Beta 1A of Elemental has arrived (or will in a few minutes).  It’s still incredibly primitive but a lot has gone on under the covers thanks to feedback from the beta testers from the initial beta.

First, a lot of bugs got fixed. There’s still a lot more to go at least but the CPU frying issue, the hard disk corruption issue, and of course the video card overheating problems have been mostly taken care of so we are pretty sure that the odds of the game physically damaging your computer are way down now (probably less than 1 out of 3).

Secondly, most of the profanity has been removed except from the technology descriptions and tool tips where we are still working to reduce that to a level where at least the expletives form a grammatically correct sentence.

Third, the root kit and spyware that beta 1 had in it has been mostly taken out. While the game loading will still make a complete file list of what is on your drive, it no longer uploads .xls and .doc files to our spam affiliate servers in Asia.  I know several people had mentioned or were concerned with seeing their personal photo albums and home budgets ending up on the net.  We are still looking into the issue of it submitting Quicken and MS Money data files to third-parties but we are hoping by Beta 2 that will be mostly resolved.

Details

Now for the actual, for-real details:

Beta 1 was basically about compatibility.  With Beta 1A we have started to insert actual “game” stuff along with bug fixes. Below are some of the details:

+ Saved Games Working!!!

- Issue fixed where loading a game would bypass some of the core cloth map initialization code

+ Caravans now show up on the map when a road is completed

- Caravans will travel back and forth on a completed road between any connected roads

- If a road is connected via a proxy city, new caravans will be created to traveled between the newly connected cities

- Caravans will deposit 10% of the home cities stored resources upon reaching the destination city

- If a caravan is killed, it will not respawn for 5 turns

+ 'Advanced' versions of the Race Setup and Opponent Selection Screens made to display more than 6 factions at a time (for when custom races are added)

+ Kingdom data and Charts show up on the Main UI when nothing is selected

- left side shows basic kingdom data, such as settlement count and income

- right side shows chart with the treasury, population, and overall might of the races you know about

+ Decresed startup time

- game only updates sectors that have been exposed by FOW

- core XML and game XML separated to load in a thread

- various functions optimized for efficiency

- /fastload param added to allow even quicker loading performance for those whose systems are already working perfectly with the game.

+ Fixed Family Tree Wnd to keep users from having to manually delete it

+ Action Icon for Auto-Explore now updates immediately when toggled

+ On Foreign Relations Wnd, dead races be indicated as such

+ Dynamic Map textures (blend maps, etc) now regenerate on Alt-Tab

+ Double Clicking an improvement icon (in City Construction mode) Auto-Places it

+ City Details screen shows a rundown of basic Info related to that city

- Shows time to next level, road connections, etc.

+ Goodie Huts that display unknown/hidden cities and sovereign units

+ Game Skeleton internally implemented, with key AI functions added and various event handlers hooked up

- AI functions include logic for Rally points, Waypoints, battle Strength Comparison, finding resources on the map, etc.

+ Various Spelling and Grammar fixes made

+ Formatted Text bugs fixed

+ Added code to propertybucket and xmlutil to handle 64 bit integers (if you're interested)

+ Factions chosen in the opponent setup wnd are now properly placed into the game

+ Fixed some bugs when saving selected factions out to prefs.ini

+ Font handling code updated so everyone should get the proper fonts when playing

+ Technology status bar on Main UI colorizing based on the Tech being researched

Next Week:

Economic system and base tech tree get in.

BETA Schedule

BETA 1

1. Initial Build: Basic Compatibility
2. Beta 1A: Initial Gameplay Skeleton
3. Beta 1B: Initial Economic system Implemented
4. Beta 1C: Initial AI system Implemented
5. Beta 1D: Initial Diplomacy system Implemented
6. Beta 1E: Initial Dynasty system implemented
7. Beta 1F: Initial Magic system implemented
8. Beta 1G: Initial Quest system implemented

BETA 2

1. Initial build provides basic multiplayer (player hosted – client/server)
2. Beta 2A: Persistent stat tracking
3. Beta 2B: Stardock hosted option.
4. Beta 2C: Stardock hosted persistent games
5. Beta 2D: Stardock hosted persistent universe game (persistent dynasties)

BETA 3

1. Initial Kumquat3D engine build of Elemental.
2. Beta 3A: Introduction to Dungeons
3. Beta 3B: Introduction to Magical Spells

BETA 4

1. Introduction to tactical battles
2. Beta 4A: New multiplayer mode: Arena
3. Beta 4B: Customized tactical battle options
4. Beta 4C: Super-Duper AI Update to tactical battles
5. Beta 4D: Polish Beta (extensive and ongoing)

BETA 5

1. Introduction to integrated modding
2. Beta 5A: Persistent universe mods
3. Beta 5B: Third-party Maya/3D Studio importing beta
4. Beta 5C: Modding group testing