I think the one thing that is being lost in this whole debate is the truly important GAMEPLAY impacts. Ultimately, no one is going to bother with lore for a game that isn't fun to play and deep enough to maintain interest. No one is going to want to mod a game that doesn't have solid, deep gameplay mechanics, or at least the possibility of adding greater depth and improved gameplay.

Honestly, I have trouble understanding why the LORE and CUSTOMIZATION are being presented as exclusive. I understand that assets are limited, but how is stopping you from having both? You are already paying Random House to create lore, right? So are you saying that you would cut off some of the resources being spent on that in order to fund more coding? I don't get it....

Lore and Customization only matter if the gameplay itself is fundamentally sound, deep, and fun. Here are my thoughts on how the current debate over factions, races, lore, and customization should be handled with respect to creating, first and foremost, a great game:

• Presently, Elemental supports Alignment (Kingdom vs. Empire), Faction (Altar, Pariden, etc.) and Race (Men, Urxen, Trog, etc.).

Please keep this, and expand it to have truly meaningful impacts on gameplay. This would include as many of the gameplay features that many of us have been clamoring for as possible, such as unique techs, buildings, equipment, spells, etc. Expand the gameplay to capitalize on having distinct factions and races by expanding the way races and factions are modeled within the city, unit, and diplomacy systems. I for one won't care about creating a custom race or faction for a game that doesn't have gameplay features that really allow my custom race or faction to shine. Spore had great customization, but the actual gameplay was generally poor and all of that customization I didn't ultimately didn't matter much.

• There are two general directions to take:
  • Eliminate the race distinctions and instead build out the Factions with more lore and artwork. Current customization of factions would remain.
  • Expand the race distinctions and provide more assets and code to support players creating their own custom factions made up by their own custom races.

I would select #2 while still maintaining the great lore and detail for the stock factions and races.

So the question is, where would people like to see the focus? More emphasis on making the game lore with the 10 factions.  Or more emphasis on making it easy for players (in game) to customize their own factions/races?

I still don't understand why these are exclusive. However, if I had to decide between these two, I would vote for making the base game as good as possible now with very expansive lore and character, and add greater customization options in an expansion pack.

Ultimately, it comes down to the gameplay. If the gameplay is solid, the game will be solid. If the gameplay is solid and has great lore and story, the game will be solid and will draw people in and hold their interest. If the gameplay is solid with great lore AND massive customization, then the game will be solid, draw people in, and hold their attention for years to come.

Give me more assets for making custom races, (Do our sovereigns have access to these as well?) 
This is the kind of thing that could even get my wife interested in playing. 

That would be my choice.

However, why should you eliminate the race distinctions?

On the other thread, you were afraid it would be too complicated for casual gamers. But people understand that a Japanese and a German can marry and have children when a man and his horse can't. They also understand that Germans and Japanese were 2 factions in the "Empire" side in WWII while France and the US were on the other side.

If that's really a worry, there's a simple thing to do: put a nice little poster in the game box (or PDF for electronic downloads) like some games have for their tech trees. It would feature a better version of the race tree you show us sometime, with some additional color squares encompassing who's sided with who, and for each faction a nice little artwork with 2-3 lines of text like "The Krax were men of the East who chose to side with the Titans during the War by bribery and corruption" or "The Urgen were created by the Titans from crocodiles to serve as their cannon-fodder".

A drawing being better than a thousand words, they would throw a glance at the poster and, yoopla, everything is clear.

Yeah, however -like I've said it already-, the poll results wouldn't be much different after Beta3 imo. Creating your custom faction/race without touching modding is charming. It has its limits of course, the real deal will be modding....but I guess "casual" gamers would have more fun if the devs would go with option 2. More racial/factional customization [including visuals] means that the player can "host" tons of games, and all of those will be very different. More customization options = more diversity.

Definitely and blindly....

Go for Customization!!

It's the best long term choice, you can add moar lore stuff later. This choice will be availiable only now.

More focus on races, please. On the already included races.

And i don't mean lore or backstory. This is a 4x fantasy turn based strategy game. The actual game is building stuff, recruiting armies, trading, making war and awesome spells. You have to work in the races, gameplay-wise. I don't care for the lore or the backstory (which, and i am sorry, reads like an amateur and totally uninteresting generic fantasy run-of-the-mill).

Try to make the races disctintive. And i mean REALLY distintive. Not a "+1 to attack" or "+1 trade route" or "+15% mana". Look at some races in Dominions or in Fall from Heaven for inspiration.

So now the debate becomes about the "Hardcore/Modders" vs "Casual/Customizers" play style or preferences? (Both terms are used as terms of affection so please do not read in any derogatory meaning that does not exist.)

Let's look at what is proposed for the Modders.

From the DEV themselves.

The Modding Beta will comprise making available the core tools that modding will need. Namely:

1. Making your own maps
2. Making your own creatures
3. Making your own items
4. Making your own buildings
5. Making your own conversations
6. Packaging and sharing your mods within the game with others

Very impressive List. A whole Beta phase just for the Modding Tools.

So it appears that the "Modders/HardCore" will get their Toys, in Spades.

Now it appears the Dev which to hear our take on what the "Casual/Customizers" will/want to be able to do, without having to "make their own" while still preserving the basic FUN of just playing the Game based on whatever level of available Diversity is provided.

• There are two general directions to take:
  • Eliminate the race distinctions and instead build out the Factions with more lore and artwork. Current customization of factions would remain.
  • Expand the race distinctions and provide more assets and code to support players creating their own custom factions made up by their own custom races.

So given that the Modders are taken care of. Why not provide for the Customizers? It does not seem that providing more assets and code will detract from the Moddability and as such will only "ADD support for those players who's only desire may be to create their own "custom" faction using the current customization Tools mentioned in Option #1.

It sounds very WIN - WIN.

This long time lurker votes for Factions/Lore first.... but really I want both and don't understand why it can't be done.

In my opinion the focus should be, at least initially, on the canon races and factions. I'm more concerned with playing the game in a compelling fantasy world than on customizing my own races and factions. While the latter option would be nice it can come later, as DLC or in an expansion or in whatever form the team prefers.

I'd rather have more lore, more story, and less customization.

Because they have limited resources. So hes asking which of the two should they focus more on.

I say go for lore first as customiztion can bring about balance issues and I want the game sooner rather than later.