considering sins and demigod both disappointed me with a TOTAL lack of single player and plot, I am gonna wait before preordering any future stardock games.

I did have a lot of fun playing those games, heck I spent more time on them than I do on most plot games just minind achivements, but its really not something i WANT to do. It felt empty... meh... I can always buy it when and if i like the demo.

I feel you there.  But Stardock only published those two titles.  The devs have already been talking quite a bit about the single player campaign (nothing specific, but its been referenced quite a bit) so I don't think you should worry about that.   I suspect it will be something very similar to Galactic Civilization 2's single player game.  (if you haven't played that yet, shame on you *points to the online store* go!)

Huh? They were abundantly clear about both of those game having no single player, basically. Just as they were abundantly clear that GalCiv2 would not have multiplayer.

They are currently makign it abundantly clear that Elemental will MOSTLY be single player, and have multiplayer as an add on.

well, i never thought to check something like that... its like asking a car dealer if the model he is selling me comes with, or without tires. Why would anyone buy a car without tiers? (or a game without single player?)

NOW I KNOW that stardock games are typically either single player only, or multiplayer only... so I wait until AFTER release to make my decision, instead of preordering them.

Not a total loss, since those games were fun in their own unique way. but MP is not my cup of tea...

And yes I have GalCiv2. although I wasn't too fond of their single player style.

I pre-ordered just now. I don't know why I keep buying RTS games. I have fun for the first hourt, then the computer starts slowly kicking my butt over the next several hours until I lose in humiliation. I've been buying and playing RTS games since about the time of Civ2 in 1995 or so.

Sometimes I think I need a class to teach me how to play, because my strategies never work very well. But I keep trying.

Sure you're not confusing TBS and RTS? Civ2 was not RTS and Elemental will not be either.

Yea the RTS was a brain fart/typo. I just got done reading a thread about RTS vs TBS and had RTS on the brain. I meant TBS.

These are the TBS games I've played and nejoyed, but sucked at:

Civ Series -- Age of Wonders -- Alpha Centauri -- Lords of Magic -- Warlords III -- GalCiv Series -- and probably a fewothers I don't recall.

Well, I try to avoid that anti-oral sex jargon, but language quibbles aside, I'd say you can't really suck at a single-player game if you're enjoying it.

On the other hand, if getting a particular type of win at a particular difficulty level is what you wanted and didn't quite get, maybe you could get some help from the forums. GC2 still has a small crowd of regulars with lots of experience who try to answer questions (I'm more or less a waterboy for that crowd, played forever but never got to true scoremonster status).

Anyway, I'm glad to see a pre-order from someone who is into the genre despite feeling like you don't play 'well' enough. Elemental is supposed to be some sort of TBS-RPG fusion, and IMO the distinguishing characteristic of a true RPG is that it is a game where no one 'wins.' Maybe with the possible exception of everyone winning, but I never got to play a tabletop campaign that actually got to something like the end of the Return of the King.

I can easily suck at a game I enjoy. Often I feel aimless and overwhelmed halfway through these types of games though. The tech tree's start to feel convoluted, and I find myself clicking through dozens of turns feeling like I'm passing the time but not having any idea what I should be doing specifically. But I figure one day it will all make sense, in the mean time I'll keep playing hehe

Just pre-ordered!

...

So, when's the beta testing? Hmm? When? Hello? Are we there yet? Hey? I'm waiting here... Don't mean to rush the developing team *cough*... WHEN?!?!

Pre-ordered.

Now the wait for beta 0 begins.

Pre-ordered

Is it June yet?

I have no pre-ordered but I probably will as soon as I hear something relatively fun and playable is out.  I would pre-order now but I'm a poor writer...unless I sell a novel...and it sells well....

Anyway I will def be pre-ordering when I have grounds to actually be able to play something.

EDIT- I come to these forums pretty often but is there a mailing list so we can be told when a playable-ish version is ready for pre-order ppl?

The pre-orders are about volunteering for the public betas, and Stardock are clear that it is hobby work and not necessarily fun. Brad has posted a tentative beta schedule. It sounds like you'll need to wait until Beta 3 (currently targeted for December of this year) unless you change your mind and want to help shake out the wrinkles and squash some bugs.

That's a ridiculous, and invalid, comparison.   A car without tires doesn't drive.   A game without single player *does* drive, and quite well.

The root of video games, the oldest, were ones that essentially had no single player.   Stuff like Pong, Joust, Battletanks,  those were multiplayer games.  The point of a *GAME*, historically, has always been to play it with other people.    What you're doing is like complaining that Chess or Checkers don't have a single-player mode. 

Even today, there's a *reason* that fighting games, party-style games, and multiplayer focused Shooters and RTS and TBS and Sports games dominate, because that's what gaming is, playing with other people.   Single-player is something that came later. 

Pong had single-player and Joust did not require a second player nor did it require that two players treat each other as opponents. You're trying to define your taste as a technical fact, but it isn't so.

Mind you, I do think that "car without wheels" is less than an ideal meataphor for a PC game without singleplayer. It obscured the really important point that the PC games at the root of the TBS genre were singleplayer-only in the very beginning.

It *is* so.   In Pong, Joust, the computer player had the same abilities and options that a human player did, nothing more.   Playing single-player on those games (or newer multi-player games like Smash Brothers, Demigod, etc) just means that an AI is running that player where a human would normally be.    But the CPU/AI doesn't have any options available to it that a regular person wouldn't have.

More to the point, all the early PC TBS games were based on TBS board-games, which like all board-games are inherently multiplayer. 

I'd like to see a singleplayer storyline of some kind for both Sins and Demigod.  But it's stupid to whine excessively about it, or say that there's something wrong with the game just because it doesn't cater to antisocial escapists that don't want to play with other human beings.

takashi, it seems like we have radically different notions of what "singleplayer" means. Best I can tell, by your definition, there has never been a singleplayer PC TBS game, but I've never seen Civ 1 or MoO or MoM called multiplayer before.

And I wasn't whining, I was just sticking up for the (beleagured minority of?) folks who love singleplayer TBS. No need to descend to namecalling.

I don't recall calling any names.

There have been few TBS games that were singleplayer, but there have been a few.   Most of them fall into the sub-category of Turn-Based-Tactics.  (the Fire Emblem games, for example). 

Disciples 2: Dark Prophecy would be an example of a Singleplayer TBS with a story, cutscenes, and a general focuse on providing an experience for one person, rather than on an even, balanced playing field for multiple people (or the illusion of one via CPU/AI 'player')

I played MOM so many times and on so many computers...it was the most awesome best game ever. I hope this is better--I'm older, and seems like in the old days the gameplay was more important than the graphics. MOM gameplay was simply awesome. I love being able to affect unit strength after entering battle--it always gave the game more variability.  Come on June!

Same here. I am in for the long haul. Will be an interesting ride

speaking of mom, since elemental is supposedly a spiritual successor... how similar do you think it would be?

and takashi, my "car without wheels" analogy might have been exaggerated to fit my tastes, but the claim that games are inherantly multiplayer is flawed. Most games are played against a computer opponent. Playing against an AI opponent does not make the game multiplayer. Multiplayer is strictly multiple HUMANS.

Count me in!  Held off as long as I could before pre-ordering.  Never pre-ordered this early for a Stardock game.