Stardock - you must fix the cursor

It was a grabbing hand in Dungeon Keeper, a mailed fist in the Total War series, a magic marker in Master of Magic - but what of the cursor in Elemental: War of Magic?  .  

Note these very facts:

  • The cursor does not change amongst the varied factions - always the same - a feather.
  • The feather is too far skewed - attempting to scribe with it would result in crooked lines. UNBALANCED!
  • The cursor does not change when the graphics setting is raised or lowered - even on my i7 Triple Core processor.
  • The AI of the cursor is linear - it only goes where it's told, there's no sense of sentience or challenge to it.
  • I attempt to click on monsters with the cursor and it does nothing.
  • I do appreciate the color and artwork on the cursor, though more feather ridges would have pleased me.

I can't seem to shake the feeling that it's more of a pre-cursor, and have no doubt that Brad, using his much more polished pointer finger, directed the cursor development team towards the door in the first round of layoffs. 

And for those who are quick to point it out, yes I know you can toggle it to hardware cursor, which turns it into this neat little arrow thing, but that's unfinished as well and it's buggy - it has impacted my desktop theme and now I see the damn thing everywhere.

 

4,426 views 3 replies
Reply #1 Top

"I have been chosen... By the giant metal hand in the sky!"

I don't mind the feather. It's consistent with the whole writing epics on the history of the channellers theme. I tell you what though the actual selection accuracy of the cursor is a major problem though. Not just in tactical battles. I've lost count of the time I've ordered my units to move to a square (I have the grid display on) and they've started wandering off in the opposite direction to get to a square 5 grids away on the other side of a mountain range... It really does not function well at all in an isometric view. While I'm at it I'd like to add the vertical edge scrolling is much to slow and inconsistent with the horizontal edge scrolling when the view is aligned with north at the top of the screen (As opposed to the default North East orientation, as determined by the icons on the cloth map).

Reply #2 Top

YEah Tac Combat has some UI lag issues and Cursor bounding box issues still... it's workable but annoying!

Reply #3 Top

I demand that the cursor leaves a trail of pretty flowers. Otherwise, I demand a 100% refund.