Please quote the DEV on that, please.

Tarth is the kingdom that is missing, right? According to the Lore section they are a faction of Rebels.

Could be that although they aren't currently on the map they might turn up during the campaign after they have rebelled. The same could apply to the missing Empire.

I'll go try and dig it up.

EDIT: I was wrong.

Haha, this is great. As far as I'm aware, the book was devised as a means to sell more of the game more than the other way around.

The lack of elves and dwarves and such that you're pining over, though, has nothing to do with the book's existence. It has to do with the fact that the devs' vision of Elemental: War of Magic does not include elves and dwarves; book or no book.

Also, nearly all strategy games, in particularly fantasy and sci/fi strategy games, come with lore. "Lore" is simply a more a more 'fantasy' word for background information, to give you some concept about the world you're playing in. All of Blizzard's games have massive amounts of lore. All of HoMM's games have plenty of lore. Even most RTS games have a hefty dose of lore to go with them, either because they're based on a familiar world or a world was created for it. It just isn't usually as fun to start up a game with some random race that has no context or history. At least, IMO anyway.

I can but direct you to these web addresses.

https://www.elementalgame.com/lore/kingdoms

https://www.elementalgame.com/lore/empires

Now if you can get 8 out of those 2 sites, I congratulate your new Math theorem.

That is what I know.

Whoops, there are 10, I remember 2 being eliminated, but it actually went 12->10.

Sorry for scaring everyone.

As someone who defends the game on most accounts, I simply very much dislike their obsession with the whole single player lore-based campaign, conveniently based off some book they are marketing on the side. You can throw snarky one liners at me all day, but I don't ever plan on playing the campaign; games like this just really aren't meant for it. I already bought the game, but as I watch races get cut, not added, and the game dumbed down more and more... I just get a sneaky suspicion its an attempt to drag in the masses who have no interest in this style of game.

That and the map is incredibly uninspired. Beyond geographically silly errors that have been pointed out, it looks like tamriel crossed with middle earth... so much for creativity

Hmm another fan of Warrax the Chaos Warrior. I thought I was the only one.

I have to agree about the races being cut, if they really were cut.  Gameplay >> All.  I really don't see how Brad thinks having different races would "overcomplicate" the game.  If you start complaining about complexity, you probably shouldn't have bought the game.

i think the map looks good, if not terribly creative.  which is fine i suppose, and i think the single player campaign is gonna rock.  i can't wait to get my hands on that.

What the hell is a "terribly creative" map?  Everyone seems to dump on the map for being "uninspired"...

It's an extremely large scale map of two continents (or one maybe).  Was it supposed to look like hedge rows or be shaped like some sort of mystical symbol?  It's a landmass.  A mass of land.  With features, some of which we are to far removed to even see.

As far as the rivers flowing through the mountains or any of the other geographic features people are already up in arms about, did anyone stop to think that maybe we can't see enough detail at this map scale to see what makes it all possible?  Maybe, just maybe, those rivers aren't flowing up one side of the mountain and down the other.  Maybe they're flowing through a... what is it called... a... valley?  

I'm with the people who think the two rivers out of the lake is totally weird. Rivers end on the ocean and a single river should go out of a lake (at the point of lowest elevation).

Not any weirder than a Lake without any Rivers, In or Out, like to the North of Lake Gandru. LOL

The book is based off the game, not the other way around. I would be concerned about the factions being cut, except they only cut it from 12 to 10. If they can make 10 factions that are all pretty different from one another, that would be amazingly awesome. And seriously, it's two less factions, it's not much of a difference.

How is the game being dumbed down? I have yet to see any evidence of that.

IIRC, it was done partly because there was a lot of confusion over the whole race vs. faction thing. That, and getting rid of two let them focus more on making the remaining ones unique.

Well, as long as they are significantly different to play, like FfH 2, I guess I don't have a problem with that.

Those types of lakes exist, although not so big and in such a place as it is in the Elemental map.

The book isn't based off the game and the game isn't based off the book. They take place in the same world.

The book takes place after the War of Magic which is why Resoln and Tarth are not around at that point (which will be explained in the game in the future).  But there are 10 factions during the War of Magic.

I am not sure why anyone would sweat it about "the lore". In the sandbox mode, which is what 99.9% of players will play anyway, you can be space elves or whatever.  You can create your own races and save them and play against them.

I was curious if anyone knew if there was a any way to change our pre-order from standard download only to limited edition if I paid the difference. I may end up buying a second copy, but I just thought I'd ask if this was possible since it's a pre-order and the game isn't out yet.

Who cares about map irregularities like that? Is your imagination so far diminished that you need your fantasy games to have ultra realistic river formations. We could go on for days about this map's similarity to real life and the justifications for its geographical qualities or we could just enjoy it.

Or are you capable of enjoying things?

There should be an option under the pre-order button on the main page for upgrading from normal to limited edition.

Pink ponies versus bear mounts is already so close!

Also in case you didn't notice, this map looks similar to Warcraft 3's map, and it also sort of looks like Diablo 3s new map. I don't really care.

I'd like to know this as well. I might also "upgrade" if the difference between download-only and limited isn't huge.

Nevermind. I should have looked at the link first.

Thanks! I should've checked first but I guess I thought it'd be more complicated than that.

Nice.  This may have been mentioned, but why is there Lake Gandru on one Continent, and Gandru River on the other?

Major historical figure?

Yes.  There is a $20 upgrade.    You can get it here:

https://www.elementalgame.com/purchase.aspx