1. The beta won't go out until it's fairly far along.

1A. Unlike War of Magic, we won't be closing the public beta early so that people can complain right up to the end.

2. Personal opinion on this: The MP is likely to increasingly go in a different direction to make it better for MP without gimping single player (quests in MP for instance not doable).

iam rdy for the beta

What's new and different with the magic system?

hmm will Dynasty be improved or upgraded ?

(to be able to marry heroes and stuff )

I'm having a hard time understanding why. All I ever wanted out of MP in EWoM was to be able to team up with a friend or two and play against a lot of AIs. I have a hard time believing that fewer people want to do something like that then want a heavily balanced (and altered) competitive game here... I mean we've got Starcraft 2 for that.

I mean Civ 5's MP support is weaker then Civ 4's, but you're still fundamentally playing the same game and have both coop and more hostile modes. Is there really a demand for a competitive oriented stripped down Elemental that I'm not aware of, and is it large enough to make continuing to ignore coop entirely as a good idea?

Guess I'm just not seeing what the motivation for this strategy was/is.

One could argue that Quests are the main game in Elemental.

I have to agree with Tridus. I would be really happy with just the ability to goof around on a normal single player map with a friend. Competitive multiplayer comes second.

Please excuse the following rant:

Elemental is all about exploring and building and not about rushing and newb stomping. It's just not built for that. Trying to make it competitive would be like trying to shove a triangle block into a sqaure hole. To get it to fit you will just end up shaving off parts, and it still won't be a square. Try to imagine a competitive Elemental  build... Does that seem fun to you?  Elemental is just to broad, and contains way to much content. Any competitive game would ignore 99% of the content. Monsters gone. Random resources gone. AIs gone. Quests gone. I have a hard time seeing 95% percent of techs being useful competitively. Starcraft for instance was built as a competitive game from the ground up and it took years of constant balancing to get right. Good luck trying to make a broad 4x game with so many random elements balanced. I hope you have a dedicated team and several years set aside. I mean no offense but E:WOM is utterly unbalanced as is. Race versus race, faction versus faction, unit versus unit, equipment versus equipment, spell versus spell, etc.

1. Will there be espionage?

2. Will there be lots of new starting game options to pick?

3. Will there be more resources?

4. Will there be different terrains?(ie if your near a water tile you units do more damage with water spells or you heal faster, etc...)

5. Will there be hero skill trees? (ie some heros start out predefined as generals and as they level up they get to pick a new perks that are related to being a general, or some heros you pick a skill tree right away and they can be a govener and specialize in different areas like building production, and or money production.) (Thing Total War, Masters of Orion 2, Fallout, etc...)

6. Any new shards being added?

7. Are there more soverign design options?

8. Will cities be incorperated into battles and can have benefits to attackers and or defenders?

9. Will this expansion have naval combat and expand on more naval ships?

10. Will there be loads of more quest and maybe a random quest generator?

11. Will there be a item generator? (ie always finding random stuff in different games like a cup that give me +5 to intellegence).

12. Will there be a hero creator so we can easily put new champions into games?

13. Any major improvements to dynasties?

14. Will diplomacy be getting major improvements?

Can't wait to test!

I am hopeful, but the scares and red skin are still visable from the first go round!!

 My only question is will it actually run on any PC known to man with any consistacy, please don't send it out half cooked.

I also agree with Tridus. I don't understand why you insist that core features of the game don't work in MP. The vast majority of people who will be playing MP will be doing so co-operatively with their friends, not competitively. Elemental will never be a competitive MP game, it should not even be in consideration. In that light, it makes no sense to cut out quests or anything else for co-op MP.

If you really want MP to "go in a different direction", do it on top of the base co-op game, not instead of.

Regarding quests in Multiplay, it seems to me that the easiest thing to do would be to make the default game quest-less while leaving in quests as a possible toggle option at game setup. This way, both groups are satisfied. The need to craft and endorse a fair, competitive game is satiated by defaulting to "no-quests," while still allowing those who desire quests to have their wish.

Personally, the whole allure of the very concept of Elemental is the mixture between Role Playing Games and Adventure and Turn Based Strategy. At least in my ideal Elemental game, quests would be far more than mere diversions that take away from the main game, but rather an integral part of the main game itself. Perhaps, if the link between quests and the rest of the game-playing process is strengthened, then the answer to the question of MP quests will naturally fall into place.

Regarding these two points, is the UI for the game going to be new or just the UI in tactical combat? I ask because I didn't play elemental after about 1 game for three reasons:

-no unit initiative system (which is in FE now)

-OOM errors (which I'm assuming will be fixed)

-The UI at the strategic map level was maddening. I could explain why if anybody is interested but suffice to say that I was very unhappy with it.

Not to be a forum troll, but isn't this just more people screaming "We want B!"  and then Frogboy goes "I bring to you, X Y and Z!"  and we go "wait, we wanted B." and Frogby goes "We have taken Z in a whole new direction!  It will be funner this way."  and we go "Dude, we just want B, you had B, you disabled B out of some narcissitic delusion that B is somehow boring and broken, but really, that's what we want." and Frogboy goes "But Civ V uses this like, whole new engine and stuff..."  And we go "WTF?  Why do we care?  That has nothing to do with Elemental or B!  Just flip the damned switch!" and Frogboy goes "Good news!  We added more options to X!"

Why do you continually ask us our opinion and then ignore it and do what you want anyways?  Wasn't that what you did with all your critics and friend's when Elemental first launched?  How'd that launch go for you?  Are you sure you haven't become entranced in your own delusional views again?  Are we here for anything other than to feed you empty praises and thumbs-ups and complacently take whatever it is you hand down to us?  Why ask our opinion then, just tell us what we're getting and end it with "praise me, bitches."

Just turned the damned tac battles back on.  Whatever you do in Fallen Empress, just leave it there, and turn tac battles on in there too.  Hell, Sword of the Stars and drop and go Multiplay where players can dynamically jump in an ongoing game, take over the role of an AI, then drop back out and the AI will take back over again.  We can even pick our AI before we drop out, then jump back in a turn or to later and pick up where the AI left off.  And guess what, the MULTIPLAYER is just like the SINGLEPLAYER.

We get you don't like Elemental multiplayer, we get you think it sucks.  That's just even *MORE* reason for you to listen to those who do like Multiplayer and give us SOMETHING we asked for, instead of getting us to ask, promptly dismissing it as static noise, and then running off in your own ADHD direction like we were never here.

I mean, geeze, you must have been the worst waitress ever.  "Welcome to McDonald's, may I take your order?"  "Yea, I want a chicken apple walnut salad, a fruit and yogurt cup, and a water please."  "Ok, I got a Big Mac, extra large fries and a Coke.  Please drive around!"  "No!  Wait, that's totally wrong!  I wanted a salad and yogurt!  HELLO?  HELLO?  Can I speak with a manager?  HELLO!?!"