No, hes right. My arguments are less then the best. But then, while i like the idea of channeled spellcasting and the idea of having side effects and think they would be cool additions, i don't think there is an overwheleming reason to add them, and if they don't fit in, they should not be included. I would also prefer for all the flaws in the ideas to get picked apart now, rather then making it into the game and then the flaws are found.

Offended? I appreciate having my arguments dissected. I am always thankful if someone takes the time to pick them apart and post the flaws. If folks get off into fanciful flights of imagination its always good to have someone bring the common sense along.

I see elementals as feeding on their respective elemental mana, so the amount of fire mana flying around from casting a channeled superfireball or a channeled water to magma spell would naturally attract a few fire elementals from the local fire shard.

Channelling spells have been around for a time, and were actually in MoM in the form of spell upkeep (spells continued as long as you could maintain the upkeep or you shut it off).  I would expect to see some form of this in Elemental, anyhow.

I haven't played any CRPGs or RTS fantasty games, so maybe there's stuff like this out there I don't know about. But to me, the idea of a spell with a specific mult-turn casting time and intensifying effects during that period seems new and worth consideration by the devs. They would be distinctly different from MoM spells with upkeep. Those just established an effect and billed you for it.

Hm, I think we have a different definition of "channeled" spells.  What I'm talking about is mainly in combat (there could be plenty of channeled spells on the world map, but that's past the breadth of my original post.)  In MoM, all combat spells were instantaneous (one per turn) and if they were combat buffs, did not change.  So in short, I've never seen any channeled spells in fantasy strategy games in the fashion I'm talking about.  The only time I've ever seen them... is in my heavily modified D&D campaign, because the players researched and invented them.

It's funny, actually.  The players actually followed the route of strategy game, building Wizard and Knight Orders and leading armies against the foes of their city and its influential, maritime merchant houses.  If you can't get what you want in digital games, invent them yourself I say!

So, basically, you want a spell that increases in effect as time goes by, kinda like if you cast, rugburnball, then sparkball, then fireball, then infernoball, then wtfhuegFLAMESball. Only all rolled into one spell. i follow. They should just toss in all these effects though, not just make dozens of different spells differ only on things like raw power or element, but have crazy other effects going off too. Would be fun.