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

[hoverdog]

Did I? I can only see one.

 

[Azira]

Oddly, I still see three copies of the same screenshot.

 

[General Maxson]

Is this progressing? Or will this be another tear in the sea of broken dreams?

 

[hoverdog]

Is this progressing?

Yes.

Or will this be another tear in the sea of broken dreams?

Nope.

 

[Destroid]

Jeeze hoverdog how many dev teams do you wanna be on?

 

[hoverdog]

The beta is drawing near


so, what exactly have we been doing lately?


- Three races: High Men, Unhallowed, Grey Elves are playable and almost finished (need a few buildings models only)
- one more race, Draconians, needs some buildings and model animations (oh, and actual flight mechanics), and the fifth one (Orcs) has all the models done
- spellcasting AI in battles is technically done (a pretty nifty system, I'm proud of it)
- speaking of spellcasting, about 160 spells are implemented (that's almost half ), of which 100 have particle effects
- diplomacy AI is being worked at right now


some eyecandy:

city development

Spoiler

world map w/ spellcasting

Spoiler

Race choice

Spoiler

spellbook

Spoiler

 

[Haba]

Good... good... I have the tar ready already!

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Hey, that looks surprisingly good!

 

[Stefan Vujovic]

After the disappointing AoW3 I am eagerly awaiting this one... Seems like a MoM clone done right...

 

[hoverdog]

Yo!

Get the tar ready!

Worlds of Magic is going Early Access next Friday (September 11th). We really didn't want to do it, but due to several unfortunate circumstances, it is a necessity.

What will the first EA iteration contain?

- 4 factions: High Men, Grey Elves, Unhallowed and Draconians
- nine unique units per faction
- 200 spells, ranging from tactical projectiles to global enchantments and some summonable creatures too
- three planes of existence, each with unique features (Prime, Fire, Shadow)
- a working, decent AI along with diplomacy
- sieges
- some basic hero mechanics

here's the EA trailer:

Spoiler

and some screenshots:

Spoiler

all KS backers will get instant access tomorrow, a week before EA starts, so things might be still be a bit buggy. I don't know how many of you backed us, I'm pretty sure I saw Grunker on the list somewhere.

 

[Azira]

Ah. Yeah, I'm on the list too, but I backed with my kickstarter nick which is DrKallesoe, not immediately something you'd link to "Azira".

Looking forward to playing the game, dog that is hovering!

 

[belated]

Tomorrow? Nice.

 

[mastroego]

This is starting to look right

 

[Agesilaus]

I backed you guys; I was a fan of MoM and this looks promising so far.

Tomorrow? Nice.

A week from tomorrow

 

[sser]

Legitimately one of the most awful trailers I've ever seen (that music), but the game still looked solid so that's a good sign.

 

[hoverdog]

I backed you guys; I was a fan of MoM and this looks promising so far.

Tomorrow? Nice.

A week from tomorrow

If you're a backer you'll get a key today.

 

[belated]

I did get the email a couple of days ago about how people who chose GOG/Wastelands won't automatically get a steam key for EA. Can't remember having chosen anything though so that must have been a long time ago (right after the first KS maybe?).

So if I chose GOG (most likely) then I guess I'll have to send for a EA-key or something. Will see if I get anything today first.

 

[hoverdog]

I did get the email a couple of days ago about how people who chose GOG/Wastelands won't automatically get a steam key for EA. Can't remember having chosen anything though so that must have been a long time ago (right after the first KS maybe?).

So if I chose GOG (most likely) then I guess I'll have to send for a EA-key or something. Will see if I get anything today first.

If you received this mail it means you chose GOG/Wastelands, respond now and you'll get a key today.

 

[Borelli]

Undead description makes me giggle. That large difference in races is bound to make the game interesting.

Legitimately one of the most awful trailers I've ever seen (that music), but the game still looked solid so that's a good sign.

 

[Dickie]

What is it with trailers of turn-based games spinning the camera around to make it look more "AWSUM!!!!"?

 

[Agesilaus]

Okay, I played the development release, and I'm confident that this will be the best and most faithful recreation of MoM ever.

That said, it's not really playable, so I'm going to wait for a proper release. The user interface has a lot of bugs and problems that render the game unplayable from the get-go. For example, you can't click to end turn unless you assign a construction project to your city, and the increase population doesn't count as a project. I have no idea how to cast spells, because I have a spell ready to be cast but nothing I do allows me to actually cast it (stone skin, wanted to put it on my swordsmen). The game is really slow unless you turn everything off and put it at fast graphics setting. The list goes on, but clearly the game is coming along really well; it just really feels like MoM for the modern day.

It's kind of surprising that I'm giving it a thousand thumbs-up when it's not in any way a fun game right now. If you load it up and take a look, though, you'll understand. Everything is there and really amazing looking, the interface just needs to be completed and the game should run a tad faster (or maybe I need a new computer; at any rate it runs okay on low graphics settings).

 

[hoverdog]

Okay, I played the development release, and I'm confident that this will be the best and most faithful recreation of MoM ever.

Thanks!

For example, you can't click to end turn unless you assign a construction project to your city, and the increase population doesn't count as a project.

It's because the housing project the city is "starting" with doesn't register as a choice. It does count when you actually select it in the build menu. We'll try to fix that, probably cities will start with "nothing" rather than "default unregistrable housing".
You can always turn off these notifications in options.

I have no idea how to cast spells, because I have a spell ready to be cast but nothing I do allows me to actually cast it (stone skin, wanted to put it on my swordsmen).

Well yeah, strategic spellcasting is stupidly convoluted right now and we are going to revamp it this week.
What you need to do right now is click on the "spell is ready to cast" notification, select the loaded spell, click on the black box "spell is ready, click here to cast" and then select the army and the unit. Ugh. Yes it's kinda pointless.

EDIT: it might also be a bug caused by our recent change it mouse-clicking settings. What selecting scheme do you use (Input options)? If RTS-like, we are working on it.

The game is really slow unless you turn everything off and put it at fast graphics setting.

This is weird. Obviously we haven't started optimizing the game, but in my experience it has more or less similar requirements as AoW3.

 

[Agesilaus]

The game is really slow unless you turn everything off and put it at fast graphics setting.

This is weird. Obviously we haven't started optimizing the game, but in my experience it has more or less similar requirements as AoW3.

Meh, my computer isn't all that amazing, so perhaps it's me. I have a dual core i7 2.3, 8g RAM, and a geforce gtx 660m.

The game runs fine on "fast" and "very fast".

Keep up the good work!

 

[mastroego]

Okay, I played the development release, and I'm confident that this will be the best and most faithful recreation of MoM ever.

If this really happens, I'll brofist, dad-fist and uncle-fist to exhaustion!

 

[Azira]

The game seems clunky right now.
I've not played it less than an hour, due to freezes and lockups, and one impressive instance where the computer simply shut off.

The power off, was when I paused the game by opening the game menu, then returned 10 minutes later and clicked "resume game". The game simply shut off power. Don't know why.

The lockups have been when when I opened the save game dialogue. Suddenly the game stopped responding, couldn't even alt-tab or use ctrl-alt-delete. The other instance was on turn 8, a roaming army appeared, and while processing the turn order, the game stopped responding, same as in the previous instance.
In both instances I had to power off the computer.

There's also a heap of spells that lack descriptions. And it seems odd that the number of spells available to each sphere is different, but I assume this will be balanced before the final launch.

I like what I'm seeing, but I'm not sure I can continue, at least on my laptop. The game runs very poorly, my laptop is 4 years old. Civ5 runs better..