We mentioned in a previous entry that Beta 0 of Elemental will be able to be played on a cloth map. Now to be clear, not all of the game elements will be able to be handled so abstractly. But enough will be that the basic game could be played on the cloth map.
But some users have emailed me asking why even bother having the zoom in map? And the answer is that a game, in our opinion anyway, is greater than the sum of its parts. What we hope to make special about Elemental is that each game is YOUR world.
What do we mean by that? Well, at the cloth map level, you’ll be able to label the world as you see fit. Give deserts and swamps and forests names. It’s purely cosmetic but it’s about making the world yours.
When you zoom in, you’ll be able to see the effect you’re having on the world. At the start of the game, the world is dead. You (and your competitors) are bringing it back to life after the Cataclysm. And how that world evolves depends on your actions.
The way we explain Elemental to some people is to ask if they’ve ever played Dungeons and Dragons. If they say yes, then we tell them that Elemental is the world you played D&D in except instead of being a party of adventures, you’re the sovereign of the kingdom that those adventurers were playing in – but the world is still just as rich and interesting as it was before. And to convey that, we have to let players get in close to see and care about that world.