is Elemental going to be a subscription type game?

Wow that sucks

Lmao I don't believe it. Post the email.

I think by free updates they mean that you will be getting free content for a year.  After that I think they plan to put out an expansion which you will have to buy if you want to get the new content.  Most games don't give you any additional content.  Just a bonus.  It isn't meant to require a subscription.

hmm after the year they maybe plan do make expansion packs that cost extra

The point was to reassure people that we're sticking with the game and not moving on immediately. It's not a subscription and I'm sure we'll be doing elemental-related stuff for well more than a year. It could have been worded better though, certainly.

Society is going to be subscription >.>

What they meant is that Stardock's time will be devoted 100% to Elemental during the year. In other words, they won't be working on any other games during this period. Either way, this game will be supported with free patches regardless of the time frame.

Thanks Kryo, You certainly eased my mind. 

I also received this email, but I'd like to request a formal, detailed response to this - Kryo's response seemed a little off the cuff. I'm interested in purchasing Elemental, but I'm not going to do so until I know what it is I'm purchasing.

As I see it, these are the questions I want answered: Will I need a subscription or further payment to get game updates like the email implies - or not? What happens at the end of that first year? Will bug fixes (and the game itself) continue to be available to me regardless? In what form will new content be delivered (expansion packs, update system, etc)?

For those who didn't get the email, the relevant text from the email states "Your purchase includes a year's worth of FREE updates, new content and more based on YOUR requests" (emphasis in the original).

Stardock never charges for updates. There will be expansion packs (2 are currently planned). I think the "free update" thing is mostly attempting to play on the fact that a lot of games that are put out either barely get any updates, or bundle all the updates with an expansion (such that if you want fixes to the original game, you have to buy the expansion).

Whoever worded that email was probably pretty tired

It's just a poor choice of wording. What they were trying to say (and I've seen another thread on the same question confirm it) is what Annatar said. They'll be patching the game for at least a year. There's no extra charge for those patches.

It sounds like there will be a couple of free content patches (ie: more campaign) as well before a paid expansion, but that doesn't affect the bug fix patch cycle.

No, and you can download the entire latest version of the game as long as we're around, just as with all our other games. That includes any new content that is or will be added to the base game, such as Campaign Book 2.

We can't rule out the possibility of expansions since any timetables for such things are in flux until the post-launch settles down. But you can look at GalCiv2's history for a good idea. Even though the first expansion was released twelve months after the base game, and the second fourteen months after that, we continued to update the older versions with any applicable bug fixes that could be back-ported, even a full year after the final expansion was released. That's three years from launch to the last update of the base game.

I think that settles that. Thank you sir.

Also, is expansion pack considered "free content", or is expansion pack considered something more than free content?

yes

you pay for expansion packs but patches that are free can have free content

IIRC there's supposed to be more campaign coming in one of the planned content updates, that would be free content. I don't know what the exact plans are yet for that stuff, but there's no point where you'll have to pay for a patch to the game once you buy the game.

edit:  new creatures, new spells, new buildings, new whatever that's not just fixing a bug or an expansion pack

The ONLY thing that will cost more is any expansion packs that Stardock releases for Elemental. All patches will be FREE. These patches will also include FREE content additions for at least one year. Even after the year is over, patches will still be FREE.

Expansion packs are fine. Fair enough.

Thanks for the info. I think the confusing part of the message is the mixing of patch and free content together, and then putting on a 1yr time limit, so people do not know what the time limit applies to. It's much more clear if worded this way:

• Game update will be free to registered owners for as long as the patches are released by Stardock
• Free content will be made available for a period of 1 year in the form of extended campaign, or add-in heroes, spells, etc.

One more thing, maybe I'm just dense. If free content is available for 1 year, when does the clock start to run? When the registration is done via Impulse? If so, then the most benefit would be to the late adopters, who bought the game late since they'd have all the content released before the purchase as well. Wouldn't that discourage people who are buying early?

Or is this really talking about that free content is planned to be released within 1yr anyway, so there wont' be more free content after the game's released for a year (thereby not taking away any free stuff from people who pre-ordered). If so, then there's really no sense to mention 1yr time period, SD could have just said free content to follow the base game.

From release, presumably. "Content" is going to be in the form of patches that add stuff as part of the patch, not an extra DLC pack that some will get free access to and others won't.

The paid expansions will be an add-on thing.

lol i think you're reading too much into it.  

Yeah. Seems like one of those weeks at Stardock HQ where even when they try to reassure people it goes wrong.

people should probably just disregard the whole "one year" thing, it seems arbitrary and confusing. As I understand it, from previous experience with stardock games and reading stardock posts on this forum, they are going to continue to support this game for quite some time, probably several years. any patches or free content not exclusively bound to an expansion will likely be available for free as long as the game is supported and impulse is around to be able to download them.