I'm very excited to see the tech tree.   I'm not really sure what to say.

I kinda hope the starting technology is at least post-ancient roman empire. 

I haven't heard anything about this. It's actually somewhat disheartening to hear that technology and magic isn't going to be intricately interwoven.

On the flipside, I wouldn't mind Steampunk-level of technology. For those of you unfamiliar with steampunk fantasy, think a blend of magic and industrial revolution machinery. But the most defining steampunk things, such as the Airships or Railways, should be at the definite end of technology. Absolutely no higher.

Likewise, magic technology should culminate with the most defining aspects of high fantasy. Floating cities and god-knows-what.

I think this is all just wishful thinking, though. I don't seriously think that there will be any steampunk influences in E:WoM.

I just wish there'd be.

It'll be somewhat like the dark ages. We know a bunch of stuff, but we don't really know what to make of it.

Even if some technology is post-gunpowder, I'd want punpowder weapons themselves to be excluded to put more emphisis on the fantasy elements.  (for example, I would support skipping straight to hot air balloons and steam engines, but bypassing cannons and firearms even though that does not make sense from a historical point of view)

Yeah I agree with that totally.  I always prefer my fantasy theme games to not have guys with guns running around, it hurts the atmosphere to me. Hot air ballons are good scouts though.

Yeah, considering the way the game looks, I think it will stop before the development of germ theory, at the very latest. The road-building thing makes sense, but will we have to discover plumbing? Should the tree even include plumbing? Why an I so obsessed with plumbing? Plumbing plumbing plumbing plumbing.......

In any event, I don't want to see gunpowder-based projectile weapons. Now, something like Chinese rockets might be cool... also, should alchemy be on the magic tree, or the technology tree? It's generally considered to be a type of magic, but it is empirical, and it was the precursor to modern chemistry.... plumbing!

There´s a game, called Arcanum, that have both mechanic stuff and magic stuff. It´s a nice thing to see their enviroment, using both technology and magic to solve society problems. That´s a nice thing I would like to see on EWOM.  But I agree with both landisaurus and luckmann, we can have those things without being tied to a "historical period" of mankind.

I remember as a kid I dreamed of MoM 2 being the story of a portal opening to a more "modern" world of technology.  So it would be the war between the wizards and the technology racess.

I dreamed of having a new tome that could be selected that would the "technology tome" and the "spells" you got from it were things like "air strike" and "attack satillite" with summon units including "walking battle tank" and "assassin robot", and enhance spells like "ammo drop-pod" and "self-repairing nanomachines" (heavy mechwarrior, star trek, and earthian influence)

I'm now much wiser and do not that that would be a good idea.  But I felt it would be appropriate to share (I felt I mentioned it before in the forum, but I'm not sure the thread)

I think there have been enough steampunk and similarly magic vs technology settings around in computer games. The default setting for fantasy seems to be a sort of generic medieval Europe, probably because ideas about chivalry often tie quite well into these sort of things.

To my mind the idea of godlike magical beings remaking the world is a bit too high-magic for medieval to really work as a setting. I would prefer something a bit more...pagan, barbarian, bloody, Beowulf.

But yes. Arcanum was a chapter of gaming in itself.

As for fantasy settings, I think they're going for the more common distinctly high fantasy setting, as opposed to the Europeanesque kind of setting (which is oddly common in German and central european-produced RPG's).

If there's something that's been done to death it's failed attempts at Dark Medieval fantasy and a massive amount of high fantasy games. If there's something that is incredibly rare, if anything, it's Steampunk fantasy.

Depends on how youdefine Steampunk. Most fantasy games now have some steampunk elements in them, but the rest of the game is pure fantasy.

I’d personally like the regular tech tree to start with basic nomad tech and finish with industrialized tech. As I understand it the set up in Elemental was basically the cold war gone hot where the previous powers destroyed the world. It would be cool if in the very beginning of the game humanity had reverted to nothing but a collection of nomadic civilizations moving where ever food and water could be found. Fast forward and you have basic agricultural civilizations, artesian civilizations, and finally industrialized nations. I wouldn’t expect their to be guns, tanks, and aircraft but maybe some simplistic machinery to produce more food, build more advanced weapons, and speed up manufacturing. 

Both, I like 'black box' style steam punk machines.  Things that run on or fire or something, and its not really expained  how else stuff works.   It could be 100% clockwork, but nobody can tell, just see the results and moving parts outside of the main body.