You heard me.  For the first time, I've played Elemental for hours, and I did not "not have fun".  After 1.7, I got my first CTDs.  3 of them.  SD ask me to try to recreate them and send them some info; so I did; for hours; no luck (or is it no unluck?).  Anyway, in all those hours, with the patch making the game not move slower than Kirsty Alley in a pool of cold maple syrup, and my groups of 4+ actually healing up after damage, I could actually, finally, try the game out.

I liked the city building a lot.  It's not your usual pay and plop, you have to think and plan and decide, but the problem is, decide with what?.  Boy does it need plenty more info/stats showing, and something to let you know "hey, Einstein, you only get to build ONE of those!", or "Why did you even bother clicking on me, there's no room for me to fit, you don't have the matts to build me, oh ya, and there is a deep dark myster why I'm unbuildable too, but that's for you to figure out Nancy Drew".

I liked how the teck research works too.  It needs lots of balancing and tweeks, but I found it actually interesting, and you never quite know exactly what you'll get.  I think that will alleviate so much of the "You MUST use this build/tech order!" stuff.

Then the battles.  Ahhh yes, and that means magic too.  Battles and magic were like eating vanilla ice cream; off a paper plate; with a plastic spoon.  For the first time, I did'nt dislike the battles, but as a comparison, I cut an apple in half, put it beside the monitor, and watched it turn brown as I did battles.  I think watching the apple was a bitl less borring.

So, that gives me hope.  Sure it's the same hope that it really was'nt Paris Hilton's purse (lets see who gets that), but still, we are talking about Stardock/Frogboy here, so I can't think of anyone better suited to plug this BP of a game's leaks. . .