Am I obsessive about Myrror?  I try to avoid just yelling "I want multiple plains" without a reason or prompt (like somebody asks "what do you want?") and I have stated the reasons I want them somewhere.  Which, for any who might have missed it, includes I like the map complexity multiple plains provide and I like being able to effectively walk through enemy territory without actually doing so (because I'm on a different map, so unless a spell or something allows site on both, a player might be unaware of the going-ons of another plain) 

However, as I have stated before.  I cannot find a real solid argument as to why Stardock should dedicate the resources to it other than for the nostalgia (something that should not be taken for granted, since nostaglia alone is what brings in big bucks for some video game series I can name.)  I mean, it would be a great feature.  As a child I use to dream about the next Master of Magic and the new worlds that would be opened up in the game.  

However, if I try to step back from myself and try to look at it as a game designer who would have to decided what is worth spending time and money to develop, I'd think about things that might be in the "critical path" of this game, and what features "must be in" to make the game sell, I might put it rather low on the list of things.  Having it would require extra time on AI just to make them function properly.  Perhaps with the direction the game is going, the other world(s) would not be memorable, so might not leave a particularly good taste in the mouth of users, where focusing on other story features might.  I might, however, raise it on the priority if I thought the nostalgia of the feature would draw in enough olde-timey gamers that loved MoM and would purchase it soley to meet their crave for Master of Magic with bigger maps, fancy graphics, and Multiplayer, but might not buy it otherwise.

So I try to show my support on a general level.  Its like wearing a shirt that says "I   NY".  Have you actually asked somebody why such a person might   New York?  And reguardless of their responce actually is, its likely because the shirt reminds them of good times in New York.  Thats what multiple plains would do to me, remind me of back in the day sitting in front of my pentium 1 90/160 Mhtz (it had a 'turbo' button and a digital display) with 16 MB of ram with windows 95, with a game that required an "entire CD!" to run, just enjoying MoM (when it wasn't crashing to a wierd blurry screen, which it did often... but luckily I could save often).  Good times I say!   And the map complexity wouldn't hurt (especially if you could turn them off on map creation)  If I don't yell "I want multiple plains" or some other similar feature that might make me feel something similar, then how are other people (namely the devs) supposed to know that I have a craving for it.   If they are on the fence about  the feature, then maybe it will be enough.  If they have made up their mind already, then there shouldn't be any harm.  I certainly don't think I abuse my troll stick about it.  I hope I'm not so "obssessive" to annoy them (or anybody else) with it.

Just so its clear on where I stand on the "spirit successor = should be exactly like MoM"  I feel that you don't have to be an exact carbon copy to still get the title of spirit successor.  I would be very happy with an effectively direct copy with good graphics, multiplayer, and re imagining of the characters, spells, and races, but it doesn't need to be that.  I think Elemental is going in a direction stand on its own.  I've been hoping for a sequel or decent quality version of MoM for a long time.  And to mee my thirst for this, it really only needs a few key features.  Most of these features, like AI diplomacy and Civilization-ish economy structure, I feel that this game will totally meet for me.  I think Stardock sees it that way to some extent as well, there are certain things in MoM that just have not really been done in a fantasy TBS since.  (Age of Wonders being the closest example, still played like HoMM more than MoM because of how economy and diplomacy worked, which is why I used those two examples)  

I almost feel like Brad (frogboy) tries to avoid any reference MoM in terms of mechanics just because some people (including myself) are so attached to the idea of this being a the answer to our MoM lust.  However, I encourage changes in features in ways that are not direct MoM clones (keeping civ like economy, but changing it a bit with trade routes and resources given even more center focus)  Because of the way Stardock runs their betas (heavy public playtesting) I feel that any mechanics that might only look good on paper but may not in game, will be fixed or removed in time for release, so its not like this game has the "fixing something that isn't broken" problem.  And it seems Stardock wants to be so mod-friendly, rabid fans will have a chance to create their own mod using what they like  from Stardock's work, and putting in their own of whatever they think Stardock lacked.  Generating multiple worlds shouldn't be too hard (I hope), and Ai should be easily modified in python to accomidate.  At least to the level MoM had (it  may not understand some strategies associated with plain swapping, but *shrug*) and adding the elves, orcs, beastmen, lizardmen, nomads, etc. shouldn't be too hard since they are mostly all humanoid (default animations, only need new models)  We'll  just have to carve to make the Elemental economy and the MoM races fit each other (or just redo the economy to the very basic Gold/mana/food system of MoM I suppose).  So, if Elemental isn't carbon copy enough...   then a Totally MoM clone mod will surely appear (I was going to make a post about it, but all the work I wanted to bring together for it isn't ready yet)

I like your post, Landi. And just to clarify, I have no problem with your Myrror obsession because you have explained why you want it in the game (and on more than one occasion, I'm sure). It was probably brought up largely because you say it so often that it gets stuck in people's minds

My personal gripe is mostly just with knee-jerk reactions against any proposed feature or idea that is a departure from MoM. If people say "we should have this because it was in MoM" - fine. Sure I'd prefer if they offered further explanation of why they liked it and what it would add (especially helpful to those of us who have never played MoM) - but fine. It just really gets me when people are unwilling to consider something because it's a departure from their beloved MoM (and no other reason than that).

I feel obligated to respond to this. I sincerely hope that Stardock doesn't determine the evolution of Elemental in order to guarantee the ability to mod it into an exact duplicate of MoM with better graphics. I appreciate that you really want to mod Elemental into MoM, but really, come on. Let Elemental evolve and go down its own path, stand on its own legs. Don't limit a whole new game just so that you can mod it back into an old one...

That said I fully support Stardock's dream to make the game so moddable that you can turn it into nearly anything. If you've read the latest dev post, then you're aware that regardless what direction Elemental goes, you should be able to mod it as much as and however your heart desires - including modding it into MoM.

Spiritual succesor to MoM appart from a... publicity thing, refers to the feeling of the game, not to the gameplay mechanics (the flesh and blood). To read that the game should try to stay not very far away from MoM so it's easier to mod into into a MoM clone... Sorry, to much for my eyes. EWOM should be EWOM and not worry about if it's close to MoM or not. And all the complain about only two races? Buff! People cares too much about eye candy. The factions will work differently, which is the same effect as having different races but with more similar eye candy. Different planes? Well, not because MoM had one but because fantasy in general involves other realities/planes so in that sense, this option would make sense for us but maybe not for the campaign world of Elemental. And in general, yeah, it should be explained why that thing that  was in MoM (whichever, just pick one) should be in EWOM. But even if it was something good in MoM, it doesn't mean it should be in EWOM because maybe it's not good for this game and/or maybe something better could be done.

Cloning the feeling of MoM when playing it... I wouldn't mind it. But better if they can improve it too.

Don't these two paragraphs contradict each other? On the one hand you say you don't want them to limit themselves by catering to a MoM-fan modder while on the other hand you hope the game is so moddable that it can be turned into anything.

If the game is so highly moddable and flexible, how is that limiting it?

As far as making clones of MoM go: no, I don't want an exact clone of MoM, I already have the original. I want a game that improves on all of MoM's many faults (terrible AI, poor diplomacy options, buggy/broken spells, balance issues, tedious resource production/waste micromanagement, lack of multiplayer, lousy graphics) without removing all of its best features (vast number of spells, races and units, extremely customizable wizards, gargantuan strategic and tactical variety, amazing synergy between different units, buffs and counter-strategies).

I also don't want to see many more layers of needless complexity bolted on top of it (Micromanaging all of the equipment and supplies for my armies? Different colours of mana greatly limiting my strategic versatility and possibly torpedoing my entire strategy due to randomness? Supply lines?).

I think there is a sweet spot when it comes to complexity and I believe MoM almost nailed it. Way overshooting that mark, especially if it adds little in the way of interesting choices to make, is a big mistake.

(S)he wants the best of both worlds, and I think we are going to get it: the game will be unique, AND it will be almost totally moddable. Basically, (s)he feels that changes to make the game more like MoM are redundant: you can use the moddability to make pretty much any changes you want, and you don't need to compromise the uniqueness of the default game to do so.

What Scoutdog said. Stardock has stated that they want to make the game extraordinarily moddable. Frogboy's exact words were: "It is our dream to slowly evolve Elemental to be so modable that a user familiar with Python 3.x will be able to use Elemental to create virtually any kind of land base computer game." So limiting Elemental to being very similar to MoM so that people can easily mod a MoM clone is redundant. Although, even if Stardock didn't intend for there to be such flexible modding capabilities I would still be opposed to them keeping the game similar to MoM so that you can make or little mod. Considerations like, "hmm, if we add in this great feature then ChongLi won't be able to create his MoM replica mod! Guess we can't use this feature, then..." would destroy any game.

You know it's very possible to have a game that is very different from MoM but still has vast numbers of spells, races, units, extremely customizable wizards, gargantuan strategic and tactical variety, amazing synergy between different units, buffs and counter-strategies. I mean, you essentially just described what we all want Elemental to be, other than the large variety of playable races. So, according to this paragraph, if Elemental ends up being as good as it's toted to be, you won't need your mod.

That is, of course, if that's really what you mean and I suspect it is not. You love MoM, and even if you love Elemental as much you will still probably create your MoM mod (and that is great - I'd probably play it). 

Micromanaging equipment and supplies for armies could get tedious, sure. But a good UI combined with good automation could alleviate that. This is one of those things that you really can't tell if it'd be good or not on paper. Personally I think that the results of a system like this would be good, but using it might be a nightmare. That's what beta is for! Having different colors of mana limiting your strategic versatility... Personally I think breaking up magic into different elements with their own mana will add to strategic depth. It makes controlling and keeping shards more significant, and if you have 3 shards then you have just as much strategic versatility as you'd have had in MoM if you only have access to 3 schools of magic. I mean, from what I hear it seems like in MoM you start out with the magic schools you pick and that's it - other than the ability to gain other spells here and there. That seems more strategically limiting than sorting out your magic during the game based on availability, strategic goals and context...

And supply lines... Another feature that could potentially add an unwanted amount of micromanagement in, but would have wonderful consequences. "Heartripping" is the plague of 4X games (and TBS games in general) and I've never played a game that managed to make it difficult. Supply line mechanics would accomplish this well - and supply lines could be implemented as literally or as abstractly as you can imagine... It could be done in a way to add zero micromanagement, even without a UI or automation of any sort...

My MoM fetish is simple.

Civ, but with tactical combat and magic.  The details really aren't that relevant, it's tactical combat and magic that mattered.  You take an otherwise boring and trivial game and make it wonderful with those two additions.  If there were something besides AoW to compare to, I'd gladly drop other names when talking about mechanics.  Unfortunate, the original is still the best for damn near everything in the list of tactical combat fantasy 4x games that don't rely on annoying mechanics like stack combat.

It's not a fetish so much as an utter lack of alternatives.

Man ChongLi you and I think so much alike. I am in so much agreement that player made maps and campaigns are such a waste because I will not play them. People for the most part who make maps and campaigns are biased and make it to their liking instead of actually making them for the ai's liking. Most people play pc games solo and I just prefer random everything except for what I create and build.

Also yeah there were probably thousands of combinations in MOM for wizards abilities and race combinations. I was always leaned a bit more toward death and sorcery myself. If you had ghouls, lycanthropes and counter magic and sky drakes you could pretty much control the world. Love MOM best fantasy game ever made and I'll bet you a nickel to a dollar Elemental won't come close to it. I already see things that are going to stifle Elemental and make it more or less like the other wannabe's.

The large variety of playable races is kind of an important part of it. The uniqueness and vast strategic and tactical diffferences between the races combined with the huge number of combinations of spell books and wizard retorts cannot be understated. From what I've heard (that spell research/tech trees will be fixed to each faction), EWoM is going in a totally different direction. 

I'm not totally sure what you meant by it, but adding extra layers of micromanagement and then adding automation to solve it seems like a pointless exercise. This was one of the reasons MoO 3 really sucked. As far as determining whether your game design decisions work or not in beta... 

If by "heartripping" you mean sneaking past an enemy's frontier and ambushing his fortress, I really don't see a problem with it. Sure, it's a problem in MoM, but I'm expecting the AI in EWoM to be far, far better. Not only should the AI know how to properly defend its fortress, but the AI should attempt "heartripping" against the players. With good AI, I don't think you need a negative reinforcement mechanic like supply lines to artificially make the game harder to win.

Look, overall I'm fairly positive about this game. I don't sign up and post on the forums of every upcoming game, y'know. This game is one I am very much looking forward to. I just want to offer some input because I believe there are many pitfalls and stumbling blocks in the way.

Ooops. Double post!  

I hope you get on the alpha test ChongLi you have the right kind of mind to drive the developers in the RIGHT direction. Long as you agree the game shouldn't end abruptly if your channeler dies or the ai's channeler?

Oh, well then is there anything else you won't be using, so we know to scrap it?

I think we have a bona fide case of jumping to conclusions here. Nowhere did I say that EWoM must have X Y and Z to be a good game.

MoM is a known quantity, EWoM is a largely unknown one. Sure, it may be possible for it to be an amazing game while shunning those attributes of MoM I described. However, I believe it is a much bigger risk.

Anytime you abandon a proven formula you take a big risk. When you do so, you better hope you know what you're doing.

That's what the alpha and betas are for. Learning what works and getting rid of what doesn't. The finished game will NOT be an unknown quantity.

There won't be a large variety of playable races, but there will be a large variety of playable factions. The differences between factions of the same race can be as big as the differences between different races. Sure some things might not make sense, like giving one faction the ability to fly or breathe fire, but that's such a small subset of possible differences that you're hardly limiting yourself by using fewer actual races.

Based on what we've been told so far, there will be two core tech trees (one for each race), and each faction will have some techs unique to them and will be barred from researching some others. The mundane tech tree was never intended as a vessel for variety between factions. Your concerns regarding being limited based on faction in magic is definitely valid and I do share that concern. Even if magic is limited based on faction (I hope it isn't), hopefully we'll still be able to retain MoM-like freedom when setting up a custom faction in sandbox mode. Either way we hardly know anything about how magic is intended to work, so it's way too early to make an informed opinion about it. Right now we're making guesses (and not the most informed guesses), and then judging a game we've never seen based on those guesses.

Because it really isn't as simple as that. Yeah if there's something that you can completely automate away so that the player never has to (or would never want to) go in and get their hands dirty - that's a sign that you'd be better off without it. However, there are all sorts of things that would add micromanagement that players won't want to bother with most of the time, but would love to get into some of the time (depending on the person, of course - can't please everyone).

An example of something that I personally would like is a Camp 1 or 3 type economy system. Automation could largely take care of resource transfer, but I'd still want to step in here and there in special circumstances. Personally I think the added benefit of such a system would be great (it could function as the foundation for all sorts of great features including resource raiding, supply lines, etc) - and it's something that can be automated to reduce the time one would have to spend, but still give you the manual control you'd want in order to retain strategic depth. It's clear you don't agree with me on this particular example, but I'm just giving an example where extra micromanagement that is largely, but not completely/always, managed automatically is not a pointless exercise.

It has nothing to do with sneaking past anything. You don't sneak - you barrel through at full speed. It isn't just a problem against AIs, either - it's a very effective tactic against players as well. People are a little better at protecting themselves against this strategy, but that isn't saying much considering AIs have proven completely inept in this department. The only way to effectively cover yourself is to devote so many resources  to defenses everywhere, and not just on your border, that you gimp yourself in every other aspect of the game. To defend high-value targets from heart-ripping, you pretty much have to have whole defensive army parked there indefinitely, and that isn't really viable. So really, there is no good defense against heartripping, and that's a sign that something needs to be done to make it more difficult. Not impossible, it should still be a viable strategy if the opportunity presents itself (or if you create the opportunity) - but as it stands heartripping is the most effective way of taking out your enemies in 90% of scenarios.

The reason is that, unless there are only a few small entrances into your kingdom, there is no way to have an effective border defense, because bypassing them is too easy. You need to actually have pretty much full-blown defenses everywhere even well passed your borders. So based on that, the most obvious solution is to do something to enable actual, functional border defenses. This could be done by supply line mechanics (literal or abstract), or something could be done on the defensive side of things, possibly a nice zone of control mechanic. 

Yes, I won't be using you as a multiplayer opponent ever so start scrapping yourself igmo.

Didn't Civilization 4 solve this problem by preventing the enemy from using your roads? Seems like it'd work just fine here. I still think it's the defender's fault though if the enemy manages to capture their fort. There's already a ton of special spells for protecting your fort in MoM, such as flying fortress, wall of fire, wall of stone, wall of shadow, recall hero, word of recall, earth gate, etc.

The one thing that could still be a real issue are heroes with items to give them ridiculous move speed. That's pretty easily solved: don't allow huge move speed items.

I've never played MoM, but the thing is (and I suspect this is the case with most or all of the spells you mentioned), an attacker can scout out what you have, and then prepare an appropriate assault. In the vast majority of cases it is easier for the attacker to adapt against against another person's defense than to constantly evolve your defense to counter an attacker. Especially because it's easier for the attacker to hide his actions - he can prepare wherever in his kingdom he wants, whereas you can only really defend your city at your city.

Civ IV did prevent heart ripping by preventing the enemy from using your roads. And that's one way of going about things. But then in Civ IV you pretty much had roads linking everything to everything by the shortest routes possible, and railroads give essentially unlimited movement and those are just as important.. And I doubt we'll see either of those things in Elemental. A supply lines mechanic would achieve similar results but in the different context of Elemental, and (I think) in a more natural and intuitive way. It would also add quite a bit of strategy, because it adds a whole 'nother consideration to offense and defense: protect your supply lines and disrupt enemy supply lines, respectively. 

Speaking of Civ IV one of the best things the ai did was rip up your infrastructure like roads and squares surrounding your city. I hope the ai in Elmental is that good as well. Civ IV really made me build units to defend with all over my territory instead of just camping them in cities as well as build those to attack with. Stardock really have a lot to live up to with their ai in GalCiv 2 so good. If they bomb this ai they will never get to live it down.

In my eyes the majority of the replayability of MoM was not only the vast amount of different combinations at game start but that the choices you made there meant a lot of difference.

Spending a point at the start did not make simple changes like making your farmers 10% more effective or anything boring like that (at least most of the choices were far from boring). Instead most of them gave you very specific powerful advantages. If you took warlord you got an extra experience level for your units. If you took Myrror, you'd have a host of different races to choose from and a different starting place. If you took Alchemy, gold and mana crystals were more or less the same resource for you.

The magic realms had certain key spells that gave you very specific advantages which changed a lot. And due to the limited points you could not get everything. You had to choose.

It was the same in MoO2. The interesting choices which brought replayability were the ones like creative, lithovore and the like which gave you entirely different options.

Of course such choices which bring fundamental changes are hard to balance (and MoM was far from balanced). But they bring fun and replayability beyond what the randomly generated world gives.

You've never played MoM?! Wow, you are missing out!  

There isn't a whole lot an attacker can do to counter the recall spells, since they have no idea which units you'd be recalling in. Earth Gate is a permanent portal between two of your cities, allowing unlimited instantaneous travel between them.

MoM also had roads and enchanted roads you could build between your cities.  Enchanted roads require no movement points to use, therefore allowing you to instantly transport your units to any city, provided they are connected.

As far as the various walls go, used in concert they can make your fortress city nigh-invulnerable. Flying fortress, for example, lifts the entire fortress city up into the air like the floating islands from Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger. This prevents any land-bound units from even attempting to enter the city, leaving only ranged attackers and flying attackers able to continue the attack.

Wall of darkness surrounds any city you choose (including your fortress city) with a wall of black fog that blocks all incoming ranged attacks. Combine these 2 spells and you are pretty safe from heartripping.

1. That still leaves out the arieal units, which if your enemy is anticipating your spells (which it should) it will use almost exclusively.
2. Doing that to ALL of your cities sounds like a TITANIC mana drain.

Aerial units can be grounded permanently and cheaply with a web spell.  Barring that, you can load up with ranged units and fill their aerial units with holes before they get close.

"Doing that to all of your cities" doesn't apply to this discussion because we are talking about "heartripping", which is the specific targeting of your fortress city. In MoM none of your cities mattered as long as your fortress was intact.

The spell flying fortress only worked on your main fortress city anyway.

Not being balanced is one of the many things that makes MOM great. It's more like a REAL world instead of a GAME world. I listen to these igmos on other websites screaming balance balance balance and balance does nothing for a game but make everything the same. This is what is wrong with AOW:II & SM the multiplayer scream for BALANCE ruined both of them but more especially AOW:SM. Give me an unbalanced world and playing pieces any day. Give me a different game everytime I play where it might take an alliance of 3 to dethrone the power in that game or 5 in the next. We live in a real world of imbalance and I think it should be in games also. As I said it's one of the many things that makes MOM great. I loved taking the Gnolls and trying to win or the Klakons. But, really I loved playing all the races and then trying out different combinations of magic to win, though I think we all know Death and Sorcery ruled in MOM. Give me a stack of lycanthropes and Counter Magic and I would sweep the map eventually with them until my Blue Sky Drakes arrived. God I love MOM. That's why I hate to think Elmental is just going to be another MOM wannabe but ain't. But, if the AI is really really really reeeeely good I might can forgive it for not being MOM 2.