Thanks for the reply...

Thats great if you think its does, but can I just check who you are building it for? Sorry to be flippant but it was a serious question, Im just not feeling any real depth in your gameplay vids, no love for the world!

"Ohhh who's this guy?" Not Radagas the Brown, Enoch the Purple, not even Jimmy the White, not a NPC at all...its OOOOhh MR 2 spell points.

Perhaps its just your playing style. Stats, Resource and Build...but beyond that what weaves a world into Elemental gameplay? What makes you care for your NPCs rather than "Damn, Mr 2 Spell points was killed by MR 40 Attack?"

Look I'm sorry if this preordered customer is being tedious but I was hoping for a fairly serious answer... See I'm an Rpger, old school (pen and paper) and this vid brings nothing new 'so far may I add' to the RTS games about.

If it does to you guys, great! Why? What gives it depth in your opinion? Where are the NPC's, Army Units and Cities you care about, and why ISN'T it what it appears, a beautiful map populated by UNIT 60 Attack, CITY TILE industry and NPC 2 Spell points?

.........

Also sorry for my ignorance, but what does YMMV stand for?

YMMV

Heh, no thanks... my new RPG, Dell Printer Center, is just taking up too much of my time. 

Sorry about the previous post.  I was called away on an emergency while I was trying to edit out the misquotes.  Needless to say I had to erase the entire thing and leave. 

To Darvin3 and the Angry Dwarf:

Thanks you two, a path-marking command or something like it is a cool idea and better alternative to my "undo button" post.  I just thought something that would keep my character from being sent somewhere other than where I intended would be nice.  In my previously erased post, I mentioned that in Battle for Wesnoth that it always annoyed me whenever I spent a bunch of hours leveling up a character just to see him die because the cursor turned touchy at the end of the path I was sending him.  It would usually attack from a tile I did not mean to select. 

A lot of wargames have "undo" buttons, but you can usually use them only if you haven't revealed a previously hidden unit or after launching an attack.

Well, what it is, is a beta that I haven't played.

The person I was replying to seemed to think it was an RTS or an RPG.

I am very attached to my dwarves. I want them to be happy, productive little drunkards. 

I seriously wouldn't worry too much about how Brad prefers to play.

Every single character he came across DOES have a fully fleshed out background, written by some of the talented guys over at Random House publishing. It's all in the Heirgamemnon (sp!) and one or two of the videos I've seen recently have had it opened up and a little of the char in question detailed to us; but only briefly.

Brad prefers to focus on the stats and what everyone does; that's fine. If you want to instead focus more upon who they were? What they did before the cataclysm? What they've done between then and now? That information will be available as well and you're more than able to use that to colour your play experience also.

The lore to the world, the characters, and everything is all there. Heck, there is even a book coming set in the Elemental universe, which was edited by people at Random House who usually work with George R.R. Martin. But since George is such a horribly slow writer - he teeeases us! - they had the time to dedicate to making the book work, integrating it with the game, and doing most of the ingame write ups as well.

I tend to take a Stalinist aproach to the making of this game. Absolute trust in Wardell is necessary for the full realization of his five year plan. If he gives us a video about 2mp and coastal building, that is what we should focus on. We should trust that there will be videos later about backstory and character depth. Someone had asked how new players will be taught about the coastal placement problem. This is most likely a temporary problem that will be fixed or there will be some great warning of this game element. As I focus on what he has shown us here, I see a wonderful game coming forth. I do wonder however, if there will be any videos on meaning as we mostly receive videos on function.

For the advancement of the Elemental Peoples!

I'm not much of a modder . . but after seeing *this* vid I can't get the thought of recreating Odyssey: The Compleat Apventure using this engine.

Thanks Stardock!

Exactly. For me this game is a lot about "what I can do With it". I'm sure the story driven campaign will be very cool. Honestly though once I've beaten it once or twice it's gonna be all about the making HUGE random maps and populating them with characters I want to have wars with...not to mention making the Dragonlance Mod

Elemental as a game will kick all kinds of ass on it's own. The Customization and Moddability though are the "Real Magic" for me. There's lots of strategy war games out there. There's lots of fantasy war games out there. There isn't ANYTHING like Elemental out there that lets me do what I want within the game engine.

I tend to agree. If I can sink land into the ocean, if I can raise mountains from a plain, why can't I make a beach/desert fertile? Hell, they made Las Vegas somewhat sustainable with the magic of money. If I can raise rock from a coast that had limestone at best (living in the US gulf coast clay at best) then I should be amazing enough to at least scratch food from a beach. If not, don't let me build it.

JMHO

What are the spec's of the computer youre running that on?

With AA off, shadows on low, etc. it still looks great.

-Othello