It will have high-production values, but more importantly, based on other Stardock games, it will have a ton of developer support after launch.

They haven't advertised it much or any, I thought it is a side project, not the next biggest game.

P.S.

there is no HD I could find

It's looking like August 2010 is a possibility though, and I'm sure the rest of the team would enjoy some extra polish time   The sexier we can get the game, the more mainstream appeal it'll have (and more likely to be a big 'hit' title, and not just a 'sleeper hit').

And you'd be suprised how much small-team development feels like 'side-project' development. No big meetings about focus group feedback...we're literally making a game that WE want to play, and once the gameplay development really gets rolling you'll see beta builds released that feel different by the week.

It wont, not to your misguided standards anyways.  It will be graphically appealing and highly usuable, but most of the game's (modest by triple A big budget game standards) will go into making it a landmark, highly rewarding strategy game.

You've been told this before, by fans and the developers, so you have your answer now, and can stop spamming the boards with your agenda.

That is really nice to hear, a lot of games were ruined by doing the opposite.

"Eye candy" is not about selling the game but about making the game far more enjoyable.

Correlation is not causation.

I don't really feel there is a need for any major trailers until we hit at least beta 2 or 3.  I don't think the gameplay or grahpical experiance will start to get close to the relase until then. We will have beta access in about a month so we should be seeing most of the content as its being worked on. Obviously we won't have things like tactical combat until its in, but the point is we will be playing with the game soon - so you'll see many player videos and I'd expect dev vids or pictures of any new toy they want us to experiment with.

Another fault of photorealistic graphics is that they tend to age poorly.

When a game uses stylized art it tend to have its own defination of "this is how it should be". When realism is the driving factor of a games art design you constantly have new definitions of how something should look. After a year or two it starts to look noticably dated as you've seen newer and shinier graphics.

Where the stylized art will still look "like its meant to".

Ok i must have gone daft recently.

How in the 9 hells does eye candy become "not" about selling the game ?

It makes it more enjoyable ?

Really, like in a visual sense ?

Like "eye candy" ?

And to put this silly statement to bed, "Game mechanics" improve gameplay and enjoyability, not "eye candy"

"Eye candy" simply makes one look at a screen for a moment and state "Oh man that looks awesome!" =/= enjoyment.

This is so true it should be bolded Blizzard is a perfect example of this with Warcraft 3 or WoW, they are aging perfectly well (and they can be played in a huge range of computers).

We're getting pretty close IMHO...I have shots of a fire shard from the newest build that blow https://www.elementalgame.com/Screenshots/Empire_Fire_Shard_1280.jpg away.

It actually makes me a little queezy thinking that that is the graphical fiedelity people are arguing over.  Bleh!

Damn that looks awesome!! How are we supposed to survive until the beta? (Yes, I know the beta will be cloth map only, I don't care, I need to play something!! )

Can we get developer permission to smack him around?