I know, it IS possible. Maybe even probable.

Yet there are not many games of this kind being produced, and Stardock has decided to try and fill the vacuum (and for that, I salute the company). Also there was the famous "MoM's successor" thing that gave me even more reasons to hope, at least initially. Also, the game is being worked on, and many are voicing similar comments about the tech tree and other things, so maybe things in these areas could be "mitigated" if not fixed. There ARE things that I like about the game already. Also, there are modders, who can do amazing things nowadays, so I try to help by trying to focus on the things that feel wrong to me. If none of this works when all is said and done, then I'll finally move on, but it'll be a pity

P.S.: with "senseless" in my previous post I meant "meaningless". Sorry for my bad english. Please disregard that and all my other mistakes

How can the lore justify losing the knowledge of spear-making and still make sense, though? It is something that existed a few hundred thousands years even before the middle age. Even some Chimpanzees have been reported to craft wooden spears and use them to hunt. You can convey the feel of rediscovering lost technologies without getting overboard with it. Leather working too, is something that can hardly have been totally lost as it dates from a few millenias before the middle age. As someone else suggested, it is a bit wasted that leather armor is the best light armor we can get when there are drakes and dragons to skin.

The problem with just having a quickstart option, instead of having more techs unlocked from the start, is that the game won't be balanced around that, and it would make the tech tree a bit too small, as these techs won't be replaced by others (as the default game would not have these techs researched). I would much prefer giving each faction 10 starting techs (that would not be the same for each faction). That would help make these starting techs significant in the gameplay of the faction, which cannot be achieved with a single starting tech.  

Regarding the opening post: Neither Beta1 nor Beta2 have been released as content-promotion - StarDock is aiming to get the basic gameplay and major bugs sorted out of the game. There's heaps of content, quests, spells, gfx and the like that are/will be added to the game. Not all of that is committed to the Beta we have right now.

I agree with some of the troubles, but disagree with the solutions. Nothing as drastic as dynasties or an overhaul of tactical battles is required. I'm confident with FE.

You're point makes sense for the most basic spears (and only those), but I think you underestimate just how much knowledge goes into proper tanning to produce armor quality leather.  

Ah Birthright liked the PC game and the D&D PnP version. It is too bad it was very buggy. I also miss the old Dragonlance TBS game as well I think it was called War of the Lance.

I think FE will succeed. The leap in quality made from the first beta to the current one indicates that there is a vision and a drive for this game to become far more than WoM ever was.

But while I am sure there will be a lot of content added and faction and location differentiations made, I think the general fear is that FE will be bland. This may be all wrong, since we don't know what will get added in future updates, but I worry about that aspect most of all.

The longevity of MoM is not due to it being somehow better than all others forever, but the fact that there were some significant faction differences beyond being gray and tan men, a wealth of options for item creation, heroes and spells, and a very accessible city system which simply made sense.

I wouldn't mind having much cruder versions of everything in the beginning. That is my point exactly. The reason why I hate having only clubs is that it reduces your troop selection choice to nothing for half of the relevant part of the game. I'd be content with bronze spears, hide armor, and bronze breastplate, as long as it allowed me to field an army that would not entirely consist of clubmen and then spearmen for half of the game.

THIS!

 Jesuz christ guys, this is the first beta, ...

and about the: ARGH i dont want to research spears and swords debate... The Opening post creator mentions that people play civ, but seems to forget how long it takes to build swords in civ. And i too, really like the idea of not being able to build swords from the start.

so thats that, and pls guys, stop complaining about lack of features when we are in beta 0.8

Civ allows to start a more tech advanced game but... yeah, people that starts in the most ancient time in Civ (I play that way always!), seem to naturally accept (and have fun!!!) that they have to research even the most "simple" stuff every single time. Yet, in FE, it seems to be an abomination just because "they come from an apocalypse only 150 years ago" and therefore it becomes unfun to research basic stuff.

Because warfare in civ has always been boring and broken, so I as least personnaly don't mind that much not to have options in this department. FE warfare has the potential to be much better, but the lack of options hinders it greatly in my opinion.

So you essentially just want "Crude Weapons" unlocked at the start? I could see that happening. Since Metal can be earned from turn one, there are alot more possibilities. 

Hmm wasnt the problem with the first release that you didnt listen to people when they gave feedback? Telling folks who dont share your "vision" to go somewhere else might not be the best response. At least address the points of the OP before dismissing him/her.

Well, we also don't want "too many cooks in the kitchen" either.  No, I don't think Brad saying this isn't the game for you is the best response, but I also don't think that Elemental's big flaw was that they didn't listen to the fans...it was that there really wan't a someone to steer the ship.  Kael is doing that for FE.

No that was not the problem with the first release. The problem with the first release was that they didn't stick to any kind of vision and made too many fundamental dramatic changes up to the very end resulting in a confused game with identity issues and an unfinished product.

At some point though, if you don't like the art, don't like the tactics, don't like the strategy, you might want a different game or to make a total conversion mod. 

Being a whiny cry baby of sorts (overstated for emphasis), I do know that there were a lot of changes made to Elemental based on fan feedback, after the initial release proved to have some crash issues, which really changed the initial design, after the initial design proved buggier than expected.

Brad and the team have already apologized profusely many times for this.  It worked fine in the lab, but didn't survive contact with the huge number of variations with various graphics cards and such.  They had egg on their face, but soldiered through it, very admirably I might add.  Many other companies would have tossed the product to the curb instead, after the first patch or two.

Unfortunately, we can be a very vocal group here, and in the quest to make some more happy with the design, some features others of us really liked were changed or removed.  Game design by committee has upsides as well as downsides.

I personally regret that the original design did not survive contact as a result.  The original game I found very enjoyable, and while I am warming to E:FE, as I've posted elsewhere, I miss the vanilla E:WOM.

As we are still very much in beta mode with E:FE, we should expect that a lot of the things we would like to see aren't implemented yet, and some may never be implemented if they don't mesh with the design that the current team is putting together.

That being said, the best thing we can do for E:FE right now is to continue to point out crashes/bugs, and continue to suggest modifications to future versions, with the goal of making a really cool game.

I'd like to see things a little more structured, while there are others that like things a little more random, and such differing points of view are to be expected.  But if we can help the team truly flesh out the various factions, better balance the spells, mana pools, weapons and such, E:FE will continue to become a more enjoyable experience.

Myself, I'm not really looking for Elemental: Civilization or Elemental: Galactic Civilizations as our model.  But I think that there are some concepts from both games that are valid here.  Other games (MoM, etc) also have some good ideas that apply here.  I do think Elemental eventualy needs to decide if it's more of a wargame or more of a fantasy adventure game, as we seem to have an identity crisis of sorts currently.  But if we can eventually hit on a more or less perfect balance between these, E:FE will be worth the effort.

That's why I think it's best to only read the problem descriptions and not the proposed solution, as we the testers cannot have the complete vision of the game in mind. More often than not, the reported issues, if real, should be corrected with the designer's solution that would fit with their vision of the game, not the solution proposed by the testers.

I TOTALLY disagree with this statement!  I very much like diagonal attacks!

I, personally, have no problems with the tech tree.  I actually LIKE that some things on the magic tree require items on the other trees first, and vice versa.  It can, perhaps, use some tweaking here and there, but overall, I have liked moving up the tech tree.  Some of the earlier techs could maybe be made less expensive, especially given the back story, but I don't think eliminating them is a good idea.  And, oh yeah, there is a difference between a good spear and a sharpened stick.  The Roman troops had two different types of spears that they carried into battle.  Just because you can whittle a sharp stick and harden it in fire doesn't mean you can attach a sharp iron end to a wooden shaft.  Or that the end will be able to do much damage.  Or that it will be balanced.  Or that it will throw well.  Does it have 2, 3 or 4 edges?  Blood grooves?  Barbs to rip on the way out?  A good spear is way more than a sharpened stick.

It might be nice if some of the techs were renamed.  Some of these complaints might go away.  It's funny how often simple semantics can be a stumbling block. 

I kind of liked the idea of researching leather armor, and then later drake armor.  Brigandine, and then later, plate.  That sort of thing sounds intriguing, but it would have to be done in a way that doesn't make the tech tree too large (larger than it already is), or unbalanced.  Also, I very much like the idea of having the option to have a more magic-heavy civ vs a more mundane-heavy civ.  I see hints of that in the beta (mage units are available if you specialize in that direction), so I think good things are in store.

I am not a pro-gamer (actually, I am a pro programmer, and have been for 15+ years now).  I have a wife and kids.  I don't spend every waking moment playing computer games.  For me, the depth of options and things to do in FE is staggering.  Every time I play it, I find some new little wrinkle in the game that I didn't know was there before.  It's like SkyRim - there's always something new!  Adding more layers of complexity would, very shortly, become a turn-off, as it would become overwhelming.  When you have to play the game for 40+ hours just to understand it, it is too complex for most game players.

I have very much enjoyed playing this game (up until it inevitably crashes), and look on it as a souped-up Civ (which I have played since v.1, and like a lot) that is more fun to play.  Civ was a graphical version of Empire.  This is a fantasy version of Civ, and I like what I am seeing.

I primarily play real-time-strategy (Thank goodness for StarDock!), turn-based-strategy (Civ's about it, anymore), and FRP's, like Oblivion and SkyRim.  Having an FRP TBS is pretty awesome, IMO!

 I don't like them not because diagonal is uncool, but because they make positioning irrelevant, as you cannot prevent one of your units being focused by the opponent, especially when combined with the lack of reduction from long range. 

 

Not at all, the problem would still be that there are zero options to outfit troops for the first part of the game, hence less non-obvious choice to make in the beginning. Renaming techs won't make it change.


 

pro-gamers don't play solo games. It is hard to get paid for beating the AI... Anyway, I don't see how it is relevant. I have a baby that doesn't let me sleep, and I develop software for a living too: that's why I'd rather spend my limited gaming time taking interesting decisions instead of trivial ones. You don't have to play the game for 40 hours to understand what is broken (maintenance out of scale with buildings benefits, uselessness of troops because of low HP, uselessness of 95% of the hero progression). It's not about adding layers of complexity, but about adding options to the existing layers. Anyway, with better UI design, explaining the precise benefits of every statistic, it would take much less time to grasp.
 

If I spend so much time complaining, it is not because I don't have fun with the game, it is because there are many issues that makes it falls short of its potential in my eyes.