Rock, Paper, Shotgun - The Lost Magic of Magic

In last few years, one of the most interesting systems was from Two Worlds II...you had magical cards to combine each with it's own effects to combine to create spells... rough around the edges, but had potential.

Complicated magic makes for complicated games and that makes for less sales. 1+1

DArtagnan said:

I don't really think it has anything to do with the move to 3D worlds. I think it's simply that the mainstream market isn't perceived as viable for the relatively high-brow tactical party-based RPG subgenre.

We're seeing a return to it because of the crowdfunding explosion more than anything else.

Click to expand...

But all the new party based games coming out are all isometric games are they not?

lostforever said:

But all the new party based games coming out are all isometric games are they not?

Click to expand...

Yes, and they're not targeting the mainstream market because they don't have to.

I'd have to say that Gothic 1 and gothic 2 treated magic in an intresting way. Even though the spell selection itself was limited as most spells were just basic damage spells, its was still fun to be a mage because very few people in the gameworld were mages. In gothic society a magic is a gift from gods which only chosen ones can master. And it is a privilige to learn it. Throwing a fireball was a big thing, not basic spell you could buy from the local spell merchant.

Loom was indeed a special game. It would be wonderfull to see a modern remake!

Elder scrolls games also showed this progression from a young novice to a seasoned wizzard quite well. The emphasis on magic schools made it a fun and diverse system.

D&D is ofcourse the classic mage game. The variety of spells is still looking for it's equal.

I also liked dragon age orgins. Magic was a dangerous thing and people wanted to lock magic users behind bars for a good reason. Spell variety was pretty nice too.

Arx Fatalis had a really unique magic system. The idea of drawing runes with the mouse hasn't been used since. And player could really experiement with. Not every spell was covered in manual, some of these rune combinations were hidden

I also agree with the article. Witcher series addressed magic quite well. Even though Geralt himself could do very little magic, he would constantly face powerfull magic users who used magic in various ways…

I think some of the best magic systems were invented by the developers of Shadowcaster - beast-cop-style shape change - and the makers of The Bards Tale III. (C=64) - (geomancer, chronomancer, Arch Monster Summon and Taming).

Also the last fantasy game where I have seen a true spell or ability which enabled the caster a really powerful way of discovering the world was ARENA and Daggerfall (IIRC). [I won't say what is the spell/ability it for USP reasons for my game]

Then there are the elemental abilities, which some games recently started to use - demon fire overtakes the hero's spirit / personality over time. Then there is an interesting magical-style ability of changing into a higher state of Fantasy Being, evolution toward a demigod-like. Poor Pillars of Eternity miserably failed in this regard.

HiddenX said:

Magic in books is something fantastic, mysterious, powerful and at times pretty random.

Magic in games needs to be a little more pressed in a restricted rule/resource system, otherwise it would be pretty hard to balance mage combat/skills.

Click to expand...

Remember The Malazan Book of the Fallen from Steven Erikson? There was the powerful 'NPC' demigod with so much life-force / mana emanating from him that flowers and plants sprung up in his steps.

Then there was the powerful 'NPC' Anomander Rake, Lord of Moon's Spawn (which is a floating fortress), leader of the non-human Tiste Andii, caster of Ultra Powerful magics. he cast his vast mega-spells - army-killer class - by not bothering with aiming at all and the spells fell upon the enemy masses like storms or hurricanes.

While I would agree that some of the magic is gone from magic in many games these days, I can't take much of RPS writing seriously since they seem to fancy themselves more comedian than journalist and barely have anything meaningful to say about games or gaming these days. I stopped reading that site a ways back since the lame attempts at humor get old (on top of slim bits about games).

I think for me most of it is the result of the console revolution - the dumbing down and streamlining of everything. Magic isn't about cooldowns and spamming abilities on cooldown in the console way of doing "skills" and those kinds of systems are boring (as is console influence on game design in general).

Turn based tactical is my preference but I found D:OS to be tedious quickly since every battle feels like a major slugfest and I think the elemental aspect is way, way too overdone in that game. I'll have to pick it up again and see if it feels better later in the game - I played it quite a bit but wasn't really THAT far in since it's a pretty long game.

I preordered sword coast even though it has cooldown based everything like a weak console game. The combat looks marginally tactical regardless (more so than DAI) where you may actually need to pause and direct things in most battles rather than just let the AI spam every generic ability as fast as they come off cooldown. We'll see. It's still not an ideal situation and it's extra sad to see a pseudo D&D using console-esque cooldowns instead of ... D&D.

It IS nice that these days there's so many games being made and that less mainstream games of quality pop up here and there.

I like magic to be a bit more mysterious and inaccessible. I would have an "arcane" class rather than a "mage" class - a combat-capable adventurer, but with alchemy and lore skills, the ability use magical items, and access to spells at higher levels. I wouldn't have average Joes lobbing fireballs around.