The good news is that Elemental Beta 2 is only expected to last 2 weeks. The bad news is that Beta 2 will be multiplayer only, hence the short duration.
The object of beta 2 will be to begin the testing of the server infrastructure. Elemental is client/server for its multiplayer. In fact, it’s dedicated server for beta 2 – players will be playing on our own servers distributed across the world. The reason for this is that it eliminates the whole connectivity issue – if you can get on the web, you should be able to play. At least, in theory.
Beta 3 and beyond of course will have multiplayer as well where we will be adding more features, fixing bugs, expanding capacity.
One multiplayer mode is called Arena. In this mode, the maps are incredibly tiny and set up for only 2 players. In this mode, the game plays a bit like Archon except imagine city building. The goal for arena mode is for games to last between 10 to 30 minutes.
Beta 2 won’t have the custom games in them. That’ll come later during the beta. With custom games, players can set up their own unique servers for LAN play or simply to create their own modded game experience. For instance, a custom game I’d play would be 2 humans on the same side vs. 20 AI players.
After a couple of weeks with beta 2, we will turn on the full graphics engine and start focusing on making the game FUN. 