Might & Magic X: Legacy

woah. how did I miss this back in august?

It's still a paid beta.

God Bless kickstarter for reviving the old school RPG. Can't wait for this.

It's hard to get a sense of where the development is headed on this. Their forums are filled with tards who never played the Xeen games, and mistakenly believe that VI-VIII are what a reboot should be like. Hell, there's even some people who claim to have liked IX, but I assume that is just trolling. I mean, it HAS to be, right?

So basically, there's a bunch of bitching about tile-based movement, people crying about not having paper dolls to put their armor on (seriously?), and just a general lack of any understanding about what old school CRPGs were like. At the same time, people are also upset that the devs basically took a look at the stuff submitted via their "OpenDev" program and said, "NOPE." to most of it. So maybe it can still turn out ok, though the impression I got from people who were fans of M&M I-V was that they still need to do a lot of polishing of game mechanics and other technical details before release.

Vorph_sl said:

It's hard to get a sense of where the development is headed on this. Their forums are filled with tards who never played the Xeen games, and mistakenly believe that VI-VIII are what a reboot should be like. Hell, there's even some people who claim to have liked IX, but I assume that is just trolling. I mean, it HAS to be, right?

So basically, there's a bunch of bitching about tile-based movement, people crying about not having paper dolls to put their armor on (seriously?), and just a general lack of any understanding about what old school CRPGs were like. At the same time, people are also upset that the devs basically took a look at the stuff submitted via their "OpenDev" program and said, "NOPE." to most of it. So maybe it can still turn out ok, though the impression I got from people who were fans of M&M I-V was that they still need to do a lot of polishing of game mechanics and other technical details before release.

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Anyone who claims to have liked IX must be trolling yeah, but their opinions should be ignored anyway just in case, just like the people bitching about tile based movement and paper dolls (lol).

The fact that the devs said no to most of the stuff submitted via the OpenDev program actually fills me with hope. It suggests they know what they want and they aren't about to ruin it for the vocal minority.

GorestabbCOE_sl said:

God Bless kickstarter for reviving the old school RPG. Can't wait for this.

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this is a kickstarter? the url reads "ubisoft megacorp store" to me.

DRM kings can eat a dick.

Vorph_sl said:

It's hard to get a sense of where the development is headed on this. Their forums are filled with tards who never played the Xeen games, and mistakenly believe that VI-VIII are what a reboot should be like. Hell, there's even some people who claim to have liked IX, but I assume that is just trolling. I mean, it HAS to be, right?

So basically, there's a bunch of bitching about tile-based movement, people crying about not having paper dolls to put their armor on (seriously?), and just a general lack of any understanding about what old school CRPGs were like. At the same time, people are also upset that the devs basically took a look at the stuff submitted via their "OpenDev" program and said, "NOPE." to most of it. So maybe it can still turn out ok, though the impression I got from people who were fans of M&M I-V was that they still need to do a lot of polishing of game mechanics and other technical details before release.

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heh.

my first thoughts on starting wizardry 8 after the steam sale was, "man, I wish this was grid."
but I also like paperdolls. alot. helps visualize a character so much.

Quineloe_sl said:

this is a kickstarter? the url reads "ubisoft megacorp store" to me.

DRM kings can eat a dick.

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yeah. private crowdfund via uplay.

same deal really. just in house instead of giving kickstarter a %.

Although this is more like landmark then Path of exile, grimrock or trove, etc.. set prices. could just be called a pre-order with alpha access.

Although, been a while did grimrock have tiers, or was that also just a set fee?

so anyway, figured I would post some impressions.

I bit on this when Vorph posted the 10$ sale.
I figured. regular price is $29.99, I am not THAT interested. but 10 bucks interested? yes I am. 66% off before its even launched.
And then promptly forgot I even did.

Until the bump yesterday. And I installed it.


My first impressions were not very good.

Character creation is kindof shit.
Currently there are 8 of the 12 classes.
The system for these, is 4 races with 2(to be 3 at launch) classes each.
so like, human, dwarf, orc, elf are the 4 races.
Elves can only be rangers, or druids. Humans can only be fighters, or freemages.

So races basically dont even really need to exist, as you are forced to pick race for any class anyway. making racial traits even dumber/more bizarre.

And this is further pushed by how the classes are laid out.
like mages can learn any spell school element. But, only to expert level. Grandmaster level, humans can only focus on air, and primal. iirc.
If you want grandmaster fire, you make a dwarf runepreist. gm earth, druid.

So there is no real variation in builds. Most options are outright stripped from you. and ones that are not, are just clearly favoring a specific build, you would be a fool to not follow as expected.
The only real variation is how you take those 12 classes and fill your 4 man party.

Grimrock had a clear 2 up front, 2 in back party formation. I am not entirely sure how this ones works yet.
my party doesnt seem to have a formation. just a 4 across line I think. Opposing forces, at range you can't seem to target specific targets in a group. its random. however, in melee range you can.


First impressions in town. was also not good.
Graphics seemed terrible. 2007. Texture resolution is god awful in many places. doors especially notable.
Feelings on this improved alot more, having entered the first "dungeon". spider cave shown in the trailer in the Op. looks much better in there. Also, the avatars getting poisoned, bloodied, etc is a nice touch.


outside the town also was similar, this felt more like 2010 at least.
Outdoor environs are nice, but I am pretty sure grimrock had MUCH higher texture resolutions.
by the time I called it a night, just before entering the 2nd dungeon/lighthouse. I was feeling much better about the game admittedly.


First chest in town has some stupid promotion code to unlock. no clue what its about, but making the first thing you see in game, be some retarded thing asking for you to enter your uplay promo code is some real bullshit.

World size seems fairly small. although, I certainly have only played like 3 hours maybe? so probably have no real idea. but if the full game is only 4 outdoor areas, for the 1 I have explored 1/3 of the way I think. games pretty small.


Turn based, tile based. Grimrock was action based, with grids. someone back in aug was commented they didnt feel like grimrock had that "step" feel. that is probably why. Grimrock you could dodge missles etc, since combat was in real time. here, you move one square, they move one square. etc. you attack. they attack.

I feel pretty ok with 10$. 30$however.... I dunno. ask me again after I played more.

RPG Codex Preview: Might & Magic X: Legacy, Now with Act II :: rpg codex > doesn't scale to your level

A nice write up.
comments on a number of things I mentioned. and gives an overall positive outcome.

So, Unity...

MMXL is a pretty game. Sort of. This is a hard call to make. On the one hand, it leverages a lot of art from Heroes 6, which is all of top-notch quality, whatever you think of that game. At times, it feels like it's punching way above its budget level (which has been implied to be pretty low). Remember, this is a game niche enough that it's not going to be released in brick & mortar retailers. And the art added by Ubisoft specifically for MMXL is all rather good, and more importantly, strikes its own noticeable style. The handpainted 2D portraits that reflect a character's health (paralyzed, stunned, poisoned, et cetera) and the solid, weighty UI all strive to go against the current grain of streamlined, anodyne presentation and do a great job of driving the high fantasy theme home.

All of that, however, is let down by the engine. Unity clearly struggles with larger environments, and Agyn Peninsula is definitely a large environment. The entire open world outdoors map is one huge level. No "move to next area" loading tricks here. In addition, the assets that weren't made by Ubisoft (read: Unity Store) distract. They're most common in the towns and villages of MMXL, which creates a weird dichotomy. When adventuring in dungeon tilesets that are 100% Ubisoft assets, I'm completely sold on the fantasy. Enter a town, or wander in the wilderness, and I feel as if I'm playing a different game.

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Since the money goes to ubisoft and their known record of releasing shit with a vague patch promise, I'm now downloading the unlimited free demo. I never played M&M but it seems to be just like some other games I played in the 90s.

wow what a long intro. Is it friday yet?

not digging the tile restricted movement...

It turned out pretty solid IMO - something a little more modern but definitely fitting of the name.

As for it going back to tile-based, that's a huge fundamental to why they even bothered Quin... M&Ms since they left tiles behind were pretty shitty.

Vaclav_sl said:

M&Ms since they left tiles behind were pretty shitty.

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I thought might and magic 6-8 were all great games for their time. 6 especially was very epic in scale.

Vaclav_sl said:

It turned out pretty solid IMO - something a little more modern but definitely fitting of the name.

As for it going back to tile-based, that's a huge fundamental to why they even bothered Quin... M&Ms since they left tiles behind were pretty shitty.

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the Dark eye trilogy had instant movement from tile to tile in part 1 in '92, followed by what MMX has now in '94 to unrestricted moving with mouselook in part 3 in '96

first one was really, really hard to get into

For you perhaps, for someone like me that started gaming for real [Atari shit before it] with Ultima III (and then went backwards to catch up on the others afterwards) - this is a sweet nostalgia sandwich with the modern trimmings that don't get in the way of the gameplay.

Mouselook gameplay is interesting, but it feels less tactical at a point - and it just didn't feel like Might & Magic to me anymore after World of Xeen personally until MMX myself.

And to those that played the beta version and thought "No way they're getting a miracle patch for release" (because we all know that never works out) besides a few minor kinks, they pretty much did get a miracle patch - there's a few shitty textures still (after updating options to Ultra at least - it will default textures to Medium or something shitty like that even with a badass card) but the laggy monster movement and other problems with the beta are gone. So finally out of 99 developers claiming a Day 1 miracle patch was coming, one finally delivered on it.

Length is looking worthy of $30, but we'll see, still not finished Act 1 yet and I'm 5-6 hrs in so far without much dilly-dallying (besides forgetting where some trainers were and spending far too much time looping around looking for them....)