Questions From a Skeptical Consumer

For me right now it boils down to:

• Stable engine so both new vanilla content can be added and modders can get back to work
• Mod support based on what the modders want/need

Everyone in the community has their own patience tank - some expire earlier than others. Have I had moments of "when in the hell is the engine gonna be stable" thoughts? You betcha.

I remain optimistic the oom's and bugs will get worked out but this can't go on indefinitely. Once my patience gas tank runs out, I'm more inclined to just walk away and check back in periodically or find something else to be OCD about.

At any rate I think the message is we want/need progress and the engine stability problems are extremely taxing to the fun factor.

You're post is based on a giant pile of assumptions.

The release date of E:FE has been pushed back* repeatedly? (*When it's done is what I've always seen, with devs guessing that "when it's done" will be later this year sometime). 

Why can't updates be released into a core game?  So you complain about stability problems and then want to alpha test new features? They are going to have a public beta of E:FE as soon as its playable.  So... yeah.

You complain multiple times about the amount of resources being invested into the new project and then you also complain about how business is evil (I'm paraphrasing here) and Stardock is stringing you along to further Brad's pet projects.  So... he's investing his, in your reasoning, considerable E:WOM profits into a new game which he is going to give you, and probably the vast majority of his customers, FOR FREE and you're implying that he's evil, wrong, or has mental problems due to too much money? He's continually working (and paying others to continually work) on improving E:WOM despite the fact that he already has your money and could walk away while cackling and fingering his evil guy mustache.

After some of the nonsense on these forums over the last few months I'm amazed that he doesn't have a greater disdain for customers.  God knows I would. 

I could keep pointing out the flaws in your tantrum, but why bother. 

What a load of horse shit.  Yes, the game was bad when it was released.  Yes they hired a great staff to work on Elemental.  They are making patch 1.2 and 1.3 at the same time and making the stand alone FE which you will get for free, even though you are an ungrateful demand-o-bot. 

As for you paying their salary?  Are you fucking kidding me?  Unless this is another one of Brad's accounts, you are delusional.  $50 does not entitle you to a video game made to your exact taste, a pound of flesh, and a hand job.   Just a game.  Like it or don't.  The fucked up thing in all this, is that by somehow being incredibly fucking generous in bringing in a team to make improvement on WoM and giving two games for free, Brad has somehow opened up himself to the criticisms of basement dwelling troglodytes such as yourself. 

I got a plan for you.  Turn off your bootleg copies of Sailor Moon, fisnish jerking off to improper thoughts about your sister, put on some pants, wash the cheeto stain from your fingers, put on some sunglasses (as you haven't seen the sun for awhile), and then ask your mom nicely to drive you to the video game store so you can buy a new game.  Then go to their forums and bitch.

I'm usually smart enough to not stick my hand into a hive of Africanized honey bees but this time I'll do it.

• I despise trolls - destructive critics should get the hell out, constructive critics should stay. However, an honest feedback loop is necessary for any product or service to improve. Otherwise the providers of the product or service are deluding themselves. Not everyone posting criticism or popping off emotionally is a troll just as everyone who defends Brad or SD is not a fanboy.
• There is a difference between a valued community member losting patience and ranting (<wink> Lord Xia) vs. some random dood who pops on and says Brad should throw himself in front a semi and then disappears to never be heard from again
• I think Mqpiffle is venting - looking through his/her post history I see a valued community member, not a troll. His/her patience meter is obviously empty.
• Brad also has a history of venting - I understand that too. The people who truly care can and will pop off emotionally now and then.
• Other than trolls, we're all on the same team. We want a kickass product to enjoy. Brad and crew want to do a good job, have a good rep, and lock in future revenues. We want a game we can thoroughly enjoy. Modders want a stable platform with the proper tools to make the game even more kickass.

There are certainly other (or better ways) to address being pissed off than to post a public note and get everyone all emotionally hyped. A PM, an email, a more tactful public post, etc. I've been browsing every single post on these forums (not to mention agressively beta testing each patch, making arguments, and supporting with facts) for the past 5-6 months and generally get the feeling that:

• The engine is way more stable but still has fundamental issues, not just random weird bugs. The fact that loading games from within a game causes a certifiable crash each and every time is a serious stability issue with the design. Casual users should not be expected to start a new game of Elemental each time they want to load another game.
• Modders apparently are losing heart (Heavenfall posts way less often, Impinc admittedly is losing interest, mqpiffle's post above, etc.) due to: 1. a current release version and 2. acknowledgement of their efforts via feedback in mod forums and action towards improving mod support. SD needs to help make their jobs easier so they can make the game even better. I'm personally worried about losing our respected mod community members over lack of support (real or perceived) - that would seriously suck balls.

In short, the faster we get to 1.2 based on a rock solid engine and start addressing requests from respected members of the mod community the better. The partnership here is for SD to provide the stable engine and willing members of the mod community to provide cool extra content. I too want a kickass product because I see the vision too. It was really cool to work with Brad on reproducing my oom over the weekend. But we need to get over this hump.

Since it never had a date, it can't be "pushed back". Also, he's creating the expansion, and he is the project manager. Managing is kind of what project managers do.

Speaking as a professional software developer (not on games, but this is true in business software too), it doesn't work that way. Major features are interconnected to other features, particularly when you're changing a lot of stuff at once. You can't change one thing and just spin a new version out because that one thing affects everything else. A release requires a round of testing, polishing, balancing, etc. Only to have it all change again with the next big change.

It's nowhere near as simple as "hey its Tuesday, let's toss out a new version!" when you're doing substantial development. If they were already in FE's polish phase then maybe, but since Brad just said it won't be feature complete until fall its clear they aren't there yet.

Because with the first Elemental "beta" they mangled the meaning of the word (betas 1 & 2 were not 'beta' by how the term is most commonly used in the industry). Using more standard industry terminology, there is no 'beta' of FE right now. There might be a pre-alpha. Who knows, it might even compile today! You really want to download that?

Given when you said you bought Elemental, you're getting FE free. So I'm not sure how they're making extra money off you. In fact profit would be better if they didn't bother doing all this extra development.

I haven't been much for defending Stardock lately... but you clearly don't understand how development actually works. If 1.2 is focused on fixing memory issues, they want that isolated from other changes so they don't have a constantly moving target in terms of memory allocation to try and fix. The people working on 1.3 also don't want a daily changing memory manager creating (and fixing) bugs unrelated to what they're doing. These are two different pieces of the whole, so to limit the problems caused by both changing at once they're developed in parallel and then recombined later. That's pretty normal practice on any large project because you can't constantly work with your half-done changes and someone elses half-done changes at once and have anything even remotely workable.

The people working on 1.2 and 1.3 are different people, doing different things. Making one group wait for the other to finish for no reason isn't a good use of resources, and wouldn't get you what you seem to want so much: faster releases. It would in fact do the opposite.

1.2 is Engine

1.3 is Gameplay. 

Requires two different skillsets.  Also, they want to get 1.2 perfect, so any bugs that get in 1.3 or FE will be easier to fix.  It's a more logical process, and there's no real time pressure on either one, so they don't have to crunch, which is what got Elemental into trouble in the first place.

Lord Xia, I think the original poster was very civil about his complaints. He uses polite language to express his disappointment towards a product he put his money and hopes in. There is a dose of hostility towards Stardock, but I think it's a well mannered hostility that he is altogether entitled to. 

On the other hand, your response beginning "What a load of horseshit" is several levels below his post. It cannot be called polite or well mannered  under any circumstances. Please understand that even though there are people who express opinions that somehow make you see red, going for their throats with foam at the mouth is hardly a method that will bring you much credibility.

No.  He is posting in a passive aggressive manner, it is not polite, it is gilded hostility.  He expresses his opinions as facts with a raging sense of entitlement.  I responded to it in a manner that it deserved. 

I think Frogboy is a good guy with many noble intentions. I don't agree with anything you said, mqpiffle. Stardock has earned better, and continue to do so with their commitment to Elemental universe.

This attitude is valid against a company like EA.

Edit: There is always a certain amount of marketing speak. But what you see as being strung along, I think is just healthy, welcome updates to their players.

Let's take a step back here guys.

Elemental: War of Magic is a video game.

It was released and some people liked it, some people didn't like it.  It also had technical issues which were essentially addressed shortly after release for most people.

That is normally as far as it goes. People like the game or they don't like it. If they don't like it, they move on.  Users aren't "owed" anything beyond a working game - which they have and have had.

However...

Because we are talking about a *Stardock* game things are different.  We don't release games and abandon them. We also were disappointed with the quality of War of Magic at release and made the decision to do three specific things:

1. We would continue to work on War of Magic over the subsequent months to improve the game. Which we have. v1.1 (November) was a pretty major re-design of the magic system and combat system.  v1.11 (January) provided an improved strategic AI. v1.2 (April) improves memory use which should allow mods and large maps to be more robust.  And v1.3 (May) will be a fairly dramatic gameplay enhancement.

2. We also chose to give everyone who bought War of Magic before the end of 2010 a free copy of Elemental: Fallen Enchantress. Originally, this was going to be merely an expansion pack to War of Magic. But having evaluated the design itself of War of Magic it was decided that the changes we wanted to make were too significant for an expansion pack and decided to make it a stand-alone game (with subsequent budget increase).  

3. We also chose to give everyone who bought War of Magic before the end of October 2010 a free copy of Elemental: [Unannounced], which is a second stand alone title into the future.

But don't fool yourself into thinking that you were somehow inherently entitled any of this.  Games, like movies or any other form of entertainment, are hit and miss.  Seeing "The Last Airbender" doesn't entitle me to get a free ticket to the next Paramount Pictures movie.  It might make me less inclined to go see a movie by M. Night S before seeing the reviews first.

You bought a game. You don't like the game. You are entitled to your opinion about the game.  But that's as far as it goes.