(1) Depends on what we find fun.  I think you should go back and look at the Master of Magic spells with fresh eyes (I know I have) and look at those 210 spells.

(2) No. I can't let you know yet.

I constantly go back and look at Master of Magic spells.  I look back at my manual, and just about every time I'm like "Jeez, they created so much stuff for this game!  What was the development of this like?"

If you're trying to meet the 210 spells, that sounds like a pretty fair goal.  *provided they are all or mostly useful (In AoW I found that many of the spells I didn't really use ever)

What about number of quests?

Yeah that absolutely blew me away, I mean even if they were no more involved than the little popup random events in GalCiv2 that's still an astonishing number to be aiming for.. but if they're a lot more involved and complex (as it sounds like they're going to be) then that really does strike me as pretty amazing .

sorry,  I meant non-optional quests.   We know there is single player campaign, and I guess it wouldn't be in a very straight-forward level system (I get that strong impression) so I want to know about the quests that are not part of that 500.

(I should have called them 'main-story quests' or something along those lines)

Oh it can happen for sure.      Its at the point where you have so many spells that they are up to your ankles, and you have to wade through them to find which ones are useful.   At this point the learning curve is extended by them, because new players won't be able to figure out which ones are worth researching.    Looking at the spellbook would be daunting, because when you wanted to find something you'd have to flip through several pages just to see half your spell list.  (which is awesome if you have that many spells, but can be annoying when it reaches a point where you're on page 10 of 30 looking for a simple mana-bolt)

The lack of other 4X spells is exactly why this game needs to be made.   There really arn't many (HoMM and AoW are the main ones).   But anyway, yeah Master of Magic could use some balancing with the spells, but for a game in the early 90s it is pretty good.  If you want useless spells, may I direct your eyes to Age of Wonders.  IN master of Magic, there is really only a few direct damage spells, so you only ran into a problem where you were having to pick between two spells that did the same thing when you took multiple elements.   I vote that the solution to this is create a new type like water+wind=ice (see another thread that talks about spell ideas.  there are several).  Non-damage spells came in the forms of summons (which were pretty much 'you got what you paid for' in mana) and strange effects (which were usually pretty self-explanitory, easy to understand, and usable).   AoW had a few spells that were maybe not even really worth it (I can find specific examples for you if you really like).  More than never I'd look at my research list and say "jeez, I don't want any of these spells."

In this game the direct damage spells should have clear tiers so players don't have to waste time figuring out which is better.   I think in MoM this was further squed by the ability to channel additional mana into the spell without being sure what the direct result was.  The idea is a great one (to channel more power into it for better results), but the UI for it wasn't that great.   If it is repeated it should be easy to set straight once the beta comes out (or just several options for the power level should be available that are better explained than a sliding bar and seemingly arbitrary number)

well, I hang out with enough designers to tell you, it isn't stupidity that would cause it.   Just maybe lack of insight.  Its an easy mistake to make, since it doesn't slap you in the face with a giant wong if you start treading the line.

Also, its like the old saying goes, "you can't tell perfection if there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away" and it remains true.   This tends to cause two extremes > nothing left to add means that there is a huge spellbook, or nothing left to take away which means you have a small but functional spellbook.   If you don't want a small spellbook, but you don't want a mass of crap... there is a balance to be found that failing to find isn't a mark of stupidity by any means.

I think a solution to the daunting spellbook would be to create a TON of spells, then have pre-saved sets.   So your standard set would include as many and only enough spells to make the game fun.  But when you go into the spell-book editor you can pick others.  (the only problem with that is that players are stupid and will probebly go for the 'complete spellbook' option on 1st go anyway dispite the default 'beginners spellbook' that was there at first)

I liked the fuzzy aspect of adding extra mana in MoM. But that's probably because I was very fond of "pushing" in the old Champions tabeltop RPG. To work, it basically depended on a player picking a really strong story moment and a ref making a good ad hoc judgement call about how much the player could "push" and what the extra effort would do. At its simplest, it was just a bid of additional damage or defense. But with complicated powers, especially when power-sets were interacting, interesting stuff could happen.

If there's some sort of "spell pushing" for Elemental, I hope that at least part of it is deliberately opaque to the players so we just have to choose to roll some dice, not take another obvious step in a thoroughly detailed plan for world domination.

There's an important distinction buried in there for me. I dislike the idea of each combat 'spell' being 3-5 spells with the latter ones just being improvements (e.g. lightning bolts level 1-5). But I like the idea of a fairly large number of built-in spells because the 'epic' aspirations of Elemental call for a lot more than simple combat magic.

I get the impression the devs might be trending in this general direction b/c they've as much as said that we can expect more complexity with the spells than with the hardware for regular combat units. Keeping magic fairly simple as far as tactical spells go makes sense, but I'm greedy for lots of stuff that works only at the cloth map level and has little or no direct effect on combat units.

I agree, but we don't have to worry about limited features and content based on previous games released from Stardock.

Well, in theory you will always end up in that place.   (maybe not 80 never used, that is far to big, lets keep to the 5 commonly used, 15 seldomly used, and 15 never used)

Its just before you have 35 spells, you have only those 15 never used spells that you must research to to reach the 15 never used spells which at that point are the 5 always used spells. and 10 seldom used spells.  (or 5 always used spells, 5 seldom used spells and 5 used in case the other guys use one of their 5 seldom used spells)

That's not what he said, though. From the dev journal he said that there will be ~20 spells per school (whether that means total, or per race, hasn't been clarified). So let's say, for the sake of discussion, that there will be 100 spells total. It'll probably be either very difficult or downright impossible to actually research all 100 spells (just like it was essentially impossible to research every spell in MoM).

That said that in the right combination of map size and game settings it'll be possible for your channeler to become a real jack of all trades. That's one thing I always missed in games like age of wonders. Finishing all my magic research just resulted in a stagnant wizard; it would have been awesome to be able to expand my horizons and start to dabble in other schools of magic. Even if Elemental makes it so that you can never completely finish research, I'd still like to be able to choose whether to become an all-powerful channeler of one element, a very powerful channeler of two elements, or a capable channeler of all elements. More choices = more fun!

Here's hoping that the next dribble of info on the magic system will tell us something about how the elements work. Unless I've missed it, no dev has yet said anything about whether a channeler is limited to one element, can work with any or all of them, or can specialize if any-or-all is the default.

That basic set of spell book choices in MoM was definitely a major factor in adding replayability to the game for me. I ended up getting a 'favorites' mix and mostly sticking to it, but it was always good fun to go for the total focus on one school now and then.

I kind of hope SD makes the magic system versatile enough to literally make it endless. You might have researched every base spell in the game (although that in itself should be really, really hard - assuming it'll be possible), but you should still be able to upgrade your spells, or your proficiencies, in various different ways indefinitely!

For one, I think that is really the only solution I would be genuinely happy with that works for all map sizes, large and small. Any 'traditional' magic system big enough to be interesting on huuuge maps would be way too big for small maps, and vice versa. Having a limited set of quality base spells with infinite and versatile upgrades, however, would scale pretty well with map size if done well.

I agree. I'd like your choices at game-setup to just reflect what you start with, and maybe what you're most proficient with for the beginning of the game. But I want it to be possible to completely mix things up once the game starts, some way or another. Maybe you need to find things like spellbooks or crystal balls like landi mentioned, or maybe you have to research other schools, who knows. But as long as it's possible and reasonable, I will be happy!