"In Sorcerer King, this is where the Dungeon Master comes in.  However, as a player, I’d like to see more levers for the player to control how the Dungeon Master is going to affect the world (i.e. I don’t want it all quest based). "

I would like to have control in the game setup over the dungeon master settings! absolutely!

Also another idea:

I would like to see at least the option to have uh - "major minor sidequests". For example, The Frozen Realm realizes the SK is their enemy, but they get it all wrong and prepare and set out to destroy the Shards, so the SK can not gain control over them. You have to deal with them now. SK does try to hold you off, because even if the freezies and you have now the same enemy, they need to be persuaded that they use the wrong method to deal with the SK threat. So basically SK is on hold looking at your actions, and you both focus on the Frozen Realm for now. Your goal is to persuade them, prove them they are in fact helping the enemy, SK is trying to convince them they are hurting him if they destroy shards. Of course you could just use your military to obliberate the faction, but you lose an potential strong ally and probably up the doomsday counter alot. I would prefer a chain of (good) quests to achieve that. With drama. Lose a shard in the process. Give a champion to player and make him die heroically. Give player an ridiculously overpowered item and make him sacrifice it under tears (bwahah).

Just a wild example, I don´t even know if that would be lore friendly or plausible. I just would like to see the minor factions be more "alive", and something like that could help both give the minors some meaning and add some randomness to how the gameplay evolves. Even if technically, that´s not changing the game to anything different as it is now, because now you ALSO either win the minors over OR fight them if SK does, it adds life to the whole thing.

Thanks Brad & Team,

keep up the good work

As someone enrolled in the early access and a new person to stardock, please fix/acknowledge existing bugs please.

Well I guess this lets me off the hook on working on weekends if this is the response.

Quoting Frogboy,

reply 6

Well I guess this lets me off the hook on working on weekends if this is the response.

I hope you are taking off at *least* one weekend a month. No need to get burned out!

Quoting Frogboy,

reply 6

Well I guess this lets me off the hook on working on weekends if this is the response.

NO YOU'RE NOT OFF THE HOOK!

We're just hoping that the bugs that have been present a while can get knocked out finally.

Ahem. Thanks for the new features.

     I didn't see any "kvietching" about not fixing bugs on a weekend. I know I certainly took no stance on what you do with your weekend because, frankly, I don't give a damn. Your weekend...your business. But to answer snark with snark...it is apparent that little work has been done by anyone for years by on these persistent bugs, weekend or otherwise. I am not a developer, nor do I play one on TV or in internet forums. All I am and should be concerned about is the end result of the products that I purchase. If anybody's tone is hotter than necessary it's because many of these persistent bugs have been ignored...or worse, discussions about them have been deflected by shifting the tone and direction of a thread...as occurred with this thread. And besides, your tone was no better.

     I have kept my fingers off the keyboard concerning many irritating community relations issues on these boards...No more. As a lurker on the Arcen games forums all I see is a tiny dev team on a microscopic budget saying a lot of "yep we can do that" and "we can certainly try that" and then following through. All I see on these boards is we can't do X because we don't have the budget or we can't do y because our team is too small. Arcen games could likely fit their operation in an executive bathroom at Stardock and they can program how many vastly different types of AI that are capable of controlling thousands and thousands of ships? And what do we get here when some folks suggest different types of AIs for the Sorcerer King? Not enough people...not enough money. Fine...I am not a dev. Maybe I have no clue what I am talking about. Maybe Arcen only seems like it can do much more than Stardock with vastly less resources. So until now I have kept my fingers off the keyboard and my opinions to myself. I was content to shoot for something much smaller...much more doable...age old bug fixes. Looks like that was too much as well...

I fully expect you to swing the ban hammer Brad, and that is likely for the best. Given your response to bug concerns I really don't want to have anything to do with these forums anyway. No good ever comes from a clash of words between an "entitled" gamer and an "entitled" developer. I leave it to others to determine which of us seems more "entitled."

I hear a lot about "persistent bugs" and yet when asked what they are it's either a list of feature requests (saving a game in a tactical battle) or issues that we just don't agree are "bugs".   We want to fix any bugs that are troubling the player base but it's hard to do that when no one is actually naming these bugs. My suggestion would be to make a lost called legacy bugs and list bugs that are bothering you. 

I have tremendous respect for Arcen. Having wrote the original Galactic Civilizations on my own I have some familiarity with AI development.  It isn't the code that usually the killer, it's the UI and art are.  The AI Wars series is just that, its a series. It has grown over time. Sorcerer King will as well.

Brad, I feel the core disconnect is SD's communication to the community does not tell us what is or isn't a bug, a feature request, or a design issue. We post something that doesn't look or feel right and there is little to no flow back to us saying things such as:

• We're not fixing that, it's working as intended
• Good catch, that's high on the list now
• Good catch, but that's low on the list and won't be addressed for awhile
• Design issue, out of scope
• Etc.

The end result is posting things we feel are bugs, we hear nothing back on the posts, and have no idea where things stand (unless it is fixed or acknowledged in a change log). It is why I feel some kind of process that flows information back to the community is vital to make this process work well. The information you have to determine what is and isn't a bug differs from what we have. I've been on these forums for four years and never once saw a post telling us that the movement bug (our perception) was actually a design call (your perception). Therein lies the disconnect. If you give us more information, we can partner better. In short, what would you want from SD as a SD beta tester (not on payroll like us)?

I feel the logical outcome of not providing good information flow means veterans will tire and stop providing input. True, new customers will come in and provide feedback but then they too may give up after awhile. Providing more info to beta testers and making sure we're aligned should stop the negative cycle. I want to continue testing your products but right now the lack of information flow makes me feel like a large portion of the process is wasting my time. That is my straight up honest feeling as a guy who has been around here daily since Sep '10.  I have probably posted hundreds of new bug reports across WoM, FE, FE:LH, and now SK. If you gave me an Excel file log that I could CTRL-F on, I would be a happy camper. Anyway, I say all this coming from a good place, not a bad place.

Here is one of the recent reports: https://forums.elementalgame.com/458623/page/1/#3501406

If these somehow are not bugs, then I just have no words. At least, no pleasant ones. Why should I bugreport more if I do not see it helps?