Master of Magic remake from Thea developers and Slitherine

[zapotec]

The 40 euro price is a classic Slimerine touch

 

[Axioms]

The 40 euro price is a classic Slimerine touch

I'm actually typically fine with Slitherine pricing, but for a barely changed remake where all the hard work was done in the original as far as design or balance? Not acceptable. It is basically an asset swap with some minor engine changes. Plus didn't they use Unity for it like they did for Thea?

 

[Cael]

The 40 euro price is a classic Slimerine touch

I'm actually typically fine with Slitherine pricing, but for a barely changed remake where all the hard work was done in the original as far as design or balance? Not acceptable. It is basically an asset swap with some minor engine changes. Plus didn't they use Unity for it like they did for Thea?

They changed the balance, if the screenshots are right. The Hydra looks to be absolute SHIT now (15 melee + 10x3 elemental, 45hp) compared to what it was before (6x9 melee + 5x9 fire, 10x9 hp).

 

[Raghar]

Well, that's consequences of not hiring me as consultant for the whole stuff. I'm probably the only living expert who can make decent MoM 2, or at least help create interesting remake.

BTW it depends on combat mechanics. If they are using 15- armor, then 15- 4 armor = 11, while 6-4 *n = 18. It's not that large difference. They are using three headed hydra, while original was using murderous KICKASS hydra that could ravage nearly everything not flying.

Halving HP was questionable decision however.

 

[Average Manatee]

The auto resolve is also extremely weird. I've lost half my army of Ultra Elite flyer units against a single enemy veteran spearman. Not joking, not bullshitting, not hyperboling. There's an option to toggle on if the AI is allowed to cast spells or not during auto resolve, and I've seen situations where the projected outcome for me is worse with magic casting on. Just.. how?

Autoresolve in most games is often terrible. I mean, you'd think with all the machine learning we have now, it would be possible to simply put an AI into the game that would actually learn how to autoresolve battles through the process of learning. I'd make it so the autoresolve will use its current knowledge to predict the result of the battle, and give you the outcome: You can either accept the outcome, or fight the battle yourself, at which point the battle you fought becomes part of the training set and is used to train the autoresolve to more accurately predict the outcomes, until eventually you consider the autoresolve a sufficiently accurate prediction of what will happen.

That'd be basically impossible, players only do a few 10s or low 100s of fights per game. Training AI needs like 10,000s at least.

I do wish there was some kind of adaptive autoresolve in strategy games though. Something like "winning with x units and getting more than expected kills with low damage taken buffs their autoresolve stats vs. these units". Like it gets annoying in total war warhammer where my ranged army annihilates the enemy with 0 losses in a battle if I play but if the AI plays it loses 1/3rd of the army. It'd be harder to do in a game like Master of Magic though due to the prevalence of unusual things that hard counter certain units (e.g. casting flying or something that otherwise makes you immune to certain enemy attacks).

 

[InspectorRumpole]

Sounds like a lot of the issues can be fixed over time, no?

Or am I just huffing that high grade copium.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

It's almost 2023 and it's a slitherine game so... I guess that's a rhetorical question? The only thing they're interested in past release is milking low-effort dlc. Look at Panzer Corps 2 and how many issues were fixed for that game versus number of horrible cashgrab dlc. And that's as close to their "flagship title" as you can get.

 

[Lacrymas]

It's almost 2023 and it's a slitherine game so... I guess that's a rhetorical question? The only thing they're interested in past release is milking low-effort dlc.

Which is pretty weird since they've also published some of my favorite contemporary games, be it Gladius or Fantasy General 2, none of which has overtly low-effort DLC. I guess you could count the unit packs for Gladius, but they are reasonably priced when on discount imo. It was obvious even from pre-beta screenshots that the MoM remake is going to be mediocre at best and sacrilege at worst, though.

 

[Raghar]

Sounds like a lot of the issues can be fixed over time, no?

Or am I just huffing that high grade copium.

Typical methodology for game developers is to create game, and within half year start making new one. So, either it's done when they release it, or well...

 

[InspectorRumpole]

Sounds like a lot of the issues can be fixed over time, no?

Or am I just huffing that high grade copium.

Typical methodology for game developers is to create game, and within half year start making new one. So, either it's done when they release it, or well...

Not everybody.
Total War:Warhammer 3 is still in early access.
I'm not switching from WH2 until WH3 is polished.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

now positive on steam

 

[Axioms]

now positive on steam

Exactly 70% and with a whopping 261 reviews. This game is a total financial failure. Has something like 10000 users probably. Max concurrent ever barely over 1000.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

These numbers are completely standard for a slitherine release. Probably above their average, in fact.

 

[Axioms]

These numbers are completely standard for a slitherine release. Probably above their average, in fact.

FoG is at 88% with a slightly higher review count.

Also how do you pay bills like that? That's 800k gross at the high end, minus 250k for the Steam cut, leaving you at 550k for both dev teams plus the publisher. Granted the teams are lowly paid eurotrash probs, and they didn't have to do a lot of work since it was a remaster type thing, but still.

 

[Naraya]

These numbers are completely standard for a slitherine release. Probably above their average, in fact.

FoG is at 88% with a slightly higher review count.

Also how do you pay bills like that? That's 800k gross at the high end, minus 250k for the Steam cut, leaving you at 550k for both dev teams plus the publisher. Granted the teams are lowly paid eurotrash probs, and they didn't have to do a lot of work since it was a remaster type thing, but still.

Barely covers the cost of soy lattes.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

FoG is at 88% with a slightly higher review count.

Also how do you pay bills like that? That's 800k gross at the high end, minus 250k for the Steam cut, leaving you at 550k for both dev teams plus the publisher. Granted the teams are lowly paid eurotrash probs, and they didn't have to do a lot of work since it was a remaster type thing, but still.

I ain't talking about (positive) reviews, just active player base. Where both FoG games are good examples, since both seem far less "popular" than this.

I don't know how profitable it is for them, but they seem to be happy to churn these titles out, also seem completely uninterested in trying to push a bit forward and make an actual investment/effort. If they were completely unwilling to do it with a title like MoM, which I still think could easily do something like Amplitude numbers when given a bit of a budget and some talent, then I guess it's never happening.

 

[e-mailio estevez]

Tauron's 'redesign' was enough to resign myself to never ever buying this piece of trash

 

[oasis789]

so I'm not inclined to hate on muha's efforts but watching some lets plays I'm finding it difficult to identify reasons why I wouldn't just load up the original on dosbox. What am I missing?

 

[Fedora Master]

Nothing. This was neither wanted nor needed.

 

[Lacrymas]

It's the same game with worse aesthetics, that's it. The things they did change are of dubious quality. I'm not sure I'd ever play it even if they gave me a copy.

 

[flyingjohn]

Also how do you pay bills like that?

By not living in California?
That is more then enough for some European devs especially barely aa devs like muha.

 

[Axioms]

Also how do you pay bills like that?

By not living in California?
That is more then enough for some European devs especially barely aa devs like muha.

I mean 550k for their team size is like a barely middle class salary job here in Misery, much less California. Eastern Europeans are just built different I guess.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Also how do you pay bills like that?

By not living in California?
That is more then enough for some European devs especially barely aa devs like muha.

I mean 550k for their team size is like a barely middle class salary job here in Misery, much less California. Eastern Europeans are just built different I guess.

MuHa are just contractors thus they were already paid for the game's development. It's Slitherine who has to deal with the poor sales figures. If they fail to break even (not just with the development costs but also what they paid for the IP in the first place) then it just means that they won't extend the contract with MuHa which means no more updates and fixes for this wholly broken product.

 

[SunKing]

Sounds like shovelware to me. Ticks enough boxes to get on the shelves and that's about it.

It looks like this game is dead on arrival. I see nobody talking about it anywhere and the youtube shills they hire seemed to have gotten bored of it already.

 

[Fedora Master]

Good.