4 days before the official release, reminiscing about MOM

from Elemental Forums

Its Friday, 4 days before the official release and I find myself reminiscing about my first experience buying a computer. I was living in New Orleans and had been contemplating buying a machine for some time but I never pulled the trigger. I had played Eye of the Beholder at a friends and while it was pretty cool, I wasn't going to drop money on a computer when I already had a Sega Genesis and Super NES. Then as I was sitting around with some friends enjoying a cold frosty one and flipping channels we stopped at ZDTV, Extended Play was coming on. Adam Sessler went on about this great new game that was highly reccommended despite the bugs. It was called Master of Magic. The next day I bought my first Intel DX2 and Master of Magic on 3 1/2 inch floppies (8 of them as I recall, I later upgraded and still have it on CD rom). After that there were many sleepless nights playing the first game I was ever addicted to. I thought I would just throw that out there as a Kudos to Brad and the crew for taking a game long forgotten by many people, but remembered by just as many and reimagining it, making it better and introducing it to a whole new group of gamers. I'm no longer single, or without kids, and can't devote all night sessions to building my worlds and armies and researching spells. However I am looking forward to enjoying Destiny's Embers and Elemental in the few hours of ME time I get each week. I'm even thinking I might go shopping for a new rig to do it justice, after all Master of Magic prompted me to make the first of many PC purchases. It would only be fitting its successor get the same justice. Again props to Brad and everyone at Stardock for taking an idea and running with it.

elemental
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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Heh

The first game that ever me run out and buy a computer just to play it was Wizardry in 1981 or 1982 I think?

Fun memories...

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

MOM was a classic and I think it is awesome that Stardock has made Elemental, which is by all means a next generation version of the MOM style of game. I hope they make oodles of money so they can keep making these types of games as the mainstream apparently does not see the value. I hope Elemental will change that view.

There was another game I am having trouble remembering the name of. I played it about the same time as MOM. you played a group of adventurers in germany (or germany like place of the middle ages) taking out robber barons and stuff. You could have an alchemist in your group as well.  It was awesome and turn based. I think the word dark was in the title. Anyway, I would put that one on a remake list too if I could just remember the title.

Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Ahh MoM...man was that a fun game.  Played the heck out of it and enjoyed it thoroughly.  Especially starting on Myrran and finding adamantite!!  Woot uber units, especially paladins..i loved them.  I even remember something came out that allowed multi-player, but it was buggy.  Course that was back in the day when Al Gore had just got done inventing and creating the internet, so it didnt work very well.  Still, MoM is a love of mine, along with X-Com, Civs, and all the D&D games they made back then.  I remember in Pools of Darkness, my one character had a vorpal blade.  Well somehow, he got disintegrated and when i cast resurrection(which I didnt think you could do if they were basically vaporized) they came back with the ability to use vorpal strikes.  Meaning, all his equipment was gone, but anything he picked up became Vorpal, including hand to hand.  LOL, was fricking hillarious to use bows and kill mobs instantly lol.  Good times!  I wonder how something like that could happen in the coding?  There was also another couple of games, Fantasy Empires, which was way fun, and a game for D&D again, that let you make entire campaigns and stuff...never really worked, but it was neat.  Guess I cant forget Doom either...wow...I spent alot of time fragging myself with that damn rocket launcher!  Then we got 2 new versions of Doom, one that added Aladdin effects too it, basically the characters talking in the game like Iago saying "Why am I not surprised" when you open a door to a room full of mobs!  The other one was an Aliens Doom, that added the voices and stuff in...man that was awesome too.

 

Nows its today, and i believe Stardock has picked up the gauntlet that so many have dropped or not even picked up.  They are going for the gusto and I love them for that.  I hope they succeed, and by what  I have seen in many of their games, they have.  I love the Gal Civ series and I loved Elemental.  Sins was also good.  So im really looking forward to this.  Like Brad has said many times, he loves to game.  So do I.  I want to pick up Civ 5, because I love the series, but  im just hesitant on that Steam stuff.  But if it is like Impulse and I can play offline(which many have said you can) then I prolly will.  Good job Brad, and be sure to get your folks some well deserved Pizza and Root beer (I dont drink alcohol) and we can toast to another Awesome fricking game!  <Cheers and Long Life>

 

 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Darklands is the name of the game with the German adventurers, it was a pretty cool game using choose your own adventure style choices that would succeed or fail depending on the skill of people in your party. Combat was real time but with pausing and was a bit more basic. There was also a somewhat interesting religious system where you had to learn about saints and pray to them for various effects depending on the skill of your priest.

As much as I have a soft spot for it though, it was one of the buggiest games I ever played and it was clearly unfinished and many things in the manual were never actually implemented in the game. It made the initial release of MoM look polished and unlike MoM it was never fixed.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Master of Orion was one of my favorite games of all time, and I was a HUGE Lord of the Rings / Dungeons and Dragons fan, so I was sooo excited about the Master of Magic game and I could not wait for it to come out.

When MoM finally came out, I really loved many aspects of the game, but the AI was just so horrible that I was not able to enjoy PLAYING the game for long after I started learning HOW to play it.  It was awesome up until the glaring inadequacy of the AI made all the possibilities the game offered irrelevant to me.

No matter how great a strategy game is, it's just not fun if you don't have at least the ILLUSION of a decent opponent...

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I have been waiting for a worthy successor to MoM, and am so happy it is here. It seems like it has been more than 2 decades since I played MoM, though the production dates would contradict me.

 

I bought my first IBM type PC specifically to play Mechwarrior, as I was a huge Battletech fan. Before that, I had been an Atari Computer fan, playing games Omnitech's UNIVERSE, Wizard's Crown, and several of the great text based games from INFOCOM.

 

With my 486DX2, the games I remember most are; Mechwarrior, MoM, MoO Civilization, and the original Neverwinter Nights on AOL.

 


Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

I believed E:WoM will be a classic favorite for many years to come..

A few classic games that I still play today: MoM, Lords of Magic:SE, HOMM4 and MoO2.

 

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Soulfire777, reply 5
Master of Orion was one of my favorite games of all time, and I was a HUGE Lord of the Rings / Dungeons and Dragons fan, so I was sooo excited about the Master of Magic game and I could not wait for it to come out.

When MoM finally came out, I really loved many aspects of the game, but the AI was just so horrible that I was not able to enjoy PLAYING the game for long after I started learning HOW to play it.  It was awesome up until the glaring inadequacy of the AI made all the possibilities the game offered irrelevant to me.

No matter how great a strategy game is, it's just not fun if you don't have at least the ILLUSION of a decent opponent...
End of Soulfire777's quote

On initial release the game had so many problems, horrible crashes, horrible AI, spells that didn't do anything, etc. They did improve the AI eventually though, although the final version was still pretty awful. But at least it felt like you were playing a 6 year old child and not someone hitting keys at random.....

I remember at some point before the final patch someone asked the developers what the point was of having an easy difficulty level when even the hardest level was trivial to everyone except toddlers and house pets. The developer showed remarkable grace in responding that they didn't want to alienate their dog and cat audience (or something along those lines)!