Elemental : War of Magic disastrous launch : stay well away

Rimsy said:
He posted a response to the PCGamer article here http://forums.elementalgame.com/392474 always good to hear two sides to "stories" (especially when its the journalistic joke that is PCGamer ) :)
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I've read the article you linked to, and all he says is "Yeah, PC Gamer was right, but RPS was wrong about the Bill Of Rights, as the URL is old".

PC Gamer seem to have been right on the money on this one. Yes, it's not nice when a relatively small dev gets a kicking (especially when it is as loved as Stardock), but they really have no defense here.
 
Think I will wait for the boxed release to be available in the UK. £45 for the box and download from their site atm is a bit to much.

I am a bit old school and want the physical item.
 
Jezcentral said:
I've read the article you linked to, and all he says is "Yeah, PC Gamer was right, but RPS was wrong about the Bill Of Rights, as the URL is old".

PC Gamer seem to have been right on the money on this one. Yes, it's not nice when a relatively small dev gets a kicking (especially when it is as loved as Stardock), but they really have no defense here.
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Didn't read the same article as me then. The fact the street date was broken meant the patch wasn't 0 day which irons out a fair amount of the issues mentioned. Of course releasing the game unpatched isn't the greatest idea but many games now have 0 day patches including football Manager.

Really all i see is people getting their knickers in a twist over very little. Buy the game knowing there will be plenty of pacthes to support it over the coming months or don't buy it and wait a few months, easy choices but nothing to get too worked up over.

PC Gamer will soon go the way of PC Zone as well.
 
Reemul said:
Didn't read the same article as me then. The fact the street date was broken meant the patch wasn't 0 day which irons out a fair amount of the issues mentioned.
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It was released a day early. So Stardock knowingly released a product that was improperly tested, and was unpatched, in a panic 24 hours early.

That makes their stance so much easier to understand, and excuses them utterly.
 
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Really all i see is people getting their knickers in a twist over very little.
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A gold edition would've been sent to a duplicator well in advance to print copies to send to shops. They would've known that version was a buggy unfinished mess, they put that version into shops to sell to people.

Patching the game is all well and good but does not excuse selling a broken game in the first place. Why not just wait a month or two and save yourself a lot of hassle - that goes for publishers releasing games early and the people who buy Stardock games at release.
 
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http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/08/27/elemental-now-works-old-savegames-now-dont/


Elemental: War of Magic was updated to version 1.06 this morning (UK time), and I’m happy to say the game is finally stable. I haven’t encountered any crashes to desktop since the patch Tuesday night, and the last major issue with the game on our systems is finally fixed. But finish your current game before patching. Unlike the other patches thus far, this one invalidates your existing savegames, including all your progress through the campaign.
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:cool:
 
i was reading PCG's first review of this and I'm intrigued - I'll probably get it but got a few questions. on their website it says it uses games for windows - is that the case? and is it really £32?
 
I've been playing it the last few days and with the latest patch it's stable and pretty enjoyable. It still needs some work but on the whole I've been having a lot of fun playing around in the sandbox game.

It doesn't use Games for Windows, and I'd be surprised if it drops in price any time soon as it's only available through impulse.
 
After having a look at a review for this...


looks like this could be my kind of game :D Quite liked Sins of a solar empire but im more interested in fantasy tbs so this might be right up my street.

Might wait a bit for it to come down in price. Also can you create custom world maps and factions for this? I'm thinking for example...is it possible to create the belgariad/dragonlance(insert favourite fantasy world here) worldmap with all the various factions?
Furthermore is it possible to import custom armous, skins, weapons etc ?
 
Jezcentral said:
It was released a day early. So Stardock knowingly released a product that was improperly tested, and was unpatched, in a panic 24 hours early.

That makes their stance so much easier to understand, and excuses them utterly.
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In their defense, I think this is how it happened:

  • Unfinished version of the game put onto DVDs and shipped out, otherwise they would have had to waita couple of weeks to ship the game after it had been finished.
  • As games have to be registered through impulse, the game will be finished by release, so they will register and get the patch downloaded. Thus, the game will be released finished.
  • Stores start selling the games early, before the patch is ready. Stardock can either a) Keep the registration system offline so people who bought it in a store have to wait 24 hours to play, punishing the consumer. b)Turn registration on just for store bought copies, enraging everyone who pre-ordered digitally. c) Just turn on registration for everyone, essentially releasing it early before they finished the patch, but it keeps most people happy.

They chose option c, which is hardly ideal since they did technically break their bill of rights, but day 0 patch should technically have meant that they wouldn't have broken the bill... though even with that patch it was hardly perfect.

Still, its just a load of ifs, buts and maybes. It was released unfinished, regardless, though through no fault of their own.
 
Surfer said:
Also can you create custom world maps and factions for this? I'm thinking for example...is it possible to create the belgariad/dragonlance(insert favourite fantasy world here) worldmap with all the various factions?
Furthermore is it possible to import custom armous, skins, weapons etc ?
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Yes to all of the above as far as I'm aware, there's already some people discussing those mods in the forums.
 
iviv said:
In their defense, I think this is how it happened:

  • Unfinished version of the game put onto DVDs and shipped out, otherwise they would have had to waita couple of weeks to ship the game after it had been finished.
  • As games have to be registered through impulse, the game will be finished by release, so they will register and get the patch downloaded. Thus, the game will be released finished.
  • Stores start selling the games early, before the patch is ready. Stardock can either a) Keep the registration system offline so people who bought it in a store have to wait 24 hours to play, punishing the consumer. b)Turn registration on just for store bought copies, enraging everyone who pre-ordered digitally. c) Just turn on registration for everyone, essentially releasing it early before they finished the patch, but it keeps most people happy.

They chose option c, which is hardly ideal since they did technically break their bill of rights, but day 0 patch should technically have meant that they wouldn't have broken the bill... though even with that patch it was hardly perfect.

Still, its just a load of ifs, buts and maybes. It was released unfinished, regardless, though through no fault of their own.
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Also, according to Stardock they only had two dates to play with for the retail release (N.America). August or next Febuary. So they chose August, probably for revenue reasons. In hindsight they might of been better off with the other date but we don't know how that would have hurt their cash flow.

At any rate, I paid for it months ago (pre-order beta access) so it doesn't bother me that much. I know the game will be supported and patched til its near perfect for what their vision of the game is and with a good dose of community feedback incorporated.

Funny thing is, even with all the bugs/glitches/balance issues, I've had a ball with this game over the months....normally I'm not very forgiving of companies that shove out buggy games but sometimes you've gotta look at the bigger picture and see the potential and support this will get. I'm more than satisfied that I bought it and in a small way helped an indie dev with this ambitious niche game.
 
AI in this is terrible, no wonder he's taking time off to work on that along with modding this Autumn.

Although I haven't tried it with the latest patches yet, waiting for multiplayer before starting it up again, feels like wasted money at the moment. Although having just read another one of Brad's posts -
Elemental was designed as a single player game that happens to have MP
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source

I'm not holding out much hope :/

Although why I even pay any attention to someone who comes out with stuff like

Elemental, as a single player game, is awesome in its release form
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is bewildering.
 
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iviv said:
Stores start selling the games early, before the patch is ready. Stardock can either a) Keep the registration system offline so people who bought it in a store have to wait 24 hours to play, punishing the consumer. b)Turn registration on just for store bought copies, enraging everyone who pre-ordered digitally. c) Just turn on registration for everyone, essentially releasing it early before they finished the patch, but it keeps most people happy.
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They should have gone with the final option, knowing what of a state the game was in. You aren't punishing anyone, because the consumer had always known the release date.
 
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