Yeah i suppose so, oh well I will see when i get a chance to play tonight.  If not i will use a mod to make them work again, just thinking I may not need to.

The essence boost part seems to be working, but tactical damage is so inscrutable that I can't tell if the one shard I have at the moment is helping the relevant spells.

dante: Shards are supposed to increase spell damage, and also amplifies some other spells. For damage spells like fireball and the like, damage should be doubled with one shard, tripled with two shards and so on. It didn't work in 1.06, and it doesn't sound like it's working in 1.07 either. But if you use this mod (which is basically a patch for the 1.07 patch), the shards do work as they should.

I am quite sure of that during the experience in 1.06, the damage of a blizzard was amplified to up to 400 points when I possesed more than 4 water shards. However, I guess there must be more than solely damage buff of benefit in acuquiring those, for example, a boost in mana regeneration or arcane knoweledge. Hope next patch will fix it, since there is scant methods to accelerate the arcane knowledge production.

No, they do not work, even with 1.07.

But spell description in tactical combat does display correct maximum damage (multiplied by shards).

I'm only talking about spell boost. Essence bonus was never an issue.

Right now they need to focus on stability and addressing gameplay holes.  Not that this isn't an issue, but it will get addressed soon.  SD's very good about patching up their games quickly when known issues arise.