I congratulate you on your lack of friends.

EDIT: Added smiley to make sure you knew I was just trying to be funny, not mean.

With how badly its supported in EWoM, that probably would have been preferable. Then people who wanted an MP game would have known ahead of time to look elsewhere.

Will there be a box version at some point after the digital release?

Cuz I like boxes...

Can we finally get a multiplayer experience that duplicates the single player experience, except with the ability to experience it with our friends?

I understand that you personally don't believe multiplayer in these kinds of games is fun, but what I don't understand is why you believe stripping out most of the fun elements of the game will make it better for those of us who do want to play Elemental multiplayer.

It sort of bothers me that this is being developed and marketed as a standalone game instead of as a traditional expansion.  I would really like to see vanilla War of Magic refined and made into a better game instead of essentially being left behind with all the good ideas being dumped into Fallen Enchantress.

Oh well, maybe it's better this way.

You say that many aspects will change (population, food, interface, tactical, etc) but then I wonder, if these new changes are indeed better and more liked by everyone, would you also update WoM to be more similar to Fallen Enchantress or it would evolve in a different way?

Also... any news on the 64bits version? Just curious...

this game so far and predominantly looks like its a 1 player game. if you think of it this way. its you vs all the other AI factions so really ur alliance to one of them in the end your jsut going to exploit them anyways. i rather them really develop the minor factions that wont be competitors to you as a viable option to use them as alliances that you dont intend to kill them off later. as an insentive make minor factio0n offer special rewards  spell/weapons/a unique unit/marriges as token that you are allies and have x amount of rep with them. i think this would add alot of depth to the game and futher fill the map with fantasy themes with minor factions that dot the  map angels/demons/elves/orcs etc. detail post found in elemental minor faction + diplomacy for fallen enchantress in the elementals ideas section. honestly if frog boy , derek and jon take a poke at my post i hope they can take from it ideas to implement.

 https://forums.elementalgame.com/405851?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Stardock%2F27%2Fforum%2F512+%28Elemental+Forums+%C2%BB+RSS+Feed+%C2%BB+Elemental+Ideas+Posts%29

it the stardock company report that was posted just not so long ago they said something about a low rating on ewom that warrented that it would be better off to make this game a stand alone instead of an expansion to it.

I think it's basically hitting the reset button and starting a new game. This is a video game after all.

It also gives Derek the chance to create his own deal and SD the chance to right any wrongs from the first release. In my opinion a win all around.

I honestly think unless they go all the way with multiplayer, there's no sense spending too much time on it because it won't really be used. The time would be better spent focusing on the single player game. Maybe an expansion could really take the time to focus on multiplayer, but we probably underestimate what kind of investment that is.

What Frogboy keeps saying is that he wants single player and multiplayer to be two seperate products.  To me, that sounds like that would take more focus away from singleplayer as opposed to just directly porting the singleplayer game, exactly as it is, into multiplayer.

I'll add my two cents for a 'SP with humans > 1' version of the game.  Don't care about balance, don't care about streamlining, just let me substitute a human for an AI and let us fight tactical battles against each other or the AI.  It's exactly what you did for sins of a solar empire, a psuedo 4x rts, and it worked great - you can have a crowded map set to blazing fast speed for the competitive guys, and can do a larger slower map for co-op with friends - maps were still random, nothing had to be toggled 'off' for the sake of balance (or it could, with options and preset maps).

I like everything else I'm hearing - but Age of Wonders came out of in 2003 and is still talked about as one of the best MP 4x games despite a variety of issues and a lot of people are looking for a new MP experience.  Look at the consistent requests for a MP Total War campaign instead of the battle minigame after every version, or the 'diplomatic' team based Civ 4 games on their fan sites (groups of 10 guys running one civ, 10 civs).  The population for 4x MP is indeed small, but unlike RTS and shooter fans we don't ask for much ...

Still, I voted 'cautiously optimistic' because Sins and Gal Civ 2 are two of the best games ever made and I played through all the improvements to gal civ 2 from vanilla to arnor, so I know you've got the talent to improve on what you've got.

[/quote]
Quoting Mtn_Man,
reply 55
It sort of bothers me that this is being developed and marketed as a standalone game instead of as a traditional expansion.  I would really like to see vanilla War of Magic refined and made into a better game instead of essentially being left behind with all the good ideas being dumped into Fallen Enchantress.

Oh well, maybe it's better this way.



it the stardock company report that was posted just not so long ago they said something about a low rating on ewom that warrented that it would be better off to make this game a stand alone instead of an expansion to it.


I think it's basically hitting the reset button and starting a new game. This is a video game after all.

It also gives Derek the chance to create his own deal and SD the chance to right any wrongs from the first release. In my opinion a win all around.[/quote]

agreed

it would be nice to get a fantasy 4x multiplayer but if they dont ultimately go that route lets be realistic... human vs AI eventually your going to go to war with all the AI in order to dominate the game. if you really want to get diplomatic options to give the game some flavor the minor factions need to be revamped that way you can ally with them and not worry about needing to wipe them off the map in order to win. personally with ewom land being so monotonusly bland i really want to see FE shine through. i mean picture this... not only do you got the regular map but you have your epic zones with the lords or watever that guards them that you cant enter. then it would be cool if each minor faction had its own thing. reguardless if they stay at one city their zone of control could be unique to them. elves with elven looking forests and land marks. dwarves and their city in a mountainous area, orcs in some crappy swamp, angels in some angelic green pasture with white clouds area. anycase with all that stuff all over the map it would be quite a living world that really gives breath to the fantasy feel of the game. besides i really like the idea of minor faction through prolonged diplomacy letting the player access some special spell/ weapons and or tech that other wise the player could never get on his own without really keeping good relations with the minor faction.

all i have to say is whoopee

1) How much of this stuff is going to be ported to Elemental :WoM. It seems like these new things sound like it fixes whats wrong with the first game, that being tacticolol combat.

2) Are you going to make the civilizations more varied? No? You're not? Then stop what you're doing right now and for godsakes give me some distinction. One of the major problems with this game is that everything is the same graphically. It would be cool to have different looking civs specific to that civ, otherwise it's just going to be bland again and no fantasy writer will ever be able to fix it

3) Have you thought about making the Magic effects more amazing looking? You really should. Magic should look awe inspiring with awesome effects. Not like what we have now.

4) A true randomly generated map. It's not in WoM, can it be in TFE?

5) Better sound/music. Especially the vocals when you select a unit. They are terrible. I'm sure any community person with a nice voice will do it for free. The bland setting and the poor sound ruin my immersion when I play this game.

6) Know that I give you and have given you a hard time in the past because I really want this game to be awesome.

So they release a game that has us folks who are quite sick of the generic crap that has saturated the industry as of late (seven Call of Duty games, and you know eight is already in the works) quite excited, and it falls flat on its face. So Stardock apologizes, promises to fix the game, and as a show of good will asks for our input. For the most part we are ignored as they go on to do as they please, actually steering the game further from what we had hoped for.

Instead of more diverse, intuitive, and interesting spells, the mana system is butchered and the spells are dulled to the point where they are entirely forgettable. Now that you've spent several turns studying, you can give one group +1 movement. Now that you have spent more turns studying, you can give one group +2 movement. Intelligence? Oh, that used to differentiate casters by making their spell effectiveness variable. Now all it does is remind me that I should have dumped all my hero's levels into INT instead of STR so that they can teleport out of that box that enemy borders have created around them. Wisdom? Never heard of it. Makes casters more diverse by defining how many spells they can cast per battle? What a silly idea.

We ended up with an equipment system that is not at all as significant as we had been led to expect. I doubt I am the only one who figured that Dagger would mean Quick Strike or Piercing or Backstab or some combination thereof, to give us any reason at all to use the Dagger instead of immediately-available Club. Given that the game boasted an RPCiv play, we figured combat would be more intuitive than archers fire, archers fire, archers fire, battle over before enemy reaches knights. Off the top of my head, archers are long-range, deal moderate damage to unarmored or lightly armored targets, and could come with abilities such as Snipe (High accuracy, twice as much AP as a normal shot), Rapid Shot (low accuracy, half AP as normal shot), Crippling Shot (low accuracy, all AP cost, halves target's movement until battle's end or target is healed), and so on. Then you have crossbowmen, who are shorter range than archers and use more AP per attack, but deal moderate damage to heavily armored foes and significant damage to unarmored or lightly armored foes. So on, and so forth.

I suppose I could keep griping, but it has all been said before. Do not get me wrong, I love you guys, and I had a blast with SoaSE, and while I could not get into it, appreciate the scope of GalCiv2, and I was very surprised to see a game as potentially kickass as E:WoM. The thing is, you dropped the ball, in many places, and when the community tried to help you, you gave back everything but what was desired. Yes, it is your product and you may do as you please with it, but unfortunately, the strange design choices you have made have caused E:WoM to go from being a total masterpiece to something entirely forgettable.

I bought E:WoM the day it released, and was gripping my chair with anticipation as it installed-not literally, of course-only to be rather confused. You guys have made progess, but I believe that unless you listen to the community, you will only fail at what could be a landmark product, and the gaming industry will slide further and further into shallow shooters, half-assed indie games, and screw-the-consumer business models. Your community adores you, not because you deserve it, but because you earned it. You need to keep earning it; nothing is a granted.

As I bought E:WoM day one, having payed an absurd price for something that would not become "maybe" worth it until months and months after the fact, I am encouraged by the fact that, as far as I can tell, I am entitled to FE. I also appreciate that you folks seem to be implementing most of our suggestions and your offerings this second time around, but I have to ask, what of E:WoM? If you are really releasing FE as the fantastic product that E:WoM should have been, fuckin' great, but what about those who purchase E:WoM after the free-FE date? I would hate for these people to resent you because they payed good money for a product that you would essentially force them to pay a second time for.

Your community adores you so much that we did not abandon you, and despite our rants are more than happy to "allow" you this second chance at creating video-game greatness. This time around, do us right and you'll do yourselves right, make us proud and you'll be proud.

Good luck, Stardock. May FE be all that your team has dreamt of these passed few years.

-A formerly silent Stardock enthusiast.

No quests in MP gimps the modding community, who won't be able to make RPG style game modes for multiple players. Leave it as an option! Choice good, determinism bad!

I like the look of everything on that list, and am excited to get to try it.

I just have one simple question for you, Brad; are any of these lovely improvements going to be rolled back on to E:WoM? The Tac Combat and such, for example?

I'm cautiously optimistic.

I'm an optimist and hope for the best. And if they fail to make a better game than Age of Wonders or Master of Magic this time then the 2nd expansion is their VERY.LAST.CHANCE! (Then Brad will be Eliphas the Inheritor and the Stardock staff the Wordbearers when they lose in Dark Crusade!)

"I could care less", does that mean that you care like 25% or does it mean "couldn't care less!" ?

What I primarily want from Fallen Enhanceress is a balanced competetive experience!   That means that I will do my very best to defeat the A.I and I want the A.I to put up a fight!   Also, the game has to be balanced so there's no clear way to go (warfare will not always stomp magic f.e) but the thing I fear the most here is the warrior Sovereign matter. It would be safer designwise to have them as Wizards like in Age of Wonders or Master of Magic. That would eliminate lucky Sovereign assassinations which are so anticlimactic.

However, that is an area in which I exspect little success since I believe the Sovereign going out and beating things up with a weapon is a prime corepoint in Elemental (though I hope for Fallen Enhanceress).

I would also want some type of Victory Point system ala Company of Heroes/Dawn of War II to promote aggressive play. Played a 3v3 in CoH yesterday where we controlled the map and the British turtled up so we couldn't breach their defenses. They couldn't take the VPs though so they lost (serves those teadrinking snobs right! )

Well, that makes sense.  Putting some distance between WOM and FE is probably a good thing from a marketing standpoint.

I like your ideas concerning the minor factions, especially the better gear in the stores based on relationship level.

I would also like to see them play a larger role and would like an option for more than one minor faction.

(This is another chance for me to espouse the idea of offspring leading a minor faction (or new faction) if an AI controlled sovereign is killed.)

Where we disagree is on alliances with primary factions. Depending on the victory conditions you are trying to achieve, I don't see that being in an alliance would be an issue.

Alliance membership wouldn't prevent you from casting the Spell of Making (or whatever), it certainly wouldn't restrict you from a diplomatic victory nor would it prevent a conquest victory as an allied faction is not hostile to you.

The answer, if you read Frogboys post is flat out no that it won't be the same.  Sadly it seems clear from his post that it'll be stripped down. 

FE sounds like it's going to be Elemental, take 2. Kinda what CA did with Napoleon over ETW. Normally people would be pissed but SD are being very gracious about it. CA should've given a discount on NTW to people who previously bought ETW.

In any case I'm pretty excited.

No, it has been stated that War of Magic will stay in the same vein it is in now. It will exist for those that for some reason prefer it to Fallen Enchantress.