I saw the battlefield screenshot before and it looked like they didn't initially consider height, which might mean it would be a huge pain for the art department to have to make all the transitions look good. My favorite fantasy tactical combat is AoW:SM, and that has height working fairly well. I'm not against it being there as it's intuitive, but I wouldn't be too disappointed if it wasn't. How would battlefield height correlate to world map terrain? Would there be some tactics skill that just gives you a better chance to have high ground close to you?

There's also the annoyance of constantly chasing down armies. There's two types of games. Games where everyone in a battle has a good chance of ending up dead and games where most people will end up alive but running and/or wounded. They both have their downsides.

The problem I have with morale is that it's usually such a complex effect that I've never seen AI successfully deal with balancing their morale on the strategic level and the tactical level. They always need to get artifical morale bonuses. It's either I'm winning every battle by making them run away really quick or their stats are so inflated that they fight to near death anyways. As with the height, I could enjoy the game either way.

  I completely agree the longer beta is better by providing a healthier and more content rich product which will help with longterm sales.

  I recommend a supported selection of 24players which has been successfully popular for Dominions_3 (Fantasy_TBS).  If you provide the option for a 24 player multiplayer game the feature will be used the same as in Dominions_3.  I know with the 64Bit version the massive giant maps will have singleplayer and multiplayer gamers both interested in more opponents.  I would also recommend leaving the option open for even more players... perhaps not supported at first, but an open door for those interested in larger games.

   I'd advise a system as seen from the original AgeofWonders where you could explore dungeon type sites.  In the original AgeofWonders there was only one single level, but for Elemental I would advise many dungeon type sites having multiple levels... 5, 10, and even 20 levels.  It's much more intensely scary entering Level 17 of an evil dungeon as compared to Level 2.

   I'd recommend setting up a variety of different quests.  Those which are not enjoyed by the community will be voiced with a thumbs down.  The sophistication of the quest is not as important as the level of enjoyment done for actively doing the quest.  A fun quest might be planning to an assassinate another opponents hero... while a not so fun quest would be babysitting a weak of group citizens as you safely deliver them to another town.

  This is a difficult question to answer since many games have used many different methods.  I do recommend multiple players allowed on a battlefield since it's not only logical, but provides more strategic options.  I also suggest having the game include a battlefield for assassinations. 

I recommend Stardock creating a topic in the forums listing what options are being considered for tactical battles and then have the community voice decisions.

 For the campaign I would recommend providing a campaign which has replay value.  Typically a campaign is provided with a fixed set of maps, a fixed set of enemies and one big final enemy, a fixed number of heroes, and well you get picture.  As a result gamers are lucky to play the campaign once or maybe twice before knowing virtually all details and then the campaign is never played again.  

  So here's the ideas so the campaign will have replay value:

   1) Have the AI enemy opponents and the one big final enemy AI opponent be randomly generated.  One game the big final enemy could be an evil immobile eye of fire channeller and the next game it could be a demi-lich channeller.  This will provide new enemies each time the campaign is played. 

   2) Include all the side quests as being randomly generated.  Here new side quests so each time the campaign is played the gamer can investigate and be rewarded for different quests.

   3) Allow the heroes who appear during the campaign to be pulled from a random pool of heroes.  Also don't have them available always in the same locations as this will allow the campaign to be easier to second time around.

These are some ideas... and hope this provides some ideas as well.

No thanks. I'd rather just play a roguelike or classic RPG if I wanted to do that. Even having two levels causes confuses a lot of people. I think their brains would explode if they were flipping through that lots of Z levels. Maybe a little mini window that says level X, but still only ever shows the level you are on sounds fine. I would much rather abstract those portions of dungeon exploring. If a dungeon is twenty levels deep I'd rather have my hero sit there for X amount of time, occasionally giving me pop ups, choices to make, and battles to fight than actually have to explore manually. That can get pretty tedius.

Agreed with the battlefield assassinations and multiple players on the field. There's a good thread about that in the other subforum.

funny you should say that.  I was just talking to someone about how much I'd like to make a rouge-like out of Elemental's system.

As long as anyone can get into the beta simply by pre-ordering, I don't see any reason not to have an extended beta.

I actually like this idea!  I'm all for dungeon exploring but I wouldn't want a 20level dungeon in this genre.  However this suggestion is perfect for a multilevel dungeon.

I'd say the dungeons should be lower priority then a lot of other features- it doesn't sound as exciting to me as some of the other things in the game.

Great idea. now i cant wait for beta to start.. Always good that a company thinks of its product and quality it deserves.

 Well, there's also people who already know they want to make mods with multiple maps. If the dungeon system lets you build a map and then layer it in the main map file with some kind of connection point (crypt, cave, teleporter, etc), you could do some really neat things both with that AND with the mod tools.

So what is the count now? 80 for "longer", two (2) for "current" and two (2) "maybe" posts?

Twiglet of the Arnor had an increased beta period and that worked out really well in my opinion. Go for it, and make sure we get the modding tools during the beta.

As far as any customers are concerned it means I get the game at the same time, but I get loads of aditional content, on which I get to decide it's flow. Some more regular updates to the game that the current sugested scedual would be nice, so overall...

YES

A big yes I remember the extended beta of ToA fondly, it gives us a better product in the end gives you lots of free beta testers who can make suggestions and judging by ToA it will be fun in itself.

Ok I'm pre-ordering

I can't help but feel like we're 'getting it wrong'.  Those participating in game forums at all, I'm told, account for a small fraction of a given game's overall player base.  Those that express strong interest in participating in Q&A and pre-release testing are, I'm told, an even smaller sub-set.

On the one hand, it doesn't sound like an extended development cycle would have a major impact on us (those responding here) as we'd still be playing the game - and perhaps enjoying the incremental updates/patches expected during an extended beta.  On the other hand, what if we don't get it right, and due to the longer development/feedback/test reiterative process have a longer and larger opportunity to steer things in a direction that makes the game more appealing to this narrowly-defined player segment ("us") but less appealing to the larger audience?  We need some objectivity, which is difficult to achieve when you're this close to a process.

To the main question: Yes!

I, as many others are, am looking forward to this game as the major turn-based fantasy strategy game-fix of the decade. If you need more time, by all means spend it.

The extra time, in my view, is the major benefit. I view the possibility of having more interaction with the beta-testers as an added bonus; in particular, for ironing out imbalances, and adding ideas, that only come up as a consequence of extended play and discussion of the game.

As an aside, I might add, that you should, of course, continue to take charge in making the major design-decisions. I'd rather that Elemental be a game with an edge, than a game which - as part of a lengthy beta-process - has ended up with the designs for major parts (such as the tactical combat-model or the economics-model) having been decided by a democratic process. (I say this lightly, as I see no major chance of that happening. The discussion on the economics-model, is a good example.)

Oh yes, and to

How sophisticated can we make tactical battles in the game?

One of my major issues with the GalCiv-series was the lack a tactical battle system, so I am very interested in this. I seem to remember, that XCom has been mentioned as an inspiration, as some point...? I think, that's a healthy inspirational source, albeit too complicated. For a game like this, I'd look for something more akin to the venerable Centurion-battle-system. Fairly simple, battles not too long, with a certain chess-like feel, and with strong tactical decisions. It's all too easy to overcomplicate the system. Focus on a small set of strong, crisp features, and a strong, interesting, and moddable AI.