Status update from Frogboy:
http://forums.elementalgame.com/426797
"Greetings! It’s been awhile since we’ve put up an update on where things stand. So without further delay, here are some answers to questions we’ve received recently:
When will Beta 4 come out? The best I can say is “This Summer”. It definitely won’t be out in June but might make it in time for July.
What will be in Beta 4? Beta 4 focuses a great deal on the civilization aspect of the game. Specifically, the way cities are constructed. A third prime resource, essence, will be introduced (grain, materials, and now essence) which will help encourage greater specialization in cities. The graphics and user interface will also see a significant series of improvements for Beta 4 as well.
Will there be a Beta 5? Probably. Depends on how we’re feeling about Beta 4.
Will Fallen Enchantress require Steam? No. We plan to make Fallen Enchantress available to purchase on Steam. But it won’t require Steam to play.
What is the status of multiplayer? It is our intention to add multiplayer after release but it won’t be available on day 0.
What is the status of modding? We would
like to open up modding officially during the Beta 4 phase. No promises though.
Will there be more spells? Yes. We add more spells as we go along.
When will the final game be released? We don’t have a release date yet. But we are hoping sometime this Fall. We want to make sure we have all the time we need to make Elemental: Fallen Enchantress as good as we can make it."
Like I wrote elsewhere, Beta 3 was the first beta to really impress me. I finally found myself getting swept up in a game of FE. The only thing that clearly needed more work was the boring city building choices, something that will be the focus of Beta 4 according to the above. If SD can make city development truly distinctive (i.e., forcing the player to make building decisions that serve to make each city unique in primary function - sort of like starbases in GalCiv II), and manage to work in some sort of city siege mechanic (supposedly they are working on something that might finally give us a proper medieval siege for cities), I will be very happy. With Beta 3, things are definitely looking up for FE, so I am eager to get my hands on Beta 4!