Imagine your perfect M&M game

The role-playing games (I-X) that started it all and the various spin-offs (including Dark Messiah).
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koval321
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Imagine your perfect M&M game

Unread postby koval321 » 08 Nov 2009, 10:34

Ok if you could design own M&M game, how it could be?

I have many ideas about what could be changed:

1. character generator
-face created by select every part from it like hair, eyes, mouth, skin color so it give hundread possible appearance, face dont need to shown when its poison or drunken just symbol or message in other window

-face not connected to race, and you may select human, half vampire, half elf, half giant, half orc (it dont need to be visible, something in blood which give bonus to one from stat or skill and decrease other)
-you may training stat the same as skill after reach level

-there is no profession and you may select any skills you want
-you have every skills available, but more you chose then you are limit to possible details from it, for example only fire magic and you may learn 100% spells from it, but two magic is just maybe 80% of spells. Still you may increase power of spell but not learn new. the same limit for amount of weapons and armors. From begining you may use two weapons, if you dont take shield skill. Ofcourse possible to finish game in every style, for example few alternate game endings or few different ways to the same ending.

-play any amount of team members, more peoples then less exp gained, and party size 6 peoples (just like in MM 3-5) and you may hire that many npc to limit 6 party members, for exampkle 1+5 or 4+2, and they may die and have skills armors, weapons like normal player, just they are totally randomly not created by you, when someone die and you cant resurrect him , then hire other peoples (similar thing was in Ishar game)

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Talin_Trollbane
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Unread postby Talin_Trollbane » 08 Nov 2009, 12:13

it would be the style of Might and Magic 1-5 (gamestyle, graphics, sound etc) combined into one big new game called Might and Magic 10.

no need for shit like bloom or sun effects.
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tolich
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Re: Imagine your perfect M&M game

Unread postby tolich » 08 Nov 2009, 14:32

koval321 wrote:face created by select every part from it like hair, eyes, mouth, skin color so it give hundread possible appearance, face dont need to shown when its poison or drunken just symbol or message in other window
Do you mean some kind of identikit? Or just something like Dungeon Siege? Why not to customize whole body as well?
koval321 wrote:face not connected to race, and you may select human, half vampire, half elf, half giant, half orc (it dont need to be visible, something in blood which give bonus to one from stat or skill and decrease other)
i think, better to connect somehow faces to races, cause elven faces look not the same than halforc's.
koval321 wrote:you may training stat the same as skill after reach level
i think this is wrong
koval321 wrote:there is no profession and you may select any skills you want
i think professions are present, but as dependant to chosen skills attribute. choose to train sword, shield and plate armour and you are brave knght, choose body magic and bow, and you are templar archer. The problem is possibilities are unnumbered.
koval321 wrote:you have every skills available, but more you chose then you are limit to possible details from it, for example only fire magic and you may learn 100% spells from it, but two magic is just maybe 80% of spells. Still you may increase power of spell but not learn new. the same limit for amount of weapons and armors. From begining you may use two weapons, if you dont take shield skill. Ofcourse possible to finish game in every style, for example few alternate game endings or few different ways to the same ending.
what about such idea: you must spend a skill points just to learn any skill or spell. It will prevent you from learning skills and spells that character doesn't really need.

An idea to add: to split party. E.g., one half ride to another location, while another goes to a dungeon. The idea need some means to exclude a possibility of time paradoxes, though.

Another idea: turn back Shelter spell for uninterruptable rest, and some other means to guard the rest (i.e., ararms).

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 08 Nov 2009, 16:02

About the skill system: I like the HoMM4 system, that is, the title you get depends on the skills you choose, yet you have the choice between might and magic characters.
Hirelings like in MM3 should be back. They're really fun and realistic (and wee, free eradication healing!).
As for graphics, it should be around Unreal Engine 2 level - use models instead of sprites, Static Meshes for optimisation and reusing, the characters displayed in 3D with equipped items shown on them (using Skeletal Mesh system).
The story - should be on Axeoth, preferably where HoMM4 took place, so we could visit Palaedra, Nekross, Great Arcan etc.

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koval321
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Re: Imagine your perfect M&M game

Unread postby koval321 » 09 Nov 2009, 10:06

tolich wrote: what about such idea: you must spend a skill points just to learn any skill or spell. It will prevent you from learning skills and spells that character doesn't really need.
That is probably best idea, so player start with every possible skills at 0 point, and during game may progress in whatever way he want. For example begin as knight and later invest points in magic.

Each skill point invest will open new possibilities of skill for example
-learn more advancement spell from chosen magic way
-weild heaviest armor from peasant clothes to golden plate
-use better weapons (better bows have larger damage and speed)

Professions not work because they only limit player to what he must known. I think perfect game would be totally customize and totally randomize, even monsters will be made from randomly selected parts (hundread version of skeleton, goblin, villain which use different weapon armor and magic) Such game can be played many times, and always give fun. Its about all, npcs to hire, monsters, items, maybe even dungeons (like roguelike games which are randomized, but better graphic)

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Unread postby DaveO » 09 Nov 2009, 12:01

Let's look at the reality for a moment before asking for a new M&M title. There are RPGs out there that are quite good for graphics and gameplay. I don't see how M&M could compete with them in it's M&M 6-8 state. Let's not forget that Diablo 3 is in progress, so I think it's very smart to not release a new M&M game. The Heroes of M&M seems to be starting well, so that's the direction Ubisoft is going with the franchise.
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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 09 Nov 2009, 14:10

Hey, we can wish, can we not? ;|

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Unread postby Tress » 09 Nov 2009, 15:52

Let's look at the reality for a moment before asking for a new M&M title. There are RPGs out there that are quite good for graphics and gameplay. I don't see how M&M could compete with them in it's M&M 6-8 state.
I dont see why mm6-8 state should be problem if ubi decides creating mm rpg title. There is nothing that would prevent them from using any engine and hiring talented designers to make graphics on par with them. As for gameplay... Thats really problem nowdays since as I see , RPG quality has really fallen for past years in general. For example there is completely no way you can compare consolised mass effect/kotor1/2 with with titles as baldurs gate2,planescape,fallout 1,2. They are in different league, but as unlucky as it is, they sell far worst than our modern day rpg.
As for ideal mm game I see game with wizardry or old mm type team(not single char game as elder scrolls) with first person view so it remains faithful to originals. As for rest I should just put in hands of devs with wish that they stay faithful to series spirit.

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tolich
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Unread postby tolich » 09 Nov 2009, 21:15

tress wrote:As for rest I should just put in hands of devs with wish that they stay faithful to series spirit.
- What is 'the atmosphere'?
- It's a starnge thing that you cannot see, touch or smell, but you'll surely feel the lack of it.

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 09 Nov 2009, 22:13

I guess it depends on each person... For me, the atmosphere would be the story and the artwork (even though the story is more important).

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Unread postby Secret_Holder » 09 Nov 2009, 23:56

I don't need to miganie it. It's Might and Magic 6 ;)

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Unread postby Deadguy118 » 10 Nov 2009, 04:50

Despite the fact that it is a substandard game as a whole, M&M IX actually had some pretty neat ideas... that were buried under mediocrity. Things like branching promotions and dual school spells, while implemented rather poorly in that game would be nice to see in the Hypothetical Perfect M&M Game (tm)

Let's see, what else? I guess a lot of the mechanics from M&M VII (Personal Favorite) would be good, but maybe with the scale and grandeur of M&M VI and the old school charm and atmosphere of III and WoX.
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Unread postby koval321 » 10 Nov 2009, 07:30

Talin_Trollbane wrote:it would be the style of Might and Magic 1-5 (gamestyle, graphics, sound etc) combined into one big new game called Might and Magic 10.

no need for **** like bloom or sun effects.
Yes it may be good also, something like "World of Xeen 2" graphic is not important but it need many new ideas to be playable. Monster may look like flying dagger or something stupid but it must be new and surprising. Very important part of MM was always for me amount of everything: every possible terrains, many monsters, many dungeons, many item combinations, many quests.

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Unread postby Stryfer » 10 Nov 2009, 11:44

As far as graphics go, they would definetly need a serious update. I'd prefer if they were kept more cartoony like and not plain. Just a thought - something like the old MM designed with the Borderlands comic style graphics engine. Might be the perfect pleasent setting.

As for characters. Having all the skills available is ridiculous in a game where you have more than one character. I think M&M had plenty of diversity for each character so that a full party can cover every aspect.
I want more character customization though, in terms of appreance.
The M&M 9 multiple branch promotions is a great idea. Also, you could have the multiple promotions + the HoMM 4 titles. Titles like specializations.
Example: A final assassin promotion gives access to various skills, like leather armor GM, dagger GM, stealth GM, alchemy GM (for poisons). This assassin could have the "deadly" or "stealthy" specialization. Deadly would be if he focused on daggers and alchemy and the title would give him a bonus to damage or maybe make all his attacks deal poison damage. Stealthy would be if he focused on armor and stealth, and it could make him invisible or something.

Finally, the most important part - Artifacts and good treasure in very obscure and hidden places. Or maybe obvious, well guarded places. Most importantly, to reward to daring and intelligent players. A perfect example is MM 8, where a smart and daring player could grab a level 50 character at the very beginning. It might be a bit broken, but not everyone is going to do it. Also running in the dragon cave to grab artifatcs and trying to flee before they burn you was fun too.

Things like that make for a rewarding gaming experience.

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Unread postby koval321 » 10 Nov 2009, 12:48

Yes game should have many hidden elements, which may be found by players who touch and explore everything in game, for example new sorpigal secrets: treasure hidden under rock, or exploding volcano when touch buoy. In fallout2 was many stuff like that everywhere, this make game good if you play it again and still may find surprising details.

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Unread postby Macros the Black » 16 Nov 2009, 18:41

Some thoughts..

- The game should be in first person perspective.

- Party-based. However, I think it might be fun if you could control only one character at a time. Maybe with a storyline that explains how your characters all got fused together by some artifact or ritual and this gives you the power to rid the world of whatever evil it is you're going to battle. Anyway, this way you'd have to choose between using your knight or sorcerer to battle a dragon, which could make for some interesting gameplay. I think this might make the game more fun to the people who like the more modern games, as it allows you to play one person at a time yet still be able to build out a team of different characters that compliment each other's weaknesses. I'm not sure how healing would work.... maybe you have just one health bar, and if you die all your characters die? If that's the case, it would make sense to have a vampire as a healing class or something like that.. Or maybe everyone has their own health bar and conditions and if one of them dies you can send out another character to finish the battle.. not sure. I'm trying to think of a fun gameplay mechanic here.

- the experience system shouldn't solely define how powerful you are. What I mean by that is, in many games nowadays, if you're level 10 then there's no way of ever defeating level 20 enemies, no matter how well you play the game. The perfect MM game would allow you to battle level 20 enemies at level 10, but it would be more difficult than simply battling level 10 enemies. And it would a fun challenge, too. So the better you are at playing the game, the less important your character's level is. But if you're not very good at the game (or just not particularly great at it) then you could just kill some more lower level enemies to get more powerful first. This one is important, because this is the one I miss most in other games.

- You should be able to flee from fights. Some RPGs (I'm looking at you, Dragon Age: Origins) don't let you flee from fights. This adds to the "you need to be this level in order to be able to do this" mentality. Meh. If I'm too weak, then make it hard on me, but at least make it possible.

- challenge or difficulty mode should either be something you set at the beginning of the game and can never change (seriously, it's so lame in some games when you can just set the difficulty mode lower when something becomes challenging). Or, it should be defined simply by how you play the game. If you skip alot of content, you might be lower level, but you can still kill the enemies, it'll just be more difficult. Combine that with the fact that certain classes might have a harder time at certain points, and you've got a fun way of having the difficulty of the game be up to the player.

- Classes.. I think there's two ways you can go here. On the one hand, the idea of making your own character with no restrictions except that you just can't choose to do everything is fun. On the other hand, building out a team of party members that compliment each other's skills is more fun if each party member has it's own set of limitations. So I think we need to find some middle-ground here.. First of course there's the four archetypes: warrior, rogue, mage, healer. We could have a bunch of hybrid classes between those four, but really that just limits your possibilities with each character.
Instead, how about you can branch out from those four. So you start with a warrior, and you can make him a Champion (blunt + shield, lots of hit points), a Duelist (dual wields swords, medium damage and hit points) or a Berserker (two-handed axe, lots of damage). Just some examples.
So you in the end, you still have a character that has it's own weaknesses and you can have the rest of your team fill in for those weaknesses, but you also have some choice of what you want to do with the character.

- If there are four different classes to choose from, then I guess you should only be able to have three classes in your party right? Because otherwise the game would be the same each time you played it, even if you could branch out to something different. The beginning would be too much the same, and I find a game to be more interesting if you can't always do everything. You have to make some choices for what you can and what you can't do. One problem here is that people might want to just always take a healer with them, I'm not sure how to fix that. Maybe make healing potions and items like that easy to get.. I guess the game could be a bit more difficult without a healer, I'd be fine with that, it gives the player a challenge to win a game with no healer, but it shouldn't be too much of a difference I guess.
Or maybe this can be the difficulty setting: easy = four characters in the party, medium = three characters, hard = two characters, very hard = one character? Something like that.

- Maybe there could also be some challenge modes, like hardcore mode (game over when you die, can only save on one slot which it overrides when you die) or peasant game (no experience gained, ever), etc..
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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 16 Nov 2009, 20:22

I have to agree with your thoughts about enemy levels... While it wasn't quite possible back in 2000, now the AI should be waht's increased when enemies have a higher level, and each species could have their own intellect (you don't suppose a Troglodyte could be very smart, but Archangels would be) + different statistics. And maybe an enemy differentiation system, for example, you have 5 enemies, and instead of acting the same, they could use team AI, each have their own speciality, slightly different (random?) statistics and such. It would make for good replayability. A multiplayer addon would be useful as well, for example, you create a party and invite your friends to control each party member (they have their own controls/perspectives, of course, but the leader decides which part of the map the whole party is in). This way it would even be possible to have fully fledged AI allies, not just mindless units as in MM7/8.

There could also be more strategy options, especially involving location, for example, you could duck behind a rock and not be seen by enemies and then surprise them once you come out.

As for running and difficulty, it was done in earlier MMs, so it should stay that way. Time Distortion could make a reappearance, too.

Yea, the MM9-like class system is cool, except that it needs more enhancements as you mentioned. Though they should make sure that parties are NOT like in MM8, where you have a Necromancer, Priest of the Light, Vampire and Champion in one party :\ MM7 system was pretty good with class names.

As for other game modes, they could make arena games available online, both co-op and PvP.

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koval321
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Unread postby koval321 » 17 Nov 2009, 07:07

Have few other ideas.

Game begining:
You start as peasant near random house in random town (your home or shack where you may storage all equipment and rest) At begining you are nobody, no class, basic stats (base 10 and random +/- 3) you dont have idea what to do, just once wake up with idea to make adventure.

Ok and then you begin from small quests in town, join to guild you wish where gain class and skills (but this after guild quests) you take first equipment, in tavern you meet many random peoples who may join to team (similar to Ishar and MM8 system, but they always have the same level as you)

Finally you are fame enough to get huge "save world quest" then available are new locations, for example very distant land full of monsters and amazing stuff which you hear from tales.

Already player jump to action but its no matter that he got big quest from begining because its too weak to do anything with that and usualy begin from small task. Thats why new methot should work.

So there is no character generator, you create character and team during first hours of play.


And what about MM Online?
MMORPG usualy have the same playstyle: skilling and leveling + hate most of other players who interrupt your skilling and leveling, and monsters respawn, nothing interesting in quests or need level 100 to enter quest or weild weapon but this take 100 days from your life, and its boring, stupid and finally someone will steal your account. Surely this game should be not online to save it fame, otherwise become "game to avoid"

But there could be some other online style: meet other players only in town at neutral ground, and play with them acromage in tavern, or fight on arena, or many other games in circus. This could be interesting, because you meet in town many real very interactive npcs. Important element, npcs must be ghostly and cant drop items (because town will become quickly huge trashcan, and someone will block you in corner) Well as i known online games there is nothing good with them.

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Unread postby GrayFace » 17 Nov 2009, 10:57

Graphics:
Half-Life 2. Bright, without complete darkness (no places like those with zombies in HL2 Ep1), without extensive coloring (like in WoW). Cartoonishness? Maybe, in monsters design.

Classes:
More differences between classes.

I don't think MM Online is possible at all. Online game would need more fighting options IMO.
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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 17 Nov 2009, 14:58

I don't think that the peasant start would work if you have parties with more than 1 PCharacter. Or it will be like MM8 and you won't be able to configure your party members, which is wrong considering all other MM series games.

Yea, it shouldn't be MMORPG, but rather RPG with online additions, like HoMM3 - you can invite some friends to play, but not massive amounts of people. Though it will be interesting to see how Heroes of Telara turn out.


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