OT, Stardock's MOM influenced game news

[WraithLord]

Hi,

Just wanted to share with you an interesting thread about this game in the AOW-SM heaven forums.

Needless to say I'm *very* excited about this game. MOM was the first TBS start. I've played and until two years ago I was still actively playing it.

Quoting Edelward quoting Brad

This is a quote from some of their vets ,Brad:

***I don't want to hijack the thread here with an tangential discussion on what should be in a fantasy strategy game. But here's my 2 cents on that:

1) Character building. The player is a character in the game. Nearly all magic in the world actually flows from the player. If you've ever read The Silmarillion (Tolkien) all the magic in Arda basically comes from the spirit of the things created by Eru. So in this sense, the player is a kind of Valar of sorts who can choose to invest their growing power into their creations/minions or into themselves (or a bit of both). That's an over simplification but the point is, part of the game mechanics is having to choose between making your forces more powerful or actual character.

2) The game is very spell-centric. The 3D engine is being designed so you can do Populous style spells to the world. Since it's turn-based (as opposed to real-time) that also means you can have some ridiculously fancy spell effects.

3) Very distinct magic schools.

4) You cannot build heroes. They have to be recruited and there's no Inn. Ones ability to attract heroes is one of the game mechanics and "interesting choices" players have. Those heroes can be wimpy or powerful depending on how the player chooses to use and invest in them.

5) There is massive scaling in this. At the beginning of Fellowship of the Rings (the movie edition) you could see just how powerful Sauron is. In this, if you manage to get a dragon, that dragon can wipe out hundreds of units. And by scale, we mean there's thousands and thousands of troops. One ancient dragon is taking out hundreds of troops.

6) Cities are built and improved and local geography matters. I won't say more on this right now.

7) Multiplayer will involve all players moving at the same time.

8) Battles zoom in so that tactical combat can occur which is also turn based.

This is quote from developer:
**I do want to stress that the goal for this isn't to be a MoM clone. It has its own game mechanics, many of which are in common with MoM since, in a sense, both want to have a lot of Civilization-style elements.

One advantage of being designed in 2007 is the hardware requirements are probably going to be higher than our other games. I want to see large battles. I want to see creatures that can wipe out massive numbers of foot soldiers and such. I want to see magic spells that can flood terrain, raise mountains, ruin worlds. I want to see the land sicken and die when evil takes it over.

If we'd done a MOM2, we would have been faithful to the Master of Magic mechanics. But since we're doing a new game, hopefully we'll be able to make a game that combines favorite elements from many games plus adds our own on innovations to the genre. But it'll be some months before we start putting up any previews or anything (or even announce the game officially). **

[meister_miagi]

Sounds really cool!

[lch]

How is this news? There's info on this since almost four years now. http://www.masterofmagic2.com/

Give it time and see what they come up with. They already said half a year ago that they are not going to produce a Master of Magic 2, but something with influences from MOM, Populous and X-Com *. They didn't buy the MOM license. There are already quite a number of MOM-inspired games.

Actually, I've stumbled over Dominions only because I was looking for a MOM substitute and neither Age of Wonders nor Spellforce nor Heroes of Might and Magic or whatever else I tried was really getting it right. There's half a dozen clone projects that stopped more or less halfway through the design phase, too. And incidentally, I've played a MOM game the whole of yesterday in DosBox, for old times sake. (I pretty much unlearned to play it effectively in hard mode)

But I think now that MOM had its time and it has long since gone past. There will be other games similar to it, but they won't be a 100% adaptation. So give it a rest and just look if those other games are maybe good in their own regard.

/rant

*) Which are, of course, all very popular games. That's PR in action for you.

[WraithLord]

lch said:
How is this news? There's info on this since almost four years now. http://www.masterofmagic2.com/

I've visiting this site on a regular basis. They did mention that stardock wanted to buy MOM rights from ATARI and that the negotiations blew up for some reason. Then sometime 2k7 the gave some more details about stardock developing a MOMish like game but the information I saw in AOW-SM forum was completely new to me.

Give it time and see what they come up with. They already said half a year ago that they are not going to produce a Master of Magic 2, but something with influences from MOM, Populous and X-Com *. They didn't buy the MOM license. There are already quite a number of MOM-inspired games.

Actually, I've stumbled over Dominions only because I was looking for a MOM substitute and neither Age of Wonders nor Spellforce nor Heroes of Might and Magic or whatever else I tried was really getting it right. There's half a dozen clone projects that stopped more or less halfway through the design phase, too. And incidentally, I've played a MOM game the whole of yesterday in DosBox, for old times sake. (I pretty much unlearned to play it effectively in hard mode)

Funny I stumbled over Dominions on the same circumstances as you
And I was also following the progress of many clone projects, none of which too successful or even halfway complete. An exception may be Leylines (not exactly a MOM clone but similar nonetheless)

But I think now that MOM had its time and it has long since gone past. There will be other games similar to it, but they won't be a 100% adaptation. So give it a rest and just look if those other games are maybe good in their own regard.

Hey I fully agree, I've "buried" MOM two years ago and accepted the fact that MOM-II will never happen. This after many years of anxiously waiting and after signing protest letters etc.
A good example is dominions, its not a MOM clone at all. It is IMHO however currently the best TBS fantasy game in existence.

Now, having played stardock's Galciv games I can attest that they are *excellent* TBS games and if their new fantasy game will be anywhere as good as those then its guaranteed to be top notch.


[/quote]

[sector24]

I'm definitely looking forward to Stardock taking a shot at a fantasy game, but the quote in the first post is SO generic. You really can't read anything into it other than they want cool stuff in their game. (And who doesn't?)

I think Dominions 3 has supplanted the desire to play MoM for me. The only thing I really miss is the RPG feeling of MoM that Dominions lacks. For instance all the "goodie huts" in MoM. I would like to see independent commanders with construction 0 and 2 items much more often, maybe random events that give a commander an experience bonus for some kind of adventure or side quest, etc. General events that get you interested in your commanders.

[Omnirizon]

haha.

i see so many people talking about how Dom3 filled in their cravings for another MoM (no Freudian double entendres intended).

That's exactly how I found Dom3. I am a long time MoM fan, and was cruising the internet, searching forums and game sites, looking for a game like MoM. Dom3 hit the spot.

[B0rsuk]

WraithLord, have there been any news about possible Linux version ? Any official response? Given Stardock's past behaviour and other projects, it's unlikely. But it's still possible. Do they at least say what technologies they're going to use ? I mean stuff like Dx10 .

Stardock's Galactic Civilisations 2 gets 'Bronze' rating in Wine, meaning it works, but with some glitches. The most significant of them is inability to patch the game.
http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iVersionId=4493

[BesucherXia]

Hmmm... a really good news.

But I am among the people, who have been disappointed and losing faith for stardock.

Just look at this tread to follow up the "newest schedule" for Galciv2 exp2 beta patch. Just hope they would not break words this time...

[Jazzepi]

Oh who cares D: I'd rather a developer take a billion years to make a good product then rush it out the door. You can't have it both ways.

Look at Blizzard. They're constantly pushing products back, but everything they touch turns into gold.

I have a friend in the IT industry in Washington DC who works for a defense contractor. His saying is this. It can't be fast, cheap, and quality. You have to sacrifice somewhere.

Jazzepi

[theenemy]

You got me drooling at the topics name...