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Losing faith in Elemental

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Losing faith in Elemental

from Elemental Forums

Hello everybody,

 

i am sorry to say that, yeah i nearly hate, but i am loosing faith in elemental. I am really afraid to fire up the game because of thses reasons:

 

1. core mechanics change with every patch, game is in an absolute unfinished state. that candy trick with free chapters for people which own the game at this and that date doesnt work on me, you had my money just before beta even started. luckily i can spare 50$, because this amount of money does not kill me in anyway, but i still can understand other which are upset beeing still beta tester for 50 bucks...

2. little graphic glitches when antialiasing is on (1 px green border on left, grey border on top, recent patch changed the green one to blue...)

3. (edge) scrolling the map is more than horrble "laggy" and tearing, it was fine when this slider to force max frame was still there and i could set it to 50, even if the game would be fine in regard to its mechanics, this is still a game killer for me.

4. i fired up galciv II just to see what a precious little gem it still is... could you guyz at sd just use that engine for the elemental game? from technical aspect things would be much smoother i think.

5. i am even more dissapointed because of the gamers bill of rights, its such a farce, sry, dont take me wrong, but i did not invent that bill, it is yours and you have to be meassured by it.

6. dont want to go on, its annyoing, sry...

 

prove me wrong, sd, so i may keep faith with you...

22,486 views 48 replies
Reply #26 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting RickeyLee, reply 22
Paul Mason's slogan was, "We serve NO WINE BEFORE it's TIME."

If Elemental was a car, it would be subject to the "Lemon-Laws" and I could take back for a refund or a replacement.

In fact, EVERY PRODUCT sold at Best Buy, Wal-Mart and any other reputable retail chain in the country offers no questions asked replacements and refunds and every single item in their stores EXCEPT underwear and computer games.

A problem that causes memory leakage on a 32-bit computer, to the extent that the memory overloads and the game freezes and shuts down is NOT a minor problem guys.  I have a Toshiba Satellite Laptop (less than a year old) with 4 MEG RAM -- If it won't run on MY machine -- how many others might you suppose it would not run on?

 

Elemental is subject to such laws, the gamers bill of rights, as per Star-dock.

A lot of ppl have gotten money back and left, which is sad..

And I have yet to see a major release that doesn't ship with some major bug that ''everyone'' complains about.. the complainers are the loudest out there..

BTW I would discuss with Toshiba about your 4 meg of ram, that is bad for a 15 year old laptop, let alone a new one. (unless of course you released a post to the forum with out proper bug checking and ment 4 Gig<G>)

Reply #27 from Elemental Forums Top

Only in the world of computer gaming could a reputable company release a KNOWINGLY DEFECTIVE PRODUCT and hope to survive in the marketplace, with the promise -- TRUST US -- We'll fix it later."

KNOWINGLY?

How about you find some other forum to troll.

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Reply #28 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 27

Only in the world of computer gaming could a reputable company release a KNOWINGLY DEFECTIVE PRODUCT and hope to survive in the marketplace, with the promise -- TRUST US -- We'll fix it later."
KNOWINGLY?

How about you find some other forum to troll.

 

Darn - you got in before I could  |-)

Reply #29 from Elemental Forums Top

The whole "knowingingly" thing is just, frankly, bizzarre.

What exactly would be the motivatin to release Elemental before it was "finished"?  The typical game industry reason why games are released early is because it would affect their public stock price if they slip a date.  That is, "the street" (wallstreet) expects public company X to generate Y revenue during Z quarter.

We're privately held. We have no such pressure.. We released the game because we honestly thought it was ready for the world.

I realize many people think of game companies as these monolthic corporate entities. But doesn't work that way. We're just a handful of game developers trying to make cool stuff and, unfortunately, sometimes we make mistakes.

Reply #30 from Elemental Forums Top

Well said Froggy, since I got in to the Beta in March I have seen much improvement and I feel an honest effort has been made to make this game the monster you had in mind. Hell it is based on a book you wrote, liking the story so far. I now know what the Midnight stones are from. The old story of the father, son and a mule comes to mind. If you set out to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one, including yourself!

Reply #31 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 29
The whole "knowingingly" thing is just, frankly, bizzarre.

What exactly would be the motivatin to release Elemental before it was "finished"?  The typical game industry reason why games are released early is because it would affect their public stock price if they slip a date.  That is, "the street" (wallstreet) expects public company X to generate Y revenue during Z quarter.

We're privately held. We have no such pressure.. We released the game because we honestly thought it was ready for the world.

I realize many people think of game companies as these monolthic corporate entities. But doesn't work that way. We're just a handful of game developers trying to make cool stuff and, unfortunately, sometimes we make mistakes.

 

The motivation would have been 'needing the revenue now, not February 2011, to fund two development teams'.

 

I am just exercising uninformed external analysis here (for fun) so please don't take offense and no one take my comment as being factual.

Reply #32 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 29
We're privately held. We have no such pressure.. We released the game because we honestly thought it was ready for the world.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to beat a dead horse, and I love the way SD communicates with gamers and the fact that you still invest your money into EWoM, but since you raised the subject again,

1) You admitted yourself that engine team was lagging behind the schedule and you had to a) supervise them personally b) severely nerf game design to accommodate it to engine limitations

2) You and team worked like mad last weeks before release, and were doing feature changes AFTER compiling and sending retail version (so there was no feature freeze at all).

3) You didn't have external test of complete game, and you admitted in one of your blogs that you didn't have time to even play it properly yourself

4) All that DLC like one for WM/BB or the book is still being developed

5) MP is still being developed

I'm software developer myself, and I clearly see 'desperate rush to meet the deadline' in above.

I doubt you never had thought "Oh, lets drop Aug release and go calmly towards Feb, so engine will support everything I planned" :P

Reply #33 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting RickeyLee, reply 22
So? I can only assume that Elemental was NOT PLAYTESTED over various platforms -- or that you KNEW about the problem BEFORE the game was ever released and somebody above you in STARDOCK said -- SCREW EM,  TIME is MONEY -- we're gonna release it anyway and deal with the bitchin and moanin.

Tricked Ticked Rick

 

There was a multipage thread on the beta forum relating to the memory leak that you talk about. Not knowing about it isnt an option.

Reply #34 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 29
The whole "knowingingly" thing is just, frankly, bizzarre.

What exactly would be the motivatin to release Elemental before it was "finished"?

 

You yourself said that you couldn't delay due to deals you had for retail space.

 

I'm really sorry, but I can't believe the excuses you muster anymore.  The game wasn't ready.  The testers knew it, the dev team knew it, your QA knew it, and, yeah, you knew it.  You'd have to be utterly incompetent not to.  The whole "blinded by the dream" is the last of many excuses you threw against the wall in the first week.  It was the only one that managed to stick, so you went with it.  The official line today is that Elemental is too ambitious.  Fanboys eat that up.

 

Your game at release was in early-mid Alpha quality at best.  Right now we're sitting at mid-late Alpha.  The game is not feature complete.  That defines an Alpha from a Beta, as I understand it.  You're still uprooting major mechanics.  You're still ripping out the "compromise" (ie, get it out the door) mechanics and pushing in new and untested ones.  Besides, if your game was release-ready, why did you even have "compromise" mechanics?

 

Even today you keep moving the goal posts as to what the hell is going on with this game and how you intend to do right by the people who couldn't get refunds on it (like me).  You say there will be another "big announcement" in a week.  So what?  This game's in Alpha both in code and spirit.  Everything about it is subject to change at any time.  Every "big announcement" you've done after release has been showered in special conditions and exceptions a few days later when we get around to asking you to be specific about, you know, what you say.  Then you go quiet, totally revise whatever "plan" you had, and make another "big announcement" about the new and improved goal.

 

It's gotten to the point where I'm not saying "Wow, I'm looking forward to this announcement, hopefully this'll finally start heading in the right direction" to "Sigh, again?  When is he ever going to calm down, settle on something, and just do it?"  That's always been the core problem with this game, both pre- and post-release, and the reason why so many people are losing faith.  I really feel like this game is alternately being captained without a wheel or just not captained at all.

Reply #35 from Elemental Forums Top

That was a large amount of text, Lord Ebonstone, so please let me, as a fellow pretend Lord, summarize what you said:

"Brad is incompetent and released a game that wasn't ready and I have sand in my vagina"

"As the owner of a software company( I had to assume this part, as its the only way to make his post make sense) I say your product was not worth my money and was in Alpha stage!  Alpha!  And I have sand in my vagina"

"Clearly, the problem here is, that I was in love with you, Brad, and you have broken my heart with your broken game, for there is no other reason to write you a 'Dear John' leter about a fucking video game...unless...I have sand in my vagina."

 

Your welcome, Lord Xia.

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Reply #36 from Elemental Forums Top

Look at it this way: We're playing the most open beta ever in gaming history! \o/

Reply #37 from Elemental Forums Top

If you want to feel better about Elemental check out Final Fantasy XIV.  That thing is a complete train wreck.  Its like some one told them a bunch of ideas for the best mmo ever, and they did the opposite. 

Reply #38 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Lord, reply 35
That was a large amount of text, Lord Ebonstone, so please let me, as a fellow pretend Lord, summarize what you said:

"Brad is incompetent and released a game that wasn't ready and I have sand in my vagina"

"As the owner of a software company( I had to assume this part, as its the only way to make his post make sense) I say your product was not worth my money and was in Alpha stage!  Alpha!  And I have sand in my vagina"

"Clearly, the problem here is, that I was in love with you, Brad, and you have broken my heart with your broken game, for there is no other reason to write you a 'Dear John' leter about a fucking video game...unless...I have sand in my vagina."

 

Your welcome, Lord Xia.

 

L......O......L.   :rofl:   k1

Reply #39 from Stardock Forums Top

I will wait for the release of the 2.9 final patch and for a min. 50% off discount .

Reply #40 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 16



Quoting Yigor,
reply 12
thank you all for your warm words ,

I beg you frogboy, make me smile again with a "perfect" elemental game experience!


That is what I'm committed to.  Next week, there will be announcement that will really demonstrates just how serious I am to making sure Elemental rocks. People are going to freak out.

Hell yeah! :thumbsup:

Reply #41 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 16

Quoting Yigor, reply 12thank you all for your warm words ,

I beg you frogboy, make me smile again with a "perfect" elemental game experience!
That is what I'm committed to.  Next week, there will be announcement that will really demonstrates just how serious I am to making sure Elemental rocks. People are going to freak out.

 

Elemental is going to be an FPS set in the 50s? Please please please please *crosses fingers*

Reply #42 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Lord, reply 35
That was a large amount of text, Lord Ebonstone, so please let me, as a fellow pretend Lord, summarize what you said:

"Brad is incompetent and released a game that wasn't ready and I have sand in my vagina"

"As the owner of a software company( I had to assume this part, as its the only way to make his post make sense) I say your product was not worth my money and was in Alpha stage!  Alpha!  And I have sand in my vagina"

"Clearly, the problem here is, that I was in love with you, Brad, and you have broken my heart with your broken game, for there is no other reason to write you a 'Dear John' leter about a fucking video game...unless...I have sand in my vagina."

 

Your welcome, Lord Xia.

 

"Hmm yes let me ignore his complaint and add "sand in my vagina" to every sentence. This will be brilliant. A gaggle of dusty vaginal laughs even. Semper Elemental." - Lord Xia

Reply #43 from Elemental Forums Top

Seriously though Brad, you're like one of the best hype dudes around (this is a compliment). You know how to motivate people. Even though this game is a super turd I still get excited when you're like "Wait till next week when we announce this!! it's going to be amazing!" And then i'm thinking... holy crap maybe they WILL fix this game and then it turns out to be something even worse and i'm sad until you say again "Wait till my annoucement NEXT week" and I let out a little woot like the battered gamer I am.

It's easy to see why you're a CEO, you got the mojo for it.

Reply #44 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting solidsmooky, reply 43
Seriously though Brad, you're like one of the best hype dudes around (this is a compliment). You know how to motivate people. Even though this game is a super turd I still get excited when you're like "Wait till next week when we announce this!! it's going to be amazing!" And then i'm thinking... holy crap maybe they WILL fix this game and then it turns out to be something even worse and i'm sad until you say again "Wait till my annoucement NEXT week" and I let out a little woot like the battered gamer I am.

It's easy to see why you're a CEO, you got the mojo for it.

 

LOL No kidding. The last "coming soon" dev post has me really excited. How many times am I going to let this dog bite me!

And lord Xia, you're not funny, you are just being a fanboy D-bag to the other lordling. Everyone should feel like they have sand in their nether regions, but let's quit beating that dead horse.

 

I expected the game 1st quarter 2011 and I thought they would deduct my payment the day I preordered. So really I haven't lost anything that I didn't expect to lose anyway because I still consider this the beta. As long as my stuff is fixed by the original release date of next year, I will be content. 

 

 

 

Reply #45 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting lord, reply 34

Quoting Frogboy, reply 29The whole "knowingingly" thing is just, frankly, bizzarre.

What exactly would be the motivatin to release Elemental before it was "finished"?
 

You yourself said that you couldn't delay due to deals you had for retail space.

 

I'm really sorry, but I can't believe the excuses you muster anymore.  The game wasn't ready.  The testers knew it, the dev team knew it, your QA knew it, and, yeah, you knew it.  You'd have to be utterly incompetent not to.  The whole "blinded by the dream" is the last of many excuses you threw against the wall in the first week.  It was the only one that managed to stick, so you went with it.  The official line today is that Elemental is too ambitious.  Fanboys eat that up.

 

Your game at release was in early-mid Alpha quality at best.  Right now we're sitting at mid-late Alpha.  The game is not feature complete.  That defines an Alpha from a Beta, as I understand it.  You're still uprooting major mechanics.  You're still ripping out the "compromise" (ie, get it out the door) mechanics and pushing in new and untested ones.  Besides, if your game was release-ready, why did you even have "compromise" mechanics?

 

Even today you keep moving the goal posts as to what the hell is going on with this game and how you intend to do right by the people who couldn't get refunds on it (like me).  You say there will be another "big announcement" in a week.  So what?  This game's in Alpha both in code and spirit.  Everything about it is subject to change at any time.  Every "big announcement" you've done after release has been showered in special conditions and exceptions a few days later when we get around to asking you to be specific about, you know, what you say.  Then you go quiet, totally revise whatever "plan" you had, and make another "big announcement" about the new and improved goal.

 

It's gotten to the point where I'm not saying "Wow, I'm looking forward to this announcement, hopefully this'll finally start heading in the right direction" to "Sigh, again?  When is he ever going to calm down, settle on something, and just do it?"  That's always been the core problem with this game, both pre- and post-release, and the reason why so many people are losing faith.  I really feel like this game is alternately being captained without a wheel or just not captained at all.

 

k1   from another dissatisfied customer...  Laugh at the words "sandy vagina" all you want, but he's spot-on.

Reply #46 from Elemental Forums Top

Those who feel our forums are a place to trash us need to find somewhere else. The behavior in this thread is disgusting.

Reply #47 from Elemental Forums Top

Also, I'm really not interested in discussing the game with people who believe we knowingly released something we didn't think was finished.  

Reply #48 from Stardock Forums Top

Personally, I can't wait to see what Stardock makes of Elemental!

There are a lot of promises and I know most of you find it difficult to simply trust a developer but I believe SD has proven themselves over and over again and thus warrant just a pinch more faith than most. With the right support, there have been plenty of games that have come out duds and turned into gems and I feel this can be the same, especially considering how maleable the world seems to be.