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Working on Fallen Enchantress 1.1

Working on Fallen Enchantress 1.1

Adventure1As Fallen Enchantress rushes towards the 100,000 unit sold mark, we are hard at work on v1.1.  We are hoping to have it ready before Christmas but I don’t want to make any promises.

The main changes in v1.1 will be memory and AI related. There are lots of bug fixes in the pipeline too such as ones that help with modding and just plain good old fashioned bugs that slipped by.

People have been asking whether Fallen Enchantress is “selling well”.  It’s a hard question to answer since I don’t think it’ll ever be able to sell as well as Galactic Civilizations because we did, after all, give the people who bought War of Magic back in the day copies of Fallen Enchantress.  I think if you combined War of Magic with Fallen Enchantress you’d have a much better story. 

We are pretty happy with the reviews. We’re hoping to see a lot more as time goes on. I doubt we’ll release any more games in 4th quarter in the future. Very hard to get coverage with all the big console releases that come out for the Christmas season not to mention the Wii U. Winking smile

The Map pack is expected to be out in early December.  They’re putting the final touches on it.  I will confess I wasn’t terribly excited about it at first as I prefer the random maps. But having played Anthys (the new immense sized map) it really does become an amazing world. Anthys is also a great map for testing the AI on so if you don’t see me posting a lot over the next couple of weeks it’ll be because I’m coding on that.

And lastly, a random plug for those of you running Windows 8.  You may already be familiar with Start8 which brings back the Start menu in Windows 8.  We just released Decor8 today which allows you to change your backgrounds in the Start screen (yea, Microsoft doesn’t let you use your own backgrounds for this for some reason by default).

Anyway, lots of cool stuff coming up.  Also, if you don’t already have Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, v1.1 just came out. The merged development teams (IronDock? StarIron?) have really made something special with Rebellion. It’s really terrific.

Stay tuned!

272,417 views 79 replies
Reply #26 Top

Fear the chicken but fear the rabbit even more... 

 

Seriously looking forward to it!  :thumbsup:

Reply #27 Top

Quoting Hawawaa, reply 26
Fear the chicken but fear the rabbit even more... 

 

Seriously looking forward to it! 

 

Maybe we should do a Holy Grail mod?  The Holy Hand Grenade can be unlocked with the Book Of Armaments...

Reply #28 Top

Quoting NaytchSG, reply 27

Quoting Hawawaa, reply 26Fear the chicken but fear the rabbit even more... 

 

Seriously looking forward to it! 

 

Maybe we should do a Holy Grail mod?  The Holy Hand Grenade can be unlocked with the Book Of Armaments...

 

Only if we can find a champion named Brave Sir Robin.

Reply #29 Top

Quoting Alstein, reply 26
but I don't think anyone is doing a base game rebalance mod.

I thought that was supposed to be master of affliction mod.

Reply #30 Top

1.1? Great news! There's something inherently magical about this game which keeps me playing it on and on. Thank you and keep up the good work, please :inlove:

Reply #31 Top

Quoting JLoerinc, reply 31
1.1? Great news! There's something inherently magical about this game which keeps me playing it on and on. Thank you and keep up the good work, please

Oh yes, I'm in love with this franchise. Wish it a long and fruitfull life with alot of support and expansions. :D

Reply #34 Top

I claimed a free copy. I finally had some actual time to play this week.

 

 

 

 

 

*hands over his soul to Frogboy*

 

A deal is a deal. Thanks. Now give me extraordinary large maps, and more magical research.

Reply #35 Top

Hope this update fix the path finding bugs like I submitted here:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/437424

In order to finish my game

 

And lastly, a random plug for those of you running Windows 8.  You may already be familiar with Start8 which brings back the Start menu in Windows 8.  We just released Decor8 today which allows you to change your backgrounds in the Start screen (yea, Microsoft doesn’t let you use your own backgrounds for this for some reason by default).

 

Oh! I have a better solution ... don't use windows 8.

This is why I switched to linux, I did like where windows was going.

 

 

Reply #36 Top

Good morning,

I was a initial purchaser of war of magic and have been immensely gratified by your company's ethics with regards to fufilling your stated goals.  When you provided me with Fallen Enchantress I was very skeptical after the dissappointment of War of Magic.  Fallen Enchantress does not dissappoint in any regard, except one.  I know you have had Forum posts on this but I figured I would put in my two cents.  Multiplayer.  Both War of Magic and Fallen Enchantress were initially billed as multiplayer.  I bought the game in order to play with my friends and although the single player experience is very good, I still would greatly appreciate it if you finished your immense commitment to this game and to the community by finishing this feature as well.  I of course have no idea what market forces are at play here and have no idea how many "more" units you will sell by completing this feature.  I just know this would be the last step in fufilling your written (initial) commitment on what this game would be.

 

 

Reply #37 Top

Quoting Alstein, reply 1
How many free copies were claimed BTW?  Curious on that.

I heard somewhere they've given away around 100,000 copies to Elemental early-adopters, so 200,000 combined isn't a bad number for an independent title.

Reply #38 Top

Both War of Magic and Fallen Enchantress were initially billed as multiplayer.  I bought the game in order to play with my friends and although the single player experience is very good, I still would greatly appreciate it if you finished your immense commitment to this game and to the community by finishing this feature as well.

 

From my point of view, a game that takes 20+ hours to finish is not multiplayer friendly. A multiplyer friendly game would have to last at most 2-3 hours in a single player game to be playable as a multi-player game.

Reply #39 Top

Quoting larienna, reply 39

From my point of view, a game that takes 20+ hours to finish is not multiplayer friendly. A multiplyer friendly game would have to last at most 2-3 hours in a single player game to be playable as a multi-player game.

Certainly entitled to your opinion however I respectfully disagree. I and others here play multiplayer strategy games regularly over many sessions which far exceeed 20+ hours in total length.

Reply #40 Top

Quoting crsweeney, reply 40

Quoting larienna, reply 39
From my point of view, a game that takes 20+ hours to finish is not multiplayer friendly. A multiplyer friendly game would have to last at most 2-3 hours in a single player game to be playable as a multi-player game.

Certainly entitled to your opinion however I respectfully disagree. I and others here play multiplayer strategy games regularly over many sessions which far exceeed 20+ hours in total length.

 

Multiplayer is ok but also restrictive. Lets just make this the best single player game it can be first I say. Not everything has to be multiplayer some of us like to play by ourselves ;)

Reply #41 Top

This will probably be wasted down here in the comments but to any game developers: the best time to release a game in terms of a "dead zone" in coverage is early to mid august. It might have been a fluke, but when I was monitoring the press from june to November in 2011, it seemed like around that time there were very few reviews and lots of preview articles for games next month or fluff articles meant to fill the gap.

 

Reply #42 Top

It's funny and kind of hypocritical of me to say this, but I agree that a turn based strategy game that takes 20 hours to complete would not be a good game to play multiplayer.  I believe that at the same time I spent many weekends playing Romance of the Three kingdoms with friends as a kid, and at this moment I am in months long games of Dominions 3.  Most TBS games have to be designed with one of those modes as primary in mind and if they have the other mode, it's distantly secondary.  It's either a multiplayer game that has a single player component, or a single player game that also support s multiplayer.  

Reply #43 Top

Quoting crsweeney, reply 40

Quoting larienna, reply 39
From my point of view, a game that takes 20+ hours to finish is not multiplayer friendly. A multiplyer friendly game would have to last at most 2-3 hours in a single player game to be playable as a multi-player game.

Certainly entitled to your opinion however I respectfully disagree. I and others here play multiplayer strategy games regularly over many sessions which far exceeed 20+ hours in total length.

Oh the days of HOMM3 maps where my friends and I played it out over the course of a month.

Reply #44 Top

Quoting UmbralAngel, reply 42
This will probably be wasted down here in the comments but to any game developers: the best time to release a game in terms of a "dead zone" in coverage is early to mid august. It might have been a fluke, but when I was monitoring the press from june to November in 2011, it seemed like around that time there were very few reviews and lots of preview articles for games next month or fluff articles meant to fill the gap.

 

 

It's dead because game industry-sponsored studies have shown most people are away on vacation in the summer months.  (And no, I can't put my hands on one, just now.  It was shown to me about 8-9 years ago when I doing an interview with some industry bigwig for a magazine.)  That's why nobody releases then.  Conversely, nearly everybody is buying gifts for the holidays in October through December, which is why so many games are released at that time.  You might sum it up as a belief that although a game publisher would have a larger piece of the consumer pie in August, the pie itself is just a crumb.  While you'll definitely fight for position in November, the pie is very large, and, well, extremely rich.  At least, that's the theory.

Reply #45 Top

Quoting Alstein, reply 1
I think you guys do need to tackle the balance issues at some point.   I'm hearing more criticism of the balance from friends/boards over criticism of what's under the hood.

I completely disagree.  Balance is not necessary, in fact I think it ruins turn based strategy games.

 

Quoting Lord, reply 6
I would love if we had the option of predefined starting locations for the map.  Would be awesome.
  I truly hope this is an option.

Reply #46 Top

The problem with balance, is the use of the word balance.  It seems to mean different things to different people.  Danger: Hyperbole ahead!!!

In WoM, I would ask, "Why do my soldiers who sword and board do 1 point of damage while the ones that use 2 handed weapons do 100K points of damage?  Why would I ever use a one handed weapon and shield?"  To me, that is a balance issue.  Bad balance takes away choices, good balance makes multiple choices viable.

Reply #47 Top

I just hope path-making will be addressed ....

With a time, and toughest modes showing up, it gets more and more frustrated with troops going wrong way on a very wrong moment ...

Reply #48 Top

Where do we sign up to beta test up and coming releases and patches?

I've never beta-ed before but I would like to participate formally.

Reply #49 Top

Quoting Alstein, reply 26
...Another issue is growth is largely irrelevant as you reach the food caps so quickly.

Based on my first three games, I would have completely agreed. However, in my last game, I have found growth structures to be helpful. This is because game 4 has lasted longer, and I developed better food supplies. I am not making this point to prove the poster wrong but rather to point out how some things might at first seem worthless until you realize later in certain circumstances they make sense.

Of course, I may end up playing an even longer game, and find myself once again agreeing with Alstein's original point! Trying to discover what is worth it (or when) is one of the fun features of this game.

 

Reply #50 Top

Quoting Lord, reply 47
The problem with balance, is the use of the word balance.  It seems to mean different things to different people.  Danger: Hyperbole ahead!!!

In WoM, I would ask, "Why do my soldiers who sword and board do 1 point of damage while the ones that use 2 handed weapons do 100K points of damage?  Why would I ever use a one handed weapon and shield?"  To me, that is a balance issue.  Bad balance takes away choices, good balance makes multiple choices viable.
  I agree with that.  I guess I hear balance I think they want to change Pariden because they are the weak faction.  I do not mind one faction being stronger then another.  In fact, I think it is more fun to play the weaker factions.

As far as balance, I still think the worst "balance" issue in the game is how powerful Champions are.  Compared to the Sovereigns, they are the same and I don't think they should be.  Now you can erase their injuires with a very cheap potion which makes them every bit as powerful as the sovereigns.  In some case more they are more powerful.  To me this completely breaks the lore of the game.