I´m totally fine with bug fixes and some AI tweaks and balancing. Because i like your game and i enjoy playing it even now with all te issues. (and i think, i´m not alone. In my opinion, that says much about your game.)  It has nothing to do with fanboy-ism. Elemental is my first SD Game and i never heard the Name Brad Wardell before i bought and downloaded the game.

....and a word about the free expansion thing. I know you dont have to do that, so thats really cool. Thank you und dont lose your passion.      

Luckily for you, you thought wrong.

As of next week, you could have both. I'm so looking forward to v1.1 and Civ5.. then it'll be trouble deciding which to play (IF 1.1 even partially delivers)

Well what should i say for my first post ever on the Stardock Forums ?

Only one thing: Very BIG BIG Thx to Stardock.

And a word of warning too.

Your customer care is awesome and I never encountered such devotion to a game and foremost it's players since the glorious times of Paradox doing Hearts of Iron 1.

But sadly with a growing company they left their way of being one of us to be a normal company. Please, please don't make the same mistake it would be a real shame.

I guess we the players (and customers) can forgive near to everything, as long as you stay true to yourself. And if the patch and the free expansions are late, I guess we all will be very happy to see the reasons, as long as you cummunicate freely.

Keep it up,

you tought me that not all is gone bad in the industry since the old times. And for that my support won't be shaken until you change.

Sincerly

Welfur

Well, you are lucky. As I catch about dozen of various bugs and encounter half-dozen strange design decisions (for me!) in first ten turns in last 1.07 - I definitely need this fixes before I begin to play the game, not simply catch new bugs.

Game itself is good, of course. But not bugs!

BTW, MoM 1.0 was somewhat strange beast too.

Well stardock can do this because games are not their main business, they make games in addition to their other stuff because Brad likes making games. That said I'm sure this will make them money in the longer term.

Currently I'm having some fun playing 1.07 (probably playing too much), but it's not a classic yet however I'm sure it will be and I see it's potential. Why, well I played GC2 in the origional version and that got lots of free update plus two major expansions and went from being a great game to being awesome, I still go back to it every now and then despite having less gaming time and other things I want to play.

This is actually good to hear.  I don't want Frogboy to think that the entire game is pure bunk.  Most of the game is absolutely fantastic, it's just a few pieces that need some work.  In other words, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The way I see it, the two most important aspects that need to be fixed (other than performance) are:

1. AI.  Seriously, if you just improved the Artificial Intelligence alone you would be killing a lot of birds with one stone.  When I say, "AI", I mean for every game aspect: overworld factions/adventurers/monsters, and tactical battle AI.  If you improve the AI, it will make battles more epic, it will make the economy more smooth, it will make diplomacy better, and it will make roaming monsters far more interesting.

2. Accessibility.  This includes: improving the user interface and flow, writing more documentation (in the Elementalpedia especially), and possibly making the "campaign" much more of a tutorial than it already is.  Seriously, one of the biggest complaints I see is people simply not understanding how things work, therefore they give up.

By the way, I haven't had much of a problem with the magic system in it's current state.  I personally think that there could be more of a variety of spells, but I don't see it "broken" as some have claimed.

does that mean that after patch 1.1 you guys start working on a expansion pack or a patch 1.2 ?

i hope it will improve alot the performances so i can play it on my office pc

There were/are two expansions planned for Elemental that include Books 2 and 3.

Originally these expansions would be $19.95 apiece but now the the first one will be free to everyone and the second will be free to those who owned Elemental when v1.1 comes out.

depends i suppose what they are putting into the patch during beta and when game frist came out they where released 4 patchs with in 24 hours of each othere that did major bug fixes, they still dont have all the memory issues out of the game and there is alot of people with crash issues but from my understand there putting miltuiplayer into it so there probably beta testing it and this 1.08 be more like expasion in way then a patch that fixes stuff is my guess so it will probably take a while.

which is kinda what it seems frogboy is also claiming, expasion style updates more so then bug fixs so i am sure those expasion style patchs take more time.

*cough*

What is Book 1.

Is that the campaign?  I still haven't tried it.  Heh.

If the info is elsewhere on this, I apologize, but can we expect books 2 and 3 to be more significant in terms of gameplay hours than book 1 (which took me about 2 hours, and I was taking my sweet time)?

I'm not sure how they will work out.  I'm writing Book 2 and 3 myself and the tools are somewhat more powerful now than when Book 1 was made.  The campaigns weren't really designed to be a major feature of the game so it really depends on what the community is looking for.

Sandbox is where this game is, so I hope this is where the primary effort will be focused. Meaningful campaigns with good story would be nice, but I'll take a great sandbox experience over any campaign anyday.

IMHO Stardock should add before patch 1.1 "book 0", with simple tutorial and show in him basic aspect of game. Book 1 is not good as tutorial!

For me, I don't generaly play campaign because of the restriction. I do play tutorial on new game. So, for me, it's all about sandbox/skirmish. Thanks by the way for the free expansion .

All of this sounds great.

It seems like Book 1 is somewhat of a tutorial, but it's a very slow introduction to the game. I don't know all of what is coming in the patches, but it would be fantastic to have a more detailed tutorial. There's a lot of depth to the game that makes it unique and very fun, and it's a shame that it's hidden. A fun tutorial (that is simply a tutorial) could help to bring out that depth. This is mainly a strategy game, and it's a lot more fun if you know what tools are in your toolbox.

Thanks for making a great game! It reminds me a lot of Age of Wonders 2, which is a classic, It's rare to see true turn based strategy in a fantasy setting. I'm sure the upcoming patches will make the game much better.

So it looks like the first expansion in late November is the one to refresh the game with new stuff. I was hoping this would happen with 1.1 but hell 3 months is the fasted expansion i've seen for a game. Good luck and keep up the good work.

If I look at in terms of someone who doesn't get it for 'free' and am paying 20 dollars for it (which I know is only true for book 3), shouldn't I expect it to deliver 20 dollars worth of entertainment?  If the actual book 2/3 campaign doesn't deliver more than an hour or 2 of replay, why should I purchase it?

I'm not trying to criticise, I'm just honestly wondering what will be in these future books that make them 'worthy' expansions/addons, or is it just too soon to tell?

Before Brad wanted to offer first expansion to people who buy the game before 1.3.

Now he says that they will offer first expansion to everybody and second expansion to people who buy the game before 1.1.

I am speechless!  

   to SD! They really, really care about customers.

Yup, thanks! Frogboy confirm it in a post a little sooner than yours but I really appreciate that you answered it directly. Thank you!

The things that would make the most dramatic difference to me in updates would be:

1. Unique racial units (not just paper-doll same model)

2. Unique racial tech trees.

3. Limited magic spell-books (not all sovs having access to all magic)

Campaigns are a one-off couple of hours deal. Real races would be forever.

Unique racial tech trees.  Christ that would be an undertaking.

Honestly, I wouldn't bat an eye if we just got rid of the books/campaigns altogether.  Build us a decent tutorial and leave it at that.  Spend all of your precious time on the sandbox game.