Destiny's Embers (Novel Spoilers)

Also, I want to say, I love the Special download map.  I manipulated it last game so it ended up as me(kingdom) on the Western continent and Kraxis on the East, both massive empires and had a land bridge created to connect them.  Had a lot of fun.   

I was very impressed with the book as well.  It's actually much better than I expected because I figured a 'tie in' book would be OK but not that engaging.  As it turned out, I had a hard time putting it down.

Could have used more ponys, but that's ok.

(SPOILERS)

I don't suppose there is a way to get empire units up to full strength by eating darklings, is there?  How about invisibility spells, are they going to be in the game?

That's a good question.  With Invisibility, or masking I think it's called, would provide a lot of interesting possibilities, like spying and ambushes.  Eating darklings sounds expensive, unless you happen to run into wild ones.  I think Nym got energy from eating anything.  He's really fun to play  in the game too, should give it a try, he's super fast and has an off hand weapon that would be bad ass if it was incorporated for other uses, like other heroes or units. 

I've played Xandar and Calis so far , I'll try Nym next.

I want I want this content! I have teh book for nook too

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

The book kind of implied that Mirdoth was the black mage that the Channeler king fought and offically killed to cement his rule. The deal the him and the king talk about suggest this as due the the regrets of his past and also the fact that his identity is made up and know one knows who he really is apart from the king.

The Iru are not in the game at all, same with the traits that make fallen different from men (Or each other).  

I agree that the book was hard to start but once i did i found it a great read. The books world is so rich, its disapointing that it never transfered to the game which is really weird since both the game and book were done by Brad. I hope the updates fleshout abit more of the creatures/races and other lore mentioned in the book.

One thing i did not like however was the totally cliche way Tandis dies(?), i mean really?!?!?! Come on that seemed like it just got edited in to explain why someone so strong could get written out. I actually stopped reading after that paragrapgh and came back to it later. It was a really rookie plot device to use so total jarred me and made me feel like i was reading a movie adaption or something. Other then that it was a good read and i would buy a follow up if its ever released.

I'm very interested in seeing what people think of Nym because he's not a Channeler but has crazy combat abilities.

Polistes - regarding the Nook, can you PM me your B&N order number to see if I can get Random House to help us on that?

Regarding characters:

• Mirdoth will be an important character in the game franchise later on. He's not a titan however.
• Galor is the son of Relias.
• There's no invisibility in the game universe. Rather, it works more like hyper negative aggro. People just don't notice poor Vreen.

Thanks Brad, but what about the Iru?  And what about Wraiths?  I didnt see any Wraiths mentioned in the book.

Oh, and Nym is a stud in the early game.  He slices, he dices, and eventually he will find a essence potion.  I've thought about playing as Calis, but does he have the ability to use elemental spells?  I noticed that none of the Embers characters have any spell schools.

I'm about halfway into the book and I am really enjoying it Brad. I have also just downloaded the Book content and will be trying it out this weekend. I have lately had a hard time finishing up books lately (still three other books I have to finish) but, not with this book.

Does anyone else think that Geni seems like your typical airhead blonde?

Tandis is NOT dead, simply play Galciv II The campaigns not sandbox. Tandis is in them, and yes its the same Tandis.(Talax aint dead either)

I've never played the campiagns in GalCiv2, might have to do that some day. 

Well I won't say any comments on Tandis.  But I will say there are supposed to be at least 2 more books in the series.

It'll ultimately boil down to sales since a sequel being published will be determined on Random House's feelings on how well it sold.

One thing people who have read the book could do to help is review the book on Amazon.  

In a rather unfortunate display of nastiness, some of the more vile members of Quarter To Three took it upon themselves to go and trash the book on the first couple of days on the amazon reviews. As to why they felt the need to do this, I can only speculate since I can't imagine the type of people who would expend so much energy to try to harm another person.

Quarter to Three sounds like 4Chan.

It didn't used to be.

I became a member 8 years ago and for the first 6 or so years, it was an amazing place.  My friend Tom Chick owns it and I used to help arrange get togethers at trade shows and Stardock would pay for dinner at many of them. It was a place for industry veterans to hang out.

Then, a couple of years ago, the site got opened up to pretty much anyone who wanted to join (before, Tom was very choosy about who he allowed).  The site also opened up a "Politics and Religion" section where suddenly "friends" were aware of each others personal politics.

Slowly, over the past couple of years, the most vile personalities have come to the fore as more reasonable people have slowly been driven away.  Sid Meier might be willing to debate a game mechanic with the former editor of Computer Gaming World, for example, but they're going to probably be a lot less inclined to have some random guy calling his games pieces of shit.

Basically, what happened is that many industry veterans were part of Qt3 and then once the doors were opened, the kind of person who thinks they somehow gain something when they try to diminish someone who's successful became all too common.

Throw in a healthy dose of success-envy with the combination of having direct access at those who are successful and pow.

I had one of the people who was smearing my book over there email me saying "What do you expect? Do you think it's fair that those of us who have toiled in writing for years to build credentials with hopes of one day getting our own book published should have to sit back and watch a guy who's never written a damn thing get to have their fucking fan fiction published by fucking Random House and sold at their local bookstore?"

To many people, they see one person's success or good fortune coming at the expense of someone else. Hence, these people were motivated to smear my book in as many places as possible (the Unamommer review was written by a QT3 user who was banned for stalking me) explicitly because they knew the person they were attacking. It's about the PERSON -- not the thing being reviewed -- to them.

The book was irrelevant. Its existence is unfair in their mind. I'm happy with how the book came out. I learned a lot about book publishing that I never knew about and got a lot LOT of help from Random House's editorial team. It was a really good time and I think most people would enjoy the story on its own, even unconnected from the game.

Good news on the possible sequels.

I already posted a review on Amazon before hearing about the smear campaign - I saw the reviews when I was buying the book, having read it I thought they were pretty unfair so put a more positive one up.

Criticism does not necessarily contitute a smear campaign.

I'm highly critical of Elemental's setting. Primarily because of the fact although it's argued that considerable thought and effort has been placed in it, why are concepts recycled wholesale from Galciv II?

The 'Dreadlords' there were a fun tongue-in-cheek reference to other 4x games having big-bads. But what purpose does it serve to copy-and-paste the Dreadlords and Arnor into Elemental's setting?

Considering the amount of grammatical and spelling issues with the in-game flavor text in Elemental, and things such as the recycling of names and concepts from earlier games there may be some good lore and ideas but they're not coming through.

Gameplay wise we don't see any differentiation in factions driven by lore, or unique character.

The funny thing is after purchasing Elemental, finding it wanting compared to Galciv 2, I purchased Master of Magic after hearing about it. Although it has a paper thin plot the gameplay and options presented to the player all result in strong sandbox plots. Elves play differently than Klackons (a major factor here being how population ties with resources/production and racial bonuses can really structure how games play) and there's decisions to be made in how magic is specialized. I could be a necromancer terrorizing the Halflings I rule by sacrificing them or an Elven life mage focusing on saving the forests from interlopers.

The basic idea of a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting where magic is returning and you're building dynasties and armies and trying to restore the land or drain the last bit of life from it for personal gain is a good one. But instead of being pidgeon-holed with a prebuilt chronology I'd be good to focus on writing 'fluff' that enhances the game as it's played: a sandbox game.

Having the fallen following in the footsteps of the *insert name other than Dreadlords from Galciv and draining the last life and magic from the world to ascend themselves could work out well. But there need to be things that differentiate kingdoms and empires, and the games need to be set in a situation where it feels like player's actions matter. Having a novel set hundreds of years later seems to defeat that purpose.

Kerberos did a relatively decent job with the lore tied in with each Sword of the Stars expansion, having short stories that tied in with major plot developments and leaving in random encounters and backstory various plot hooks to expand on which could be changed depending on feedback. With the current approach to Elemental, while you're being open about gameplay changes the lore needs just as much care, having it developed in a way where each expansion can have a few possible directions that the writing may go and different routes are taken based on positive and negative feedback would be the approach to do. 

Honestly, if Stardock is so invested in the current Elemental lore, the best option would be for those who want a more sandbox friendly "standard fantasy" setting to be allowed to have a semi-official alternate world setting where instead of Kingdoms and Empires there's specific races (Elf, Dwarf, Men, Lizardmen, etc.) that you can assign a sovereign to. It could even be viewed as an 'alternate world' with its own sets of gameplay rules for sandbox games.

Hold on to your desk since I'm about to blow your mind!

Spoilers: Its set in the same Universe as GalCiv2.

Legit critques of books are not smear comapaigns however the reviews Brad's books have been ge tting have been far from legit, however with awareness that has been raised I am seeing more balanced and fair critiques, somethging that everyone benefits from. Also for a first time wqriting a book its surprisingly good. As he gets more practice I am sure the future books will improve as well.

Nym is fun to play.  Not having any spellcasting till late-game puts give the game a new flavor.

But I suspect Xander is bugged.  More specifically, despite having the "this unit cannot be the target of offensive spells" trait, he keeps getting pounded by offensive spells like "stab of ice".  Haven't messed with enough other characters with that trait to know if it is Xander-specific or not.

Meanwhile, I have bitched long and often about the blandness & weakness of champions in Elemental as compared, for example, to high-level champions in MOM, or even Kensai in Shogun:TW.  Nym & Xander are the kind of champions I would like to be able to hire or summon someday.

The best thing in the world would be to make the Ember group in game champions, not just Sovs.  I would love to see Nym or Ambose just wandering around.  I would be selling all my shit to get the money to hire those guys.

SPOILERS!!

Finally read the book, like others said once I started it was an engaging read. My main critique is that at several points I found the topographical changes hard to visualize; OK they are in a huge underground cavern, that has a keep on top of it, and it is all connected somehow, and the cave has a river, which flows outside, through the burning forest, now hey look a mountain with cave! I'm not saying it is a realism question, it is a magic world after all, just that it jarred me out of the narrative a bit when I'm trying to imagine how all this terrain is fitting together. There were also one or two logical errors the editors should have caught (towards the end Xander drops off his horse, says a line, then turns his horse around to head back to... wait didn't he just get off the horse?).

But I quibble. I enjoyed the book and would read the sequels if they get to be written.

To the original point I too felt like Mirdoth was probably "the Black Sorcerer" only years later after a change of heart. And I also wondered about where exactly the Wraith went, or if it just didn't come up. Or maybe the whole Sion 'race' are what's left of the Wraith? Or maybe the book was already written but the game needed another race and Marketing said "Hey you know what would be cool?"

Looking forward to trying the bonus characters tonight!