domingo, 5 de junio de 2016

The Master of Magic Optimization

Hey hey hey my little droogies!

Lemme to be ‘onest ‘ere, fellowmen: writing in Spanish on modern strategy is pointless. That’s a damn fact and I don’t know why. It could be something to do with our customary and well-known devotion to avoiding abstract thinking... An attempt of self-punishment but you couldn’t even blaming me for that: why in the hell the huge Latin America (population 400 millions) constitutes a marginal sector either in entertainment or science. Income per capita? Nah, try over, man, it must be something else. Anyway, from now on, at least half of my posts will be delivered in Shakespeare’s speech.

Master of Magic (SimTex, Atari, 1992) has been unsurpassed for more than two decades. The reasons? GOG’s ad hoc website provides a few. The thing is I wholeheartedly agree with these sweet nerds: MoM’s replicas are flawed, except maybe the Age of Wonders saga, albeit without counting on all of their installments. AoW Shadow Magic, in my humble opinion, has acquired the highest standard. Why? Easy customizable map editor, race-based lore, dynamic global map, active community, maps by the thousands, great mods. AoW 3 is so nice considering some of its features, concretely the uh… wizard-manufacturing process, which is both fun and rewarding, but… look pals, I gotta be honest with you: I profoundly dislike 3D environments: they’re slow-paced, confused and above all, they kill the fun by trying to shock you with cheap cinematic tricks. Pay attention devs! When I’m looking for a good strategy game, it’s good strategy what I really want. Meaning, a bunch of races to choose, a nice-and-easy global scenario, the possibility of getting familiar with my villages by displaying eye candy landscapes, and many other options.

Thereby Age of Wonders it is, fellas.  

What about the rest of the games directly inspired by MoM? Alright, we got Worlds of MagicPlanar Conquest and Sorcerer King, basically. The three of them suck for one reason or another, at least in my childish-and-hattish opinion. Surely, they provide some nice elements –otherwise inherited from MoM- but in the end they’re no more than glorified mobile games lacking in vision, deepness and originality. Therefore, instead of playing cheap copies, I recommend you to go back to the original. In addition, we find these 4x games based on Civilization’s ways: Warlock. Master of the ArcaneElemental. Endless Legend or Master of Mirror (a Civilization 3 mod) are good examples. And finally we come across HoMM’s cheap imitators: DisciplesHeroes of Annihilated EmpiresEador, etc. Well, once again, let me say you guys: They all suck. For starters I’m not a fan of Civilization, thereby my perspective is biased, however in return I must say I’m truly a devoted minion of MoM & HoMM right from the beginning, hence I’m able to say one or two interesting things about it, you betcha.

Which are those elements that made MoM so good? Kinda all of them have been exposed in the mentioned GOG’s page (in the fan comments), but allow me to recap some:

1. The beautiful pixel art invested. Perhaps the young generations of gamers won’t understand what I’m talking about here but there’s a warm and magic feeling inspiring the whole thing: the cinematics during the process of learning spells, the same as the city screens, are too good to be described by a humble mortal such as myself. If you weren’t one of those lucky ninety lads who originally played it, let’s do yourself a favor and give it a try.

2. The highly customizable wizard-in-chief: Myrran, check!; Alchemist, check!; Charismatic, check!... Currently there’re many other games that offer similar options but we’re talking about the year 1992 here, chaps! Given the possibility of shaping our characters, we spent countless minutes making up arrangements by delineating the perfect leader. The result was an accurate personal gaming experience that made us falling in love, literally.

3. The awesome magic system: I’ve never been a brainy nerd myself thus I wouldn’t be talking about this; anyway here it goes: I love researching, casting deadly spells, rising up fire walls across the city perimeters, performing dark rituals and summoning all sorts of fantastic creatures all over the battlefield. There’re so many things to bring up that I can’t even begin to enumerate them… MoM displays such a huge amount of spells and ways of channeling our devastating powers that it’s been constituted the ultimate inspiration for hundreds of games so far.

4. Oh man, so many races to pick up! They weren’t miserly providing options in the pursuit of taking over the worlds. Dwarves, Elves, Trolls, Orcs, Lizardmen, High men… keep on counting. The only games I know offering such a wide range are the AoW’s three first installments (1, 2, 2 SM). As a player I do demand that kind of thing, my dearest amigo, since I’m yearning for renewed experiences all the time, at least regarding strategy. A race implies its own specialized units, skills and features, turning the game practically endless.

5. The diplomacy system. Even now I get excited when I meet my competitors for the very first time. These bastards use to be mischievous and paranoid, deploying their armies all over my country! Needless to say, this key feature adds interest to the game and it was equally innovative back in time. 

6. Two entire planes to discover: Arcanus & Myrror. By splitting the scenario they achieved a wonderful thing: enriching the game experience doubly. Right now I’m portraying these sinister greenish seas… Awesome.

7.  A fast-paced and easy-going turn-based game. One of my favs ever. Look man, modern strategy AI’s runs clunky and we shouldn’t allow that. I’m unwilling to play a strategy game which takes more than a few seconds between turns, otherwise is unworthy of my attention, that easy. If by achieving that goal we need to program 2D strategy games, be it. Actually I’d rather prefer it over the bulky and grotesque 3D settings.

Surely we can keep going.

Although is it MoM the perfect game? Should it be released a second installment? If I were to answer these questions, I’d say: no and it depends respectively. In spite of the bugs and flaws of the original game, MoM aged so well, but it needs to be severely improved. How? Well, as I said, I like AoW Shadow Magic so much since it’s an interesting reconstruction of the formula. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t do a proper second episode but an entire rebuilding from scratch, imitating the Heroes 3 VCMI project. MoM’s aching to be implemented by adding new wizards, units, skills, planes, landscapes, a map and campaign editor, maybe a graphical retouch (without losing sight of the beautiful pixel art, of course), and so on. I’m aware that some good nerds had tried to do that: Realms of HopeMoM: the Resurrection, Magic Master Java Shell, Magic Master ProjectMoM: Restoration of Power, etc., however these indie and small projects have ended up in absolutely nothing.


On the other hand, the only mod that heavily implement our electronic jewel hitherto is Caster of Magic.

In conclusion, I harbor a vague yet vivid hope of playing an enhanced Master of Magic in a near future. It’s up to you smart geeks!