OT: Master of Magic 2 - now looking quite likely

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Thilock_Dominus:
Another thing that MOM had that dom2 havn't is you move with your units like the civ games and had underground world too (which also can be found in the AOW series).

Eh? The only major difference between Civ and Dom2 movement is that the number of neighbors of any given "cell" is variable, as opposed to always being 8.

And you _can_ have an underground world (or the mirror world that MoM2 had) in Dom2. Some of the user made maps by Andrew Osborne do things like this, as did the "Hollow World" map from Dom1.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Jasper:
Eh? The only major difference between Civ and Dom2 movement is that the number of neighbors of any given "cell" is variable, as opposed to always being 8.

That, and the concept of significance. In Dom2, every cell bears innate significance, but in Civ-style games, no cell bears any real significance unless another player has chosen to populate and develop it. As such, Civ-style has a lot of "whitespace" in which units move about in, whereas Dom2 features a mighty battle at every cell.

[Pirateiam]

Take pity on my BELOVED Jagged Alliance series. First, Sirtech goes tits up, then the franchise is purchaced by infamous garbage-spewer Strategy First, who oh by the way just layed off everyone and fired the whole JA legacy team. Then they hand the whole kit and kaboodle over to an unknown russian developer, who don't seem to have anyone on staff who speaks english. Actually to call them unknown would be generous, as they are best-known for a horrible piece of trash cyberpunk game whose name escapes me. To make things worse? TWO DAYS after the 2-year development program is announced, they RELEASE SCREENSHOTS. Yes in two days, they managed to get a working alpha going and post screens on the webpage. Seems they are using the "engine" of another TBS to kick start their process. I've never heard of a TBS using an engine from an existing game before. This ought to be interesting.

That is very troubling news. I followed Sirtech's demise with sadness. I probably played JA2 more than any other game so far. I think I finished 4 times now from start to finish. Just the personalities of the Mercs were entertaining and what came out there mouths were hilarious and sick. To this day the funiest line in any game I played is when I the hot babe Merc was killed (her name escapes me) and one of the Phycho Mercs from AIM wanted put her on ice for later use!

[Kel]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
One of the most common things is adding multiplayer to it. Thats not easy. And its not just the coding headaches. Its that too much of what made MoM so popular is tied into the randoms which multiplayers hate.

I would heartily agree that reducing or removing the 'randomness' would be removing the reason I loved MoM so much more than all the other similar games (including Galciv which I thought was only 'ok').

I can also see how competitive multiplayers might not like a lot of randomization.

However, there are already lots of MP games like AoW and not so many that are truly like MoM. No, I don't consider Dom2 to be an improved MoM. While Dom2 is really good in its own right, it doesn't have the same level of randomization as MoM, nor the turn based fights (and given it's PBEM focus, this is totally understandable).

I would hope that even if they add MP and try to improve it, they would not remove what made it special. Surely, there are some players who are ok with a high level of randomization.

- Kel

PS: Nice post, Gandalf. I might find some MoM2 board somewhere and make a similar point.

[Taqwus]

Huh, interesting.

MoM also appears to differ from Dom/Dom2 in a variety of other ways, like

- the limit on spell books and life/death magic meaning two players might be exploring entirely different trees
- having a very different way of limiting spellcasting
- multi-turn magic which could be Spell BLasted by a wily caster with Detect Magic
- mana upkeep
- wounds taking more time to heal
- heavier emphasis on enchantments on individual units (invisible flying spell-locked warships?)
- potentially very, very nasty independent stacks guarding nodes

[Gandalf Parker]

MoM is very different than Dom2. But I usually feel safe in telling people who still have Stars! and Master of Magic on their machines, that if they love those then they should try Dom2. The similarity is hard to point out.

I think that they all were popular because you didnt feel like you were learning the strategies that the game writer had in mind when he wrote the game. You can create your own personal nation which can play best using the tactics YOU come up with. Its the pre-game design which actually makes a difference and isnt just changing what color of cloak you wear.
Oh yeah, there is also a game on the shrapnel site called Space Empires IV which is pretty good for that.

But of all of them I think Dom2 has done it best (so far)

[ July 16, 2004, 01:43: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
I didn't like it either, although not because of the gameplay: I disliked it because of the intermittent crashing bugs combined with the fact that trying to even download a bloody patch was like trying to perform root canal in the field with a butter knife.

Never had this problem myself. One of the very few ultra-stable games I have. It's more stable than Dom 2. And patching via Stardock Central for me is painless and quick. You're not on ... ack, ugh ... dial-up, are you???

[Daynarr]

Originally posted by Arryn:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Norfleet:
I didn't like it either, although not because of the gameplay: I disliked it because of the intermittent crashing bugs combined with the fact that trying to even download a bloody patch was like trying to perform root canal in the field with a butter knife.

Never had this problem myself. One of the very few ultra-stable games I have. It's more stable than Dom 2. And patching via Stardock Central for me is painless and quick. You're not on ... ack, ugh ... dial-up, are you???

---

I bet he's still using 28800 modem.

Dom 2 never crashes (at least not on my system) so I can hardly call anything "more" stable.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Arryn:
Never had this problem myself. One of the very few ultra-stable games I have. It's more stable than Dom 2. And patching via Stardock Central for me is painless and quick. You're not on ... ack, ugh ... dial-up, are you???

Oh, hell no. I was referring to the absolutely ridiculous number of hoops and obstacles you had to work around just to get a freaking patch.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
I was referring to the absolutely ridiculous number of hoops and obstacles you had to work around just to get a freaking patch.

What "hoops and obstacles"? How hard is it to have a net-connection, launch the Stardock Central app (SC), and then watch it download and auto-install whatever the latest patch is? Or are you referring to the *registration* process to initially set up SC? Once it's set up it's essentially brainless. And if you don't want to deal with SC, you can always just go to their site via browser and download the patch (or get it from some other site). I simply fail to understand what's so hard and what your problem is? (Of course this Last question is one helluva juicy straight line for your detractors to jump all over ...)