Might and Magic X Trailer!

Tress · Unread postby **Tress** » 22 Mar 2013, 07:56

I love how they've kept the turn based combat in a modern engine, it worked in Fallout 3

Having assisted free shots in action RPG with fast regenerating points is not what should be called turn based. AP could just as welll be called mana and considered spell for fantasy game and noone would even think of thinking it as of turn based derivative. Only reason is because it is marketed as such and pressing V generates same sound as combat beginning in f1/2

Exactly. Destroying Enroth was not very nice, but they did it for faster dynamics, for restoring the status quo. The new nations that spawned on Axeoth obviously had a direct lineage with the ones on Enroth, but they were governed differently, were in a different geographical location and political situation. I don't think there are many people who are that disappointed with the story of HoMM4.

Switch from Axeoth to Ashan is way less painfull in my eyes than enroth > axeoth. First of all I felt it as extreme shortcut and disrespect for devs of prevoius parts to kill of all developed characters with 3 minute intro movie. Ashan just moved to different part, and at least did not stomped on other people work directly. What would be better if someone would write authorized sequel to lord of rings and just introduce new wizard character. It would be not exactly cool but i think generally people would think, ok lets see what is this guy. On other hand what would happen if first page would begin that Gandalf dies and is never mentioned again and we are left with some Mary sue we have never heard before?
This is why I hate Axeoth, but don't have heavy dislike for Ashan. World for Axeoth was underdeveloped as well. We were basically introduced with some new characters in homm4, which was more or less good, but other than that(mm9,wow,tgs) added absolutely nothing to the world, those game could just as well be set in another world.Ashan on other hand was developed prior to game as a setting, you may like concepts it have or not but it had setting unlike Axeoth. So this is reason why I dont care that Axeoth is abandoned, since there basically was nothing to abandon. They already destroyed all there was. Well they could have disregarded homm4/mm9 and continue up from homm3 but that would be somewhat odd.

Avonu · Unread postby **Avonu** » 22 Mar 2013, 08:06

Coming 2013

I have a bad feeling about this...

Tress · Unread postby **Tress** » 22 Mar 2013, 08:12

I have a bad feeling about this...

Why is that. First of all old mm games came out once a year. Second, we can't know how long mmx is made for before announced. Third for large gaming company, making quality game may not take more than year. For example COD games (yes they are action but still), come out every year, and job for animators and other departments are huge. It is of course made possible by having large and well organized team.

Dalai · Unread postby **Dalai** » 22 Mar 2013, 08:50

Avonu wrote:
Coming 2013
I have a bad feeling about this...

Don't.

This time Ubisoft picked much lower target. They may actually make a game not much worse then the previous installment in series. It's hard to fail miserably with MMX after M&M IX.

Queen Hera · Unread postby **Queen Hera** » 22 Mar 2013, 09:25

Eeek. I'm excited. Can't wait. I just hope it doesn't go Sci-Fi. I'd love it to be as enjoyable as MM3 Isles of Terra which in my opinion was the best of the series. (MM3 resurrected using todays technology would be awesome).

Aspiriins · Unread postby **Aspiriins** » 22 Mar 2013, 09:56

can't believe, that after 13 years it is finnaly on the red carpet.

sad, that after 10 years MMT still couldn't finish their project

what is going on with fun made MMX?

Avonu · Unread postby **Avonu** » 22 Mar 2013, 10:15

tress wrote:
I have a bad feeling about this...
Why is that. First of all old mm games came out once a year. Second, we can't know how long mmx is made for before announced. Third for large gaming company, making quality game may not take more than year. For example COD games (yes they are action but still), come out every year, and job for animators and other departments are huge. It is of course made possible by having large and well organized team.

HoMM5 - IIRC coming March 2006 - released in May 2006, full of bugs
HoMM6 - coming March 2011 - relesed in September 2011, full of bugs and half-baked
H6: Shades of Purples - coming 28 Febuary, post-poned to May, we will see if it would be bug free and playable
Heroes Online - coming October 2012, post-poned to this year

MM9 is perfect example what can happened with unrealistic deadlines. 2013 is not enough time to finish RPG game.

Dalai wrote:They may actually make a game not much worse then the previous installment in series. It's hard to fail miserably with MMX after M&M IX.

We are talking about Ubisoft which failed not once with deadlines and playable game.

Blake · Unread postby **Blake** » 22 Mar 2013, 10:24

"Switch from Axeoth to Ashan is way less painfull in my eyes than enroth > axeoth. First of all I felt it as extreme shortcut and disrespect for devs of prevoius parts to kill of all developed characters with 3 minute intro movie."

Exactly my point. Every place and almost every character that we loved and fought for in Heroes 1-3 and M&M 6-8 was blown up in a intro video and bam we're on a new world and nothing we did before mattered. It was insulting.. and took away a lot of my passion for the Might & Magic universe (I still enjoyed playing Heroes 4 but the story did little for me).

At least when ubisoft moved us to Ashan they didn't destroy Axeoth in a intro movie to do it meaning we can go back there. In fact as we've seen in the Heroes 6 addons they're already happy to take us back to to the old worlds so never say never.

I just freeze framed a few shots in the video and noticed on the left hand side of the interface the old style tile based forward, backward, turn around buttons of might and magic 1-5 are there! I figured they'd just do a M&M6-8 real time first person game with turn based combat, but nope it looks like they've gone COMPLETELY retro in that the game is tile based! Wow! Not sure what to think about this..
Edited on Fri, Mar 22 2013, 06:25 by Blake

Tress · Unread postby **Tress** » 22 Mar 2013, 10:29

HoMM5 - IIRC coming March 2006 - released in May 2006, full of bugs
HoMM6 - coming March 2011 - relesed in September 2011, full of bugs and half-baked
H6: Shades of Purples - coming 28 Febuary, post-poned to May, we will see if it would be bug free and playable
Heroes Online - coming October 2012, post-poned to this year

All are strategy games that require completely different approach. Balance, 3d engine that will support half the map, AI support etc. RPG requires same stuff as action(levels,graphics) and, decent combat char development system and good story. For example some kick starter games(project eternity) with absolutely huge content promise to deliver within 2 years too and announced content is just huge.
Besides large ammount of time does not equal good game, see DNF for example or any other vaporvare game. Time is not always factor.

GreatEmerald · Unread postby **GreatEmerald** » 22 Mar 2013, 11:02

tress wrote:> What would be better if someone would write authorized sequel to lord of rings and just introduce new wizard character. It would be not exactly cool but i think generally people would think, ok lets see what is this guy. On other hand what would happen if first page would begin that Gandalf dies and is never mentioned again and we are left with some Mary sue we have never heard before?

Now normally yes, I agree that destroying Enroth was not a good move overall. Same thing happened in Mass Effect 2 and I was not pleased. However, just like in your example there, the first option means that it's a completely new plot (as a matter of fact, in the case of Ashan, it would be more like introducing a new wizard that lives on another planet than where Middle Earth is, and all of the new characters are completely unaware of Middle Earth). The second option is called plot development. It's not cool to kill off people, but it allows successors. In HoMM4, there was a lot of talking about the past, a lot of legacy that the new characters had to live up to. In Ashan, there is no legacy, none.

In my view, destroying a world is bad; destroying a universe, even if silently, is much, much worse. If they get back to the old universe, I will be very happy and will play the game. Otherwise, they have destroyed the universe and there is nothing else left for me to see here. Now if the game was released under a non-Might and Magic title, I might also be interested, given that it's good. But as it is, it feels like it's a disgrace for the Might and Magic series to have anything to do with Ashan to begin with. Same with the other Ubisoft MM games, if they were called something like "Power and Miraces", I might have been interested in the games, but as it is, it's just insulting to me.

XEL II · Unread postby **XEL II** » 22 Mar 2013, 12:48

Dalai wrote:This time Ubisoft picked much lower target. They may actually make a game not much worse then the previous installment in series. It's hard to fail miserably with MMX after M&M IX.

Not like they should be trying to live up to a much higher standart in the form of MM 6-8...

Angelspit · Unread postby **Angelspit** » 22 Mar 2013, 13:54

JSE wrote:@ Angelspit: I'm a bit shocked by this statement.

I meant the ninth game of course, and my post came out a little more dry than I expected, sorry.

It's just that I understand Ubisoft's decision to move on with a new universe, since only the most dedicated fans can make some sense of what happened in all games of the series at this point. I would suspect even the NWCers would have a hard time creating something that's in line with the old M&M plots. I'm not a huge fan of the stories Ubisoft told us so far, but as long as they provide some objectives for the actual gameplay, I don't mind too much.

Tress · Unread postby **Tress** » 22 Mar 2013, 14:16

Now normally yes, I agree that destroying Enroth was not a good move overall. Same thing happened in Mass Effect 2 and I was not pleased. ............ In Ashan, there is no legacy, none.

Bit risking to go into offtopic with this but still. Well actually NWC changed universes before as well. For example after mm5, they moved away from xeen and Sheltem/Corak stories, leaving just references in mm7. So essentially they did exactly same thing as ubisoft did - moved to different planet. Considering trailer believe we will have our connection to classical world. While in mm9, it had almost zero connection to mm worlds at all(well except some lame nods like Nikolai) But what they did with homm4 it was just disrespect towards fans and people who made homm3(considering they were different people), not to mention blatantly ripped of both MTG spell system and plot.

JSE · Unread postby **JSE** » 22 Mar 2013, 14:33

:: Same with the other Ubisoft MM games, if they were called something like "Power and Miraces", I might have been interested in the games, but as it is, it's just insulting to me. ::

Very good point. If we want "Might and Magic" to be more than just a label on the box, we should ask ourselves: What is characteristic of a Might and Magic game and what makes it different from a random retro fantasy RPG? Is it just a certain kind of strategic gameplay? I would argue that the overarching Ancients metaplot that to some degree linked all original games was at least as characteristic. And this metaplot, of course, is basically synonymous with the original universe.

UbiSoft obviously puts a lot of effort into creating the impression that they are actually *continuing* Might and Magic. Since the days of Heroes 5, they've created numerous advertisements presenting their new games in the context of the original ones and stressing the brand's "rich legacy". Is that because they are aware that the connection with the original series is in fact very weak? It certainly seems that way.

GreatEmerald · Unread postby **GreatEmerald** » 22 Mar 2013, 15:07

tress wrote:> Bit risking to go into offtopic with this but still. Well actually NWC changed universes before as well. For example after mm5, they moved away from xeen and Sheltem/Corak stories, leaving just references in mm7. So essentially they did exactly same thing as ubisoft did - moved to different planet. Considering trailer believe we will have our connection to classical world. While in mm9, it had almost zero connection to mm worlds at all(well except some lame nods like Nikolai) But what they did with homm4 it was just disrespect towards fans and people who made homm3(considering they were different people), not to mention blatantly ripped of both MTG spell system and plot.

No they didn't. They moved the attention to Enroth, yes, but for one, the previous games were all on new planets anyway, and for another, it's only a planet again, not a universe. There is a difference, and a large one.

I haven't played MM9, but even from what I've seen, it did maintain a connection to what happened in HoMM4. It was focused on a new plot, yes, but they did mention some more details about the Reckoning and all that.

King Imp · Unread postby **King Imp** » 22 Mar 2013, 15:45

I have to admit, I never played any of these type M&M games.

What is the combat like? Is it just a "hack and slash" dungeon crawler or is there more to it?

Dalai · Unread postby **Dalai** » 22 Mar 2013, 15:59

Avonu wrote:We are talking about Ubisoft which failed not once with deadlines and playable game.

I'm well aware of that. If I had to decide, they would not risk doing anything more complex than "lines". I'm just saying that whatever misshaped unfinished pile of bugs they produce this time, their failure won't be so obvious as with HoMM, because "M&M IX" set much lower standard.

hellegennes · Unread postby **hellegennes** » 22 Mar 2013, 16:02

Heroes 4 had a lot of references to Enroth and the MM universe in general. I wasn't crazy about it's story, but it was a brilliant game, gameplay-wise. MMIX, however, had zero references to:

a) the MM universe

b) the previous plots

c) MM RPG style

In my opinion, MMIX could very well be named "Swords & Sorcery Generic Tale No 1429, with hints of Nordic mythology".

Never mind the fact that the game was unfinished, uninteresting and it didn't bear even a hint of resemblance to MM gameplay.

And I can't count Nicolai as a reference. All I can make of it is that it's a joke and an insult. You meet him for a sidequest which means nothing to the plot and help him become a clown. If that isn't an insult, I don't know what is.

Plus, regarding deadlines, how can anyone say it's too soon for a 2013 release, when we have NO idea when development on the game did start?
Edited on Fri, Mar 22 2013, 12:03 by hellegennes

Ethric · Unread postby **Ethric** » 22 Mar 2013, 16:25

I second hellegennes' opinion.

My favourite MM-game would be a remake of 6 and 7 combined, like world of Xeen but with Enroth. Is that likely?

Avonu · Unread postby **Avonu** » 22 Mar 2013, 16:54

hellegennes wrote:MMIX, however, had zero references to:

a) the MM universe
b) the previous plots
c) MM RPG style

On the Visitors from space... - in References, No. 7.
Full text is in Inventa Storca dungeon located outside Thronheim.

If you read Verhoffin's notes in ruins of his towers, you should find another clues.

You have also Letter from Roland laying near Nicolai in Drangheim.

So, saying there are zero references is simply not true.

hellegennes wrote:Plus, regarding deadlines, how can anyone say it's too soon for a 2013 release, when we have NO idea when development on the game did start?

From previous experience with Ubisoft games for example?

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