After reading one of Frogboy's Elemental journals (I forget which one), I began pondering how you could explore the viliges, cities, and certain other locations in the Elemental world. The solution I came up is to have a party comprised of a small number of skilled characters (somewhere in the neigborhood of 1-6) would explore a isometric version of the place in question. You'd be able to walk around, converse with people, take part in various events, such as auctions and combat tournaments, fight enimies, etc. The reason I chose an isometric view to represent it is because on minimum-spec computers, everything could be represented by resource-light images while being shown in true 3-D, albeit still in the isometric perspective, on more powerful systems. Also, regarding combat at this level, you'd be able to fight battles in a turn-based style similar to Fallout 1 & 2. The locations would be constructed on a grid and would probably be created procedurally.

My above-discussed idea does have some foreseeable problems. Just to list a few, how will custom assets be properly translated into images? Could locations that look great and have good gameplay be generated procedurally? If so, could they be generated on a minimum-spec computer? And, for those times when you get caught inside a city/fortress during a siege, could a minimum-spec computer handle a massive battle, even in the previously-discussed isometric enviorments? Clearly, should my idea be implemented in some form - which if they were, I'd be shocked and amazed - these and any other problems that should show up.

Should any Stardock employee working on Elemental read this, as well as anyone else, thanks for taking the time to read my idea!