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The Fallen Enchantress Obama Bug


Tomorrow looks to be a fun day as the long expected Beta 4 for Elemental: Fallen Enchantress is due out.  I know what you are thinking:  isn't that the sequel to 2010's biggest gaming flop?  Well, not exactly.  To be exact, Fallen Enchantress is the ambitious stand alone expansion to Elemental:War of Magic.  That is, it aspires to become the game we all hoped EWOM was going to be before the whole thing crashed and burned, and then some!  And let me tell you something: based on Beta 3, there is good reason to be optimistic that it will succeed. 

Initially, I wasn't that optimistic - Betas 1 & 2 were merely marginal improvements on the EWOM formula at best.  However, Beta 3 surprised me with its noticeable shift in quality.  Instead of coming across as a grade 'C' Civ clone, Beta 3 made FE finally feel like its own game - and quite an interesting one at that.


There were too many changes made to be listed here, but I definitely noticed a marked improvement to the tactical combat, not to mention the game's ability to create an interesting world from scratch with each play-through.  In fact, the thing that bugged me the most about FE beta 3 was the boring city development - something that goes to show you just how improved the rest of the game had become.  I mean, with all the problems that EWOM had, the lack of interesting choices for building your cities was way at the bottom of the list for me.  So, yeah, Beta 3 showed some definite improvement.

Speaking of Beta 4 - the focus for this beta will be....city building!  Clearly, Stardock is on the same page as its gamers, which is always a good thing.  In addition to that, a bunch of new enhancements are expected all across the game tomorrow, so I am excited to give it a try.  

Here is a new gameplay vid of Beta 4 that shows you what you can expect if you are part of the Beta, or if you are just curious whether or not Fallen Enchantress will be for you when it is released later this year (after Beta 5...so more changes are coming):

 

Now, about that Obama Bug:

In the changelog for Beta 4, I found this interesting fix for a bug:


Fixed AI bug where it would tax itself to death in certain cases

Isn't that just being a liberal democrat?  What is more, if that is considered a bug in gaming, just why do we tolerate it in real life?!?  Shouldn't somebody release a patch for Obama in that case?   When are we going to get that changelog? Oh yeah, on Election Day (November 6 for Republicans and independents; November 7 for Democrats).  Ahem.

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