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[E. Albright]

As per the subject:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1623070/Master_of_Magic/
https://www.slitherine.com/game/master-of-magic/
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=656

Per their press, MuHa Games is working on a faithful modernization of MoM, due out next year and published by Slitherine. I'm guardedly optimistic - the screenies make the UI look pleasant, and the art direction is nice enough - better than Thea, to be sure, though reminiscent of it as well. The opening video animation - a beat-for-beat remake of the old intro video animation - is awful and tacky, but then so was the old one.

Spoiler: Oversized graphics (click to show/hide)

[dehimos]

The only thing I don't like is using the same name. But with the rest, without gameplay, I don't have an opinion ... although it reminds me of Warlock: Master of the Arcane.

[ChairmanPoo]

Slitherine did a native windows adaptation of the original MoM with improvements under the hood. If you can deal with the obviously aged graphics (and UI) it might be of your interest too.

(Its ok but I wish they had modernized the UI and added a SABR filter)

[Frumple]

Yeah... I was guardedly interested on seeing mention of it... until I actually saw screenshots. Hex based, generic <current-year> fantasy 4X looking screenshots.

Now I'm mostly just expecting the general curse most long-term remake/reboot things seem to face to express itself fully and this end up a thoroughly disappointing, mediocre at best cash grab

[Flying Carcass]

Thea was pretty good, so I'll keep an eye on this.

[Dostoevsky]

MuHa is also a pretty good dev group in terms of communication and support, at least based on my experience with Thea. I wasn't a huge fan of some of the changes made over the course of Thea 2's development & patches, but I still like the games and hope that getting this opportunity goes well for them.

[E. Albright]

Slitherine did a native windows adaptation of the original MoM with improvements under the hood.

I've played this a fair amount and it took a bit for me to figure out what bothered me about it, but eventually I realized it's the under-the-hood stuff. Specifically, the AI, which one expects was made from whole cloth rather than improving on the original AI. All of the wizards act much more similarly (and aggressively) than they did in the original version. It feels like going from Civilization I or Civ 2 to FreeCiv, if that comparison makes sense to anyone. The end result has been that I've lost interest before ending every game of the re-release I've started.

That does remind me of the system of MoM I'd most like to see modernized even if it leads to something other than a beat-for-beat remake: the diplomacy. That was the simplest system imaginable, and really hasn't aged well. Assuming that they keep the primarily-single-player focus, I really hope they do better with the AI than the previous Slitherine version, and make some effort to have the various wizards have personality again.

[Mephansteras]

Well, certainly worth keeping an eye on this to see how well they do. MoM is still pretty fun even these days, aged as it is.

Better AI and diplomacy is, really, about all the game needs for me.

[IronyOwl]

This is so bizarre, but I guess I'm probably going to buy it so mystery solved?

Somebody already made a literally-just-MoM game, though, and it was so bad they had to re-release it under a different name to dodge poor reviews. Planar Conquest (originally known as Worlds of Magic) showed what happens when you make a game with no real ambitions beyond "like that old thing"- it's very old-thing like, but otherwise just kinda bland? There's no driving spirit or vision to go by, it's just a video game that is very similar to a different video game, so if you liked that other video game you might like this too. Except you already own that other game, so unless updated graphics, minor tweaks (resources are much more common, for instance), or a literally broken leveling system (near as I can tell they imported D&D 3rd edition's combat and leveling systems wholesale, which went about as well as you'd expect) are of immense interest, what's the pitch?

This will probably be the same but without the pants-on-head D&D thing- a certain audience will be super excited that it's Master of Magic, and then super disappointed that it's just Master of Magic.

[Mephansteras]

My biggest issue with Planar Conquest is that the graphics don't work quite right on my computer. Something about the aspect ratios or something, but it made all the text super small and kind of blurry. Changing the resolutions didn't fix it, and I haven't gone back to try and actually solve the problem.

But, yeah, you need...something to really make a game click.

[nenjin]

Yeah I remember hyping up WoM.

For a lot of these remakes, somehow, the modern coat of paint actually highlights the short comings of the original. Not only does it have that "Generic Fantasy Artist" problem, when you add in that maybe the team has never made games like this before (WoM's case, they'd made I believe turn-based wargames or something but this was their first fantasy 4x), and their having not honed their craft to produce the same thing while the veterans that made the game we love were probably in their prime.....there's lots of reasons it's tough to put lightning back in a bottle. Vision,experience and a cohesive thematic ideal about how everything joins together makes for a memorable game.

WoM/PC for me just felt so rough around the edges everywhere. The battlescape was small and cramped and visually noisy. A lot on the world map didn't make sense or didn't work right at release. The unit visuals were hit or miss. I just couldn't really get into it.

[E. Albright]

My vague memory of WoM was that the AI was really unpleasant to deal with, the graphics were indescript to the point of making the ancient MoM graphics look richly detailed, the worldmaker was kinda bad, and that the final version had an infinite gold bug. Overall, it was super-bland and weird, and now has me second-guessing my initial Thea-derived guarded optimism. Thea doesn't really have any opponent who has parity with the player (and indeed, relies heavily on simple decision-tree scripted events), so if a recurring shortcoming in remakes is "the AI isn't fun", setting a smaller team w/o experience writing 4x AI the task of making it is rather worrisome, sigh...

[EuchreJack]

Wizards and Warlords has the whole "create a winning combo and steamroll" vibe to it.

[IronyOwl]

Wizards and Warlords has the whole "create a winning combo and steamroll" vibe to it.

Procedurally generated races, you say?

Let's give it a shot.

[Blue_Dwarf]

faithful

Hexagons... 3D...

Meh.