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KickStarter Mage's Initiation - A Classic Sierra-style Adventure/RPG

fantadomat

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At this point adventure games should be made with the idea of breaking even or loosing money. There is not enough of people that buy such games. The best option is to be done as a hobby rather than business.
Dave does really well for himself. I think the key is to publish as well as develop because then you can use the profits off other people's hobbies to pay for yourself. People who call that kind of capitalism parasitic couldn't be more wrong, by the way -- WEG's publishing arm enabled all of those games to get made and successfully released. It's almost like a hobbyist workers' collective with a well-paid administrator.
I agree,sadly the quality of their last few games have gone down.
Yes they haven't been as good as some of their classics (although they are still high quality in my opinion) but more to the point they were successful which shows you can still make money off adventure games with the right skills and business infrastructure.

I also have a good feeling that Wormwood's Strangeland will be successful as well. Primordia was a hit as far as this scene goes, and I think Wormwood and WEG make a great team.
I personally don't get hyped for games in development,don't even know what is made. Didn't know about hero-u and this one until they came out. I just play the games when they come out and then judge them.I also find interesting reading their history here on the codex,MRY does a good job as info dispenser ;) .

hero-u makes you play as a genderless he-she. it's visually unappealing to look at so i haven't played it

iseewhatyoudid.png

You play as a boy,not as tranny. It is made pretty clear in the game.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://steamcommunity.com/games/270610/announcements/detail/1776011874526116740

Mage's Initiation v.1.1 Update Released

Hey, everyone!

A new build of Mage's Initiation has been rolled out. It addresses the majority of bugs and issues that have been reported since launch. This build won't break your existing save-games and will allow you to continue playing from where you left off. However, to get the optimal experience, starting a new game is recommended.

The main feature addition to this patch is the inclusion of a "no combat" mode, which allows you to disable random combat encounters (in the forest and wastelands) completely. Only boss battles will be mandatory, but they, too will be much easier. This feature is intended to allow people to play through the game more like a pure adventure game if they don't want to deal heavily with the combat or RPG elements.

To use "no combat" mode, simply drag the Combat Difficulty slider all the way to the left. You'll see a textual indication saying that combat is disabled in the lower text window.

Some experimental code has also been added, which attempts to unhook the player, should they get stuck on scenery objects (i.e. bushes, rocks, trees, logs etc.) and unable to run during combat. A full list of further additions and bug-fixes is listed below.

The new v.1.1 build is now available on Windows, Linux, and MacOs. Your game should automatically update to the newest version on Steam.

Thanks!

Patch Notes v1.1
***WARNING SPOILERS BELOW***
  • Updated to AGS Engine v.3.4.3 (Potentially fixes Steam/GOG plugin crashes on start-up and removes artifact lines from sprite edges in OpenGL mode).
  • Fixed a bug that was causing the Round of Ale to be sold for 19 gold coins instead of 14.
  • Fixed textual misinformation on the title screen when hovering over the "Verb Coin" button. The text description has been updated to be more accurate.
  • Fixed a bug when playing with the Verb Coin interface where sometimes the tooltip text descriptions would disappear permanently.
  • Fixed a rectangular graphical glitch near the river's drain at evening/night, when the screen is tinted darker shades of blue.
  • Fixed a bug where manually entering the combination code for the Hallowed Hall could stop working.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the Sapphire Brooch (Marin's Tear) item to be collected from Strof's cupboard, even if you no longer had it in your possession when your items were stolen by the Redcaps.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the game to freeze (and the death GUI not to appear) if you reached 0 health during combat and had the Twin Sapphire gem equipped in your Conductor, which regenerates Health Points back up to 25%.
  • Fixed a freeze that occurred in Sir Hamfed's manor when attempting to access the inventory GUI while using the Verb Coin and viewing the cabinet close-up.
  • Fixed a fatal crash when talking to Fend in the showdown when playing with the voices disabled.
  • Fixed an issue with the Verb Coin and Compact interfaces where the master key could not be clicked on the back door while inside the Redcaps' Cooking Hut.
  • Fixed an issue with the Verb Coin and Compact interfaces where the Exsolve spell could not be clicked on the back door while inside the Redcaps' Cooking Hut.
  • Fixed an issue with the Verb Coin and Compact interfaces where the tingleberry powder could not be clicked on the guard's smoking pipe
  • Fixed a bug where venom damage would continue to be inflicted while combat was paused.
  • Fixed a bug where drinking the lake water from the pitcher did not revert its description to "Empty Water Pitcher".
  • Fixed a bug during the Air Mage side-quest where casting the Gust spell at the pile of sand without having the required 3 Mana points, would make the sand pile instantly disappear and cause the 1XP associated with this action to not be awarded.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the "Thanks, But No Thanks" achievement from being awarded if you rejected the offer straight away (I.e. didn't stand inside the Summoning Circle).
  • Fixed a points discrepancy when combining the block of wood with the metal pole. (1XP was not being awarded if the pole already had the wheel or wheel and feathers attached.)
  • Fixed a bug in the combat tutorial with Varner, where casting Stone Shield would be immediately followed by automatically casting Swallow (after which, the game would soft-lock and freeze).
  • Fixed a bug where Shareen could talk in the Fountain Hall at night, even though she wasn't present.
  • Fixed a bug when entering the crossroads screen from the right with the arrow keys, which made D'arc not appear in the new screen and caused the game to soft-lock.
  • Fixed an XP scoring discrepancy when burning the Applebliss fruit and then using a regular fruit (orange, lemon) to knock it down. XP was being awarded that shouldn't have been.
  • Fixed a bug where it was possible to switch the Ruffian's mug just after he had taken it from the window sill, resulting in an unwinnable game state.
  • Fixed a bug that made it possible to assign stat points during the cutscene where D'arc helps Falc up the mountain, resulting in a soft-lock game freeze.
  • Fixed (attempted) a bug where killing enemies at the exact moment they regain some Health Points (eg. the Water Wraith healing other Wraiths in the cave battle) would put them into a semi-alive/dead state and make them unable to be killed.
  • Fixed a bug when showing the bandage to Pyraze, which resulted in him saying the same line twice.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing the mouse cursor to remain invisible after combat ended if you were playing with the keyboard controls only.
  • Fixed a bug that sometimes resulted in enemies instantly dying and then reviving again as soon as combat started.
  • Fixed a bug in Varner's tutorial, where D'arc's sparring opponent could turn into a redcap goblin when casting Lightning Chain on him instead of Confuse. Also fixed a subsequent soft-lock freeze that occurred if you continued to (correctly) cast Lightning Chain after that.
  • Fixed an oversight where it was possible to mouse-over the Big Bad and prematurely reveal their identity while outside the Mansion gates.
  • Fixed a potential freeze when casting the Float spell to ascend/descend to/from the window ledge in the Mansion's Rear Courtyard screen.
  • Fixed a glitch in the final battle where casting the Hail spell could sometimes make it appear downstairs, rather than where the targeting cursor is on the upper balcony.
  • Fixed (attempted) a potential start-up crash when reading the options.dat file (Error message was saying that files were being read in the wrong order).
  • Fixed (attempted) a potential crash when dying in combat (Error message said a blocking function was called from within a non-blocking-event such as repeatedly_execute_always).
  • Changed the Wastelands Map hot-key to CTRL+W (from CTRL+M) to prevent the map GUI from appearing after saving or restoring the game using the Enter key, or press Enter during combat (Ascii key conflict).
  • Changed it so you cannot leave Brashem's camp when asked to search for proof, until after you have discovered said proof. This prevents a freeze later in the game.
  • Added an option to the Combat Difficulty slider that allows disabling combat encounters (except for boss battles), by moving the slider all the way to the left. Merchants will give away crucial items/services for free in this mode if the player doesn't have enough gold. so that money doesn't need to be sought. But any XP normally associated with paying for those items/services won't be awarded.
  • Added a tip when starting a new game that the Escape key can be used to skip walking/running.
  • Added the missing 1 XP Point when taking the feather from the Observation Hall (Air Mage).
  • Added food item interactions (dead fish, Casipoisse flesh, and meat) for the insects/bugs in the Redcap camp backyard.
  • Added some missing backer names to the Book of Backers in the Reading Hall.
  • Added some missing credits to the PDF Manual and adjusted the Verb Coin instructions.
  • Added a pop-up message informing the player about the loot hotkey and using it to pick up out-of-sight loot items.
  • Removed the echo effect from one of D'arc's speech lines where it should not have been applied.
  • Balance: Mages Water is now free to drink directly from the Fountain Hall.
  • Balance: Reduced cost of a Flask of Mage's Water to 10 gold coins.
  • Balance: Reduced cost of Mana Potion to 5 gold coins.
  • Balance: Reduced cost of Health Potion to 4 gold coins.
  • Balance: Reduced the requirement to use Scrolls of Identify from 4 Base Intelligence to 3.
  • Balance: Added more Intelligence stat logic to Demon's Deal. Now, when D'arc has mid or high-range Intelligence, it becomes increasingly easier to win against Fend.
  • Various spelling and grammar fixes.
 

MRY

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They need to get into the Humble Bundle like right now, or even a Fanatical or Groupees bundle. The game hasn't broken 10 simultaneous players in a week, and only seven reviews have been posted in the pat 30 days. Right now, there are no future sales to cannibalize -- it's all about averting an obscurity spiral now.
 

mindx2

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Codex 2012 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire RPG Wokedex Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Long development cycle killed a lot of excitement and buzz. People were way more excited for this stuff 5-6 years ago. The goodwill wore out.
That and said developers not fulfilling KS promises be it Broken Age, games like UU or late/never delivering physical goods*. Too much bad blood for the Kickstarter magic of 2012 to ever repeat itself.

* Et tu Blackthorne? Don't think I've forgotten do you.....? :hmmm:
 

Blackthorne

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Hahah, yes, I don't think you've forgotten. Now that I'm pretty stable on dialysis and spring is around the corner, I plan to try and get back to mailing things again. Sigh. I really hate that this part is still on my head. If I was disappointed about anything with QFI, it's my shortcomings in the physical merch side.

They need to get into the Humble Bundle like right now, or even a Fanatical or Groupees bundle. The game hasn't broken 10 simultaneous players in a week, and only seven reviews have been posted in the pat 30 days. Right now, there are no future sales to cannibalize -- it's all about averting an obscurity spiral now.

Oof, really? That's just unfortunate for them. They really missed the window, though. People were excited about this stuff 5 years ago. Not as much now.
 

Darth Canoli

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Long development cycle killed a lot of excitement and buzz. People were way more excited for this stuff 5-6 years ago. The goodwill wore out.

Nothing to do with the delay, in my opinion.

I finally played the first part (out of three) of the initiation and stopped while exploring the wastelands.

Char system :
Whatever you do, you end up with a balanced build because gems with one requirement will give you the exact opposite bonus, was boring enough not to have warrior/rogue classic choice, now this ...

Choices :
None so far, just one to be fair
you can choose to kill the priestess or not

Riddles / challenge :
No challenge at all and i'm not even an adventure game "expert" (i played my share though), you figure out everything on the first try, everything is logical, which is good but even the puzzles offer no challenge, like the tiles in the castle, you just have to pick them and put them in the obvious right place.

Verdict :
The game isn't bad, it's just too easy and besides that, nothing picked my interest, the graphics are good enough but that's it.
If that's all they can do, they'd better retire rather than wearing out backers and players goodwill towards the genre.

Interesting fact, of course, rpgwatch loved it ...
 

V_K

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Choices :
None so far, just one to be fair Hide Spoiler you can choose to kill the priestess or not
It has next to zero consequences. If you spare her, she may talk to you in one scene in the final act and give you another meaningless choice. None of it affects the plot in any way.
Char system :
Whatever you do, you end up with a balanced build because gems with one requirement will give you the exact opposite bonus
I don't think gems make a lot of sense to be honest, brooches are a lot more powerful. But it's all completely meaningless because between the kiting and the basic attack being essentially free, the build doesn't affect your combat effectiveness much.

I need to finish that review sometime, but I'm stuck trying to make it not sound excessively negative. Because the game isn't aggressively bad, as you've said, but formulating its redeeming qualities is the only challenge it presents.
 

Darth Canoli

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Is Hero U better ?
The name alone cries :"i'm a pile of trash, don't buy me!"

I don't get why you don't like QFI, by the way, it's already 100 times better than MI, all maps are distinct from one another (unlike here) and i like the combat better (even if MI combat is "alright" ), of course, maybe it's about QFI tone and humor (which i like, fortunately)

Also, MI beginning is a bore, too much to read while you're not even hooked enough to want to read it.
The trouble is you're never really hooked but there's less reading afterward so there's that.

I was also disappointed by MI because it's not voiced but to be fair, i'm not sure it'd have been enough, with the risk of making it worse.
 

V_K

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I don't get why you don't like QFI, by the way
I can't say I don't like QfI; it's ok and has its high points, but it also has a fair share of flaws. Bad puzzles largely being one of them.
Also, MI beginning is a bore, too much to read while you're not even hooked enough to want to read it.
Funny thing is, this is one of the flaws of QfI as well.
Is Hero U better ?
Yes, I would say so. It has its annoyances (timed events that you can't expedite, grinding, daily time limit on exploration) but the exploration was fun at least, and it arguably gives you more freedom in how to progress. Like there's very little mandatory content, and you can ignore the adventuring areas completely and focus on the social game, or vice versa. Quite a few C&Cs too.
 

Darth Canoli

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I can't say I don't like QfI; it's ok and has its high points, but it also has a fair share of flaws. Bad puzzles largely being one of them.

I remember one or two tough ones but every decent adventure game has them and the reading didn't annoy me the slightest because i was hooked almost instantly.

Well, i'll probably try Hero U sometimes this year, with luck, there is already a mod replacing the MC's avatar.
 

V_K

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i was hooked almost instantly.
I was pretty bored until I got to the gem business. Which did get me hooked, but then the story went to shit again in the second act.
The slow start (and not my kind of humor) are the main reasons it took me so long to finally play it.
I remember one or two tough ones
Oh I'm not talking about tough, I'm talking, for example, about that one place where you have to use a combat spell in a non-combat situation without any motivation and with everything from UI to NPCs telling you otherwise. Or that one item you have to look at twice, once again with no indication whatsoever that such an action would make sense. It's not even monkey wrench level of obnoxious, it's worse - monkey wrench at least makes sense in retrospect. And outside a couple of these moon logic things, the rest of the puzzles are about as easy as MI.
 

MRY

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Pretty much done, I think. Last broke 10 simultaneous players in March. Four reviews since March 1. :/
 

Blackthorne

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Ugh. That makes me sad - there just isn't the excitement for these kind of games anymore. I don't want to beat the ole "Adventure Games are dead!" drum, but I definitely think that era of excitement passed again. A few years back people were interested - I think they honestly took too long with this one. Sometimes you just gotta hurry up, finish and release. I remember them talking about how much time it took to lip-sync this game and I wonder if that was time worth spent.
 

Darth Canoli

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I think you're wrong, except adventure games should go further on their cRPG side with good combat system, character dev and even parties instead of single characters, after all, being a RPG is the new fad for video games, even for those that obviously aren't.
 

MRY

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I dunno, Whispers of a Machine, Lamplight City, and Unavowed all did great. I think it’s just something with how these were marketed maybe.
 

Boleskine

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It seems like Himalaya spent quite a bit of time and effort on the combat system, but when you play the game the combat can mostly be avoided except for a few required battles. You get new spells throughout the game, yet in my playthrough I almost exclusively used the main projectile attack in every battle and ignored the rest of the spells or abilities.

It's a shame because the combat is intriguing and has good ideas, but the developers probably didn't have the resources to fully build what they envisioned as an "open-field battle system." Unless someone cares about max XP or a few extra achievements there's little reason to seek out random combat encounters. Easy to say this now but Himalaya might have been better off beefing up the adventure side of things and developing a smaller scale combat interface. Of course then the game would have been pitched differently and not as a QfG spiritual successor.
 

MRY

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I remember them talking about how much time it took to lip-sync this game and I wonder if that was time worth spent.
I know some reviewers praised the lip syncing, but it looked terrible to me because only the mouth moves, and none of the rest of the face. The result is considerably worse, in my opinion, than generic talking portraits that don't attempt to sync. But I might be abnormal.

I'm going to throw out the outrageous claim that combat in QFG clones is like mineral gathering in Star Control II clones: everyone wants to find a way to make it better than it was in 1990, but the more you complicate the system, the more tiresome it becomes.
 

V_K

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You get new spells throughout the game, yet in my playthrough I almost exclusively used the main projectile attack in every battle and ignored the rest of the spells or abilities.

It's a shame because the combat is intriguing and has good ideas, but the developers probably didn't have the resources to fully build what they envisioned as an "open-field battle system.
I think the problem is with the enemy design (and general pointlessness of random battles, as you say): most of them only do melee attacks, while all your spells are ranged. It makes it very easy to just kite them and cast the basic projectile, especially given that it's basically mana-free.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I dunno, Whispers of a Machine, Lamplight City, and Unavowed all did great. I think it’s just something with how these were marketed maybe.

I think it helps to be associated with the Wadjet Eye style and brand. Blackwell clone > QFG clone.
 

V_K

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I dunno, Whispers of a Machine, Lamplight City, and Unavowed all did great. I think it’s just something with how these were marketed maybe.

I think it helps to be associated with the Wadjet Eye style and brand. Blackwell clone > QFG clone.
Depends. Going by SteamDB numbers, QfI did about as good or better than most of the recent WE titles (except Unavowed). And Whispers' connection to WE is pretty tenuous, I only learned that Gilbert was involved from some reviews.
 

fantadomat

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I dunno, Whispers of a Machine, Lamplight City, and Unavowed all did great. I think it’s just something with how these were marketed maybe.

I think it helps to be associated with the Wadjet Eye style and brand. Blackwell clone > QFG clone.
It is more about the hype,the QFG games generate it in the beginning,when they are having a kickstarter and then dies out and nobody is buying them 5 years later. While Wadjet begins to hype that game a few weeks before release.
 

fantadomat

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It's a shame because the combat is intriguing and has good ideas

What's intriguing is how dumb do you have to be to add such a terrible RTwP shitty combat to your adventure game, better to go without combat at all and try to do something; anything; right ...
It was the only gameplay in the whole game,it was not that shit,just spam attack.
 

SerratedBiz

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QfG2 combat was already near perfect, if only rather uninspired for magical types. The changes they made for the unofficial remake were largely unnecessary but not altogether unwelcome.

Maybe next time they can shove lip-syncing in the abyss where it belongs and invest their time and money in something worthwhile.
 

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