Amazingly great news!

Speech! Speech!

While this is no doubt good news for Elemental overall, it's a little disheartening to see how far a mod that would not have worked if he didn't steal a bunch of art assets from other people/IPs can take him. It is great irony that so many on these boards are vehemently anti-piracy, yet he is universally revered, even though FFH2 essentially pirated the majority of its artwork as most of it was used without permission and in some cases without paying licensing. But would FFH2 have taken off without those art assets? Who knows - perhaps he'd have found people to make the art for the mod eventually.

Still, his design work at least is solid, and in that regard it's good for Elemental. The non-hypocrite in me is not very excited about "working" (for lack of a better word) with him in Stardock's future betas, I will honestly admit.

Annatar11 I think you may be mistaken as to your statement that the majority of the artwork being pirated.  You do a disservice to the unit creators who put in hundreds of hours of work in the mod.   I'll leave the rest to Kael to set straight.  I don't understand your crusade against FfH in this and other threads.  But I well remember the years of watching the unit art develop.  Hats off to the FfH artists who gave so much of their time for our enjoyment!

I've always loved the CIV series and FFH2 certainly scratched my Fantasy itch.

So, welcome aboard Kael.  Best of luck and try not to step in the Troll doo! 

The artwork may have been lifted, but it was not a for-profit mod.  Fanmods and piracy-for-profit are two different beasts.

Oh good grief, Annatar11, climb down the high horse already.  He didn't "steal" everything.  He credited everything that was used, posted contact details, and was very willing to take down/remove anything that the artists objected to.

FFH2 had an amazing team of modelers that made all custom units, that's where the majority of artwork went.  The only things really 'borrowed' were icon graphics and leader portraits, which were attributed.  A good chunk of the music tracks were used expressly with the artists' permission.

Yeah, some of that unit work is nothing short of amazing.

@Kael -- welcome!  I've very much enjoyed FFH2.

@Froggy -- good executive move.  You saw a need (design-wise and PR-wise) and moved decisively to fill it.

This bodes well for Elemental's, and subsequent SD games', future.

Annatar is just a bitter prick.  Ignore him.  Hater. 

There's no crusade, I'm only expressing my opinion and not trying to convince anyone. The facts speak for themselves, there is no disservice in the truth. Last I saw the list on the forum's site, there were 13 "credits" for artwork/music, 3 or 4 of which were labeled as having been used with permission, and at least one of the ones that were not used with permission requested that the artist be contacted to work out licensing if anyone wished to use his art. If this list is false, then obviously I'm wrong. But if it's not, then yes, he did pirate other people's art. Hell, he credits Enya for using one of her songs. He surely hasn't contacted whichever label owns her music for permission to do so. Even Youtube has to take down videos (or make people take the music out) where people use music for their personal videos because it's unlicensed use even though it's not-for-profit.

As I've said, he's good with design, and in this Elemental benefits from having him on board. But the irony of it all is there nonetheless.

And none of that was the right thing to do. One of the artists requested to be contacted to work out licensing for his art. Did Kael do that? Seems he did everything except that. Sort of like "Yeah I know I'm not supposed to do this and it's wrong, and I'll take it down if I get caught". Sorry, but, that's not how it works. Just because nobody bothered to ask him to stop using their stuff, doesn't imply they gave permission for him to use their stuff.

In any case, my views are my views, everyone is welcome to theirs

Don't take this as an official response as it's all secondhand, but on the CivFanatics forums I've seen a few of the FfH/FfH-modmod makers state that there are no plans to port FfH to Civ5, as "it wouldn't be FfH without Kael." However, Valkrionn (maker of FfH modmod Rise from Erebus) has mentioned plans for an original Civ5 fantasy mod not connected to FfH. So it looks like no "official" Civ5 FfH, but perhaps other fantasy mods, and I wouldn't be surprised [read: unsupported speculation] if Valkrionn's new mod showed some FfH influence.

And on topic: great news, congratulations to Kael and to Stardock.

@Annatar -- there's a time and place for everything.  This thread should be a time and place for Elemental (and SD) fans to welcome in someone who'll hopefully help achieve Froggy's vision for Elemental, and help get SD back on its' feet.  Please to respect that.  Your purpose can hold for another day.

i have heard very good things about the FFH mod, so i am excited to see where this goes.  so, good luck mr. paxton and lets bring this puppy home.

Cool, looks like a wining team

Welcome Kael!