a bit off topic, but 2nd ed was TSR, not Wizards of the coast.  It was the original D&D guys at the begining.  On top of that there was 2nd ed D&D and 2nd ed AD&D.  I can agree that 3rd and 4th are abominations, but 2nd ed was pretty loyal to 1st ed, except considerably more streamlined (at least at first).  I mean lets face it... 1st ed was pretty bad.  I love going back and looking at my books where I can play a level 4 'halfling' (because all the race is a single class )

As far as options are concerned, I just want most things they create to be able to be turned off.  Nothing bothers me more than when a sequal introduces a cool new feature that changes gameplay in a big way... and sometimes you just wish you could turn off once in a while

No, I think Swicord = buttmunch is a bit more accurate.

The problem with Swicord and people like him is that it isn't good enough for him to say, "Hey - I like GURPS."

No, it has to be, "I like GURPS, and if you like D&D, it's because you're an unlettered plebe who wouldn't know quality if it bit you on the ass."

That sort of unneccessary elitism is stupid and destructive to the hobby, and, if he was really any good as a roleplayer, he'd know that you can have great roleplaying sessions using D&D (of any edition), GURPS, Warhammer Quest, MERPS, BESM, Shadowrun, Vampire, or any of a hundred other game systems.

(And, yes, I've played all of the specifically named game systems [and several others besides], and had a blast with all of them.  Even better, I can tell you about their good and bad points IME without calling a fan of a particular one a moron.)

Of course I've played Rolemaster!  (AKA Rollmaster, AKA Chartmaster - and totally said with love; MERPS is a Rolemaster derivative, and that was good, too)

The charts for various actions were simultaneously the game's best and worst point; they made resolving any given action take quite awhile (especially for people new to the system), but they were so flavorful in how the result played out that you were usually willing to forgive the extra time.  The exact terminology escapes me after so many years, but I still remember attempting an attack with my longsword, cross-referencing the enemy's armor type, performing some math based on his actual defenses, and finding out that I did a Type A, B, and C hit, which, eventually, resulted in cutting the opponent's arm and basically ending the fight right there.  That was pretty cool. *

I lucked out and had a GM who basically created custom character books for all of us (he'd hand out a binder with the charts for each weapon we used, all the appropriate spell and skill charts, etc.), which sped things up immensely, and then he'd put in a lot of effort to keep the game flowing (an important skill in any game, but even more so in one where it's easy to get bogged down in details).

* I find that, for each of the systems which I don't get to play all that often, there's one or two things that end up more or less defining the game for me.  For Rolemaster / MERPS, it's that initial disarm. For Shadowrun, it was looking up at the GM during character creation and saying, "Wait a second; I can buy a biker gang?"  For Ars Magica, it was throwing together a hasty combat spell on the fly to save my wizard's life, rolling the spell success chance, and failing (Goodbye, magus!), only to remember that I'd taken the Flawless Magic ... perk ... during character creation, which meant I never failed that kind of roll - Hahah!

Well, I imagine we would have both for sure.  Since this is supposed to be the closest thing to master of magic since the original, I'd imagine you would have to have that outerworldly connection.  Perhaps not a series of passages per-se, but more an entire world.   Then you'd have your point-to-point waygates HoMM style.   I'd imagine you also have the gate spells (or structures if you are an AoW guy) you can put in towns to let you move between the towns at will.

Now what I think is an important question (and maybe this is what you mean hiriako, but you didn't express in a way I understood) is how will the system handle it?

Because I still see everything is MoM style, I'd imagine that when you occupy a waygate, you will occupy all of the waygates connected at the same time.  In MoM, when you step on a portal that moved between planes, you counted as being on both sides of the way gate at the same time. 

I recall glitches occurring in towns where I casted those instant move portals existing where it wouldn't let me move 9 into a town because another portal had guys standing on it. This may have been fixed at some point, and they don't have this problem in AoW, but in AoW it counts as a step to move from one end of the portal to another town.  Now the reason this is important is if there is any sort of over-map range feature (like somebody I remember requesting artillary of some sort, they are especially important since I'd imagine they couldn't move and shoot or something) then you can't park it half in and half out of a portal, firing off to your heart's delight.

the 'can't move to a space because the other side of the portal (or plane because the other guys have plane travel cast on them) because then the total count is more than 9, even though they arn't at the same place' really bothered me, so I'd perfer the HoMM / AoW  requires move to move through portals or waygates I think.

I'm actually a bit surprised that GC2 doesn't have some sort of teleporting way-gates, since there is an anomoly that will randomly teleport your flagship accross the map.  I hadn't really thought about it before, but it is really missing a structure that lets you do it and it would be very useful.  Sins does at least (even if only 1 faction gets them).

I should point out that I'm coming into this game never having played MoM. I got ahold of a copy once, many, many years later. Had no manual. Couldn't really figure out it because I was impatient at the time. Died too quickly too often.

Anyway, I do like the thought of being able to construct waygates which would allow speedy transporation between your own cities and villages. Should this kind of travel be instantaneous, or take a bit of time? I think that depends on the explanation behind it. It's also another place you could develop upgrades, with it being quicker as you expand upon that type of knowledge, or as you place more essence into the workings.

The manual was nice (I had one obviously) though I don't think it really told me much on how to play the game.   I think I figured it out on my own since there were 2 things, 1 - build things in town and 2 - pres end turn.   The spells it did for me (it forced me to research them anyway, later I must have found the spell button)

well, explanation is very easy to what you want, especially if it isn't a main plot point of some story.  

From what frogboy gave us, we know there are things that can be felt through the passage of time and all that, once magic is perfected there really doesn't need to be any further explination for teleporting in any way.  it just happens because powerful channelers and mages figured out how.