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

[hoverdog]

Granted Kael has a good record from FFH. Pity his potential apparently went to waste. Well, hes not his own boss any more and it shows....

That's what I don't get. FFH had *the* most diverse and unique races in both concept and playstyle, and yet in Fallen Enchantress all the factions are bland and pretty much the same. What did Stardock do with him, I wonder? Have they only hired him to say "hey guys, we want to get better, so look who we've hired" and locked him in a cellar to prevent him from meddling and putting some soul into the game? Poor guy.

I haven't played Fallen Enchantres, but in Elemental the problem was that the player "designs" its own units as it unlocks new weapons/resources with little variety between the factions and obvious optimal combinations. The system sounds interesting in theory, but practically the unit progression was the same for everybody. Think about the difference between factions in, say, Age of Wonders and then Elemental..I guess art assets are cheaper this way since there is less variety.

Indeed, unit designer is another elemental thing I detest. The concept of this kind of designers is theoretically to promote bigger variety (because everyone can create unique units!), but the effect is contrary: everything looks the same, there is nothing original. It's quite like the Elder Scrolls magic system: yes, you can create your own spells, but they won't have anything unique, just less damage or a bigger radius - any D&D spell selection beats that. Having only units previously designed for each race alone would make the factions better (they did in fact introduce some of this, one unit here and there, a few specific weapons - but it's not enough).

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i gave it a try.
it has surely improved on elemental (but this was very easy to achieve) but i'm still not convinced, it feels... confused, not very well thought out. worst of all, why recruiting the maker of fall from heaven if you don't let him make the various races so extremely different as in fall from heaven?
the best part in ffh is each race being an entirely different game. even with such a powerful empire and hero creator elemental can achieve nothing like that.
a missed opportunity, or did i miss something?

 

[Metro]

Jesus, how could they fuck it up again!?

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Jesus, how could they fuck it up again!?

 

[Damned Registrations]

He owns a company so none of you have any right to criticize him.

 

[OSK]

Elemental was a broken unplayable turd, fallen enchantres is mediocre, its a massive improvment you could say...Its still not fun, ressources location are too random, say you are planning a fire spec+ air mage, too bad theres only a water shard near, oh and you wont get the metal for your troop either. Random monsters avoid IA cities but not yours, IA in overall is poor and cheating, able to build near major monsters without trouble. Units still dull without style, like your sovereign, and quickly obsolete to boot.Magic unimaginative and less than spectacular, tech tree is a ladder.Plenty of poorly though game mechanisms,theres no reasons to not spam cities i could go on and on, its inferior to anything i could play in the last decades.

However the 300 people on stardock forum who answered the poll are ecstatic with it. Except for those few sycophants theres absolutely no reason to buy this game, warlock is indeed superior, although still limted in my opinion.

You keep saying IA. Do you mean AI (Artificial Intelligence)? Or something else?

 

[kentable]

I automatically decode it in my mind whenever I read his posts describing the computer player. A.... I.....

 

[mondblut]

So how FE is different from the original Elemental, anyway?

 

[DakaSha]

Saying IA instead of AI is purist bs people do when they want to sound 'in the know'

 

[Misconnected]

So how FE is different from the original Elemental, anyway?

It's both completely different and exactly the same. It's mostly all the same stuff, but rebuild pretty much from the ground up.

The answer to questions like "why didn't Kael do X" is because FE was always intended to be an un-borked Elemental and the setting was already defined. So most of the stuff people are wondering why Kael didn't do, is stuff he couldn't have done. At least not with this game.

 

[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

 

[Modron]

He owns a company so none of you have any right to criticize him.

Plus he treats women like a true aspie bro.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

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

Thats what fucking happens

Reminds me, there was some drama regarding his wife leaving positive reviews on his book(s? Not sure if there's more than one and too lazy to check) and not saying HEY I'M THE WIFE OF THE AUTHOR in the review. Couldn't find a good link to the drama regarding that unfortunately (Only found a few people referencing it and was too lazy to keep searching) but I did find this informative review on the book!

http://www.unamommer.com/?p=109

This is the story of Elemental, a world that used to be filled with magic until some dudes from outside the world showed up and ruined everything for everyone. There used to be one single continent but now it is split into two that is joined together by a single rickety bridge that is made of magical wood. No, really. Now one continent is filled with nice white people, and the other continent is filled with monsters that were made from humans and the evil, horrible, olive-skinned people who sided with the mutants instead of the white folks, so they are called blood traitors. No, really. The whole book comes down to one Titan wanting to protect the white people from everyone else, and one Titan thinking that they should get the fuck out and let all the varieties of human and monster cohabitate.
No, really.
There’s even a point where one character, the lord of a white person keep built on the non-white people continent, has thoughts on how he would like to resolve the matter.

"Build a fence, he thought. Build a fence, and keep them all inside it. And in the absence of a fence…
The ocean would do."​

Yes, he wants to build a border fence to keep the dark people and mutants out, and if that doesn’t work, he wants to burn the magical bridge. These are the good guys.

 

[Internet]

Sounds like the book is well written:

"The princess, and the boy, whose name, Nym now knew, was Xander, though he had no idea whatsoever who the lad actually was."

 

[circ]

THAT'S, A, LOT, OF, COMMAS.

 

[Spectacle]

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

Could this possibly be any more generic?

At a frontier outpost on the fringes of the civilized world, an orphaned messenger named $PROTAGONIST witnesses the destruction of all he knows at the hands of the $EVIL_ARMY, the great enemy thought vanquished during the $EPIC_WAR.

Abruptly, $PROTAGONIST’s life is changed forever. Now he must seek out an ancient artifact of legendary power in the hopes that it can stop the $EVIL_ARMY hordes from destroying the entire kingdom. Little does he realize that the hope of all mankind rests on his young shoulders, as powers of unimaginable might set out to stop him at all costs.

Aided by his friend $NPC1, a mysterious thief named $NPC2, and a crafty $MAGIC_USER_TITLE of unknown loyalty, $PROTAGONIST journeys into the heart of the world, where long-hidden secrets will be revealed that could shatter the delicate balance established by the great $EPIC_EVENT a thousand years earlier.

 

[DakaSha]

Bros my first impression of this game is pretty positive i must say (apart from hat advertisement disguised as a tutorial).
Maybe i will come to my senses and realize its a bland piece of shit but after about 1 1/2 hours of playing im fairly pleasantly surprised

 

[Metro]

You keep saying IA. Do you mean AI (Artificial Intelligence)? Or something else?

He means Iowa!

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

So how FE is different from the original Elemental, anyway?

it's bigger and better.
still it's nowhere near fall from heaven 2.
it may have lots of quests and equipment, but it lacks in the awesome replayability ffh2 had with its deeply different factions.

 

[kris]

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

Thats what fucking happens

Reminds me, there was some drama regarding his wife leaving positive reviews on his book(s? Not sure if there's more than one and too lazy to check) and not saying HEY I'M THE WIFE OF THE AUTHOR in the review. Couldn't find a good link to the drama regarding that unfortunately (Only found a few people referencing it and was too lazy to keep searching) but I did find this informative review on the book!

http://www.unamommer.com/?p=109

i followed that link... and it is hard for me to imagine how a adult person can write that badly. I know I might not be the best wordsmith this side of the universe, but those sentences that he shows seems to lack a basic understanding of language. not to forget the lack of understanding of basic storytelling.

Wait, does that link go to something Lesiofere wrote?
EDIT - It wasn't. I just think of her when there are all these complaints about "white people"

 

[Transgressive Grenadier]

 

[Berekän]

Saying IA instead of AI is purist bs people do when they want to sound 'in the know'

afaik Mortmal's french. In french it's "intelligence artificielle" which might've lead him into confussion

 

[Baptismbyfire]

Wow, just reading some articles about the Stardock's owner totally dissuaded me from even considering this game. He sounds like a total manipulative jackass.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Seems that your username is not very fitting.

 

[Mortmal]

Yes By IA i was refering to the clunky few lines of codes sending me generic armies of spearmen with leather armor after generic armies leather armor guys using spears , never using any magic or fantasy stuff. Of course autoresolve with my sovereign army result in a loss...so bland and so boring , the exact same armies and i have to do it in manual each time , no added strategy its just a filler . Also i learned that IA does not move units to finish quests, it just autoresolve them without sending any units at all.