This is an excerpt from his recent interview with Gamespot.
"The real influence for Fallen Enchantress was Master of Magic. There are some touches that are similar to Fall From Heaven, but the game manual I always have in my laptop bag and the design I return to when I consider going down path A or path B is Master of Magic. That doesn't mean that I always do what Master of Magic did; we have to do what's best for Fallen Enchantress. But Master of Magic remains the real inspiration behind the game."
I had assumed that this was the dev philosophy of E:WoM, but things got twisted along the way.
Please stick by this vision, and I'm sure we will have AAA game on our hands that people will enjoy for years to come.
Indeed. It's very encouraging to hear this.
I second the motion and agree with the notion.
Finally, some hopeful news....
Hiring Derek may prove to be Frogboy's best move to date.
Unfortunately some people will still be upset with anything less that an updated MOM clone.
I'll just be happy with a good free game.
I've actually never played MoM (gasp!). I'd personally prefer that He keep in mind the things that made His mod successful, Amen.
Like very different factions and strategic depth.
Because, as far as the base for FE goes, I think that it was a decent fantasy wargame, but just doesn't have the heft in game mechanics to be a great 4x TBS. Only my opinion, of course, but the way that culture, religion, civics, and diplomacy interacted in Civ4, and thus FfH2, was exquisite, and I haven't seen anything that leads me to believe that FE will have nearly the same amount of strategic depth.
I know that Stardock hates this kind of post, but I think that it's a simple fact that the less nuance there is in a strategy game, the less long-term replayability it's going to have once the Gee-Whiz factor wears off.
That is all, feel free to ignore the sentiment, if you'd like.
Edit: Although I'm not convinced, I'm still cautiously optimistic.
Keep in mind this is pre release hype. Remember the pre release hype for Supreme Commander 2. "Oh it's gunna be all bigger and better than Forged Alliance."
Invoke the name of a beloved franchise and buyers assume the new game will be like that with better graphics.
I heard that EFE is going to be better than World of Warcraft.
Wait, so it's not going to be rebooted as a gritty FPS with a brown color filter? [e digicons]:'([/e]
I suppose going down the Master of Magic route will suffice.
Supreme Commander 2 did one noticeable thing better than the original... the flow field system which allowed battles to move with less lag and not run into each other nearly as much. This sped things up tremendously as one of the major problems I had with the first game was the level of lag that cropped up during huge fights. I didn't notice one bit of it in the Supreme Commander 2 battle videos I watched on Youtube.
That was the only good thing. They completely butchered the system by adding in a research system to an originally researchless game, and changed the economy system so that you pay for everything up front instead of over time when building. Supreme Commander is undoubtedly one of the best games ever made and a worthy successor to it's inspiration, Total Annihilation. But Supreme Commander 2 does not fit that description... and I really hope that Elemental isn't going down that same road. Things like this, however, keep me hopeful that everything will turn out fine in the end. Elemental may have been released terribly incomplete, but they seem to have a good developer base who cares about their games and make appropriate patches and tweaks -- the 1.1 and 1.2 patches spring to mind, which made the game immensely more playable.
Derek Paxton, I salute you. Many have talked about and tried to make a true sequel -- or at least spiritual successor -- to Master of Magic, but none have ever really come this close. Elemental shows a tremendous amount of promise, and I look forward to seeing what great new worlds you and your friends at Stardock will create for us.
While M.O.M. is one of the best games of it's type ever, don't forget AOW:SM. For it two was priceless (Just needed better ai & I would still be spending 1000's of hours playing & making maps for my 4-5 steady players/friends). A cross between the two is the game I hope to have coming.
& I agree that hiring Paxton on was a GREAT move.
Heard this a lot before E:WOM and during early beta. But it ended up so, so far from that.
It is a great idea to stick to MoM, but it needs less mentioning and more doing. Hopefully with Derek on board we can see that.
... and if not, we will always have Paris... I mean, Fall from Heaven 2!
This.
I read the interview a few days ago and was very hopeful, with Paxton and Shafer on board I think they will find the focus they are looking for.
I have the original game now for three weeks and find it interesting and fun, so i am not quite sure what the problem was.
But with (Stardock with Paxton and Shafer) concentrating on what they see as 'key' elements (improving the world, improving the magic and tactics)
is what i read in the interview, a very, very nice interview too.
i am very, very hopeful that FE will be the game that everyone expects.
Though expectations can sometimes be real high when it comes to fans.
But here is hoping they get it working the way they really feel it should and that we can all enjoy it.
-Teal
This x1000.
The OP makes it sound like before Derek , SD was shy about mentioning MoM as the gold standard or inspiration they were working towards. They weren't. Fat lot good all that mention did.
I'll believe it when I see it.
MoM didnt have much of this , yet it had as much depth. Reason? Crazy depth in spells, units, special abilities. Not caring about balance and not worried about making AI competitive without massive cheating has it advantages.
FE even under the current producer is far less daring, there will be a few "cool" whiz overlords and abilities but on the balance it's of the +1 attack school of thought.
I thought Master of Magic was the inspiration behind EWOM?
Go back far enough, and yes it was. Something along the way changed.
drrob
If you had been here from 2008 and onwards then you wouldn't let the hype take you over like that.
As Rishkith says, we have read lots of developer journals (primarily by Brad) which were really enthusiastic and made it sound like Elemental: War of Magic was going to be the best fantasy TBS game ever made.
I particulary remember one journal where he posted a video of himself playing Master of Magic (30 sec long) and wrote that gamedevelopers could learn alot from Master of Magic.
Tridus
Brad said that the engine couldn't support the things they wanted to do (but now they've fixed that).
Game Developer: "I'm going to make a great game!"
Newb Gamer: "Great game? I love great games, I can't wait!"
Jaded Gamer: "They always claim the game is going to be Great, or Inovative, or the Spiritual successor to some past great game, just wait and see"
Newb Gamer: "Yea but they mentioned it would be like SuperAwesome Game, and I loved that game! This is going to be Great!"
Jaded Gamer: "Uh huh..."
Yeah, but if you're building a new engine for your new MoM-like game, wouldn't you build in what you need? Improving it bodes well for FE at least.
Xia - Yeah that is so me now. E3 this year was one giant sequence of "gee that's a pretty trailer, too bad it tells me absolutely nothing" and "wow that game looks incredibly gimmicky and I can't wait to spend the first two weeks after release reading reviews and forums to see if it's worth a purchase."
Ofcourse, but apparantly they couldn't do it fast enough and Brad thought it was good enough since he became blind.
I must becoming old....29 years young now I haven't followed E3 for a few years. Just not interesting anymore....Oh man this is not good
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