Greetings! It’s that time again where I try to answer some of your questions regarding Elemental, the beta and more.
Q: When is BETA 2 scheduled to start?
A: Beta 2 is the Multiplayer beta of Elemental. We still have quite a bit of work to do in order to have it in a state where it can be provided to the external beta players.
It was originally scheduled for March 18th but has been pushed back to a new tentative date of April 1st.
Q: What sort of multiplayer will BETA 2 have?
A: The initial beta will be very focused on just 1 on 1 MP matches in order to test out the matchmaking. There won’t be custom games in the initial BETA 2. Instead, a player will logon to the Metaverse, press “find game” and be matched with another player. The objective will be to see how well the system works as well as kill off any connectivity issues early.
Q: Will BETA 2 be fun?
A: Actually, it should be reasonably fun by that point. It will be the first update that actually attempts to have some basic balancing in it and enough gameplay elements enabled that the game should start to come together.
Q: What changes from the current public beta do you see (in terms of game play) in Beta 2?
A: We are working to implement the feedback being posted by the beta group. A LOT of that feedback comes in the following areas:
- Cleaned up economics. We want to eliminate the “black box” effect that users have discussed at length. Hence, cities will no longer provide any innate money, research, or spell points. That will come from what you build.
- A lot more city improvements. Right now, early in the game, there isn’t enough to do. There will be a lot more choices on what to build in order to give players more strategic directions to go into.
- The Dynasty system will be updated such that players can negotiate whose family off-spring goes into rather than females going to the other family and males staying in your family.
- The game mechanics will be a lot clearer in game. By BETA 2, a player shouldn’t feel lost on what they’re doing. Thus a lot of UI changes are being worked on.
Q: Elemental’s economic system seems to change a lot. Why is that?
A: The biggest reason is to test modability. We expect Elemental to allow players to construct their own economic system in mods. The only way to make sure we’re not hard-coding things into the source is to try out different systems. To put it in RTS terms, modders should be able to make mods that change the economic engine to be like Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander or like Warcraft/Starcraft.
The other reason is that as we play the game and listen to players, we get ideas on how the game should be played or what is more fun.
Q: What about stability, crashes, memory?
A: This is another requirement prior to beta 2. For Beta 2, basic memory usage and stability have to be taken care of.
Q: Are there any other blockers?
A: Yes. Beta 2 won’t go out until we feel it is not just technically solid but as a game it is starting to feel like a game and not a tech demo. The beta 1 series is more like an “alpha”. That is, very very early in the game’s development. The objective has been to talk to players about game mechanics ideas with players having a point of reference. And from that, we’ve been able to (as beta testers have undoubtedly noticed) make pretty dramatic changes based on that feedback.
Q: Will there be any other beta releases BEFORE Beta 2?
A: Maybe. We are considering having a build that implements more of the game mechanics and such and then have beta testers vote on whether they believe the game is ready for Beta 2.
