I remember fondly the day I learned of E:WOM. And of the many weeks that followed. Indeed right up through this current moment, the experience has been memorable. What a long strange trip it's been.
I had been following the pre-release teasers for Civ5. The Civ franchise IS WAS PC Gaming as far as I was concerned. I was a Civ addict and bona fide fanatic. For a period of ten years, Civ was essentially the only game I played. Civ products were auto-buy for me. But weeks before release, 2k dropped the steamworks bomb. After looking into it, I opted out of civ. I rejected the idea of a third party essentially owning my usage license, and bottlenecking my access. There's more. But I won't rant it.
I was in need of a replacement. In discussions about steam and Civ5, I first heard talk of Elemental: War of Magic. People talked about Impulse and how it was so very different than steam. I checked it out and was impressed. The TOS was clear and the privacy policy friendly. Impulse didn't get between the gamer and their game. It could be completely uninstalled without impacting ability to play. I could make backups. And more.
My interest grew as I began looking into the game itself. Here was a 4x TBS game that had tactical combat, RPG elements, and was touted as being extremely mod friendly. I had never played MOM or a game like AOW. But I'd been longing to play some of the elements of those games. Especially for tactical battles within a 4x TBS. I began to see the potential for E:WOM to replace Civ.
So then I looked into the developers history. I became impressed with the Stardockian method of openness and their dogged determination to perfect games long after release. After being dragged through Civ4's patch cycle with 2k minders keeping a lid on all things, I was looking forward to a more open developer/gamer relationship. I'd also read the Gamers Bill of Rights and got caught up in the idealism of that.
I was sold on E:WOM. Only a shortfall of income at a time of emergency expenditures prevented me from pre-ordering the game to particpate in the open beta. So I watched. I read the forums near daily, viewed every YouTube video I could find. I read the Developers Journals, and the patch logs, and the bug forum and the mod forum. I read it all. Then the game went gold and crashed hard. My enthusiasm however did not. I saw the speed for which SD was releasing patches. I saw the evident dedication to make the game right. I read the dev reports and knew it had unprecedented post-release support. So I kept following with great excitement. Then at long last, on November 1st 2010 came my day to play!
Due to running the game on a system that didn't meet the minimum requirements (an integrated graphics card), I could only play on the cloth map. And only rarely could I play a tactical battle. But even so I received many hours of enjoyment from the game. But as the patch cycle progressed my enjoyment became increasingly diminished. By this time I had migrated to a PC that could run the game in all it's glory. It had grown more stable, but some elements became less fun. Yet Stardock dogged on. Going so far as to hire some high profile individuals to work on Elemental. Having followed the development of the Civ4 mod, Fall from Heaven, I was particularly impressed that Derek Paxton had joined the team. And I thought it very cool that Stardock was offering to give away free expansions to early adopters. So never was the faith lost that Elemental would become the new Civ... not until April Fools Day, 2011.
E:WOM was my first digital game purchase. Due to some horsepucky DRM limitations, I had previously lost a couple hundred dollars worth of digital music purchases. So I'd been hesitant to participate in the digital market again. But my research of Stardock and Impulse gave me confidence that my purchase was protected long term. But alas, came Aprils Fools Day 2011. Stardock sold Impulse to gamestop!?! gamestop. One of those vampric, bleed the customer and the industry of its vitality, cheat them at every oppurtunity, parasitic evil bastards. It had to be an April Fools joke, I was sure of it. It just didn't fit all the hype Stardock had made themselves, and Impulse out to be. But it was true. And true to form, impulse degenerated to a gamestop cash cow. What a waste.
I rejected impulses new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. I researched gamestops litigation history and grew to despise them. I would not participate in a company with such a loooong track record of cheating their customers and employees. Hell, they even have a paycheck scheme with hidden fees for which their shareholders get kick backs. My gawd, they don't pay a living wage as it is. Then they go and cheat the kids working for them by robbing their pay with hidden paycard fees!?! And they threaten managers with termination if they don't work overtime without pay!?! Bah. For that and many other reasons, I won't be having anything to do with gamestop.
So due to the sale of impulse, E:WOM had died for me. To get updates I would have had to accept gamestops terms. And through patronage of that service, I would be willfully supporting their method. So that was the end it seemed. But true to their word, Stardock looked after their customer and opened their own in house store. From that first day I found E:WOM in my account, I reinstalled it, and have been playing nearly every day hence. v1.4 was an improvement, but also a step backwards in ways. So I installed Heavenfalls triad of mods and have been enjoying the game.
Now the first wave of FE beta is here. I'm back to reading the forums and watching videos. Have even been able to view hours of livestreamed play. The excitement factor increases. The game looks good. Potential for great. My faith in Stardock has been restored. Goodwill rises. They've stuck with this thing and have gone to unprecedented lengths to make good on their promise to deliver. They've been real with us, with all that entails. Has been good and bad, but thus far the good outweighs. The entire experience has been memorable. Some highs and lows. I've not seen the likes of this with anything else. There is a chain of memories here that will persist. Its been a strange trip, and I've enjoyed the ride. This new leg is off to a good start.
