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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
| Mage Knight Apocalypse Announced |
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Worthplaying has the <a href="http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=25222" target="_blank">announcement</a> of a new game from Namco titled 'Mage Knight Apocalypse' and based on the collectible miniature game. Here's a snippet:<blockquote><em>"Mage Knight Apocalypse" follows the events of an upcoming "Mage Knight" storyline. A mysterious power has issued an ominous portent and the call has gone out for stalwart heroes from all reaches of the Land to battle against an army of pure evil. Leading this army is The Apocalypse Dragon, a seemingly unstoppable five headed juggernaut of destruction that has been reborn and set loose on an unprepared populace. Taking the role of one of 5 characters, the player must band together with other legendary heroes to face this Dragon and defeat the forces of Chaos in the "Mage Knight"
<br>universe.
<br>
<br>Team dynamics will be vital in "Mage Knight Apocalypse," and players will need to select their party carefully, combining melee, ranged and magical strikes in conjunction with overwhelming group combo attacks to triumph in battle. Players can quest alone or with friends in five-player cooperative and competitive play modes, working together or going head-to-head in the ultimate clash for battlefield supremacy. Players can choose from five distinct character classes and customize them with hundreds of weapons, armor and items, equipping the right gear for each intense encounter. Unlike other action RPGs, in "Mage Knight Apocalypse," players will have no need to worry about ability points or discreet levels to gain. Instead, character development depends on what type of playing style the player enjoys. Swinging a heavy sword will make you stronger, casting spells will make your magic more powerful, and shooting bows will improve dexterity. The skills players use and the way they use them determines how the character will develop.</em></blockquote>Follow the link the read the full release check out the screens. MKA is due in Spring 2006. |
Thu May 05, 2005 9:07 pm |
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Guest
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"Unlike other action RPGs, in "Mage Knight Apocalypse," players will have no need to worry about ability points or discreet levels to gain."
Phew. All those choices really had me stressed out. Thank god for games like DS and this one that take all that worry out of my hands. Thinking is stupid. Whats discreet about gaining levels though? A non-level system seems to be a lot more discreet to me than a big plus sign flashing on the screen saying you gained a level.
"Taking the role of one of 5 characters, the player must band together with other legendary heroes to face this Dragon and defeat the forces of Chaos in the "Mage Knight" universe."
Yes. I don't even have to worry about making a character. Like in Super Mario Bros 2 I can pick from pregenerated characters that each have different strengths and weaknesses. SMB's 2 is only the greatest RPG ever. I like to have no say in the role in which I play in a role playing game. Frankly, that is because I don't want to have to play a role. I want the computer to do it for me. I wish that stupid r would be dropped out of rpg. I just want to play playing games.
"Swinging a heavy sword will make you stronger, casting spells will make your magic more powerful, and shooting bows will improve dexterity."
I love realistic games that model life. Swinging swords makes you very strong. My gym has just got in a sword swinging excersise machine. And shooting bows makes you more graceful and dexterous of course and is a vital part of any gymnists routine. Bows take no strength to draw and draw weight is an invention of the modern day white man in order to continue to opress and discriminate against the weak cat people of felineland who are the true masters of the bow. |
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Thu May 05, 2005 9:25 pm |
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Amparo
Guest
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Yes, Guest, it is sad. The trend is to dumb down the experience. Deus Ex to Deus Ex 2 is a good example. The huge popularity of Guild Wars is another.
It is also unfortunate that Diablo is often blamed. Diablo took RPGing and simplified it but made up for it with perfect audio, visuals, gameplay, voice overs, graphics and storyline. Diablo streamlined the experience. Diablo clones dumbed it down. The original Diablo was very far from dumb and simplistic but the less intuitive mistake its ease of use for lack of thoughful design.
As a result, those less intuitive see Diablos dollar signs and make games like Dungeon Siege, Sacred, Revenant, Guild Wars and the 2 dozen games I can't recall at all right now thanks to their overwhelming meiocrity... and now Mage Knight Acopolypse. |
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Fri May 06, 2005 2:09 am |
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Lucky Day
Guest
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Guild Wars is full of quests, skills, stats, and mixing and multiclassing your characters with different feats. As well as set (not random like Diablo) areas, player interaction etc.
While I agree this game mentioned here looks like mindless trash like Diablo and belongs in an arcade, Guild Wars is a terrific experience and breath of fresh air: a MMORPG that actually has real Role Playing elements. |
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Fri May 06, 2005 4:40 am |
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corwin
On the Razorblade of Life
Joined: 10 Jun 2002
Posts: 8376
Location: Australia |
Did anyone notice any mention of epic story, exciting quests, etc, or did I just miss that too? How much do they pay us to play this 'game'? Sounds like land fill or drink coasters to me!!
_________________
If God said it, then that settles it!
I don't use Smileys, I use Emoticons!!
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Fri May 06, 2005 6:49 am |
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yeesh
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 03 May 2002
Posts: 113
Location: Unofficially representing Queens |
Mindless trash like Diablo? Have you actually played Diablo II 1.10? The amount of choice you have in developing your character is staggering, and playing a different builds even of the same class are radically different playing experiences. RADICALLY. Skillpoints are completely finite and precious, and characters are utterly differentiated by the choices you make. I can think of no other game where combat is so dramatically impressively dictated by the specific choices you make, and I can think of no other game that even supports half as many different ways of fighting. You have all the freedom you want in Morrowind, but in the end you're just standing next to someone and swinging, or floating above and zapping with a spell, or shooting with a bow. In Diablo, particularly with the rebalancing done in 1.10, you have so many completely specialized ways to fight that are just so different. Monsters which are a nightmare for some builds are a joke for others. A paladin who specializes in Blessed Hammer is totally unlike a Zealadin which in turn is a completely different experience than a chargeadin or what have you, and this is just within one of the 7 classes.
All the freedom in the world to allocate stat points (although DII does indeed have this too) means very little if the gameplay experience doesn't actually change based on what you take. I played a thief in Hordes of the Underdark, and what difference did it actually make? After an initial backstab, I just stood there and swung. How different exactly is your gameplay experience in a party RPG like BGII? You'll still have the same old deal, trying to keep the fighters in front and the mages behind, flinging spells back and forth, clerics for healing, and whatnot. That's great, I love that stuff, but my point is do your choices really affect the combat mechanics so much? A little, yes, but so much? Because in Diablo II 1.10, it's like playing a totally different game based on not only the chartacter you choose, but also the skills you build on that character. I've never experienced such varied gameplay elsewhere.
Sure it's not everyone's cup of tea, and sure the community is less than wonderful, but the game itself is a masterpiece. A revolution. I don't know how anyone can look at all that work, all those different attacks, all that massive work done to balance it all, all those fresh concepts like set items, modifying weapons, runewords, multiple levels of items, uniques and rares, etc, and talk about trash. Blizzard is one of the best companies out there because of their incredible devotion to the craft of making games. There's nothing wrong with not liking their games, but you can't very well call them trash. Unless everything you don't like is trash. |
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Fri May 06, 2005 4:17 pm |
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Guest
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Huh? No matter how different the characters play as it still comes down to click click click, over and over and over. And there isn't and will never be character generation, and If I can't play the character I want to role play I very well am not playing a role playing game. If diablo is an rpg so is SMB 2.
If Diablo 1 and 2 are streamlined, I want all streamlining to be removed from my games. If the story line in Diablo 1 and 2 are good, give me crap stories.
I feel bad now picking on these guys. I figured Diablo and Guild Wars fans would defend it. I don't understand how inconsistant you guys can be. When a TB game is announced I don't attack it, because I like TB games. When an action game is announced action game fans attack it along with TB fans. Thats just wierd.
Now being critical of a game and attacking it are two different things. Like in the TBS genre, Silent Storm is a great game, but even with the difficulty mods and playing on the hardest level it is still a pretty easy game. JA was alot harder than JA2 (but maybe that was because I was younger when JA came out). The JA wildfire took some hits, but I loved it because it made JA2 challenging.
But all those games are incomparable challenge wise compared to Diablo and Guild wars. Diablo 1 and 2 and Guild Wars are so easy and unchallenging that it is silly to try and defend them.
But then you have battle.net for Diablo 2 that offers pvp challenge. I only beta'ed GW but the game itself is easy as hell. The pvp is challenging but is so group dependent that the challenge is spread out. And since the main pvp'ing is done with random groups (non-hall of heroes) the challange it presents is boiled down to luck of the draw.
I don't understand where or how the what was the hardest genre in the past turned to the easiest, as rpgs are now. Silly easy. Rpgs used to be made for adults, but are now geared towards offering a challenge to only retarded monkeys hoped up on 10 rolls and 20 bumps of k.
If you look at the fps genre some of those games increase and increase the challenge levels to exclusivity. Those Tom clancy games are hard as hell. And they are big sellers. It seems the harder an fps is the better the sales. The complete opposite is true for rpgs.
But my original point was it seems kind of harsh and unkind to attack a small dev that is making games you guys like. The same is true for me even though I don't like the type of game they make and heartily disagree with their philosphy of what an rpg is. i appologize for making fun of their press release. |
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Fri May 06, 2005 5:47 pm |
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Lucky Day
Guest
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I was going to say earlier it was probably unfair of me to bash the game mentioned here until I've seen it. It doesn't seem to interest me from the press release but I should at least wait for the demo.
As for "you guys are inconsitent", I wouldn't lump myself into the "action gamer" crowd. My point with Guild Wars being that much better than Diablo is the player interaction and the real push to make it a single player feel over most MMORPG's vis a vis the heavy emphasis on quests and player interaction as oppposed to the throw the kitchen sink at you mindlessness of Diablo, Dungeon Siege and what Dungeon Lords looks like from the demo.
Guild Wars to me comes across more like NWN without the toolset to me. Its certainly not as difficult as tactical strategy games but those games bore me.
I, too, lament the slow demise of TB games but that's unfortunate fact of technology. "Phase" games like Wizardry 8 and Baldur's Gate seem to have taken the best of both. |
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Fri May 06, 2005 7:31 pm |
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Guest
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I hear what your saying, but I don't understand how BG is even a little phase based. It is 100% real time w/ pause. Wiz 8 is 100% not, even in phase mode. 2 totally differnt things. But Wiz 8, BG, Diablo, and GW all follow the same philospy of throw 8 billion easy enemies at them. Kind of difficulty through numbers ( but without it ever ever really getting difficult, kind of like an illusion of difficulty).
That can't be said for kotor which didn't even throw a lot of easy enemies at you. Kotor just threw 3 or 5 easy enemy at you making for the least challenging game ever invented. Oregon trail and where on earth is carmen sandiago and even "i'm thinking of a color and the color is blue" represent a much larger challenge than kotor ever will.
But Diablo, BG, kotor, and GW all accomplish what they set out to do perfectly. Make an easy, mindless game that a lot of people will find fun. GW in my opinion is a genious concept. The no fee's model and easy Diablo like game play and pvp ladder make it appealing to kids without creditcards and Diablo fans. And the quick action and the rest makes it viable in the oriental market (going off that report of the guy that lived in Tiawon or Korea that said the majority players their are 8 to teens and don't have the time to play slow mmorpgs like EQ; I know if I was paying by the hour to play an mmorpg I would choose GW).
But I think Wiz8 is a differnt story. The only area it improved on from wiz7 was graphics. Everything else was dumbed down in my opinion. And the animated tb/phase combat doesn't work with the whole throw a million easy enemies at them model since easy fights take 14 years to finish. but wiz8 did have some challenging puzzles if you didn't use walkthroughs
I'm not knocking Diablo or other action game fans. People like what they like and they shouldn't hop on bandwagons liking what they are told to like. The numbers are clear. People don't like challenging rpgs. But people definitly like challenging rts's and fps's. Its just wierd when the best selling pc games are obviously the most mainstream. And the most mainstream highest selling pc games are fps's. And I can't play them because they are too difficult for me. But the big rpgs are dumbed down enough in order not to exclude coma patients, and the more dumbed down they are the better they sell.
I went over my brother-in-laws and him and his friends were playing one fps that was very complicated. It was a team one. But the game tolerated zero mistakes. You had to play perfect. One of his friends just got Jade Empire and said it was too complicated. What? i never played it but I know it can't be difficult or complicated, and compared to whatever fps it was they were playing Jade empire's difficulty is probably laughable.
People should like the games they like. But it would be nice if a challnging rpg was made more often than once every 4 or 5 years.
And I would like to point out again I'm not knocking this game, just the common and wide spread illusion that this game and the millions of popular (and fun for a lot of people) games of it's ilk are 1) rpgs 2) challenging.
I believe people should support the small, much less formulated, much more creative devs that have the guts to try new things. I will save my disrespect and dislike for the shallow and superficial graphics whores, and the big devs like bioware and blizzard. especially bioware with all the anti-capitalistic messages they add in all their games, but they make games catering to the masses to make more money. Thats not greedy capitalism? Flithy crap game making hypocrates. I will never support them or their greedy filhty capitalist-pig ways, I don't care if they make a game centered around adrian barbobots with buzzsaw hands and laser beam eyes, I won't buy it. I will only give my money to pro-capitalist capitalist-pigs or anti-capitalist non-capitilist pigs. stupid gay hypocrits. |
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Fri May 06, 2005 8:51 pm |
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