Brad Wardell's views about technology, politics, religion, world affairs, and all sorts of politically incorrect topics.
Published on July 28, 2010 By Draginol In Elemental Dev Journals

We got our beta 4 milestone done a bit early so the team got Tuesday off to recuperate.

So tomorrow, with any luck, we should have beta 4 released. After that, the beta is closed to new users and we move towards release next month.

We’ve really had a blast working on Elemental. I was talking to some friends today on how Elemental is different (in terms of development) from other games and the big difference is, on a sequel or when using an established engine, if something isn’t done, you an always rely on what’s already there.  By contrast, in Elemental, nothing is there.

The team is trying to get in the built in uploading and downloading system in Beta 4. I've told them it isn’t a requirement for beta 4 but they’re obsessed in letting people be able share their stuff.   The campaign for Elemental was done entirely via modding tools so players will definitely be able to create their own cool stuff.

Some of my friends have been wanting to try the beta but I keep warning them off that beta 3C will cause them immense pain and agony. It’s just that bad.  Really though, anyone who wants to “play the game early” should just wait until release. The beta program, as you guys have seen, is a real beta program. Utter pain right to the end. It’s been great though. To me, this is what it’s all about. How often do brand new games get made these days? And here, we’ve been able to interact with like minded gamers to put something really special together.

Tomorrow afternoon I’ll try to put together a bit of a mod tutuorial. The modding tools are reasonable solid but we don’t really have any documentation put together. So if you’re the type that needs docs to get going, you’re probably going to want to wait.

The big things modders should be able to do right away that could make a big difference to gameplay will be:

  1. Better “notable locations” (aka goodie huts). Ours are pretty boring. We’re going to do a lot more with this. But modders starting tmorrow should be able to start making their own.
  2. Better “quests”. Our quests in beta 4 are pretty  boring. I plan to go over this in the next couple weeks but I think modders will soon freak out at what is possible with the quest system and shame us on this. Elemental could be described as an RPG engine made into a strategy game. :_
  3. Better factions. This will be something to see. We took customizing factions out of the game setup and while we won’t have a fancy UI in beta 4, to anyone technical, they should be able to do some pretty cool stuff. It’ll probably become increasingly obvious why we moved custom faction creation out out of game setup and into modding.

There’s so many good experiences in this beta to take to heart. If I had to name two things I would do differently I would have made stability and performance as two things we would have addressed earlier.  Beta 4’s performance is close to release level.  Stability is much  better but we really need a couple more days to look at memory management.

I have to say, we’ve had so much fun on this project. Elemental is something we’ll be working on for years to come and we’re excited to watch it grow with the community.


Comments (Page 4)
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on Jul 29, 2010

Have there been previous discussions as to how we will be able to download mods once someone creates them?  I am not very good at opening files and makiing syntax changes, etc.  It would be most welcome if there was a designated site where nn-technical players can see a description of the mod and have a one click "download mod xyz" botton where it automativcally unpacks itself into the correct game files, and presto, you now have a new item on the campain menu or faction menu, etc.  This would really be a perk for a very large share of the EWoM community.  I am especially interested in dome of the oft discussed mod ideas like Raven X's DragonLance, and a LoTR mod, among others. 

on Jul 29, 2010

DrGroth
Have there been previous discussions as to how we will be able to download mods once someone creates them?  I am not very good at opening files and makiing syntax changes, etc.  It would be most welcome if there was a designated site where nn-technical players can see a description of the mod and have a one click "download mod xyz" botton where it automativcally unpacks itself into the correct game files, and presto, you now have a new item on the campain menu or faction menu, etc.  This would really be a perk for a very large share of the EWoM community.  I am especially interested in dome of the oft discussed mod ideas like Raven X's DragonLance, and a LoTR mod, among others. 

http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/14295360/elemental-war-of-magic-/images/elemental-war-of-magic--20100721030704344.html?page=mediaFull

http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/14295360/elemental-war-of-magic-/images/elemental-war-of-magic--20100721030707703.html?page=mediaFull

By the looks of it, everything should be ingame and automated - assuming those screens aren't just mock-ups

on Jul 29, 2010

Sushikawa



Quoting Slainangel52,
reply 35

I think you're misunderstanding what he was saying slightly. A lot of modding communities will thrive based on the sharing of ideas. There are many mods that will include features thought up by other players or even contain mods by other players in their entirety. This is possible because there is nothing to gain from keeping things to yourself, if you start being able to turn a profit from your mods you'll find that there will be less sharing on the development side of the modding community because they all want to "win"

Yea there might be a few modders that will not care about the monetary rewards of modding, but that kind of altruistic behavior isn't particularly common. While I'm all for making ways to keep the modding community healthy, I don't think paying individuals is the way to go.


 

Exactly. This is one of a 100 different scenarios I thought of on how contest, and rewards could go wrong:

 

Wintersong releases a bunch of new buildings, but does so slowly over the course of a few months. Luckmann has downloaded all of them, and decides he doesn't like the names. He takes it upon himself to change the names of buildings, adds some cheesy particle effects and repacks them into "Luckmann's Uber Construction Pack", doesn't give any credit to Wintersong, then wins one of these contest. Winter takes a look at Luckmann's awesome prize winning mod, only to find out all the buildings are actually his. Wintersong gets enraged, and grants Luckmann's bear calvary wish by taming a bear and riding it to his house. We all hear about it on CNN and BBC.

Heh.

on Jul 29, 2010

I hope thats a mock up, because those map sizes are just insane.

on Jul 29, 2010

Sushikawa

Quoting Slainangel52, reply 35
I think you're misunderstanding what he was saying slightly. A lot of modding communities will thrive based on the sharing of ideas. There are many mods that will include features thought up by other players or even contain mods by other players in their entirety. This is possible because there is nothing to gain from keeping things to yourself, if you start being able to turn a profit from your mods you'll find that there will be less sharing on the development side of the modding community because they all want to "win"

Yea there might be a few modders that will not care about the monetary rewards of modding, but that kind of altruistic behavior isn't particularly common. While I'm all for making ways to keep the modding community healthy, I don't think paying individuals is the way to go.
 

Exactly. This is one of a 100 different scenarios I thought of on how contest, and rewards could go wrong:

 

Wintersong releases a bunch of new buildings, but does so slowly over the course of a few months. Luckmann has downloaded all of them, and decides he doesn't like the names. He takes it upon himself to change the names of buildings, adds some cheesy particle effects and repacks them into "Luckmann's Uber Construction Pack", doesn't give any credit to Wintersong, then wins one of these contest. Winter takes a look at Luckmann's awesome prize winning mod, only to find out all the buildings are actually his. Wintersong gets enraged, and grants Luckmann's bear calvary wish by taming a bear and riding it to his house. We all hear about it on CNN and BBC.


on Jul 29, 2010

Kholai
Basic human sociology experiments have proven that, whilst initially offering a reward encourages performance of a behaviour, once that reward has been offered the human mind ceases to think of an activity as enjoyable, and begins on some level to think of it as "work".

 

I think that depends on the individual. Some people might find modding intrinsically rewarding, or a self-rewarding behavior. So they repeat it simply because they like to do it, and if they get something external out of it, so be it.

I think the possibility of a lack of sharing due to fear someone will use your work to win a contest or the concerns about rewarding whole teams or blatant stealing with only cosmetic changes would be more limiting concerns.

on Jul 29, 2010

VR_IronMana



Quoting Kholai,
reply 36
Basic human sociology experiments have proven that, whilst initially offering a reward encourages performance of a behavior, once that reward has been offered the human mind ceases to think of an activity as enjoyable, and begins on some level to think of it as "work".



 

I think that depends on the individual. Some people might find modding intrinsically rewarding, or a self-rewarding behavior. So they repeat it simply because they like to do it, and if they get something external out of it, so be it.

I think the possibility of a lack of sharing due to fear someone will use your work to win a contest or the concerns about rewarding whole teams or blatant stealing with only cosmetic changes would be more limiting concerns.

The way modding and sharing of modded files is going to work in Elemental I can honestly only see one viable strategy to try to curb stealing of work/ideas. To make as much Noise as possible when you make a mod or file so that Everyone knows it was YOU that did it first. That way when someone else see's something they'll know who did it and who modified it. We all need to face facts with this one though, people are going to "borrow" each others work here. It's the nature of the beast.

on Jul 29, 2010

Are we there yet?

 

Will it update automagically by launching, or do I get a notification on that strange Impulse-launcher?

 

on Jul 29, 2010

VexingVision
Are we there yet?

 

Will it update automagically by launching, or do I get a notification on that strange Impulse-launcher?

 

I'm sure they'd notify us first, waiting on a dev post at this point while listening to the simply beautiful scores in the music folder.. the beta doesn't play half this stuff.

on Jul 29, 2010

You'll probably have to check Impulse and it will show up as 'update available'. But don't expect the build for another several hours.

on Jul 29, 2010

You sound informed, or at least a very assured speculator. What does this parrot that whispers in your ear say of the Beta 4? Mmm?

on Jul 29, 2010

The speculation comes from SD's typical release schedule of "afternoons" EST, and since Frogboy posted that they're still trying to get the uploading/downloading screens in, it's reasonable to assume it wasn't in a shiny ready-to-go package this morning, sooo

If it wasn't today, though, they'd likely have told us already. Unless something terribly bad happens when they try to release, I'd expect it today

on Jul 29, 2010

Out now!!!!

on Jul 29, 2010

Ok, so it wasn't a fluke. 

 

This is early for a SD patch.

 

 

on Jul 29, 2010

It is indeed out.  50% done downloading now :3

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