Legend of Grimrock - new DM clone in the works

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This sample is superb, theres even rune magic and stats now,only one thing comes to my mind :

I wish more people would clone stellar games like Wizardry 7 or World of Xeen and less would waste time with neanderthal crap like Bard's Tale and Wizardry 1 or realtime travesties like DM or EOB.

Cleve, the world really needs Grimoire for encouragement (but never mention the development time again )

If you took a few boxed copies of Wizardry 7 (and not the Gold edition, mind you) and RoA 2, dried them in the sun, ground them for a few months in an automatic mortar and pestle and then injected the resulting dust into most people's veins they still wouldn't be able to tell you afterwards what good CRPGs are about.

The answer is so simple, too: combat, dungeons, combat, exploring, combat, character building and combat and inventory management and combat.

Well, as far as combat itself is concerned, Wizardry 7 is little different from Wizardry 1. It's everything else where it really leapt to the stars.

My point exactly: Wizardry 1 had fantastic combat.

Rejoice, mondblut, for I hear Skyrim will have all these things (and more).

But will it have (b)romances?

Looks very professionally done. I was very skeptical about it being RT and the huge fucking interface but the videos looked good. It's only unfortunate that the combat is straightforward hack&slash.

There's nothing wrong with neanderthal crap like The Bard's Tale and early Wizardry.



Real-time travesties, on the other hand...

Copypasta from The Best Thread Ever Mk.III:

Free movement is crap. It can't handle ranged combat and engagement phase without turning either into an FPS (most common) or into a fucking boring slow chore. It also unvariably seduces the developers into using RT jumping puzzles (hello Umpani training camp... suck my cock, Sirtech) and other subhuman shit.

If anything Wizardry 8 (along with M&M6+, W&W, Thunderscape) demonstrated is that a classic blob design does *not* work with free movement without being tainted by action faggotry. The only possible exception was Shadows over Riva with its tactical combat mode, where free movement was solely used for presentation. But then again, Star Trail had an option for free movement as well, yet everyone with a tiniest bit of taste kept rigid movement on. Because it simply plays better.

@Draq
What's your point? They have a 3D engine so they should use it to make a Wiz clone instead of a DM clone else it's a waste of a 3D engine?

It's a DM clone because they are piss easy and fast to create compared to a complex RPG so it will actually see the light of day + sell a ton on iphones. That's all there is to it.

I'm ok with blob movement. It certainly removes some of the burden of playing a game but it could still be done a little more gracefully and turn-based would make it better but the thing that really destroys any appeal is the simplistic combat. Equip shit. Click attack. And maybe a spell or two here and then. Fuck that shit. You're facing giant crawlers, you should have stuff prepared especially for that. Spears maybe? Who the fuck closes on in a giant fucking spider with fucking daggers? And choosing from several combat moves when facing other people? This is what really feels old and cheap to me.

Blob only means your party moves as a whole, not that it can only slide along a grid of invisible rails.

And, as you've noticed, blob isn't just a result of technological limitation, but also a great way to keep your party formed up and make party movement more reliable, with no risk of characters dispersing across the entire area because they have pathfinding problems. It also allows combination of FPP and party based.

Grid, OTOH is purely technical limitation, as you *can* build according to the grid without game being grid-based, but you can't create anything more organic while keeping to the grid. Grid-based simply imposes limitation on both designer and the player without offering anything in exchange, so:

Yes, they should've made a Wiz clone. Mainly because both ends of Wiz series are some 20 years apart and Wiz 8 actually happened to adopt new and revolutionary stuff like not having to ride a grid successfully.

Also because Wiz series happened to avoid certain decisions that turned out to be horrible mistakes - like RT blob combat.

The Codex should interview those folks.

I don't really see any problem with sticking to a rigid grid. Sure it's in a way limited compared to free movement, but so what? If it can still do the things you want, then that's enough. And it's really intuitive for the player, both in combat and in mapping. And easier to code and troubleshoot as well, also level designing should be technically easier.

And I'm sure the devs are very interested to hear that their combat system of choice is shit by default, there's still time to change everything around!

CoD is way ahead of you then - going with a rail instead of a grid.

of dungeon crawlers.

DraQ, get a hold on yourself. Some of us think that's fine and that's that. You aren't presenting a higher truth to anyone.

Derp, realtime combat. So I heard you like killing all enemies via the unprecedentedly deadly 'forward, attack, backward' action combination (as even presented in the trailer itself).

Fallout's unprecedentedly deadly "step out, shoot, step in" sekret maneuver had a long legacy to build upon, didn't it?

Fighting a melee-only opponent in a corridor is hardly interesting in itself in any game. Though in DM the ultimate maneuver (though only doable in a room, and mostly agaoinst lone enemies) was to strike the enemy on its side, step sideways when it turns to face you, turn to face the square you came from, wait for the enemy to enter that square and repeat. Just stepping back leaves you open to attack (especially ranged) much more.

So it's like circle-strafing, only broken and retarded?

Wow, color me impressed by their latest gameplay trailer. Lands of Lore seems like a big influence on this game. The monster animations seem superb. It's a shame it is real time, true, but it still looks like a great game.

I will definately consider getting this on day 1.

I'd lie if I said I'm not interested, but the only good stuff about this game I've seen is nostalgia and graphics. Not even interesting environments, just bare graphics.

Yes but who would you send without risking to deadly offend them ?