This is not meant to bring anyone down. I just hope some people will be able to point out some things that will alleviate some of my concerns that Elemental is not going to be "Master of Magicky" enough for me.
To me the thing that made MoM so great, was it had that "just one more turn!" magic that could have you awake at 3:00 in the morning, you to go to work if 4 hours AND YOU DIDN'T CARE.
Don't get me wrong - the two Stardock games I have played, GalCiV2 and SOASE are great games. And I don't even know how to quantify it, I don't know exactly what it is that gives a game "the magic". I really like a lot of what I am seeing. but a lot of what I am hearing such as no other races but Men and Fallen, and no disrespect to Total War, but it really seems like they are aiming for Total War with fireballs and dragons. And if that is the case, that will be a cool game that I enjoy. And I realize the game isn't even in really alpha yet, so I could be jumping the gun on getting my fears up. But here are some of the things that I am afraid will be missing from the game I hoped for:
1. The abililty to play as lots of different races and for it to be truly completely different. In MoM, playing as High Men, halflings, orcs, etc etc truly made each game a new experience. They didn't just say "every race has to have a light infantry, an archer, a heavy infantry, a catapult" and then give them different graphics. They really made each race it's own thing with unique strengths and weaknesses. It seems like just Men and Fallen is going to leave me wishing for more variety. Again I haven't seen anything so here is hoping when beta comes out I am wrong.
2. Another thing that made MoM almost infinitely replayable were the 30 or so options you could choose from at game start up. things like alchemy that would allow you to convert mana and gold into each other with no loss. Or starting on Myrror. O being a Warlord (combat bonus) and some of them had prerequisites, such as to be an Arch Mage (I think) you had to have at least one book of every school of magic. Then there was selecting the books of magic and preselecting your guaranteed spells. All of this combined with number 1 above really meant you had a universe of infinite possibilites.
3. MoM had a huge spellbook of over 100 spells. and again they were not just lame "ice bolt does 10 ICE damage and fire bolt does 10 FIRE damage" stupid essentially duplicate spells. Thre were some really well thought out and different spells that just seemed to fit the school that they came from. So far, it seems like the spell selection is going to be much less deep in Elemental.
I hope these are all unfounded concerns. I was a huge Master of Orion 3 fanboi until the actually released the game. So maybe it is just once bitten, twice shy. And I am really looking forward to getting a look at this, it is just that so much that I have heard so far has given me some concerns it is not going to be the game I had hoped.
As I wrote earlier it's just a little sad the races and sovereign are all only human. The game can still be great fun, but will be one of the few TBS fantasy games without fantasy races. The aspect of how the game would be more fun with a race of undead/dwarves/giants/etc., is because each race would have natural skills, abilities, attacks and resistances not naturally available for human races. So if one evening finishes with you watching lord of the rings and the next day you desire to play as Sauron(Eye of Fire) controlling armies of orcs and goblins... it's not possible. Even sometime next year after its release you would have to wait on the community for providing a powerful immobile soverign(Eye of Fire) and a balanced race of Orcs/Goblins... unless you have lots of time and 3D artistic skills.
Very well said! I agree. SD may still be able pull out something amazing, with all human crew. They are just taking a risk here. & let us wish them succeed.This forum is a place for on going dialogue. SD has already heard our concern, & as long this thread keep evolving in an intelligent direction, we should keep going on discussing. They visit this forum pre-alpha is to hear us, we should not be too pushy.I am sure some of the game review mag will say something negative about the incompleteness on the lack of playable fantasy races in a fantasy game. How about merge the 12 human into 6 races, the rest your typical fantasy races? 6 human races are a lot of fractions for story development. The other 6 fantasy races need not even be included in story; maybe they can be used as roaming monsters etc. In MP, the default races are always used before any MOD become credible.
Those new races would take a good deal of time to be implemented as the devs said before, so they would have to cut other game features. That's why you can't say it would be more fun, because you are just adding some features and taking out others.
The way I see it, it should be less about what races you have, and more about making each faction/race distinct and interesting. Having elves or whatever is really just a skin job in a world of magic anyway.
In fact, I'd like to see the devs stear clear of the standard fantasy depictions for something more creative.
I have been lurking on this forum ever since I read the article about E:WoM in Game Informer. I am very excited to get the game. That being said, my biggest fear is that the game will be too focused on Multiplayer.
I prefer to play single-player, and I am growing tired of watching games focus on the Multiplayer experience, at the loss of a rich and expansive single-player. I don't have the time to excel at multiplayer, I like to relax and take my time moving through a game... not to mention the attitudes of many players in the multiplayer arena are a turn-off. If this games takes a hard turn towards the multiplayer, then it would make me seriously hesitate in purchasing it.
Just my $.02 - you guys can go back to arguing about fantasy aspects of the game
You're tired of multiplayer, I'm tired of paying for graphics engines instead of games. Most of the lame ass single player experiences in the rts market are because they spend all their money on a pretty engine and none of it on ai or writers. It's misguided to blame it on a multiplayer focus.
Shitty unit AI has ruined the fun factor of most RTS games(cue raving Starcrap fans) at the competative level because they become downright tedius micromanagement whore fests instead of thinking games. Shitty side AI means no one ever ever ever wants to have a computer controlled opponent in the game. It's either a massive handicap, or a cheating whore with free resources that doesn't play by the rules. Having a good campaign is fairly irrelevant to multiplayer, but AI development is a crucial factor and poorl scripted hack jobs just don't cut it.
Flash is easier to advertise than substance.
~ Just my $.02 - you guys can go back to arguing about fantasy aspects of the game
And we will.... oh how we will
I don't care about having a 'story campaign'... I care about a robust single-player experience. If they can do both a great multi-player and single-player, than that is great... but I am tired of the vocal multi-player drowning out the needs of a large, single-player base. I'd be disappointed if they spend all this time and money developing multiplayer features at the expense of a single-player experience. That's all I am saying.
Yep. no campaign for me either (I mean it can be there, but it is not a big deal to me) and multiplayer is also an afterthought.
Solo in a sandbox, tons of maps as well as random generated maps, a deep story and gameplay that sucks me into the world. For a couple dozen hours each week I want to BE the ruler of a fantasy realm. When heroes die I want them to be friends when I am a good guy or at least valuable pawns when I am in a more evil, fallen mood.
That happens, and I am a very happy camper.
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