Might and Magic Might & Magic X - Legacy

[Barbalos]

I thought the writing in X was decent. Most of the MM games had fairly bare-bones or kinda crazy stuff, I felt Legacy did a bit more than that.

Spoiler

Like the "insane" Montbard you are sent after, if you read his journal it foreshadows some things about the story that you won't really have much idea about at that point. But those things are extremely relevant later. The journal also reveals the answer to a sidequest you can do later. Also the twist near the end was neat, I didn't expect it at the time but maybe I was dumb and rushing a bit by then.

There are also the Fallout NV style slides at the end that show the outcome of various things you did. I messed up letting all three of the brothers you're given the quest to kill go. That was a neat touch, too.

 

[cvv]

I thought the writing in X was decent. Most of the MM games had fairly bare-bones or kinda crazy stuff, I felt Legacy did a bit more than that.

This. There's a lot of nostalgia about the old MMs. Their writing was by and large pure silliness and whacky fun. Legacy is no James Joyce to be sure but the writing feels more solid and consistent than anything in the prequels.

As for the setting, it's humbler and more grounded than the crazy epic cosmic fantasy tall tales in previous MMs so it feels like a diminishment. I certainly prefer more epicness too, the moar the better in fact, but X is a MUCH smaller game so humbler setting feels more appropriate.

 

[Lacrymas]

Sure, but the wacky and zany, and over the top situations of the previous entries were entertaining, X not so much.

 

[LESS T_T]

Another look at Julien Pirou's unsuccessful pitch for Might & Magic XI: Odyssey:

What's all these retrospective? Well he has left Ubisoft as of July.

 

[Haplo]

So he wanted to bring decline to the series again?
Perhaps it's good he didn't succeed. Free movement in games such as this is a terrible idea, as M&M VI trough IX and Wizardry 8 proved.

Though more/more diverse content would be nice. The races/classes look nice also.

 

[LESS T_T]

I wonder if he's going to join Tactical Adventures, the French developer that is making a 5e OGL CRPG. Their gameplay director Xavier Penin was his co-worker at M&M team.

 

[Lacrymas]

When I saw a notification from this thread from LESS T_T I thought there'd be news about a sequel. How fast are hopes crushed.

 

[Zeriel]

I'm still baffled that they considered the sales "bad" when they put so little behind it. It was pretty clear Ubisoft was setting it up to fail, maybe it's one of those things where the executives set it up to fail so Julien would stop bothering them, and he didn't understand the tacit deal at play.

I still feel like Ubisoft mismanaged this brand really badly, though. If you want to make budget games, don't have AAA expectations for sales. And if you want AAA expectations for sales, don't have shovelware mobile developers make them. They wanted to eat a cake made out of canned air, and expect it to fill their stomachs.

 

[cvv]

I'm still baffled that they considered the sales "bad" when they put so little behind it. It was pretty clear Ubisoft was setting it up to fail, maybe it's one of those things where the executives set it up to fail so Julien would stop bothering them, and he didn't understand the tacit deal at play.

Not buying any of this, at all. This game flopped because every single blobber apart from LoG 1 flopped. LoG1 was a gigantic hit, a blast from the past selling, what, two million copies by now? Everyone thought it'd be a new trend, a bunch of studios did the MeeToo thing and launched their own blobbers. That's why I suspect Ubi greenlighted MMX. Alas, it turned out LoG1 didn't spark a trend, it was a nostalgia fuelled one-off. Everybody knows that now, except inXile who apparently misplaced the memo and poured money into BT4 hoping in a big hit.

The sequel sales were ok but nowhere near a hit and everything else went completely down the drain. PLUS MMX unlike LoG1 was TB which is niche within niche. And doubleplus it looked worse than LoG and the engine was a disaster. That's why the game flopped.

 

[Elwro]

LoG1 reminded people why they used to love blobbers... and, after a few hours, why they stopped loving them

 

[Lacrymas]

To be fair, all of these nostalgia-laden offerings didn't manage to retain fans for their sequels, so I don't think only blobbers were hit by this. The problem is that developers/publishers have too high expectations for what are ostensibly niche genres. Make a game that is expected to sell 100k-200k copies and allocate the budget and staff appropriately. Done deal, you have your niche audience and you keep the developers and fans busy and happy.

But yeah, Ubisoft obviously terribly mismanaged this IP, not only the blobber, but the Heroes games as well. Pity.

 

[Zeriel]

I'm still baffled that they considered the sales "bad" when they put so little behind it. It was pretty clear Ubisoft was setting it up to fail, maybe it's one of those things where the executives set it up to fail so Julien would stop bothering them, and he didn't understand the tacit deal at play.

Not buying any of this, at all. This game flopped because every single blobber apart from LoG 1 flopped. LoG1 was a gigantic hit, a blast from the past selling, what, two million copies by now? Everyone thought it'd be a new trend, a bunch of studios did the MeeToo thing and launched their own blobbers. That's why I suspect Ubi greenlighted MMX. Alas, it turned out LoG1 didn't spark a trend, it was a nostalgia fuelled one-off. Everybody knows that now, except inXile who apparently misplaced the memo and poured money into BT4 hoping in a big hit.

The sequel sales were ok but nowhere near a hit and everything else went completely down the drain. PLUS MMX unlike LoG1 was TB which is niche within niche. And doubleplus it looked worse than LoG and the engine was a disaster. That's why the game flopped.

Right, my point is they had no reason to expect it to sale more than it did, if anything I think it sold really well for the niche it is in.

Considering how budget the whole thing was with most assets that didn't come from previous games (i.e, free, they already had them) being from unity store I don't consider it a flop at all, if a few phone devs could churn out a game that sells 150K copies on the regular using mostly free assets that's actually amazing.

You wanna see a flop, that's Heroes 7, a game with tons of expensive new 3D models using Unreal and even roping in Romero for new music that didn't even hit half the sales of far-nicher MMXL.

 

[Reinhardt]

So he wanted to bring decline to the series again?
Perhaps it's good he didn't succeed. Free movement in games such as this is a terrible idea, as M&M VI trough IX and Wizardry 8 proved.

Though more/more diverse content would be nice. The races/classes look nice also.

Nigga, he said 3! starting characters. Who cares about races classes and movement. It's shit. Right here.
Why not just make it 1 character and remove party at this point. We all want Crusaders of Might and Magic 2, right?

 

[ManaJunkie]

LoG1 reminded people why they love blobbers... and, after a few hours, why a neanderthal was the only hope. Fortunately he FUCKING DELIVERED!

Fixed that...

 

[cvv]

But yeah, Ubisoft obviously terribly mismanaged this IP, not only the blobber, but the Heroes games as well. Pity.

First I brofisted but then I thought about it and I'm not so sure. I played both Homam VI and VII and was shocked about the gap between the reputation and quality. I found both games to be very playable, sometimes even fun. Solid 7/10 material. Then I read the criticism and half of it is "I haet uPlay" and "it's different than Homam 3". The other half is about bugginess which was sadly valid at launch. But apart from that no, I wouldn't say Ubisoft outright mismanaged Homam. Could VI and VII have been better? Absolutely. But it wasn't a disaster either. It could've easily gone the way of Dungeon Keeper or C&C.

As for MM, I'm more willing to subscribe to the mismanagement claim. Ubi bought the IP at the outset of the open-world RPG boom. They were watching Bethesda, CDPR and others becoming huge while sitting on one of the most beloved and valuable RPG IPs in gaming. They watched by as Morrowind became big, Oblivion huge and Skyrim and TW3 monstrous and all they did with MM was to commission an ultra old-school grid movement blobber. And what's worse, they were turning literally everything into an open-world except MM so they didn't even have the "no experience with open-world" excuse. Then again I do love MMX, it's definitely in my Top 10. Already done 3 playthroughs and I will do more. But Ubi definitely deserve some dunking for never giving MM a chance to show it's true strength.

 

[Lacrymas]

Mismanagement doesn't only imply the quality of the games themselves, I liked X a lot, even though it's set in this banalshitboring setting. I wouldn't say 6 and 7 were 7/10, at best 5/10, as in they are playable, but most likely not worth your time. They stuck too close to the formula and only managed to bring along all the flaws + 6's "buy all the troops from one city" thing, which even exacerbated the snowball effect. But yeah, X didn't sold "enough" copies (which I blame Ubisoft's expectations) and 6 and 7 were criticized to hell and back, so this series doesn't really have as much profit potential as it could have, which I count as mismanagement.

 

[samuraigaiden]

The audience with brand loyalty for Ubisoft is comprised of Far Cry and Assassin's Creed fans with ZERO interest in games like MMXL and HoMMVII.

 

[undecaf]

Another look at Julien Pirou's unsuccessful pitch for Might & Magic XI: Odyssey:

Too bad. That sounds just like the sort of lighthearted grindy fun as M&M:XL was.

I would've played it.

 

[Andhaira]

MMX was awesome. Only issue was the early unity engine, it raped my graphics card (card kept running at full heat) Patches did make some issues go away though and the game was terrific, combat was a lot of fun.

Still hope for a sequel.

 

[Covenant]

The audience with brand loyalty for Ubisoft is comprised of Far Cry and Assassin's Creed fans with ZERO interest in games like MMXL and HoMMVII.

Why would the audience still have loyalty for Might and Magic, though? The devs completely blew up the setting. Why would I be invested after they've shown that's what they're going to do with it when they get bored? And didn't that happen before Ubisoft even got hold of it?

HoMMIV wasn't terrible, but my interest in the franchise pretty much ended once the whole 'Ashan' shit began. It was bland and had none of the charm of the original setting/settings.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Reinhardt]

Bring back humans.

 

[Shadenuat]

So he wanted to bring decline to the series again?
Perhaps it's good he didn't succeed. Free movement in games such as this is a terrible idea, as M&M VI trough IX and Wizardry 8 proved.

I'm sorry what Wizardry 8 with tacticool aoe aiming and 3d levels, elevators and ropes, or Might and Magics with waterwalking, lavawalking and flight proved??

U were high when writing this or something? Too much sword saint playing does this to you?

Well great! Now I will never get Wizardry 9!

Fuck everything!!

 

[Reinhardt]

Well great! Now I will never get Wizardry 9!

At least you will get BG3!

 

[anvi]

Seeing that got me excited and now I'm /wrist

I'm still baffled that they considered the sales "bad" when they put so little behind it.

This is maybe the most annoying aspect of modern gaming. Game idea hasn't been tried before? No proof it would be popular so it doesn't get made. Game gets given a chance, but a budget of $5, doesn't sell well, proof that nobody is interested. It is catch 22. If you keep making gimpy low budget half baked games, then of course they wont sell well. Without a lot of effort and decent budget, and more for marketing, then a game wont sell well. And nobody wants to spend money on a game that hasn't already sold well. So we end up with no game at all. GG industry.