Re WoT balefire, I wasn't at all suggesting a spell like that could work in Elemental--seems like a coder's nightmare to me. But then, I'm no coder.

Re the recent "evil is subjective" or "evil is relative" talk, I think that in the real world that's true to an extent--but never utterly true because you are never free of a framework that tells you what's good (swerving into the mailbox so you don't run over Kitty), what's evil (running over Spot because he keeps crapping in your yard), and what's in that gray area between them (poisoning Joe the Pitbull because he ate Kitty and his owner scares you).

But I'm still more interested in whether anyone's seen signs that the game will have something like a neutral alignment for players. I have a strong feeling that the first serious customizing I try will be to create some sort of post-D&D druid realm. What fascinates me about that sort of treatment of druids is that they can and will do both really awful and really wonderful things for the people around them based on the idea of keeping things "balanced." So if good channelers get one set of Life spells, and evil channlers get another, I'm still hoping that a true neutral would get a mixed subset of both those plus a few unique bits, e.g. possibly being the best at weather magic.

p.s. If you haven't tried Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, it might be just the tide-me-over you need to make it all the way to full release day for Elemental. Even missing the last volume or two, the series is several thousand pages long. If it doesn't turn you off pretty quickly, you'll probably be sucked in seriously and eventually need to go into Wheel of Crack recovery. I've seen it happen several times.

With that being the important part. I won't say how I think about the books, but ask the nice clerk at your local bookstore for good fantasy books (you'll always have a fantasy nerd at larger bookstores) and they'll give you enough to read until the beta release of the game.

I think that wheter you're Fallen or Human, it doesn't ENFORCE you to be "good" or "evil". They are just the two prime opposing parties, and even that can most likely be changed through diplomacy. I'm not sure if trying to play neutral will have any specific in-game effect (it's never been mentioned), but presumably you'd be able to utilize "half of this" and "half of that".
Not that it'd concern me, since if I'm doing a druidic faction, we're talking the shadow druids on crack, emposing a world-wide supernatural selection.

Neutrality would be a bit more relevant when it comes to my "good"-aligned but ruthless Empire of bear-riding paladins. Since I intend to be ruthless, some would consider me "evil", but when I'm doing "evil" I'm doing it for the "greater good". The enemies of the empire must die, but I still love cuddly kittens and squirrels. And bears.

Oh, c'mon. Who's with me on this? We need ridable bears. Imagine knights on grizzly bears, with lances and armor, riding away into the sunset like it's the most natural thing in the world! And of course, Bear Proliferation!

BEAR CAVALRY!

Pah, Bear Cavalry is no match to my Pegasus Knights!

You can stumble around on the ground with them while my Pegasus Knights spike them with arrows from above.

Seems like that would call for some tricky re-engineering of bears and/or saddles. Bears stand up to fight. Or maybe you're seeing these war-bears as more like an ancient chariot, something you jump off of once you get to the fight?

Not that I'm encouraging thread-jacking or anything...

Just to not completely de-rail this thread, I just want to add that I completely agree with GW Swicord's original post, and dividing magic in particular into sub-schools at a certain point. Of course, the magic would still be based around Life Magic, but I'd be inclined to suggest the schools of Necrolytism (Good), Naturalism (Neutral) and Necromancy (Evil). This would go the same for all magic schools (while maintaining a set amount of "base" spells available to all, with alignment being set towards the end).

I was thinking something like horses adding +2 to movement, while bears only add +1 and some defense/offense instead. And no, of course we're not jumping off our bear-friends! They're our allies, our benevolent steeds that take us to battle and carry us upon their backs by the sweat of their brows!

Quoting Vandenburg, reply 4

Pah, Bear Cavalry is no match to my Pegasus Knights!

You can stumble around on the ground with them while my Pegasus Knights spike them with arrows from above.

You keep your filthy horses, with their bird-like, filthy, infested, wings! Riddled with disease, not to mention the dung they spread!

Because I have no self-control about digressions, I have to keep going about the bears. I wasn't talking about their domestication, but about their body mechanics. In evolutionary terms, bears are on a path with an option to become bipedal--horses aren't. Bears run on all fours, but they do a lot of their work, and I think their strongest fighting, while standing upright (or at least not bearing weight on their forequarters).

They way they hunt salmon alone just says to me that getting them rigged to be war mounts means you need to tweak their bone-muscle layout or come up with a really fancy form of gyroscopic saddle that can keep a rider roughly stable whether the bear is running or standing to swat with its paws for a while. Old-school warhorses would do hoof strikes in battle, but those were quick tricks done during a bit of rearing, and I don't think horses can ever hold their spines as upright and realtively still as bears can. A bear can just stand up and look at you for a good while if it wants to.

Then there's the logistical problem of getting a sufficient honey supply line for whole bear cavlary units...

Swicord? Stuff it, the Rule of Cool has taken over.

If you guys get bears and pegasi, I get my T'rex.

But maybe not if you're playing a goody two-shoes? Seriously, though, a thunder lizard sounds like a far better mount type for combat units than a dragon. I'd love to see those too, and they're big enough that the only rigging problem for the rider would be what kinds of polearms might work well from the howdah.

I popped back, though, because I wanted Luckmann to know for sure that I think warbear mounts could be cool and/or good silly fun. I'm already starting to think about my first channeler character, which is where the whole neutral-druid thing in the OP came from, and someone who fancied herself Queen of the Loam, Limbs, and Leaves could look quite spiffy with honor guards mounted on bears with the right sort of gear. The Snowlands Guard would look most spiffy, what with the white fur and all.

Of course.. how are you going to get that many bears ?

Hmm thats true, not much else is going to be able to reach the ground. Then again I think you would have enough trouble as it was just staying in your seat without having to manipulate a long heavy weapon. I would probably just give the rider a crossbow, the mount is already chompy and stompy enough for two.

I've been working my current GC2 game and somehow mostly thinking that Bear Cavalary might really just be a training question after all. But really, either you drastically underestimate the importance of honey or I'm too devoted to the Greatest Bear, defamed by Disney, but still the Pooh.

Which does bring up the much less expensive-sounding notion of goblin cavalry mounted on war-boars...

I have to say all this talk about different mounts is getting exciting: boars, pegassi, and bears, Oh My! But I do have to say that we seem to have strayed from the orignal topic. And I only bring this up because I have some questions about the magic in the game. I have tried to keep up on all the Q&A's and the previews but idk if i've caught them all. So can anyone tell me if different magic schools have been confirmed? I mean why can't magic just be magic? But at the same time I can see from a management standpoint, different branches might just be an organizational thing. But could someone please tell me what they have heard and what is speculation, because i think I have been lost in translation

And Luckmann, I forgot to thank you approproately earlier for your kindness. So I shall now support your bear calvary with utmost vigilance, and I also wish to present you with this karma  (Double since I should have done it sooner yet didn't know how)

Don't forget, he didn't have time to write the very last novel before he died, but he did get notes dictates on how the entire thing should go.  So assuming the family doesn't muck things up, we will still get that final book.  One day...

Someone correct me, if I'm wrong.

Wow, this thread has taken some twists & turns!

In terms of the "Good vs Evil" question, fantasy games have taken 2 basic tacks on that in recent years. 

Most follow the Tolkien approach:  Fantasy settings are ideal for portraying a true good versus evil conflict.  In these scenarios, good represents knights in shining armor and the Men of Gondor, while evil represents smelly goblins abducting innocent maidens and demons slaughtering harmless virgin girls (preferably pretty ones) because they enoy it.

I agree that no particular "alignment system" is necessarily better--the back story is indeed the most important thing.

And right behind that is how it works into the magic system. I've quickly lost confidence that I'm finding all the freshest info. Has anyone seen any word yet on just how the Elements work into the spell system? I saw talk of spell books, and them being unique for each faction (which suggests that faction membership is a fundamental trait of a channeler). But I'm not clear on whether all channelers will be limited by their elemental association (Fire channelers unable to draw power from Water shards, or any non-Fire shards), or whether the shards will be more like MoM nodes and any channeler can capture any shard.

I'm also beginning to think that my hope for some "built-in" neutrality might not be a good fit with the planned back stories. If I want to do my druid-channeler thing, I might just have to pick good or evil.

You know I've been wondering this same thing because I feel that I have looked at everything I can and yet... nothing too descriptive about magic yet! I suppose as players we have to decide what it is exactly that we want to see in this game, I mean it's been stated and its been proven that the beta testers have some real good influence on the final game. I would like to see it where you could have an "evil" channeler that can do the same magic as any "good" channler instead of being limited to "raise the dead" or "flames from hell" spells. Like depending on your morality, those certain spells might be easier to learn for your channler but you are not limited to them. Have classes for spells, but make it more of an organizational thing. Kinda see what I'm going for?

Tolkien definitely had a clear line of good and evil, but there was some grey.  Feanor?  Thingol closing off Doriath to the rest of Beleriand?

Oh, one feature request: make declarations of war not 100% controllable, at least for some factions/situations.  Think "brash liegeman who gallavants off to strike your neighbor a deadly blow, all in your best interest of course."