Interview Celestial Heavens talks to Might & Magic IX guy

[Spazmo]

Tags: Might & Magic IX

<a href=http://www.strategyplanet.com/homm>Celestial Heavens</a>, a Heroes of Might and Magic fansite, scored an <a href=http://www.strategyplanet.com/homm/features/interviews/timlang.shtml>interview</a> with <b>Tim Lang</b>, lead designer on Might & Magic IX.
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<blockquote>Tim: I think there's two reasons why Might and Magic took such a drastic downturn. First and foremost 3DO seemed intent on driving every single intellectual property they owned into the ground. We got shorter and shorter schedules, and less and less financial support from them. In MM9's case, a lot of the people we were depending on to finish the game were tied up with finishing Legends. Since that thing just stayed around and lingered in the depths of not-being-doneness it really pushed MM9 onto a tighter schedule. Secondly, I'm pretty sure JVC was burned out, disillusioned and just plain didn't like coming to work anymore. Most of us rarely saw him around the office, and when we did see him, he usually told us that we were doing things wrong much too late for us to fix them. He's made no bones about disliking MM9. I think that if he had taken a more proactive role in its development, things might have turned out better. As far as the reason why MM9 was considered the worst in the series, that's really because we delivered a game that was pre-alpha at best. It needed at least another 3 months, if not another 6 to get it to a playable level of quality. Knowing we didn't have much time, we cut a lot of corners, and left out features the fans liked, but would have been too time consuming to implement. It was a half done game, and it shows.</blockquote>
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See what happens when you force devs to rush out unfinished games? YOU GO BANKRUPT.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.bluesnews.com">Blue's News</A>

 

[taks]

uh, i would bet that's not the only reason they went bankrupt... either way, a sad trend in the industry seems to be to push shit out and hope somebody buys, enough somebodies to justify a sequel and make a profit at least. hopefully, the new crop of games that are preparing to hit the shelves will be of better quality than the games of the last few years (yes, MM9 was terrible).

taks

 

[Limorkil]

I really liked M&M6.

I liked M&M7 less because it was essentially the same engine and rpg system as M&M6, just with a different map and encounters. It was almost like playing an expansion of M&M6. It was quite fun, but I couldn't be bothered to finish it.

I never bothered with M&M8 or 9 because they looked essentially the same. The graphics were improved ever so slightly but they were still way behind other games. Obviously there's more to a game than graphics, but these games didn't offer anything new.

My perception was that the developers were just re-releasing the same game in a different box over and over. Had they been given an appropriate amount of time, money and proper backing the series could have been kick-ass. Instead it was just ass.

 

[taks]

i actually recall having a good time with 8. it was much better than 9 for sure.

there's nothing wrong with using the same engine from game to game as long as they tweak it to keep up with technology (assuming a 1 1/2 to 2 year release cycle). the BG series did it, fallouts kinda did it, fans are asking for something similar from troika with the toee engine, etc.

the problem with the MM6 to 7 transfer was just that 7 was boring (the engine was very different, btw, but it was still kinda weak).

taks

 

[Sol Invictus]

The art direction in the entire M&M and HOMM series was always exceptionally bad. All of the character models looked like plastic models with bad proportioning.

 

[taks]

true... up till 8 (or was it 7?) however, they were sprites overlayed on a 3D background. i always found that kinda funny when these 2D pictures were marching towards you.

anyway, their overall "look" was never a selling point, IMO. i think the first couple were on par with the bard's tale series and wizardry, but diverged from the existing standards after that. interesting stories (if not overly odd) and relatively fun gameplay (looong, too) was what they relied on. not graphics for sure.

taks

 

[crufty]

I thought the graphics in MM4 - Xeen was pretty cool for it's day. Of course, this isn't saying much.

In my defense, it was one of the first games to use large digitized graphics if I recall. Think it had speech too, and if I remember, you could own your own castle.

I never got into 5+.

 

[theverybigslayer]

I wish they would release M&M X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV ... with the M&M IX engine.

 

[crpgnut]

I know I'm dragging back an OLD topic, but me too theverybigslayer! I'd give anything to play a nice Might and Magic game right now. Heroes ended up ruining Might and Magic, through no fault of its own.

 

[undead dolphin hacker]

I know I'm dragging back an OLD topic, but me too theverybigslayer! I'd give anything to play a nice Might and Magic game right now. Heroes ended up ruining Might and Magic, through no fault of its own.

Why do you say that? Because HOMM ended up being alot more popular than vanilla Might and Magic or what?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Probably. After all, Tribes murdered the EarthSiege universe in much the same way.

 

[crpgnut]

@dead fish: Yep, Heroes became JVC's primary focus and the following MM games were less and less good as a result. MMVI is a great game, VII less so, VIII was almost repugnant, and IX was left unfinished. 3DO really killed the M&M series but JVC didn't help matters.

I'd love to see MMX with someone who had a deep love for the older games at the helm.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

MM6 was an alright game, but nothing compared to the Xeen duology (or triology depending on if you count Swords of Xeen). I do agree about HOMM killing the MM franchise, though I admit I liked HOMM2 better than all of the MM games except for 4.