Lords of Xulima II - About the Sequel

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Numantian Games promises that Lords of Xulima II will be an overall better game than the original Lords of Xulima. But before that they will release a Non-RPG:

New Game Incoming

It has been a long time since our last update, yes, but don’t think the Numantian team has been on holidays since then. We have been working hard during these past months on our new game. We will announce it for Christmas and expect to release it for the end of Q1 2017. Although it is not LoX II or even an RPG, we are sure this game is going to please all that have enjoyed Lords of Xulima (even the main developers are playing it a lot instead of working on finishing it…). We will talk more about it in the next update, but let’s drop a tiny hint: its initials are T.A.B. Any guess?

The Sequel: Lords of Xulima II

We decided to create a different game before Lords of Xulima II for two reasons: First, to have more time to design it with new and fresh ideas. And of course, we will be continuing the original story. This story, by the way, will be much more epic than the first one. The first game, “A Story of Gods of Humans” is actually the prequel to the main story. Second, we would love to produce Lords of Xulima II with much better quality in all aspects: graphics, sound, and voice. We believe that the new game will help us reach that goal.

Keep in mind, behind Lords of Xulima, there are 4 years of development. Designing a 100-hour RPG, with the world, gameplay, mechanisms, puzzles, classes, and everything being coherent with the main story was like squaring the circle. And the sequel is much more ambitious.

We are very proud of LoX. It is not perfect, we know it, but we will use all our experience and all that we have learned so far to make the sequel even more special and unique.

Let’s talk about RPG gameplay

Some months ago, we started a thread where the players can give us their feedback for the sequel. We wanted to know what aspects of the original game they liked the most and which of them they did not enjoy as much. We were also interested in new ideas and suggestions.

In this update and others to come, we will discuss different gameplay topics and how they will be implemented in the sequel. We will post new updates every two to three weeks. Each one of them will cover a gameplay aspect.

Game Length and Replayability

We love long games, especially in the RPG genre. In the old-school days, games like Wizardy VII or the first Might and Magic games were huge epic games with 100+ hours of content. Nowadays it is rare to find a game that lasts more than 20-30 hours.With Lords of Xulima, we wanted to bring back those huge stories of the past when you had time to slowly evolve your party from weaker than rats to adventurous young men to powerful demigod heroes.

In this case, we think we went too far since Lords of Xulima is a bit too long. This isn’t a problem in itself, but the third part of the game suffers a bit, as it lacks in fresh content, too much combat, and less variety of enemies. We had to do it because of the long story. The eight temples / gods should have an equal level of importance. But to keep that in the story, the gameplay suffered. Nevertheless, with the last part of the game, it was interesting to drink the blood of a king through the horn of a demon or find an old sea-route in some ancient ruins to reach a small isle and there find a speaking chest with the most powerful weapon :eek:)

For the sequel, we plan on making it shorter of about 40-50 hours for the main story. However, it will have different endings depending on your actions. One of the endings will be especially difficult to achieve. Only the most hardcore players will be able to beat it after 100 hours+ of playing.

Additionally, we are going to focus more on the replay value. Since the game follows a story, there must be a lot of static content (dialog, places, puzzles, NPCs …). Though it won’t be a procedurally generated roguelike, there are some aspects of the game that can make every new game more random and unique:

  • More Variety of Classes: New classes that make you play the game in a different way. We will talk more about them it later.
  • Traps: Most traps will be randomly placed. With each new game, they will change.
  • Static Enemies and Random Encounters: In LoX I, they had a bit of randomness but in the sequel, they will be much different.
  • Dynamic NPCs: Some special NPCs will travel through the world. Their interaction will have important effects on the player.
  • Special random world areas and dungeons: Some world areas like Geldra and Pernitia from the first game will be generated randomly. Also, some optional and special dungeons will be random too.
  • Special Items and Artifacts: Every game will have a set of special items whose nature and location will change. Special Bosses: Some bosses will change with every new game, such as their nature and location.
What do you think?

Next time we will talk about “Linear or Open Worlds“.

See you soon!
More information.
 
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Will definitely get this, since I enjoyed the first one pretty much.

Although this HAS to change:
- boring loot (11 tiers of weapon materials that get marginally better from tier to tier as you level up; not much of an incentive)
- speed was the most important stat for every char, no matter the class.
- too much bloat through random encounters; make random encounters unique and interesting; a few trash mobs are ok)
 
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What is it with developers always going for prequels?

I always have little interest in them, as it feels kinda pointless. Given that I already know how the "sequel" ends, the story just seems to have no impact to me.
 
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What is it with developers always going for prequels?

I always have little interest in them, as it feels kinda pointless. Given that I already know how the "sequel" ends, the story just seems to have no impact to me.

Its not a prequel. He says the first game is a prequel, which is actually kind of confusing. I'd interpret it to mean that the sequel takes place well after the events of the first game, or that it takes place somewhere else, has a different main character, or is only loosely tied to first game, but we'll see.
I'm excited about the next game as well. I really enjoyed the first one. Personally though, I think if they have more funds they'd do best investing in an experienced writer.
 
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Lox was one of my favourite rpgs of all time....but i dont like what im hearing about the sequel.
It took me 120 hours to beat all the content in the game, which i loved because i never replay games. The story in lox was basically non existant and the npcs were bland but i liked this since the game was so heavily combat focused.
Im not saying lox wouldnt have been a worse game if it had a great story and cool npcs, since that is what rpgs are about, but it was a successful game for a reason but what im reading is almost a step back from the original.
I'll definatley be interested in the game but i think they are taking the franchise in the wrong direction.
 
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Lox was one of my favourite rpgs of all time….but i dont like what im hearing about the sequel.
It took me 120 hours to beat all the content in the game, which i loved because i never replay games. The story in lox was basically non existant and the npcs were bland but i liked this since the game was so heavily combat focused.
Im not saying lox wouldnt have been a worse game if it had a great story and cool npcs, since that is what rpgs are about, but it was a successful game for a reason but what im reading is almost a step back from the original.
I'll definatley be interested in the game but i think they are taking the franchise in the wrong direction.

A lot of the things I think they are addressing are from complaints from players. I've seen a lot of these from people on these forums. A number of people didn't finish the game, because they felt it bogged down near the end. I think you can't make everyone happy, though. What bothers some people makes others happy. I also hope they don't compromise the fun combat and exploration of the first game. I do understand though why any developer shies away from such a game of epic proportions. It's a massive undertaking.
 
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I also did not mind the length. I finished it and it was one of those games that it was fun to see how powerful your party became at the end. It was maybe 5 or 10 hours too long but it was fun playing a long game like this again. Reminded me of the old Might and Magics.

If they fixed the stats where speed was not so overpowered and placed in some better magic items that is all the updates I would need for LoX 2.
 
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I agree, speed was way to overpowered, and loot was definatley not rewarding!

Being about to customise the main guy would be nice, especially for a game that could be brutally difficult i hated being forced to take a character who felt like dead weight at times...just using bleed every attack just made him feel dull...
They need to make the non combat skills better or just get rid of them completely.
Mana cost for spells was also rediculous...
 
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Xulima already had fantastic graphics and a good story. Especially the ending was epic.
 
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I never finished LoX but I thought it was a really good game. Looking forward to the sequel and maybe they're other mystery game.
 
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Great news! Enjoyed Xulima, but unfortunately did not finish it. :/
Can't make myself to play it again,but one of these days…
I also think that the graphics where great(very eye pleasing).
 
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I don't understand the game length comment. So, one specific, difficult-to-achieve ending will be a 100+ hour playthrough, but other endings will be 40-50 hours shorter to achieve? Seems weird, but if you can still spend 100+ hours in one playthrough that's cool with me.
 
I don't remember exactly what it was, but there was one big revelation at the very end that made me want to know how it goes on. So a sequel seems to have its merits.

PS: LoX took my 107 hours to finish according to Steam and that was a very complete playthrough. I exhausted every random encounter, did all side-quests and even killed all the fairies that turned into monstrous things from the swamp.
 
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I have zero interest in their "interim" game that isn't an rpg, so hopefully they'll have enough money to make a 2nd rpg after losing money on their "other" idea.
 
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Steam has me down for 55 hours, not sure why my playthrough was so much faster, I did finish all the subquests. But either way I really enjoyed the game. The story was completely non-interactive, but I still enjoyed it, as well as the flavor of all the different areas. I also remember loving the world map they gave you, it had such a Might and Magic feel to it.
 
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Steam has me down for 55 hours, not sure why my playthrough was so much faster, I did finish all the subquests. But either way I really enjoyed the game. The story was completely non-interactive, but I still enjoyed it, as well as the flavor of all the different areas. I also remember loving the world map they gave you, it had such a Might and Magic feel to it.

Mine was around 120 hours probably because i did every random encounter possible, and i also backtracked the entire game to collect every herb once i maxed out gauden's (or whatever his name was...) herb picking ability.
I also had ocd with collecting food so i didnt have to buy it...had a nice path to get like +5 food from the main town, but every run took about 10 minutes...
 
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Great game and happy to see a sequel coming. I was one of those players who didn't finish (I think I stopped around 50 hours). Personally, I'm happy to see a shorter playtime coming though I understand why others would want to sink 100+ hours into something like this. Unfortunately, between work, the wife, kids and other hobbies there's only so much time and it's hard to devote so much when I have a queue of a lot of other great games waiting to play. Anyway, I'm stoked about this regardless of what the final play length is!
 
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Xulima was nice, so I'd gladly play Xulima II. The other game, don't care.
 
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161 hours for me, I did restart a couple of times though. Looking forward to the sequel!

Daniel.
 
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