Greetings!

We’re hoping those of you who got the early edition of the game are having a good time with it.  We’re on the chat channel (you can get to it in game by hitting Shift-Tab).

Some modders have already submitted some really cool maps which you can get to by hitting Shift-Tab and clicking on Mods.

We have a pretty big list of new things for the day 0 version over what was in the “gold” version that some people got and the pre-day 0 that we put out last night for those who pre-ordered and the beta group.

So here’s what to expect:

• Lots of new Seed maps
• Fixes for some crash issues that have been reported
• There is an Alt-Tab crash issue on ATI cards that we have a call in to AMD about (the game uses a particular driver feature that is having an ugly side effect). If you can, run the game in a window (if you run it at the same resolution as your desktop, it effectively is the same as full screen).
• Lots of little polish things being fixed, particular in tactical battles with regards to camera control and such.
• Some various balancing tweaks here and there.

Stay tuned!

Waiting to play Elemental? Come visit and hang out with us while they upload it to the servers around the world for you to download.

The official release date of Elemental is August 24th. However, some retailers have broken the street date and to make sure that those who helped us in the beta as well as those who pre-ordered it don’t miss out, we are going to release a pre-day 0 version of Elemental tonight.

This version is beyond the digital gold version that reviewers currently have but it is not quite the day 0 version either.  There’s been a lot of polish, tweaks, and other improvements to the game in this version.

If you did happen to get Elemental early from retail, you will want to load up Impulse (which was installed) and update to the latest version.

This version should go live in approximately 90 minutes.

Hi guys,

We're play testing through a pre-day 0 version of Elemental. It is beyond the digital gold version but it isn't day 0 either.  We hope to have it up in the next couple of hours.

Stay tuned.

Update: And we do plan to make it available for pre-order users today too.

Rise of the Paladins

The Order of the Paladin was the result of the miracle at Hinern. The mighty Crusaders, armed with the best Capitar could offer, had fallen almost instantly in battle while the Channeler, Roland alone had brought low the mighty Emperor of Yithril.

A whole sale movement towards equipping soldiers with magical equipment had thus grown to fruition with the Order of the Paladin being the result.

The 23rd year of Roland’s reign..

The Empire of Yithril had constructed Hinern in such a way to bottle up the fledgling Kingdom of Capitar [AI note: That’s right, the shape of your city does have strategic importance and the AI does and will make use of that].

The known world

Umber a friend, but not an ally.

… Time

Passes…

Roland’s second daughter, Kalypso had grown up.

And a powerful sorceress she would become.

Resolve had also grown.

A break down of how it is researching so much

A Dance with Dragons

  So powerful had Roland’s daughter become that it was said that even the mighty dragons preferred her company.

But in truth, Roland, having mastered the art of diplomacy, had put great effort into seeking out and gaining the trust of the legendary creatures.

[Developer’s note: We have since tweaked the defense of dragons to be somewhat higher]

Dragons are immensely powerful but one little known fact about them, they are expensive to keep fed. Over 6 gildars a month was spent feeding them.

And so it was with dragons and other creatures of might that Kalypso, the most powerful Channeler of her generation, marched to war to deal with the menace of Yithril once and for all.

You can see a quick video of the dragon and Kalypso approaching here:

http://screencast.com/t/ZDZlNzFk

And the battle:

Only Kalypso would survive the battle.

“Perhaps,” Roland said to his daughter, “If we cannot defeat them on the battle field, we can starve them out.”

We are getting reports that the street date for Elemental has been broken. This is one of the downsides of being an indie, we lack sufficient retail clout to get retailers to take our street dates seriously apparently (same thing happened for Demigod).

As a result, we plan to make Elemental available to beta testers TOMORROW (Sunday) as well to pre-order customers ASAP (either tomorrow or first thing Monday).

However, because I have to re-task the IT team to do this, I'm going to have to have us delay the multiplayer server availability until later this week - Tuesday - the original release date - or Wednesday in all likelihood).  It won't affect the single player, campaign, or modding. 

Note: This part of the AAR is being run with the Day 0 build so you will see features that weren’t in the gold edition

Yithril vs. Capitar Climax

For years, Roland’s kingdom of Capitar had grown at the expense of the Empire of Yithril. Emperor Verga had been occupied with events in the west.  When his son was killed in battle, he began to revisit the “Thief in the East” issue.

The battles would go on for over two years.

Even Verga’s wife would come out to fight [AI note: Going to make it so that the spouse doesn’t come out, especially if she has no weapon].

Verga’s wife would escape the battle but the rest of their army was wiped out.  It was then that Roland realized that Verga had moved the bulk of his forces from the West…to the East.

For while Roland was nipping at the edges of the Empire of Yithril…the Empire of Yithril had conquered the Kingdom of Gilden.

Veterans of War

As the war progressed, both sides were able to recognize the considerable [to the point we thought it was a bug] benefits of experience.

With experience came durability. Veterans knew how to survive far better than raw recruits. As a result, the hardened veterans began to be seen as a valuable resource onto themselves.

The wealth of the kingdom was going into combating the growing westeron threat. Yithril had taken Haru and lost it. Roland had put out the word that the Kingdom

Verga meets Roland

The two Channelers would meet in battle. Sorcerer vs. Sorcerer.

  Roland

Verga

The Kingdom also came with a Catapult

Verga’s Sorcery wiped out Roland’s crusaders.

Roland’s allies, the Black Widow Fiends, had traveled and fought beside him for years. Now, these immensely skilled [level 5] friends were down to two.  The situation had become so desperate that Roland himself had to enter the field of battle…

A NOTE FOR PLAYERS:

Risking your sovereign when attacking enemy territory is VERY RISKY.  YOU SHOULD NOT DO THIS.

IF you (The player IS the sovereign) die in battle in enemy territory you die. It is over.

Roland has an escape route. He could safely leave the battle and fight another day.

The catapult finished off the heart of Yithril’s force.

 Roland’s Wilding ally was down too.

This was one of those moments that could change the course of the world.

Only Roland and his catapult remained. Out of mana, he had no spells up his sleeve. However, Verga was out of mana as well. His morale and that of his catapult were low [which is a penalty on attack].

Yithril still had for soldiers in the battle including Verga himself.  Roland knew he might not ever have another chance.

Roland decided to fall back at first. Could the catapult soften Verga up enough to even the odds?

Morale was getting dangerous.

[AI note: He should go after the ranged unit first]

Roland vs. Verga: ONE ON ONE! 

VERGA FALLS! 

VERGA ESCAPES!

[The Stardock dev team actually watched this live as it was pretty bloody exciting actually]

Yithril had lost its eastern fortress.

On Monday and Tuesday we’ll be on the Elemental chat channel (you can get to hit by hitting Shift-Tab once you’re in the game and going to the chat area).  There we’ll be answering questions, providing suggestions and just generally hanging out to help you get the most out of the game.

We look forward to seeing you!

Continued from Part 3…

…Time
        Passes…

Roland’s Children began to grow up.

Sandra had inherited her mother’s fire red hair.   Word of her beauty (and power) spread through the lands.

Roland was torn on what to do but for the good of his Kingdom, he would arrange the marriage.

Welcome…to the family…son.

Meanwhile, alliances had been made.

The Final Confrontation with Yithril

To be continued…

I speak to you now as a gamer. A person giving his own personal opinion of Elemental's multiplayer experience.

I don't find Elemental's multiplayer in 1.0 to be fun in general. Elemental was designed as a single player game that happens to have MP. And this has come through in the final version. 

There is one exception: Playing 2 people as part of a team vs. AI players is fairly fun. But playing against random players is just an exercise in frustration. This is a game that requires a significant amount of time investment and too many random games will end in dissatisfaction in my opinion.

I do think the game has potential with a group of friends playing together. But I don't think it's there  yet. I think it'll take more time and more thought to do this.  

Here is what Stardock will need to do, and plans to do, in order to make MP more enjoyable:

#1 Local Servers.

On day 0, all MP games will get their data from dedicated servers that Stardock has put in place around the world. We are doing this to eliminate connectivity issues. Connectivity marred the launch of Demigod and it is my opinion that if we had had dedicated servers in the first place, Demigod would have had a much better experience. (as opposed to having a particular individual host a game).

However, in the mid-term to long-term, Stardock WILL be providing custom servers so that people can mod up their own games and put them on their own networks to host games.  The priority this is given will depend on the demand of course but regardless, it is something I will be insisting be done because I really think that the best long term success path for Elemental is in letting users take Elemental and do cool and interesting things to it.

#2 More Multiplayer Game Options.

I would like to see the tactical battles take on a life of their own.  The day 0 multiplayer does not have tactical battles in them. We took them out. Yes, in an ideal world we could have made this an option, but anyone who has been on a forum for any amount of time knows that you'd still have people flaming us who found tactical battles boring because while the other guy was fighting some drawn out battle, they were stuck watching it.

I don't have any ready ideas on how to make this better except to say that I would like to see tactical battles made into a seperate game mode where players pick their units before the game and then go up against other players with those units.

This is an idea we'll have to think about more and see when or if it can be implemented at a reasonable cost.

#3 LOTS more game play styles

I don't really have any good ideas on this as I don't generally play TBS games in multiplayer (even with friends). We play a lot of Settlers of Katan here and Twilight Imperium as board games but I think we will have to look at more game modes (and these can be made available in SP as well) to help make MP more fun.

My advice would be this: If you are buying Elemental primarily for MP, don't. It has it. It works. But IMO, it's not worth $50 to play the game MP primarily.  If you like MP in ADDITION to having a fantastic single player game (and make no mistake, Elemental, as a single player game, is awesome in its release form) then absolutely, get it.

So there's my 2 cents.