Completely agreed! I liked this in GC2. NPC races is predetermined, however the player may do good or bad things. I remember there is an event in GC2, where one evil race (drengin i think) turns to good. It was very refreshing.

I also agree, the alignment should be desided by the actions you do.

If you like to help your fraction by building to satisfy the villagers, you just might be good. But you could also be a power hungry warlord, which would burn and pillage every village you come by, just for fun, but still have a weakness for helping your own fraction to get bigger.

If the player would be able define whats good and whats evil, that would be cool. Like the Incas, they didnt see it as odd or evil when they did human sacrifices to please their gods, it was just necessary to survival.

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I also hate alignment as I can be good about some things and evil about others.  Instead of alingments competing goals for each faction, other than just conquer everything, would be cool.

So the Kingdoms are good and the Empires are bad eh? Anti-imperial propaganda sez I.

If the factions have significant differences (although with the customisable units I don't see how differant they can be) then I suppose it will be variable enough and the need for malleability in regards to ethical choices wouldn't be so alluring.

So long as there's not a Black & White-like gameplay mechanic were you commit one poxy evil act and your settlements suddenly become bastions of unspeakable evil without chance of redemption I'll be happy.

Well ultimately that's going to depend on what kinds of spells are available to life and death magic wielders. If Life magic is all about healing and happy good spells and results in vibrant natural environments, while Death magic is all about suffering and pain and death and results in a twisted, perverse environment - then I'm afraid Life vs. Death is just a proxy for Good vs. Evil. This doesn't bother me at all regarding the campaign, but it seems really limiting for skirmishes.

Ultimately what I'd like to see at some point, whether in release or in an expansion, is the current system with an actual alignment system overlaid on top of it. Life and Death would then both result in characteristic environments, but modified by the alignment of the channeler. So a good Death magic channeler's domain environment would still be differentiated from a good Life magic wielder's, but not a twisted perversion of nature.

I hope its all about philosophical differences, the Fallen were bred/changed to be stronger and faster out of necessity because, you know, the world was destroyed and surviving was a bitch. Humans on the other hand banded together and survived by supporting each other so they're more inclined towards peaceful persuits of agriculture and getting the old world back. This would be shown ingame by the Fallen being more agressive and likely to take enemy lands by force because their agressive nature was the reason they survived as loners and they quite simply see humans as weak. Throw in prejudice against the soft skinned humies and you got yourself a recipe for war and disaster.

I think a lot of you are too worried about what the game is going to be like when its released, we know its going to be almost 100% moddable so if there's anything your unhappy about you can change that or create your own factions from scratch.

It amazes me how many people say that when someone expresses concern about any facet of the game. I don't care how moddable the game might be, I'd rather Elemental be a good game out of the box. Being moddable is nice - it means the game will likely last longer; but being moddable is no reason to not care what the game will be like when its released. Honestly, that's all I care about.

Now I'm not saying the game will suck if this one aspect of it isn't really up to par. But the argument "eh who cares, you can mod it if you don't like it" is the single most frustrating argument I've ever heard. I don't buy games to put in my own time and effort to mod them into something I find fun - I buy games because they are fun to begin with, and I mod them or use other people's mods to keep the experience fresh (although I am extremely picky about mods to begin with).

I don't think all humans should be good/life and all fallen evil/death.  Plenty of humans are evil bastards.  I can imagine plenty of humans seeing an advantage in death magic.  Despite the eugenics mentioned in the lore, chances are there would be a few decent Fallen and those who could see an advantage in life magic.  We should have options.  An either or situation would suck!