Interestingly enough, I completely disagree with you here. I think early game is actually the most fun part of the entire game with the most interesting strategic choices. It is fun to create your faction and sovereign, to uncover the map (or your immediate neighborhood if it is a large map) and identify important locations and dangerous monsters, to build up your infrastructure and expand while at the same time training your troops to get rid of the ever-lurking creatures around you that might be in the way of the desired spot for your next city, to get experience and decide which way to go with your champions, to keep the competing factions at bay.

It tends to get boring much later on when you reach mid to end game and your empire has been established. You reach a point where (if you survived that long) enemies are no real threat anymore, the research only provides for simple added numbers and all you can do is conquer the hapless competition or roam the map for quests that are not really that helpful anymore.
 

May not be the most elegant post ever, but it rings true.

SD, please read, then go back over the main points again in reverse.

Push your chair away from your desk, stand up and take a step back, (maybe even go for a run / grab a beer / etc..), then sit down and play the game for a bit, as if it was your first time.  Games are no different than any other communications media with regard to how important your introduction is.  In this case - the first 50~100 turns.  I know this is asking the impossible, but the exercise is one of the most crucial and productive practices in any creative field: it will be well worth your time.

And thanks again!

Edit: The exercise can be taken a step further by doing the same with any competing products..

I DO have a long laundry list of things that are bothering me about Elemental: Legendary Heroes.  At this point, however, being within 2 weeks of scheduled release, I am holding back (yeah, reading my other recent posts, it might not seem like it, but there are a LOT of issues I'd like to discuss).  At this point, I've accepted that what we see now in the beta is what we are going to end up with, with some last minute tweaks, and a good number of people seem fairly happy with the result (I'm in the somewhat underwhelmed category).

Once we see release, I'm sure that myself and some other modders will try a few things, but I do want to see a LOOONG open discussion amongst regulars here about what is working and what could be better before Stardock goes for Round 4.  In short, I see a lot of missed potential in the design.  Sure it's fairly fun, but it could be soooooo much better with a fresh look.  I'd love to see a 'Wish List/Suggestions forum' added once LH is released, so that we can separate the 'what should be in the game' discussions from the 'this isn't working/I love this/etc.' threads.

Elemental still intrigues me, and I'm glad to see a good number of the reviewers being fairly happy with E:FE and some of the initial E:LH previews have also been kind.  But Elemental COULD be a 9.5 out of 10/10 out of 10, and I don't think it's there yet.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of angst resulted when Elemental:War Of Magic was first released.  If it had been stable, I think it would have received a much better reception, and some of the concepts the team tried in that design would have held up better.  But because people get annoyed when games crash, they start LOOKING for other reasons to hate the game, and want sweeping changes, instead of giving the design a fair chance.

And, as the OP did mention above, even now some things haven't been given the love and attention that they probably deserve, because we've been too busy focusing on other aspects of the game.  As an example, Diplomacy could be SOOOOOO much better, but I think that's a discussion for the wish list thread for future versions, as it works OK now and we want people to stay interested in the game so we CAN see another sequel.

And, I will fully support the NEXT version of Elemental not being free.  E:WOM is effectively finished, and I think Stardock has been more than generous in giving us early adopters two free games/expansions at this point.

What I'd love to see going forward would be a 'Stand Alone' expansion that revisits the E:WOM setting and upgrades all versions, incorporating a good number of the current concepts and engine fixes, with the work focusing on fixing things in the original E:WOM that weren't given a 'proper shake', such as boats and dynasties, and (in my own personal opinion) properly implemented Individual Mana pools.  And I'd think that this expansion should cost at least $10 at this point (more if you haven't already bought into the franchise).  But again, at this point I think it best to separate this discussion from E:LH, as overall E:LH isn't too bad of a game, and can be enjoyable the first few times. 

I'd envision this expansion as more of a 'revisit/balance expansion', not re-inventing the wheel which can take much longer to do, and drive up developments costs a lot.  There are a lot of concepts from the original E:WOM still in the code, which of course will need tweaking, so focusing on them and letting the modders/community point the way on balancing issues and such would keep costs down.

As an example of what I'm thinking, r.e. Dynasties and game balance, I'd love to see situations where you WANT/NEED to merge two empires, to counter some other threat in the game.  You spend some time cultivating the relationship with said empire/kingdom (lots of trading interaction and such), and where 'Hey, these guys are beating up on me, come help' actually had a strong reward mechanism for doing so, rather than just being some random diplomatic issue that you can sorta kinda ignore, while giving lip service of course.  Alliances are often cemented with marriages, but said potential ally won't just marry anyone, hence your need to score points with them, all the while dealing with whatever menacing empire(s) or kingdoms that are giving both of you grief.  And, of course, you can always try to go it alone, but this would bring more meaning to Diplomatic Victories and such.  Example: The Tarth/Pariden Alliance has become effectively unshakable, so do we take them out or appease them?  Oh, and just for fun you could borrow 'spies' from GC to intoduce intrigue into one or both courts of said alliance.

Oh, and to borrow a concept from another fave game of mine, whenever you conquer a city, you have "Occupy, Pillage or Raze' as options, with Pillaging destroying some/a lot of structures for resources but the city stays somewhat intact.  Even Occupy should probably have some collateral damage.  These three decisions become VERY IMPORTANT in diplomacy, if a workable surrender structure is implemented. Kingdoms/Empires might be more willing to surrender if you are nice to their cities during your campaign.  And, sparing a city (we won, but you can keep your city) might make for an interesting twist for Diplomacy... just possibly leading to an alliance down the road.  And an opposing Sovereign just might join your ranks (as a Champion type) rather than fighting to the death, depending on how 'clean' you've kept things and if he's more pissed at another Kingdom/Empire that has been destroying his/her empire. Or not...

Diplomacy alone has SOOOO MUCH potential!

Looking at where the game is now, I can only imagine how cool E:WOM would have been with the current engine and some balancing/tweaking (but not flat out changes).  Maybe if I win the lottery or something...

So, in my assessment, I think it's time to accept what we can't change, as release is upon us, and start the ideas/suggestions discussion for the next version in a fresh setting.  All the while expecting Stardock to continue quashing bugs in E:LH in the short term, of course!

Is that a frog's squish-steps I hear in the distance?  Is he coming to welcome you to the inner circle of "Entitled Gamers"?

Oh, and if you want more in-depth modding all you need to do is reverse-engineer the source code, or whatever they used to do back in 1843 when Frogboy was modding.

Very well written and detailed post kvm1800. I agree with most of what you say, and specially with the feeling that too many efforts have been spent in reinventing the wheel. Yes, that was not the perfect wheel, but there was no need to reinvent it either, specially when other parts of the game where (are) in a lot more need of attention, and there was no need to substitute the old wheel by a new half baked wheel which is again a non-perfect wheel and IMHO an even worse wheel that the one it is substituting.

Also you make a good point in how unmoddable those new aspects are. Not being to change champion paths is a big issue. Maybe that will be solved in later patches, but right now that's how it works And I am curious why encumbrance and random skills cannot be accessed through modding. After all the work is done, so why not allow modders to use it if they want?

I also agree that by far FE is much better game than LH, because the few additions of LH don't compensate. Curiously enough, my feeling with 0.50 was different, I felt like "Wow, that's a pretty great game for just version 0.50!" but versions have succeeded and that feeling changed for worse.

Also there is something I wonder about. Why worry to make a game with such great lore as Elemental and then put so few effort in the campaigns? Aren't campaigns supposed to capitalize and expand on the lore? After all those years I still remember Julia from Age of Wonders or Crag Hack, Tarnum, Gem and Sandro from Heroes of Might and Magic III and that's thanks to the great campaigns those games have.

I agree with you. Too much resorting to the "let's change it" instead of the "let's fix it".

Yes, I think they have thrown some things out too easily.  The way you work at improving a particular mechanic affects how well it turns out, but a lot of it has thrown the baby out too.  If you don't do a good job improving a certain mechanic, then of course it won't work.  It doesn't mean the mechanic itself is flawed, just that the improvement process is flawed.  Everytime you throw out a mechanic that could work, you essentially go back to square one.

Regarding modding issue: the more modifiable a game is, the longer its 'shelf life' lasts. Just take a look at Fallout 3, a very old game time wise. Yet a brand new, entire stage setting is about to be released by players and fans - (called a 'total conversion' in some circles). SureAI did the same thing for Oblivion. SD would be well advised to make their game, via modding tools, as modifiable as possible (by fans). Want the longevity of Fallout and Morrorwind-oblivion-skyrim? Then make LH as easy to mod as these two franchises' games. Take a look at the Nexus site, and compare the elemental franchise (number/depth of mods) with oblivion, or skyrim, about the same length of time after their respective releases. Notice something? The relative sparsity of elemental mods is due, in part to this pattern of behavior by the SD game developers: Example: How SD handled one game area [dynastic] needing 'balancing / adjustment. Did they leave it in the game, making it an option players could chose,or leave out of their game via a check mark at game world set up? [-ie, make it an optional module.] No, they eliminated it. They threw the baby out with the bath water! When some players decried the dynastic system - SD killed it off (double entendre intended). [I understand its buried in the code, still]. In stead of revising/fixing/expanding the game by merely making changes in the code, make tools to change/edit code, and, make those tools available to the players/modders/fans. Its all about player power to customize the game world environment. [[I have no way of knowing the following as I'm not one of the insiders on these forums: Please apply the lesson you learned in how you organized your team in putting together the original EWOM (scattered teams - no central focusing mechanism). This minimal user access to modding the game in a significant manner *may* be related to how your entire design flow is set up.]]

To be fair, Brad has used the term "entitement", quite a lot.

What's confuses me is why the diplomacy in FE/LH is so lacking, when we all know how good it can be from GC2.

Lol. Thus is the kind of post that could be quoted for a cracked.com article on why gaming entitlement.

i love this quote:

This thread is really embarrassing. It makes our community look like a bunch of comic book guys.

While I disagree with the OP's statement referenced above, it is his opinion. It is not entitlement.

It's really bad when the rabid fan boys label any contrary opinion as entitlement. It's an attempt at silencing differing opinions through shaming/mocking.

Kind of like political correctness.

Eh, it's fine.  They wanted to push FE/LH out to a wider audience, that means a broader range of loons on the forums.

tldr; this is not the game kwm1800 would have designed.

But my favorite part of this is the way he did the numbering so that it starts in ascending order and ends in descending order.

Please refrain from personal attacks, xan.

We do read through the threads and we are aware that our hard core fans, especially the ones from the beginning, aren't happy about the removal of encumbrance.  The battle between complexity vs. focus has been with us for as long as games have been around.

Kael and Frogboy and Soren concluded that encumbrance was a mechanic that was convoluted and implied complexity and depth that just didn't exist. But we do know that it's removal changed the way the game is played and that some of our most loyal players miss that way of playing. E.g. Getting horses lowed enc. which in turn let you wear heavier armor as opposed to needing to spend for armor proficiency separately. that heir goal is for the player to have to make interesting choices. Not being able to make uber units that can do it all is less satisfying if you are used to it, but it does make it a better game IMHO. 

I am sure someone else could say what I said more elegantly than I have. I just think some of you are resorting to hyperbole to try to get your way And that isn't fair to those of us who think the game needed these kinds of changes.