So far beta 3 is much better than the other betas and much more stable, yet I am still dealing with the occasional crash to desktop and turn button sticking.

Fix those issues and the game will be good, but to make it excellent there needs to be way more spells and more random events.

Also I wouldnt mind seeing the following:

1. I would like to be able to upgrade old units with new equipment when its researched.

2. I would like for heal wounds to be added to the life spell book.

3. Also death needs to be balanced and life magic needs to be brought up a few notches in power.

4. There needs to be some form of spell or building that you can build that will protect your city from enemy spells.

5. Now concerning spells every school needs to have at least one single target direct damage spells, one aoe direct damage spell, one debuff, one crowd control, and one strategic damage or debuff spell. Also there needs to be at least 3 global spells for each school.

Examples:

1. Life
1. One global regen spell that affects all allied units.
2. Fountain of Life - A global spell that doubles food generation and population growth.
3. A global spell blesses all allied units.
2. Death
1. A global curse on all enemy units entering the players zone of control.
2. A global buff that causes enemies that die in combat to have a chance of coming back as zombies under that players control.
3. A global curse that lowers all enemy players production.
3. Fire
1. Armageddon - a global spell that causes meteor showers to rain down on random parts of the map every turn.
2. A global spell that places flame blade on all allied units.
3. Drought - a global spell that halves the food generation of all enemy players, causing populations to starve off.
4. Earth
1. Gold Rush - doubles the gold generation of all friendly cities.
2. Volcanic Instability - causes volcanoes to appear and erupt at random areas on the map.
5. Air
1. Enchant Roads - Enchants all roads in your zone of control, effectively doubling their movement bonus.
2. Fierce Winds - Causes tornadoes to appear in random portions of the map.
3. Global Guardian Winds spell on all allied units.
4. Some form of global spell that has a chance of dispelling all spells cast by enemy players.
6. Water
1. Deluge - Causes flooding in random portions of the map as well as halving the movement speed of all units outside of your zone of control.
2. Another global spell that causes random enemy cities to be affected by freezing temperatures for 5 turns, that halt the cities productions and causes all units that step out of the city to take cold damage.  

There was a post by Brad Wardell on this about two weeks ago, I cannot seem to find it. Has it been radically edited, or even removed?

I'm having a blast playing the game. I wish there were more summons, though. Also, there's a whole bunch of small issues that I hope get ironed out before release (see support forum). I voted Excellent. Although I'm not sure how we are supposed to judge the game, for a beta 2-3-4 or more months from release, it is excellent.

I voted good,I was not sure wether to chose good or excellent, but for excellent I think there is still room for improvement, ie more faction differentation, etc.

However I'd say it's somewhere between good and excellent and it will become a very special game.

I still find it a pity they didn't go with the more known fantasy races seen in MoM/AoW because that would have made it much easier for them.( for faction differentiation, fantasy flavour ) Still they're doing a really good job in that area and it's coming along well.

They didn't go that path does make the game more original and I love the fact of starting in a dangerous world, again more original.

btw the Arcane Monolith spell is really cool. Ideas like this are really fun and make the player feel more like a great wizard.

For the first time I'm playing a game of E/FE where I'm thinking: " This is really fun! ".

I voted good because the beta now has finally started to become a true game, and not just a prototype/proof of concept.

Hawever the beta is nowhere near a release statut yet, even ignoring the few bugs remaining, there is still a lot of work needing to be done on balance and game flow to become the great game that it has the potential to be.

Please keep going !

It has apparently been deleted, you can no longer find the thread, or Brads posts in his post history. I could not even find my own post.

Im quite certain they decided that the whole thing was just too embarrassing. I would have liked to keep that thread for future reference.

The only way I could find it again was to google my own post and then view the google cache:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vWjikjPqVlcJ:forums.elementalgame.com/422922/page/8/+%22FrenziedFan%22+unprofessional&cd=1&hl=sv&ct=clnk&gl=se&client=opera

I saw that and was personally angered and disappointed in stardock. Its one thing to lock a thread and say okay we are done discussing this. Its quite another to try and pretend it never happened and sweep it under the rug. pathetic move guys, really pathetic.

I think that thread was a turning point where Brad gave up on caring what the forum zealots think. 

I'm not sure it was fair of me to vote "fair"... The more I play the more I enjoy it. With the upcoming adjustments to city building I think this will be close to excellent.

I do crash more than I have with any previous beta though.

Judging as a finished game, not just a beta, I went with "good." I've been playing since the very first WoM beta, and up until now I always felt like Elemental had potential, but hadn't quite realized it yet. Starting with this release I think FE is genuinely enjoyable to play in its own right, and not just because I'm excited about where the game is heading - it finally feels like we've gotten there, great work.

That being said, FE has a lot of little balance/variety/general "polish" issues that hold it back from "excellent," so I'm looking forward to seeing the game get even better before the official 1.0 release. But the basic game mechanics finally feel solid, and those other things are small changes, FE is definitely approaching "excellent" in my book.

Can the BETA POLE be made a little more in depth than a 1 question survey?  Maybe 1 question on each main area of development?  AI, Combat, Faction Diversity, Stability, Fun, overall impression... etc?

I voted good. However, I don't necessarily think the game is "good" yet, due to the inadequate AI, balance issues, and obviously polish. But I do believe the game is going in the right direction, and positive forward momentum is being maintained. I agree with all the changes that have been made so far, even if only conceptually.

So, good on you, Stardock. Even despite my misgivings about certain aspects of the game, I'm still raving about it to my friends in the hope that they will get on the beta.

units seem to be stronger then heroes late game- much so before magic- which would seem to relegate casters to buff bots late game. I was playing as GIlden and at the end of the tech tree companies had a attack value of like 200 plus and some crazy defense as well. No champion of any level can compete with that. I'm not sure if this is a balance issue but I would like to see more champ damage scaling based off of level.