Posted September 06, 2010
Seems like as usually here... I'm a bit late to comment on erm... new things. Then here's my very "original" opinion : The game has a lot of potential, and deserve to be re-worked and patched, and I sincerely hope it will, because I don't like to see good ideas and my money wasted.
I was on holidays during the release, and I'm quite happy I was. I didn't have to test it when it released, I decided to not read any reviews/comment before playing ~12 hours, I had some fun but the game seems like a half-filled bottle with a strange mixture, it has some taste but it's a mix of bitterness, fruitiness, sugar and Tabasco... In other terms the game-design seems like it want to do too much things and it mess-up in some areas, like the strategic and RPG aspects doesn't mix very well right now IMHO you don't know if levelling up your lord makes more sense that take a more civ-like approach of expansion and the whole is pretty confusing and not well balanced.
The famous mod Fall from Haven for Civ 4 where elemental designers seems to have borrowed a lot of ideas... even the post apocalyptic background had a better game play in it's early releases back then, sure it was Civ 4 with fantasy but perhaps Stardock should have sought to replicate aspect more solid game-plays instead of going everywhere without any ideas on how to balance it...
I don't worry about patches for this game, but how they'll manage to improve or even rethink their damn mechanics, the ideas are good but suffer for mediocre execution right now... At least I've learned my lesson, I'll never buy any Stardock game that isn't on 60% sale on their damn impulse platform.
I was on holidays during the release, and I'm quite happy I was. I didn't have to test it when it released, I decided to not read any reviews/comment before playing ~12 hours, I had some fun but the game seems like a half-filled bottle with a strange mixture, it has some taste but it's a mix of bitterness, fruitiness, sugar and Tabasco... In other terms the game-design seems like it want to do too much things and it mess-up in some areas, like the strategic and RPG aspects doesn't mix very well right now IMHO you don't know if levelling up your lord makes more sense that take a more civ-like approach of expansion and the whole is pretty confusing and not well balanced.
The famous mod Fall from Haven for Civ 4 where elemental designers seems to have borrowed a lot of ideas... even the post apocalyptic background had a better game play in it's early releases back then, sure it was Civ 4 with fantasy but perhaps Stardock should have sought to replicate aspect more solid game-plays instead of going everywhere without any ideas on how to balance it...
I don't worry about patches for this game, but how they'll manage to improve or even rethink their damn mechanics, the ideas are good but suffer for mediocre execution right now... At least I've learned my lesson, I'll never buy any Stardock game that isn't on 60% sale on their damn impulse platform.
Post edited September 06, 2010 by Narakir