Actually the evidence pretty strongly suggests that they did NOT know the game was bad. Or at the least the key/top people didn't. I find it completely mind-boggling that they didn't know this, I truely do, but at the same time being heavily involved in a project can do amazing things to skew ones perception. Quality can become more a matter of have we "solved" our biggest problems A, B, C and D, rather than whether the project you are working on has actually reached any real level of objective quality or suitability for purpose.

However I do happen to agree with you in the main. Most of this thread is very constructive. There was a patch (about page 4 maybe purely from memory) which I thought got a bit pointlessly negative (eg I don't like it this the game is doomed) but most of it is pretty constructive and on topic.

Personally I think the magic.pdf shows great promise when compared to the WoM magic system. But when one compares it with something like MoM or even AoW it seems to lack... well what it lacks depends a bit on what you compare it with but lets say depth (variety and togetherness also came to mind). With more fleshing out and sufficient care making sure the mechanics are interesting and balanced (including the need for dispel magic spells IMO) I think they could be on the right path.

Agreed ! There isn't enough Tactical spells ! And your idea of forest fire and field of boulder is exactly the kind of spells I'd like to see in the game and that's that kind of spells that will make the game better with Magic because if you have one caster against an army, those spells combined together will block them and then you'll get X turns to crush them at your ease assuming they don't have casters or archer who can reply to you (or flying units... I don't believe there's any but who knows)

However I don't like the idea of having one spell that dispell one specific spell, it should be for example healing rain, it heals your units and it can be used to dispell forest fire. If you start to have one dispell spell for every spell, it  will make the game to heavy I believe. We should keep a high number of spells without falling in declinaison of one spell more and more powerful or dispell of one specific spell.

There too, I agree with you Murteas, you're right. I think all these complains (and probably especially mine) comes from frustration to have played MoM almost 20 years ago and never saw a game that could be a rival to it in any serious way.

Maybe I've been a bit rude as well as a couple other people but the game until now is great, graphically it's awesome ! The world and the units are awesome, the general feeling that comes out of the game is awesome, the new addition, new terrain, creatures, ideas, quests, ... and I skip a lot, is awesome ! The game is really close to perfection and the best part ? Derek and everybody else are listening to our suggestion / complaints about the game and making their best to create the best game ever to please the community !!!

Now, they release the new magic system and although it's WAY better than WoM (and I say that in every way) it's not close from what we all expected when we remember the grimoire of MoM which has still the best spell list ever made in a game. And when the work that has been done until now was so amazing, they release to us a list of spells which is okay but not the greatest ? For a game based mostly on magic ? Magic being really bad in WoM, it's precisely why I stopped playing it, it's fun as a warrior but when you have a mage ? the game becomes boring. And IMHO, Magic was truly the only thing that needed to be changed in WoM because I already like the system and the game as it is but know what ? They did even better with FE !!!

In the end, yes, I've probably been rude and I'm sorry if I offended anyone with my comments but when I see the level of perfection the devs team can reach with every other area of the game, I know they can do way better than that with the spell list. I don't really complain about the system how magic work, I'm glad how they made it that way but the spell list... seriously ?

Now, being a PnP player, for the system, some spells could do constitution check to resist to it (mostly curse) or other checks for other spells but if there is just a "resist magic" check, I'll be happy too but I believe the number of shards in your possession will influence the strenght of your spell but it could for example play a role in your defense too, so the number of shards that a player control would truly be important because the more you have, the more chance you would have to resist to a magic attack!

The spell for destroying shards will be really treacherous because you can capture a city and so a shard and if you see that you cannot keep it for long with armies coming towards you, you can just consume it and flee... Just to make the oponnent in a bad situation (which would be good for you because he would lose magical protection too.

Anyway, as I said before, I'd like to see dispell and magic protection spells (Strategic and Tactical) to ballance the game a bit more against a player that would be too powerful with magic and buffs. (IE. Strategic Enchantement: In that area, you cannot cast anyspell, magic is dull, and if armies with buff / magical equipment fight in it, all the effects will wore off until you're out of the area... Or magical shield that prevent any caster from casting a spell on the city (AOW2 idea)).

We would need also more direct damage spell (Tactical instead of Strategic), and especially with fire! And also city spells to make a couple explosion in the city, to plague it, to reduce production time or stop it, etc.

I'm in a hurry to see what will be the next answer from Derek and the devs with all the comments we've made already in the hope that they will expand it a lot.

I don't like those total blocks at all. Rather have spells that boost defense against other spells or such. That way you can maintain a balance between offensive spells and dispels. Otherwise, it's all about dispels. Dispels should have a chance to fail just like everything else.

There could be a unit keyword ability or a spell that could work to negate certain debuffs or effects. For example a night vision ability could prevent the unit from loosing accuracy, or farsight to prevent range reduction. Antivenom could prevent a unit from being poisoned (or increase their resistance to it), or noxious could make it so poison damage heals the unit.  There could also be some that are a double edged sword such as fire immunity which makes the unit completely immune to all fire spells (buffs, debuffs, and damage) which would kind of be a half step between increased fire resist and fire absorbtion.

I like the idea of obstructions in tactical combat and having some means of bypassing them (such as with flying) would help them have an even greater tactical relevance.  There could even be a few spells more focused toward walls thru evasion or increased damage against them.  Like an erode spell that does mediocre damage on a neutral enemy (with a little better performance vs. those weak to the damage type) but an extra 75% vs. obstructions.

Keywords in MtG and the abilitys in pokemon would work as good references.  For example arena trap and shadow tag prevent an opponent from escaping you.  An ability could be set up to prevent enemy units who are adjacent to the unit with the ability from moving away.  Lightning rod causes single target electric attacks to target the pokemon with lightning rod which is usually resistant or immune to lightning damage.  Implementing something simmilar could allow one unit to protect your army from single target attacks of a certain element, at the cost of that unit being hit more (and depending on its other traits or specific abilities die much sooner or even heal).  Something like that could be worked as a spell as well.  Would modders be able to define their own creature types or keywords?  For example currently spiders would fall under the beast category.  Could an additional 'class' be defined for them such as insect? In the case of elemental class creatures could an element be defined as an addional class?  Say for example you had an ability/spell that boosts all fire creatures, you could then have it boost fire elementals and fire dragons and so on.  Basicly allowing similar creature type targeting as Magic the Gathering.

I prefer it to be more along these lines combined with the visability drop previously mentioned.  That way its more of a bonus effect vs. a specific counter and allows the spell to be usefull in more situations.  It could also start a global tug of war with the sustained effects like drought vs. rain vs. sandstorm vs. tailwind/headwind.  Particularly if some of the effects are of a group that only one can be in effect at a time, such as with weather.  There would have to be somewhere on the border of the map or on the interface to reference what is in effect (like a mini-icon with a tooltip) as there could be units that resist the effect or are immune which makes looking at a specific unit inefficent for checking on the global/universal level of effects.

Could the raise and lower land have a tactical use or version? So you could remove an opponents hill bonus on their archers, or raise a hill for your own instead of marching to one on the map.

 EDIT:  Also one way around the army teleport would be to have spells that boost army movement on the strategic level (fast march or something) so you could move them around more quickly.  Alternatively there could be a debuff penalty for a turn due to disorientation.  The adjusted cost based on army strength is also viable.

Aura type effects could be an interesting option.  Basicly effects centered on the caster and reaching out x number of squares around them with a per turn effect (which may require a maintenance cost to keep it up).  Two examples are a fire elemental with a fire aura that deals 1 or 2 points of fire damage to all units adjacent, and a paladin with an inspire effect that makes all friendly units up to 2 squares away get a +1 to accuracy at the cost of 5 mana a turn.

 More generalized spells (those that dont fit into the 4 elements) could be dropped into the death and/or life book or a universal book where you would just have to have a high enough ability in any 1 school (archmage for example) or a cumulative level of knowledge (with levels of all schools added together like with two aprenticships being worth 2).  That way each element could have a unique flavor or bent to its spells.  Perhaps fire has more aoe damage spells, earth has more buff spells, water has more debuff spells, air has more tactical spells, life has healing and death has more sacrificial (hurting self to do more powerful effects).  I remember reading an article on MtG about how they set the flavor for each color to make them unique.

Sound argument, but so far we've been given no real reason to assume FE's AI will be better than MoM's (if anything, EWOM's was worse).

More importantly, after the huge disappointment that was EWOM, it's fair to be more critic now - even reviewers will be. After all, we paid 1 year ago to get the spiritual successor to MoM, and it's still nowhere to be seen.

Of course what we've been shown so far looks like a definite improvement and hope remains alive, but as far as I'm concerned we're still in the "meh" territory. I could even live with less spells -maybe- but not when even most of the other aspects of the game look dull compared to MoM's.

Looking back over the spells I am surprised how diverse the spells actually are. I really don't feel that a many new spells should be added to the main spell books. That said however I think some existing ones should become universal. There is no reason most enchantments can't function the way summoning elementals does. Also If spells like tornado and raise land also functioned on the tactical screen it would add more depth to those spells and their spellbooks, same if say stinking mud worked on the strategic level.

Dispels however would be a great addition to the game, and in favor of a specific elemental dispels. Do it so that only those elements that do extra dmg to to the target can dispel the enchantment. A chance of failure is a must as well. Also tons of extra cool quest and research spells are always appreciated, you can never have enough of those.

I see channelers in FE more as Sorcerers from DnD then Wizards. They don't spend endless hours researching bits of arcane lore, they improve their innate ability to channel the elemental powers through experience and hardwork. I like the unique atmosphere and character growth oriented play style that brings. With that system it makes since for channelers to use a few highly adaptive spells instead of tons of very specialized ones. They operate through instinct and channeling the raw forces of nature not by performing incredible complex rituals.

Liked what I saw as well. And I like the Terra-forming spells as I did in AOW (all games.) So please keep them in.

Especially the volcano ! And in the end people rely too much on the same spell to win a game !

We need other spells that can make some cloud to Volcano and Cie. while not alterating the map (at least not the ground / mountains )

Can you name me 3? One is graphics, obviously (2010/11 game vs. a 1995 game); can you name me 2 more?

It doesn't require DosBox to run.

And...

Hm...

Err...

Oh!

Customizable units?

I rest my case.

See, we all knew FE was going to lack MoM's diverse races, flying units, item crafting, dimensional traveling and all that made MoM great. We were hoping in an outstanding spell list to at least offset some of this. Instead, we get an another average feature. So, again, what's the point?

A lot of people here are jumping into conclusions without having ever even seen the game in action. We've seen very few gameplay pictures, practically no gameplay video and have no clue about the core gameplay at all.

Maybe everyone should just wait for a little while before saying that the game is going to be perfect or the worst game ever. Saying that terraforming is too powerful to be lvl 2 or 3 is premature as well. The only thing you can base that argument is WoM and we have no clue how different the games will be.