Interview Jon Van Caneghem interview in Computer Gaming World

Tags: Might & Magic IX

The latest issue of Computer Gaming World has an interesting interview with Jon Van Caneghem of New World Computing about the Might & Magic fanchise games:
<br>
<ul><i>CGW: How involved were you with Heroes of Might and Magic IV or Might and Magic IX? How did you feel about the release of these games?</i>
<br>
<br>
JVC: I worked on the initial design for Heroes IV, then when things started to go awry(too many cooks in the kitchen, I had to help finish the game and get it into a shippable state. To the credit of the team involved, I think we were able to create a fun game, even though it had many flaws that I was very unhappy with. I had little to no involvement with MMIX; if it had been my decision, it would have never shipped.</ul>
<br>
<br>
You can read more bits from the interview <a target=_blank href=http://www.forumplanet.com/StrategyPlanet/homm/topic.asp?fid=5292&tid=1300882>here</a>.
<br>
<br>
Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.rpgdot.com">RPGDot</A>

 

I love the Might and Magic games. Although, I wouldn't accept responsibility over MMIX either.

 

Or 5, 6, 7, or 8...

But nevermind, nevermind...

Personally I found his outrage that the head of sales at 3DO controlled the funds and what got funded amusing. Its a company, what did he expect? That they'd give a programmer unlimited funds to do whatever he thought was kewl? Please.
All the M&M games were based on the *exact* same formula, thats what they bought, and thats all they wanted from him.

 

Well, I ddin't think 5, 6 or 7 were that bad. But 8 and 9. Yech.

 

5, 6 and 7 weren't *that* bad, but it was just the feeling that it was the same thing all over again. and again, and again.

It given the limitations (of the game industry, production, etc) involved back around 2 & 3 it was somewhat acceptable. After a while, though, it simply wasn't OK.

Ooh. Generic fantasy, with an interface thats barely evolved from the original. With a 'twist' of Star Trek based sci-fi at the end thats just enough to avoid lawsuits. Hurrah.

 

The only M&M game I played all the way through was 6, and I thought it was very good although somewhat repetitive by the end. So I bought 7 and played that, only to discover that it plays exactly the same in almost every way. Some games benefit from having a sequel that is similar to the game it follows, but with M&M it was so similar that I have a hard time remembering which game was which.

And Heroes IV was pretty darn good I thought. It's just that it was a turn-based fantasy war game released when the big thing was RTS games like Age of Empires and Warcraft.