Why not: "A TBS in a fantasy world setting in which the player takes over the role of one or more champions to tame the dangerous, hostile landscape of the primitive world" or something like that? This would keep the description context-free (I mean free of Elemental) while emphasizing the aspects TBS, RPG and the new lore.

Alternatively, call it a hot sultry brunette with huge breasts. I've heard that sells.

To be clear I wasn't talking about gameplay, like I said I'd have to play to be sure, but on the surface you can not deny the "games" look nearly identical. It's not "similar art styles." You have the same terrain, the same map doodads, the same resource models, the same buildings, the same units, the same armors and weapons, the same factions, the same leaders, the same portraits, even many of the techs look the same even if they are researched slightly differently (same tech name, same relative location compared to earlier techs, same unlocks). I can pull up any number of screens you've been releasing in the previews and the ONLY way to tell it's not from WoM is to look closely for UI differences.

You've taken everything from WoM and added to it (new spells and monsters) and perhaps totally changed the feel of the gameplay for the better, but at the same time I've seen mods go farther and a very obvious example here is Fall from Heaven. It should be noted that I hated Civ4, but I've probably spent more time playing FFH than any other strategy game, so by saying it looks like a mod to me I'm not saying it looks "poor" I'm just saying it's no where near a new game in terms of assets. People tend not to pay full price for a "new game" that is simply a previous game with all it's assets used differently for a new play experience.

Call it a reboot of War of Magic. Detail all the new technical features, put heavy emphasis on the gameplay mechanics. Mention it's from the creators of the legendary Galactic Civilizations 2 series and note the awards that got.

Th Game should be named "Fallen Enchantress"  No Elemental.  No War of Magic.  

Fallen enchantress is a bold combination of strong 4x TBS and RPG gameplay in a vast, dangerous, and wondrous fantasy world.  Immortal  Wizard kings compete to create nations, both with each other and with the dark creatures that fill the land and the vile hordes of horrendous monstrosities that pour from the Wildlands!  How will you protect your people and destroy your enemies?  Hire bold champions of the realm to lead your armies, hire soldiers and train and gear them to suit your needs, research new powerful technologies and powerful magic to unleash upon the world!  And ponies.

A 4X game where eXploration actually matters?

I don't know, if you are looking for a clean break, does the Elemental tag (as others have said) suit you?  Maybe call it Fallen Enchantress: War of Magic.  It's the 'magic' and 'war' that us players are looking for, the Elemental matters only to Stardock as a franchise name, and then you still have some continuity while outlaying a sense of what the game entail.  I guess that all really depends on the plans for future expansions/games/etc. using this franchise.

No need to drop "Elemental" from the title, or distance FE from it. Anyone with an internet connection (or reading a review) will quickly learn of WoM. I agree with others saying its a new title in the world of Elemental.

Ultimately, I think if this game is any good, the open beta will give it a good vibe, and people will give it a chance, especially since it will be on Steam when it's ready.  I think even with the free copies, being on Steam and that expanded market will ensure that FE at least breaks even if the game meets GC2's quality standards.

I disagree with the majority here.  I think you should keep the Elemental name and make sure people know that it is a successor (or re-envisioning, whatever) to WOM.  

People who are on this forum likely already have the game due to early purchase of WOM or already have a strong enough interest that they're going to buy it.  New players are those that were probably somewhat interested in WOM but stayed away after seeing how badly it was ripped apart by the gaming media.  To attract them you not only want a well reviewed game (obviously) but you probably want to generate as much discussion as possible on non-SD forums and in gaming publications about how SD is one of the few studios that admits and learns from its mistakes.  

The reason you're giving FE free (or discounted) to most of us here is because you want to make good on the promise of WOM and repair damage to SD's reputation caused by WOM.  Everyone here understands what happened with WOM due to the many postmortems posted by SD employees.    For us the only thing remaining is whether or not FE is a good game.  New players don't know that story (SD's openness about mistakes, the process to fix them, etc).  In the world of Ubisoft, EA, and the like essentially firing and forgetting titles yours is a great story.  Your feeling of responsibilty towards your fans is an asset that you'd be foolish not to capitalize on.  If you distance FE from WOM you're missing an opportunity to show new players (people currently not big SD fans) what it is that makes you guys special.  

So.. absolutely keep the Elemental name and tie FE to WOM.  There's a lot of benefit to squeeze out of your WOM -> FE story.  

Of course this all hinges on FE actually being a really good game.  

Since Elemental is really the name of the world because of the other games you are planning add to the franchise later, it would be very weird to drop Elemental from the title.

Elemental: War of Magic - The story of a man wanting to make his dream game but fell short

Elemental: Fallen Enchantress - The story of a man that wanted to build his dream game, fell short, got p*ssed, & did anything & everything to ensure it happened this time around including: hiring on @4x the crew, having no deadlines, & near limitless funds dedicated to it

I haven't played WoM yet, but, if I had to say, I think there are three broad sets of options:

1. Market it as a reboot, calling it Elemental: Fallen Enchantress.

2. Market it as a sequel, calling it Elemental 2: Fallen Enchantress.

3. Market it as a new game [secretly in the same universe], calling it Fallen Enchantress.

Personally, I think you should pick either 2 or 3.  Why?  Although 1. works if you know a bit about it, it is otherwise hard to distinguish from an expansion or expandalone.  You probably don't want that.  At all.  The subset of people who are not keeping close tabs on this project but who would potentially be interested are probably going to be turned off greatly by the chance that this is just an Elemental expansion or expandalone.  Also, they may read reviews of War of Magic and assume it's for the new game.  They might casually ignore the generic fantasy subtitles.

If you market it as a sequel or as a new game, that's less likely to happen.  However, the choice here is whether you think it is best thought of as a sequel or as a new game.  If you really think it's that different, you may be best separating it entirely.  You may even reintroduce Elemental later, but just sort of skip it for this entry.  If people know it's a -sequel- to a bad game, they might still dismiss it, but they're more likely to assume bigger changes for a sequel.

Honestly, the worst outcome is it goes out and people assume it's an expansion or expandalone.  I highly suggest you combat this.  I also suggest reaching out to RPS, joystiq, kotaku, PCGamer, Destructoid, etc. as you get a bit closer to launch.  The more people writing articles with titles like 'FALLEN ENCHANTRESS IS A WHOLE NEW GAME" the better.  Alternatively:  "STARDOCK PROMISES TO MAKE THINGS RIGHT."

Fallen Enchantress is to me a chance to weasel my name into a game, on account of that spell thing  

But seriously, I have hopes it will be the game that War of Magic should have been. Sort of like a Round 2. I did like War of Magic, but I wanted more out of it and Fallen Enchantress is that "more", more focused if not necesarally more content(dynasties and stuff being off the table)

I can't think of a way to put that into marketing language, I'm terrible at that. 

From the ashes of war rises... the Fallen.. that doesn't sound right.

We'll probably have to wait for the beta to get a grasp on what the game is to us, in relation to War of Magic. 

One point you should stress is the ratio of money spent on the first game as opposed to the sequel. This sort of thing will entice gamers that tried the first one. Calling WoM independent and this one professional is the kind of language that will change minds. Also, "Just ask our Beta testers," is a great idea. 

Gamers have a certain expectation for different budget levels. It is smart to point this out when discussing how FE is different. Much like talking about the original portal game and the one produced by Valve. 

For the really skeptical ones you could say Elemental 2.0: Everything we wanted to do in the first one, but didn't have the time or the money. 

As for your commitment to urban street thugs; "This ain't ya gran pappy's RPG!" might just be gold.  

"Fallen Enchantress" - "Everything we said World of Magic would be! But this time, it's for real!"

I agree with the below quotes 100%. Just call it Fallen Enchantress. In the description of what it is, just say, "Fallen Enchantress is a game set in the Elemental universe." I would consult a 3rd party (i.e. outside) PR / Marketing individual / company to see  how best to attack this situation.

I don't like the idea of dropping Elemental either. If the game gets universal acclaim, the 4X TBS target audience will surely try the game out. I'd rather expect it to gain *more* coverage due to it being part of the Elemental series, as WoM - even though a failure - got a lot of media coverage due to the disastrous launch.

Potential buyers who know WoM was a 4 and hear that FE is a 9 will say "Hey, SD turned that ship around! Now I'll buy the game, AND tell all my friends!!"

Potential buyers who have not heard of WoM and hear that FE is a 9 who then research SD and find out that WoM was a 4 WILL NOT say "Oh my, the first game in the series was mediocre, so I'm not going to buy the second one which is great!"

Why would SD want to spend all their time, effort, money, etc rebranding a perfectly good idea? 

Those who are in the know are expecting either a complete turn-around or to be disappointed yet again, probably for the last time.  No amount of marketing mumbo-jumbo (or ponies) can change that outcome.

No, that's what I mean. Until your post, it didn't seem the games look identical. I look at the two and see them visually different. That's why I'm glad I wrote this post and that you responded because it helps us get some fresh perspectives.

But a mod couldn't do what we've done in FE.  You could make a mod that takes FE and makes it into a Civ-like game. 

But code-wise, this isn't WOM++.  We kept the parts we liked (the general art style) and jettisoned what we didn't like (magic system, economic system, combat system, general gameplay, dynasties).

Heh. That's nailing it pretty closely.  War of Magic was going to be the end all be all game which collapsed by its own ambition.

FE is the result of the humbling of WOM and bringing in experienced game designers/developers/artists (experienced as in familiar with this genre and the technology necessary to produce it).

I agree. There's no scenario where we're dropping the name Elemental as that's the world.

The original plan was that we'd have Elemental: War of Magic and later Elemental: War of Magic II and so on.

And then there'd later be an RPG called Elemental: <RPG name>.

While Elemental had a rocky start, it is, by no means, the first title to suffer that way or worse.  If Fallen Enchantress doesn't meet expectations, then obviously Elemental franchise is toast. But as I've said elsewhere, if FE fails, Stardock probably won't stay in the *PC* game market since it would mean that we're not capable of producing a top notch PC game even when we've done everything we can possibly do to ensure the final result is really good.

I think that FE is going to be more of a sequel to most.  It has been a long time since Elemental (I also don't think of Elemental; War Of Magic as 'Wom') and it sounds like there are many far reaching changes being made compared even to Elemental 1.4.  The closest I can come right now is to call it a 'reimagining' of Elemental.

The problem is that no member of the community can really comment with any certainty as we haven't played it at all yet.  The screenshots do look like the its the same game, but tweaked.  We can't really see the important stuff from dev journals or screenshots, we need to try it for ourselves.

Get that alpha/beta out sooner than later IMO, then we'll be able to give meaningful feedback on how we think FE should be positioned.

As an "indie" I would be loathe to distance us from WOM because there is an important lesson in there.  

Most of the game when a game comes out that isn't as good as people hoped or is buggy at release people assumed it was "rushed" or they ran out of money or what have you.  The lesson of WOM is that, no, beware of that trap because bigger game projects need to be treated as an engineering effort with a mature software development process.  That is what ultimately was Elemental's first iteration's doom.

Scott (Elemental's producer) and I both believed that dedicated project management on a game was nonsense, not real work and that the PM should be coding and implementing.  Elemental was important because it taught us the error of our ways.  That isn't to say Kael doesn't tweak things here and there, but to give you some idea, at WOM's launch I had spread myself to the point of having written 100% of the quests, the non-tactical AI, many of the city improvements, the tech tree, and was trying to debug it at the same time as trying to rewrite all the marketing material (which is a different, much bitterer topic I won't go into) all in the last 60 days.  The hubris was thinking I could do this simply because I don't require much sleep (that's a different, medical related, topic).

Pride before the fall is a well used cliche. But it remains true.

BTW, the marketing people hate that I like talking about the why's of WOM's problems.

I just think it's important because most companies aren't at liberty to divulge their own dirty laundry.

I agree with your POV.  It's what makes Stardock different from the EA and Ubisofts of the gaming world.

It's an Elemental game & you're darn proud of all the hard work that has gone into it.

The one thing that I really feel you need after the Beta, as you get ready to release to the general public, is to have a good solid demo available.  This, along with some solid reviews, will convince other gamers to forget what happened with E:WOM. 

Its something that CCP (EVE-Online) really stopped doing for a long while and in the end lost the goodwill of their entire playerbase.  Now that they are being more open, communicative and 'honest' with the players things are already getting better.