Stardock's last chance... Elemental: Fallen Enchantress released

[Haba]

Stardock has never needed to make games. Even today, their Win8 start menu replacement is where their money is at.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

The game sold 50k two weeks in, apparently enough to warrant an expansion early next year.

And now the Great Satan is claiming it's "Rushing toward the 100,000 units sold mark".
http://forums.elementalgame.com/437482

Why does bad video game sell? WHY DOES BAD VIDEO GAME SELL?

 

[DakaSha]

Because hes good at marketing and bad at game design

 

[mediocrepoet]

Why does bad video game sell? WHY DOES BAD VIDEO GAME SELL?

Don't you buy all sorts of terrible shit only because it's on Steam and on sale? I'd have figured you, of all people, would know the answer to that.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Why does bad video game sell? WHY DOES BAD VIDEO GAME SELL?

Don't you buy all sorts of terrible shit only because it's on Steam and on sale? I'd have figured you, of all people, would know the answer to that.

That's a good point, but Fallen Enchantress has only gotten down to $20. Wouldn't have thought that would scoop up that many people.

 

[Metro]

$5 or bust.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Posted this in the screenshot thread, figure I'll re-post it here since Elemental and general Stardock-ness.

Finished my first game of Fallen Enchantress. Was greeted by the credits. Noticed a little somethin' somethin' near the done button.

If you click "Continue the adventure!" it takes you here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345517865/



And as a non-screenshot thread bonus, quick thoughts on the game after playing a match on easy to learn it. Seems fairly promising, more interesting than I was initially afraid. Still convinced Warlock's the better game but I could see Fallen Enchantress theoretically being enjoyable. Just tromping around the map hoovering up adventures/XP/loot is kinda satisfying. I'm not convinced the empire/city management is up to snuff. Still, it was my first time playing it and on easy difficulty on a tiny map so I wasn't in for a long haul.
Edit: Oh yeah, and that faint praise is fairly encouraging for a Stardock game from me. It gave a better impression than I expected.

 

[hoverdog]

just go play Eador. Trust me.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

just go play Eador. Trust me.

 

[DakaSha]

just go play Eador. Trust me.

Acceptable answer to 99% of threads

 

[Angelo85]

Just go play Eador: Masters of the Broken World once it's out on Steam

Fixed that for you guys since there are no games outside of Steam according to Golden God Gaben's disciple numero uno :p

 

[MetalCraze]

Don't you worry bro. Soon Bruticis will be the new king and Cow's name will be remembered only by dusty pages of the antique history books.

 

[Metro]

$5 or bust.

 

[Deakul]

Tempted to pick up for $20.

Are the different civs you play as unique enough to actually warrant one than one playthrough?

 

[hoverdog]

Tempted to pick up for $20.

Are the different civs you play as unique enough to actually warrant one than one playthrough?

Don't do it.

And no, they're even hardly different.

 

[Misconnected]

Yeah. But the game is still a bit buggy, the tech trees need a little re-balancing, the map generation is too random, the AI is still a fucking idiot, and magic/questing is still overpowered.

Right now it's kind of like Civ3 in all the wrong ways. I'd suggest holding off until the expansion comes out.

EDIT:

And no, they're even hardly different.

Wut?! Both factions and races are unusually distinct for a 4X. The same'yness problem is rooted in the tech tree, not the races. Specifically, the problem is that good long term strats are too few, to difficult to switch between, don't counter each other hard enough, and are so dissociated from match-setup type stuff that they mostly all work equally well for everyone under all circumstances.

 

[Mortmal]

And as a non-screenshot thread bonus, quick thoughts on the game after playing a match on easy to learn it. Seems fairly promising, more interesting than I was initially afraid. Still convinced Warlock's the better game but I could see Fallen Enchantress theoretically being enjoyable. Just tromping around the map hoovering up adventures/XP/loot is kinda satisfying. I'm not convinced the empire/city management is up to snuff. Still, it was my first time playing it and on easy difficulty on a tiny map so I wasn't in for a long haul.
Edit: Oh yeah, and that faint praise is fairly encouraging for a Stardock game from me. It gave a better impression than I expected.

Yes and thats the problem , theoretically enjoyable, when you can get a game completely enjoyable from start (although running poorly on windows 7) for a few euros : eador . I need someone to explain how is it possible that a lone russian guy succeed in making something nearly comparable to master of magic and the best heroes of might and magic , something that makes me want to play an other turn at 3 am in the night, while a whole team after a long development cycle and one major fuck up can not still . Theres not that subtle alchemy you get in good 4X , i dont know the recipe, maybe a mix of gampelay, art direction and concepts, i am just noot hooked by fallen enchantress and still get bored really fast and little replayability as every civs is the same .

 

[Deakul]

Guess I'll definitely hold off and see what happens with the expansion or if they actually patch the game up a bit.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Posting this here as well as the Steam thread 'cause reasons.

Updated Fallen Enchantress impressions. Second game played was on a medium map with 4 or 5 other kingdoms and the difficulty and AI set to "Challenging" (Which the game says is full AI with no additional benefits/resource cheats). Took longer but I won. AI didn't show any particularly intelligent behavior at all unlike a Warlock opponent which at least tries coordinated attacks from multiple angles and shit. Was certainly harder than my tiny easy game, but that was mainly because the AI wasn't crippled on the economy side and was able to expand about as well as me. During combat and even outside of combat the AI wasn't very good about probing for weaknesses or attacking from multiple angles. Still had a good time though. Game isn't complete shit, and given some more patching (And maybe an expansion or two, it seems light on content since it doesn't go for/feel as much of a stripped down wargame as Warlock) it could be good. As it is it just seems pretty decent. Will say I like it more than Endless Space.

One odd thing that happened was this. http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/884096207739961787/26689000AFC8158B3EBB74148E4C10B11C79A086/ An AI player offering me 44 gold so the same AI player could give me 10% of her annual income (Despite the tooltip saying I was the one paying the tribute). I thought that seemed pretty majestic when it happened, but I learned a few more things as I played that made it make a little more sense. When you give someone tribute, that treaty lasts for 30 turns. During that time the person you're giving tribute to can't declare war. It's kind of a paid-for non-aggression pact. As you can see by the kingdom scores, Resoln was pretty weak at the time. And on top of that I noticed their leader got the "I am insane" listing in the diplomacy area which apparently comes from a ritual you can do which makes the character insane but increases spell power. I'm not sure if the insanity trait has an impact on the diplomacy AI beyond the -2 reputation which was listed, but maybe.

Edit: Oh, one thing I forgot to mention which seemed a bit odd, all the empires got clustered tighter on the map than seemed necessary. Everyone bumped into everyone else and started conflict off while there was a fairly large chunk of world map left to itself full of goodie huts/adventures/monsters, which everyone ignored because NEED THEM TROOPS FOR THE WARS. Not sure if that was by design or if I just got an odd random map or what.

 

[taltamir]

So i got the free version... then i start the turorial... and after killing some monster.. and with almost nothing about the game explained it cuts to a credits sequence with a button that says 'continue the adventure!'

Of course i would like to continue the fucking tutorial so i click it.... what happens you ask?

I get linked here: http://www.amazon.com/Elemental-Destinys-Embers-Bradley-Wardell/dp/0345517865

Thats what fucking happens

When you win a scenario map, you are given a little "you won" dialog which varies based on how you won (quest, super spell, conquest, etc). And "continue the adventure" link to buy the setting book

What you encountered is a well known issue/bug (people argue on whether this needs to be fixed or not). you see, the AI is not actually immune to being attacked by monsters. So a few turns into the game a powerful monster randomly wondered into the AI capital and wiped them out, resulting in you achieving conquest victory before actually completing the tutorial.

 

[DakaSha]

So i got the free version... then i start the turorial... and after killing some monster.. and with almost nothing about the game explained it cuts to a credits sequence with a button that says 'continue the adventure!'

Of course i would like to continue the fucking tutorial so i click it.... what happens you ask?

I get linked here: http://www.amazon.com/Elemental-Destinys-Embers-Bradley-Wardell/dp/0345517865

Thats what fucking happens

When you win a scenario map, you are given a little "you won" dialog which varies based on how you won (quest, super spell, conquest, etc). And "continue the adventure" link to buy the setting book

What you encountered is a well known issue/bug (people argue on whether this needs to be fixed or not). you see, the AI is not actually immune to being attacked by monsters. So a few turns into the game a powerful monster randomly wondered into the AI capital and wiped them out, resulting in you achieving conquest victory before actually completing the tutorial.

 

[Metro]

Guessing Eador will probably trump this, too. Multi-headed Cow would you say it's better than Warlock?

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Guessing Eador will probably trump this, too. Multi-headed Cow would you say it's better than Warlock?

Haven't played Eador so I couldn't compare it to either, but FE against Warlock... I'd say Warlock's better. FE has the potential to be better but it just isn't there yet. As a wargame it's destroyed by Warlock's fairly elegant simplicity, and Fallen Enchantress' other aspects aren't enough to prop that up. However like I mentioned above I still enjoyed it well enough, and if they added piles of content to the game and made it a big soupy mess of RPG/strategy hybrid it could be even better, but eh.

$5 or $10 and it'd be ok for a few games. $15-20 if you're really desperate for more fantasy strategy. It is different enough that I'd still recommend it despite liking Warlock better. And there's the possibility FE will improve since they're still working on patching it and supposedly are going to put out an expansion and/or content DLC. Still, at the end of the day I enjoyed playing a couple games of Warlock quite a bit more than a couple games of FE.

 

[Metro]

Wow... looks like I won't be bothering with FE then!

 

[Snerf]

Personally, I'm enjoying FE more than Warlock. It's hard to put my finger on, but I get enough rpg elements that the game has more appeal. With Warlock, I finished one skirmish game and felt like I've done and seen everything. I also like the separate combat screen more than the Civ5 style world map hex combat.

I'm not saying it's awesome, but I do enjoy it more than Warlock.