Might and Magic X

[GreatEmerald]

Obviously, UbiLimb are testing the water here, trying to figure out if this road is even worth travelling or if they should simply drop the RPGs and go down the other paths they have been exploring. By making a small-medium sized game, the devs need to keep the budget down and convince Ubisoft that they can "kick it up a notch" later. I'm actually glad they're doing it this way instead of "going for broke". That way, if MMX is deemed a success, it may be easier for the producers to go the top brass with a request for more. It's a lot easier to convince the top management into increasing their investments if past ventures have been successful.

And if they test the waters by releasing a mediocre game, they will get mediocre sales and no way of convincing the brass for more. If they did go for broke, it would just shift the perspective. It would be either a definite win or a loss for them. As it is now, it is less risk for getting a loss, but also a lot less chance of having a win.

Ubisoft have long since recognized that the fans that are of the opinion that it's either their way or not at all, cannot be reasoned with. They always wanted to turn the M&M brand into something of their own, and one of the first decisions they made was that they could do without those customers since they were in the clear minority.
I call fans like that "purists", when they want everything the way it was before.

When it's turned to something of their own, it stops being something that it was. And we like it for what is was, not what they are trying to turn it into. Sure, for Ubisoft the company it might make sense, as the new players probably outnumber the old ones. But for us original universists, that just means Might and Magic as a series ended with HoMM4 and MM9/MM8.

[MadeOMeat]

Under normal circumstances I'd agree that it makes sense to go for the widest appeal - and that's Ashan because Ashan is what the current fans of the M&M brand are buying.

However:

MMX strikes me more of a low-budget product to "mop up" revenue from the fanbase which Ubi acquired when they bought the M&M brand from 3DO all those years ago. Honestly, I don't see the current generation of Heroes players, who have never looked at an old M&M RPG, having any interest in a game called "Might and Magic X: Legacy". This one thing is for the married, mortgaged fat old fans like me - that's why they're not spending lots of money on it. And they're setting it in Ashan anyway for reasons of their own.

Maybe it's for the best. Without the original NWC team involved it's only ever going to be a pale imitation. Did you ever read And Another Thing...?

Anyway, I've said my piece. I can't change Ubisoft's policy. I'll ignore the title of the game, wait until I've seen some reviews and see if I want to buy the game on its own merits.

[Talin_Trollbane]

Obviously, UbiLimb are testing the water here, trying to figure out if this road is even worth travelling or if they should simply drop the RPGs and go down the other paths they have been exploring. By making a small-medium sized game, the devs need to keep the budget down and convince Ubisoft that they can "kick it up a notch" later. I'm actually glad they're doing it this way instead of "going for broke". That way, if MMX is deemed a success, it may be easier for the producers to go the top brass with a request for more. It's a lot easier to convince the top management into increasing their investments if past ventures have been successful.

And if they test the waters by releasing a mediocre game, they will get mediocre sales and no way of convincing the brass for more. If they did go for broke, it would just shift the perspective. It would be either a definite win or a loss for them. As it is now, it is less risk for getting a loss, but also a lot less chance of having a win.

Ubisoft have long since recognized that the fans that are of the opinion that it's either their way or not at all, cannot be reasoned with. They always wanted to turn the M&M brand into something of their own, and one of the first decisions they made was that they could do without those customers since they were in the clear minority.
I call fans like that "purists", when they want everything the way it was before.

When it's turned to something of their own, it stops being something that it was. And we like it for what is was, not what they are trying to turn it into. Sure, for Ubisoft the company it might make sense, as the new players probably outnumber the old ones. But for us original universists, that just means Might and Magic as a series ended with HoMM4 and MM9/MM8.

i cant agree more, even if i am one of the VIP members of this game.

but atleast Limbic got some of the old grognards on board, to stem the tides of darkness.

[Xfing]

I have just read the story outline for the original MMX. I almost shed a tear for all the wasted awesomeness.

Link please

viewtopic.php?t=14180

I quoted it in this thread. These are just some drafts though, I'm not even entirely sure if they were final.

[antipaladin]

Ubisoft have long since recognized that the fans that are of the opinion that it's either their way or not at all, cannot be reasoned with. They always wanted to turn the M&M brand into something of their own, and one of the first decisions they made was that they could do without those customers since they were in the clear minority.
I call fans like that "purists", when they want everything the way it was before.

excally,purists, you know why? becouse it was a good then! why fix something broken? the old NWC+3do universe had more then 15 games in MM including spin off's,still have a giant fanbase, it something "ashan" will never have..unless they connect them somehow...

[Tress]

excally,purists, you know why? becouse it was a good then! why fix something broken? the old NWC+3do universe had more then 15 games in MM including spin off's,still have a giant fanbase, it something "ashan" will never have..unless they connect them somehow...

Because mm6-8 by our day standards would not be considered good games. Back then you could dish out way less content and call it a game, nowadays if mm7 would be released it would only be noticed because genre of party based first person RPG is almost dead. You can compare mm6-8 and skyrim or fallout vegas. Content vise games cant be even compared.
I am old mm fan too. I started to play via mm6 and have played every mm since mm3, but people must understand that proverb regarding river and stepping twice is there for a reason.
Fan base wise - :
Old mm rpg fanbase was never large, it was just tight , vocal ,and loyal. It never was on par with elder scroll fanbase for example. There was almost no modding activity while mm games were actual, which means community was not very large, Sure there are many moda nowadays, but it's not same. Strategy side off mm games however have quite different fanbase and much larger, sure latest homm games are flawed, but there is no point of remaking homm3, so naturally series mechanics must evolve. Its same thing as with civilization. Civ 1-3 is iteration of almost same game, just shaped better, while further installments are games of its own.

[antipaladin]

i dissagree so much i can fart.
sirously though,did you comper h3 sales to h5 or h6?
or MM7 sales to Dark messiah?
if any,Heroes 3 developers ware geniouse IMO,selling the same game atleast 4 times (AB,SD,Chronichles and the original).
not the mention the original MM.
true thought that games nowdays aim soly on graphic,then gameplay,lore,and etc. but as can name any other game but MM' that have so meny fanbased projects?
true most of them fall. i myself modded H3,and tried to Mod MM7 and 8. but doing it alone,and keeping it in the same graphic was difficult so i quited..
if the need arises,and people will help, i'd do it again.
my original idea was,and i posted it somewhere here,longago,under a differnt nickname,with devil effreti , death knight,angel,djinie ...
could've fitt the story too...

[GrayFace]

And if they test the waters by releasing a mediocre game, they will get mediocre sales and no way of convincing the brass for more. If they did go for broke, it would just shift the perspective. It would be either a definite win or a loss for them. As it is now, it is less risk for getting a loss, but also a lot less chance of having a win.

Smaller budget doesn't translate into a mediocre game. The way they 'go cheap' with grid-based mechanics and borrowed graphics is right I think. Only release date worries me. Lack of development time does make games mediocre and September sounds too soon.

While everyone seems to think of testing grounds externally I think what's more important is to test grounds internally, e.g. I'm sure the team behind MMX just wouldn't be able to do it at AAA scale right away, you know they're not a big team.

I quoted it in this thread. These are just some drafts though, I'm not even entirely sure if they were final.

Thanks.

There was almost no modding activity while mm games were actual, which means community was not very large, Sure there are many moda nowadays, but it's not same.

MM games aren't mod friendly by any means. It's strange that there hasn't been mods that simply mess with monsters (for which there's been MM6View early on), but look at how many remake projects there are.

[Tress]

sirously though,did you comper h3 sales to h5 or h6?
or MM7 sales to Dark messiah?

Well there is no way you can compare action with party based rpg. As for homm3 / homm 5/6, first of all I couldnt find exact sales besides there is generation gap between games. For example TB strategies sell less nowadays, however games are more available, so any comparison for 15 year apart cant be really made.

if any,Heroes 3 developers ware geniouse IMO,selling the same game atleast 4 times (AB,SD,Chronichles and the original).

Yup their marketing and financial genius certainly helped them when they needed to fill chapter 11. If those games would sell half as good as 3do wanted they would have gone under. Selling chronicles were already selling trust they built up by making homm1-3. Such genial strategy works as far as people notice they are played for chumps. If there is restaurant which is really good and all eat there ,then perhaps couple bad meals wouldn't scare away customers, but if they think that giving bad meal is their new strategy and everyone will eat there just because they are loyal customers , they will have another thing coming.

but as can name any other game but MM' that have so meny fanbased projects?

MM games aren't mod friendly by any means. It's strange that there hasn't been mods that simply mess with monsters (for which there's been MM6View early on), but look at how many remake projects there are.

Should I even start since that will be wall of text ? Even if we skip games that are mod friendly(which have incomparable amount of mods), like elder scrolls/ fallout's with good modding capabilities, then there are tons of games still. Will drop original doom as first thing that comes to mind,where whole new episodes were added with new monsters, weapon sprites etc. MM problem is that any modding activity became active just few years ago, which means that game was out for 10 years already. This of course means that there is extremely loyal community for classic mm, but most of those mods are carried by handful of people, Mods like BDJ for mm7 are huge work but they were made by few people, there never was mod or fan game for mm where large group of people would work and would get anywhere, which means that total conversions or game wide mods that would content wise rival any of original games are not possible for MM RPG (at least yet). Games like mm tribute realistically may never see light of day, so strictly speaking we should count stuff that is released or at least in good late stage of development.

[GreatEmerald]

Yup their marketing and financial genius certainly helped them when they needed to fill chapter 11. If those games would sell half as good as 3do wanted they would have gone under. Selling chronicles were already selling trust they built up by making homm1-3. Such genial strategy works as far as people notice they are played for chumps. If there is restaurant which is really good and all eat there ,then perhaps couple bad meals wouldn't scare away customers, but if they think that giving bad meal is their new strategy and everyone will eat there just because they are loyal customers , they will have another thing coming.

I'm sure HoMM3 sold so well that it far exceeded NWC expectations. But, of course, it didn't help 3DO with their console woes. And then 3DO started strip-mining their game franchises just to stay alive, which of course just cut the branch they were sitting on. But it has no relevancy towards the sales of HoMM3.

[Tress]

I'm sure HoMM3 sold so well that it far exceeded NWC expectations. But, of course, it didn't help 3DO with their console woes. And then 3DO started strip-mining their game franchises just to stay alive, which of course just cut the branch they were sitting on. But it has no relevancy towards the sales of HoMM3.

Well there is some relevancy towards later installments, particularly later chronicles and homm4. Basically after homm4 people became extremely disillusioned, even more because homm4 had immense hype. Game magazines and sites simply dished out 8 and 9 ignoring absence of multiplayer, horrible AI, etc. Some sites even pointed out that expansion got lower score since they rated original game too high.
Other point as I said, there is no rational way to compare game market with 15 year difference, it is different world now, and not only because commercial games like COD, AC and so on are on top but because worlds perception on PC and gaming in general have changed drastically

[antipaladin]

you said it game market. and the game market the last couple of years is much more focus on graphic then gameplay and game lore. thats why i dont bother too much with new games, and look hours for patches to work 2000-96 games on Win8.

[MadeOMeat]

Game market is right. The last few years have been all about action shooters at one end and casual clicky games on the other. And not much in between. It seems that publishers see the huge audiences that are buying Call of Duty and are trying to make similar games to try and get similar sales figures - or are slapping together FarmVille knock-offs.

The amount of investment involved in making a slick game these days is enormous. It's a completely different world to the late 1990s when MM6 and 7 were coming out. If a AAA game got the sales today that MM7 got in its time, it would be considered a disaster. The game market is much larger, top-tier game budgets are much higher, and people are a lot more risk-averse in terms of design decisions.

That's why MMX looks like it's "on the cheap". There is no way under the sun that it can sell enough copies to justify a AAA budget - the intended audience is the tiny fraction of gamers who remember the old games. It's nice that they're making a game for us, but I don't think it's worth holding out hope that it will make an exciting amount of sales. Who else is going to buy a game called "Might and Magic X: Legacy"?

[Marzhin]

sirously though,did you comper h3 sales to h5 or h6?

Just so you know -- Heroes V is the best-selling Heroes game of all times. (--edit: which makes it the best-selling game of the Might & Magic franchise as a whole, I guess.)
It's also the most pirated Heroes game of all times, but that's another story

Regarding the Ashan VS Ancient universe debate, one thing that strikes me and is rarely mentioned is the big difference in style and tone between the old games themselves.
For instance MM2 is full of funny references to pop culture and feels almost like a parody of D&D at times, Darkside of Xeen feels like something Jack Kirby would draw, while MM6 has a realistic/Renaissance feel to it, and MM7 went for a more "Tolkienesque" feel...
So while they shared a common background, there was never much coherence from one game to the next. Even the story of the Ancients evolved quite a bit from MM1 to MM7.

In any case, while MMXL is set on Ashan, and you won't wield blasters or go into spaceships, I did my best to put as many ties and references to the old universe as was possible. Some are subtle, some are quite direct, but they're definitely in there

[Tress]

Just so you know -- Heroes V is the best-selling Heroes game of all times. (--edit: which makes it the best-selling game of the Might & Magic franchise as a whole, I guess.)
It's also the most pirated Heroes game of all times, but that's another story smile

If its not covered by some confidentiality paper, can you say numbers ?

Regarding the Ashan VS Ancient universe debate, one thing that strikes me and is rarely mentioned is the big difference in style and tone between the old games themselves.
For instance MM2 is full of funny references to pop culture and feels almost like a parody of D&D at times, Darkside of Xeen feels like something Jack Kirby would draw, while MM6 has a realistic/Renaissance feel to it, and MM7 went for a more "Tolkienesque" feel...
So while they shared a common background, there was never much coherence from one game to the next. Even the story of the Ancients evolved quite a bit from MM1 to MM7.

Must really agree on this one. Serious plot and consistency began only with homm2/mm6, so any praising of deep lore for prior mm games is bit strange to say least. Sure they were fun but as time goes story telling changes. Old wizardry series were same, sometimes not even taking themselves seriously. That's same thing with everything. If we even check tv shows , then old (ones from 196x)marvel cartoons like ff, spiderman etc look like parodies in contrast of modern media. Saying that modern games dont have rich lore and grass was greener 15 years ago is just pure hypocrisy. As much as we may hate mass effect and games become much simpler and aimed towards mainstream, it easily have lore on par with any big sci fi media like Stargate or Star trek.

[Demilich]

Thanks in advance for references, Marzhin.

You know, once upon a time there were a Wzardry franchise. First 5 games of it were standart generic fantasy, Wizardry 6-7 - sci-fi... Then a brand changed several publishers, and now japanese devs released Wizardry Online, set it there own world of Azalis. Imagine my surprise when it this game i saw direct references to "old universe" Wizardry (6 and 7, in particular). Some were inside jokes, some - quite serious, but simple fact of them present made me happy

[Marzhin]

Thanks in advance for references, Marzhin.

You know, once upon a time there were a Wzardry franchise. First 5 games of it were standart generic fantasy, Wizardry 6-7 - sci-fi... Then a brand changed several publishers, and now japanese devs released Wizardry Online, set it there own world of Azalis. Imagine my surprise when it this game i saw direct references to "old universe" Wizardry (6 and 7, in particular). Some were inside jokes, some - quite serious, but simple fact of them present made me happy

Or Gilgamesh's Tavern in the starting town of Wizardry Online
Japanese are massive fans of Wizardry. You even find Wizardry goodies in fashion stores in Tôkyô (I bought a neat "character sheet" business card holder during my trip there) ^^

If its not covered by some confidentiality paper, can you say numbers ?

I cannot give the exact number, but Heroes V sold around one million copies*. And it is estimated that at its peak, it was played by around ten millions players...

*not counting digital retailers like Steam or GOG.

[MadeOMeat]

Just so you know -- Heroes V is the best-selling Heroes game of all times. (--edit: which makes it the best-selling game of the Might & Magic franchise as a whole, I guess.)
It's also the most pirated Heroes game of all times, but that's another story

Them's the times we live in. It's pretty sad (I hate videogame piracy and the effect it has had on the industry), but surely it's two sides of the same coin. Lots of sales, lots of piracy.

Regarding the Ashan VS Ancient universe debate, one thing that strikes me and is rarely mentioned is the big difference in style and tone between the old games themselves.
For instance MM2 is full of funny references to pop culture and feels almost like a parody of D&D at times, Darkside of Xeen feels like something Jack Kirby would draw, while MM6 has a realistic/Renaissance feel to it, and MM7 went for a more "Tolkienesque" feel...
So while they shared a common background, there was never much coherence from one game to the next. Even the story of the Ancients evolved quite a bit from MM1 to MM7.

In any case, while MMXL is set on Ashan, and you won't wield blasters or go into spaceships, I did my best to put as many ties and references to the old universe as was possible. Some are subtle, some are quite direct, but they're definitely in there

As a matter of interest, was Ashan a non-negotiable design directive from Ubisoft, a positive decision from the design team, or a compromise? Are you allowed to answer this?

[Marzhin]

As a matter of interest, was Ashan a non-negotiable design directive from Ubisoft, a positive decision from the design team, or a compromise? Are you allowed to answer this?

All Might & Magic games must take place on Ashan and respect its bible, that's a rule of the IP as a whole. But it was pretty fun to play around that and see how we could bring back some of the old Might & Magicness into Ashan.
And Erwan Le Breton was actually very open about it (as long as we were not putting blasters and spaceships :p)
Personally, I think Ashan becomes a much funnier and likeable setting once you can walk around villages and talk to the actual people.

[Tress]

Them's the times we live in. It's pretty sad (I hate videogame piracy and the effect it has had on the industry), but surely it's two sides of the same coin. Lots of sales, lots of piracy.

Dont really want to turn it into piracy topic, but far from everyone who "borrows" game from his 8k friends (peers in PB tracker) would buy it given that game wouldn't be available. Companies should make game more accessible, not just jack price up to 60 euro and wait for people to spend cash on any half baked game. Country where I live it's some 20% of what monthly salary is. There was games I spat about that they wernt' worth those 40 minutes it take them to dl, not to mention rage guy I would turn into considering I would spend 40 euro on(Somehow game - Pariah is one of those I was most mad about). In my eyes piracy corrects market even in some positive way, since once people see really good game they feel need to simply give money for it, so more such games arise.

I cannot give the exact number, but Heroes V sold around one million copies*. sunglasses And it is estimated that at its peak,

*not counting digital retailers like Steam or GOG.

Was always wondering if that is including digital coppies. Is there at least comparable information how much it was bought on steam./gog?

it was played by around ten millions players... devious

Well lot's of steams fans out there . But seriously arent multilayer access limited by cd key anyway? Or are we spied by Ubisoft even if we aren't connecting online and entering cd key.