This game is turning into a spiritual successor to Masters of Magic and that in itself is high praise

Damn I had all but forgotten about getting the Elemental Fallen Enchantress for free with my pre-order of Elemental. Downloading as I'm typing and I'm really looking forward to checking this out. Also, nice to see some of the old crew from the Elemental forums are still alive and well.

Yep, it's nice to see that RavenX is still there

About FE : after a few hours of play, I have the same "one more turn" thing.

I have several questions about the future : I didn't see any special effect for flanking opponents. Flanking needs orientation, and there's no way to choose it, so I think there's nothing like "backstab" implemented. And I didn't see (but maybe I missed that effect) a "Zone of Control" that would stop the enemy, or give a free attack on them when he enters it (like in wargames or in D&D). Also I didn't see any difference between having higher ground in tactical battles. Is there one (like a bonus in defence) ?

Anyway, that's good to be back !

No, Brad... Stardock... thank YOU. Fallen Enchantress rocks. And it rocks hard.

THIS is the game I wanted to play. This is the game I hoped Elemental: WoM would be, and why I put so much effort into winning the contest you had to get a free limited edition copy. I didn't want to be a negative nancy when the game came out and it was less than stellar, so I quietly slinked away and tried to enjoy it. And E:WoM did turn out to be ok in the end, but it didn't suck me in.

Fallen Enchantress does. It's spectacular so far... I just can't believe it's the same world. It looks... it feels... so different. 

A few suggestions/compliments:

1. More loot is always good. I was thrilled getting a Cloak of Shadows. Thrilled! You may want to cut back on the 'Maul' abilities of some weapons though. Holy jeez! I watched one of my fighters Attack-MAUL-MAUL-MAUL-MAUL-MAUL a dragon DEAD. Ok, I enjoyed it, but it might have been a tetch overpowered. Hehe.
2. Intelligence should be a factor of figuring damage for spells, if it isn't already. I know it helps to cut through spell resistance, which is good.
3. I, too, miss the dynasty system. If you DO implement it, MORE variety, more spread out, would be good. Also the ability to remarry is good. Everyone shouldn't just have four kids of varying blah. Maybe some people are infertile. Maybe some have a lot of kids. Maybe some only have girls, etc etc etc. Twins would also be nice. Variety, variety, variety. It's the same as with point 1... MORE options is always better.
4. OMFG I LOVE THE TRAIT SYSTEM SO FREAKING MUCH!!! Leveling up is a real choice now, and I feel proud! Accomplished! Plus, when a champion "dies" and goes back to the city he gets a negative trait... man, my first Champion got fubared, and I finally stations him in a city, missing a leg, chipped tooth, one-eyed with a gimp hand to be the captain of arms in the city, giving advice to all the new guardsmen not to go out with the Sovereign because, "She's crazy! She wanted me to fight a dragon! With a dagger!"
5. Speaking of "appointing" champions... there should be a reason (other than protection) to keep them in a city. Something cool would be to appoint someone as governor of a city, or Captain of your army, or Grand Vizier to deal with diplomacy and so on. Having positions and having them filled to give bonuses to cities/countries/mana production/etc would be pretty cool. 

I'm sure I have more, but I want to play now. Great job guys. It's... it's fantastic. 

Yes a fantastic start to the Beta, already a better, more polished and much more fun game than the origional Elemental war of magic is today.

It really is a great game already so I have very high hopes indeed for the finished product this time, keep up the good work and well done.

This feels like the game Elemental War of Magic always wanted to be, but never quiet managed to be.

Umm, this is not in English.  I would love to know what it says.

Hum. One thing from MoM that I miss : the ability to choose how to spend the power points : mana/skill/level

At the moment you start with 2 mana per turn and there's no fast way to improve that a bit. And even the simplest spells use a lot of mana (10 mana for a fire dart. Ouch)

Wouldn't it be a good idea to be able to spend mana on improve mana generation ? (so for instance if I generate 4 mana per turn, I could use 1 mana to improve mana generation and the 3 other mana are used to get real "mana". And when I 've spent 50 mana on improve generation I generate 5 mana per turn.)

Fallen Enchantress is a far better game than WoM for the fundamental reason that it has a purpose. 

WoM felt akin to trying to play a game that was composed of the basic elements of a game creator program, there was no focus no purpose and generally the game was closer to being a digital board game. While there was a rich conceptual story it wasn't actually showing at all in the game.

FE has a guided concept behind it, the story is told with the game instead of beside it. The artistic changes are also incredibly well thought out and clearly guided by that core purpose.

You've defeated my expectations with this beta so far, I'm excited to see what will come as the game improves even more.

Ha, that's about where I am too.  

I keep looking to compare my thoughts with other's feedback and to see what interesting bugs people have found.  

vieuxchat, compared to you, RavenX is a newbie. A prolific poster, but still a newbie as far as the Elemental boards go.

I almost made a post like Darkodinplus' when I saw you chiming in.

Now I just need to get enough time with the beta to say more than, thanks tons for the work on tooltips in general and for including keyboard equivalents in the tips for buttons. 

About story... will Brad write a new book related to "fallen enchantress" ??? Something like http://www.amazon.com/Elemental-Destinys-Embers-Bradley-Wardell/dp/0345517865/

Dude, it's a matter of perspective. Some of us around Stardockia were hot for NotMoM back when there was some hope that whoever bought the name rights from Microprose would cut a clean deal for a sequel. My memory isn't that good for dates, but I think that phase was maybe a year or more before the game even had a street name. Then there was the long phase after the game got the street name and the boards launched but the public beta was still a matter of pure speculation...

You & vieuxchat have me wondering if folks like landisaurus, Jonny5446, LDiCesare, Ron Lugge, pigeonpigeon, Tamren or Wintersong will show up again. I typed with them back in late 2008 and things are certainly different now. 

I am loving FE and think so far its awesome.  A great step up in everything.  Very few crashes, and i love the tool tips everywhere.  I would like a slow feature for Tactical combat, because the enemies and my chars go thru their animations so fast, I cant catch everything.  Yes, I know that sounds silly, but for me I like to see combat a bit slower, in that regard.  I like how initative works, and how over all, Tactical combat is fun.  I also love the shrink effects and the maul effects...wow very nice.  Spells also look better than in before.  Great job.

My only question is about the music.  I love what I hear, but on the main theme I hear for FE, I dont know its name, its sounds quite a bit like "Time in a bottle" by Jim Croce.  NOt sure if anyone else has noticed that, and I was just wondering if you decided to use it as it would kinda fit the game in a way.  Also, are you making all the music for FE yourselves, or are you hiring anybody to make it for you.  I know in Dominions 3 a group made quite a bit for it and they did a great job.

The only bug I have seen, is that creature AI is not attacking NPC cities or troops.  One AI city had a huge dragon right next to it and it did nothing at all..even when the borders expanded.  My city, once the borders overtook it, well...they got pissed and decided to come pay me a visit and hit me up for some bed space!

Thanks again and keep up the good work.