(Suggestion) streamline the shop

Seconded. To be honest I think I'd rather the shop just be a 'boring old' dialogue menu. Faster and, as the OP said, I'm not really curious about what the shopkeeper looks like .

Agree about being able to see what my character already has without leaving the shop.  Maybe instead of a new window, include them in the "your inventory" with an "E" or something to show they are equipped.  I'd like to be able to sell what my guy is using now when I buy him a better toy.

I'd also like an option to have the shop inventory not include really out-of-date items.  How often are we going to buy patchwork armor after we've researched chain and 2 kinds of plate?  Reduce the clutter.

Along this line, allow to buy items directly to all characters. Currently you need to buy them for a character in the shop and send them over to your questing souvereign. So he can already get shop items whereever he is on the map. Therefore, you could simply allow access to the shop everywhere, streamlining the process.

Perhaps when you have a piece of equipment selected, it shows the positive and negative effects on your Sovereign/Champions's stats in Blue and Red numbers. Then if you click buy, you can also click "equip now".

Actually, why are we even buying this stuff from a shop?  We are rulers of a kingdom, we should be able to make these items ourselves.  Why can I equip an entire army with "Fang Daggers" but can't make one for my champion?  I have to spend 40g for one instead.  Shops would make more sense for selling equipment and buying some unique items.  We should be able to make base equipment for ourselves easily enough by just expending some resources and time.

In addition will we ever see item creation like there was in MOM?  I always loved making some incredible artifact to give to one of my heroes.

Actually creating Artifacts made MoM rather unbalanced, because it made your heroes unkillable and therefore all standard units quite useless. Therefore creating arttfacts - this means powerfull ones - if implemented, should permanently decrease your essence to keep it balanced. But back to topic.

As for me, I like seeing the shopkeeper. It helps immersing into the game.

I just hope they make one for the different races and even a few different for men.

Of course when you'll get some time, guys! Can be in a post-release patch or in an expansion. As Frogboy says, I don't know whether it takes much time or not to produce new animated figures.

Agree with Symondus (1st post), Tasunke & Edpfister.  But when/if we make items for heroes. they should be expensive in terms of mana and/or gold.  Probably not essence, but then I think the whole essence/mana thing could use some tweaking.

Super-champions, with super items I made for them were what make MOM my favorite game ever, and most of what made AOW-SM fun for a while.  So far Elemental is disappointing in that regard.  I've said this before, but kick-ass heroes and the items that make them so are the whole point of a "magic" game.  If you want to win with ordinary units, you can play a spaceship or historical game, like Total-War or GalCiv.

I was thinking about that after i posted but i guess i was too slow

Ideally, I'd change the store screen so that it shows both your Sovereign and the merchant. Sovereign on the left, facing the merchant on the right. Sovereign's inventory panel listed on the left, merchant's on the right. Nice and clear

Perhaps some categories for the Armor,Weapons and Sundry items via Tabs perhaps.

Tab Armor - Category(s) Leather, Chain, Plate, Vitrum (sp)

Tab Weapons - Category(s) Dagger, Small Swords, Long Swords, Ranged

Tab Potions/Misc - Category(s) - Movement, HP, LOS, Magic (SP) etc.etc.