First up, At 8pm GMT (9pm UK time) and 8pm PST there will be dev chats on #de-devchat on irc.stratics.com. The topics will be economics and combat and the chats will last about an hour. Thanks to Stratics for making it possible.

Also, iel 'Junker' Yelland has posted a dev diary about programing and spell effects. You can read it here:
http://www.codemasters.com/dragonempires/uk/thegame/devdiaries.php?id=31
Have a look at the nice spell effect too!