Stardock unveils Master of Magic sucessor "Elemental: War of Magic" NSF56K

bloodyroarxx

So a while back on GFW radio (RIP) Brad Wardell of Stardock said they had a fantasy turn based RTS in the pipe for 2010, then it was revealed it was Master of Magic successor.

Yesterday Gamespy revealed it.



So aside from the usual blurbs about the game here is a neat tidbit.

Elemental will also mark Stardock's entry into the realm of Spore-style game broadcasting. The game will do much more than offer support for modders, as the company is developing a back-end infrastructure through its proprietary Impulse service that will let players seamlessly integrate new races, units, spells, technologies, buildings and much more into their game. Every time a player starts a game of Elemental, they'll have the opportunity to seamlessly incorporate new content straight from the fertile minds of the game's biggest fans.

also why its not called Master of Magic here is a quote from Brad himself by way of a Gamasutra article.

Yeah, we did. We pursued it. Actually, Atari came to us a while ago. I thought they had a pretty good idea. That is, over the years, Atari has collected a lot of good IP (Intellectual Property) like X-Com, Star Control, Master of Orion, Master of Magic and a lot of others that a lot of people didn't realize that they held. So they came to us and said "We're not really interested in publishing these things ourselves, but what we'd like to do is license out the trademarks to third parties like you guys and we'll make a royalty off of them." So, we sat down and decided that Master of Magic would be our first, since it's close to something we'd done and Master of Orion 3 had already come out. We were able to agree on the money, so we thought everything was set, then their legal guys got involved, and that's where it stalled. They wanted the right to approve any marketing we did with a mutli-day stipulation. Say, for instance, me talking to you right now would be considered marketing and I would have to have approval first. That sort of thing. Then there was the weird thing, like if the game was manufactured overseas, someone from the company would have to be onsite to make sure there was no child labor.

Screens under here:

captaink

I've always wanted to play some sort of Master of Magic successor. I love MOOII, but going back farther they just get too clunky and hard to work.

The art style is really weird though. It looks like X-Men Legends, but applied to the environment, not just the characters.

taliosfalcon

Wow..those...those are some unbelievably bad graphics

Josiah_9

Ohhh, want so bad I can taste it!

bloodyroarxx

taliosfalcon wrote: »

Wow..those...those are some unbelievably bad graphics

Considering its over a year away they, have plenty of time to tighten up the graphics on level 3

Colt

Hm.

I really like the graphics. It feels throwback, but because it's cell shaded it still looks great.

Carcharodontosaurus

Those graphics look astounding. Can't wait to get my hands on a demo.

GnomeTank

Oh. Hell. Yah.

I used to spend hours and hours playing Master of Magic, trying different combination's of spells, creatures and city building tactics. I am now officially stoked.

Guibs

Stardocks doesn't have the man power to get Unreal 3 type of graphics and it's also against their business model (or the business model is an excuse to explain why they won't put ressources to get unreal III type graphics) so that their game can be enjoyed by a larger pourcentage of PC gamers.

Gal Civ II was far from a graphic heavy game. Political Machine is FAR from being high on graphics as well. This one just follow suits. The "style" Adopted for this one will make the pill easier to swallow for some as the cartoon effect is always a good way to hide graphic restrictions.

I am not saying this game needs amazing graphics to be good. Sometimes, good 2D graphics can be just as fun and great even by today's standard.

I'm personally enjoying Castle Crashers a LOT even if it has 2D graphics. The art Style makes up for it. I believe in this game, the Art direction could compensate for the lack of polygons.

troublebrewing

look forward to checking this out.. I've played many hours of master of magic back in the day.

GnomeTank

A game like Masters of Magic doesn't rely on it's graphics anyway, that's not the point of the game. And to say Stardock is incapable of producing or publishing a game with good graphics...Sins of a Solar Empire would like to say hello to you. They weren't Unreal 3 level, but they were damn good, the engine ran like silk and the way it iconified as you zoomed out was an awesome effect.

I would much rather get a faithful MoM successor than the next AAA graphics demo wrapped in a 50 dollar package.

Grudge

I have to say I love that look. Looks excellent, and very fitting for this type of game. Will look forward to this.

taliosfalcon

it's not that the graphics are 2d or caroony..they just look..lazy and have little to no detail. Most of the character models in those screens look like they were thrown together in a couple of minutes.

Orogogus

What does turn-based RTS mean? Is it like the Total War games where you have a turn-based world map and real-time combat resolution? The grid in the first screen shot looks like a turn-based combat, but I'm not sure what to make of that last screenshot.

"Casualties."

grrarg

taliosfalcon wrote: »

it's not that the graphics are 2d or caroony..they just look..lazy and have little to no detail. Most of the character models in those screens look like they were thrown together in a couple of minutes.

Kind of like placeholders or a proof of concept for a game a year away from release?

GnomeTank

It's turn based, that last screen shot is combat resolution after you've both taken your turns.

That_Guy

Stardock needs to unveil a fucking updated version of ObjectDock.

Silpheed

I like the graphics, it reminds me of the mosaic windows that some medevial churches have.

Kupula

The graphics are "stylized". Stardock usually does a good job of producing games that will run on everybody's computer, and have really solid game play. This one should be interesting.

Glal

The first and the last screenshot look good. The rest... *palmwaggle*
Hopefully just placeholder assets.

Cinders

I hope dark elves make it in.

Guibs

GnomeTank wrote: »

A game like Masters of Magic doesn't rely on it's graphics anyway, that's not the point of the game. And to say Stardock is incapable of producing or publishing a game with good graphics...Sins of a Solar Empire would like to say hello to you. They weren't Unreal 3 level, but they were damn good, the engine ran like silk and the way it iconified as you zoomed out was an awesome effect.

I would much rather get a faithful MoM successor than the next AAA graphics demo wrapped in a 50 dollar package.

May I remind you that stardock are NOT the developpers of Sins of a Solar Empire so they don't have a thing to do with the coding being it. It's Ironclad who made it.

I own Sins and I know that the game looks decent and far better than Gal Civ II (Which I own as well).

Like I said, it's both technically and money reason beind Stardock decision to not go graphics heavy. They don't have the ressources to pull it off and they want to make sure their game runs on every old computer left out there.

JohnDoe

Awesome.

Love Stardock, love MoM, this can only be great.

lowlylowlycook

People complaining about the graphics of a MoM sequel is one of the most depressing things imaginable.

Darmak

I never played MoM but I think I'll grab the demo when it gets released because I like turn-based strategy games and I like how this one looks so far. That and I really, really like Stardock.

Rami

Yeah I love the graphics too, high res, fancy textures etc don't matter when you have style.

Exarch

I think I may have soiled myself. One of my all time favorite games is getting a successor? I didn't know anyone else even knew it existed.

Olivaw

Master of Magic always sounded so cool

I hope this game is a worthy successor

Also I like the graphics, very minimalist and colorful

eelektrik

I never played Master of Magic, but I love me some fantasy TBS(Speaking of which, Triumph needs to stop dicking around making Overlord games and god damn give me Age of Wonders 3). And the stylized graphics look pretty good. I will definitely be following this.

FeathersMcGraw

At first I was like "YES YES YES a thousand times YES" but then it I realized what effect a new version of Master of Magic would have on my life. And then I came to my senses. YES.

KiTA

FUCK. YES.

They've been talking about this for years.

KiTA

Wait. 14 months away?

NOO~~~~

subedii

eelektrik wrote: »

I never played Master of Magic, but I love me some fantasy TBS(Speaking of which, Triumph needs to stop dicking around making Overlord games and god damn give me Age of Wonders 3). And the stylized graphics look pretty good. I will definitely be following this.

If you haven't checked it out yet, you really need to have a gander at King's Bounty. The demo ought to give you a good idea of the game.

It is so very awesome.

JohnDoe

Kings Bounty is great, but oh my god it has a bad translation. Or really whacky writers. Probably both really.

Aegeri

My life is forfeit when this game comes out

KiTA

I just hope they have a race of hivemind antpeople. I loved playing as the Klackons. So what if I can't resea... um... generate mana very fast. I have ant people riding giant fire breathing beetles the size of elephants.

ANT PEOPLE. Riding GIANT FIRE BREATHING BEETLES. The SIZE OF ELEPHANTS.

vhzod

If you want to get a master of magic ish fix in between now and the time this game comes out try Dominions 3. Its pretty complicated and has basically non graphics, but its really deep.

Lord_Mordja

Gamespot has a preview up: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/elementalwarofmagic/news.html?sid=6200601&om_act=convert&om_clk=picks&tag=picks;story;2

This sounds cool.

eobet

Who cares about graphics when we're talking about a game like this?

I have great memories of Master of Magic, but they have faded a bit now.

What I do remember, however, is that I enjoyed Age of Wonders more, though perhaps not as a game, but for the atmosphere.

These screenshots lack atmosphere, imo.

But, I will be buying it if the multi player portion allows the other player to continue doing whatever he wishes while there is a tactical combat going on (something that Age of Wonders disallowed).

Cinders

KiTA wrote: »

I just hope they have a race of hivemind antpeople. I loved playing as the Klackons. So what if I can't resea... um... generate mana very fast. I have ant people riding giant fire breathing beetles the size of elephants.

ANT PEOPLE. Riding GIANT FIRE BREATHING BEETLES. The SIZE OF ELEPHANTS.

Yeah, it's too bad they're the worst race in the game.

Lunatic Clam

taliosfalcon wrote: »

Wow..those...those are some unbelievably bad graphics

Yeah, honestly, I was interested until I saw they hadn't updated their graphics engine since the last game.