other real time games can be made with it.

If the fine folks at Stardock create an engine thats capable of handling multiple game genres, then more power to them.  Not only does it mean, that modders wiill have alot of freedom with what they create, but it also saves Stardock alot of time and money with future projects.

Reply #33 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting LDiCesare, reply 25

Then you simply don't understand what a game engine is..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games

Tons of these games, for example are nothing like a FPS.. Mortal Combat vs DC Universe..Adventure pinball... Harry Potter...


They are like in the sense they show about as many characters. Does any of these show something like hundreds of soldiers, each with its own animations, at the same time? Is there a single RTS developped on this engine? Its scope is about a few individuals. Can it render hundreds and thousands at decent fps like an RTS would require?

I admit that my comment was poorly written and I had more a mod of the game in mind, but I know the difference, thank you.

Have you ever looked at Fall from Heaven code? When you change half the C++ of a game, you might still want to call it a mod, but it's, honestly, very far-fetched. It's actually a new game based on Civ IV. The distinction between mod and game depends on what the developpers open up. Colonization is sold as a game but it probably is more of a Civ IV mod than Fall from Heaven is.

 

Stardock has been quite explicit that they're doing a game engine optimised for TBS. Can a TBS-optimised game engine be good for non strategy games? There's no such engine out there, as far as I know, so it's hard to compare.

Now, Stardock will want to make an RPG with their engine. Brad said/hinted so already. But they'll have to rewrite and optimize stuff for it under all likelihood, which an external user wouldn't be able to do. They'll be rewriting their engine in order to accomodate the RPG. So in the end, they will have a generic game engine able to do both RPGs and TBS, because they'll be designing it for both. Still, I don't think it would be a good choice to pick up an engine designed for zooming out far and managing lots of LODs and thousands of units if you know you're never going to display more than fifty units at a given time. It's feasible in-house when you can tweak the code of the engine, but is it really useful for an external customer of the engine?

I think it also really depends on your definition of an RPG. Do you expect it to be able to support a game like Oblivion? Probably not. But take some of the older Might and Magic games - NOT Heroes of Might and Magic, just Might and Magic. To me, M7M3 was the pinnacle of the series. Could this engine manage THAT kind of RPG (with much better graphics) or an Ultima style RPG? Of course! I would guess that you could do a pretty nice MMORPG as well (not with first person 3D  FPS type graphics of course) So I don't think you are going to see First person shooter type games, but I could imagine almost any type of top down, grid based map game could work. Isn't Elemental itself a bit of an RPG? I mean yes it is primarily TBS but there will surely be some RPG elements - why couldnt a game be made stripping out the armies and make it be just about your character/party exploring any kind of world you wanted?

Reply #34 from Elemental Forums Top

If you guys ever do go into console gaming, I'd like to see you hire Dave Sirlin to do an original fighting game, even if it results in a homicide between you and him.

(he's good but he may actually be the most stubborn developer out there)

 

 

Reply #35 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting arstal, reply 34
If you guys ever do go into console gaming, I'd like to see you hire Dave Sirlin to do an original fighting game, even if it results in a homicide between you and him.

(he's good but he may actually be the most stubborn developer out there)
 

 

I immedietly thought about Sirlin.Net and I was right!   Well, he knows enough about balancing games, that's for sure!

Reply #36 from Elemental Forums Top

Can a TBS-optimised game engine be good for non strategy games? There's no such engine out there, as far as I know, so it's hard to compare.

I don't know about a TBS-optimized engine, but at Blizzcon, Blizzard showed some mods made using the StarCraft II engine, one was a Shoot'm Up, the other one was a FPS.

So, yes, I do think that a mod-friendly TBS engine could be used to make some completly different game and be good at it...

 

Reply #37 from Elemental Forums Top

I still like armies. The difference being gaining armies through quests/alliances rather than simply building them. Gives it a more RPG feel.

Reply #38 from Elemental Forums Top

Regarding using the Elemental engine for an RPG, unless you're talking about a 1st person view RPG like Oblivion, the graphics code requirements aren't that different than for a strategy game, the main difference would be in the camera code.  And we're huge Bioware fans here, so we'd be making a 3rd person view RPG. 

+1 Loading…
Reply #39 from Elemental Forums Top

In the 2d world, compare Baldur's Gate with, say, Panzer General.  The sprites have a few more animations is all.  In 3d, it's a bit different, but as Cari says: if you're not going for 1st person (which is more the Action-RPG genre, really), it should be doable.

Reply #40 from Elemental Forums Top

Then you simply don't understand what a game engine is..

I roughly know what a game engine is, it's just that I do not consider dialogue to be part of a game engine.

In my point of view, game engine is everything that could look close to a video game design library: Graphics, Music, Input, Data Storage, tools to interface with these concepts, etc.

 

Reply #41 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting CariElf, reply 38
And we're huge Bioware fans here, so we'd be making a 3rd person view RPG. 

Yeah those RPGs are the best [Like ToEE or Dragon Age]...I don't like the first person view RPGs to be honest.

Reply #42 from Stardock Forums Top

It is notable that Source, the engine employed by Valve (The company that is to Steam as Stardock is to Impulse) is used in heaps of games, not only that but heaps of successful games. The key with Source was it could do pretty much whatever you threw at it (when made and within reason) thus the choice to add conversational dialogue control isn't stupid or a waste of time at all for Stardock - it's simply a good business oppertunity.

Reply #43 from Elemental Forums Top

And we're huge Bioware fans here, so we'd be making a 3rd person view RPG.

Well, Bioware's aurora engine was used in the Witcher which plays better imo in 1st person view. But they reworked the engine a lot as far as I know, seeing the differences between The Witcher and NWN2 (particularly loading times, general smoothness and memory leaks).

Anyway, RPG's don't need 3D engines. Long live NetHack!

Goodbye Yay the Barbarian...

You died in The Dungeons of Doom on dingeon level 1 with 0 points, and 0 pieces of gold, after 19 moves.

You were level 1 with a maximum of 15 hit points when you died.

Yay

0 Au

fell into a pit

2009

 

Reply #44 from Elemental Forums Top

Itd be really easy to make an rpg with Elemental, due to the rpg elements already present in the game itself, without touching it, hell that'd be the easiest thing to make. Has anyone played Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. There is my proof for how easy it is to make an rpg with the right tools. People have actually made games where you make mods(temporary but nonetheless, mods) with theWCIII:TFT Map editor. There have been a LOT of successful rpg mods with WCIII:TFT Map Editor for WCIII:TFT, and that is about 6-7 years old now. Think of what we'll be able to do with a tool made in 2010? If Stardock does it right, it shouldn't be hard. Honestly, stardock(yes, omfg, I am giving a suggestion) you should REALLY, REALLY, REALLY look into the map editor for WarcraftIII: The Frozen Throne and maybe *cough* steal *cough* some of those ideas, because it has worked superbly with their modding community.

Reply #45 from Elemental Forums Top

Yeah yeah, you got all year...... it's thursday going to friday, where is my new beta build? :cylon: }:)

 

btw, the beta is gun O:)

 

Warder

Reply #46 from Elemental Forums Top

I for one don't really care when it comes out. I'm just happy I can play the game while it's being done.

Reply #47 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting CariElf, reply 38
Regarding using the Elemental engine for an RPG, unless you're talking about a 1st person view RPG like Oblivion, the graphics code requirements aren't that different than for a strategy game, the main difference would be in the camera code.  And we're huge Bioware fans here, so we'd be making a 3rd person view RPG. 

 

Thanks for the nice segue opportunity! Any chance of getting any more of Bioware's games on Impulse?!? I am loving the no cd/dvd way of playing with Impulse!

Reply #48 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting CariElf, reply 38
Regarding using the Elemental engine for an RPG, unless you're talking about a 1st person view RPG like Oblivion, the graphics code requirements aren't that different than for a strategy game, the main difference would be in the camera code.  And we're huge Bioware fans here, so we'd be making a 3rd person view RPG. 

I'll raise Leo's digression to ask if there's any chance you dev types are thinking seriously about a referee role for the multiplayer context? I don't much care for software that gets called 'RPG,' but I'd really love to see software that let a multiplayer game work more like a round-the-table RPG.