I´m totally fine with bug fixes and some AI tweaks and balancing. Because i like your game and i enjoy playing it even now with all te issues. (and i think, i´m not alone. In my opinion, that says much about your game.)  It has nothing to do with fanboy-ism. Elemental is my first SD Game and i never heard the Name Brad Wardell before i bought and downloaded the game.

....and a word about the free expansion thing. I know you dont have to do that, so thats really cool. Thank you und dont lose your passion.      

Well what should i say for my first post ever on the Stardock Forums ?

Only one thing: Very BIG BIG Thx to Stardock.

And a word of warning too.

Your customer care is awesome and I never encountered such devotion to a game and foremost it's players since the glorious times of Paradox doing Hearts of Iron 1.

But sadly with a growing company they left their way of being one of us to be a normal company. Please, please don't make the same mistake it would be a real shame.

I guess we the players (and customers) can forgive near to everything, as long as you stay true to yourself. And if the patch and the free expansions are late, I guess we all will be very happy to see the reasons, as long as you cummunicate freely.

Keep it up,

you tought me that not all is gone bad in the industry since the old times. And for that my support won't be shaken until you change.

Sincerly

Welfur

This is actually good to hear.  I don't want Frogboy to think that the entire game is pure bunk.  Most of the game is absolutely fantastic, it's just a few pieces that need some work.  In other words, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The way I see it, the two most important aspects that need to be fixed (other than performance) are:

1. AI.  Seriously, if you just improved the Artificial Intelligence alone you would be killing a lot of birds with one stone.  When I say, "AI", I mean for every game aspect: overworld factions/adventurers/monsters, and tactical battle AI.  If you improve the AI, it will make battles more epic, it will make the economy more smooth, it will make diplomacy better, and it will make roaming monsters far more interesting.

2. Accessibility.  This includes: improving the user interface and flow, writing more documentation (in the Elementalpedia especially), and possibly making the "campaign" much more of a tutorial than it already is.  Seriously, one of the biggest complaints I see is people simply not understanding how things work, therefore they give up.

By the way, I haven't had much of a problem with the magic system in it's current state.  I personally think that there could be more of a variety of spells, but I don't see it "broken" as some have claimed.

There were/are two expansions planned for Elemental that include Books 2 and 3.

Originally these expansions would be $19.95 apiece but now the the first one will be free to everyone and the second will be free to those who owned Elemental when v1.1 comes out.

*cough*

What is Book 1.

Is that the campaign?  I still haven't tried it.  Heh.

I'm not sure how they will work out.  I'm writing Book 2 and 3 myself and the tools are somewhat more powerful now than when Book 1 was made.  The campaigns weren't really designed to be a major feature of the game so it really depends on what the community is looking for.

IMHO Stardock should add before patch 1.1 "book 0", with simple tutorial and show in him basic aspect of game. Book 1 is not good as tutorial!

All of this sounds great.

So it looks like the first expansion in late November is the one to refresh the game with new stuff. I was hoping this would happen with 1.1 but hell 3 months is the fasted expansion i've seen for a game. Good luck and keep up the good work.

Before Brad wanted to offer first expansion to people who buy the game before 1.3.

Now he says that they will offer first expansion to everybody and second expansion to people who buy the game before 1.1.

I am speechless!  

   to SD! They really, really care about customers.

The things that would make the most dramatic difference to me in updates would be:

1. Unique racial units (not just paper-doll same model)

2. Unique racial tech trees.

3. Limited magic spell-books (not all sovs having access to all magic)

Campaigns are a one-off couple of hours deal. Real races would be forever.

Honestly, I wouldn't bat an eye if we just got rid of the books/campaigns altogether.  Build us a decent tutorial and leave it at that.  Spend all of your precious time on the sandbox game.