Interview RPG Codex Interview: Might & Magic X - Legacy

[visions]

That "tutorial" photo is weird, since apparently MMX is to have a tutorial of some sort, which none of the other games did.

The way I've understood it, by having a "tutorial" they seem to mean a confined starting area, like the starting islands of MM7 and MM8, after completing which the game opens up.

 

[Stryker56]

I'm buying!!!!! Can't wait. Old school M and M.

 

[Jashiin]

I have no trust in this at all. They sound like salesmen too, type of answers they would give rps. And fuck ubisoft too, uplay = no sale.

 

[Infinitron]

I have no trust in this at all. They sound like salesmen too, type of answers they would give rps. And fuck ubisoft too, uplay = no sale.

Interesting. How do you feel about Kickstarter, btw? Because at least these guys aren't asking you for money for a game that doesn't exist yet.

 

[Machocruz]

There will be no scaling of the monsters depending on your level. We feel it’s one of the great pleasures in RPGs to become a demi-god and then return to those Cyclopes and teach them a lesson.

WTF. Ubisoft, they of Autoplatforming Creed and Shooter Cell Convictshit, actually understand the joys of RPG progression better than certain devs who make nothing but RPGs? What's next, cats and dogs living together?

 

[Koschey]

What's next, cats and dogs living together?

If it were only that...

 

[Jashiin]

I have no trust in this at all. They sound like salesmen too, type of answers they would give rps. And fuck ubisoft too, uplay = no sale.

Interesting. How do you feel about Kickstarter, btw? Because at least these guys aren't asking you for money for a game that doesn't exist yet.

I've pledged w2, eternity, torment and divinity. All made by people with a proven trackrecord and a good investment I think. If none of those deliver then I'll buy an amiga and forget the last 20 years in gaming ever happened . And yes they're asking money for a pitch I believe in. These guys I don't believe yet, it sounds so pr. Let them back it up with a good game first.

 

[Falkner]

The whole training thing was not just about money, in my eyes. It also makes leveling up something that requires the player to DO something, in this case returning to a town that can train you in the respective levels, visit the training grounds and pay for it. Just like selling and buying equipment, healing in the temple, going to the inn to restock on food, buying skills, taking on quests and so on. It's like crossing off things on a checklist - it gives you very small goals and things to do and plays back pleasing sounds to reward you for doing them ("Good work!" or the choir when you heal in the temple). This, I think, is what makes it playable even in short chunks, while at the same time giving it that "just one more thing, and I'll go to bed" feeling. You're in town anyway, why not train your party while you're here, right? Might want to check up on your bank account for that. And hey, you're making good money off of the interest alone, I think you could spend some of that for some new equipment. Now where was the blacksmith again? Oh, right, this place just sells spells... hey, that spell sounds cool, I'll take it!
It also gives the game a very nice rhythm or structure, you're always going back and forth between exploring/dungeoneering and restocking in the nearest town. Taking away something like the training grounds will not completely undermine this, but I do believe that all of these little things play an important part in what makes M&M so fun.

 

[Dorateen]

^Right on, Falkner! I've always been a huge advocate of paid-training in any RPG, and will miss this feature in MMX. Your explanation behind the principle is well articulated.

As for the comment about "as large as Clouds ox Xeen"

*arches an eyebrow of intrigue*

Good interview!

 

[Gozma]

Yeah... I like Kickstarter insofar as it's the only way to finance midbudget games. If someone like Ubi wants to finance midbudget... I mean, I don't want to mess with Uplay, and I'd really, really like for devs to keep their IP, but I dunno if it's much more or less obnoxious on a customer level than 2-year preorders

 

[Gozma]

Yeah, I loved the training center thing too, but I think it's just more nostalgic than anything else.

It wasn't much of a gold sink, especially in the games where banks accrued interest on gold it was inevitable to end up like Donald Trump at some point anyway.

I like is as a "reverse level-scaling" mechanic (do a bunch of dungeons in one outing until I run into something I can't handle, then go back to town and level up 10 times) a lot more than as a money sink. But I guess it's minor enough that I can, "whatever" it and file it away as something to bitch about if the game sucks.

 

[Stabwound]

I do see your point with the old level-up system, and now that you put it that way, I agree. It's not really a major thing at all, but I always liked netting several levels worth of experience and then going to the trainer to gain 2-3 levels at once. Still, overall it's not a huge thing to get worked up over when the rest of the game seems to be pretty sweet.

I can't imagine this being a BAD game. At worst it'll be average. I consider Xeen to be the peak of the series, but if it's even on the level of Terra I'd be ecstatic. I'd honestly have been bummed out if it went full 3D like 6+.

I don't give any shits personally about Uplay or DRM. I rarely buy games, but I probably will in this exception and just crack it. If this game turns out at all to be a worthy MM game it deserves a +1 to sales figures regardless of shit DRM.

 

[Broseph]

Caution removed from fapping. Lotion applied.

In all seriousness, this interview only reinforces my notion that these guys really have a love for the series and possess the know-how to make a worthy successor. Could hardly be more excited.

 

[I_am_Ian]

Tutorial?

RTFM

End of tutorial.

 

[DalekFlay]

I agree paid training is a good thing, I especially enjoyed Risen's method of leveling earning you tokens you then paid to train and use.

However that one thing doesn't kill all the other incline here.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Out of all the companies to make the jump from mass market to segmented market strategy (through mainstream funding), the last one I expected to do it first was Ubisoft. I'm still having difficulty believing this is for real - that a major publisher has finally gotten their heads around the idea that instead of thinking 'do we make fuckloads of money with a CoD clone or a small but safe profit with a dedicated niche market' you do both. Or else you get picked apart like the US car industry - doesn't matter how ultra-successful your centre-of-the-market family-sized gas guzzler is if your competitors are not only making clones of that, but also stripping customers away bit by bit by offering 10 times the range of cars to suit as many tastes as possible. Heck, in some seriously competitive markets (Walmart clones come to mind) they'll even make sure they offer products that they know they'll LOSE money on, just to keep those customers from being stripped off by some niche store that specialises in that product.

I still think the gaming industry hasn't hit that point - Ubisoft is probably an early entrant to the segmented/mature market stage (and I still can't fucking believe that it's Ubisoft that's doing it). As much as I like having the physical product, the big publishers got their status through the increasing costs of physical box products (and once they have it, it's easier to keep it by making deals with game stores in order to get the most prominent shelves, or even exclude competing products altogether), and it will probably need a massive growth in reasonably open download services to lower the entrance costs and increase competitiveness before publishers are actually forced to move from mass market to segmented strategies. Steam has potential, but in the long term I'd expect the download services that will kill the current publisher oligopoly will be independent of the current developers/publishers (i.e. making good download services will be their bread and butter, and their entire focus - not some backdoor DRM method or side-project).

If enough Kickstarter projects succeed, that's something that might speed up the process by 5 years or so - NOT because Kickstarter itself will be a serious competitor, but because it will show the publishers that if and when independent download services start proliferating, their past strategy of strangling them by denying them their products might not work - i.e. that there's too great a risk of developers simply bypassing the big publishers if they don't kick in and let their products sell via independent download services (just like what has happened with Steam - I'm only excluding Steam because I think that companies will eventually come along whose sole purpose is making a download service, and hence will out-tech Steam unless Valve sell it off or start taking competitive advantages by stripping off DRM - either way, they need better competitors to push them before Steam can break the publisher oligopoly - and without competitors they'd simply become a new extortionist block on the industry's competitiveness anyway).

So I'm still not getting my hopes up that major change will happen in the next 2-3 years. But fuck me...it's starting. It's really starting. A major publisher has decided to put out a niche product alongside its mainstream works, and is at least trying to re-learn how to market that niche product. It's just a baby step. Nothing to get too excited about yet...but fuck me, it's actually starting.

 

[Infinitron]

Azrael the cat Why are you so surprised that it's Ubisoft? They do seem to have a bit of an appreciation for quirky stuff on the French side of their business. I'm thinking Rayman.

 

[Jashiin]

Rayman Origins is the only ubisoft game I bought in recent years. Not surprisingly because it had no drm at all.

 

[Wizfall]

Azrael the cat Why are you so surprised that it's Ubisoft? They do seem to have a bit of an appreciation for quirky stuff on the French side of their business. I'm thinking Rayman.

I'm thinking Beyond Good and Evil
This game is a masterpiece, i even like it myself while it isn't at all my kind of game (i finally decided to try it after seeing it praise multiple times but only way after release, few years ago).
Despite the very good reviews it was a commercial failure unfortunately ( i guess because the game doesn't belong to a specific genre, so hard to explain and market).
But despite this commercial failure, Beyond Good and Evil 2 is said to be in development by Ubi.
So i'm not surprise that Ubi is the first AAA publisher to decide to go niche market, i believe it' the more open company among the big one.

 

[Infinitron]

Azrael the cat Why are you so surprised that it's Ubisoft? They do seem to have a bit of an appreciation for quirky stuff on the French side of their business. I'm thinking Rayman.

I'm thinking Beyond Good and Evil
This game is a masterpiece, i even like it myself while it isn't at all my kind of game (i finally decided to try it after seeing it praise multiple times but only way after release, few years ago).
Despite the very good reviews it was a commercial failure unfortunately ( i guess because the game don't belong to a specific genre, so hard to explain and market).
But despite this commercial failure, Beyond Good and Evil 2 is said to be in development by Ubi.
So i'm not surprise that Ubi is the first AAA publisher to decide to go niche market, it' the more open company among the big one.

Yeah but BG&E is old. Rayman Origins is recent.

 

[Roguey]

Why does everyone keep forgetting HoMM?

Well I guess it is a forgettable series.

 

[Infinitron]

Why does everyone keep forgetting HoMM?

Well I guess it is a forgettable series.

Because the strategy genre basically exists in a universe of its own nowadays, as the last PC-exclusive single player genre.

You'll notice that people almost never refer to strategy games when they discuss the "decline of gaming" in general (with XCOM: EU as the exception that proves the rule)

 

[Roguey]

Why does everyone keep forgetting HoMM?

Well I guess it is a forgettable series.

Because the strategy genre basically exists in a universe of its own nowadays, as the last PC-exclusive single player genre.

XCOM.

 

[Infinitron]

Why does everyone keep forgetting HoMM?

Well I guess it is a forgettable series.

Because the strategy genre basically exists in a universe of its own nowadays, as the last PC-exclusive single player genre.

XCOM.

See my edited post.

 

[Tramboi]

Dit it?
For me M&M always was popcorn CRPG, and I loved it like this : corny, bad for your health but very enjoyable!