Many things are said which may or may not come to pass.

It's not really a huge deal to me, but I would prefer a slightly 'darker' look and feel to the game than what I've seen so far.  Everything looks a bit too 'cartoony' for my tastes.  I will just have to assume that at some point somone will come up with a mod which suits my visual tastes, since I'm no artist (or modder for that matter).

I guess my feeling is that my imersion into the game is likely to not rely on the Lore, though that doesn't mean I think that the Lore has no place.  Only that it is secondary (or even not high) on my list of important factors which will allow me  to feel more in tune with the game.

To some degree, the only thing I care about are the game mechanics, everything else is secondary, because no matter how good the 'fluff' is, if the core is rotten, it's not going to hold my attention anyway.

And I'm not saying that anything is rotten, or even that I suspect anything will be.

The funny thing is that I avoid posting to certain threads because I feel like I'm responding emotionally rather than critically. Critically I'd say that many trolls on the forums exist only because of these early alpha releases as betas, in the same way many of the fanboys are encouraged by the exact same things. Audience participation means cheers and boos rather than a quiet appreciation. The amount of discussion from the devs over certain ideas isn't as much as many would wish, but is far more than is expected. It raises the bar for future work in gaming in terms of community interaction and integration. (also, being cynical, probably lowering costs of in-house testing)

The combined capacity of so many individuals has it's benefits when all tackle a problem (like bug reporting, idea suggestion) but there will always be significant differences in the desired elements in the vanilla game. No game is ever perfect, I think many people feel like this is their game... and want it to be perfect. It's not a bad thing, it just makes people slightly more passionate than is always appropriate. But on the original topic... could we have a generic fantasy setting using the game engine? probably... and it may not take very much work once the engine is in place and the gameplay refined. If we can make custom tiles for workshops we can make a 'harpy cliff' or 'troglodyte cavern' and such with custom creature summons or unit production requiring said buildings... or make wandering adventurers 'beholders' and such... although the aforementioned focus on the DnD universe will be replaced by your particular fancy/fantasy. I play Sins with the mad scientist mod, distant stars and some starwars mods... but it always relies on the game engine... which is something we have to help with if we ever want our own pet projects and dreams to become a reality... I like the visuals, but I can imagine that after the effort gone into it only complete conversions will replace enough of the artwork to appeal to some... (like an alpha centauri/in space mod/grungy dark gothic mods)

I think I'm a fanboy... although I strive not to be...  I'd like a dominions 3 amount of background and mom level of item creation and X-com everything else (I loved using cheap weapons and raiding the cult' while psionically forcing them to arm grenades and drop them... not sure what the magical equivalent would be... throw their weapons backwards? and then run naked at the nearest unit and punch? However it's done I'd like to have a small number of units, never have them do stupid things and always look forward to the next battle... which sounds impossible, you always have more units in the late game, if you rely on the AI when units have no orders you have reduced control and battles will either be slightly repetative and easy or random, confusing and hard with the level of fun swinging as you reach either extreme)

I suppose i'm easy to please... if I can make skeletons I'm happy. Giant monsters with psionic abilities able to flay the skin from enemies and fire beams of death and soul renching destruction from their many eyes? jubilant!

Edit: Servers really acting up...

Hi Endofdayz,

 Your issue with the lore and the reasoning behind it. Is a bit premature. Your analogy to a European campaign. Doesn't hold water.

 Here's why. Your complaining about the game being built. And disliking what is being built. Because of your perceived references. Elves and Orcs, well what's the difference there? In Tolkien's work Orcs were twisted elves. Tall guys, and green evil smaller guys.

 If you don't like the base lore. In that sense, it's too bad. It's the premise for the game that they are building. And if you don't like it, then you have to either mod it or don't play it, or play it and be miserable. But that's your choice.

 You mentioned Fall from Heaven 2, for Civ 4. That's a mod. It's not the lore of Civ 4. Or that alternate history game. It didn't come with the game. People built it and made it their own. And I would be really surprised if those very same people don't find themselves over here in Elemental: War of Magic after it's released. Because the game will be closer to what they were trying to do.

 So... again, your entitled to your opinion. But complaining about the game not being what you want, because it's base lore will interfere with your preferences comes to a point where it's not valid. Complaining about good guys, and bad guys.. missed quite a bit from what they've put out. And in my version of this game, there will be elves, and dark elves, and dwarves, and vampires, and descendants of vampires, and oh so much more. And whether my mod uses their base lore or not isn't important. Because I can make the game from their tools, that I want to play.

 You should be looking at that versatility. Because the lore, for the base game isn't going to change. The game isn't titled, Generic Fantasy Generator 3. It's titled Elemental: War of Magic. It's got a built in base set of assumptions that is going to be the... hold for it.. base. You can modify the base to suit your needs, and add all the smurfs you want to your game. But complaining because they are using their background lore, for a baseline for the Sandbox game. With you continuously pointing out the same issues, over and over again. With no new well thought out changes, to persuade your audience. Well it's getting a little ragged.  

The dude was "giving props" to people who got his Drizzt ref. He obviously has a very narrow view of what high fantasy is. 

I love Gal Civ 2 but I did not see much lore in it unless your talking about the campaign maps which I only touched on.

Well I only play the Sandlot version of these games. The campaigns tend to be a little dull on the average but if Elemental's campaign is different than most out there then I might try it.

I will not comment on the story they have made until I can try the campaign. So far it looks promising though.

The lore should be centered around the campaign but still allow some room for sandbox play. And in that regard I see no faults except for some minor things that break immersion but most of those will be removed during the beta process. (the inns all over the place, the bugs that pop up here and there, etc.) Whoever says that story elements are useless and should be scrapped could ponder the fact that almost any game except sports have them.

There are no bad stories, only bad ways of telling them.

Make mountains out of mold hills much?  You people are blowing this all out of wack. The guy never said that the book should not be sold. All he is saying is that the Lore should not affect the game as much in Sandbox mode which I agree with. Now from what has been said it looks like the lore will be only in the Campaign which is good and the Sandbox is open for us to create our own world.

There was no need for people getting offended because the comments were not in and of themselves offensive unless you’re too sensitive about things which in this day and age seems to be the norm unfortunately.

So everyone calm down …breath  allow the force to flow through you.  Think of your happy place then move on. The game seems to be coming along fine and the Campaign will be Lore filled while the Sandbox game will allow us to create are own world. So everything is now right with the world. 

Make mountains out of mold hills much?  You people are blowing this all out of wack. The guy never said that the book should not be sold. All he is saying is that the Lore should not affect the game as much in Sandbox mode which I agree with. Now from what has been said it looks like the lore will be only in the Campaign which is good and the Sandbox is open for us to create our own world.

There was no need for people getting offended because the comments were not in and of themselves offensive unless you’re too sensitive about things which in this day and age seems to be the norm unfortunately.

So everyone calm down …breath  allow the force to flow through you.  Think of your happy place then move on. The game seems to be coming along fine and the Campaign will be Lore filled while the Sandbox game will allow us to create are own world. So everything is now right with the world.

Well I would perfer more races and yes I also like the Traditional races of Fantasy. A fantasy world with only one race is not very appealing IMO even if they are all fleshed out. Now as long as I can add more races to the existing one then it won't be too bad. 

As far as the 'flavor' goes we do want a lot of flavor which the 'generic' fantasy can give us and has always given us (and no I don't see these as 'bland.' One race is not very flavorfull but many races are.  I am for brand new races and such but I also want the traditional races in as well. The more the better.  But since we can add races to the game then this is no longer a big issue.

I will probably play the campign once then move onto moding my own maps and races in the game while still keeping the race that the game came with. 

And what I mean by this statement 'dying world trying to make it furtal blah blah blah..' is that I don't want all the custom games to have to follow the same general story as the campaign hence all taking place on a dying world etc.

I'm not gonna complain about the lore, as long as it doesn't get in the way and isn't required to play. If it's good, I might even get the book. But yeah,I just want a fantasy world. And if a well-done mod adds elves and orcs, I'll play it for sure.

Don't tell that to George R. R. Martin, author of the one of the most highly rated and most popular fantasy series of recent years (his HBO series is about to start). In that series, there are only humans factions. The world has dragons and magic aplenty too.

The Fallen, incidentally, are not men in the same sense that Orcs aren't men and that the elves aren't men in Tolkien.

An elf is a human with long ears and some lore. Visually, they're almost identical. Orcs are humans with different faces and a different complexion. Hobbits are short men. Dwarves are short, robust men. 

The Fallen races of Elemental include the Trogs, Urxen, Wraith and Quendar. Each different both visually and in what they do.  Trogs (the only Fallen race players can remotely access) are big, gray brutes.  Urxen are hairy, nasty, smaller creatures. Quendar are tall, formidable beings and the Wraiths are skinny with a sickly blue shade to them.

Even in Tolkien's world his races weren't called Hobbits or Elves or Dwarves. Those were the names lay people gave them. A Noldor would take great umbridge with being confused with Avari. But Men would just label them as "elves" (they all look the same anyway right?).  

The lore of Elemental is important to the campaign. In sandbox mode, people can pretty much do whatever they want. You want to have Orcs? Knock yourself out and put Orcs in there.  

Personally, I think a lot of people will like the general concept behind the lore of Elemental - the Kingdoms of men (the "good" guys) fighting the "fantasy races" of "The Fallen" (the "bad guys").