Eldritch
Scholar
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2008
- Messages
- 705
Wyrmlord said:But it still amazes me that many of the games having the Might And Magic name have absolutely nothing to do with each other lorewise, making me wonder why they used the license in the first place.
Actually this whole "confusion" became the precise reason of their downfall, coupled with unbelievable levels of managerial stupidity as usual.
Mullich also talks about his time working on VtM:Bloodlines too, not just M&M;
David Mullich said:I was then assigned to produce Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, which was already a year or more into development without an Activision producer being attached to ensure that everything was running smoothly. As a result, things were in a pretty sorry state when I came aboard: an unfinished design and game engine, technical problems with the multiplayer code, many game levels that were created and then thrown out, and so on.
My job was to work with the developer, Troika Games, to get the game back on track and bring it to completion. I eventually wound up staying onsite at Troika, which required me to drive a 180-mile round-trip commute each day through the worst of Los Angeles traffic. I'd usually leave my house at 7am and often wouldn't get back home until 2am that night, and this went on for six months until the game was finished. It was a very grueling project, and I was happy when it was all over.
As for my 5¢ on Wyrmlord's question, it was mostly the success of King's Bounty that later evolved into the Heroes of M&M series the reason for the whole confusion. King's Bounty being JVC's genius game project at the time had no relation to the M&M universe and when they incorporated the core of the games design and atmosphere to the HoMM games, they kept it a fairytale fantasyland just like KB was. It kinda fit better with the strategy game I guess with the more distinct and easier to understand elements along with the mythological "Heroes" concept with the mighty barbarians / cunning sorceresses and all that jazz...
Starting from VI they included the same fantasy creatures that were units in the heroes games along with the heroes themselves in the storyline. (Lord Kilburn, Corlagon etc.) Most probably to make the both successful game series with different genres to pimp each other. What really sucked was that this strategy eventually backfired because of the essential incompatibility of the concepts applied in two different games. The "Forgetown" disaster was the death knell of 3DO, the event that started it all.
When batshit nerds actually start sending death threats to your designers, you must have done something wrong at one point. x
Bastardization is ALWAYS wrong, they should have kept em' seperate. Lack of fidelity and inconsistency is almost always the sign of
As for my favorite, I can't think of one definitive "best M&M ever". I voted VI for purely sentimental reasons. Of course I love the World of Xeen and still have my WoX CD, but I also love VI and VII. I have a soft spot for VI though due to its sheer scope and the strangely alluring atmosphere. VIII was like a tiny retarded theme park with dragons and all I remember about IX was laughing my ass off at the cheap new guys 3DO hired after failing to pay the original team, with the fat fucks putting their goddamn group photographs in the credits smiling at the camera with their obese faces as if they've just dumped a motherfucking pile of masterpiece. The reason I laughed wasn't all about nerdrage though, the team posing for the credits was almost entirely composed of really fat people, so the whole developer fatmosphere along with the overall crappiness of the game really got to me.
P.S.
Arcomage fucking rules, it's the best mini-game evar.