Might and Magic Might & Magic X Pre-Release Thread

[Jaesun]

Yeah. I'm still looking forward to this fan made game. It looks really good.

 

[Roguey]

You remember Lord Might's riddle in MM3? Or any of the castle riddles? There was actually quite a bit of text in most places. It just didn't feel like it because you can read through an entire paragraph far more quickly than you can listen to it. And those games had proper budgets for their time. Considering how short and crappy the dialogue in a AAA title like FO3 is, I would imagine MMX's budget would turn most spoken dialogue's into 80's jrpg scripts.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at, but Fallout 3's word count was significantly higher than Fallout's and definitely more than any Might and Magic game.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I rather doubt that is the case, but even if it was, the quality was shit. VA's causes huge problems with the development process because you can't edit voiced lines once they've been recorded, and shit gets changed over the course of long development cycles that warrants editing the fucking script. When you VA EVERYTHING you need to start early and it fucks shit up bad.



The fucker talks like a retarded animal and STILL doesn't even take up a third of the video. He's got like 1/3 the dialogue and it's of vastly inferior quality. The whole fucking game is like that. So is Oblivion, and Skyrim. Morrowind, OTOH, had a fucking library. And you can rarely walk 10 steps in MM3-5 without stumbling into a paragraph of text. Fucking shrines and graves and statues and cauldrons and levers and piles of bones everywhere with sizable descriptions. I want that shit back.

 

[theSavant]

Frankly, I'm more excited for the Xeen-inspired fangame that's been in the works for a while. I just checked it out again and he's still working on it, with updates as recently as a few days ago. He's supposedy going to release a 2 hour demo if he gets enough facebook likes.

Hopefully this doesn't go the way of Grimoire because he's been working on it forever, repeatedly changed engines (it began as a FRUA module...) and is working on another MM-inspired JRPG type game. And you can even see the differences between the trailer and the pic: now you only have 5 NCPS rather than 6 as it was a few months ago.

But fuck, I want this one

There is also another fan made game called "Might & Magic Tribute"... they once brought a small demo, but that was it. It's still active though for about 10 years, but people hardly work on it. People also don't write in their forums anymore and it will eventually die sooner or later.
The updates were always like that: "oh real life comes in the way, next update will be in a month". After that month: "oh I am going on holiday for 3 weeks, but afterwards I continue my work - stay tuned". And after the next month finally: "oh, folks, we had not much time to continue work on it, but next month..."

Seriously, they are not only kidding the fans, but also themselves. You can wait forever for these fan made RPGs. How long took it "Black Mesa" to release a remake of Half-Life? More than 10 years? Yeah... and they had a TEMPLATE to look at, and they don't even had to implement some kind of balancing or RPG system - but it still took so long.

Now imagine that for M&M games... Remakes or fan based games at this scale are full time jobs for whole teams and not for individuals who are just in the mood of "YES, WE CAN". Reality will sooner or later break in. If you really want to wait, then by the year 2020 you might have a M&M remake of the old days, whereas Ubisoft has released their 3rd instance of the new M&M line... and chances are by zero, that a fan made game, developed in a cellar, will be better than the game an official studio works on.

 

[Sceptic]

MMT was shaping up to be awesome, but I gave up on it years ago. They also implemented an utterly idiotic registration system at some point that blocked a whole bunch of IP ranges (inlucing mine for some reason) from registering, so you had to "email the forum administrator"... on an email that no longer existed. Then I'd look at the forum activity: one new post this week, bemoaning the lack of new members. Roofles.

I don't think they've done any real work on it in the past 5 or 6 years. Shame. I remember reading the game backstory they posted at one point, and it showed such a good understanding of the M&M background lore it was fap-worthy.

 

[Luzur]

You remember Lord Might's riddle in MM3? Or any of the castle riddles? There was actually quite a bit of text in most places. It just didn't feel like it because you can read through an entire paragraph far more quickly than you can listen to it. And those games had proper budgets for their time. Considering how short and crappy the dialogue in a AAA title like FO3 is, I would imagine MMX's budget would turn most spoken dialogue's into 80's jrpg scripts.
I don't really want stuff like this to be taken out or replaced by a narrator grunting 3 words in a monotone voice:

Ah, i kinda do, "Two Primes Less Then Crystals in My Room", right? and then you had to add and subtract fromt he other lords clues and shit.

God i hate number puzzles.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Hvn't y hrd f th vwllss knghts? Bgn!

'd lv t hr nrrtr spk THT

 

[Luzur]

Frankly, I'm more excited for the Xeen-inspired fangame that's been in the works for a while. I just checked it out again and he's still working on it, with updates as recently as a few days ago. He's supposedy going to release a 2 hour demo if he gets enough facebook likes.

Hopefully this doesn't go the way of Grimoire because he's been working on it forever, repeatedly changed engines (it began as a FRUA module...) and is working on another MM-inspired JRPG type game. And you can even see the differences between the trailer and the pic: now you only have 5 NCPS rather than 6 as it was a few months ago.

But fuck, I want this one

There is also another fan made game called "Might & Magic Tribute"... they once brought a small demo, but that was it. It's still active though for about 10 years, but people hardly work on it. People also don't write in their forums anymore and it will eventually die sooner or later.
The updates were always like that: "oh real life comes in the way, next update will be in a month". After that month: "oh I am going on holiday for 3 weeks, but afterwards I continue my work - stay tuned". And after the next month finally: "oh, folks, we had not much time to continue work on it, but next month..."

Seriously, they are not only kidding the fans, but also themselves. You can wait forever for these fan made RPGs. How long took it "Black Mesa" to release a remake of Half-Life? More than 10 years? Yeah... and they had a TEMPLATE to look at, and they don't even had to implement some kind of balancing or RPG system - but it still took so long.

Now imagine that for M&M games... Remakes or fan based games at this scale are full time jobs for whole teams and not for individuals who are just in the mood of "YES, WE CAN". Reality will sooner or later break in. If you really want to wait, then by the year 2020 you might have a M&M remake of the old days, whereas Ubisoft has released their 3rd instance of the new M&M line... and chances are by zero, that a fan made game, developed in a cellar, will be better than the game an official studio works on.

i told Ribannah this some 3-4 years ago, but she still have that naive optimism..

MMT was shaping up to be awesome, but I gave up on it years ago. They also implemented an utterly idiotic registration system at some point that blocked a whole bunch of IP ranges (inlucing mine for some reason) from registering, so you had to "email the forum administrator"... on an email that no longer existed. Then I'd look at the forum activity: one new post this week, bemoaning the lack of new members. Roofles.

I don't think they've done any real work on it in the past 5 or 6 years. Shame. I remember reading the game backstory they posted at one point, and it showed such a good understanding of the M&M background lore it was fap-worthy.

actually they released another demo ....2 years ago i think, but it was more of a screen with clickable options then a working game.

but the project had more speed when Sir Felgar had the helm, too bad he just up and vanished after that first tech-demo.

 

[Luzur]

Hvn't y hrd f th vwllss knghts? Bgn!

'd lv t hr nrrtr spk THT

i kinda recognize that, but cant place it.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Vowelless Knights tower in Darkside You were presented a bunch of puzzles containing various sayings that only had consonants, and you had to type in a set of vowels that would complete them.

 

[Luzur]

Vowelless Knights tower in Darkside You were presented a bunch of puzzles containing various sayings that only had consonants, and you had to type in a set of vowels that would complete them.

i knew i had read those lines before.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I don't think you have.

"I'd love to hear a narrator speak THAT."

 

[Luzur]

I don't think you have.

"I'd love to hear a narrator speak THAT."

not that, the Bgn part, i can kinda read it even without vowels.

 

[Dorateen]

f wshs wr hrss bggrs wld rd

Heh. May there be puzzles like this in MMX.

 

[taxalot]

I am expecting glowing gems to be put in the right pedestal puzzles, because this is how it is these days.

 

[escom]

http://www.rpgamer.com/games/mightmagic/mm10/mm10int.html

Julien Pirou (Creative Designer & Writer): "Of course, we could have gone for a really modern, action FPS RPG akin to The Elder Scrolls or Fallout 3, but we really felt that was not the game Might & Magic fans wanted to play. Ubisoft also doesn't do many RPGs, so we didn't want to go over our heads either. Ultimately, we decided to go back to the core roots of the series (similar to Might & Magic IV and V); it [features] grid-based movement, turn based combat, and a full party of adventurers. "

"There are many things that I'm pleased with, but its mostly smart changes to the formula. We are roughly 70% World of Xeen, in gameplay terms, but have also included elements of Might & Magic VI and later games as well. The skill system is very similar to that of Might & Magic VI — novice, expert, master, and grandmaster tiers where you had to find trainer to get the next level. I really love that. It's a little different [in Might & Magic X Legacy], but the basics are the same."

 

[Crispy]

 

[Jaesun]

TS: What is the approach you took with this new entry in the long-running series?
JP: For this game, we had to really think about what kind of game we wanted to make. Of course, we could have gone for a really modern, action FPS RPG akin to The Elder Scrolls or Fallout 3, but we really felt that was not the game Might & Magic fans wanted to play. Ubisoft also doesn't do many RPGs, so we didn't want to go over our heads either. Ultimately, we decided to go back to the core roots of the series (similar to Might & Magic IV and V); it [features] grid-based movement, turn based combat, and a full party of adventurers. At the same time, we wanted to make it accessible in terms of user interface, notifications, and feedback to the player. If you play the older games (which were excellent at the time) with today's eyes, they can seem very confusing. That's just the way RPGs were back then. However, we really felt like this gameplay with today's standards of accessibility would still work. It was not made irrelevant by modern action RPGs, and I feel as though there is still a place for this kind of tactical, turn-based RPG.

there is a huge city (Karthal) that belongs to the Holy Empire, which is one of the main political powers of Ashan, but is out of the borders of the Empire and trying to gain its independence. There are many other powers attempting to influence or capture the city. The player, at first, is not really involved in these events, but as you grow in power and become in different factions your actions have a greater effect on the future of this city.

TS: What are your favourite elements of Might & Magic X?
JP: There are many things that I'm pleased with, but its mostly smart changes to the formula. We are roughly 70% World of Xeen, in gameplay terms, but have also included elements of Might & Magic VI and later games as well. The skill system is very similar to that of Might & Magic VI — novice, expert, master, and grandmaster tiers where you had to find trainer to get the next level. I really love that. It's a little different [in Might & Magic X Legacy], but the basics are the same. Another game that I really liked, which was released on the PlayStation 2 quite a while ago now, was Wizardry: Tale of the Sacred Land. It added the very neat idea where party actions could be used during combat. A character could cover his comrades and block attacks with his shield. It's something that I thought was very tactical and interesting, so we've implemented [the same concept] in Legacy's battles as well. Now, you don't only have magical abilities — you also have melee actions, like defending your party. I feel like it adds a bit more to the gameplay.

TS: Is there much DLC or post-campaign content planned for the future?
JP: Right now? No. It could definitely happen in the future, but we're currently focusing on delivering the best product possible. Something fans can appreciate and new players can get into.

hmmmmmm... Possibility of INCLINE now at 75%.

 

[Darth Roxor]

WHAT

IS

THIS

BIZARRO

 

[Krraloth]

M&M style and Tales of the Forsaken Land party actions???

*dies*

 

[Stabwound]

It sounds like this guy actually is familiar with and respects the M&M series, which is a good positive surprise.

 

[Jaesun]

My Gawd... Will UBISoft be the FIRST Publisher not to demand that the Development of one of its Older IP's be complete fucking RAPE????

 

[Gozma]

Eh, mentioning accessibility likely means quest compass, which is probably gonna be very damaging to M&M basics

And framing M&M as "tactical"... kind of writing checks they probably can't cash. Like, even the best M&M combat makes new XCOM look like brain surgery.

I guess I'm sufficiently over the shock of the fact that this is happening in a way that even MIGHT end up good to bitch and moan again

 

[Hobz]

He is a big fan of M&M indeed and a fan of pen & paper. He even runs (or has run) a small show about p&p on a cable channel dedicated to video games called Nolife. He worked on HoM&M VI though, he got recruited because of a mod he made on the 5th.

 

[Ogg]

This Julien Pirou, working as creative writer, is actually a real BRO. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he's got an account on the Codex. He's quite well known now in the French community for he's promotion of old school RPGs. He's the anchorman of two small TV programs on a cable channel, one about retrogaming and the other about PnP RPG. For instance, he's a fan of Shadowrun and pledged high enough on the recent KS to have his face appearing in the game :

He was brought into the writing team for the latest HoMM after the success of his fan made mods. Quite a good move by Ubisoft here. When I heard about the new M&M, I was almost certain he was part of the team and most certainly one of the driving force.

That being said, he's just working on the art and writing. I'm not sure he will have much to say about mechanics and gameplay.

Edit: got ninjaed