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Might & Magic X Legacy Announced [Update: PAX East off-screen video, Q&A]

Durante

Member
481905_10151500670174588_1936609529_n.jpg
Oooh. Nice.
 
Playing through World of Xeen right now. Started it yesterday and love it to death. At first it was a bit off putting but now I'm gung-ho about it. I have played the later games, but nothing much before VI. So I'm rectifying this right now. I can't wait for X, if it's any good that is.

I love dungeon crawlers, both grid based and real time. However, I can't really get into a game like Etrian Odyssey. I blame the random encounters I think. It is too Japanese in that regard. I like seeing the enemies in advance, even in the grid based MM games, so you can use ranged attacks. Random battles just stink.

You never played M&M3-5 before?

Man... you are in for an adventure!

BTW are you the same Kelegacy from EvilAvatar.com circa 2000?

The other annoying thing is the OCD in me wants to explore every square in every location so that it completely fills in the automap. This can get tedious but it's my fault.

That's the only way to play those grid based RPGs!

I don't think we need spoilers for 30 year old series, though.
 
Unlike the early games in the series you don't have to step on a square to see if there's anything there. That's the main annoyance about M&M1 and 2. There could be a giant castle right in front of you but if you're not on that square then you can't see anything.

So there's some parts of the game like the clouds levels or the plains with the witch tower where it's just a giant open space and there's nothing there. But yet I still feel compelled to explore every square.

Also, they state that they're "involving fans" in the development of the game. Not sure if they just have some focus group of people giving them feedback or they're going to solicit ideas and impressions from people over the internet. I'd love to give input on the new game.
 

Kelegacy

XBOX - RECORD ME LOVING DOWN MY WOMAN GOOD
You never played M&M3-5 before?

Man... you are in for an adventure!

BTW are you the same Kelegacy from EvilAvatar.com circa 2000?



That's the only way to play those grid based RPGs!

I don't think we need spoilers for 30 year old series, though.

I remember having Isles of Terra (III) on a compilation CD way back in the mid 90s on my DOS machine but I could never get it to work due to the copy protection. The disc manuals weren't accurate or something and I gave up. It was a bunch of CDs with games on them that came in a "game pak" or something. So I never got to play. I don't think I played any on the consoles, but I could be wrong. Now that i love IV/V, I will play III someday. The aesthetics don't bother me at all, as I play in a window and the sprites look pretty good.

And yes, I am the same Kelegacy. :)
 

Kelegacy

XBOX - RECORD ME LOVING DOWN MY WOMAN GOOD
I just hope the thrill of exploration is still there. I love just stumbling upon things, and this was a common theme in many old DOS RPGs. It was partly due to the limitations of the graphics back then, but it seemed like I used my imagination so much more, making the exploration that much more enjoyable.

I just cleaned out the Witch's Tower in IV, and it was totally just a sidequest I came upon. Doing the same right now with another quest. Just stumbling around and finding fun things to do. So great.
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
That's really short for a M&M game and disappointing for the 10th game in the series. Why even call it M&M 10?

It's on par with 3/4/5 which this game is emulating, and I don't think this is going to be a full priced game.
 

Decado

Member
It's on par with 3/4/5 which this game is emulating, and I don't think this is going to be a full priced game.

Hmmm. Would like to see something more along the lines of 6. Still interested though. If I'm being honest I don't think I've actually spent more than 20 or 30 hours on an RPG in many many years.
 
And yes, I am the same Kelegacy. :)

Nice to meet you again. I was the Captain of the Xbox Death Squad back there.

Hmmm. Would like to see something more along the lines of 6. Still interested though. If I'm being honest I don't think I've actually spent more than 20 or 30 hours on an RPG in many many years.

M&M6 (over 100 hours long) was the exception, not the rule. MM3/4/5/Swords of Xeen are in the 25-35 hour range.
 
Honestly I have no idea how long any of the older games are. They don't have timers so I have no clue where people are coming up with numbers. 25 hours. 100 hours. Who knows.
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
Honestly I have no idea how long any of the older games are. They don't have timers so I have no clue where people are coming up with numbers. 25 hours. 100 hours. Who knows.

I played through 3, 4 and 5 last year, they aren't overly long.
 

Arthea

Member
25 hours? They mean all of it or just the main quest?
I think I played that in Arcomage alone (><)
When do we get to play it?
Also screenshots reminds me of some game, can't point out which one though
 
For one, towns are once again static pictures of people at the location which have basic dialog options. Clicking on, say, the local alcemist brings up a rumor she heard (more or less a tooltip in the game I played), while another option opened up a basic trade screen for potions.

Leaving the town places the player on what is essentially a giant square-grid map in which players move and turn step by step through the wilderness. If the player get too close to enemies, they become locked in combat.

From there, the player's four man party can engage the enemy or enemies with melee or ranged combat, cast spells, use items or take a defensive stance. Combat is simple unless multiple enemy types are in combat, when it becomes important to close in quickly to prevent ranged units from allowing melee units to move in and engage.

Each character has different levels of multiple skills, from a range of 0 to 25. When characters level, the player is given a few skill points to distribute amongst the skills. Levels range from unskilled to grandmaster. Do you add some points to the Block skill for your heavy melee guy, or do you invest more in his blunt weapon skills? The characters also have a very basic paper doll system for equipping items, as well as a shared inventory.

Might & Magic X: Legacy is supremely faithful to the original 1986 game, gleefully eschewing such modern standard gameplay mechanics as real-time 3D rendering. Instead it harkens back to the days when roleplaying games were as much about tactical strategy as it was about telling a story.

Sounds absolutely amazing. Cannot wait.
 

Hobbun

Member
Oh good, it looks like they will be taking up the different skill tiers like in MM6 and beyond. From what I remember being told, you didn't have Expert, Master or Grandmaster in the early Might and Magic games.
 

TrutaS

Member
This game looks very faithful to the originals. If I didn't know better, I would ask you where I could sign on for the Kickstarter. Glad Ubisoft is giving a try at this market (and hope their expectations are scaled appropriately).
 
Things to note based on the screens:

- are those 2 empty slots at the bottom of the screen for Hirelings? I hope so!
- FOOD is back (see the Apple count next to the Gold count). Does that mean Coach Travel will be back as well?
- Fire, Water and Air magic are back <3. Probably Earth, Light and Dark will return as well!
- day/ night cycle is back!
- is that a Wizard's Eye place for an overhead Minimap in the bottom right corner?

Why isn't this [awesome] game from Kickstarter, though? I cannot understand that.
 
And from reddit, from a guy who played it on the floor:

&#8226;Plays more like the pre-mandate of heaven games with a grid style movement system instead of free roam.
&#8226;there are 12 classes (didn't tell me what they were) and then "advanced" classes for each of them. I suppose this is like the system in 6-7-8 where you do a quest to promote from a Knight to a Champion or whatever.
&#8226;there will be 23 dungeons.
&#8226;aiming for september release
&#8226;there is no training. When you level up you just get your skill points then and there.
&#8226;You still will level your skills and have to train to expert, master, and grand master. Expert and master you just go find the trainer and pay gold when you have the necessary skill points, and for grandmaster there will be a quest.
&#8226;It will be totally non-linear after the initial area where it teaches you how to play. Kind of like 7, where you were confined to the island until you completed the first quest.
&#8226;In the demo you never had more than 2-3 monsters at a time. I asked if this is representative of the whole game, and he said "it depends on the level. Sometimes you will be surrounded, sometimes it is just a few more powerful enemies." Was kind of vague.
&#8226;The movement is like Grimrock, but Grimrock was still a real time game. This is turn based 100% of the time, which imo makes the combat much more interesting.
&#8226;There is a skill bar, but its not like WoW or other MMOs where you have special attacks... the abilities that were on the skill bar were just melee attack, ranged attack, defend (idk what this did, never used it), and then you can put spells and potions on there too.
&#8226;I looked but didn't see any "self" magics in the skill trees of the characters I had, but I didn't pay attention to what classes I had in my party. its possible I just didn't have a character who could learn them.
&#8226;No blasters / sci-fi elements.
&#8226;There will be hirelings. You can have two in your party at once. They don't fight with you, just provide your party with a bonus. For a price of course.
 

Hobbun

Member
I don&#8217;t like not having to pay for training, it was a moneysink. Should I buy Fireball for my Sorceror or pay for training for my Paladin? I liked being forced to make that choice. I hope it&#8217;s not too easy to build up cash and then nothing to spend it on.

Does anyone remember how many dungeons approximately were in the mandate of heaven games (6-8)? 23 seems kind of low.

I understand this is a smaller game than those games (which I am not happy about) but I hope it&#8217;s not significantly smaller.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
Sounds great, thanks for pasting the summary. Grimrock was fun and I'm glad it was very successful, but this is more to my liking. No fun staying caged up forever!

I understand this is a smaller game than those games (which I am not happy about) but I hope it&#8217;s not significantly smaller.

I can't imagine you missed it, but it was mentioned quite a few times right above here that the length will be around 20-25 hours, so it's going to be a lot smaller than say World of Xeen for sure.
 

SparkTR

Member
Looks that they're not pulling any punches with this. I didn't think Ubisoft would release a true M&M game these days.
 

Wiktor

Member
I can't imagine you missed it, but it was mentioned quite a few times right above here that the length will be around 20-25 hours, so it's going to be a lot smaller than say World of Xeen for sure.

Well..duh...World of Xeen was two games combined.
 

DiscoJer

Member
Well, hopefully this is just something of a test case - to see if there is a market for such a game. If it does well, then maybe we'll see longer sequels.

I mean, really, it's just amazing that this is coming in the first place. From a major company no less. This is so old school you don't really even see them on Kickstarter, the failed KS by Brenda Brathwaite/Tom Hall excepted.
 
There definitely is. Grimrock sold over 600K copies, which I suspect was major reason why Ubi greenlighted M&MX

Exactly.

I hope Ubi spends at least $50k on marketing for this game. The title is (probably) quality and can defend itself but people need to KNOW ABOUT IT.

Every single Grimrock buyer should be lining up for M&M10.

As well as every single M&M fan. That is still alive, errr :(
 

DiscoJer

Member
Oh yeah, there should be a market, given Grimrock (even though that was more Dungeon Master than M&M). But they are probably unsure, and thus probably didn't want to invest too much.
 

Hobbun

Member
I can't imagine you missed it, but it was mentioned quite a few times right above here that the length will be around 20-25 hours, so it's going to be a lot smaller than say World of Xeen for sure.

Actually, I did miss it, I haven&#8217;t read every post.

That&#8217;s a shame it is so short, I spent over 4x that in MM6 alone. Was hoping for something similar in scale.

But this obviously is more a take on the 3-5 games in the series. I&#8217;m sure I will enjoy it, but as DiscJer said, hopefully this is a test case, and if it does well, maybe we will see one along the lines of MM 6-8 in the future.
 

Wiktor

Member
Any reason this is not planned for iOS? Any reason other than "we couldn't price it @ $40 then" that is?

It's advertised as PC-centric. No matter how much devs would assure otherwise, people would still assume "it must be dumbed down, since it's on tablets"
 
They've got the inventory screen wrong. Reducing every item to a tiny little icon is such a bad way to do things. It makes all items feel like interchangeable bundles of stats instead of real, solid, varied equipment.

mm6ybuar.jpg
0-mm10_screenshot_005avz0z.jpg
 
They've got the inventory screen wrong. Reducing every item to a tiny little icon is such a bad way to do things. It makes all items feel like interchangeable bundles of stats instead of real, solid, varied equipment.

mm6ybuar.jpg
0-mm10_screenshot_005avz0z.jpg

Mandate of Heaven paper-doll system is UNTOUCHABLE.

Still M&M10's looks like it is at least better than M&M3-5 one:

42419-might-and-magicuquk7.gif
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
Inventory management towards the end of MM3 is a nightmare. Having all your equipped gear share the same slots as the keys and nicnaks you're picking up is a mess.
 
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