keep up the dev feeds! nice work keep it up !

Really looking forward to this coming out.  

Who is the talking camera guy?

Frogboy.

it will be really nice to see more of the gorgeous art that has been created for this game and see the story brought to life. i expect to really enjoy this stuff.

however, i'm not sure if it's the best use of resources. most of us never played the campaign that shipped with the original game, and even (in the best case scenario), that the campaign and sandbox games were integrated as i always hoped they would be (both in elementa and gal civ 2) most will surely end up skipping the cutscenes after the first or second playthrough. in fact, i am unlikely to play the FE campaign either, unless it is as deep and open as the sandbox (or better yet, the same game).

moreover, if you want to compete with the best, the production values will have to be really good. can you honestly say that people wil enjoy your cutscenes as much as they do in mass effects? (and if so, great). i thought the narration on the opening sequence in WoM was really cringy (the one on the website though, with the female voice, was much better).

moreover, are the peope who want that, emotive immersive rpg experience really going to play what wil (hopefully) always be a hardcore turn based strategy game? i know that the game already has rpg elements, but to my mind these make it more hardcore, not less, because of the amount of extra micro they add.

i love rpgs, but it is important to play to your strengths and know your audience (present and target). i'm not saying don't make the game more immersive, but don't do anything that you can't do as well as, or better, than anyone else. by this i mean, cutscenes, power poly graphics and animation, expensive narration or any other kind of production values that "take over" the gaming experience and interrupt gameplay. some good examples: the baldur's gate games have beautiful handpainted graphics, but next to non-existant animation and bare bones narration. but they are as good games as the newer rpgs because of their greater flexibility, depth and shear size. they did what they could well and avoided what they couldn't. or if you want a more recent example, indie smash Braid. gorgeous art and music, 0 narration or 3d animation. you are never forced to take a break from the basically fantastic game experience.

this is not to say what you're doing is a bad idea. i wil enjoy everything you add to the game, i just hope you play to your strengths.

Couldn't really see anything from the animation in the vid. Maybe give us a proper cutscene teaser soon to better understand what you're talking about?

PS. Nice shirt, looking good BoogieBac. Like your style.

Ya know, I on that video I saw Lord Xia's posts on BoogieBac's left monitor. What's up with that?

So you think people who play fantasy games have less imagination than people who play sci-fi?

By my perception, it's more that people who play sci-fi are satisfied with less in terms of the things fantasy people prefer, if they are satiated with interesting tech and things like that, while magic and such systems would have to be totally revolutionary and unheard of to draw in Fantasy fans, who are more discerning when it comes to other aspects of the setting.

Furthermore, GalCiv was not as bland as WoM. Though I first played GalCiv fairly late in the post-release cycle, much of this was there from the beginning. When I got to it, it had a lot more little things that imply setting than does War of Magic. Things like races, which were already diverse at the beginning even though they shared a tech tree for a long time. There were the humans and the drengin, which roughly parallel the kingdoms and empire, but then instead of being five versions of each of those, there were robots and bugs and amphibians and things. Then with random events/morailty and your political structure, that builds a lot more uniqueness to your empire than War of Magic can exhibit. In War of Magic, you're either human or fallen, and there's some differences between the races other than that, but the difference between people that are good at making money and people who are good at working metal is not as big as the difference between Yor and Altaria. And then WoM totally lacks any sort of social policy mechanic. There's not even the random events requiring you to make decisions like that, and even GalCiv's simplistic "empire/federation/democracy" thing is absent.

Both GC2 and WoM have the benifit of catering to a very creative group of players, with GC2 having the extra benifit of having some additional features that push immersion (random events is the big one in my eyes) and...you know...being stable

WoM, however, also caters to a section of the RPG crowd: a demographic that expect a certain level of richness, depth, and polish to their games. That's not to say they aren't creative, but RPGs are well known for heeping on polished and intergrated lore and many fans of that genre expect that here as well.

A large part of our FE focus is bringing that polish, whenever and wherever possible.

Sorry but I am in an opposite opinion about that. Most of the greatest gameplay can feel kind of dull to people, if it lacks some purpose and is just about mechanics and numbers.  Yes of course not all but I guess it is hard to give exact % numbers  about what people prefer. For example I even endure a bad gameplay system if teh story is ctaching and nice and a game just does have the right atmosphere. I am as well aware that there is the opposite spectrum around and a lot in between but saying gameplay > all is for me a just personal opinion and hardly reflects what someone does prefer or not.

For example Apple, as much I dislike teh company for many reason, sells their things mainly about the feeling nice and status aspect by mainly hiding the mechanic and 'gameplay' to the user sort of.

What I mean is someone certainly prefers something nice shaped with the same abilities over something  that looks like a brickstone and depending on the person one thing is higher weighted than the others. The optimal case would be to find the right balance that most people like. After all tehre is always someone that dislikes some aspect that 80% love for example.

Thinking about this makes forum feedback as a whole always a bit complicated.

Sorry if it sounds to confuseing. English is not my first language after all.

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Ah exactly what I mean, partly a problem is a bit lack of connection or empathy to the races to some degree. Blunt said someoen can get away with Elves, Lizards and dwarves by even adding less background to them as a race. On emotional level Elemental would have gottten quite different reactions if you have the known things around without much explanation. Since it are anway new races and you sort not can connect with their goals it feels a bit tough to connect to them. At least for me as a more story driven person since I am more from the Pen and Paper and general literature corner it felt sort of meaningless to play a race at all. In some way the upcoming Sequel makes it even harder to even play the game, since the Sequel is the more story driven one, which is kind of sad since I really like the base Idea behind the original one.

On the other hand I really love the story and the background to Sword of the stars for example. They made a nice Race bio and background with a writer to the certain groups  that is nice to read and each race had a kind of unique thing about itself, that let them feel different.

Anyway I stay far away to dare to give advice in this matter creating immersion that is catching is a really a tough thing. Maybe reading tvtropes would help to get a base feeling for things, than again readin that one leads to a breakdown in productivity for certain.

The example with apple was just a random one, but yes that is what I meant about it. Anyway I think they listen to much to their design people.