I just have to take my hat off to SD. The internal debates made external thread in the Dev journals was both pure genius and a nice treat for the fanbase. In case you missed it - https://forums.elementalgame.com/352821
I have been involved in a few betas and a ton of pre-release forums. This is a first, where they threw some ideas out to the community and asked for feedback. Just a day or so later, and it is the most posted thread by far. Giving some initial ideas and then letting the community brainstorm, and being involved at that level was at least as good or better than playing the beta imho. And I am betting it generated a lot of good ideas that SD can pick and choose from. I just think it shows so much confidence and down to earth coolness on SD's part to do that - so many developers are complete control freaks, the program is "their baby" and while they welcome ooohs and aaahs they really are not so open to suggestions, they have this Grand Vision that they don't want to deviate from one iota.
So I just wanted to say thanks to the folks at SD, that was absolutely awesome and I hope we have more discussions like the one yesterday. I am so happy I am not even going to bug you guys for details about the magic system this post. 
Thanks again, you guys ROCK!
Denryu