Journals
Dev Journal
Are you a human? Are you SURE?
One of the first things we're going to be beta testing for Elemental is a new way of doing computer AI. As some of you know, the main reason I got into development in the first place was to write computer AI for games. Elemental is an opportunity to try some new things. For example, the initial betas of Elemental are going to require the user to be on the Internet to play. The reason is that the computer AI won't be inside the game itself but instead be implemented as AI play... [read more]
News
Elemental Preview from Examiner.com
Examiner.com’s “Game Examiner” takes a look at Stardock’s Elemental: War of Magic, and gives his take on Elemental. A quick excerpt: “Stardock has already conquered the world of space with their strategy hit Galactic Civilizations, and now it looks like they are setting their sights on the realm of magic. Elemental: War of Magic is a turn-based strategy game set within a magical realm where players can duke it out with both armies and magical spells, so... [read more]
Dev Journal
Unlimited expansion by us and the players
Some of the concepts we're talking about will be hard to envision without actually having the game but one of the real innovations we're trying to introduce with Elemental is the concept of unlimited expansion. The key to this is not hard coding civilization capabilities but rather leaving them open-ended. So let me start at the beginning: When someone first gets into Elemental, the relationships will be simple between things. A player who wants to design a horse mounted knight wi... [read more]
Dev Journal
Things are moving forward quickly. Seeing a drake, in battle, up close and personal is really cool. One thing that I believe is going to make a huge gulf between Elemental and what we've seen before is that Elemental is a 4X strategy game designed and engineered in an age where decent 3D acceleration is the norm which means we can do a lot of cool stuff in terms of UI, game mechanics, and game play. In the meantime, here are some new medallions: ... [read more]
News
Game-addicts.com on Elemental: War of Magic
Game-addicts.com posted the Elemental: War of Magic announcement news, and also gave their impressions of it. “Since no man is an island, Elemental: War of Magic also does feature multiplayer modes which comprise of traditional skirmish modes and a persistent universe mode (I wonder what that means). The flexibility of submitting your own maps, items, creatures, races, technologies, spells, buildings, environments and much more from right within the game makes the game it... [read more]
Dev Journal
Elemental, like Galactic Civilizations, will have a very in-depth single player world. In fact, in terms of the single player game, it will have a lot more "stuff" to it than GalCiv had (such as a virtual persistent single player opponent which we'll talk more as time goes on). But it will be in multiplayer that we really hope to bring new fans to the genre. I love multiplayer games. But I am not an advocate of them in terms of taking resources up from the single player... [read more]
News
Neoseeker.com on Elemental: War of Magic
Neoseeker.com gives their take and initial reaction on the announcement of Elemental: War of Magic. “The story is contained within an "immersive" single player campaign where you are the only person in your kingdom with the ability to channel magic, which you do through mysterious shards scattered throughout the world. The shards are the result of a tremendous cataclysm which occured a century before when "powerful beings waged war across the world" (future prequel/expansion?), ... [read more]