Ahhh, that clears up my concerns that were silently simmering in the shadows.  I guess it would involve checking whether a customer has registered or updated EWoM before giving the customer a price.

Expansion already and we haven't even gotten the original up and running without bugs. Maybe you should have waited a few more months before releasing the WoM and just put out Elemental: Fallen Enchantress. I really hope you fix a few things with this expansion....

1. Fix the Out of Memory crashes. Really annoying.

2. More detailed and rewarding quests.

3. A more diverse tech / spell trees to give flavor to individual factions. Right now you only need play one Kindom and one Fallen to get all of the feel for the game.

4. More diverse and thought out NPCs with possible side quests: You pick up an NPC looking for her twin brother. In your travels you find <trigger marker> if NPC is part of faction, then, You find a clue to her twin brother's fate... Chain quest with possible out comes: a. brother joins faction, b. brother is found dead but puts and end to her search, c. brother has turned evil/good fight. Another idea, Paladin or anti-paladin, joins faction but has lost his war mount, armor and weapon. Side quests to recover them all. The options here are limitless and can be done with very little coding. NPCs should not respawn as well. Once dead they are gone (unless Life Magic: ressurect or Death Magic: Undead). Mulitple spawns of the same NPC is not only annoying it can unbalance the game if you get say 10 tech related NPCs of the same name/same person.

5. A larger selections of abilities and traits to flesh out unique factions. Minor Factions should be there as well (actually spawn during a game..not currently happening as they are on placed on game maps) to provide flavor and distractions for expansion. Each minor faction should have it's own ZOC with resources and growing city. Prevent growth by not allowing them to make pioneers.

6. Armor/weapons.  More detailed and diverse armor.  2-3 forms of leather, Cloth armor for casters, 2-3 mail/scale types, 2-3 plate types. Weapons should be more readily available. Broadswords after several tech advances? If they still know how to make blades then swords should be a low tech and advanced metallurgy gives you better/stronger blades.

7. Spells. Make some spells (spell books) prevent others from being learned so you have to choose your destiny. Don't make Fire the win all with it damage. Damage spells shouldn't be the major difference between them. Firebolt, Icebolt, Stonethrow, they should all be close to the same and some things would be immune to them, ie Fire Elemental is immune to (yep that is right) Fire! The diversity should come from functional spells. Like Earth would give you Farming Bonuses, Water: ships bonuses, Fire: ravaging land tiles, Life: healing spells, Death: (yep) Death spells. etc. This would make you have to choose your type of ethos or style and NPCs would only join you if they had the same ethos or closely related to prevent NPC armies with 6-10 spell casters.

8. Resources should spawn more logically. I can tell you how many games I played where ore or another resource spawned in really wierd environment tiles. Also more diverse resources and mounts

9. There should be more mounts that are also researchable, ie standard horse, scouting horse (speed), War horse (bonus fighting/armored), etc.

10. Finally, units should be more useful. I don't even created units in most of my games. I just buy up every NPC I see, Imbue them, and arm them and beat the snot out of other guys armies. They should start out in small squads.  This would make them more deadly early on. As Bruce Lee said. (paraphrased) "I can fight one person no problem, 2 would be tough, but 3 or more would be almost impossible." Numbers kill. A knight in armor on his war horse is attacked by a mob of 10 spear wielding militia is gonna die. Sure he is gonna kill a lot of them but he can defend himself from all directions all at once.

I just hope you put more time and energy into this expansion because I have had to rewrite so much of your code to make the game enjoyable to me I might as well make my own game. I don't want to do that. That is what I pay you for, and yes I do, because I buy the game.  You have such a good concept here if you just took the time to flesh it out. Make it something it was supposed to be. At worst, dumb it all down and make an electronic board game of it. That way no one will expect more from the game, but if you really listen to your buyers, maybe you can give them something they want. Just some of my thoughts for what they are worth. (probably not much as many will flame this.) Good luck. I will play the expansion as I get it for free but if it is like the original, I won't bother even downloading my second free expansion because I will be done buying or playing Stardock game.

Thank you, SerinMaldy, I agree with you whole heartedly, I just hope Fallen Enchantress can be the game that sets this all apart. Elemental was a shame to me, so much potential, and just an awful follow through. But now we have a lot of talent coming into Stardock and I have high hopes for the future

It seems to have potential, but one can't help but wonder how things will shake down in the grand scheme of things in terms of having 3 teams actively working on the 3 games at the same time---and that's not even bringing the concept of an ACTUAL sequel or perhaps even "classic expansions for the neo-expansions" into the mix, particularly if any/all of the remainder strike a cord in terms of sales and such.

It isn't a move I expected as an early pre-order person, but we'll see how it all shakes out I reckon.  I also wonder what direction this will take any "Elemental" modding efforts, as again it'd come down to that minimum 3 way split....

Can't say I've ever been a fan of the old stand alone expansion thing. One of the points to the traditional expansion is you can use the resources already installed on the machine, which keeps it smaller, quicker to install and generally far preferable to having to install the whole damn game again. Plus it always makes the previous games seem pointless. Unless you're going to radically deviate from the original game (in which case surely what you have is a new game using the old setting/engine?) then you're making the original completely obsolete, as happened with Dawn of War, Company of Heroes et al. Or in other words, if FE is going to be Elemental but "better", why would anyone want to buy WoM?

Erm, generally traditional expansions get reviewed too. Unless you assume reviewers are brain dead morons (in which case I suggest going elsewhere for your gaming reviews) calling it Elemental : Fallen Enchantress will not hoodwink them into thinking it's completely different from Elemental : War of Magic. And they'll treat is as such whether it's stand alone or not.

In fact it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't for Stardock. In both cases they'll reference the pigs ear that was the launch of WoM. If it's standalone, expect them to range between subtle hints and out and out accusations on the theme of Stardock abandoning WoM. If it's a traditional expansion expect it to be written off as an attempt to make the original worthwhile.

Generally speaking, it's better to just ignore the gaming press entirely and get on with what you're doing.

There are always complains. Thats right Wintersorg. But i also cant go away from the Expansion/New game thing. I have no problem with FE as a new game.

But i´ll try to give an example. It was always said/wrote by Brad and other SD member that they will do everything to be sure that E: WoM will reach its potencial. The team does a great job to make the game better. Now for example there is one thing i like to see -> better tactical battles. I hoped for the Expansion, but as i understand E: WoM will never get a better tactical battle system. Thats for E: FE. And there will be other features they will put into E: FE and not in WoM, although it would be possible. So the game will never reach its potencial.

The whole "reach its potencial" - thing is not my idea. Brad often wrote it....

Any idea on what the price band will be for this new expansion? I have Elemental, but I bought it just after the New Year. I feel a little gipped that because I'm poor and only got the game a few days after an arbitrary line in the sand, I end up worse off than people who are bagging it mercilessly (I play the HELL out of this game).

But even so, I guess if the price for it if you already own Elemental is low (like, single digit pounds low) I won't feel quite like a random victim of such mighty circumstance as 'had no idea such a game was out'. I adored Fall From Heaven II when I was playing Civ 4, so getting this game as a full-on attempt at the same thing is...well, it would be impolite to mention such a physical reaction in good company.

On the plus side, I guess I'm not going to get screwed quite so heavily as I did for Blood Bowl. Oh hey, we've released this game ---> Few months later ----> Oh hey, we've released the same game with all the stuff it should have had in the first place for an even higher price.

Just wanted to say, I have never heard buying a new pair of pants illuminated in such a glorious, analogy filled, light.    love it!

Shoud have some in Elemental Chain male version (Pun intended)

Wait a minute, please correct me if I'm wrong.

I huge overhaul with 1.1, I can notice it. I was expecting the expansions to be, an expansion, meaning building on the game. And now, I believe I'm being told that I'm actually getting "another" game. And I'll just say now, that I'm a little alarmed at this "drastic change".

I'm really worried about the general direction of the game. Is it going to go for some hero based, quest oriented direction!? I really hope not. If this is supposed to be the spiritual successor of MOM, than let's keep going in that direction. Shall we?

I really hope that some details about what this expansion is aiming for in terms of gameplay. I have to say, I feel bleak about things.

Completely agree with these sentiments.

As do I.