Totally agree

Normally, I wouldn't comment on such posts. But I think it's necessary in the current situation. SD needs a little bit of motivation or it won´t do any harm at least.

You are exactly right. As gaming has gone from a small fraction of the population to mainstream, the quest to sell to a wider part of the market has steadily decreased the quality of games while constantly yelling "Hey, look at our graphics!!!!!".  Rather depressing.  

Thanks for producing interesting games guys.

Agreed.

I agree on the main point.

I disagree on the concept that these bigger companies somehow only develop derivative and overly done games and that somehow any of it (them being big, successful or publishing games people obviously want) is a bad thing. I only hope for Stardock's sake, they don't ever get that successful or something weird will happen and everyone will despise them for 'selling out' or 'getting too big' or 'making Elemental 3'. It's a weird ass mentality that is. It's called a business, it's always been about selling out, selling what the people want (just look at the success of Halo Reach) and if it works, keep selling it to them, I see nothing wrong with it.

Also, ambition and innovation are all over the place, just look at the indie scene and if you look closely you'll see some of the big names publishing the odd ball game here or there. It wasn't that long ago id made a little game called Doom or Blizzard made a little game called Warcraft.

Stardock is also a corporation looking to make money.

MrCapitalG, the issue isn't that they are hated for being big as you say.  It is that in many cases what sells to the masses is not fun to the type of gamer who enjoys the sort of game a lot of us here like. Is there anything wrong with a company doing the math and seeing that very basic games have a larger possible player base and that you can sell graphics? Hell no.  Do I want to play shooter clone X or insert sport 20XX just because the company upgraded their graphics and changed the numbers in the X slots? Hell no.  

The key here is that whether or not I like all the game mechanics I see in elemental I see things that tell me this isn't just a clone with sweet new skins.  It is significantly different than any game I have ever played (though it does of course share some aspects with other empire building games), there are interesting possibilities here with regard to future gameplay, the team working on the game is clearly willing continue altering game mechanics to correct current issues which would otherwise destroy the game, and even with the issues in this game I still enjoy it MUCH more than many games I have payed the same amount for.

You seem to think people like stardock because they are smaller than blizzard(another good company) or something.  The truth is that the only thing their size might have to do with it is that they really can't just sit back and keep reselling the same game with a few graphics upgrades.  They more or less have to generate something new or no one is going to look twice at them.

Some of the more rabid supporters of Elemental and Stardock have made it CLEAR that Blizzard in particular is the face of all that is evil with the PC gaming industry.  Using the example of Starcraft 2 in particular.  Generally with little more than "Starcraft 2 sucks" as the rationale.

I love the indie scene (I've played more of Jeff Vogel's games than almost any other publisher) but being "indie" doesn't lower standards in my eyes.  I don't expect AAA level cutscene or even graphics, but gameplay, UI and solid storytelling are available to all without a huge buy in so to speak.

Fer zample, Spiderweb Software's games are ugly (butt fugly) and the UI takes getting used due to it's quirks.  But they pack some really good storytelling, TONS of content and replayability.  And don't forget some pretty damned unique settings.

Back to the topic at hand...  the THEORY behind the game is exciting, but little is with the current implementation.  Framework alone does not make a good game.

Well, to be fair, elemental is also not inventing the genre. There was MoM and AoW... In fact, it is quite difficult to find original concept in this game.

That and the elemental plane. After all, the Master quest hints at other planes of existence where danger lurks.

Actually I rather like starcraft 2 personally, I just said it crashes more than elemental which on my system is a fact. It's still fun though.

Agree with the OP.  (Disagree Blizzard is evil: they put out good stuff.  I like SC2, and liked its polish but thought it was a little bland.)

Due to stability issues, I just started playing (or more precisely, finishing) with 1.08.  Since 1.08 it's been running well with crashes maybe every 200 turns that can be autosaved around.  Not bad for a new release.  Each game I keep discovering new features and new angles to supreme power, and get a little better sense of the game mechanics.  In the last game, over three sessions, I was able to use diplomacy to play two AIs against one another such that they fought and fought, weakening each other--I love doing that to AIs--while I sat back and researched my Spell of Making. By the time they were done there wasn't much left of either, and their cities would have easily fallen to my army of dragons anyway.  In terms of winning, I'm pretty hit or miss on normal difficulty--losing due to poor starting resources, overly aggressive expansion, or carelessness with my sovereign.  Each of these I'm getting better at.  But once I get a good economy going, it's only a matter of time.  Already I'm finding Elemental very fun and addictive to play (two 4 AM nights now) and no two games have been remotely the same.

A couple prominent issues spring to mind at this point: 

(1) The AI tends to spam units and throw them up against unwinnable cities, like a repeated onslaught of armies ranked level 20-50 against my stationed army, ranked 250.  The 250 army can and does fight them off forever--I guess the steady stream of gold is nice.  Since they are spaced so close, often 2 per turn, they should be grouping up.  Maybe I'll find that in harder difficulties.  It's just bad form is all, and if they are doing this to 2 cities, all the initiate battle screens and winning screens can be annoying.

Also (2): I can tell you right now which spells I'm going to get in my next game: lightning bolt, imbue champion, inferno, summon fire giant (at which point I'll rush any neaby faction), deflection, freeze, and summon water giant--and then after that I'll play around with other random spells which I'll try to see what they are like but will hardly ever use them.  I'd like it if spells were more balanced, and once they were, acquiring them had a more opportunistic quality.

Game is fun but only on the early part, then it becomes unbalanced with the very poor and suicidal AI, and broken gameplay mechanics.

"Sure, the game needs a total redesign, but right now it's great!"

"I've never heard of Master of Magic, Age of Wonders, or even Heroes of Might and Magic."

"I regret buying this game and am trying my best to support my cognitive dissonance with Stardock's help."

"I understand the QA process even worse than Stardock."

"I have absolutely no clue that  Elemental was advertised as Master of Magic, a 15 year old game, with better graphics."

"I am totally comfortable with spending my money on an unfinished product.  And if I keep telling myself that, I might start believing it."