I would love to use such a system. And it would be even better if you don't see the real percentage you used.

I mean : take a little cauldron, click and hold. As you hold some liquid is versed in the big cauldron. you just see the liquid flowing, when you release the button you won't see "34% water", but the color in the cauldron could be 34% blue That just would be really awesome.

No, the "randomness" would come from you : you needed 35% and get only 34 % then maybe there's 2 spells that are "near" that percentage one with 33% and one with 35%. Then you would get randomly one of the two !!!

And you wouldn't know before trying what percentage you need to get your "doom fire". Maybe some books - found while you venture outside - that says you need 'lots" of fire, "a touch" of earth and "some" wind.

You would really be researching for your spells, not just "asking" for it. It would be a "try and guess" system. Maybe each spell would have random percentage when you start a new game, so you can't be sure about the percentages of the spell. Or maybe only some caracteristics of the spell (because doom fire would always need "a lot" of fire )

I have to disagree. I think Cauldrons fit the theme nicely. As I remember there were quite a few screens in MoM where a Cauldron could be seen. Cauldrons just go along with Magic and when I think of a Magical Laboratory I picture a Cauldron there somewhere along with beakers and burners and such.

I was thinking this interface would be for "Custom Spells" and maybe for mixing Potions. There should be some "normal or universal" spells that everyone has access to like Fireball, and Lightning Bolt, etc etc. Mixing un-known amounts would be something you do when you want to try something completely new or that uses multiple spheres of magic.

I suppose you could use a giant crystal with smaller crystals around it. Still, I think any kind of interactive interface would be funner then just clicking a picture on a graph. There could be an indicator of some sort as you mention or you could be following a recipe one of your adventurers find while on a quest. There's lots of things you can do with it honestly.

It's not as much the user interface I'm opposed to as the mechanic itself. It's either too vague and random, or it takes something that should be simple and quick and turns it into a mini-game that would be fun the first few games, but quickly start to get old.

Now... if Stardock does allow us to dynamically create or combine spells of our own... That would be awesome (I cannot emphasize how awesome that would be). And having an interface like this, provided it acts as an intuitive medium for such design, would be much more palatable to me. 

yea, card based system. Im sure they have an idea of how they are going to make spell progression work, and personally I have no particular stance on it at this moment.

im pretty sure the focus on magic will be a pretty late focus compared to the other features ... as we need all the core-mechanics in-place first to even think about spell creation.

At least in my mind. Magic is absolutely the most external feature, as it effects pre-existing features in a certain way, as magic is bending the will of nature/ect ... but in order to bend the will of the natural order, we need to be certain on how the natural order will work imho

I was under the impression that the spell editor was intended for modding purposes only. I would love to be wrong, or if I'm right I would love them to change their minds (at least in an expansion or something!) because dynamic spell-creation within the game itself (ie, as part of gameplay) would be awesome.

I too like the idea of a cauldron.   But they already have this "magic card" system, which I have no idea how works.   I feel like they are going to work in a similar way to your cauldron anyway, except with cards... not a cauldron.