Greetings!

Today’s the big day. In fact, 2 hours from now 1.0 will go live.

Now, to save yourself pain and aggravation please do the following: UNINSTALL the beta. Completely.  That also means go into the my games\fallen enchantress directory and rename it to something else (or delete it entirely). Edit: ensuring that \program files (x86)\stardock games\FallenEnchantress is also cleaned out is a good sanity check from after the beta.

Don’t take any chances. Start from a clean setup.

In less than 24 hours, Fallen Enchantress will be released in its 1.0 form! I'm in a bit of shock just thinking about it.  Two full years of development. It's hard to believe how fast the time has gone by.

Around 1pm EST on October 23, the game will be released.  If you order it sooner, it'll be the last Beta (0.99) and it'll upgrade to the 1.0 version.

I went around the office today to interview more people who worked on the game.  Here's their story:

Also, if you want to get a sneak peek at the user manual, here it is: https://stardock.cachefly.net/FE_manual.pdf

We'll have a few more goodies to show off tomorrow. Stay tuned and thank you again for all your support!

As some of you may recall, when Elemental: War of Magic was released in 2010, no one was more vocal or more specific in the shortcomings of that title than QT3's Tom Chick.

Stardock took the criticism of that game to heart when it "reimagined" a TBS fantasy strategy game that ultimately manifested itself as Elemental: Fallen Enchantress.  From the quick impressions:

Stardock has really outdone themselves this time. If you like turn-based strategy games, if you like fantasy, even if you like RPGs, don’t miss this one.

 Read the whole thing here.

Only 2 days left until release

I don't want to sound sappy here but we have been really touched by all the support we've gotten from you guys over the past couple of years that we've been working on this.

One of the motivations for making so-called "niche" games is that we really enjoy our tight knit communities.  We enjoy hanging out with you, listening to your ideas, arguing different game designs, etc.

Earlier today, we went "gold" which simply means 1.0. I like to think that games are never truly finished. They simply ship.  For me, that just means that 1.0 is the beginning of our journey together -- not the end.

In the meantime, let me share with you some of the things we've been doing since the last public beta and 1.0...

New Content

• Trogs don't get +1 attack anymore, instead they have the Berserk ability that increases their attack but does damage each turn
• Added the tough faction trait, +10% hit points for all units, Yirthril begins with it
• Removed the Berserk spell
• Curse is reduced from Death 2 to Death 1
• Added the Shadowbolt spell (Death 2, does minor damage and reduced the spell resistance of the victim)
• Added more tactical maps
• Enabled Fallen Enchantress Scenarios
• Enabled the Workshop

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a missing icon for Zealotry
• Fixed the Hurl Boulder ability
• Upgrading units correctly costs the full resource costs
• You can only select 1 faction weakness for custom factions
• Fixed the likelihood of quests (so they will be better distributed instead of getting the Alchemy, Nobleman's daughter and Rats in the Ruin quests all the time)
• Fixed floating cloaks
• Fixed a pause when using Double Strike with a two handed weapon
• Fixed an issue that can cause a quest location to not have a quest
• Fixed an issue that could cause naked, headless custom sovereigns when restarting a game
• Fixed crash bugs and hangs

Balance Changes

• Spears ignore 50% of Defense instead of 33%
• Reduced the max growth from Undying Curse from 9 to 5 units
• Reduced the level of the named Wilding Shamans slightly and increased their upgraded versions
• You can't get a Maul from a Bone Ogre anymore
• You won't get crude clubs as loot anymore
• Darkling Shamans can cast Shadowbolt
• Troll Shamans can cast Curse
• Reduced the power of Dirge of Ceresa
• Faction traits rebalanced, starting faction points increased from 2 to 3.  The factions stay the same, but it makes it more balanced when creating custom factions
• Binding faction trait split into Binding (elementals) and the Cult of a Hundred Eyes (trainable spiders)
• Enchanters faction trait split into The Decalon (spellbooks and arcane monolith) and Enchanters (magic staves)
• Master Scouts faction trait split into Master Scouts (no terrain costs) and Stealth (ignore by monsters)
• Heroic, Betrayers, Master Smiths and Slave Lords faction traits cost 2
• Removed the blocked buildings from the Slave Lords trait

UI Changes

• Fixed typos
• Fixed a missing string when trying to equip an accessory if you already have one equipped
• Removed the unused context area at the bottom of the custom faction screen
• Removed the unshadowed gap at the bottom of the screen when the intro book is up

I've gotten a lot of questions from people over the past couple of years about why we are giving away Fallen Enchantress to the early adopters of War of Magic. They say people won't remember War of Magic (it was 2 years ago). They say it won't "buy" good will back from those who didn't like WOM. 

It doesn't matter. The reality is, our job is to make some of the world's best PC games. Period. Regardless of the reasons, War of Magic didn't live up to that standard. And since we developed it internally, we had the ability to make good on that.

The budget for Fallen Enchantress was about twice that of War of Magic. I am a firm believer that people DO remember when companies backup their stated beliefs with deeds.. They remember when companies make good on their word. I think that in the *long-run* (and Stardock is one of the oldest non-public game developers in the industry so we think long-term), people will have confidence that we mean what we say: If you buy a Stardock game, it will be excellent.

A huge thank you

Tuesday is the big day. It's hard to believe that in the next week or so we'll have a pretty good idea of the fate of Fallen Enchantress. We hope that people out there like what we've done here.  We have you to thank for it.  Few games have had the opportunity to spend so long in a public, no-NDA beta where people could give their suggestions, criticisms and ideas. The game is better for it. And that couldn't have happened without your help.

We look forward to reading your feedback and deciding together what we should do next with this game that we love so much.

If you're a game developer, you're going to appreciate today's video.

In most games (and by most, I mean, pretty much all) the in game art assets are pre-designed 3D models. That is, when you play Starcraft or Civilization or your favorite RPG, the "tiles" were put together with Maya or 3D Studio or some other modeling program.

The Kumquat engine, and therefore Fallen Enchantress creates its in-game assets through the Tile Editor (where the components were made with Maya and 3D Studio).  

This is a big deal for modders because it means you can create your own quests, goodie huts, improvements, terrain, etc. without ever having to load up a 3D rendering program.  Even better, it's super easy to use.

If you know a modder, show them this video. As a lifelong modder, this is the kind of tool that I always wished I could have so that I didn't have to...you know, have any art skills to create cool new stuff.

Visit www.elementalgame.com to learn more about Elemental: Fallen Enchantress

So far is to run it via Parallels on the Mac.  In that setup, on a MacBook Pro with the way MacOS X Mountain Lion handles full screen it actually almost works.  Now if there was only  a way to make the charms bar less obnoxious.

If you're running a 32-bit Windows XP machine and would like to significantly improve the performance of Fallen Enchantress (and probably other games as well) you can configure it to see more memory than the default 2GB.

Here's how:

http://www.gidhome.com/gid3gb/index.html

Specifically:

Configuring MS Windows XP: add the flag /3GB to the Boot.ini file. To do this just open the Control panel, click on the System icon, on the Advanced options panel, then press the Configuration button of the Start and recuperation section. In this window click on the Edit button inside the System start section and the Notepad will pop-up with the Boot.ini file opened. In this file there should be a line like this:

Before:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

just add the /3GB flag at the end, like:

After:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /3GB

Now save file and reboot

Greetings! With release comes a lot of new people to the forums.  We've created quite a community here over the past couple of years we hope to keep the forums a fun and interesting place for people to discuss topics related to the Elemental game universe.

Below are the rules in no particular order that we ask people to respect and with my own commentary with them as to why they exist.

1. Don't be a jerk. Pretend the other people are in the same room with you.
    
2. Don't drag baggage from other places here. We don't care what you heard about XYZ, we're not interested.
    
3. This is a forum about the game. That doesn't mean you get to vent on how we suck or the game sucks though. Constructive criticism is welcome. Constructive means there's something that could be realistically done about it. Crapping on the game (or other games) is not welcome.
    
4. Do not disclose other people's private info if you find it out.
    
5. Being a customer doesn't mean rule #1 doesn't apply to you. 
    
6. No alternatives or "fake users" allowed. If we catch someone with false information posting, it's instant banning.

That's it.  Just 5 things.  We reserve to lock posts or even hide posts that violate these rules. We'll also occasionally rename post titles in order to make them more specific. 

Only 4 days left!

So let's talk about..The Fallen Enchantress.

Originally, we were going to have a button that said "campaign" and the user would play through it and that would be that.  But instead, we've renamed it "Scenarios" for two reasons.

First, because we wanted to pave the way for additional scenarios in the future that could be added in without needing some "expansion pack". After all, the Fallen Enchantress campaign was created using the built in modding tools. There's nothing stopping modders from making and sharing their own scenarios and we wanted a UI that would support that.

Second, because the campaign plays so differently from the sand box game, we didn't want new players to think of the campaign as some introduction to the game.  The Fallen Enchantress plays far more RPG-ish (it's all about your champions and characters). It's very fun but very different from the main game.

A long long time ago...

There was born a young girl who could tell the future. So powerful was she that the Magi put her in a secure place where great kings could come to ask her advice.  When the Titans came, they destroyed her temple and put her into a deep sleep for the day when all their foes were vanquished and they could exploit her power for themselves.

Of course, the Titans were eventually defeated resulting in the cataclysm that broke the world. But the curse on the Oracle remained and so she has slept for an entire age of the world.

In the west, Queen Procipinee, heir of the King of all the Western realm, recognized the signs that pointed to an old prophecy of the rise the Empire of Sorcery. 

Procipinee seeks to unite the realms of the world under her banner and fears the rise of any rival powers. To thwart this prophecy, she has sent her greatest champion, Relias, into the East to find the Oracle, release her from the curse and find a way to avoid the world being ruled by an Empire of Sorcery. She has told him to seek our her vassal, Kraxis for aid as well.

Stardock's Jon Shafer is the designer of the campaign and fantasy author, Dave Stern, wrote it. And here is a preview of it, shown publicly for the very first time...

As someone who has played PC strategy games since, well, since there's been PC strategy games to play, the thing that often stifles me is the late game.

Often times, strategy games will bog down due to sheer wait time between turns or just collapsing under their own weight in micro management.

Fallen Enchantress attempts to solve this through the use of a multithreaded game state architecture.  What this means is that while you're taking your turn, a bunch of different things get spun off into their own threads. That is, the game multitasks within itself to speed things up.

We did this with Galactic Civilizations to a degree -- there was a background thread that handled the computer players turns.  But in the age where people have multiple CPU cores, we can do so much more.

So each turn, the game will create a thread for each player which includes all their stat updating, AI strategizing and general garbage collection. The more cores you have, the faster it'll get.  

Below is a video of very late game. If you're familiar with 4X strategy games, note how fast turns move despite there being hundreds of turns and 3 other players in the game.

Fallen Enchantress will be released on October 23rd.