Well thanks for asking. Actually it has been more like a rough 3 months. Yes I realize the quality of my posts is terrible and I often hesitate to hit the enter key because of the level of vitriol, and the I say "ah &^%* it" and hit enter anyway.
Since you seem to think it matters I will divulge that I am 46 years old, full time job, married with two sons, aged 15 and 12. My wife has had back problems for about a year and a half that we have spent thousands of dollars and nothing has helped, and she is in almost constant pain to the point that she has developed a jaw problem due to gritting her teeth so much. She is going in for surgery this Friday and will be completely bedridden for three weeks and full recovery ~ 3 months, and this is about the fourth procedure that has been tried to resolve the problem. Also, I keep a good eye on what is happening in politics and the world, have done so for the last 20+ years and quite sincerely and honestly feel that the world in general and the U.S. in particular are circling the drain. On a happy not I got out of the market back when it was still around 12.5 K on the DOW, so being informed has some small benefits, even as I watch most people be suckered into believing that we are in recovery mode and I know full well and know the people that are "selling the recovery" also know full well that we are still a long way from the bottom. So yes, sometimes ignorance is bliss.
To put it lightly I am acquainted with stress, and I apologize to everyone that sometimes I just vent a lot of frustration here. That being said, I feel that even my attitude serves a valuable purpose to StarDock.
I feel that about 80% (if not more) of the posters here take a very sychophantic posture toward Frogboy in particular and the devs in general. While I try to keep my tone polite when addressing them, I think I am one of the few that will give them my straight opinion. In some cases that means I defend their decisions against ideas that I don't like, i.e. I was pretty vocal IN FAVOR of sovereign death = game over. However, I also am pretty blunt when I don't like a direction they take. Basically, I have huge hopes for this game, I want it to be something people will still be playing 10 years from now, and I want it to be benchmark that all future 4xstrategy games are measured against. I think Brad's a big boy and can handle direct criticism, and I also think the "honeyed words" of fanboi's and yes men are a dime a dozen. I understand he has been getting feedback from other forums that the hardcore are going to make the game unplayable, my counter concerns is that the casual gamer is going to neuter it. Some examples:
The idea that each city generates a small amount of raw materials - I can almost guarantee you that someone shined that "oh noes, what if the RNG does not put materials that I need to build x within easy access!" and so to make sure that you could at least have some of each resource they made each town auto-generate it. I think it would have been much better to force you to change plans, expand to gain some territory that has the resource, or trade for it. On a positive note, the amount generated is so small that I think it will be negligible. On the negative side, the casuals have their foot in the door so to speak, and during beta will now be able to say "the auto-generated amount of materials is too small, it is worth next to nothing" and with a small coding change the amount will be increased.
Example 2: The 4 camps of resources - again they went with pretty much the most simplistic and abstract option when polling and even a casual reading of the thread discussion showed it to be the least popular option. Maybe the other sites where Brad hangs out with the casual fans that was not the case, but it was overwhelmingly the least popular choice here.
What has been frustrating with the current issue also has been Raven X has been seeking further clarification on exactly what this latest change entails, and it seems like from the Dev side that that conversation is closed. Either that or possibly they are trying to do some damage control and come up with a compromise that will not raise the ire of the casuals but possibly still throw a bone to the hardcore (although I frankly don't consider it a hardcore request). SD seemed to be taking the approach that you would need to completely re-equip an army each time you faced a different type of army, I was always assuming that equipment might play a small part but buff spells and such that you could do on the fly would play a larger role. And I do agree with some of what you and Kellendunk said - effects could still play a role, and if so that might be the saving grace. However, the various ideas proposed about flagging a spell as "category: fire" and then somehow tweaking the targets arcane resistance based on the spell type - I'm sorry this is where I start getting ruder than I should be because in my not so humble opinion, and with a good number of years of coding experience, this is precisely what they are saying no to. You are jsut proposing a different coding method of implementing a gameply feature that has been deemed unfun. And then I read post's like Climber's (and I like Climber by the way) but where somehow he ahd interpretted damage types to mean there would be hit point pools for each element - I honestly don't know how to phrase it politely, and in Climber's defense I think he is a foreign speaker and I 100% understand how something like that could get lost in translation so this is not a slam on Climber. Anyway..
So there you have it - "Why I am a prick" in 1,000 words (OK I didn't count). Hope you enjoyed it.
Elemental Forums
I'm seriously hoping either Brad or Scott will answer this one when they get into the office.