This, my dear sir, saddens me. I think you know what best for you and support you in this decision. I'm looking forward to hearing from you in the near future.

I voted good.  This is the first version that I enjoyed enough to play for more than an hour.  You guys are definitely on the right track.  

I do agree with some of the other posters, that the choices need to be made more meaningful.  In the game I played my sovereign, one champion and their summons were all I needed to defeat everything that got in my way.  Even though I had expanded badly and was far enough behind some of the AI that they demand tribute from me, I still crushed it's every army with ease and steamrollered it's cities.  

Personally I don't agree with restricting magic concept however they sould have a magic using ability that you can give to Hero similar to what is in AOW:SM.  But they should also have a good and easy Champion as well as magic item creator which will allow map makers to put more Champion and magic items into the game and/or taylor make a map to reflect the world you want. So if you want a magic rare ugly dull world ala WOM then you could do this. Just like if I want a high magic world like Forgotten Realms in D&D then I would be able to do that.

Hell you could bring back the  spell that use to give champs the ability to cast during a game but this spell should be rare and or med to high level.

Also you could in addition to all the above allow the Path of Magic to be chosen at 2nd level so this would be the path that would allow hero to cast spells.

So much butt-hurt in this thread.

How should we rate a beta?  Our choices range from considering how the game will be, to how the game is at this moment.  Each is problematic.  The former requires us to guess how much longer until release (consider that the game has already been shown to the press! and that SD's pockets are not unlimited, so development time is not unlimited) and imagine how much the game will change in the interim.  The latter isn't how the game will be at release (hopefully).  Without direction from SD we're left to our own device on how to respond.

My preference is to rate the game as it currently is.  It's what we have, it requires no guessing or imagining, it's what is.  Rating based on guessing/imagining/assuming how the game will change may be good for the ego ('game is problematic now but I'm sure you guys will make it great!') but is it best for the game?  What if one guesses/imagines/assumes wrong?  Should we live in the world that is, or the one we imagine we'll someday have?

Often, when faced with such a choice (tastes great! less filling!) the best answer is a combination of both.  In this case, rate the game as is and then state the assumptions/guesses/imaginings.  For example -- the game as is isn't anywhere near release-ready  There are too many bugs, it's too imbalanced, too few meaningful choices.  Given the upcoming improvements already mentioned and assuming they're properly implemented, the game is likely to be pretty good.  I foresee that taking a minimum of 3 months, more likely 6.

Am I the only one curious as to why the game was already shown to the press?

Are you implying that he is expecting a thanks for FE beta? Talk about a strawman. It's a false choice to imply that not being a snot to the CEO means being a fan boy. One can simply choose to converse with someone without being a snot can't they?

Seriously? Games are always shown to the press months before release.  Do you read game magazines? What do you think those previews are about? Have you read any of the FE previews? They're all extremely positive, at least the ones I've seen.

I think this here is just a case of a minor burnout with regards of Elemental. It's good to have at least a short timeout on both sides. I myself will keep feedback to a minimum before the city management is overhauled.

As to what would define a fanboy, how's about:

"...Brad has bigger balls than you and me combined..."

or

"...He reminds me of some great talented people who always like to make things extra difficult for himself for no reason except because it doesn't matter because his talent, brilliance will usually win through anyway..."

or

"...Brad has the arrogance of a CEO and as someone pointed out a leader who has accomplished great things and hence has natural confidence..."

Brad's perceived abilities/accomplishments are not what's being rated here -- the game is being rated.  Rating the game higher because of perceived strengths of a person would be the fallacious Argument from Authority (hey, you mentioned Strawman earlier...  and I'm not saying you Glazunov1 are doing this -- I think you are not).

Given the extra hurdle to overcome from WoM, given FE is months from being ready, given how important it is to SD to have FE succeed, I'd sure as heck make sure what I show the press is top notch and release-ready.

Also, given that FE won't be sold the old fashioned brick&mortar way, the previously required long lead time to print/distribute/secure shelving is moot.

Also, given that web reviews are immediate and don't require long leadins as the old print mags did...

Also, given that the game won't be released for several months minimum, and all the other games being released in the interim, the buzz will fade long before release.  Will the press be as receptive to FE dog&pony show #2?

A strawman is a matter of deliberately putting a poor argument in someone else's mouth and shooting that down, in order not to deal with the real argument they've presented.  Since my comments you quote above have nothing to do with a strawman argument, and aren't even an argument at all, I'm not sure why you quoted them.

As I didn't bring up fanboys to begin with, and don't know enough about the longterm behavior of anybody specifically in the FE forum, I'm not going to single out any particular comment as coming from a fanboy.  As I wrote above, some really over-the-top essays were written here criticizing the beta and their developer, and some people have responded by going overboard in defending it and its developer.  You don't need to be a fanboy or a troll to post this way when emotions really get out of hand.  Regardless, nobody gains from that anger.

No harm, no foul. 

If he didn't want opinions or suggestions he would have locked the thread and just let the poll speak for itself. The poll was for the ratings, the thread was for the reasons. He probably just wasn't expecting anything negative to be said at this point about his baby, just like with WoM (and yes I will beat that dead horse until it's bones turn to dust).

Saying it's too late for significant gameplay changes is also strange. They've been saying this since the beta started, it was said in response to early cries for faction differentiation, then it happened anyway just as we asked. Ironically that statement was made in response to a suggestion about changing cities, and apparently a city overhaul is in the works for next patch. I think it's just a kneejerk response when anyone suggests a serious flaw. Regardless there have been and will continue to be significant gameplay changes taking place, and now is the best time to speak up with suggestions if we want a great game. That's pretty much why most of us are here, not to inflate egos with praise (deserved or not).

I'm curious, what is your background in marketing that makes you feel like you're an authority on how games should be promoted?

Yes. And you wrote:

Which implies that you are representing Brad's position as he expected people to thank him and that he was unhappy that people weren't thanking him.

Here's another example of a strawman:

If Brad hadn't given precise examples of what he meant then you might have a point. But he did. There are active threads and comments where people ask for things such as getting rid of the technology tree and getting rid of cities.

Faction differentiation is not a game mechanic. No one from Stardock, to my knowledge, ever even suggested that faction differentation wasn't coming. Especially since the beta roadmap posts have outlined that beta 3 would be the faction differentation beta and beta 4 would be the new city system.

I'm curious how people can twist something so obvious into something else. His first post on the topic was vague so he clarified what kinds of changes were off limits. In response, people started throwing old quotes from WOM that had nothing to do with this topic or just plain insulting the whole team.

It's a little bit of an insult to the forum's intelligence to try to retroactively imply that Brad decided to stop participating in the FE discussions until the next beta simply because he was mad that 3% of the community think the game is poor.

I'll give those people the benefit of the doubt: They have terrible reading comprehension. 

I think it's a case of people looking a gift horse in the mouth. 

I think it's beyond poor taste for people to demand wholesale changes of the game and then when the target of those demands resists to try to use his good faith and sense of honor/responsibility against him.

Is gamer entitlement so extreme now that people think that the CEO of a game company should promise to consider every idea, no matter how much it would alter the game?

Some people have things backwards. By default, there's no expectation that the developers, let alone the CEO, should be interacting with us. If we want to have access to the developers, then the onus is on us to converse with some civility.

Well said sir.

If we can swing this discussion back on topic that would be appreciated.

Having a bit of inside knowledge on this, Brad's schedule is spread across many different projects ranging from Windows 8 (WinRT) related projects, iOS projects, enterprise software negotiations, Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion work, The Political Machine work, and so forth. Suffice to say, his schedule is tight.

I think it would be safe to say that no one at Stardock has a problem with someone's opinion on Fallen Enchantress. What most of us have a problem with is this mischaracterization of the events surrounding War of Magic. 

Some types of  feedback are more useful then others.

I may not succeed, but I try to suggest things that are at least doable within the current framework.

My worry is this will hurt the AI of the game, since that's Brad's baby, and that's the current part of the game where improvement would bring the most benefits.

Wait what the heck has happened to this thread? Fanboys? I thought this was a thread to post what we thought about the Beta 3 so far. Talk about motivation killer. Seriously people, get a grip, its a freaking game if it doesn't please you, go make your one (make sure you do it right so you don't get sued).

Edit: so far I've played 2 games (not to win), and I must say the AI likes to cast curse city a lot, so I had to research the Dispell enchantment as soon as possible to keep my cities going. This definitely needs tweaking to be if you are in a treaty with someone, you're not allowed. Or at a certain temperature (e.g Hostile) then its ok to do since they/you don't like each other. It's all part of the management. But so far not a lot of crashes.

Question, does the game rely on processor power for the AI etc.? I think then I may have upgrade my cpu.

There was no cheap argument being substituted for a real one, and no argument at all.  The important part is the setup: willfully switching out a bad argument for a good one that somebody else is making before a third party, to have them look bad.  When in fact, it was never their argument, at all.  A classic strawman argument would be, "My political opponent would have you believe that the moon is made of green cheese, which is arrant nonsense, as I'm sure all of you can attest!"  When the opponent in question hasn't made that argument, at all.

I'm going to expand on my originally very short expression of thoughts, here.  I gave FE in its current state a good rating, keeping always in mind that it's a mid-beta.  As a mid-beta, it's surprisingly stable, has plenty of features in place, and can played successfully through with some enjoyment from beginning to end.  It has plenty of meaningful decision-making, and much more focus for actions the player takes, in my opinion, than WoM in its current state.  Faction differentiation is in progress, and both hero and city differentiation were apparently planned for some time and (we are told) are up, next.  This is all to the good.  I like the steps that are going to be taken, though it remains to be seen how I'll truly feel about the result until they show up.

I do feel information screens are somewhat lacking.  You can't see a snapshot of a city or hero's current values, for example, as they level up, which is just when you need to.  There's no listing of the contents of each spellbook arranged as such, and some missing or wrong entries in the help system.  You can't bring up a ledger screen to sort cities by building type.  This is all to be expected at this point, however.  Outpost spam, buggy spells, monsters that appear on mountain sides, quests that trigger reward popup screens only after you've gone to the combat screen of another stack: nothing unusual.  I'd get pissed if I'd bought a final product that was like this.  I expect it right now in the game's cycle.

The main design features hold me.  I wish sovereign's children could have been kept in some way or form from WoM, and I think the research trees are a little too "lite" right now; plenty of balance needed, too.  Spell books need to be more distinctive, but I can't fault many of the spells which appeal to different ways to play, and the quests are fun.  The random placement of things needs tuning, but the monsters are a fine assortment.  Just speaking for myself, this is about where I'd hope to find FE in its development, if it's to released in September/October.  There's still plenty of time to tighten things up.

Again, if this is the shape the game is ultimately released in, I'll be pissed.  There's a lot of work still to be done.  But as a mid-beta, it's a strong effort, in my opinion.

And claiming "...that makes you feel like you're an authority on how games should be promoted?" -- Strawman.

If you disagree with my arguments (which are several and are detailed) then refute them and/or provide your counter arguments.  Attacking me personally or putting words in my mouth is unhelpful and cedes the argument.

To repeat my earlier statement: the game as is isn't anywhere near release-ready. There are too many bugs, it's too imbalanced, too few meaningful choices. Given the upcoming improvements already mentioned and assuming they're properly implemented, the game is likely to be pretty good. I foresee that taking a minimum of 3 months, more likely 6.

So how would that be interpreted for the poll -- 'fair' (the current state) or 'excellent' (the hoped-for release state)? 

You decide.

And does this make me a troll (for the current 'fair') or a fanboy (for the hoped-for release 'excellent')?

And I rue the loss of original features such as essence revitalizing the world and powering Sov and champion spells, dynasties to carry on after Sov death, and cities of conquered Sovs going over to other Sovs and/or the conquered Sovs heir.  Am I bad for occasionally mentioning this?   Does it mean FE isn't for me?

Sorry guys, I can't let this go. Nick, I appreciate what you're saying but you're implying that you know something on marketing.  Promoting games is a standard part of publishing. 

It's exactly that kind of nitpicking that really makes participating here obnoxious.  Not only is every game design decision being nitpicked but now even our marketing and publishing?

I'm going to lock this topic since at this point it's just drama.  When Beta 4 gets close, I'll be more active again.