If it works the way I'm thinking the difference in life and death magic is going to be about the aggressiveness of the player.

So long as things have to keep dying for you to gain death mana then theoretically KILLING is the best way to get more.

ANd if living things give you life mana then growing your cities would be the best way to get it.

That's assuming of course that the description Brad gave translates to gameplay in any way.  Perhaps life and death mana are gathered in identical ways with only cosmetic differences.

This is an interesting quote from the article. I wonder has Gamespot just made a mistake or has the model of the Channeler generating Death / Life mana been altered? I would personally consider this a step in the right direction but I also question if any changes have really been made. 

@ scoutdog: Your ideas unnecessrily complicate the game. Are you saying that if I want to be a fire mage I have to go conquer a desert, as opposed to simply a shard that could be anywhere? What if I want to take away my enemies ability to cast water spells? Rather than concentrating on a few strategic points I instead have to destroy the entirety of thier coastal presence... The idea of shards is that you have a concentrated source of magic that can be fought over, as opposed to haveing it everywhere all at once. You noted several times it would be difficult to balance but "they could work that out". No, they have already balanced it, you just don't see it.

on topic: The death-life system sounds good, we will have to see when it goes into beta. The idea is good, but why are you the only source of mana? Perhaps as you expand you chosen terrain within your borders your "pool" becomes larger.

While I think the idea of territory control generating mana is a nice one. I don't beleive it fits in a game who's history states:

"the powers gathered up nearly all the magic of the world and concentrated them into a series of crystals that represented the basic elements of magic: Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Life.

In the climactic battle that resulted in the cataclysm, the crystals were shattered thus creating the shards of magic in which most of the magic of the world is now stored in."

This is why you need to control the shards (including life/death) in order to gain specific mana to cast spells.