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Master of MagicFuture spiritual successor: Worlds of Magic(44 posts)(44 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted September 06, 2013
I've never found a campaign in an empire builder game particularly compelling. The only game of the type I've played and enjoyed that had a campaign was Galactic Civilizations II, and I found the campaign to be by far the least interesting part of the game.

These are sandbox games. Being shoehorned into somebody else's story just doesn't do it for me. That works fine for action and roleplaying games, and even for war games. For empire builders, the campaigns just leave me cold.
Posted September 07, 2013
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rakenan: I've never found a campaign in an empire builder game particularly compelling. The only game of the type I've played and enjoyed that had a campaign was Galactic Civilizations II, and I found the campaign to be by far the least interesting part of the game.

These are sandbox games. Being shoehorned into somebody else's story just doesn't do it for me. That works fine for action and roleplaying games, and even for war games. For empire builders, the campaigns just leave me cold.
I will admit to all here that in any TBS game I have probably spent less than 5% of the time actually playing the campaign for it. That being said sometimes they do have quite nifty story lines and reasons for some of the things in the game that you wondered at that you find out that way. It's always nice to have the option is all.
Posted September 07, 2013
I hope they take some lessons from Fallen Enchantress. That game has some badass features.
Posted September 07, 2013
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rakenan: I've never found a campaign in an empire builder game particularly compelling. The only game of the type I've played and enjoyed that had a campaign was Galactic Civilizations II, and I found the campaign to be by far the least interesting part of the game.

These are sandbox games. Being shoehorned into somebody else's story just doesn't do it for me. That works fine for action and roleplaying games, and even for war games. For empire builders, the campaigns just leave me cold.
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EvilLoynis: I will admit to all here that in any TBS game I have probably spent less than 5% of the time actually playing the campaign for it. That being said sometimes they do have quite nifty story lines and reasons for some of the things in the game that you wondered at that you find out that way. It's always nice to have the option is all.
My experience is that focusing on the campaign tends to produce features that work well in the campaign, but not so well in the sandbox mode, which is typically the bulk of the game's actual play. Not always, but pretty often. The more the devs are focused on telling their own story in the campaign, the less they're likely to notice that the players might not like features inherent in that story. If you're lucky, that will produce stuff like Antaran attacks in Master of Orion 2, which can be turned off. If not, you end up with cascading fungal blooms in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, which are hardcoded to the extent that they cannot even be modded out, and completely imprison the game's framework in the story of the awakening of planet's Gaia-type intelligence. And neither of these games had actual campaigns, those were just features of the sandbox mode - proof that you don't even need a campaign to tell a story if you really want to.
Posted September 08, 2013
It depends completely upon what form the campaign takes. If it's just a linear series of maps linked by a mediocre storyline, then skip it.

I don't know whether I consider MoM an empire-builder or not. It certainly has aspects in common with those kinds of games, and you can play it that way if you want to, but it differs in having the much more concrete goal of becoming THE Master of Magic. Depending on what kind of build you play, you don't necessarily need an empire to do that.

The more open form of an Eador:Gensis style campaign would work quite well, I think. It certainly offers a nice explanation for why you keep running into the same opponents game after game, and it lets you carry grudges over from map to map.
Posted September 12, 2013
For now it looks exactly like Elemental... Age Of Wonders 3 is my favorite still.
Posted September 12, 2013
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Vissavald: For now it looks exactly like Elemental... Age Of Wonders 3 is my favorite still.
The best part of Master of Magic is how they took every idea that looked awesome and just ran with it. Elemental and most of MoM's other "spiritual successors" have worried too much about balance.

It's not that I think balance doesn't matter - I totally think it's important, and MoM would be a much better game if a few relatively minor tweaks were done to improve balance. But balance doesn't make a game great. Great ideas make a game great, and balance just polishes it up.

MoM, even with all its balance issues, is at worst a flawed gem. Most of the others are just well polished pieces of shiny glass. I'm hoping Worlds of Magic will hold tight to big ideas and let the balance take care of itself over time.
Posted September 12, 2013
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Vissavald: For now it looks exactly like Elemental... Age Of Wonders 3 is my favorite still.
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rakenan: The best part of Master of Magic is how they took every idea that looked awesome and just ran with it. Elemental and most of MoM's other "spiritual successors" have worried too much about balance.
I agree completely. I actually think proper imbalance is much more important to a great game, and worrying about balance is thinking in the wrong direction, so to speak. Fixation on balance as an inherent good is a symptom of the profusion of multi-player games.

Whether or not the races are balanced is such a tiny question in MoM. The whole process of becoming the Master of Magic is about gaining powers that are so completely unbalanced that all your rivals have to kill you or be killed by you. I mean, Spell of Mastery aside, it's a game where your rivals can cast spells that destroy one or two buildings in all your cities every single turn, or make volcanoes sprout up at random all over your territory. That's one of the reasons it's great, and one of the reasons it's not about city-spam and grinding.
Post edited September 12, 2013 by UniversalWolf
Posted September 12, 2013
I have to disagree with you in part.

Balance is inherently good. That does not mean it's the only good, or even the most important good. Great ideas with fun implementation trump balance when they have to, at least in a single player game. Judging the point where they have to as distinct from the point where not balancing things out is just laziness is a meaningful challenge, and when the designers do it well you have an amazing game. Even when the designers make serious mistakes, you can have a good fun game, it's just not as good or fun as it would have been with a bit more balance.

By contrast, a game where every interesting or innovative idea is tossed out the window because it might not be balanced is probably impossible to rescue, at least as a single player game.

Go with the great ideas and awesome experiences. Then balance it as much as you can.
Posted September 13, 2013
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rakenan: Balance is inherently good.
Not only is it not inherently good, it's at best neutral and at worst inherently bad. The pursuit of it is at best a waste of time and at worst detrimental. Controlled imbalance is what makes a great game. Balance makes a boring, synthetic game. The more balanced it is, the more boring it is. That doesn't count for multi-player games though, but what people are concerned about there is actually fairness and not balance, as they're always saying.

The superbly crafted imbalance of MoM is why every game unfolds as a unique, heroic story.
Post edited September 13, 2013 by UniversalWolf
Posted September 13, 2013
I think we are coming at this question from opposite directions.

You see imbalance as desirable because it promotes interesting choices

I see balance as desirable because it provides structure for those choices.

It is the dynamic tension between the two that makes a great game. Without some regard for balance, you end up with choices that are stupidly good to the extent that no player who wants to win would ever make other choices. Such choices are not interesting at all. With too much regard for balance, you end up with choices that are so similar that they just don't matter - whatever you choose, it won't make a difference in the game. Those choices are, if anything, even less interesting.

You cannot have controlled imbalance without an underlying structure, and that underlying structure must be balanced. Whenever an aspect of imbalance is not part of that controlled and skillfully crafted imbalance, it should be pared away to reveal the fundamentally balanced foundations of the game. And even the imbalance should be crafted so as to minimize the number of major choices which are, at least in game terms, clearly bad or clearly good - because choosing the option that is plainly and obviously correct is not an interesting choice.
Posted September 17, 2013
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Petrell: 12 Spell Circles 300 Spells To Learn And Master
7 Planes To Explore And Conquer
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EvilLoynis: Sadly seeing these 2 things is starting to give me doubts. I don't know how or if they are ever actually going to manage to justify, story/plot wise, all those different planes and spells. I mean beyond the 5 standard (earth, air, fire, water and spirit) and perhaps the normal plane just not sure what the last one is. Also usually planes and circles of magic go together so not sure why they need 12 circles, it just seems that they are going to have way to much overlap or useless spells. I hate useless things in game that are just there to be there.

MoM actually does suffer from this because of the fact that every school of magic has to have 10/10/10/9 Common, Uncommon, Rare and Very Rare spells. It just stands to reason that some are almost useless and are just there to give each the same number. Especially for the cost they give them as well.

I just hope WoM is keeping the above in mind.
I'll try to explain the spell circles for you. There are six elemental circles, which are Air, Death, Earth, Fire, Life, and Water. There are also six effect circles, which are Augmentation, Biomancy, Destruction, Mentalism, Protection, and Summoning. There are only planes that correspond to the elemental circles. (What would a plane of summoning look like?) Each spell has both an elemental circle and an effect circle. If you have levels in both of a spells circles, they stack, allowing you to cast higher level spells than normal. For example, if you have one level in Fire and two in Destruction, you will be able to cast Fireball, which is a level three Fire and Destruction spell.
Posted September 27, 2013
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Vissavald: For now it looks exactly like Elemental... Age Of Wonders 3 is my favorite still.
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rakenan: The best part of Master of Magic is how they took every idea that looked awesome and just ran with it. Elemental and most of MoM's other "spiritual successors" have worried too much about balance.

It's not that I think balance doesn't matter - I totally think it's important, and MoM would be a much better game if a few relatively minor tweaks were done to improve balance. But balance doesn't make a game great. Great ideas make a game great, and balance just polishes it up.

MoM, even with all its balance issues, is at worst a flawed gem. Most of the others are just well polished pieces of shiny glass. I'm hoping Worlds of Magic will hold tight to big ideas and let the balance take care of itself over time.
Balance is not needed in a single player game.
Only multi-player games need it.
Who cares if one race is more powerful than another,you can play them all for a different experience every time.
These so called balanced games seem so generic,which is why I keep coming back to MoM even after all these years.
If you want a win that can be easier , play a race that seems more powerful,if you want a bigger challenge play one that seems more difficult.
Posted September 27, 2013
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rakenan: I think we are coming at this question from opposite directions.

You see imbalance as desirable because it promotes interesting choices

I see balance as desirable because it provides structure for those choices.

It is the dynamic tension between the two that makes a great game. Without some regard for balance, you end up with choices that are stupidly good to the extent that no player who wants to win would ever make other choices. Such choices are not interesting at all. With too much regard for balance, you end up with choices that are so similar that they just don't matter - whatever you choose, it won't make a difference in the game. Those choices are, if anything, even less interesting.

You cannot have controlled imbalance without an underlying structure, and that underlying structure must be balanced. Whenever an aspect of imbalance is not part of that controlled and skillfully crafted imbalance, it should be pared away to reveal the fundamentally balanced foundations of the game. And even the imbalance should be crafted so as to minimize the number of major choices which are, at least in game terms, clearly bad or clearly good - because choosing the option that is plainly and obviously correct is not an interesting choice.
What exactly is an underlying structure,say as applied to Mom?
Mom Intentionally or not is fairly rock paper scissors,with some chaos in the mix.Chaos is fundamentally not balanced. There is all of the balance possible needed out there and balance is needed in the real world not in a game which one plays by themselves and can make their own decisions about balance or unbalance.

I would love some tweaks just not any balancing race tweaks.
Posted September 27, 2013
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rakenan: I think we are coming at this question from opposite directions.

You see imbalance as desirable because it promotes interesting choices

I see balance as desirable because it provides structure for those choices.

It is the dynamic tension between the two that makes a great game. Without some regard for balance, you end up with choices that are stupidly good to the extent that no player who wants to win would ever make other choices. Such choices are not interesting at all. With too much regard for balance, you end up with choices that are so similar that they just don't matter - whatever you choose, it won't make a difference in the game. Those choices are, if anything, even less interesting.

You cannot have controlled imbalance without an underlying structure, and that underlying structure must be balanced. Whenever an aspect of imbalance is not part of that controlled and skillfully crafted imbalance, it should be pared away to reveal the fundamentally balanced foundations of the game. And even the imbalance should be crafted so as to minimize the number of major choices which are, at least in game terms, clearly bad or clearly good - because choosing the option that is plainly and obviously correct is not an interesting choice.
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Master of MagicFuture spiritual successor: Worlds of Magic(44 posts)(44 posts)
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