First, Welcome to the community

now for some question answering:

to put it simply... the community is toxic.  that not to say everyone is mean and hating, its just that those who are are rather outspoken.  soon as you learn to ignore the flammers and trolls there are actually a lot of really good people in here.  so feel free to ask questions and post on anything cause even if there are a few trolls the good once tend to make there voice heard form time to time.

quick recap on the history of Demigods:

1. Release was terrible... huge connection issues
2. Stardock went above and beyond the call fo duty and set a crack team of developers to fix the problem
3. after several quick fixes and about a month most of the connection problems were solved.
4. GPG came out with more connection fixes with 1.1 as well as a concede option in game.
5. more fixing of connections.
6. online connection 99% solved
7. community, now with no connections to complain about, start to complain about game features
8. GPG and SD start on new game features and fixing bug, set to be released with 1.2 in August/September
9. now the community sits and waits for new content including 2 new demigods and the release of SDK's for modding.

Modding will be coming out in August/September sometime and will be very basic programming stuff.  mostly built with 3d models and lua script mods will be regulated by SD and be able to be downloaded an applies to custom games (similar to Mutators in UT2004)

Elemental is actualy a full game done by SD (StarDock) and will be released in 2010 sometime.  reaon its on these forums is because this is also SD's main website so all the early developement and beta'in is being posted in a seperate section.

yes all new demigod and maps will ahve to be done in 3d moeling program and then incorperted using lua script edits the game.  i'm currently working full tilt to break the map creation but form the looks of it we'll all have to wait until V1.2 (August/September) for the SDK for that.

if u have any more question feel free to ask

Shake, I think they've just simplified it for showing it off to people. I'm pretty sure it will look more impressive later on, but I'm not sure

Shake, we still play Age of Wonders II here, but it's getting kind'a long in the tooth.  Was kind'a disapointed with HoMM5 too.  So Elemental looks like a game to finally fill that empty patch of fantasy TB strat games.

Defective, there are lots of nice people here, they are just busy having fun playing the game or ignoring most the flamer posts.  But ya, there are also quite a few "not-nice" people here too.  

 The problem is, even though SD is going beyond the call of duty so far, as far as matchmaking, rankings, and a friends list, well, they are very lacking to say the least.  So the best you can hope for at this time is to "friend" people who are nice to you on these forums, and also those who are nice in games, and then try your best (good luck with this) to get them into games with you online.

Since (at this time) you usually get groups of people playing each other with ALL sorts of skill ranges, from noob to pro, you get many people who rage quit, or cuss you out, or even make "Noobs Only games" with their pro friends to kick new people upside the head.  Since this is such a very team oriented game, this can make people with anger issues, or "winning is all" issues really get pushed over the edge.  There are even quite a few "Ping Princesses" who'll kick you out of the lobby if they even suspect your the evil culprit of a ping spike.

So just try to ignore the jerks/trolls/bad sports, friend the rest, and wait for 1.2.  This might help you out also:

http://forums.demigodthegame.com/349958