elemental-war-of-magic posts

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving but already folks are starting to buy their holiday gifts (or at the very least thinking about creating their lists really hard). There have been a lot of PC games to choose from in the past 12 months and today Big Download wants to offer a few suggestions for the person who has a PC gamer on his or her list.

The games listed below are what we feel are good gift choices that should please any hardcore or even casual PC gamer that you have to buy for this year. We have even thrown in some indie titles and some games that are priced a bit cheaper than the norm for those of you on a budget. Check out our 2010 holiday list after the jump:

Editor's Note: Steven Wong contributed to this article

Elemental: War of Magic had a admittedly rocky release when it shipped out in late August. The highly anticipated Stardock developed fantasy turn-based strategy game was released with a number of major bugs and other issues.Since its release Stardock has issued several patches to the game including the most recent 1.1 beta patch. However the lower than expected sales of the game caused Stardock to lay off a number of workers.

However it's possible that things are looking better for Elemental's future. According to what Stardock's PR head told Big Download this week, the sales for Elemental have gone up 30 percent in October compared to sales of the game in September (specific unit sales numbers were not revealed to us). The PR head also told us that retail stores have increased their shipment orders of the game. Stardock has already pledged that it will continue to support Elemental with more patches and expansion packs for the rest of the year and well into 2011.

It's been another super busy day for news today. Hopefully Friday things will get back to what is supposed to be normal. And then there's next week where we will have two super slow news days during the normal work week ... hey, we like eating turkey and Black Friday as much as the next person.

• The 1.1 beta patch for Elemental, planned for release today, has been pushed back until Friday.
• Speaking of delays, the release of the mini-expansion ArmA II: Private Military Company has been pushed back one week from November 23 to November 30.
• The latest Bethesda Podcast has been released and is a special hour long episode featuring a chat with id Software's John Carmack.
• Some disappointing news: It looks like Hothead Games' upcoming title Swarm is console only.

Elemental War of Magic is getting close to releasing the first beta version for its long awaited 1.1 patch. It's due for release via Impulse on Thursday from developer Stardock but today the massive patch notes have been posted on the game's message board.

While this patch for the fantasy turn-based strategy game has a ton of bug fixes, changes, improvements and new features one of the biggest changes is for Elemental's magic system. In short the whole system is getting a major revamp in the 1.1 patch. When the beta comes out most of the old spells will be removed and replaced with 68 new spells. The final version of the 1.1 patch will have 75 spells.

Elemental: War of Magic's development team at Stardock has been working on a massive patch for the turn-based strategy game for some time. This week the game's new senior producer Derek Paxton posted up an update to the game's official web site declaring that the beta version of the 1.1 patch is schedule to be released on Thursday, November 18.

Paxton also goes into some heavy details on some of the changes that will be made by the 1.1 patch to the game. That includes a "rebalancing of all the stats, combat, equipment and creatures" in Elemental. In particular Paxton goes deep over what will be changes in terms of the game's stats system.

While we have been waiting patiently for Stardock to release the promised "big" 1.1 patch for its recent turn-based strategy game Elemental War of Magic the developer has decided to run a contest that will give its fans a chance to design a spell that might be put into the game.

Basically you head to the contest pack and describe the spell you would be put into the game. The deadline for entries is December 13. After that the contest moderators will pick their top five spells and put them up to a vote by the Elemental community. The creator who makes the spell that has the most votes will see that spell put into a future update for the game and will also win an ATI Radeon HD 5850 1GB graphics card. Runners-up will receive gift cards to use to download games from the Impulse service.

Developer/publisher Stardock has taken it on the chin with the bug-filled release of its fantasy turn-based strategy game Elemental: War of Magic. Since its release last August there have been a number of bug fix updates to the game that have made it better for many gamers.

Stardock CEO Brad Wardell previously announced that the first major content expansion would be free to download for owners of the game. Today Wardell expanded that deal announcing that people who purchase and register the game before October 31 will get the first two expansions for Elemental for free. In addition the major 1.1 patch for the game will be made available for players to beta test in a week or so.

When Elemental: War of Magic was released last August, it got a few solid reviews including one here at Big Download. However everyone was in agreement that the turn-based strategy game from Stardock was released too early and suffered from bugs (many of which were fixed in later patches). Stardock CEO Brad Wardell pledged that Elemental would be supported with more updates and expansion packs no matter the sales or reviews.

Today Stardock took one big step forward in its future support for Elemental with the announcement that Derek "Kael" Paxton would be joining the team as senior producer. Paxton is known as the leader behind the popular Fall from Heaven fantasy total conversion mod for Civilization IV. Big Download got both Paxton and Wardell to answer some questions about this latest development for the game,

The creator of one of the most well know total conversion mods for Civilization IV has just been hired by Stardock. The developer/publisher announced today that Derek "Kael" Paxton will take over as senior producer of the recently released turn-based strategy game Elemental: War of Magic.

Paxton is best known for developing Fall from Heaven, a highly detailed total conversion for Civilization IV. Paxton had plans to release Fall from Heaven as a stand alone commercial game but recently revealed that those plans have been put on hold. His new position at Stardock will put him in charge of ongoing development and expansion packs for Elemental which was first released last August. Stardock CEO Brad Wardell will now be an executive producer for Elemental as well as its lead AI programmer.

Columbus Day is close to being over. Did you "discover" a new land today that really was found by other groups long before you showed up? We bet you did.

• Stardock plans to announce a new producer for Elemental on Tuesday. Yes, it's an announcement of an announcement.
• A new update to Alien Swarm has been made via Steam.
• World of WarCraft players get ready for a major new update to the MMO starting tomorrow.
• The Minecraft web site has a single screenshot showing off more of this month's big update
• Speaking of which check out this new user made video. Neat.
• GDC Online was attended by over 3,000 people in Austin last weekend
• Arcania: Gothic 4 is now available on Steam for European gamers.