Rock, Paper, Shotgun has an interview up with Stardock’s Derek Paxton talking about non-other than Elemental: Fallen Enchantress.

RPS: You’ve talked a bit about how you see this as a more “focused” game than Elemental was originally. Is /that/ the focus – the story and the characters?

Paxton: The campaign is story-focused, but the traditional game remains with that big sandbox experience. Story is a dangerous beast, because it can rob your game of life and steal options from the player, or done well it can add a lot of depth. Getting a balance right is important. In the campaign, then, we tell a story and let you find out more about some of the characters, but in the sandbox game we do let the player create the story.

Read the full interview at RPS!


Comments (Page 1)
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on Jun 03, 2011

GREAT stuff from a GREAT company.................thanks guys

on Jun 03, 2011

Doesn't seem to be any new information in this one, even between the lines.

on Jun 03, 2011

well i learned something new. derek says in the interview that the title fallen enchantress was there before he joined star dock. i didnt know that heh...

on Jun 03, 2011

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we learned some new information on the Fallen Enchantress' identity. We now know she's the leader of a faction in the game. Presuming that we're only dealing with the factions already seen in E:WoM, it looks to me like the Fallen Enchantress might be a redesigned Ceresa, sovereign of Resoln. That's where my money's at, anyway.

I must say, I'm really fascinated by one part of this interview. "Lots of other games have that strong recognition of associating a particular stand-out character with the game, and I like that way of doing things." When I read that statement, I immediately thought of Command and Conquer and its chief villain, Kane. One of the huge things that made C&C a masterpiece in the hearts of many gamers was the lore built around the enigmatic Kane. I can't help but wonder if Stardock is trying to pull something similar and really breathe life into these characters to that kind of degree. I can't wait to figure out how Stardock tackles the pre-set characters, and how our own custom-made characters will interact with them.

Anyway, great interview. Looking forward to more!

on Jun 03, 2011

Decent interview but I didn't learn anything interesting.

 

IronKaiser

I love story but that one detail is too minor to be interesting.

 

Some of the guys over at RPS have grand entitlement problems.

Brad Wargboy Fraudell
 

Wow! Brad is getting more flak than an enemy plane in WWII

on Jun 04, 2011

Quite a few arseholes on that site. Wow!

 

They savaged Brad, Jon and Derek, a fair amount of it without reason.

 

This was an interesting comment from a self entitled little prick. Sounds suspiciously like the infamous a-hole Dale. Lol.

 

“In my spare time I liked to work on games, and I worked on a Civilization IV mod called Fall From Heaven.”

Which you left in a messed up state for other people to finish. Ok, you werent paid to see it to completion, and so on, but still, you started something too ambitious for you to finish, and you slinked off instead of cutting features. Seems like Stardock set a task to gather all the second-rate devs. Paxton, Schafer, Wardell…who’s next ?

 

Plus, why is Stardock getting all this flack for Demigod? I thought the company that made it bailed on them and Stardock did their best to pick up the pieces?

 

 

on Jun 04, 2011

Thormodr

“In my spare time I liked to work on games, and I worked on a Civilization IV mod called Fall From Heaven.”


Which you left in a messed up state for other people to finish. Ok, you werent paid to see it to completion, and so on, but still, you started something too ambitious for you to finish, and you slinked off instead of cutting features. Seems like Stardock set a task to gather all the second-rate devs. Paxton, Schafer, Wardell…who’s next ?
Well, Derek's clearly not afraid to cut features on this project, so that guy's concern is clearly unfounded. 

Plus, why is Stardock getting all this flack for Demigod? I thought the company that made it bailed on them and Stardock did their best to pick up the pieces?
Stardock's name is on the box.

on Jun 04, 2011

Thormodr
Quite a few arseholes on that site. Wow!

 

Yup. Fascinating how grown ups can act like 12-year old drama queens over a damn computer game.

And to give Derek crap for FFH... That's just lol.

 

on Jun 04, 2011

Magog_AoW

Quoting Thormodr, reply 6Quite a few arseholes on that site. Wow!

 

Yup. Fascinating how grown ups can act like 12-year old drama queens over a damn computer game.

And to give Derek crap for FFH... That's just lol.

 

 

Indeed, Lots of self entitled little pricks in this world.

Probably immensely spoiled as children and they've grown up that way.

Shame...

 

on Jun 04, 2011

With comments like these

I feel angry and cheated even though I didn’t buy or play Elemental. (But, yeah, nearly bought into the hype and got the game.)

what else is there to say?

on Jun 04, 2011

Heavenfall
With comments like these


I feel angry and cheated even though I didn’t buy or play Elemental. (But, yeah, nearly bought into the hype and got the game.)

what else is there to say?

Not much really.

These quotes might suffice though:

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968), Strength to Love, 1963
There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)

 

 

on Jun 06, 2011

Ok, I'm getting more and more interested when I read the interview ! That's really awesome !

I think Derek is really great man, the way he speaks gives hope for a game that will be close to what I remember of Master of Magic, they did a great choice by hiring him

And  loads of congratz too to the team behind the title with so much talents !

 

I'm really really really excited to learn more !!! The more I learn, the more exciting the game seems I mean how many years since we haven't seen a good MoM clone? Oh hmm, let me think... There hasn't been any good MoM clone ever except the attempt of Stardock ! (let's avoid talking about AoW which in the end lacked that little something that will finally be in FE)

on Jun 06, 2011

I'm a little bipolar on Elemental.  Some times I can't wait for FE and am super excited, and other times I just think of WoM and how crappy it was made and the excitement is greatly diminished.  But, then I think about how so much of the problems in WoM were due to initially making the game super ambitious, without a plan, and all those features were made half ass because they didn't even know what was going in the final product and didn't have proper supervision.  So, I am thinking that with Derek, Jon, and Toby, all those problems will be fixed. 

on Jun 07, 2011

One thing is for sure, it took Stardock 10 years to build up a reputation as a respected developer that cares for its customers and PC gaming as a whole, and it all fell apart spectacularly in a couple days.

I don't really blame the RPS users and other Stardock/Wardell detractors. With Stardock sounding really self-righteous with that whole Gamer's Bill of Rights business (shortly followed by the Demigod failure), the overly ambitious claims over Elemental with the result we know... well, the Stardock people are going to get kicked in the knees for a long time from now and it's gonna take even more time and effort to reconquer gamers trust. The team deserves some real respect for moving forward despite of that. I know I would have quit a long time ago.

If they pull out a good game out of FE, hopefully all the drama will finally fade out. Since I'm sure Stardock has a whole learned their lesson with Elemental, I trust them to manage.

on Jun 08, 2011

I'm a little bipolar on Elemental.  Some times I can't wait for FE and am super excited, and other times I just play other games.

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