The basic game system is close to MoM (which I like a lot), but it’s just very buggy and unpolished right now, thus I see the potential. Also, I never said this was “close to being a classic”. I said it could be if they fix the issues. In fact, I feel it needs at least 6 months more work.
Ah, then I understand, since I still play Master of Magic occasionally. You see the potential, I see someone who tried to emulate the greatness of an old game, but failed miserably.
They failed because they had to release the game early, but if they continue to update it, given time I think they may be able to polish the diamond into a jewel.
I picked this up out of boredom months ago against my better judgement, and was unimpressed every time I checked into the state of the game. I looked at it yesterday and remain unimpressed. I may watch a couple of Let’s Plays in the hopes that the problem is with me rather than the game, but I doubt it.
My concern is that Wasteland Interactive has a habit of abandoning games before moving on to the next one (they still haven’t fixed all the bugs in Strategic War in Europe, and it’s been a couple of years…
They also tend to release the same game over and over under different names with a handful of modifications (WWII Time of Fury, WWII Time of Wrath, Storm Over the Pacific, WWII vs. Mechagodzilla, etc).
Add in the fact that it took 2 Kickstarter campaigns to get this game in the shape it is today, and all of that spells trouble in my book
Yes, I share the same concerns, tgb123.
This game set off alarm bells for me when it was being plugged during the kickstarter, though it looked like it had come a long way. With the AoW3 expansion dropping in under 4 weeks I think I’ll hold off. If I wanted to try something new, I’d probably look at Sorcerer King, in the genre. I’ll keel WoM on my radar to see if it matures along the way, I like to keep an open mind, but from what I’m seeing right now my initial gut instinct seems to still be the right one.
I just tried it again - Its still an extremely poorly executed game, and not worth anyones time or money.
Agreed.
RPS Wot I Think
I skimmed the review and my takeaway was “wait for improvements, unless you’re really desparate.”
Wow the lead-in to that WIT is pretty clear about where that game stands in relation to its peers:
Given how spoilt for choice we are for fantasy strategy/roleplaying games, opting for Worlds of Magic [official site] over an Age of Wonders III or Endless Legend feels a bit like choosing to take home the one-eyed, geriatric dog with bladder problems instead of one of the cute puppies at the pound.
-Todd
I’m going in. MoM was my most played game ever until DAoC and then LoL. Hmm, MoM, LoL… I have no idea what KoK is going to be, but I can’t wait for it!
I have been looking forward to playing Worlds of Magic since I backed it on its first Kickstarter. After reading the following post at the Wastelands forums, I’m getting a little concerned:
[B][I]"The fact is the AI cheats, and it cheats a lot. It has bonuses to income, population growth and production, and wins impossible battles because of course it does.
I made a game on Wizard difficulty just to watch it, getting Cartographer and casting Scrying on the first turn, and multiple Wizard eyes on subsequent turns to get vision on the features around the AI starting city.
In turns 5-15 the AI took several of the features with armies of 1 or 2 Thralls (Dark elf basic unit), while garrisoning the starting Thralls and Wardens. Around turn 20 or so, with a single Thrall, it took Ancient Ruins guarded by a Phantom Beast and some other lvl 3-5 monster. Now, Thralls are one of the shitties units in the game, and no amount of spells even with Archmage and school specialization (which the AI sorcerer lord didn’t have) could make that possible. By the end of the “combat”, the Thralls weren’t even wounded.
So, yea, it cheats a lot and personally I would like a way to tone it down a notch. I understand the rationale that the AI must cheat in order to be competitive with humans, but it feels way overtuned right now."[/I][/B]
That is excessive to the point of turning me off on the game entirely, assuming it works as advertised. I understand that higher difficulties are going to provide things in the way of production and research bonuses, but I’m not okay with not playing the same game as the AI (unless it’s designed that way, like AI War or Sorcerer King).
Unless they fix the absurd AI cheating (I started a thread on Steam about this and most players on the forum seem to have no problem with it, for some reason), I’ve put this game aside as nothing kills my fun faster than an AI that does not play by the same rules as I!
Just in case anyone was wondering, you still have no reason to buy this game. I pulled it out of the backlog today since it’s had quite a few patches since I last tried it out, in hopes that it was worth a few hours. Not really.
There is good news: game ran fine with no crashes or slowdowns, information I wanted was fairly easily accessible (though not always intuitive), and the MoM influence is very pronounced (I assume everyone who would consider WoM wants that). The quick-start game I tried out gave me the insect race, who had some cool buildings and units.
But the implementation is bad enough that I can’t even call it mediocre. Busy world-map graphics that are hard to interpret, clunky unit control interface, awful sound effects, and I didn’t even play long enough to worry about any enemy-wizard AI issues. And it inherits early-game issues from MoM as well, with no heroes showing up for a good long while, and lots of high difficulty lairs making early game progress slow and dangerous.
Next time I have a bit of free time and feel the need to 4X, think I’ll reinstall Fallen Enchantress.
Thanks for the heads up. I was getting the urge again. Urge diminishing.
If you are looking for something in this genre that isn’t the creme of the crop (AoW III; presumably if you are in this thread you already own it) I recommend Sorcerer King - it’s different enough from your traditional 4x game to be worth a look on its own, and it’s probably Stardock’s most realized/polished game to date. To be honest, Worlds of Magic seemed a little … low-budget since it was first shown, and nothing I’ve seen has really managed to change my impression of that (unfair or not).
Sorcerer King has developed nicely, but I’m holding off since the official release is just around the corner.
I think that all of us (well, most of us anyway) agree that conceptually Worlds of Magic is a truly great game. However, it’s also had a number of problems. The release build was (let’s face it) riddled with bugs, both the UI and AI needed serious work, and it just generally lacked polish. All these things combined have led us to believe that we need to “Relaunch” the game. We don’t plan to pull WoM from the shelves because it’s already much, much better than it was at release and we’re going to be able to make a number of incremental improvements between now and the Relaunch.
Later on they mention Q1 2016 as the target for this relaunch. Prior experience leads me to have zero confidence in either the date or their ability to generate something worthwhile, especially given that they’re working on mobile and console versions at the same time. Can’t say I buy into their assertion that work on those versions will end up leading to PC version improvements. But I suppose credit is due for realizing that the game is a steaming pile and at least planning to do something about it.
I’m sure the console version will sell like hot cakes.