Greetings! It’s that time again where I try to answer some of your questions regarding Elemental, the beta and more.

Q: When is BETA 2 scheduled to start?

A: Beta 2 is the Multiplayer beta of Elemental. We still have quite a bit of work to do in order to have it in a state where it can be provided to the external beta players.

It was originally scheduled for March 18th but has been pushed back to a new tentative date of April 1st.

Q: What sort of multiplayer will BETA 2 have?

A: The initial beta will be very focused on just 1 on 1 MP matches in order to test out the matchmaking. There won’t be custom games in the initial BETA 2.  Instead, a player will logon to the Metaverse, press “find game” and be matched with another player.  The objective will be to see how well the system works as well as kill off any connectivity issues early.

Q: Will BETA 2 be fun?

A: Actually, it should be reasonably fun by that point.  It will be the first update that actually attempts to have some basic balancing in it and enough gameplay elements enabled that the game should start to come together.

Q: What changes from the current public beta do you see (in terms of game play) in Beta 2?

A: We are working to implement the feedback being posted by the beta group. A LOT of that feedback comes in the following areas:

• Cleaned up economics. We want to eliminate the “black box” effect that users have discussed at length.  Hence, cities will no longer provide any innate money, research, or spell points. That will come from what you build.
• A lot more city improvements. Right now, early in the game, there isn’t enough to do. There will be a lot more choices on what to build in order to give players more strategic directions to go into.
• The Dynasty system will be updated such that players can negotiate whose family off-spring goes into rather than females going to the other family and males staying in your family.
• The game mechanics will be a lot clearer in game. By BETA 2, a player shouldn’t feel lost on what they’re doing. Thus a lot of UI changes are being worked on.

Q: Elemental’s economic system seems to change a lot. Why is that?

A: The biggest reason is to test modability. We expect Elemental to allow players to construct their own economic system in mods. The only way to make sure we’re not hard-coding things into the source is to try out different systems.  To put it in RTS terms, modders should be able to make mods that change the economic engine to be like Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander or like Warcraft/Starcraft. 

The other reason is that as we play the game and listen to players, we get ideas on how the game should be played or what is more fun.

Q: What about stability, crashes, memory?

A: This is another requirement prior to beta 2.  For Beta 2, basic memory usage and stability have to be taken care of.

Q: Are there any other blockers?

A: Yes. Beta 2 won’t go out until we feel it is not just technically solid but as a game it is starting to feel like a game and not a tech demo.  The beta 1 series is more like an “alpha”. That is, very very early in the game’s development. The objective has been to talk to players about game mechanics ideas with players having a point of reference.  And from that, we’ve been able to (as beta testers have undoubtedly noticed) make pretty dramatic changes based on that feedback.

Q: Will there be any other beta releases BEFORE Beta 2?

A: Maybe. We are considering having a build that implements more of the game mechanics and such and then have beta testers vote on whether they believe the game is ready for Beta 2.

As preorders are processed and new users begin downloading (and...gulp...playing) Elemental, I wanted to extend words of both welcome and warning to our fellow adventurers....

- You are possibly (or definatly, at the time of this post) downloading the 0.291 build from last Friday. You should be on the lookout for v0.295, which we will be announcing one we get one last bug squashed :)

- These are the last build of the Beta 1 cycle. This meens you'll be playing on the cloth map only, and the major features, while in, are still in a sate of infancy. Beta 2 will bring new content and a maturing of these mechanics.

- These build are prone to crash. We've chipped away at some of the memory leaks, but 100 turns in don't be suprise if your computer is begging for mercy on it's delicate silicone. Autosave is your friend :)

- You won't have fun. Anything emotions that girgle forth that even resemble enjoyment are either the anticipation of fun or straight up gas. And 9/10 times it'll be the latter.

The game, at this stage, is something most companies would desperatly keep under wraps. What we're hoping is that the player input we get at this point outweighs the lack of fun you'll have to wade through for the next few months.

Enjoy!  :)  Feel free to post any comments, concerns, or questions...Brad, myself, and the rest of the team will be around!

  

 

 

 

 

Elemental: Limited Edition

Specifications:

• 18x26” Elemental Poster
• Extended print manual with additional information on the world of Elemental (i.e. 200+ pages)
• Elemental extended musical soundtrack CD
• 18x26” cloth map of the world of Elemental
• Pewter Elemental dragon
• Price: $69.95 (Beta testers will be able to upgrade for $20 + S/H)

The pewter piece dragon

 

New Users: Elemental: Limited Edition

Upgrade option for existing pre-order users: Soon

We’re not kidding about the “Limited” aspect of this. We’re currently only planning to authorize the production of 10,000 of these. But for those of you who, like me, miss the “old days” of Ultima IV and such when games came with big maps, cloth maps and other goodies, here you go.[more]

In Elemental, the player is a unit in the game (the sovereign).  Before the Cataclysm one presumes your character had a life.

What was it?

Each choice has a benefit to it.

Examples:

• Masons get buildings built faster.
• Merchants have more money coming in per turn
• Swindler get bonuses on trade treaties
• Thieves get more loot
• Hunters are able to get "wild game” tiles they can build on.

So what other types of professions would you like to see in and what would be their bonus?

Off the top of my head here’s my quickie list:

• Farmer. (Farms produce better)
• Minister. (Lower upkeep costs)
• Warrior. (Get better troops).

There’s really no limit to the number of professions here other than visual/UI.  So feel free to suggest what you’d like in the game.

If you can’t do something well. Don’t do it.

That’s been my philosophy on game development from the beginning. In Galactic Civilizations, it meant not having any multiplayer. We didn’t have the budget and resources to do multiplayer well. So we didn’t do it.

In Elemental, single-player is our focus. But we have decided to have multiplayer and that means we are going to do make sure it is done right.

Doing turn-based right

Real-Time strategy games do well in multiplayer  because the game continuously moves forward. Players don’t have to wait for other players.  In turn based, players inevitably have to wait and that makes them less ideal.

From a design perspective, having lots of different options for handling turns is going to be our focus.  From a sheer budget point of view, we cannot justify the resources required to do multiplayer if only hard-core grognards are playing it online.

So let’s look at the different options and then we can discuss your ideas on how we can make a turn-based strategy game fun in online multiplayer.

Elemental will be able to support multiple different turn options so we don’t have to pick one (though we will ultimately *default* to one).

Option #1: Traditional Turn-Base

This is where each player gets their turn. They hit the turn button and then the next person is able to move. There is typically a time limit on turns.

Option #2: Simultaneous turns.

This is where all players move at the same time. When done, they hit the turn button. There is typically a time limit involved on turns or a timer that starts when the first person hits the turn button.

 

Brain Storming..

So what are some things we can play around with here? What are some other OPTIONS we could have?

I like the idea of a time bank.  You get N seconds per turn.  If you finish your turn early, you get to add those seconds to your time bank.  If you run out of time, it starts to cost you gold. Like 10 gold per second. If you run out of gold, the turn goes automatically.

There could be city improvements that give players additional time to take turns.

Example:

The default time you get would be based on what “League” you were in.  5 seconds for the “gold” league. “10 seconds for the “silver” league and 15 seconds for the “bronze” league. We’ll talk about these leagues more at GDC.

Player could build a Time Bank improvement that adds 1 second to what they get.

Each second they don’t use, goes into their global time pool.  Players could “cash in” seconds at a rate of 5 gold per second they want to exchange for.

Obviously, the above would be for experienced online players of the game.  Players could choose a variety of options here but what we are looking for is a way to satisfy players who know the game and want to play online with other people and not have it be a long slog.

Time Outs

Certain things would need to stop the clock. Namely, battles.  We are inclined to have tactical battles turned OFF by default for online but players can turn it on depending on their setup. 

Tactical Battle Options would include:

• OFF
• Only human vs. Human Battles
• ON

We will also have a Tactical Battle Threshold for minimum battle rating necessary to turn it into a tactical battle (ranging from 0 to 1000).  You may not want a tactical battle of two soldiers but you might want a tactical battle when it’s two grand armies.

 

Now it’s your turn

A lot of you, like me, have tried to play turn-based games multiplayer. And a lot of you, like me, found them very tedious and not fun because of the pacing.

I like playing mulitplayer RTS games and FPS’s but multiplayer turn based just has never made the cut.  So, what do you think would make it something that would be compelling to a larger audience that you would enjoy?