RPGWatch Feature: Might & Magic X Preview

Thanks for the preview, dteowner!

First improvements

My early impressions (playing on hard):

+ game in the tradition of Might & Magic World of Xeen
+ turn based combat
+ tile based movement
+ 4 player party + 2 hirelings
+ you need food to sleep
+ weapons and potions are rare (not much looting)
+ hidden walls in dungeons
+ some puzzles
+ challenging combat (at least with the demo default party on the high difficulty setting)
+ chests can be traps that spawn enemies
+ leveling is hard

- enemies just stand on the map (only when you come too near combat starts and they begin to chase you)
- day night cycle too fast (every 20 steps or so)
- food can only be bought at the tavern (only up to 6 ) -> that causes much wandering between the dungeons and the town
- dungeons are not real 3d -> you can't jump/fall one level for example
- NPCs are not fleshed out -> underwhelming
- tile based movement a little bit slow
- some technical problems / resource hog / save game too big & gets corrupted sometimes / gfx card on the edge
- unbalanced loot selection
- some more monster variety pro dungeon would be nice
- the GUI is sometimes slow and not responding

-/+ gear is breaking fast / (maybe because I have still the very cheap stuff)
-/+ repairing things cost always the same (not depending how many things are broken, or their value)
-/+ shops are not refilling (in the demo)
 
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Nice, this seems to be shaping up much better than I was expecting. I didn't have this high on my list, since I would be a newcomer to the M&M series and thus have no nostalgia to make me a priori interested, but dteowners enthusiasm is making me consider it more seriously.
Thanks for the nice preview!
 
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With the early player's feedback the devs have a good chance to make a real good balanced and bug free classic M&M game.

They seem to listen to the feedback already. I just hope they don't listen too much to casual players... ;)
 
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I would consider both options to be viable as "backup healing" in the big picture, but I think Ubi really messed up not including a dedicated healer in the demo party.

Nice article! :)

There's an omission though.
I would be surprised if Ubi does anything on this game, because they are the publisher. You didn't tell us who the developer is. ;)
 
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There was an option in MMVII to use bows in melee? Seems enough for a replay to me ;)

Good preview, though I missed some information about how viable parties that differ from the default party are.
 
I tried going with a defender, archer , and 2 mages and it was easier then the default party but the barbarian lets you see hidden places so maybe I will try with a barbarian instead of either the defender or archer so I can get access to hidden areas.
 
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There was an option in MMVII to use bows in melee? Seems enough for a replay to me ;)

Good preview, though I missed some information about how viable parties that differ from the default party are.
If you turned off the automatic weapon swap, I believe you could fire bows even when the critters were right on top of you. Admittedly, I always built for melee (everyone would have some sort of ranged attack, but it was only something to do until I got close enough to melee, well, other than extreme distance sniping) and it's been a day or two since I did a MM7 replay, so my memory could be crap.

In the interest of time, I only ran the default party. I see no reason why you couldn't build a different crew if you wanted. Overall feedback seems to be that the archer is worthless (which I'd largely agree with), so dropping a second caster (probably one focused on healing) into that slot might actually be an improvement.
 
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Nice article! :)

There's an omission though.
I would be surprised if Ubi does anything on this game, because they are the publisher. You didn't tell us who the developer is. ;)
There's a reason for that...

Everything I've found -- and I'm talking everything including all the propaganda they sent with RPGWatch's preview copy plus some extra behind-the-scenes stuff I've been involved with -- has Ubisoft plastered all over it. Emails all have Ubisoft addresses, even from people that you'd expect to be part of the development team. I can't find a developer's studio name to save my butt. I've been wondering if perhaps Ubi is doing this with a skunkworks team of their own. Doubt it, but I'm running out of alternatives. If I'm just being a blind moron, I'd welcome somebody sharing the info with us all because I'd like to know, too.
 
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Of course it's Limbic. We had a studio visit in the news a month ago. ;) They're a long time Ubi partner for small stuff no serious gamer would touch, and they took over Heroes 6 (patches, service, add-ons) after Ubi split with the former developer.
 
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There's a reason for that…

Everything I've found — and I'm talking everything including all the propaganda they sent with RPGWatch's preview copy plus some extra behind-the-scenes stuff I've been involved with — has Ubisoft plastered all over it. Emails all have Ubisoft addresses, even from people that you'd expect to be part of the development team. I can't find a developer's studio name to save my butt. I've been wondering if perhaps Ubi is doing this with a skunkworks team of their own. Doubt it, but I'm running out of alternatives. If I'm just being a blind moron, I'd welcome somebody sharing the info with us all because I'd like to know, too.

Okay, then it's understandable you couldn't include it. But maybe you should have simply asked in our forum. It's no secret Limbic is the developer, although Ubi follows their usual tight regime to brand everything as Ubi. Somebody would have told you.
And of course we need to know who does all the good things (-> developer) and who is responsible if the game sucks (-> publisher). ;)

There's a big Limbic logo at the bottom of the OpenDev page, btw.
 
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Okay, then it's understandable you couldn't include it. But maybe you should have simply asked in our forum. It's no secret Limbic is the developer, although Ubi follows their usual tight regime to brand everything as Ubi. Somebody would have told you.
And of course we need to know who does all the good things (-> developer) and who is responsible if the game sucks (-> publisher). ;)

There's a big Limbic logo at the bottom of the OpenDev page, btw.

If you're so smart, why don't you update it in your own database then, he, he?
:Information about
Might & Magic X: Legacy

Developer: Unknown

SP/MP: Single-player
Setting: Fantasy
Genre: RPG
Combat: Turn-based
Play-time: 10-20 hours
Voice-acting: Partially voiced

Regions & platforms
World
· Homepage
· Platform: PC
· Expected at 2013-09-30
· Publisher: Ubisoft


Just to defend dteowner a bit, here ;)
 
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Good point, will do later. ;)

I hope dte didn't feel seriously criticized. It's just one detail.
 
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No worries on my part. I didn't know and didn't see any answers. I didn't figure Ubisoft was doing in-house development, but I lacked an alternative. Simply asking someone? That's just crazy talk there. ;) Limbic it is. Good to know.
 
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dte… a few things…

1. I dislike but not hate uPlay, this won't be the first game I have on it… at least thank god it's not origin or windows live. Or all of them combined.

2. I dislike but not hate - you. Because of this persuasive preview of yours now I bought the bloody game!
http://i44.tinypic.com/2rr59o5.jpg
And now I can't afford beer for next few days, you evil bastard! :mad:
;)

3. Feed the kids! ;)

Great job man.
 
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sorta horrible how you move like a pre 90s rpg… but if you get past that…

In pre 90s rpg you can move at lightspeed which is better/faster than free-move.
This annoying slow animated grid-based movement is a feature of the modern blobber rpgs like Etrian Odyssey, Wizardry:Tales of Forsaken Land and M&MX.
 
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Actually Stonekeep had that already, which was from 95.
And actually that's one of the games where I loved moving around the most...but that was also probably due to the sound effects :D
taptaptap-scrtsch-taptap-scrtsch-taptaptaptap-scrtsch
 
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Nice write-up, very informative!

The game sounds very promising.
 
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In pre 90s rpg you can move at lightspeed which is better/faster than free-move.
This annoying slow animated grid-based movement is a feature of the modern blobber rpgs like Etrian Odyssey, Wizardry:Tales of Forsaken Land and M&MX.

You can say that again. Even in games like Lands of Lore that had smooth animation you could run very fast if you wanted. Though it looks from the dev blog that the movement is something they're going to fix.
 
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Something to look forward to. :)

Daniel.
 
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