What's criminal here is that you're not showing us these hideous half-breeds.

Two whole months without a single beta patch, that sucks!

A short querstion. A few days ago BoogieBac wrote this in the blog:

"So the next big beta is scheduled for this Thursday, where evenone on the beta group will get their first taste of several new features. "

Does it mean this is completely canceled now?

I hope I will already be able to design new units in the upcomming beta. Instead of those nice peasants with stick I see only strange looking fog. And the core units have quite often zero hitpoints....  So you not yet in the beta, don't be sad! Even though the game looks very promising.

The Frog always trumps anything that Boogiebac guy says (who I heard I actually just the office janitor).

Actually, I was just talking to Brad about the possibility of pushing a build on the 11th, and he made several good points that got me thinking this 2 weeks of polish could be used to really make 1G quite amazing.  You'll be getting several features not listed as goals for 1G (Custom Facitons Editor AND Custom Sovereign Editor, to name two) plus much more content for the implemented features. For example, right now there are TWO quests in the game...TWO QUESTS in a fantasy game. Pretty lame, but we can use those extra days to crank out some cool and varied adventures for your sovereign (and other heroes) to go on.

As always, we deeply appologize for the delay, but at this point every day is producing something amazing, so 9 more is going to result in a really polished (and yes, kinda fun) final build in the Beta1 cycle.

"Self Righteous mode on"

OK, here is where I draw the line. Please do not apologize as you work to improve the game, especially in the Beta stages.

I hope I am not an anomoly here but I feel honored to have been allowed such an intimate look at the growth of this game. If that sounds silly then so be it. Just keep cranking it out, and Lord willing, as Dad always said, I will be around to see the fruits of those labors.

If it takes 9 extra days to deploy 1G, then so be it. Some how being diassapointed about any sort of delay, or making as if the Dev's owe us testers is ludicrous.

We are here to serve and serve we must, just do so in a manner that befits the honor bestowed...

There. Now I am back to seeing how many Spiders and Ogres I can kill, how much Tech I can get, before this sucker CTD's on me...

That has improved as well...

Its ok Boogie take your time. It will be that much better!

Worst case scenario, they can rush release a bit early, and patch it up later.  Stardock's earned trust in that area.

That said, I'm patient enough to wait, especially since there's enough other good games out there right now (PC has a huge back catalogue) that I can wait.

I am one of the many who are lamenting that they still don't have any version of the beta yet (Just pre-ordered a few weeks ago)...  That being said, the level of response from the devs on these boards is astonishingly good.  I've been gaming since the early 80s, and have beta tested many, many, many games, and I can honestly say that I don't rememeber another time during beta when so many people received such fast response to their questions/concerns from the devs.

So Bravo, Boogie and Frog and the rest of you...  And no, I didn't just post this to get an early beta key. 

Take all the time you need. And apply that rule to the whole game. This has to become a gem that will bear turnbased fantasy alone for quite a while (looking at other devellopers), so it better be REALLY GOOD!!!

If more time helps with that, I'm all for it!

That said I can't wait to try the new version, the current one has run its course and needs a replacement desperately...

Just do us a favor with those of us who have Elemental withdrawal syndrome. You don't have to patch, but a Youtube video of "cool stuff" you've added would be awesome to tide us over.

Wow. Next beta is going to be huge. I'm a little concerned, honestly. So many changes at once seems like it will make the whole beta testing job harder. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to be getting my hands on more features soon, especially the custom race option. I just was under the impression that it was good beta testing practice to tackle things one at a time so that you can more easily identify which changes broke things and whatnot. I keep thinking we should be getting new builds every week or 2 with bug fixes (so we can stop reporting the same old bugs and find out if the fixes cause any unforseen problems) and new features incrementally eased in so that their individual effects can more easily be identified.

I know I sound like I'm telling you guys how to do your job, and I have no right to. Stardock's track record shows you know what you're doing, and after SOASE I trust you guys to do Elemental right. I think I'm just having withdawal shakes from all the involvement and frequent, if minor updates I remember from earlier in the beta. This month-or-two hiatus without even a hotfix coupled with the unexpected announcement that you're rolling 2 or 3 stages of the beta into one release has been quite a shock to me.

All that aside, though, I want you guys to take as much time as you need to do this right. If Elemental is your baby, then it's my nephew of sorts. I may not have as much parenting input as you, but I want the best for it, and hope to see it outlive me.

Building systems is a lot harder then populating them. There's five beta phases scheduled, but if you look at later betas, most of the basic gameplay is being done in beta 1. Stuff will get tweaked and changed later, but this beta represents a disproportionaly large amount of work compared to the others.

So at the moment, the schedule is still doable. If not, they'll move it. No worries.