Frogboy

I would pay for it if it was a dlc for LH, just for the modding stuff, but otherwise I think it would be a waste of time.

I missed a couple of other points I'm sure, but I'm glad that I could help you articulate how you felt as well.

I was so excited when I read this thead, seeing Frogboy had actually posted this idea, that I did not read the fine print.  So, I will comment further on the DLC concept.

DLC for the current engine would, by definition, be using the most recently tweaked game engine.  1.4 and 1.5 lockups aside, this certainly is a good starting point.

That being said, and I've said this before, Brad has thrown us enough 'freebies' for the E:WOM misstep.  As I posted in another thread, at this point I'd be more than willing to pay for a new game.  And since DLC is usually priced considerably cheaper than the full game, I think making this available for purchase via DLC is qute fair.

While I would not want to see Brad devoting a LOT of resources to this (a lot of us are really excited about GalCivIII, and don't want to see that lose any steam), I DO think that if there are any of the original design team left that could be assigned to 'recreating' E:WOM via DLC that this would be preferable to having those that become involved in the subsequent iterations after the fact work on it.  There is a certain 'world feel' that needs to be recreated...

I would also suggest a constructive brainstorming session beforehand r.e. which more recent concepts (i.e. trait trees, spells, items and such) would fit in the original E:WOM setting, with some of the older members of this forum involved that DO have a love for E:WOM, in order to find the path to best 'merge' the old E:WOM with the current engine.

Unfortunately, I think that there are two areas where this becomes a little more involved than a simple DLC package.  Those being Navies and Dynasties. 

Dynasties really needs to be thought through, to make their (re)addition worthwhile and a compelling addition.  As I mentioned above, this really plays out on the diplomacy front.  Kids shouldn't marry just because you want to make more kids, but because you are trying to cement alliances, and otherwise augment your diplomatic situation in some way.  There are a LOT of potential ideas here, hence it needs a deep discussion BEFORE any penalties/bonuses/game mechanic implementations are contemplated. 

The other area is ships, which, unfortunately, the current AI apparently has issues with r.e. using them properly.  Navies would by definition require a lot of AI work in order to implement properly, which may distract the AI guys from other pressing projects.  Re-adding them just because without fully contemplating how the AI will be able to use them to the AI's full advantage makes them more of an afterthought than a worthwhile addition.

Really, the above two should be worked on whether or not E:WOM DC sees the light of day, as E:FE and E:LH would benefit as well from the addition of proper Dynasty and Navy implementations, perhaps as DLCs on their own right as suggested by others above.  But they would certainly be need to be integral to an E:WOM DC implementation.  Maybe the stepping stone approach here?  I.E. A Navies DLC pack, followed by a Dynasties DLC pack, and THEN release an E:WOM DC DLC pack.

Heavenfall did mention one point, that being that the original E:WOM factions weren't really sufficiently fleshed out.  A lot of history has been added since E:WOM, so porting over the 'more recent historical data' would be a good idea.  That being said, E:WOM was set up to explore separate tech and spell trees for each race.  I would VERY MUCH like to see this fleshed out fully, so again a robust discussion beforehand to get the best ideas mapped out would be a great idea.  FYI, I was working out my own tech tree mappings for E:WOM back in the day, that were somewhat different than the existing Kingdom/Empire trees, plus a few others had done this as well (the Doctor Who mod comes immediately to mind), so I know that, at one time, this was very much possible.

So, to summarize, I would HIGHLY recommend to Brad and the gang, if he is indeed serious about this, to create a separate 'E:WOM Directors Cut Discussion Section' so that those who actually want to see this can help flesh out what will be in the DLC before he assigns staff to it.  Then, when the time comes, the Stardock staff can cherry pick from the various discussions as to what will be included in the DLC.  E:WOM has enough detractors certainly, and for (arguably) good reason, but as I've posted numerous times now, many of us LOVED the vision and premises laid forth within the original concept, and E:LH, while a very good game in it's own right, is a different beast.

+1 for tjashen.
The ideas were great, the implementation were lacking.
But... the AI must know how to use all this features. If this is not feasible, than: NO
Also, way bigger armies (but small unit scale - 4 man max, for balance-reasons)
I yearn for the feeling of the original picture, the one were the dragon was attacked.

I would say drop it. Spend your time on making new DLCs for FE or new strategy games

My vote would be no. I think the work required to bring WoM up to scratch would be far too great and I really wasn't that fussed by the few features it had which differentiate it from LH.

Well I played WOM a lot and I would say no it is not worth it.  However I liked Heaven's idead to make a DLC for FE where you add the Dynasty rules (of coarse revamped.  But to tell you the truth when  Age of Wonders 3 coming out as well as Warlock 2  I probably won't be playing much of Elemental LH.

You should really stick to GC3 now that is a game I'm really looking forward to.

If it seems like a no go for bringing back WOM, I do want to see the return of the dynasty system for either FE or the next chapter of Elemental. I like the idea of having to raise an heir and succession for the empire instead of immortals. This concept is why I keep reapproaching CKII. I will learn that damn game lol. Prob helps if I had a bit more time. 

Why not make an optional DLC with whatever stuff that you think is great from E:WOM that can be optionally integrated into Legendary Heroes?

For $5 you can EWOMize your LH.   If you want as a game option.

like i said: reading is so last century.  frog, will you please update the op with your statement that ""It wouldn't be a major game project. More like a stand alone DLC level thing for players who wanted to see what awOM was supposed to be like.m what shipped", so this thread will stop filling up with invalid data.

I think the consensus is no WOM.

Though what I had in mind wasn't to go back to the game, called WOM, that got released but to take the code base we have today and mod it to be the game WOM was supposed to be before it went off the tracks (and it went off the tracks in 2009, a year before it shipped when we started injecting all kinds of cool but impossible to reconcile ideas into the game).

The original WOM concept was a lot LOT simpler than what shipped and, in some respects, players can kind of tell because a lot of the "Hey, let's throw this in" parts were just barely sketched out.

The original WOM could be summed up like this:

1. You had your sovereign. He was a channeler which meant he has magical essence.
2. Essence could be spent on: (a) Reviving land to build cities on OR ( Turning people you found on the map into Champions (you would not have enough essence to do both well).
3. There were NO quests
4. You could marry and have children which would, if you were willing to hold off on using up your essence, result in more powerful children.
5. You could use children to create alliances by betrothing them and this was the primary mechanism for winning via alliances.
6. The graphics were supposed to be cell shaded looking (I had just finished Zelda Windwaker and loved that style)
7. There was no unit design. You could only change weapons weapons (piercing vs. cutting vs. blunt).
8. Each race had hard-coded units tied to their own, unique tech tree (even to this day, each race can have its own tech tree, the code supports it). 
9. Because the units were pre-designed, they were supposed to be very different. The Quendar were evil elves, the Trogs were basically Orcs and so on.
10. The battles were supposed to be simple, RTS maps with lots of units. This got changed because of the graphical performance problems.
11. Cities were 1 tile.

What happened is that Stardock didn't, in those days, have a concept of a dedicated "designer", producer, etc.  We all would put in stuff and while I had the original concept (shown above) I was working on Demigod and Sins of a Solar Empire for most of the time and so additional features were added to the game -- MANY of which were taken out.

Here are features that WERE in War of Magic that weren't part of the design but were implemented 90% of the way (and thus lots of wasted time and effort):

• Dungeons (player enters a dungeon and goes to a different sub-map)
• The tile editor in the game was actually supposed to be a game mechanic where players could design their own cities. You didn't have "city improvements", you instead built out your city item by item to contruct something neat.  A big part of the game was going to be that tile editor tied to game mechanics for adding things to your tiles (and selling them to minor races or getting designs from minor races).
• A first-person mode was, at one point, implemented
• Each tile was supposed to have cool little stuff in it (this was my stupid idea) so you could, within a tile, run around and get something. This cost quite a bit of time to implement and was eventually abandoned.
• Players mined resources which in turned had to be converted into other resources before they became available for your cities, troops (i.e. you mined iron but you needed steel so you needed a smelter to turn the iron ore into steel and then a armoror to turn it into a sword which made that piece of equipment available to your soldier).

The next time you load up Legendary Heroes, load up the Workshop and realize that most of that, including the map editor, was supposed to be GAMEPLAY.  You were supposed to have to spend magic to transform the land (ala the map editor) and you were supposed to design your cities tile by tile.  

While interesting ideas were everywhere, it didn't make for a very coherent game.  We would have been better off sticking to the original design.

make this one, please >

• You had your sovereign. He was a channeler which meant he has magical essence.
• Essence could be spent on: (a) Reviving land to build cities on OR ( Turning people you found on the map into Champions (you would not have enough essence to do both well).
• There were NO quests
• You could marry and have children which would, if you were willing to hold off on using up your essence, result in more powerful children.
• You could use children to create alliances by betrothing them and this was the primary mechanism for winning via alliances.
• The graphics were supposed to be cell shaded looking (I had just finished Zelda Windwaker and loved that style)
• There was no unit design. You could only change weapons weapons (piercing vs. cutting vs. blunt).
• Each race had hard-coded units tied to their own, unique tech tree (even to this day, each race can have its own tech tree, the code supports it). 
• Because the units were pre-designed, they were supposed to be very different. The Quendar were evil elves, the Trogs were basically Orcs and so on.
• Dungeons (player enters a dungeon and goes to a different sub-map)
• A first-person mode was, at one point, implemented (just give us a pre-set camera perspective at ground level)
• Players mined resources which in turned had to be converted into other resources before they became available for your cities, troops (i.e. you mined iron but you needed steel so you needed a smelter to turn the iron ore into steel and then a armoror to turn it into a sword which made that piece of equipment available to your soldier).

Frogboy

oh man, what a game you had in mind.  we ended up with something much more standard 4x.  solid, but nowhere near as ingenious.

I'm still going to recommend a 'Stepping Stone' approach here.

Yes, I did see Frogboy's last post, and how the E:WOM that was released isnt the game that was originally planned.  I'm going to focus on what WAS released, and the path forward with E:LH to make a fun and playable E:WOM a reality.

1) Make a Navies DLC pack.  Sure, ships weren't the most essential thing in E:WOM, but I've seen numerous 'bring ships back' posts.  Since the people want it, and since E:LH could be more interesting with them, if implemented correctly, I think this might be worthwhile.  Of course, such a package needs to be thoroughly thought out, especially on the AI front.  It isn't really fair if only players understand how to use ships correctly, so a lot of AI stuff needs to be contemplated and worked out.  And also, how involved are ships?  Are we talking just a couple of classes, or maybe more like a dozen? 

     Maybe introduce a new empire/kingdom in this DLC that is essentially a seafaring nation, that has unique bonuses for coastal and maybe even sea/river squares.  This idea alone has a LOT of potential, and I wouldn't regard it as wasted effort as it would benefit the Elemental franchise as a whole, for now and future iterations.

2) Make a Dynasties DLC pack.  Once the Navies pack is ready for prime time, work on this one can commence.  If fleshed out, this concept could add a LOT to diplomatic interactions and such in the game.  But I would not recommend a simple 'cut and paste' of the old system - it wasn't really fleshed out.  What I would recommend is that the Sov choose a partner at the start, from a pool of candidates of various disciplines.  Similar to the 'Two heroes emerge, but only one will join your cause' concept, but with a larger pool representing multiple disciplines/classes.  That way, if you want a Scholarly type as your mate to complement your own life path choice, you can.

Your initial mate choice would have bearing on your children's upbringing and such, similar to what happened with E:WOM but without the 'uber' children problem of course (for those of you that remember that balance issue).  Your mate would probably need remain 'at home' to rear the children, allowing your Sov to roam free/don't want to crimp anyone's style here.  No showstoppers here so far.

I'd probably suggest that there be a 'you are trying for a kid' option (handled in a very 'G' fashion of course), as this might take a Sov out of circulation for a season or two.  While the 'immaculate conceptions' in E:WOM were interesting, it did leave you wondering exactly how a husband and wife that were separated by large distances still managed to have kids... are we talking infidelity here?  Hmmm....

When your children come 'of age', HERE is where things get interesting.  Sovs will probably have 'plans' for their children, but the children may have ideas of their own.  Certainly, arranged marriages will be useful on the diplomatic front, and such unions should have a major impact on how strong a new alliance may be.  HOWEVER, sometimes the kids decide that they want to marry for love... and you are faced with a dilemma... do I allow the kid to marry their sweetheart (which might be some peasant, or belong to a rival faction you aren't happy with), or do I force them into an arranged marriage?  Obviously, there will be a loyalty penalty for forcing said marriage... 

Maybe one of the kids wants to be the next ruler, and you need to give him a city or whatever to rule over.  Perhaps he/she will be content, or perhaps he/she will begin raising an army in secret and forment a rebellion/break away from your kingdom.  Or, perhaps he will sneak off and marry someone from your rival empire, to oppose you at every turn.

Maybe one of your children is a 'bookworm', more interested in their books than in love.  Or maybe you have a warrior prince/princess that wants to lead armies, not get married...

There really are a LOT of possibilities with Dynasties, which is why I suggest working on them second.  Implemented properly, I really think this could take Elemental to the next level.  Of course, this is a 4x game, and players like to 'know' what their pieces are going to do, but there is a whole new dynamic here that, done properly, would really make for an interesting 'game within a game'...

3) A minor stepping stone that some people might not mind seeing is Minor Empires.  These were very much an afterthought in E:WOM, but I think there is some potential here.  If a compelling framework for handling these could be worked out (i.e. make the Minors living and breathing empires that may ally with you temporarily to defeat a monster infestation, or perhaps be willing to collaborate with you on some research that they specialize in, perhaps they have kids that you wouldn't mind marrying one of yours off to, etc. etc. etc.), then this could be a fun DLC.  Again, though, no sense having these if they really aren't adding much to the game, hence this DLC is ultimately a judgement call.

4)AFTER the above DLC's are worked out/released, THEN it might be time to revisit E:WOM (I certainly look forward to that, but I seem to be in the minority here).  An E:WOM DLC pack by definition needs the above two working properly, and I don't think that anyone really wants a 'frame by frame' remake of E:WOM.  Rather, taking the 'framework/game concepts' from E:WOM, taking the E:LH system as a base (with it's balance lessons and such), and then recreate the world of E:WOM.  There is a lot of potential here, as Arcane knowledge is separate from Tech knowledge, so that concept needs to be fleshed out.  As I've said MULTIPLE times now, cities in E:WOM could walk and chew gum at the same time (build AND train simultaneously), so this needs to be done right (i.e. a production bonus if a city decides to concentrate on one, versus doing both at the same time, but say 50% efficiency not a 1 to 1).

Sovs in E:WOM are supposed to be VERY powerful, so this distinction needs to be restored/played up.  Also, I loved the wandering heroes concept, and indeed added to the 'RPG' element of E:WOM.  In fact, I remember being broke when I first crossed paths with certain heroes, and once I finally had the money to hire them, spending multiple turns tracking them down.  For a 4x game, this is kind of annoying, but from a first person perspective, this adds to the storyline, playing up the 'tale' aspect of the game.  Really, since the released E:WOM is more of a first person game, albiet with an identity crisis (it was supposed to be focused on your Sov), this needs to be played up.  The Dynasty concept certainly lends itself to this.  But the whole 'what makes a Sov different from a hero' needs to be nailed down fully.

Cities in E:WOM had more moving parts.  Specifically, you needed to build huts for the people flocking to your cause.  I actually didn't mind this (some call it micromanaging though), but the entire 'population growth mechanic' has several ways that it could work.  E:LH does the 'build it and they will come' approach.  I'd like to propose the 'people flock to the Sov, based on how powerful/charismatic he is' approach.  Sure, cities may still have structures that entice newcomers, but the people are flocking to your kingdom as a whole, and what it has to offer them, not just your cities.  This makes the game more Sov-centric, and  your Sov has a 'Charisma/Prestige' stat that ties into this heavily.  Also, successes and failures on the diplomatic/war front would increase or decrease the number of people flocking to your banner.  So, rather than tracking population growth by city, you track your total population growth as a whole (which increases based on the prestige, etc. of your kingdom/empire), which are then distributed AMONG your cities based on available accomodations. 

Finally, armies in E:WOM were larger.  While the graphical implementation of this looked kind of silly sometimes (16 guys crammed into a single square?), the concept of this is important.  This is WHY cities building and training simultaneously becomes important.  Sovs are SUPPOSED to be leading powerful armies, so producing said armies in larger numbers adds to this dynamic.  BUT, there needs to be a serious attempt at combat balance here.  While the current balance in E:LH may make most people happy, doubling unit sizes will dramatically change that balance.  Plus, there are those of us that think the current formulas encourage 'magic uber swords' that do not lend themselves well to game balance.  So, if there is ANYTHING that E:WOM could bring to the table, it would be a tighter balance on weapons,armor, and unit size interactions, and of course heroes that can hang with these larger armies.  Having tinkered in this area, I have full confidence that this CAN be done, but the playtesting necessary is time consuming, which is again why I say put this off until the other DLC is released.

To Summarize:

Instead of tackling E:WOM directly now, take the best parts of E:WOM that are missing from the franchise as a whole, and get those working awesomely.  Navies, Dynasties, and maybe Minor Empires.  Each of these by themselves would make for great DLC packs, and aren't E:WOM specific ideas.  THEN, IF these DLC packs are well received and working well, AT THAT POINT revisit E:WOM, but not until.  E:WOM will be better served by this approach.

E:WOM had more moving parts.  This isn't a bad thing, some of my favorite games have lots of switches and toggles to work with.  But those toggles and switches need to be meaningful and useful.  E:LH simplified a lot of things, and I'm sure the Fallen Enchantress franchise will continue for all of it's lovers.  But E:WOM should be different, and appeal to a slightly different audience.  I.E. those that LOOK for intricate interactions that can cumulatively have a great effect on the success of your Kingdom/Empire.  Also, E:WOM was about the Sov and his journey to greatness, so E:WOM should focus on the presentation from that perspective.

IMHO of course!