The Worlds of Magic Thread - It's out... sorta

[hoverdog]

40 bucks for what is likely a buggy piece of shit with braindead ai. no thanks

well fuck you too

 

[DakaSha]

how dare i criticize the (large) price of the game you happen to have had a hand in

edit: may buy when on sale

 

[mastroego]

I'm doing a full reinstall, not sure that'll help.

Well I tried

Still unavailable on GOG.

I think imma buy it even unfinished and put it aside for the time being, just to support the devs. What the hell, making a game isn't a cakewalk and shit happens, I'm not gonna be anal about it. Waited two years for Eador to get its shit together, meh. Better than wait 20 years to release a game with 3 isues...2 issues...1 issue remaining...52 micro-issues remainig. Amirite?

Map looks ugly, called it two years ago ITT when people still said it looks great. Personally I don't give a shit but it can be a problem from the PR standpoint, game journos are unabashed graphics whores and they're probably gonna bitch about it.

I approve of that, still, I'm not going to let the devs off the hook that easily.
They've been told the map is ugly countless times, they've been told it was too early to release countless times, and at least once or twice I told in their forums the cautionary tale of Elemental and their "internal build of wonders".
Now, what do you know, Wasteland releases the internal build as well and for a lot of people the game won't even start.

Guys, we love you, but it can be frustrating....

 

[Torrasque01]

Relevant

This game has been in early access for 6 months. A bad reception from journalists or steam user reviews could mean it's DOA and with no money patching could dry up. NO EXCUSES.

 

[sser]

Steam forums:

Game won't start.
Dead AI. A dead map. Turns taking forever. Diplomacy screen disappearing. Sound nonexistent.
Game starts, but then crashes. [Steam goober: Congrats, though. Your game is the first that I've tried launching in a long, long time that won't even do so.]
Stickied a 60-day old post where a guy who is probably 15 bloviates on the game and then calls customers gripers, nitpickers, and haters. Ol' Ronnie in that thread seemed to be the only one with any foresight.


Dunno why it was released in that state. I mean, it's kinda 'dangerous' to do that these days as consumer awareness of BS products is definitely on the uptick. You don't want to end up on some YouTuber's channel with your game crashing and going soundless and shit while you ask for $40. I think the nature of the customer demographic is the only thing letting this slide at the moment.

Also agree with cvv about the map. There's something to be learned from the game's partial-namesake. MoM had a very, very simple map, so everything was easy to see. You play for the strategy, first and foremost. The Civ games that used squares were the same way. Dunno what's with modern designers, but they're putting way too much stuff on their strategy maps. It leads to unnecessary clutter. I can hardly even play Warlock 2 because the map is ugly as sin (and blindingly bright too, fucking bloom). The only game I've seen pull it off is Endless Legend, and IMO they just barely do, I'd still prefer a simpler look.

 

[mastroego]

Game starts now, the second hotfix worked.

Guys don't be too harsh.
I'm a LOT more tolerant than I'd usually be.
This game was made for like 1/10 of Elemental budget, and - warts, bugs and all - it's still the first game to successfully capture MoM's feel.
It's worth going through a few hiccups.
Let's hope things will improve faster from here.

 

[you know what time it is]

Isn't even worth pirating at this moment.

 

[Norfleet]

So, tar and feathers? Where's that image people had of that?

 

[Hobo Elf]

I was really looking forward to the release of this game, but it seems like it's still unplayable and not worth the price tag. Having a mixed review score on Steam is pretty much the kiss of death as well, but we'll see.

 

[Dickie]

I was really looking forward to the release of this game, but it seems like it's still unplayable and not worth the price tag. Having a mixed review score on Steam is pretty much the kiss of death as well, but we'll see.

I was going to correct you that it was "Mostly Positive" because that's what it was last night when I checked. I just looked and it is "Mixed" now. God damn. That sucks for them. I guess people are more forgiving before you remove the Early Access tag.

 

[Whiran]

I was really looking forward to the release of this game, but it seems like it's still unplayable and not worth the price tag. Having a mixed review score on Steam is pretty much the kiss of death as well, but we'll see.

The game has 11 stickied threads in its Steam forum.

Any game that has more than five stickies is immediately suspect. Bad games often use stickied threads to push conversation off the front page because the forum is full of complaints. What's unfortunate is that a quick look at the first few pages of the forums doesn't come up all that many complaints so the sticky strategy isn't needed and just puts off jaded Steam gamers. Or, put another way, having that many stickies is reducing buyers.

Four of those stickied threads are about bugs.

One other sticky is about how bad the UI is.

As a first impression - nope. No way. Not gonna happen.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I was really looking forward to the release of this game, but it seems like it's still unplayable and not worth the price tag. Having a mixed review score on Steam is pretty much the kiss of death as well, but we'll see.

I was going to correct you that it was "Mostly Positive" because that's what it was last night when I checked. I just looked and it is "Mixed" now. God damn. That sucks for them. I guess people are more forgiving before you remove the Early Access tag.

Well, yeah. If the game is in a similar state on release as it was in EA phase, then it really isn't ready for release. I'm sure many people are upset that the game was deemed ready when it clearly is not.

 

[Dickie]

I like that this review was marked as "funny" by two people.

Wow. Just wow. I bought this game based on the positive rating and the review that said "If you love HoMM, you have to get this game" - There's $40 down the tubes. Unintuitive interface, no tutorial that I could see after playing 40 minutes, I still had no clue why the city was dismantling and losing money - and I own all the Heroes of Might and Magic. Here's hoping this game is no where near finished development, because right now, it is a massive disappointment.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I was one of them.

 

[Agesilaus]

Please include a broom in the next patch so I can sweep away all the clutter on the map. I can't see shit.

 

[mastroego]

There's a slider at game creation now to control the amount of stuff appearing on the map.

 

[DakaSha]

Good thing i didnt spend a whopping 40 dollars

 

[Marobug]

Devs were obviously over confident because of good Early access reviews and thought they could get away with releasing an obviously unfinished product.
What's shocking is that not only are they asking 40 fucking dollars for this shit, there's people defending them and this fucked up release.
Smaller or bigger budget, it doesn't making shelling out 40 $ any different. Patches may or may not fix issues, almost certainly won't fix the bigger/more costly issues like the shitty map and AI. For all we know the company may go bust tomorrow leaving buyers with a broken game forever.

Stop defending this shit, releasing unfinished games is not OK. I don't care if its ubisoft or my neighbor, when you sell something it should work, and it should work well.

 

[Phage]

are you kids gonna stop buying early access and games on release yet?

 

[mastroego]

Devs were obviously over confident because of good Early access reviews and thought they could get away with releasing an obviously unfinished product.
What's shocking is that not only are they asking 40 fucking dollars for this shit, there's people defending them and this fucked up release.
Smaller or bigger budget, it doesn't making shelling out 40 $ any different. Patches may or may not fix issues, almost certainly won't fix the bigger/more costly issues like the shitty map and AI. For all we know the company may go bust tomorrow leaving buyers with a broken game forever.

Stop defending this shit, releasing unfinished games is not OK. I don't care if its ubisoft or my neighbor, when you sell something it should work, and it should work well.

I agree in general, and you can find a couple of posts of mine in the Worlds of Magic forums to this effect.

That said, I knew the risks with EA, let's just say I made a minor gamble.
This is the one and only game that has a shot at being a proper "modern, evolved" MoM.
So much of MoM is already there.
Will it get all the patches and updates it needs?
I don't know, but it was worth the risk to me.
The wait has been going on for 20 years already, if this fails I'll never EVER have a proper MoM sequel.

 

[Norfleet]

I was going to correct you that it was "Mostly Positive" because that's what it was last night when I checked. I just looked and it is "Mixed" now. God damn. That sucks for them. I guess people are more forgiving before you remove the Early Access tag.

To go from "Mostly Positive" to "Mixed" implies the actual game is receiving "Mostly Negative", since reviews prior to the actual game existing don't actually count as they're reviewing a fictional product.

 

[Whiran]

What I don't get is how the devs released the game with, apparently, massive game stopping bugs which they then fixed within half an hour of release.

How does that even happen? It's almost like they purposefully put in a game stopping bug and then removed it.

The fact that it happened began a death spiral for the game since those opening hours are vital.

 

[Marobug]

I'm not against EA, I think being able to help devs improve their games by posting suggestions, criticism, etc, and buy games at a discounted price is nice.
That said, it is a bit of a gamble indeed because you don't know how it will turn out.
None of the games I bought were abandoned and most of them turned out decent or great, while some not so much but since I paid a small price it didn't really bother me all that much.
Not advocating for EA, maybe I got lucky and will change my mind later on, but so far I don't think it's the cancer of gaming some people make it out to be.

 

[covr]

I was going to buy this game next month, unfortunately I've played it today and will have to wait a little bit longer. Sorry hoverdog, temptation was too big - I've tried torrented 1.0 version and it's a huge loss that you were forced to release WoM so early. In the next weeks reviewers are gonna crush your game, there is simply too much bugs and too little polish. Well, you surely know that. The game has also an incredible amount of potential, it was made with love and passion. I can only hope that you will support WoM for a long time - and this gem needs a fucking long support. Fixing gamestopping bugs, polishing UI&interface, adding simple features like zooming out much more... this game deserves it. Don't give up, man, and if you're ever in Warsaw, you've got a free beer from me.

 

[hoverdog]

eh
to be honest, I definitely agree the release was rushed and too early, but that was not my decision to make.
the gamebreaking bug that've sneaked into the release and other glitches were most unfortunate - especially considering that the game was really stable in the last few builds.
I just want to assure you, we're not pulling a full control and are working double shifts to fix, polish and add stuff (like sounds - outsource guy fucked up and we did what we could but were not able to manage before Thursday - that will be added on Monday or Tuesday).