I think you're missing the point. Some of the people "bitching" have spent hours if not days of their time playtesting, modding, AND reporting issues. The fact these severe issues make it through QA into a "final" patch is frustrating beyond belief. I understand there is a difference between a drive-by forum poster who says something like "GAWD, this game sux" and someone like Heavenfall or others who have invested an incredible amount of time trying to partner with the devs to improve the game.

Honest feedback is necessary for a process, person, entity, game, etc. to really improve. If that honest feedback is ignored (perceived or otherwise) it's incredibly demotivating. Just my two cents; coming from someone who zealously playtested and reported bugs and AI problems in the 1.2 beta series.

I and others really want this game and franchise to kick ass - no pain no gain.

I admire you, Heavenfall, maniakos and the others for this, but honestly I don't know how you're doing it. The game is too boring to even test it and frankly the developers aren't listening.

Not 2 weeks ago I said that EWOM's updates seem directionless and wasteful. Here's another release to prove my point. Time passes and issues just go back & fort in a circular pattern. Yet for some reason the developers think this a worthy endevour, while they go about saying how FE will rock and receive high praise and a high metacritic score. They seem convinced everything they do is golden, that the AI can be worked in at the last possible moment etcetera etcetera, while we, the audience, are already spotting potentially game-breaking issues even with FE. They seem oblivious to our feedback, exactly as they were before EWOM's release. Well, if they have to wake up to reality once again, at least they won't be able to say that they hadn't been warned and had no way to see it coming.

Of course I might be wrong but this is how it looks like from this side. And I think this should count as helpful feedback too, to an extent.

!"#$%&/(( I lost the wall of text I was writing here

So a short version now:

I continued to play after I got dropped to desktop the other day. I used my sovereign that gives penalties to my cities to explore and fight constantly. I found new areas with resources and founded 3 more cities. I researched equally in all fields. I got to lvl 4 spells (general + earth).

And then I got attacked at my capital by a force I had no way to stop even with all the troops I had to keep in all of my cities to protect them from numerous monsters. I quit the game (not the 1st time I lost like this). Probably for good this time.

So lets see my options in this game:

1. Advantage by exploration? None. In Civ games you can get tech that speeds up your development or a more advanced unit that lets you conquer early. All I got from this is extra money (which obviously didn't help me) and a bunch of very basic equipment which is only useful for other champions which are too expensive to get. Lets not even go into all the stuff you get by exploration in MoM.

2. Advantage by magic? None. None of the general + earth spells I had could help me beat this army. Yes, I could immobilize the troops for a few rounds until I maybe got another stack of units out but it would not help me. I would have been better if I ignored magic altogether (more money for troops and less rounds spent building arcane academies). All the magic I needed anyways was familiar + heal so my sovereign could adventure without needing to return. It would have been more useful to use alchemy to turn mana to gold and build more troops.

3. Advantage by tech? Kind of no. One of the most basic tactics of 4x games is to risk early game and outech your enemy. I done this in Sins, BotF, Master of Orion 2, Sword of the Stars, all Civ games and MoM as well as other games. In this game this only works if you tech in Warfare. Armors and weapons all you need and your only real option. One branch out of 5. Such a bad design and in year time after this game is out it stayed the same kind of bullshit. I lost because I didn't tech in warfare only and spent all my resources and money into troops with these techs.

Not to mention how the tech tree is impossible to plan, there is no easy way to see all the tech and see what leads to what (unlike Civ 5, Sword of the Stars or even Sins - your own game). Not to mention how tech from the same tree cost the same even if it is a level lower (who ever came up with this idea and through it was good should be permanently banned from designing games - or designing anything).

4. Advantage by money/resources? None. In this game resources are not a tactical option, but only a requirement. That is bad design. Yes, you can turn extra cash into champions and equipment for them but you cannot buy troops. There is no easy way to get an advantage by hoarding money, mana or other resources. Amount of cash you have was lowered a lot from before and that broke the game in my opinion. Before all you done is buy champions and equip them and you still had cash left over. Now it is totally opposite of that. Options are still missing. Even worse, to make a decent group of troops you need to spend 150 gold (and that is before metal armors) and then wait for 9 turns. WTF? All other games give a lot of turns but lower prices and a way to buy the build time.

Anyways, as you can see I complained about the pillars on which this game was built upon. And yes, they are crap, not well thought out and not well implemented. I just hope FE will not be using these same pillars or I can say already this whole game was the most wasted money in my life.

Still wankz...lookz like nothing has chandged

Quoting tanafres,

"For example, every level of weapon is better than the last - obsoletes it completely, really. So now I have a choice: pick a much better weapon, or get some other basic tech that I didn't choose last time."

The game still feels pretty flawed to me.  No reason for a 1.4.  I feel like Walter Cronkite, The War in Elemental can no longer be won.  this game can not be fixed.  I had faith, but it can't be done.  I don't think Brad, for all his good intentions, can actually see the game for what it is and change what really needs changing. 

Me too! I vote to ditch EWOM!

Different project lead, several months of dev time rather then trying to patch an already released game, and something resembling a professional design process?

If they can't fix FE, then I'm with you that it's time to pack it in on the franchise. But it doesn't make a lot of sense to condemn it as a failure before then.

Yep, it's mind boggling. Game advertised as the best ever by Stardock: within a few gaming attempts many of us were aware that it was a complete failure... and that it was beyond fixing. All that was going to happen with these clumsy attempts to patch it was pretty much written and foretold repeatedly (yet it's still been painful watching this unfold throughout the course of the year).

FE might be a different beast. So far, there've been some good signs and several bad ones. We shall see.

Get your facts straight, since day one I have complained about the problems of this game. I can go and necro threads to prove it. I have lashed out at people who acted like children about the state of the game, not about making comments about flawed features of the game.  Maybe I held onto hope far longer than it was reasonable, I will give you that, but I have never been blind to the faults of the game, just the ability of them to be recognized by Brad and for them to be fixed.

I want to start this post by pointing out to you how the post I quoted said "if they cant fix elemental:wom, how could they do any better on FE", and how that is completely against your views. Actually we disagree with very little.

I agree with the point that Brad is desperate to make EWoM playable. It's understandable though, the failure of the game must be really tough on him. It's essentially his first flop designing games. I too hope that he would completely move on from WoM sooner rather than later, as I have very little interest on the game anymore now as FE is coming along. But coming from

But I disagree with you on Brad not aknowledging the mistakes. In FE Derek Paxton is at the helm, and that basically addressed the fundamental flaw in Elemental's design. Brad blames the infrastructure of their game design team, which was nowhere as structured as it should've been.

Keep in mind that it's not Brad calling the shots with FE.

Now that you mention it, I happen to agree with your comparison of Elemental with a game released in 2004. Game mechanics aside, I have quite a dislike with Elemental's art style. I feel that only a minority of gamers would be attracted by it when compared with the more eye-candy look of a gem like Age of Wonders. The GUI alone puts Elemental's to shame.

Here's to a vastly improved FE.