Elemental War of Magic thread

[thrawn2787]

:siren: [B]This game is not for you FPS junkies out there, this is a 4X game a throwback to early PC games [/B]:siren:

:siren: The game is still in beta :siren:

More information can always be found on the official site and forums here: [URL]http://elementalgame.com/[/URL]

Elemental: War of Magic is Stardock Game's (Galatic Civilization Series, they also [I]produced [/I]Sins of a Solar Empire) next game title.

Elemental : WoM is a 4X turned based game with a fantasy setting based around lore like Lord of the Rings. EWoM's lore is being written by Random House, and there is a novel being written by the president of Stardock games (Brad Wardell). Elemental is also being compared to games like Master of Magic.

Story, quoted from the website:
[quote]
Once, legend says, the world of Elemental was filled with magic.
All peoples made use of this sorcery; with it, they built great kingdoms – Malaya in the south, Hallas in the west, fabled Al-Ashteroth in the East – raised splendid palaces, magnificent civilizations.
Then came the Titans, immortal beings who sought control of Elemental, and the magic contained within it. They waged war amongst themselves, and in the process turned men into their vassals - and worse. Seeking control of the world’s enchantment, in the end, they all but destroyed it. At the last of the great battles they waged, the land itself was broken. Civilization perished, and the Titans vanished from the world entirely.
There were survivors. This is their story.[/quote] In EWoM you play as a Sovereign, an immortal (age -wise) being bestowed with magical powers. Long ago, there were the Titans, magical beings with immense power. Eventually two of them went at it an caused an event called the "Cataclysm" which basically ruined the world. The game takes places generations after that event, but the land is still very much dead and populations of people are spread thin.

You, as a mighty Sovereign, can play for the Kingdoms (all human factions, basically the "good guys") or for the Empires (not just humans, things like "trogs" make up the Empire as well, sort of the "Bad guys"). You can bestow the land with your magic to make it grow again, which will attract people to cities you establish, and thus beings you empire.

EWoM also has many RPG elements, you can outfit your characters (your Sovereign, any of their family that you make down the line, and any Adventurers that you pick up along the way) with any weapons or armor that you find along the way or forge. You can also make armies and design your own units (the AI will apparently design their own units as well).

Speaking of the Sovereigns family, there is a family tree that can go on virtually forever, and you can marry off your children to other factions, and apparently they get very ugly (mating humans and something called a trog is bound to have terrifying results)

[tab](Thumbed for sized)[/tab]
[img_thumb]http://www.elementalgame.com/images/Screenshots/ele_dynasty.jpg[/img_thumb]

Elemental is also going to have extreme modding capabilities (coding will be done in Python for mods). So far there are going to be 4 confirmed modding tools (tile, map, particle, and item editors).

[IMG]http://www.draginol.com/images2009/ElementalModding_B809/image.png[/IMG]
^Tile Editor

The game is still in beta and should be moving into "beta 2" this month. The only way to get into the beta is to preorder off the official site or Stardock's impulse, and then (either way) download it via Impulse. Preodering [B]will not[/B] grant immediate beta access, but at the same time no accounts will be charged for preordering until you get the beta. You will be able to download the beta when they release the next beta phase this month

Features list (this isn't a megathread, there's so much information on this game on their site, the President of Stardock Games regularly makes blogs posts on their forums)

[LIST]
[*]4X game with RPG elements
[*]Create your own faction and units
[*]16 player multiplayer
[*]Can play on virtually any machine (in the "cloth view") but will look extremely good on higher end machines
[*]Combat will be handled in tactical battles (continuous turn based, not completely real time). There will be an option to auto resolve
[*]Huge Research tree
[*]Can have huge family trees ("Dynasties")
[*]Extensive modding support (I expect to see Mordor the in game the day after release)
[*]Huge magic system- Raise land, make volcanoes, use magic in combat, etc
[*]City building, huge research tree, other awesome standard Stardock 4X features
[/LIST]
Artwork / Screenshots (thumbed for size)
[img_thumb]http://elementalgame.com/images/artwork/Ele_Concept_Troll.jpg[/img_thumb]
[img_thumb]http://elementalgame.com/images/Screenshots/Elemental_1251920051.png[/img_thumb]
[img_thumb]http://elementalgame.com/images/Screenshots/Elemental_1251917010.jpg[/img_thumb]
[img_thumb]http://www.elementalgame.com/images/Screenshots/SpiderAttack.jpg[/img_thumb]

[tab]The "Cloth map"[/tab]
[img_thumb]http://www.elementalgame.com/images/Screenshots/Elemental_1251918123.jpg[/img_thumb]

And finally some videos (feel free to subscribe to the stardockgames and Draginol channels, the Draginol Channel is SD's President's youtube channel) :
Latest island testing:
[media][URL]http://youtube.com/watch?v=w0bdOXOkxdc[/URL][/media]

Modding tools
[media][URL]http://youtube.com/watch?v=AEdXvqUG5dI[/URL][/media]

Old beta gameplay with the cloth view (which is still in the game, but it's mostly so you can run it on something like a low end laptop)
[media][URL]http://youtube.com/watch?v=AEdXvqUG5dI[/URL][/media] [URL="http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZmiY5n8gY5A"][/URL]

[Rsam]

This sounds like a neat game. However I'm more in interested in the customization and modding aspect of the game. Other then that this sounds like "a one in a kind" game. Looking forward to playing.

[achickennugget]

It looks like a really interesting game, but I was hoping it'd basically be Sins of a Solar Empire but in a fantasy setting, which it isn't. It sounds like they really care about making the game good though (they said something about how PC games are becoming stale and out of fresh ideas, so they're taking their time to really make this game great).

[Banned?]

I'm really interested in this game. I remember seeing it a few months ago.

Also, Stardock [i]published[/i] Sins, not produced.

[Nabobalis]

Been following this game since it was announced. I can't wait for the next beta update, which will include the graphics engine.

[Mesothere]

Looks really awesome, I'll be following this

[The_Marine]

This is going to be fucking amazing.

[thrawn2787]

[quote]Also, Stardock [I]published[/I] Sins, not produced.[/quote]

My mistake, got my p words confused

[quote] I can't wait for the next beta update, which will include the graphics engine. [/quote]

And multplayer, which I can't wait for. Also can't wait for boats

[quote]This is going to be fucking amazing.[/quote]
And yes it is. Yet another advantage of Stardock being a privately owned company without stockholders to answer to, Wardell can take his time with this game and make it a really enjoyable 4X game

[thrawn2787]

Little bump here;

The new beta was released, which has the full graphical engine. I'm uploading some videos of it now, but until then here's the intro
[hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS9KwkUkETg[/hd]

Be sure to watch it in HD :v:

[achickennugget]

After playing beta 2 for a bit, make sure to tell us what you think of the game. Does it have a lot of strategy involved? Could you play the game for a long time without getting bored? Does it have a lot of replayability? Etc.
Sure, it's just a beta, but I still want to know what you think of it.

[thrawn2787]

Here's the first part, quality is still processing

[hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZrXuDHZjZE[/hd]

And I played it for a few hours today. I find it hilarious and I feel like I have really even seen alot of the features of the game (which is true since alot of them are disabled, like tactical battles).

And in this set of videos an AI declared war on me but I didn't play long enough to really do anything about it.

And it's a 4X game, so unless you like them you might want to stay away (at least until the full full game launches)

[Pinut]

looks really interesting but I don't think I can pre-order this till I see further developments considering the price.

[thrawn2787]

[QUOTE=Pinut;22546097]looks really interesting but I don't think I can pre-order this till I see further developments considering the price.[/QUOTE]

Stardock likes to disable alot of stuff for their betas (see Sins of a Solar Empire, for the majority of the betas we only had one race). It helps them focus on one thing at a time and kink all the bugs out of that area (and since this is the first time the public is getting the full graphics, there's bound to be alot of bugs, memory leaks, and performance issues).

[thrawn2787]

Part 2

[hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ8U9mX0qPw[/hd]

I ended up finishing this game tonight, it was funny. I guess somehow one of the AI killed the other but ended up destroying the other AI's city, rather than conquering it. Meanwhile my Soverign was on an epic journey on some slow as ass ship around the world looking for iron (needed to make units with swords), and I just said fuck it and landed on a beach next to an AI's city. It only had 2 weak units defending it, so I took it. Two turns later it told me I won :D

Shame too, I was really making a huge army back in my main two cities

[Banned?]

Nice footage. Stardock has made some fucking ace strategy games so I'm excited for this.