Reality check folks:  Elemental has the potential to be a great game...a classic game...but it is unfinished, and what we're playing now is what many people who do testing would recognize as a beta build.  Is that necessarily a bad thing?  No.  Is it a little disappointing to spend $50 and find out that you've essentially bought into a paid beta/open design phase?  Yup. 

It's good that the game is at least finished enough to offer some entertainment, with the occassional frustrating circumstance, but I struggle to understand the viewpoint/justification that the mechanics are working soundly, that most games need patching to this degree, or that Stardock games are different than other games in that we're simply given a platform and the rest is up to us/the development team to finish off. 

To the first: the mechanics are not working soundly...it's a fact, not an opinion.  Tactical combat is broken, magic doesn't work like it should, and there are a number of mechanics that, although functional, need a heavy revamp to actually work as we would all like them to(combat rolls, sov stats, unit design/specialties/differentiation, to name a few.) 

To the second: most games do not need this degree of patching/completion post-launch.  I will concede that most developers now generally have 1-2 major patches within the first two weeks of any launch to finish patching out crash and performance bugs, making slight AI changes, and tweaking other mechanics after they've received widespread community feedback that was not present during the beta phases.  Elemental, however, needs much more than simply bug/performance fix patches.  It has numerous key mechanics that need overhauls, features that seem like they meant to be fleshed out more but weren't, in addition to all the small tweaks here and there that other games sometimes need.  In other words, the game needs to be finished...not simply patched.  The last game I saw needing this level of work after launch was Hellgate London which was unintelligently launched against the vast majority of beta-tester's warnings(I was one of them) telling them that numerous core game elements needing changing.  Low and behold less than a year later the entire game was dead.  That's not to say I think Elemental will fail; far from it in-fact.  My point being is that, regardless of the misconception floating around from some hardcore supporters, most games, including Stardock's last "difficult" launch with Demigod, do not need this level of work post-release to get the game to what most people would call "finished" and ready for a $50 retail tag.

To the third: The modibility of Stardock games is, in my opinion, in combination with the mod community that has grown around them, the main allure to buy their products.  I can always count on a game becoming infinitely better as time wears on due to Stardock's continued support, and player mods.  I have *NO DOUBT* that this will be the case with Elemental...a year from now I don't think anyone will recognize Elemental from how it stands now.  I truely believe that by that point we'll all be playing one of the best 4x strategy games every made, and it will continue to get better.  But until then let's not pretend that Stardock games should be held to a different standard on release.  They are capable of delivering finished products, albeit with the normal patch concerns of any pc game, and we should not do them the disservice of holding them to a lower standard with this release.  It is much better for all parties involved to admit that this launch was not what it could have been, not what it should have been, and then move on to FIX and FINISH.  To this end I hope Stardock considers releasing additional mod tools to give us access to more mechanics.

I just want to end and say that I am enjoying Elemental immensely even in its current state, and am really looking forward to the multiplayer coming up so I can try my hand against some human players.  In particular, I want to try this with my brother as we both used to love playing games like HMOM with each other(although, in all honesty, I'm not sure I can justify the $50 price to him next week). 

Heh qouted for truth, everyone is an expert:)

You are aware that not everyone is hit by most of these bugs, right? I for one only crash if I alt-tab. I have two computers sitting on my desk, so my need to alt-tab is negligible, so it's a non-issue to me, or I could just run it in a window, which is fine. The only other bug I get is the one where the sound cuts out periodically. It's worked fine for me since the 0-day beyond that. I don't even notice these major slowdowns people talk about.

The alternative problem here is that your mind is boggled by the fact that people think that things they don't see happening are perfectly acceptable. To them, why wouldn't it be? Everything's working fine, what is there to complain about? That's not to say there isn't problems with things like the AI, but some of us remember Civ4 at launch and the pathetic excuse for AI that existed there.

The mind boggling thing to me is that everyone assumes their experience is the experience everyone has, and therefore since everyone has their experience, why do they have a different opinion?

...Occam's Razor suggests they had a different experience. Just saying.

You're confusing modding in new features with basic stability (greatly improved with 1.06), balanced gameplay (still a long way to go), more intuitive UI (still some way to go), adequate AI (long way to go), promised feature (MP), etc. -- all things that are necessary for a game to be 'release-ready'. 

I'm not talking about 100% perfection, but rather SD delivering on the promises made, and Elemental being in a reasonable state of polish/balance.  And if you think it already is then answer this -- why is SD working their butts off doing just this instead of taking some time off to recover from the pre-release marathon?  Go argue with SD about this, as their actions show they don't agree with you.

If you think Elemental's release is as good as SD is capable of then you're doing them a disservice.

If you think SD as a company will prosper long term by putting out games in Elemental's condition then you're doing them a disservice.

If you think that mischaracterizing the legitimate complaints of reasonable players with your strawman is in SD's best interest then we'll have to agree to disagree.

Not to mention you modified his quote. Maybe on purpose, maybe not. Just goes to prove that on the internet everyone becomes an expert. Its very sickening actually.

I've had only one crash during gameplay; this isn't about crashes specific to certain setups.  This is about entire mechanics (the plethora of tactical combat bugs being the biggie, but vanishing stacks upon load is another game-killer) that flat out aren't coded to function correctly for anyone.  That's not something you can mod to make right.  I've posted a bug report for every error or glitch that I've encountered, but I can't mod it out of existence nor negate it with sheer willpower.  Pretending that the game is fine, a sentiment that I've read repeatedly on these forums, doesn't help a damned thing.

I hate Starcraft 2 as much as anyone with good taste but I sure as hell did not pay for NWN: Strategy Edition. I paid for a game. I expect to get my money's worth within a few months.

If the game does not get redesigned to become a decent successor to MoM within a few months I will feel very pissed off and ripped off.

^ That. Yes, it's got problems. It's launch week. The first month of damn near every game that comes out is a nightmare. They're working on it, StarDock admits there are problems and are working on fixing it. Those of us who love the game are aware it has issues, but we're willing to stick with it and offer constructive criticism.

We're just sick of people foaming at the mouth about it. Mmkay. You're having issues. Put it on the shelf and wait for some patches to come out if it's not something you can deal with.

Weaksauce game

You are such a fanboy, it isn't even funny. We're supposed to revere Stardock because you think it's a virtue that they released a PC exclusive?

That makes absolutely no sense. I mean, c'mon, stop drinking the kool-aid for one second. 

EDIT: I'm happy many of you are finding fun in this game. But I think most would agree that it was a very lackluster release, to say the least. Just because it is a PC exclusive doesn't mean it should be given a pass. Our money is still real money, the value of our currency doesn't change because it's a PC game.

Wait a minute, time out. You're right. We all should just remember, this game is on the PC!!!! Woohoo!

/sarcasm

Dude, wtf are you on about?

So let's recap:

1. Elemental is released riddled with bugs and playability issues.

2. Krooldeath defends this by saying that Stardock should be appreciated for releasing a PC exclusive and that those who don't appreciate Stardock for this gift are "shallow and selfish"

If that isn't being a fanboy, I don't know what the hell is. It's zealous brand loyalty, that is what being a fanboy is all about.