Your tenacity on this point makes me suspect that my earlier carrying-on was at least partially plausible to you and you're perhaps having a bit of a denial problem. I don't recall anyone "demanding" five elements, and as both Winter and you note, you seem to be the only aggressive "four-elementer." Really, why the heat?

That silliness aside, I believe that the way things are named is as important to the total experience of a game as how they work. Language shapes thought, after all. So I have a fair degree of sympathy with your rhetorical pitbull trip here even though I remain convinced that Life/Death is either the fifth element or it is two things, the fifth and sixth elements (the latter interpretation presenting an art problem or a design decision to merge them again).

The problems is that is life/death is a type of magic different from the four classic greek elements, then life/death is also one. At least games tend to associate magic types with elements (and sometimes subelements). The lack of shard for life/death could mean that it's not an element but considering that it's based in living (or dying) beings, a shard per se wouldn't make much sense. And that is neither evidence of life/death being an element is it could be just a.. er.. byproduct? of the interaction of the four elements.

All depends of the point of view that Brad/Stardock wants to use but all I have read seems to point as five(six) types of magic/elements. Until more accurate and explicit information given. After all, a rock may be strongly earth oriented but it's not alive (earth magic appart) as it would need something "extra" for that. Everything would be composed of those four elements in different proportions yet only a few would be alive. Why? Is a matter of proportions? Is there anotehr element?

And what does Dark Energy has to do with all this?

Ok. I still don't agree (I think there are 5 thematic magic elements), but I don't care enough to argue with you on that point.

And ultimately, if Brad/Stardock decides to call Life/Death the fifth (/sixth) magical element, it's their call. Whether or not you think it should be that way based on whatever historical belief systems will ultimately be irrelevant. Also, talking about what makes 'the most sense' regarding magical elements sort of makes me chuckle. We don't have magic in the world, so none of it makes sense. And I'm of the mind that we know enough about the world now to get passed out-dated divisions of the natural world into arbitrary classes such as "earth, air, fire, water, void, light, dark" or whatever else might tickle our fancy - and so talking about what makes the most sense is itself nonsensical.

This makes a great deal of sense, especially in a magical world where an afterlife is more plausible. This is one of the main reasons why I feel that not all Men (life-users, if Brad's restrictions still hold) should be good and all fallen should be evil. Therefore, although unfortunately something like my earlier statement is most likely what will be in the game, I think that the above dichotemy would best be applied to only EVIL death magic and GOOD life magic, respectively.

Interesting. I actually like the idea that channelers (and possibly other living things) are the source for Life/Death mana, and I don't see any need to enforce a 'universal shard' model for mana supplies. My thing about Life and Death being two sides of the same coin is mainly about wanting a middle way in the canon Elemental game. But some stories depend on a simple binary distinction, so I'll probably be OK with the Elemental canon if it does at least an average job on a Good/Life vs. Evil/Death story line.

I actually quite like Channelers being the source of life/death magic. They could even have it that the ability to use life/death magic is what allows channelers to access the magical forces bound up in the shards.

I mentioned this in another thread, but I'll say it again: I like asymmetry in games. Most games tend to be so symmetric that even the things that are different are really just variations on the same thing - and that gets old. Having a school of magic that is used or accessed differently would, I think, make things more interesting. It's the same reason I don't want each school to have similar spells. Each magical school should contain very different spells. That's not to say that two schools can't both have many offensive spells - just that their offensive spells should function differently. It's one of the best ways to keep things interesting and to increase replay value.

Well ultimately it depends how it's all handled. For one, Stardock said that want much of faction diversity to come from the magic system - so there might actually be quite a difference between their available spells, even their core spells.

They could also do something like have everyone start out with life/death, but have the types of spells available to you largely dependent on what other shards you have or schools you're proficient in. I see your point that starting out with just life/death magic every game could get repetitive - especially because you'd likely end up most proficient in the element you start out with.

So if there isn't much intricacy to how life/death is handled, or if you can't choose other elements to start with then I agree with you completely. But I think things could be done to make this a non-issue.

Well if life and death were treated just like the others, then they could also do a MoM-like pick system where you can start out with multiple schools of magic. In which case there'd be more permutations than 8.

I don't have the time to do all the math, but just guestimating, you would still get more. I'll post the calculations soon.

The statement you are quoting assumes two things:

1. You can choose an "affinity" for one of the four classic elements.
2. That "affinity" affects your ability to channel the element.

We still lack info on the finer points of magic, so it's all up in the air. I could be VERY wrong, or I could be exactly right. I have no idea. However, simple permutations are only half of the story. Different methods of getting magic will in and of themselves add complexity to the game.

No, I just sokehow go it in my head that we would have an "affinity" for one of the shard elements, in spell tree if nothing else.

Apparently, Scoutdog's take is more or less his imagination (plus his distaste for making uncertainty clear when he types). My reading of the what's-a-channeler part of the July FAQ leaves me pretty convinced that there won't be anything like 'elemental affinity' in the game, unless it is possibly embedded in faction-centered spell collections.

Maybe part of what we'll get by choosing a faction will be something that makes certain shard types more valuable than others, but I'm starting to suspect that there might not be anything like choosing to be an 'element' specialist, a dualist, or a generalist. If my suspicion turns out to be accurate, I'll be a bit disappointed, but explaining why would lead me to discussing the Unmentionable Predecessor...

The way I read it, life mana comes from the channeler.  It doesn't say other mana can't, just that life mana isn't much of an option elsewhere.  If you have a minimum requirement necessary for imbuing land and such, that doesn't necessarily mean you're starting out with a leader that specializes in life.  It could be just like MoM's setup was, but you had a mandatory selection of one life or death point.

There are plenty of ways for the explanations given to lead to something besides a monoculture of life and death casters.