Middle of March, I say.  Why?  No good reason, just a guess.

1.2 has to be next, then expansions can be worried about.  My guess if we won't hear much until Feb at least.

Doesn't mean there won't be news in the meantime though.  I'm more interested in hearing what the focus of 1.2 is , so I can spam the forum with my own suggestions, which will then be ignored. 

I always found it rather odd that producers rarely disclose ETAs.

At first I thought it was because of the customer base - the company thinks it loses a lot of goodwill if it can't live up to its "promised release date".

But I guess it's more likely that schedules change so frequently that there's little point in releasing a date until it's near-certain.

I would be very surprised if it arrived as early as march. 1.2 is next, and then they can start on the expansion.

From what frogboy has said, the full elemental team will stay working on elemental for 2011 and some of 2012. That would put at the very least 4 months between each expansion, which would mean we'll see the first expansion earliest april, possibly may or june.

I'd say not expansion pack sooner than july. Based loosely on my vague memories of the Gal Civ expansions.

Hope one of the features is fixing the crashes. Still can't play more than an hour before crashes.

Kids these days. Back in my day (in the beta), I was lucky to finish more than one turn without crashing. Also, there was walking through the snow uphill both ways.

It's really only game developers that experience this phenomenon, I think largely because you really don't know what's going to work until you have it together and can let play testers bang on it for a bit.  There's a lot more uncertainty in game development than in most things.

The Beta for the expansion would likely begin in February.  Since this expansion is of the scope of a full blown expansion (these aren't micro expansions) we're looking at a late Spring release at the earliest.

There will be a lot more details given in the coming weeks.  But I know a few include a massive revamp of game mechanics (food/housing/etc. to be a lot different and we think better), a totally new tactical combat system (not a modification of what's in the v1.1 series but a new one entirely).  A new spell system (v1.1 introduced a new magic system, the expansion would focus on how spells are obtained and cast), more personality and differences between factions, etc.

Take that, doubters. This is a post I hoped (and expected) to read sometime soon. Buckle up, because 2011 is going to be quite a ride for Elemental players, I believe. Thanks, and merry christmas.

So the expansion will basically overhaul a number of Elemental's core components, practically making it a whole new game.  That should be interesting to see.

OH HELL YES! I can't wait to hear more! Bring it on! I will do everything I can to help!

Now we get back to hypeland just like in 2008 and 2009 

Will be exciting weeks.

Sounds good to me.

hmmmm. While all these areas need improvement I'm not sure totally redoing them is the answer. Some like housing could probably shine with just some polish. I guess I will have to wait and see.