Ok, so what I'm wondering is if the whole "good vs evil" theme that most fanasy settings have has been replaced with "life magic vs death magic". If so, I think it will be quite interesting, as the good vs evil has been pretty played out over the years. If this is indeed the case I'm quite interested to see how the campain plays out. This will presumably be a refreshing change from "-insert name here- is an evil d**k trying to conquer the world" story that SOOO many fantasies have.

I agree with this and will be disappointed if there are not lots of choices on races and magics to play as well as those wonderful extra choices like alchemy and summoning etc. etc. Though alchemy was pretty overpowering I hope it's there but tweaked to be balanced. Perhaps 2 gp to 1 extra mana and the more it is abused the more it costs to transfer gold to mana?

People should stop forgeting about the fact that the game has a campaign. That supposes that it must work so the game will be developed to make sure that happens. Maybe they will have the time to add extra things but the minimum are those needed by the campaign, which are the "essence" of the core unmodded game.

From that basis we will have to tweak it to our needs. And we will be happy that modding this game will be made easier than others.

And yet, I have to repeat that there will be a campaign. Even Brad is writing a book about it. People can agree or disagree but it doesn't change that fact. Just that. I don't see myself playing the campaign more than once or twice depending of how "good" it is (and replayable). Then I'll be too busy with sandbox mode and mods.

Altough if there a vote/poll about if the game should have campaign or not, I 'd be of those voting yes. At least if an interesting one can be made. I'm a story guy and I simply cannot refuse any chance of getting extra lore in any shape.

Because some people are more interested in a new MoM than anything else. I was one of those who would have signed for a MoM clone with just updated graphics.

Well, I have no doubt that they will be making a mod, but remember: the game is completely locked inside the Stardock studio for now.

Maybe all Human factions using life magic, and all Fallen using death magic is way they can avoid hard coding in a rivalry between the two races. If factions who use life magic inately work against those that use death magic, then you don't have to worry about programing a spesific "hatred of the races", if you will. This would also work better when using custom races and the like, so that the user wouldn't have to worry about moding in rivalries and the like...I also wonder if, on random maps with custom races/factions, if you have to have an equal number of life magic users vs. death magic users.

Life/Death element doesn't use shards per se so if you were to be able to start with a different element, then you wouldn't have access to that type of mana/magic unless that part is added too. Altogh we know now why there hasn't been any life/death medallion, I wonder which is the (current) lore reason for it.

My reference to medallions is based in that you can find shards of the other elements in the land but there are actually no shards for Life/Death by the simple fact that the Sovereign/Channeler is "the shard" for it. Yep, there is a reason (The Fifth Element movie apart) but we won't know it unless Stardock spoils us a bit or we get to try the campaign.

I'd have enjoyed more a Legend of the Five Rings approach with Fire, Water, Air, Earth and Void. Nothing more fun than Void's visions/prophecies as well as those fun unmaking spells.

My primary interest is how the game lore will affect un-modded sandbox play. I'm a little disappointed to see what strikes me as conflict or confusion about 'the' elements and how the Black Rune that appears atop all these forum pages translates into both plain English and game mechanics. If it is one thing ('the fifth element'), then both Kingdom and Empire sovereigns should be able to use that 'flavor' of magic, with value-based differences in how they can use it. If there is no way for a Kingdom sovereign to use death magic and vice versa, then we need a sixth rune and supporting text that is clear about the differences.

Put somewhat differently, after gratitude for a way above-average FAQ, my only real complaint about what Brad shared in that dev journal is that the current 'Kingdom = Life and Empire = Death' thing seems, at least at the plain language level, to be an attempt to duck the classic epic fantasy good vs. evil thing. I'd really appreciate an innovative way to escape the trope, but I fear that the current plan is closer to being a 'copout' than it is to being a new approach.

p.s. I should probably note that my take on all that is probably skewed by my interest in seeing Elemental include game space for 'neutral' approaches along the lines of classic D&D druids and for players who are interested in modern nature-isn't-all-sweetness-and-light thinking, with nature being a rough synonym for whatever the Black Rune means in English.

In MoM it was simply the smart thing for the AI to do.  Death magic had almost no friendly, helpful spells at all.  It was all about death, often on a mass scale (Death Wish being the most extreme example).

There really was no concept of "good or evil" since in the end all wizards were vying to wipe everyone else out and be the last man/woman standing.

That being said, I wouldn't mind seeing a big improvement over MoM's very simplistic (and exploitable) diplomacy. Coupled with the poor strategic and tactical AIs, diplomacy was the weakest aspect of MoM.

Well, that's not what this is.   Someone is making a mod to do that, IIRC.

I would be that someone. I have an interest in making sure it is possible for the mod to match the original MoM as closely as possible. Ensuring that the mechanics of the game are similar to MoM goes a long way to achieve that goal.

most likely an MOM mod would be more like MOM and less like a sequel, wouldn't it?

Well, yeah. When everyone is throwing out all their ideas, you're going to get some pretty out there stuff. Nothing wrong with that.

What bugs me is the "MoM did it, so Elemental should too" line of thinking. "MoM did it" is not by itself a reason to do anything in Elemental, because they're not the same game.