Suggestions to make Emental THE game we all want

Hortz, I don't agree

As said, I still enjoy playing MoM, which has very poor graphics for today's standards. My 2 cents.

Alpha is planned to start tomorrow and invites for it have already gone out. If you preorder now you will be in the beta that is shceduled to begin Sept 3-6.

Nice first post, and welcome to the forums. I'll add my thoughts.

Diplomacy. the biggest thing I find lacking in diplomacy in most games is the AI personalities are too static. The belligerent war monger is always the same, the nice helpful guy that wants to be friends is also, etc. Sure they need to be CONSISTENT, but there also needs to be some variation. Lots of things should play into specifically how they react to you. I think each individual AI needs to track things like how much they like/dislike you (like GalCiv2 does and that is visible to the player) but also some things not visible such as - do they trust you, do they respect you (it's possible to dislike someon but still respect them) and possibly other factors that all weigh in on how they react to you and there also should be a bit of randomness - maybe they are having an exceptionally good day, or maybe they just caught their spouse fooling around with their primary hero. Some real depth so you don't just get the same conversation every time you talk to them would be great.

Espionage: already a recently active thread where I have weighed in on this.

Complexity: I can't imagine there being too many spells. The important thing is balance and true variety to what they do, not just different animations that effectively do the same thing. In other areas than magic, the game needs to be DEEP but still fun and not overwhelming for the newcomer. A hard balance to find sometimes.

Don't get me wrong, we'll be busting our asses to make the game visually appealing to everyone we can, but if there's ever a point where we have time to either implement a 'gameplay feature' or a 'graphics engine feature', rest assured we're putting that effort into the gameplay itself.

The fact that people are STILL playing (and loving) Master of Magic, an almost 15 year-old dos game with sprite gfx and almost no animation, speaks volumes to the importance of 'gameplay over gfx' in this genre. Even if we made this the 'Crysis' of the TBS world, Elemental is NOT going to push hardware, so we have to be ever villigant to make a game that works (and plays) across the widest spectrum of machines.

This all means starting simple (the cloth map and the screenshots you've seen so far) and ADDING the polish. If we took the route of making an engine that only runs on pimped out quad-cores 64-bit machines with 16gigs of ram and duel video cards, then worked backwards to see how low we could get the system specs, we'd be committing demographic suicide.

Of course, even if we nail the art style, there will always be people that dont like the visual choices we make...but that's for another discussion entirely. 

Hmmm... Sounds like the fat lady just sang...

I'm pretty sure Hortz is just trolling so I'll address the OP.

I'd much prefer to see advisors that will give you messages that hint at why your standing might be changing such as in your example an Advisor saying that my neighbour is concerned by the nearby army, he is seeing it as an act of aggression.  The level the advisors can help and give info could be related to how much you put in to espionage.  That would be a much more fun way of having diplomacy than Empire 1 is 72% friendly or other such metrics.

Personally I see espionage as an investment and return system.  I can't really see it as a fun thing to have to micro manage it too much, I don't mind investing in different types of espionage such as destructive/disruptive/spying/infiltrating influencing etc.  but going to the level of having to command individual spies doesn't really appeal.

Agree, adding enough depth that I can still learn new tricks a year later but still being able to play a game that I don't have to worry about a million things each turn is exactly what we want.

4) I still play MoM every once in a while, despite his 640x480 vga graphic. The game is GREAT anyway. Elemental will have great graphics, but graphic is not what makes a game GREAT. Remember ASCII-based Moria game? 

I agree.  Would be nice if the graphics are very moddable too so we are likely to see graphics packs with varying styles.

Welcome Simone1977.

I am personally ignoring diplomacy in most games. I find it very boring to do. Most of those systems are either completly gameable, or completly random. I find neither very exciting.

Espionage can be well done, but i find it mostly to much efford for the return in gameplay it brings. Lets face it, you'll need some very dedicated systems to make espionage fun and rewarding, but it will always be just a very small part of the game, dwarved by combat, economy, research, magic, customisation and stuff.

Also be carefull what you wish for. Stardock makes incredible good games, but the Alphas and Betas are (mostly) not funny. In recent Betas i did, i read many posts of people who thought they just could play the game early and then got burned cause nothing was running like it should. Hell, in Demigod i was invited to Beta, but couldnt even start the game until Beta 3. Using non english Win XP never sucked more

I'd really like to see Diplomacy become an interesting way of winning.  Sure, we've always been able to make and break aggression treaties, cause our neighbors to go to/stop war with each other, but in the end just piling up the Alliances gets boring after the first time you do it.  It would be infinitely cool to be able to research different diplomatic tactics, like closed borders treaties, or perhaps even some of the more interesting galactic council events from galciv (their elemental equivalents, of course)

... really I just want to be able to translate "git off mah grass or I'll shoot ya!" into a treaty

Jeez Hortz, give it a rest why dontcha.  Nobody here is buying what you're peddling.  And by peddling, I mean "spamming and trolling over the whole board." 

To the OP, welcome to the boards, and I just wanted to point out, theres a forum for "Elemental ideas", where the Devs are anxious to hear all your suggestions.

I'm not sure that he is exactly...   But I wouldn't say its "high-quality" that is the words he's looking for.    Master of Magic is still fun today, dispite its terrible gfx.   And one of the mean reasons I attribute to that is its still fun to watch.   The animations are fun to watch, even if they are like 5 frames long at 3 frames per second (I exagerate) there is something to be contributed there.  

It SHOULD be playable entirely from the cloth map.   But the cloth map shouldn't feel like there isn't animation; it most certainly should not be boring by any means.  Even from the cloth map the game should feel crisp and fun.    Just with lower system requirements and nothing particularly flashy.

I feel badly that we have allowed Hortz to completely hijack the thread, and manage to turn it into a clone of the one that was locked.

Apologies to the OP and the rest of the board.

Well, what can I say, I immensely enjoyed Fallout 2 and Starcraft yet when I installed them both recently I was disgusted with their visuals and immediately uninstalled them without even trying to play them.

I just can't change the fact that my percepction has changed because the standards have been hugely upgraded.

Nicely put... For some people graphics is everything, on the other hand, there are people who are still playing pure ASCII games like Angband, Dwarf Fortress, ...

And to the OP... Welcome on board...

About the diplomacy, I think the players should have at least the same options as the AI, I hate games where the AI I have a good relation with starts complaining about a scout traveling through it's teritory, while that same AI has a few armies in close to some of my cities, but I don't have a diplomatic option to ask them to get the hell out of there...

Hortz you are not making any friends here.  Your own rant thread got closed and now you are simply taking the same arguments to a different thread, in which the whole content of the thread is a counter to your claim.

I think Elemental could benefit from a "game of thrones" aspect added to its diplomacy. I'm not too familiar with how the channeler/sovereign mechanics work right now, so I don't know if a ruling family or feudal system could work in Elemental's context, but if there could be like a worldwide council established early on in the game (when some tech is researched or whatever) that acts like a highly sophisticated united nations from civ and has its own land like some kind of fantastical papacy a big aspect of the game (which players could choose to ignore based on their strategy) could be trying to manipulate this body to help further the goals of your kingdom. 

Personally, this is the type of game I want to see. Seizing diplomatic power and territory through assassination and intrigue should be a viable strategy, but I understand there may be other priorities to be taken care of in this stage of Elemental's development. I just hope some sophisticated diplomatic body is added at some point in the future (expansion or otherwise). 

Not sure how hard this would be to implement or if it's already in but I think some good voice acting would be a nice touch. We didn't get any in the GalCiv games and it made for a rather 'quiet' game in which you really felt the 'emptiness' of space.

I hate to compare games when a company is making a game because they should always aim to 'make it their own' but I have to mention Anno 1404: Dawn of Discovery. That game has done soooooo many things right when it comes to the singleplayer experience. The campaign is simply marvelous in the way that the missions unfold and how you really feel like there are people in your settlements and not just quiet pixels moving around. It's the small things like in the early quests and missions they give you a good nudge in the right direction of what you should be doing by highlighting buttons or giving you other helps and such. The UI is informative, helpful and non-intrusive. The whole feeling of immersion is awesome in that game.

Tooltips. Another great thing that 1404 is doing and that Civ4 excelled at. Sins did a marvelous job of this as well. Must have good tooltips to help new players get into the game and understand what does what.

So, to sum up (and add some new ones) what I think would make Elemental THE game that we all want (that I want anyways):

1) Voice-acting; give us that feeling of really being IN the world with people that we interact with by voice.
2) Tooltips; Lots of info packed in a tiny bubble. Great for newer players.
3) A campaign with a great story. I don't want to read the story of Elemental in the manual. I want to PLAY the story. And not just a glorified sandbox game.
4) Good music. I've got the Anno 1404 music stuck in my head all day long and I'm not tired of listening to it.

I'm sure there's more I'm not thinking of at the moment. All the stuff mentioned above would be nice but I really enjoy the game when the developer has put in a bunch of the small touches that keep me thinking about the game throughout the day and aching for the time when I can get back into that game world.

The fantasy genre is probably the only genre I would say this about, but Espionage should be left out, and diplomacy should be relatively simple. This is a game of epic proportions, where you can have one army with a dragon in it fighting another army with an archmage in it, in a collosal battle. Having all that undermined by a petty espionage system bothers me.

Diplomacy needs to be there, perhaps even with some depth, but be realistic, it shouldn't go beyond alliances of conveniance. Perhaps 2 fallen nations joining to fight a larger nation of man. But the idea of "ill trade you some of my magic leaf for your red iron" not only sounds lame, but it even goes against the purpose of exploration and finding things on your own

My 2 cents on those topics...

What do I feel the game really needs then? Variety. In spades. Im more than a little dissapointed by how few races there are, and I fear that thier physics system as related to armor and weapons is going to limit the potential game arsenal quite a bit, even if it is cool.

I also understand that magic is going to be tied to a severely limited essence? That worries me too, where is the fantasy without hoardes of spell casters? On the other hand, if they are trying to limit spell casting to make it more meaningful, then good, just don't over-do it.

My last point to belabor is that I would really like to see a growing and evolving world spawn around you. I wan't YOU to make the history and the world as much as the game does. The whole moddifying the land around you to look happy or mean thing isn't going nearly far enough, though it is cool. We need weapons that evolve and become relics, we need some forests to become magical, some ruins to become haunted, etc etc.

MoMer, huh? I for one don't see why you should be forced to take a militaristic stance when you can try alternate ways of winning, which in my opinion are much more fun. This is a TBS, not an FPS: there's more to life than shooting (or swordplay in this case), and the game should reflect that.

endofdayz, the impression I'm getting from elemental is that it's not some overblown warcraft or HoMM-style fantasy extravaganza. I'm getting a much more subdued vibe from it similar to something like The Lord of the Rings or A Song of Ice and Fire. Very human(oid)-centered and all about diplomacy and intrigue amidst a greater conflict. Espionage most certainly has a place here imo.  

I would be surprised if you didn't dissagree with me scoutdog lol.

The game is based around two diametrically opposed forces, good and evil, fighting it out. Diplomacy seems a bit unnecessary, but Espionage just seems out of place. In a setting where you can kill stuff by firing fireballs from your hands and recruit dragons, the "cloak and dagger" technique just seems superfluous IMO. Maybe rouges as heros could have abilities promoting subterfuge, but the idea of manageing a vast network of spies makes me groan. If its anything like most other TBS games, Espionage will feel tacked on and silly.

That said I have always LOVED the idea of Espionage, this game just seems ill-fitting for it. If they did do it, it would have to be done well and intuitively, and who knows, maybe they can, but I just rather other more meaningful featurs got stardocks focus.

Thats your vibe, and you may well be right. You played a good hand mentioning LoTR, as I both love that series and it is all centered basically around what could be argued is a very important Espionage mission (frodo and the ring). However having a "subdued" fantasy game is like having a porche and never driving it; sure it seems like a good idea from one perspective, but you quickly ask yourself "Whats the point then?". Why have magic, epic power, gigantic armies, grand quests, etc when the whole thing can be undermined cloak and dagger style? And why do you believe Espionage will be so fun?

Have you played Civ 4 using spys to primarily further your goals? Its boring and highly innefective. Espionage is usually the art of moving sliders around, checking long boring reports, and maybe sending out agents to do minimal damage. Ever play Med2 total war? The spy and assasin are jokes. The entirety of what they do can be accomplished far more quickly and far more interactively with a decent army.

Maybe I will eat my words, but gaming history is a long series of examples proving my point.

endofdayz, you're right that esponiage was terrible (or at least not good) in the games you mentioned. However, I'll give you an example from Knights of Honor (you may not be familiar with it but it's fairly simple).

I was playing as Wales trying to expand off the British Isles into the mainland. However, the diplomatic nets are too tight, and declaring war on any one player in a time of relative calm would result in an immediate coalition against me. So I marry a princess to the prince of France, and send two spies to infiltrate France's royal court. In Knights of Honor, this is done by another player hiring your spy into his royal court disguised as whatever character that player was intending to hire. Depending on the position (marshall, cleric, landlord, spy etc) your spy has different espionage options. Both my spies are well trained and educated so they have a good chance of success, and are hired as spies by France. I assassinate the king's only heir and then the king, leaving me open to claim inheritance on his lands. Because France is particularly weak, all courts that are kin with France lay claim to some of France's land as well, leaving France with almost nothing and at war with its neighbors, and me with a sizable colony on the European mainland without a drop of blood being shed (until a turn later when the entire area erupted). Note: Knights of Honor is not turn based but you get the jist. 

There are of course other creative examples with this system, like once when I had a few spies hired as clerics in Pamplona (pre-Spain). I converted their populace to heresy and had the country excommunicated, leaving it open for plunder without much consequence. That is a good espionage system. That particular system may not work in Elemental's context, but good espionage has been done and can be done again. 

Indeed. A lot of the espionage detractors claim that military force is always a good alternative. This is simply not the case, and a military-only option exacerbates the problem of exponential growth, where empires that are a little bit bigger become much bigger, and steamroll the game. An espionage/diplo system (that is done well) allows you to stay small, yet be powerful at the same time. Bad starting location? Don't sweat it: go for a spymaster victory!