Might and Magic Might & Magic X - Legacy

[Blaine]

I guess it's also about warped perceptions. I mean, if this had come out in 1998, perhaps I wouldn't be as pleased with it as I am, who knows.

Well, here's a sample map from The Dark Spire:

And one from the Etrian Odyssey series, which sees regular releases:

And one from the Shin Megami Tensei series (first-person blobber, not the schoolkid spinoffs), which also sees regular releases:

And one from Legend of Grimrock:

The first three, by the way, are for handheld consoles. But yeah, I guess MMX is "good for what it is." Cue the embellished linear corridors with treasure nooks off to the side.

 

[Infinitron]

Are you seriously comparing it to dedicated dungeon crawlers

 

[Broseph]

Might and Magic is its own thing, it's not Wizardry or Dungeon Master-inspired like those games. (Cue the "Which is better and why?" picture of the M&M tricycle and Wizardry motorcyle.)

 

[Blaine]

Are you seriously comparing it to dedicated dungeon crawlers

If by that you mean to imply that having an overworld is a mitigating factor, Etrian Odyssey IV also has an extensive and environmentally challenging multi-level overworld, with a much larger grid area than MMX's. It still managed to have complex, challenging dungeon design.

There's really no monocled explanation for simplistic dungeon design. "It's different," "but it's not dedicated," and so on don't really cut the mustard with me.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Are you seriously comparing it to dedicated dungeon crawlers

tell me more about dedicated dungeon crawlers

 

[Grunker]

stuff

You are proving my point. You are saying that my only alternatives are three hand-held console games (one of which I've actually played) and a side-stepping puzzle-game which has combat with all the depth and fun of a puddle of mud.

But this is besides the point, which is that I think that in terms of quality you, me, Broseph and Darth Roxor are very close to agreeing. What it seems we disagree on is what that means; i.e. does M&MX as a shallow, cramped but honest attempt constitute a success or failure?

other stuff

Seems you missed the part where Blaine was replying to my point about contemporary games.

 

[Darth Roxor]

other stuff

Seems you missed the part where Blaine was replying to my point about contemporary games.

Seems you missed the part where I was replying to Infinitron spreading misinformation

 

[Infinitron]

Are you seriously comparing it to dedicated dungeon crawlers

tell me more about dedicated dungeon crawlers

Two of those images are broken, the other two show areas that aren't particularly huge.

You sure do have it in for this game, don't you? I guess every new incline game needs a dedicated hater to keep us on our toes, though, eh?

 

[Blaine]

Grunker
The fact that Japanese Gameboy games have more complex dungeon design is exactly my point—there's no excuse for simplistic popamole crap. Proper dungeon design is being done right now, as we speak; it needn't be 1998 for me to be annoyed by a failure to deliver.

I wasn't the biggest fan of Grimrock's combat system, either. The game arguably got that wrong, but it got level design right. Even if MMX's combat mechanics are the best ever (they aren't), that still doesn't change the fact that its level design is babby-tier.

"It's okay that the level design is shit, I enjoy the combat." Do you even listen to yourself?

 

[Grunker]

You sure do have it in for this game, don't you? I guess every new incline game needs a dedicated hater to keep us on our toes, though, eh?

Eh, Darth Roxor can hate this game as much as he'd like. What I don't get is the lack of consistency. SRR failed in the same areas that M&MX fails but to a larger extend, yet Roxor defended that very adamantly.

Grunker
The fact that Japanese Gameboy games have more complex dungeon design is exactly my point—there's no excuse for simplistic popamole crap. Proper dungeon design is being done right now, as we speak; it needn't be 1998 for me to be annoyed by a failure to deliver.

Your claim is that the production conditions for a japanese handheld dungeon crawler which literally spends every single resource it has on dungeon and enemy complexity is completely comparable to M&MX. It's absurd.

"It's okay that the level design is shit, I enjoy the combat." Do you even listen to yourself?

Well...

I wasn't the biggest fan of Grimrock's combat system, either. The game arguably got that wrong, but it got level design right.

"It's okay that the combat is shit, I enjoy the level design." Do you even listen to yourself?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Two of those images are broken

dunno which are broken so i uploaded all of them

the other two show areas that aren't particularly huge.

If you call the first and third ones "not particularly huge", you have never played through any Might and Magic game and should remove yourself from this discussion.

I guess every new incline game needs a dedicated hater

SRR failed in the same areas that M&MX fails but to a larger extend, yes Roxor defended that very adamantly.

One of the reasons is that SRR is not called Might and Magic and doesn't have a big fat X at the end of its title.

Also, I like your claims of "adamant defence" considering that my impressions of SRR essentially boiled to "good for what it is".

 

[Eyeball]

Puzzles get better later in the game. Have fun solving the Air Elemental puzzle, I couldn't be bothered to Work that shit out myself.

 

[Daemongar]

Finally got around to starting MMX after pre-ordering it and whatnot. Really like it so far, made it down to the spider lair, found some random stuff, created my own random party and am going to get sucked in any day now. However, I do have a queston:

I saw a demo of MMX last August and got a free t-shirt, and a floppy disk with a code imprinted on it for some in game helm or something. Is this code unique for each install, or is it a pretty common code? I don't know if I should activate this baby or hold onto it. I require no special items or assistance to defeat this.

 

[Blaine]

"It's okay that the combat is shit, I enjoy the level design." Do you even listen to yourself?

I do listen to myself, closely enough to know that I'm not actually defending the combat in Grimrock—not before, and not in the quote you're responding to, either. Guess that's not gonna stop you from trying to turn it around on me anyway.

You sure do have it in for this game, don't you? I guess every new incline game needs a dedicated hater to keep us on our toes, though, eh?

I dunno about him, but defending a game's failures simply because you enjoyed it is just silly.

Frankly, the decline of level design into simplistic corridors with treasure nooks and a quick exit at the end is a HUGE issue with Western cRPGs right now. Being so blaise about it—in a dungeon crawler, no less—and then wondering why other Codexians might take issue with it... well.

I wonder how long it'll be until the Codex transforms into a more extensive version of RPGnet's Video Games Open? There are already staff members defending obvious decline (not just in this thread either), probably just a matter of time.

Spoiler

So Infinitron, Grunker, how much did Ubisoft pay you guys for that Codex blurb on the MMX Steam release video?

 

[Abelian]

This is rehash of the "good for what it is" and "simply because I enjoy it" argument, but I can understand why Limbic chose straightforward dungeon layouts. Ubisoft took a gamble in funding MMX, so I can't blame the devs for choosing to cater to a wider audience, especially with the knowledge that the game's sales would determine if any subsequent games in the series would be made in the near future. It's been so long since a western blobber was developed by a western mainstream studio, many gamers haven't had any previous experience in the genre.

You all saw how many people complained about the turn-based gameplay and use of the grid. Now think how many more of the remaining potential customers who were willing to give MMX the benefit of the doubt would have lost interest because exploration is teh hard. It's like recommending music to a fried: I generally don't want to start with the most inscrutable albums for a band/genre, but rather ease them in with more accessible music.

Compare MMX levels design to MM1's, which had hidden doors in regular walls (some of them one-way), areas of complete darkness, no-magic areas, areas of complete darkness where magic didn't work, invisible holes in the ground that would cause the party to fall in the level below, all in 1986. You also didn't have automap and had to draw each dungeon by hand. But this was all in an era where blobbers still thrived.

 

[Infinitron]

You sure do have it in for this game, don't you? I guess every new incline game needs a dedicated hater to keep us on our toes, though, eh?

I dunno about him, but defending a game's failures simply because you enjoyed it is just silly.

Frankly, the decline of level design into simplistic corridors with treasure nooks and a quick exit at the end is a HUGE issue with Western cRPGs right now. Being so blaise about it—in a dungeon crawler, no less—and then wondering why other Codexians might take issue with it... well.

I'm not defending anything. I simply suspect that you are exaggerating the "tunnel-like" nature of MMX's dungeons. I'll see it for myself when I finally play the game, hopefully soon.

 

[Blaine]

...but I'll see that for myself when I finally play the game.

Ah, that explains a lot.

Let me put it this way: I haven't come across a dungeon yet in MMX that would take more than a short afternoon to design on half a sheet of graph paper, and you'd pretty much have to close your eyes to get lost in one of them.

 

[Infinitron]

Let me put it this way: I haven't come across a dungeon yet in MMX that would take more than a short afternoon to design on half a sheet of graph paper, and you'd pretty much have to close your eyes to get lost in one of them.

*shrug* Understandable, even if true.

Remember this?

A little status update: https://mightandmagicx-legacy.ubi.com/opendev/blog/post/view/after-the-patch-is-before-the-patch

Stephan, at what stage is the development of MMX right now?
We just released the first official patch. The good news is that with this deployment we finally did one full production cycle: "Develop -> Release Early Access -> Unofficial Patch -> Official Patch". The bad news is that it was more work and tension than expected.

We applied the full delivery process including a lot of approvals from different Ubisoft teams: quality assurance, compatibility testing, Uplay, installer, epilepsy tests, et cetera. As a result we had various warnings for the patch and it was more work than expected to fix the issues (and waive some of the minor ones).

Anyways, the patch is out now, and from the development point of view it´s actually a good learning for future patches and the full release.

So how is work going, are we making progress?
The overall development is making progress, but we can feel the time pressure. Especially on the content creation side. Level designers built a lot of new levels and are really working hard to meet quality and time expectations. Even though we now have all of the main story levels (at least as raw levels) it´s challenging to put the pieces together. Basically, the last 20% to finalize a level (lighting, decoration, optimization, sound and ambient effects, connecting quests, NPCs, dialogues and another gazillion of annoying small tasks) take more than 20% of the overall time. At least that´s how it feels...

That sounds like a lot of work. How's the team doing?
Within the team we are currently doing some shifting on the staffing to meet all deadlines. We will add a sound designer to help with sound and ambient effects within the levels, we have added a new team member (Marta) to support our Team Lead Thomas and we are trying to come up with good ideas how to ease the work for the content creation team.

What´s next?
The next huge step will be the first version of the modding kit which will be released with the second official patch. Aside from the modding kit the patch will focus on community feedback, gameplay and balancing changes as well as additional game mechanics.

Looks like they stuffed the world with dungeons. Hope they haven't bitten off more than they can chew.

Maybe they did make more dungeons than they should have, but I can't blame them for freaking out over the retards who constantly whined and worried about the game being too short during pre-release.

 

[DataPack]

Puzzles get better later in the game. Have fun solving the Air Elemental puzzle, I couldn't be bothered to Work that shit out myself.

It's not that hard, took me a while to figure it out but it's pretty simple once you understand how the thing works.

 

[Eyeball]

Couldn't be arsed - it's definitely way harder than the earlier puzzles, so the puzzles DO get more challenging later in the game.

 

[Grunker]

"It's okay that the combat is shit, I enjoy the level design." Do you even listen to yourself?

I do listen to myself, closely enough to know that I'm not actually defending the combat in Grimrock

I'm not defending the level design in M&MX either. You're inventing my position. Also known as a strawman.

Guess that's not gonna stop you from trying to turn it around on me anyway.

THE IRONY

 

[Gozma]

Puzzles get better later in the game. Have fun solving the Air Elemental puzzle, I couldn't be bothered to Work that shit out myself.

That one looks like and should be (in a math sense) way more of a nightmare than it actually is because if you brute force the first couple of steps the whole rest of it is setup to fall into place automatically.

Spoiler

I thought the best puzzle in the game was the mysterious cave where you have to push pressure plates that draw intersecting lines to make wall sections drop. That was a clever thing with no hand-holding that is obvious once you get it, like the best riddles are.

Some of the riddles/puzzles were kinda bad to the point that it made me wonder if the good ones were bugged or stupid, though. Like the "floor trap" puzzles where you just have to either have and cast the trap finding spell that makes the rooms pointless or brute force with save/reload - when you run into an actual good puzzle after that you're like, "Do I really have enough faith in the development to think about this riddle for twenty minutes?"

 

[Blaine]

I'm not defending the level design in M&MX either. You're inventing my position. Also known as a strawman.

COMMENCE THE RECURSIVE STRAWMAN RECRIMINATION LOOP!

Look, we both clearly agree the level design in MMX isn't great. The conflict between us isn't that we disagree, but rather that I'm not willing to adopt an "it's good for what it is, what else did you expect" attitude towards that fact.

Regarding the "Dungeon Master Two-Step" seen in Grimrock, I don't like it, either... but some Codexians do like it, and it's a fairly old implementation. Your opinion of it is largely subjective. Simplistic level design on the other hand can be judged as such objectively, and also, no one prefers it unless they're casual/popamole.

 

[Grunker]

Look, we both clearly agree the level design in MMX isn't great. The conflict between us isn't that we disagree, but rather that I'm not willing to adopt an "it's good for what it is, what else did you expect" attitude towards that fact.

So pretty much...

which is that I think that in terms of quality you, me, Broseph and Darth Roxor are very close to agreeing. What it seems we disagree on is what that means; i.e. does M&MX as a shallow, cramped but honest attempt constitute a success or failure?

Regarding the "Dungeon Master Two-Step" seen in Grimrock, I don't like it, either... but some Codexians do like it, and it's a fairly old implementation. Your opinion of it is largely subjective.

"My opinion on M&MX is NUANCED FACT while your opinion on Grimrock is SUBJECTIVE BIAS"

Simplistic level design on the other hand can be judged as such objectively

"Simplistic combat is subjective, simplistic level design is not"

OK man, whatever. Not going to bother with that kindda bullshit.

Go take a look at the Grimrock 2 thread where even the people who liked Grimrock express disdain about it's combat. Grimrock's combat is shallow, gimmicky and bad no matter how you slice it, just like you can't deny that M&MX's dungeons are simplistic. What is it about me that awakens the bullshit, weak debater in you.

 

[Blaine]

"Simplistic combat is subjective, simplistic level design is not"

OK man, whatever. Not going to bother with that kindda bullshit.

I'm talking about the fucking two-step, man, not the system of rules used. It's written right there in the post you're responding to. It's YOU who've caused this conflation of the two-step with underlying game mechanics, not me. If you're referring only to simplicity of character builds/progression/combat mechanics, then stick to that if you expect to be understood properly.

If you're arguing that the two-step alone (or even primarily) renders the combat simplistic (?), then you're quite simply wrong.

What is it about me that awakens the bullshit, weak debater in you.

Well, you start rampaging around threads like a wounded rhinoceros whenever you feel you've been slighted.