Might & Magic X: Project Update (October 2011)

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MMXAlamar
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Might & Magic X: Project Update (October 2011)

Unread postby MMXAlamar » 02 Oct 2011, 01:28

Original Post Here.

It's October 1st, and time to give the monthly progress report for M&MX. The first project update was made in May 2011, and every subsequent report has been a successful attempt to communicate with Might and Magic fans. We always appreciate your feedback and suggestions, and enjoy discussing the future of M&MX with the people who will one day be playing it for themselves!

Vote here to decide which character races will be featured in M&MX!

M&MX Current Project Status (October 2011):
  1. A new engine has finally been selected for M&MX, and we promise that there will be no turning back or changing engines this time. M&MX will be developed on the Unity3D game engine. Unity will allow us to more easily assemble our assets and design levels, to program M&MX for multi-platforms (windows and linux), and it will give us the opportunity to upgrade the graphics from MM6-8, though keeping the game the way it always was, preserving the core essence of Might and Magic. This means some of the game will be in 3D, and some will be in the traditional "2.5D" from past games.
    The M&MX main storyline is roughly 60% complete (an approximate completion of +10% over the month of September), and we have learned of ancient secrets, thanks to former NWC staff members Paul Rattner and Bryan Farina. Based on what we've written thus far, M&MX will be the most intricate and involved game out of any other in the whole series.
    The M&MX Design Team has a new and very talented Lead Character Concept Artist, Robert Anderson, who will be drawing a collection of at least 20 characters, both old and new, that will be appearing in the game. You will see some very cool characters in the next few months to come!
    The M&MX Design Team has a new Lead Programmer, Çağrı Karabudak, who will be in charge of programming and scripting the physics, game mechanics, combat and spell systems, and AI of M&MX in Unity. We're still open to assistance from other programmers interested in working on M&MX in Unity.
    M&MX Project Leader Vector is still around, and will be working on designing a brand new user interface (UI/HUD) for M&MX that will be incorporated into Unity. Vector will also be working on a professional render of the M&MX world map.
    Might and Magic X: Children of the Void will take place on the continent of HoMM IV, which is called Iranese. We have discovered the original world map of HoMM IV and the name of the continent thanks very much to Jennifer Bullard, a developer at NWC who worked on the original Heroes IV team.
M&MX Character Classes Revealed:
  1. Archer
    Barbarian
    Bard (Druid)
    Cleric
    Knight (Paladin)
    Mage
    Monk
    Pirate
    Robber
    Smith
M&MX Project Goals for October 2011:
  1. Our Lead Programmer will begin laying down the framework for M&MX in Unity. If you're a programmer and you'd like to help him out, please let us know!
    We will set out to hire 3D modelers and level designers with experience in Unity to build the actual game. There are currently no 3D modelers on the M&MX Design Team, but depending on who we're able to hire, there is the possibility of releasing a tech demo before the year 2011 is over.
    Our Lead Character Concept Artist will complete approximately 4 sketches of major characters this month, meaning one per week! Additional concept artists are still needed for sketches of monster designs, dungeon designs, town designs, and mapping. If you're interested in drawing fantasy for M&MX, please inquire about a job!
    We plan to make another huge milestone in the main storyline writing for M&MX. When the main storyline is complete, it will be passed on to several former NWC developers for them to review and critique. We are currently 60% finished with the main storyline, and still interested in hiring writers to create side quests, item descriptions, and write dialogues and additional lore.
    There have been several songs completed for the M&MX soundtrack, but if you're a talented composer and would like to collaborate and write music for M&MX, by all means, let us know!
    Vector will begin developing the world map and the UI for M&MX.
We would be very delighted to answer any questions, comments, suggestions, or inquiries to join the M&MX Design Team. Please either email Vector at MMXDesign@live.com, or Alamar at MMXAlamar@gmail.com. We hope to see many of you inside working alongside us!

Sincerely,
-Alamar, Producer of M&MX
-Vector, Executive Producer of M&MX

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Unread postby nutman » 02 Oct 2011, 04:40

sounding very good! great to hear that some former NWC employees are playing a part!

cheers
Nutman

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Unread postby unknownone » 02 Oct 2011, 08:41

Great news! It's very nice your project is going forward and gaining momentum. Also having some help from former NWC developers is great!
I've played and enjoyed many RPGs:
MM6,MM7,MM8,MM9, Fallout 1&2, Planescape Torment, Torment: ToN, TES3, TES4

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Unread postby koval321 » 02 Oct 2011, 09:39

In my opinion any race is good if it may well develop during game. For knight its many armors and weapons, for mage its many spells to learn. If at any high level he still may use, learn something new, then its good. Am guess that hybrid professions was invent in early M&M where team could be very small to two peoples, so instead of knight and thief player may pick ninja or instead of cleric and mage, only one druid etc. But if team is always four, then these mix professions lost value (never played them in M&M 6-8) Am often play classic knight-cleric-thief-mage or four knights, four mages (where each master in one element magic) Well dont known what mean in game smith or pirate, sound interesting.

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 04 Oct 2011, 20:25

The engine choice looks good enough. Though I wonder if it allows you to hook up external DLLs/LIBs. But even if not, porting libarcomage there should be easy, since D is very similar to C#.

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Unread postby MMXAlamar » 05 Oct 2011, 01:48

GreatEmerald wrote:The engine choice looks good enough. Though I wonder if it allows you to hook up external DLLs/LIBs. But even if not, porting libarcomage there should be easy, since D is very similar to C#.
Hey GE! To be honest, I'm not sure what programming language Unity operates on, but it could be compatible with C# since that's a very common language. I downloaded libarcomage but it seems to only run in a command prompt. Did you make an interface and card designs to go along with it, or am I missing certain files? I'm running it on Windows.

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Unread postby Torur » 05 Oct 2011, 10:34

Nice to hear that the projekt is going along nicely. Am looking forward to this one.

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Unread postby vladimir-maestro » 06 Oct 2011, 05:39

unity3d is interesting engine. i've downloaded it because it can support 3dmax imports and shader's setup.

did you understood how to import FBX animated model and make it move correctly? i tried but got only a static mesh that didn't wanted to move.

btw: what level of detail you wanna use? still 3d world and sprite creatures or will do full 3d as mm9 was? - if so, how polygonal your models will be?
You can contact me here:
maestro_mod@yahoo.com
vladud @ yandex.ru - preferred one
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Site about MODs: http://www.mmgames.ru
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if you wish to upload some materials for this site - let me know.

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 06 Oct 2011, 09:49

MMXAlamar wrote:Hey GE! To be honest, I'm not sure what programming language Unity operates on, but it could be compatible with C# since that's a very common language. I downloaded libarcomage but it seems to only run in a command prompt. Did you make an interface and card designs to go along with it, or am I missing certain files? I'm running it on Windows.
Unity website says that you can script with C#, JavaScript and Python Boo. However, I haven't seen any mention of external library support. Like I said, it could be converted, although it would take a while.

Right now I'm developing the graphical interface, but it doesn't really matter. It will have to be redone anyway, since you will have to use Unity's renderers for everything anyway. The library is what's relevant here.

As for the designs, they're there (in the /arcomage/data folder, in case you're wondering), just not used yet.

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Unread postby MMXAlamar » 06 Oct 2011, 18:15

@ Vlaad, we're doing an experiment where we're going to go with 3D landmass and models, but 2.5D interfaces. The models will be triangles I believe, but I'm not really an expert on the mechanics of the engine.

@ GE, have you considered designing new interfaces for your Arcomage? What about the new cards that you're adding? If you need any help converting it to C#, I can send a programmer your way to help out.

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 07 Oct 2011, 19:36

Well, there already are two interfaces for it, and the whole point of the library is that anyone could make more interfaces (frontends).

As for the new cards, it would be nice to have some high quality images for high resolution PCs that run in fullscreen mode. But otherwise, I can just use the images from MArcomage (all the images they use are free to reuse, since the developers there actually didn't create any new graphics themselves). Though the fact that you will be using a complete 3D engine could bring some more possibilities, such as 3D towers and walls (perhaps a whole board for a better immersion), particle effects etc. Also, a tutorial for the new features would probably be a useful thing (although there won't be that many new features there, just keyword support and everything that comes with it).

It would be awesome if someone could convert the library to C#. D is already very similar to it, so there wouldn't be much of a difficulty reading the code. However, I still need to polish the library and add new features to it, so that should wait until it's done.

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Unread postby Macros the Black » 07 Oct 2011, 23:32

Some very good news here! I continue to be amazed by the team's commitment to this project and all the hard work going into it. I'm also very glad they're seeking outside help such as people who worked at NWC or continuing to post "job" openings. I wish I could help, but sadly I'm a talentless hack when it comes to computer games -- plus, I don't have the time to devote to it. All I can do is share my ideas and hope it helps provide food for thought.

Speaking of, I'm curious if you guys have considered adding Nature magic (perhaps as a Druid skill) considering the story takes place on the same continent as Heroes IV (which had Life, Death, Order, Chaos, Nature and Might factions)? I think it would hard to implement correctly though, without going into stuff like summoning and/or shapeshifting spells. Perhaps it could be a specialty skill of the Bard...
koval321 wrote:In my opinion any race is good if it may well develop during game. For knight its many armors and weapons, for mage its many spells to learn. If at any high level he still may use, learn something new, then its good. Am guess that hybrid professions was invent in early M&M where team could be very small to two peoples, so instead of knight and thief player may pick ninja or instead of cleric and mage, only one druid etc. But if team is always four, then these mix professions lost value (never played them in M&M 6-8) Am often play classic knight-cleric-thief-mage or four knights, four mages (where each master in one element magic) Well dont known what mean in game smith or pirate, sound interesting.
I actually wanted to make a suggestion regarding this, that I think merrits some consideration. Namely, to make difficulty modes in the game. Some examples:

- Classic (6 party members allowed as in pre-MM6 games. Penalty to all experience gains)
- Group (4 party members allowed as in MM6-8. Not nescesarily harder, but you have a less flexible party)
- Duo (2 party members allowed. Definately should be more difficult)
- Solo (1 party member allowed. The ultimate challenge)

And then perhaps some other options that you can turn off/on like peasant (level 0, no experience gained), semi-hardcore (party death overrides the last save game) and/or hardcore mode (save game deleted upon full party death).

Stuff like that would be nice if you had to time to implement it, because people already play like this but it would be nice if it was "official" so to speak. Of course, if you just want to get the game out the door faster then by all means forget I mentioned it :) The last thing we want to do here is just keep adding to the workpile until nobody is interesting in the project anymore and it never gets finished! It's probably best to leave this for now and come back to it when you're almost done, and then decide if you want to put more time into the project. Better yet, it could be patched in later!
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Unread postby XEL II » 08 Oct 2011, 13:35

Macros the Black wrote:4 party members allowed as in MM6-8.
*MM6-7
Make you strong places to dwell and practice the evil of your arts. Build great monuments to stand through the ages and remind your followers of the task with which you have been charged. Use these halls of iniquity to perpetrate your schemes against the infestation that has taken the fields and lakes of this land from you, their rightful masters. Never forget the hatred that must finally overcome and consume mankind. Dwell in your dungeons and brood. - Sheltem the Dark

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Unread postby Corlagon » 08 Oct 2011, 14:49

Keep it going guys, happy to see you are doing well ;) As for Unity 3D, I've heard it is somewhat rigid and limited, but very approachable. All that matters engine-wise is that your platform can duplicate the style of MM, which I hope is the case with this one.

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Unread postby MMXAlamar » 08 Oct 2011, 15:38

Macros the Black wrote:Speaking of, I'm curious if you guys have considered adding Nature magic (perhaps as a Druid skill) considering the story takes place on the same continent as Heroes IV (which had Life, Death, Order, Chaos, Nature and Might factions)? I think it would hard to implement correctly though, without going into stuff like summoning and/or shapeshifting spells. Perhaps it could be a specialty skill of the Bard...
We're considering adding Nature, Order, and Chaos magic, which will integrate spells from Heroes 4 and MM9 into the game, along with the classic spell schools of MM6-8. We're also highly considering the possibility of room for 6 characters, so you can include hirelings in your party, similar to MM9.

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Unread postby Coldy » 08 Oct 2011, 17:52

Thanks for the update, the game sounds like it's going to be awesome.

I have few questions relating to the character classes.

What's the Smith class....? Is he a blacksmith or....what's the deal with this class?
Also for the knight you put in brackets (Paladin). Does this mean this class is a mixture of both?
Are the pirate and robber... similar to the thief class?
And finally is the barbarian similar to the knight? As in full on combat, no magic?

Thanks for you time.

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Unread postby MMXAlamar » 09 Oct 2011, 05:03

The Smith class is a blacksmith archetype and will specialize in fixing, enchanting, and creating items with ores (like the ore traders.) At very high levels, the Smith will be able to make artifacts. The Smith will also be very proficient in armor and arms master.

"Knight (Paladin)" means that the Knight is the former Paladin. We haven't included Paladin for this reason. The thing that made Knights unique is that they have no magical abilities, with an emphasis on melee skills, and this will be transferred to the Barbarian instead of the Knight.

The Pirate and Robber are most def related to the Thief class. The major changes are that each has a different set of skills, for example, what makes the Robber unique is an emphasis on building wealth and finding treasure. Being a robber will increase your chances of finding more valuable items. Being a Pirate will give you strong melee skills with some advanced magic skills, and help you travel must faster by boat.

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Unread postby Coldy » 09 Oct 2011, 15:31

Aha I see, thank you very much for the explanation.
I'm very excited now, can't wait to play this game :D

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Unread postby tolich » 10 Oct 2011, 12:51

XEL II wrote:
Macros the Black wrote:4 party members allowed as in MM6-8.
*MM6-7
MM6,7,9 :p
MMXAlamar wrote:We're also highly considering the possibility of room for 6 characters, so you can include hirelings in your party, similar to MM9.
I hope you meant 'like MM3'.

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Unread postby SokarEntertainment » 25 Oct 2011, 16:25

Like I wrote on your facebook site. If it stays true to what Might and Magic was (and have to define that is beyond me, but IX sure has hell didn't), then I wish you guys the best of luck! I will keep a close eye on this one.


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