Open Source Master of Magic HD Multiplayer Remake

[Blake]

If there's any good old Master of Magic fans lurking in these forums I've recently made a video (as part of a up and coming Civ related games in HD series) touring what I feel is the best MoM fan project out there called Master of Magic – Implode’s Multiplayer Edition, a brilliant Open Source Java MoM engine rebuild that supports larger maps, up to 14 players (either Human or AI), and any modern resolution like HD 4K etc. The only it's missing is AI and some good bug fixing and polishing.



Although sadly it's creator Implode has gone AWOL and the project has been inactive for a while now..

But hopefully one day he'll return to it, or someone else will finish what he started due to it being opensource...



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[Pol]

Hmm, I was playing that roughly 2yrs ago, everything was looking nice then. Though, there are bugs. This is still excellent and stable MoM in new Java coat.

[Blake]

Yeah it's probably one of my most wanted fan projects to be finished. Sadly I don't know if Implode will ever come back to it properly and finish it. The only comfort I have is that its opensource so at least there's a chance others might work on it one day.

[Blake]

OH MY GOD!!! :O
 
Looks like I don't have to worry about this unfinished fan remake anymore as it appears we've got an official Master of Magic sequel or Remake on way (courtesy of Slitherine who've bought the rights from Atari's IP dungeon and just made the announcement on their site)!!!

Guess this explains the mysterious Atari activities I noticed recently. Clearly they reacquired MoM so they could sell it to Slitherine for $$$.

I'm such a super fan of this 25 year old game that I run a MoM fans facebook group so as you can image I'm SUPER EXCITED about this news lol.

I can't can't believe that after all these years a real sequel just might be happening now. Sadly most of the old MoM forums are long dead so if there's any fans here who know of a good old MoM2 wishlist/feature request list out there please let me know and I'll go post it over on the Slitherine forums (which I've just signed up to).
 
They've probably barely started the project yet so now is the time to get fan feature requests and wish list items in front of their faces. If the remaining fan base doesn't speak up now then god knows what sort of game we'll end up with. So now is the time to act!

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[Pol]

And yet, the game is remembered only by us, veterans. (because of 1994) Master of Magic by Microprose was da mark.

It's fair to note, that new "Sequel or Remake" may took years. And may end similar to "World of Magic", which also draw inspiration from MoM. But for me, that graphic, killed it all.

[Blake]

Yeah I still haven't played Worlds of Magic due to all the unhappy reviews and the not so amazing screenshots.

Most fans I've talked to so far appear to be mostly wanting MoM with a fresh coat of paint and don't want the wheel reinvented. Some have made some crazy suggestions but generally everything people come up with has already been done in one of the MoM style spin off games (eg Age of Wonders, Warlock, Endless Legend, Sorcerer/Elemental/FE, Worlds of Magic/PQ, Eador, Dominions etc) so such a change would make it feel more like them than a MoM sequel. So they need to update it but also be careful that they don't turn it into something else that has already been done and quite possibly done better.

A few people have joined up and posted their lack of faith in the Slitherine forums under their announcement and they were shot down pretty quick by fans of Slitherines other games, so their customer loyalty is a promising sign at least.

I've never played Fantasy General but apparently they're doing a pretty good job with it. I looked at some of the other games under their name and found some interesting ones..

Polaris appears to be a Master of Orion style game:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4182 ... is_Sector/

Pandora appears to be a Alpha Centuari, Civ Beyond Earth / AoW Planetfall sort of game:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2875 ... t_Contact/

They don't rate highly on steam but they look okay and many of the reviews (even the bad ones) all seem to talk about how hardcore the AI is so that's promising. Yeah they don't look like amazing genre changing games but they actually give me some comfort as it shows they have years of experience with 4x PC strategy gaming. Hopefully they take the good stuff from these stepping stone games and learn from the bad stuff people didn't like and put them to good use with their MoM project. Although it looks like different developers worked on those games and Slitherine just published them, so I wonder who they will put on MoM.

PS is it just me or is Pandora using the same world engine as Warlock? That is so darn similar lol.

[Panda Tar]

Microprose? I used to play Microprose's Transport Tycoon. It is still my favorite transport management game. There's also some Open Source project around it, afaik.

[Blake]

Forgot to say that as well as posting other peoples wish lists & suggestions I of course also gave them a copy of my own personal wish list below:

• BIG ONE - More than 4 enemy players. Implode's MoM HD Multiplayer Remake allowed EVERY wizard in one game for super 14 player games which would have bee EPIC and so much fun had he finished the project.
• Larger maps (Insectiside fan patch added huge map size to the original)
• Limited Spying (most fantasy rpgs have thieves/rogues so it fits and stealing spells would be fun)
• Time limit and bigger cost on time stop spell (if you're planning on having that annoying spell again)
• Demand or give cities in Diplomacy (most 4x games have this now and I like using it to play god/peacekeep and save bullied Civs and minor factions from deaths door)
• Expand Grey Neutral Faction into lots of minor factions with identities and race affiliations (eg a minor Elven race with a minor elf wizard that likes Elven main civs and makes trouble for others.. this is another thing done in modern 4x fantasy and space games)
• More worlds and/or an underground world (although this has already been done before in AoW, HoMM & Warlock series)
• More ocean content eg HoMM series filled oceans with shipwreck lairs and treasures (even Morrowind had underwater caves filled with creatures and treasure so this is not new to fantasy games). You could even have a Merfolk faction with cities in the ocean. The fun Fantasy and Midgard scenarios for Civilization 2 Test of Time had a good underwater Merfolk faction with lots of sea based units/creatures.
• Not essential but some cool weather effects would be a fun immersion factor (especially as you can tie spells into them for gameplay events such as huge storms and earthquakes etc). The Official Playstation remake of Master of Magic has clouds rolling over and some cool weather effects from spells. The new Civ6 addon Gathering Storm is another good example of world changing weather effects.
• Talk to Seravy, he's da man on all things MoM and the creator of the super popular MoM overhaul mod Caster of Magic


EDIT: BIG NEWS! Slitherine have indeed spoken to Seravy as they releasing his Caster of Magic as an official DLC to Master of Magic on Steam and GoG!!!
https://blakessanctum.wordpress.com/202 ... team-gog/

EDIT2: On top of that Slitherine have also now setup an official Master of Magic forum! And they've kindly moved my ever growing MoM2 wishlist thread into there too.
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=590

EDIT3:
And if all that isn't enough Seravy has hinted that he is working on a Caster of Magic 2! A full MoM rebuild in a new engine with all of CoM's changes built in and much more due to being free of the old games limitations. Eg full 14 wizard salughterfest games!!

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[Blake]

WOAH!!! The good news keeps coming for MoM fans. After years Implode has returned from his self imposed exile (think kungfu movie where the bad guy bests the good guy so the good guy climbs up a mountain and learns better kungfu with some old guy with a grey beard who never speaks and then the good guy comes back and kicks the bad guys ass lol) and released a new version of his HD Multiplayer remake of Master of Magic with for the first time FUNCTIONING AI!! This is the moment many like me have been waiting/hoping for.. hopefully people try it and give him some feedback!

Announcement: https://mom.pjj.cc/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9815

Download: https://sourceforge.net/projects/momime/files/

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[Blake]

Big news! Looks like Seravy's Caster of Magic 2 (possibly renamed to 'Caster of Magic for Windows' now probably by Slitherine lol) is coming out of private beta and going public on steam soon.

What is also very interesting is that it says on the announcement that it supports custom resizable windows and presumably resolutions! I'll try to confirm that since that would be awesome news as Seravy had zero interest in higher viewing resolutions when I last talked to him about it (eg he was gonna keep it at 320x200 still lol). Maybe Slitherine or all his beta testers kept pestering him about it and he found a way to do it lol. Either way it's great news. Modern resolutions plus full 13 Wizard slaughterthon games are gonna be epic! Have wishlisted! Before anyone asks no it is not multiplayer lol (try Master of Magic - Implodes Multiplayer edition remake for that).

https://steamcommunity.com/games/114637 ... 4907446252

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[Blake]

Seravy's new Caster of Magic 2 (or Caster of Magic for Windows as Slitherine are calling it) has been officially released on Steam, GoG & Slitherine's own store a few days ago! Sadly my hopes for modern resolutions were dashed (it just stretches 320x200 in a window) so Implodes fan game above is still the only one that does true HD stuff, however CoM has so many other benefits eg a gazillion bug fixes & balance changes, super smart AI opponents, more spells, more buildings, more advanced game modes & options, and best of all NO MORE 5 PLAYER LIMIT!! So umm 14 Wizards going at it in one game? Yes please!

Feel free to drop by the Master of Magic fans Facebook and Discord groups to discuss. Seravy himself is kindly answering questions and bug reports on the discord too!

I know some people aren't huge fans of CoM's changes but maybe Slitherine will take Seravy's new engine source and do a 'MoM for Windows' one day too. Probably wishful thinking but you never know!

Familiar but not quite the same


14 Wizard carnage incoming


Cool new options


Looks the same but apparently the new combat AI is naaaasty

[Pol]

That sounds like a heavenly mana for me!

[Blake]

A little late to the party with this even bigger news but OMG lol.. After 25 years of nothing it really is an amazing time for us diehard Master of Magic fans! There I was a few weeks ago getting excited about Seravy’s new Caster of Magic 2 for Windows release and then something even more amazing got officially announced, as we finally have confirmation of the Slitherine mystery MoM project I’ve posted about here before! Slitherine are working with Thea series creators MuHa games on a Official Master of Magic Remake!!! MuHa are a small indie studio so sure enough it's nothing AAA however the new remake already looks and sounds pretty good! I can already see people complaining about the hexes and lack of multiplayer but neither of those bother me. You can find the announcement videos (they've remade the old intro!), some nice pictures, and game info on their new Steam and GoG pages!

But I'll stick a few here too!

Trailer/Intro:


Dev Interview:

[Blake]

bahaha.. further proof that I'm way too late to the party with this news.. I just saw that you covered all this on the main news page already @Pol ! And you even mentioned some the fan stuff I've been posting about. Cheers mate!

[Blake]

Got a couple more Master of Magic news tips from the fan community...

Suppanut has released a new version 1.4.2 of his excellent Warlords mod for CoM2Win. Warlords changes many things in Caster of Magic 2 for Windows, some to feel more like classic MoM again and some others are new things entirely. There's rebalanced wizard, races, units and spells along with 50 brand new units/creatures! You can get the latest release from here:
https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/sho ... ?tid=10548

Many of us weren't sure if this day would come but Implode has released the big version 1.0 of his Master of Magic IME HD Multiplayer fan rebuild which means pretty much all features of the great Microprose 1994 classic TBS Master of Magic game are replicated (including AI opponents)! He's a done a few releases since and is just bug fixing and fine tuning/improving things now! Was a great day for MoM fans!!! You can get the latest release from here:
https://sourceforge.net/p/momime/

Implode lurks on the MoM Discord if people have feedback for him!
https://discord.gg/wFNQf36

Here's an old tour video (I need to make a nice new one ASAP lol!)


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