First some background.
Like everyone on this forum, I played the hell out of, and love, Master of Magic.
I've been waiting forever for a proper sequel that would do it justice, but sadly none has come out to date.
When I heard about Elemental, I was very hopeful, and indeed the game looked promising.
After following its development for months, I caved in to my urge and bought the digital download on the first day.
For the next few days I had played straight from when I got home from work until 3 in the morning, neglecting the fact that I still have to go to work when the sun comes up.
My thoughts so far?
The game shows lots of potential, especially with the mod community, but as it stands right now, I am disappointed.
It's bug ridden and unbalanced.
Without a question, its release was premature.
Honestly, if there wasn't such an uproar about this fact, it could very well be dismissed as a few disappointed opinions.
I've decided to stop playing and wait for the game to reach a state where I can enjoy it more.
With that said, here are a few elements from Master of Magic (missing from Elemental) that would make Elemental far more enjoyable for me and, I hope, the majority of you.
Regardless of whether they're done through mods or patches, as long as they're in, I would play the sh*t out of this game!
Unique and interesting abilities, remember how fun these were?
Items were a lot more exciting.
Remember when you got that 1 item that was chock full of stats and it totally blew your mind?
Ranged magic attack and magic resistance are well understood, units really should be allowed ranged non physical default attacks.
Fame affected how frequently some random events took place - merchants, mercenaries, heroes.
Remember the random merchant bringing you awesome gear?
What happened to races, racial properties, and race specific units?
Well, thats about all I have for now.
I for one really miss these essential elements in what was supposed to be the spiritual successor to MOM.
I hope they'll be added to Elemental someday.
Let me know what you guys think.
Faith again
I also share the OP's thoughts about MoM.
But then the problem is : basically, the more I think about it, the more I simply realize that I wanted "MoM 2.0". Basically a graphical upgrade, rebalancing and maybe adding some perks.
I'm not sure that I do EWoM justice, because I've a hard time judging it on its own merits and not just comparing it to the "MoM 2" I wanted to get.
Quoted for truth. MoM was absolutely brilliant, somewhat "simple" and yet it nailed every single aspect that mattered.
It's unbeliavable that 15 years and MILLIONS of game releases later, the only game that compares to MoM is MoM itself.
I truly hope in a large community effort to make a worthy MoM conversion, if the mechanics of EWoM will allow it.
Amen.
While we are at it....personally I think that AoW-SM >>> MoM.
I am a huge MoM fan too. The closest thing I have found to it is Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic. If you like MoM, you should definately give that game a try.
RIP Simtex. You made the best games ever.
I may admit i was also hoping for a good remake of MoM with lots of evolutions.Maybe Brad will take all those post in mind
I would love to see the ability to equip a unit with both a ranged and melee weapon, and it's actually a change that shouldn't be too hard to implement - ignoring the new graphical assets that might be necessary.It would be an especially interesting feature with champions.
Great post. These are the design features we wanted to see. I don't even care about the bugs in either EWoM or MoM. I just wanted the design to be inspired and fun.
I still do.
Yeah, this is supposed to be the War of Magic m'kay ?
When i hear the words war of magic i imagine tons of mages casting spells everywhere wrecking havoc over the battlefield and tons of poor little soldiers blown around like leaves blown by the wind
(btw you have a bit of Sauron when some troups make enemy fly away )
I would like to say I would gladly pay about $100 for a modern remake of MoM, and I mean that, dont add any new ruels just a super facelift that make her look 18 again.
If you want to add a few things here and there like a custumizable hero, more spells another race, more diplomatic options great, but dont remove shit.
refine her and fix her, dont reinvent.
Illegal myass. MoM had volcanoes, populus had volcanoes, black and white had volcanoes, real life has volcanoes I mean, come on.
I think the reason they didnt flat out copy MoM is because they (somewhat arrogantly) were a bit obsessed with making Elemental unique and "their own thing". But when that results in gameplay that isnt even complete or even thought out when the game is released (it feels like the gameplay itself and the different features and mechanics werent even finalized until the day 0 patch), well its just pointless..
If they just straight copied MoM at least they would START OUT with a great core gameplay experience, which they could THEN modernize and build upon. Sometimes its pointless to reinvent the wheel, especially if the wheel turns out to be a hexagon that rolls chuggishly.
I'm... afraid I have to agree here.
Join the club.
But - they did try to make a MoM v2 - didn't get the legal permission. (Whoever denied them the right to do this must have been an idiot of the worst sort).
Ciao,
Klaus
Great post, short, inspiring, simple and constructive. It is not about doing a MoM2, it is about taking the best game concepts and inspiration from MoM to make EWoM into a much better game than the current completely unbalanced and empty-of-content version.
One thing I second and want to underline is world-changing spells (rituals really) taking several turns to cast.
A lot of this could be implemented in a revamped EWoM with 1-2 fantasy expansions getting rid of today's boring lore. But will Stardock do it? Not so sure, in the end it's about TASTE isn't it? And despite many players asking for a lot of this we didn't get almost ANY fantasy and magic compared to MoM. So, maybe Frogboy - for some unknown reason - just prefers to do his own thing, with peasants instead of paladins. Hope it's still not too late, although the game is out ...
He is too old to change his point for view!
Oh and btw any idea about this : https://forums.elementalgame.com/394289/#2745741 ?
This is turning into Master of Orion 3 sadly. Well ok maybe that's a little to harsh. The MOO3 team stated they were listening to the fans and did the complete opposite. After that they just disappeared. At least Stardock reacts to their fan base and makes changes. I really want to get this game but it lacks the magic options and creatures like MOM has turned me away. I have bought several games from Stardock GalCiv, GalCiv2, SoaSE and loved them. But this appears to be one to hold off. Granted I'm just looking for an updated MOM. I just don't want to wait a year before mods kick in to add features that I am looking for. I mean the lack of magic, undead, flying units, etc. Here's hoping this changes but I have a feeling it will not with so much bad press and poor reviews. I might just have to try out Dominion 3 or MOO again. Does anyone know if there is a MOM mod that updates the graphics?
This thread is getting seriously weird. If MoM was somehow resurrected using todays technology everyone would hate it. The balance and bugs where horrible in the last official patch and the concept was almost cartoony in simplicity. Face it, you don't actually want MoM. You want something new. Something better. And definitely something different since you all obviously played the game until the floppy discs shattered, and thus already know each and every detail of a winning strategy.
This discussion belongs in a MoM 2 forum. Elemental was never intended to be a sequel to MoM. Let it be judged by its own merits and flaws.
If you want your opinions to matter create some kind of list of features you would like to see implemented in a patch. Keeping the suggestions feasible will help.
This is turning into Master of Orion 3 sadly
No!!! Don't remind me of that nightmare. Moo2 is my favorite game ever, so I was severly traumatized by MOO 3.
With that being said, I am a bit disappointed by the lack of variety/depth in this game. The tech tree is small, and the variety of buildings is extremely limited. (This game seems to center on resources rather than cities.) I actually like the way the unit-building works, though, and the magic tree seems to be pretty full. If they can iron out all the bugs and add a few features, I think this could be a contender.
Master of Magic is my favorite game of all time, and I've been playing PC games since 1989. I still play MoM on my current Windows Vista machine with the help of DOSBox as well as my Windows 95 machine running under DOS. What drew my attention to Elemental in the first place was that it was supposed to be a successor to Master of Magic.
It may have been buggy, but MoM was fun to play even with the bugs. Great games are. Remember Daggerfall? It was full of bugs but a lot of people played it because it was fun. So much so that Bethesda began offering Daggerfall as a free download to celebrate its 15th anniversary.
So far I have not played any other game that provided me with the enjoyment that Master of Magic has. And, yes, I tried Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic. It's a good game but not as good as Master of Magic.
But the thing is that it is all a matter of personal perspective. Although I consider Master of Magic to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, others may consider Shadow Magic to be a better game. And if there is one thing I have learned since I began posting on internet gaming forums it is that no matter how bad a game is, there will always be those who love it, even MoO3.
Obviously. Emphasis on the better part. I'm fine with Elemental not copying ever MoM feature identically but I want something that's at least equal or better than a given MoM feature in return.
Champions - They're generic, underpowered, and boring with few if any special skills. Clearly a step down from MoM
Items - There are a mere handful, you cannot create them yourself, and they only provide stats and not interesting effects. Clearly a step down from MoM
Damage Mechanic - The 0 to Atk rolls are ludicrously random. I won't pretend that MoM was in any way balanced but at least the combat mechanics were fairly predictable. Clearly a step down from MoM
Random Events - Ummm... yeah... there are none. And quests are not a replacement, while neat quests are just drawn out goodie huts and not a substitute for big world altering random events. Clearly a step down from MoM
Races - MoM races had unique units, buildings, and bonuses that made them significantly different to play. The Elemental races are nearly identical, with only minor bonuses (some of which don't even work...) and graphics to differentiate them. There is the Empire vs. Kingdom split but that's a whopping 2 choices. Clearly a step down from MoM
Spellbooks - Once of the best things about MoM was the spellbook system. The choices you made there drastically changed how the game played and influenced nearly every decision you made there after. Elemental has 5 binary books that generally everyone simply takes all of them. Clearly a step down from MoM. Clearly a step down from MoM
Magic - There were 40 spells in each of 6 different schools with massively varying effects while still maintaining a theme and feel. From tactical only damage and summons to strategic mega spells that took turns to cast and changed the whole worlds. Elemental has 5 books of pathetically weak spells that almost entirely overlap with one another. Clearly a step down from MoM
Units - In MoM units had varying special powers and really felt different from each other. Elemental has a unit designer but with so little depth that all the units it churns out are nearly identical. Clearly a step down from MoM
Myrror - MoM had an alternate mirror world, Elemental doesn't. Clearly a step down from MoM
So what did we get that MoM doesn't have?
Prettier graphics
Better city building
Tech research
...I'm at a loss to think of anything else
So yeah, I think we all want something other than completely straight MoM port, we want something better than MoM (even if that's just MoM with better graphics and more of everything it already has). But Elemental as it stands is definitely not better than MoM.
elemental has dynasty
Bah just get Spore
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