Today, Stardock has opened access to the Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes beta. Legendary Heroes is Stardock’s PC standalone expansion to the fantasy turn-based 4X strategy game Elemental: Fallen Enchantress.
So, as this is a standalone expansion, it includes all the Fallen Enchantress content. Beta access is available as of today for the price of $39.99/€29.99, with the official release planned for May 2013. There doesn’t seem to be a discount available for people who pre-order now.
Owners of Fallen Enchantress can upgrade for $19.99/€14.99. And, if you purchased Elemental: War of Magic from Stardock prior to November 2010, you should receive a free copy of this expansion.
Legendary Heroes expansion features:
- Gain champions through fame: Champions are no longer randomly found; they seek you according to your fame;
- New leveling system: Your sovereign and champions now evolve through a skill tree which allows you to pre-plan your hero;
- New tactical battle maps: Battles now have far more special skills available and initiative is more important. There’s also new combat mechanics to increase strategic options;
- New monsters: Liches and their skeletal minions, banshees and the dreaded Garagoxi;
- More magic: New spells like “Wall of Fire” and “Raise Horde” add new options to battle;
- Larger maps: A new gigantic sized map;
- Updated Graphics Engine: New visuals while improving performance on older machines.
To help you understand if this is your cup of tea, check out our Fallen Enchantress review, which provides you the details about the core gameplay to be found on this standalone expansion. As for the Legendary Heroes expansion itself, we may have a beta preview soon, or a review when it’s officially released.
In the video below, Stardock’s CEO presents some things that are in the beta.
Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes beta is now available, and if you’re interested in getting instant access you can pre-purchase the game at GamersGate or Gamefly (you’ll receive a Steam key). Note that Legendary Heroes will require the use of Steam, regardless of where you purchase it.
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I have to admit, they’ve done a lot of things right with this one. The tactical battles feel fresh, the new faction skills add decent tactical strategy, the new monsters are exciting and the overall pace just feels….better. Oh, and I love the new skill trees. Really nice!
It may have taken a whole new game (Fallen Enchantress) and a new expansion, but the Elemental world is finally coming together as it should have (nearly 3 years later?). I’m glad that Stardock stuck with it.
Definitely one to look out for if you weren’t provided a copy for being an “early adopter”. If anyone wants an LP of it, Das is doing a good one. Or I can give people a look at it, if they’d like.
Seriously? It became available when I just spent my gaming budget for this fortnight.
*sigh*
I guess I will give it some time to mature then. GOG just announced they are taking pre-orders for Eador, masters of the broken world and now this pops up.
Im annoyed at this behavior. I decided to support FE after the problems they gad and hardy a year goes by and I need to buy a completely new game to get more complete features . May bc e thats just the economy but im not buying this one till its heavily discounted. Brad banned my account for being publically crirical of Jon shafer so I guess stardock doesnt want my feedback regardless.
Yeah, what he said.
FE is too young to be abandoned.
A) You get a 50% discount for the expansion.
B) The expansion is worth it.
C) They’re giving away this expansion to those that supported them from the beginning.
D) FE is not being abandoned. They’ve stated that many times.
E) I read what you said about Jon and I felt like it was a bit harsh. Did he make the best decisions with CIV5? No. Was he the only one making decisions with CIV5? No way. Brad gave you a few warnings and you refused to back down.
What DevildogFF said. Well, except for E. I didn’t see the thread, so I have no idea on that front.
Yes, they have stated that patches and updates for FE will not stop. Also, it’s basically a hybrid of the expansion/expansalone methods. You pay full price if you don’t have FE and pay expansion price if you do.
I just tried to beta and it does feel quite different from FE and is definitely not just a paid patch or update. It’s a full expansion, and a good one.
A) 30$ is the “discounted” price I have been offered. Any way you slice that its the price for a new game.
B) Well ya or we wouldnt be having this dicusion. However expansion vs patch is up for debate.
C) Thats nice but doesnt help the people who supported them but didnt buy the original.
D) Anyone who thinks Stardock is going to use resources to support and progress FE is deluding themselves. There might be another touch up patch but all the changes, esp the Steam distrubution, makes FE a dead duck.
E) Jon Shafer did a video about a week before civ5’s release where he praised the game and its AI in a way that we now know was contrary to the state of the game. That makes him a liar in my book. In this society of coarse the villains run free while those who hold them to account are considered harsh bullies and neerdo wells. The man was hat in hand asking for trust and money and that he wasnt tarred and feathered speaks to our stupidity as consumers.
A) Are you sure 30 dollars is the discounted price you’re getting? If you have FE, it should be 20, unless this is an exchange rate issue or something.
B) I’m not sure how many patches have changed a game so drastically. The entire hero system is different, as is leveling. They changed the way battles work in some essential ways. They’ve eliminated major concepts and created new ones. They’ve also added lots of new content, a new map size, and a new set of graphics. I mean, if they released this as a patch, it’d be awesome, but I don’t think I’m entitled to all of it.
You were right on the price. 19.99. That is in expac territory. 99% of the change you mention are just displaying the information differntly. Like the hero system is the same as in FE just present better. What major concept did they remove? The only thing that changed with the battle was they start closer together and units attack in tandem. Graphics are the same graphic tiles, just retouched with less ground clutter.
“Like the hero system is the same as in FE just present better. ”
It’s a completely different system. You used to find heroes. Now you attract heroes by generating Fame, which is also new. It’s a very different approach.
They also completely changed the way leveling worked. Before, you had a random chance of accessing different traits. Now, you choose a particular path, and luck isn’t as central.
And battles have a number of changes. Sure, tandem attacks are there, and the sides start closer together. But also weapon and armor types have been removed, while new abilities have been added for each weapon. There are also new weapon types, like crossbows.
And the food system is different. And Influence is gone. And your cities can still do things while idle. And there’s a new approach to balancing large empires against small empires.
These are not minor touch-ups or UI revisions. These are substantial revisions to the way the game operates.
As killais2 said, there is tons of new content. As part of the new level up system, there are tons of new abilities and traits, especially many new generic spells that Mage heroes can get. There are also a ton of new in combat abilities sprinkled everywhere. Even a basic combat unit will normally have 2 or more of these to select and many of these really do change the way you do combat. The new spear strike through ability, for example, completely alters how you want to arrange your troops. Mace soldier can know out enemies quickly, sword users are good defenders, shield users can throw back the enemy and so forth.
The Fame system is mostly a different way of recruiting, but it does liven things up a bit.
There are also lots of new quests and events which are more interesting then the new one.
Not to mention that many of the old buildings and such have been heavily reworked and reballanced, far more than just a patch worth’s of work.
Granted I get this expansion for free, but would be more than happy to shell out cash for it.
Well put. I appreciate you coming back in a mature manner.
It’s worth forking out the money for, in my opinion. I’m already having a lot of fun with it.
You play any other 4X games?
Lots..bought Stardrive on based on your videos..still waiting for a bit more polish on that..what is this talk about Zero going back to Kickstarter for more funding? Is this game going to be in perpetual beta?
Any reason why you guys aren’t using the “Reply” function to nest your comments? Let’s keep the place clean :)
Weird, because I did hit the reply button. Sorry, Adam.
Zero has a publisher – Iceberg – so there is no return to Kickstarter. Where are you hearing that? I’d say SD has another month or so in beta to flesh out everything. With how fast Zero has been addressing things, I’d say early May.
Ah I’ve been replying in the amin box sorry. I’m on my phone atm, typing with one hand eating sushi with the other.
What do you say Adam..your experience with Kerberos build any sympathy towards critics like myself who get abuse for holding devs accountable.
What people do see over at Stardock forums is my almost decade long fight with Brad over Galciv2 Twight’s lack of functional AI
My job as a reviewer and editor in this site allows me to focus exclusively on games. So, I opt not to judge the people or the companies behind them, but I focus solely on their products. Not that I don’t have my own opinion about the games industry agents, but I usually reserve that to myself.
In my opinion there’s way to much confrontation, noise and frustration surrounding the games industry these days, when I think things can be much more simple if we start doing a few things.
First of all, we should avoid the impulse to buy a game just because we’re hyped about it or feeling a strong nostalgia effect. We must be very careful about putting money on a game, being a kickstarter, pre-order or day-1-buy without enough information. We here do our best to give you as much information as possible, and to provide as many reviews as time allows.
And this is the key: reviews. We must read at least a couple of reviews before deciding to buy a game. Whatever the publisher or the developer. Pick your favorite reviewers and then think it through. Resist day-1 buys.
I believe that if there are less day-1 buys, more and better reviews, and less pre-orders, the industry will naturally converge to build better and better products. And, we may witness the return of demos in full scale.
Of course, if you still want to pre-order a game for whatever reason, or you want to help kickstart a project, you have to realize that there are many risks involved. It needs to be always a conscious decision.
So, in my opinion, the less games we buy at day-1 and the less pre-orders we do, the better games we’ll have, and the noise and the frustration will be much smaller.
Read reviews before you buy. They may not be perfect, but they definitely help a lot.
“First of all, we should avoid the impulse to buy a game just because we’re hyped about it or feeling a strong nostalgia effect.”
Totally agree. It took me more years than I care to admit to learn this important lesson, but I think I’m finally getting there.
I’ll do a video soon to highlight the changes of LH. Maybe it’ll convince you to buy it.
Maybe I’ll have to do a giveaway with LH, too. lol
I’ll be doing a review on the Legendary Heroes expansion once we get close to the official release. Since beta has only just begun, I’d advise anyone who wasn’t already sold on what FE had to offer to wait, at least for now. There are several new mechanics and other changes that are only just now reaching the hands of testers, and I’d expect a decent amount of pre-release beta updates and patching based on feedback.
Adam is absolutely right to caution anyone from buying a sight unseen product on day 1, or even pre-day 1 in the case of preorders and alpha funding. I’ve been burned myself by this on quite a few occasions now. On the other hand, there are a few games I’ve either kickstarted or alpha funded that have turned out to be great investments. I am much more willing to take a risk and fund the project of a up and coming indie developer that is passionate about his work then to pre-order a AAA title in exchange for a free TF2 hat or a special pre-order costume I’ll likely never use.
The bottom line is, make sure you really know what you are buying before you check out with a product in your cart. Reviews, Let’s Plays, forum and blog comments, developer attitude and interaction with the community, all of these are great ways when used together to make an informed decision. Everyone has different tastes, and while a majority of people will tend to come to a consensus of how good a product is, that may not accurately reflect what your opinion of the product will be.
All that said, I’ll be playing Legendary Heroes and will give my thoughts closer to release. I’m excited to see what they’ve done.
I’m dissapointed because of the lack of some kind production overflow. Excess production (as was in FE, and Elemental) is still is wasted.
If anyone bought this already? What is the game state bug wise? Is it a bad quality bugged beta or an enjoyable one?
I got it for free with my early purchase of WoM, and have tried it.
I hit one weird bug which appears to have messed up the graphics, but I’m pretty sure reloading the save will fix it. I hit no other bugs. The new systems are working fine and the changes to combat really do a lot to make it much more fun. It’s starting to remind me of HoMM combat a little bit in terms of abilities and tactical positioning, and that’s a good sign, frankly. Other testers have also been raving about it.
But it is still the first beta, so bugs, even game crashing ones, are to be expected. Stay away if that bothers you.
I purchased LH on Steam and I find it very playable. So far the game has only crashed once in 8 hours of gameplay and I haven’t encountered any game-breaking bugs. All in all I think it’s more immersive and much more fun than FE was.
Just a quick question because I dont know if I should let this mature for now or not. Putting bugs aside, does the beta already bring a significant amount of the changes and we could say that its current state is sort of a significant patch that is already worthy of a purchase?
I am hungry for some FE but due to limited time and budget, I was wondering if I should let this mature for now and pre-order eador or play the game until it is in its released state as it matures?
19.99 it´s justo to steep for me right now, I bought Fallen Enchantress just last month! Seems like a great experience but I’ll wait for a (further) price drop.
Stardock turned into the greedy slippery manipulators at last. At the same time, the quality of their games is going down steadily. Me seems, the only good thing Stardock could make is the various GUI stuff. They should better stay there.
What are you talking about? This game seems to have many improvements over elemental. And I’m a bit surprised they honoured a promise they made several years ago, and sent me a free steam key for this game. If that makes them “greedy slippery manipulators”, well, carry on stardock.