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.

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

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.

Extended beta generally means better quality in the end so on a first thought i would have a tendancy to say yes. Yet i remember extended beta (for galCiv TA i think) which at the end was particularily long. I don't think overdoing the beta serves the best interest of the game. A one year beta seams in my opinion a bit too much and at some point having a polished and complete game is good as well.

Maybe some intermediate solution solution rather than doubling the beta length from 6 to 12 months go from 6 to 9 months?

Guess that would depend on map size and on how the game plays (colony rush and energy mechanism?). Since huge maps and very long games are going to be in, having a high limit seams to be better. It would avoid a big empty map fealing and/or endless colony rush.

Quoting Aesir rising: I'd rather you ask "How sophisticated can player content creators make dungeons in the game."

As sophisticated as possible i would say (multi level dungeons included) but i rather ressource developement be put into better strategic elements. This might be a good point for modding and player expansion.

Also i liked the concept "you explore the dungeon and you awaken a big bad evil you shouldn't have" having dungeons that can trigger special events, armies, techs etc on the big map should definitly be in.

As long as complex quests are optional and not a must do... don't want to spend one hour to finish a quest when you have an empire to build.

My main issue with tactical battles is a) it shouldn't give the human player too much an advantage over the computer players you should be able to auto resolve battles with a result that is close enough to the result you would have by playing the battle and not have too much of a disadvantage when you don't want to play them all.

Less complex than those of empire total war (having to take into account the slope of the terrain for them to shoot over each others heads and not into each other is way too much imo).

At most one or two special ability you can activate per unit, mostly passive stuff for regular troops (except for mages and heroes).

Moral should be in imo it allows for different strategies. Having units that scare away other troops, better moral near your channeler, army flags etc.. could be in. Moral is also a good point imo because it gives an incentive to make large armies with rank upon rank of troops even if only the first few lines actually fight.

Being able to make regiments of different sizes from 5 to 50 soldiers depending on your strategy quality vs quantity.

What might be nice also is having customizable regiments where you can add in a regiment champion/flag that gives a small passive bonus, mostly to give each regiment a unique feal rather than the 50th regiment of archers in my army.

I would rather no campaign at all . You eventually finish the campaign and they tend not to be very fun to replay. I rather better randomly generated maps, more techs, units, buildings, special events, world changing spells and ai able to deal with those features .

Yea, I had the same concern in my post. The answers here are going to be completely atypical of what the actual consumer audience would say.

I'm certainly in the "maybe" camp, though the binary choice of the two release dates feels a little forced. I'd rather see one beta cycle iteration after which Stardock can get a better feel for when they might have a game they'd be proud to ship and set the beta/release schedule from there. 

Since there hasn't been any beta at all yet, it seems like it'd be difficult to get a feel for how much work they'd want to incorporate from beta feedback into the final release.

Let's not forget that though we are  a very small minority of players, we're also often the same type that reviews these games and publizes it from early on. I have a lot of friends that like strategy games, but not enough to be in the alpha or beta. If I send out word that the game sucks they're not going to buy it (I trade that for their FPS advice ).

Another thing, we're the most likely people to be modders so a lot of the questions that have been asked are directly pertinent to this group. If they make it easy for us, their game gets loads of free content.

Lastly, when you make a strategy game you should try to balance it around the higher skilled players. If you can do that while still making the game easy to get into and intuitive, players won't grow out of the game once they get the hang of it and the life of the game will be greatly extended.

The longer beta schedule is a no-brainer. I agree that Elemental can become a Classic, especially with a years worth of feedback from rabid fans.

True, but the game isn't really created just for those most interested or there'd be no sales justifying bothering to create the game. It's all a shade of grey I guess. You don't want to be Duke Nukem Forever and never ship, but neither do you want to ship something that's not worth buying.

Releasing software is usually a financial matter. When is the nexus of game features and game delivery going to generate the best return on investment? If financial considerations really take a back seat in this case, then there's not much need to have any particular ship date in mind. I'm assuming financial considerations have some impact though, which is why I advocated having 1 beta cycle before settling on a date. If the beta is going to help determine scope, it's hard for me to see how Stardock has sufficient information to determine that scope without having any beta feedback yet.

As someone the preordered when the game was announced, it's hardly going to matter to me one way or the other though. Barring, as someone mentioned with their Sins beta experience, being burned out on the game by the time it actually ships.

I doubt it will have any negative effect on sales in fact I suspect the reverse, although obviously the extended production time will effect profit in a negative fashion.

I think the effect of extended beta will be postitive because those following the game will be on this site, and probably preorder so they can influence the development through the beta test. Other potential customers will hear about the game when it is released and if it's a great game still buy it. The extanded beta will mean at release it's a better game.

As for comparing it to duke nukem forever, well I go by Stardocs track record I was part of the extended ToA beta and that was both great fun and helped to polish that major expansion. Stardoc aren't taliking about moving to a new engine every couple of months.

Those not here are also not virtually guarenteed sales.  We are.  The biggest risk I see with the longer schedule is people who don't fully understand what a beta is hearing about this and buying in because they can't wait to play the game.  There are two sides to that coin:  First--it's their own fault, and they deserve no sympathy.  Second--they could get really, really anoying for StarDock.

Wait.  I've read some of Brad's responses to rude customers.  There'd be free entertainment from that, too!  Win-win!

http://sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/060207

Sorry, just had to point it out

And as rare as they are, it is even rarer that the game is ever released if there isn't the pressure of a deadline.

Duke Nukem Forever, anyone?

Extending beta sounds like a great idea! I would love to see the kind of game Stardock could produce given that kind of timeframe and a healthy beta community. Count me in!