Official wish list for King's Bounty 2

[onepiece]

Hi everyone. In order to keep order in the forum and not use other threads to say what we want to see in a proper sequel (KB2 for convenience), I'm making this thread so everyone can post here.
Be respectful of other people opinions and let's have some fun until the game arrives (which is obvious to me even if they don't say anything)

Let the wish posting commence!

First what I WANT

More customization: Change the appearance of the hero and different models for each class; both male and female.

A new class, because the skill tree looks very saturated or maybe expand it with a 4th column.

More classes of "helpers", not just from the other sex (like the guild heroes from the arena, so you can "buy" them) and give them a more complex role in battle, as in controlling some units of his own or do some special attacks (in the Arena there where ones that did it).

Some "special" battles: Like 10 turn limit or the enemy get new units every x rounds, no magic/rage, etc.. to add a little variety (as in defender of the crown).
More 2 vs x battles.

More funny situations (as in TL) but also some more serious things (as in AP/CW).
More engaging second characters (is there even 1 engaging second character in the 3 games? Even the hero is not charismatic). Make some characters return (in the same game not in expansions) to add a feeling of progress. They feel very static and droid-like.

A better exploration system that takes the ships from AP (fast movement) with the big settings and continuity from TL. Some new lands never seen before (jungle, desert, etc.) because since TL the settings have been almost the same (demons, mountain with ice, underground, forest, lakes, etc.)

Some unique designs with navigation puzzles (a lo Golden Sun where some of your magics also have effects on the map?)

Better description for the items and don't make such mistakes with the abilities and skills (paladin prayer, army drum, etc.). Please correct them with a patch (it's not that difficult)

More original units (most of them are a bit generic both in terms of design and gameplay). The more originals are the droids, the gobots and the devil fish XD since they are very unique to the game (not generic to other games) and have some unique gameplay style (well not the devilfish)

Try to not use creatures that have been used so much (bye bye dragons....okay those can stay XD) but look more into traditional folklore form other cultures. Just in my country (Chile) there are like 100 total different creatures from the myths of different cultures that can be used in a game. Imagine in Russia (500-1000 maybe?)

Make units more complementary to each others (unit that boost units not used so much (snake, spiders, dragons). Also some classes lack level 1 units (demons, dwarves) and some are way more developed than others (elves have too many units next to demons).

Also describe better what is a "humanoid warrior" or what count as a "projectile" (just say what units are affected like you did with the new classes unique skills )

More bosses with unique style arenas (the driller is a good example)

More female units!!:-P

Great music (the games have always had great music but listening to "Glory Ride" while writing this makes me ask for more of it)

__________________

[Jaedar]

Completely reworked skill trees please. Also less filler combat, not necesarily Champion of the arena level, but far less than TL or AP. Character customization would be nice, but I would much prefer more units/spells/etc.

Oh and more music tracks please.

[bladeking77]

One of my wishes that stand above all is next:
No more pet dragon! The Legend had awesome Rage Spirits, which makes me wonder how could the screw that up with a Pet Dragon. Return the Rage Spirits or invent something even better.
Also, not that there is anything specifically disbalanced with any of KB's, they could all use a little more Polishing.
Other than that, I doubt that Katauri will leave us disappointed.:)
Let us all just trust in them.

[marcinl0]

- New hero classes with unique expanded & more complicated multipage skill trees with unique abilities for each class - like in Fallout 2 (skills & traits & perks) or Might & Magic VII (more skills & levels: expert, master, grandmaster possible only for dedicated classes & races).

- No hero exp level cap, basically possible 100 lvls or even more.

- Individual army units experience & levels & new abilities during lvl up - like in pcbun KBAP mod:
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=14741

- More morale bonuses & morale lvls - for all army units in one alignement, special morale bonuses and more,

- Upgradable towns and also upgradable multi-level units in dedicated towns, like in Heroes of Might & Magic III.

[DGDobrev]

So far the news are that KB may become a MMORPG or another type of online game, so be careful what you wish for :)

[jake21]

I'd prefer a single player campaign that is more rpg'ish (like the first game). Do not have strong feelings beyond that - oh I'd like it to be fun also wouldn't mind a few (many) text based puzzles (like space ranger 2 :) )

[Puce Moose]

I agree with jake21 - I'd love to see more text puzzles (like the awesome one to acquire the submarine in the grand canal.)

First and foremost, though, is the intense desire to see it remain

single-player
true turn-based combat (e.g., no ATB, timer bars, etc.)
not scaled to player level, scaled to region
no respawn


There's literally no other current game that I can think of that ticks off those delicious, delicious checkboxes that King's Bounty does.

Beyond that, I'd love to see an expansion on the ambient life; some of my favorite moments involved zooming the camera all of the way in and just watching the hummingbirds/fish/frogs/owls/squirrels dart this way and that. Seeing crabs skittering about on the shoreline, tadpoles lazily swimming near some aquatic vegetation in pools, birds rustling in the underbrush; so many games ignore these attempts to give the environment resonance and non-hostile life, and I love the fact that King's Bounty doesn't neglect this important facet. Expand it!

Along those lines, I'd really like to see more ambient animation in battles; harmless beasties strolling around the edges of the battlefield, flowers swaying int he breeze, etc.

I'd also enjoy seeing more quests with non-violent resolutions; the 'get the bear to follow you back to the ranch' quest from the first King's Bounty was one of my favorite quests of the game.

Expansion of trap abilities. Placing traps was one of my favorite things to do, and I'd love to see charm traps, explosive traps, freezing traps, etc. I'd also love a trapper unit that could place traps as a charged/reload skill.

In terms of units, I'd love to see an exploration of the more unique units. For example, the thorns, the devilfish, etc. I've had enough elves, dwarves, demons, and undead to last me a lifetime amongst hundreds of games, books, and movies; how about some new races?

Thorn race (with various mushrooms, toadstools, aquatic vegetation monsters (how about a killer water hyacinth?)
Owl race (burrow owls who could burrow under and attack an enemy like gobots, screech owls to stun, great grey horned owls to cause fear, etc.)
Fish race (devilfish, mudskippers, flying fish, swordfish, sawfish, piranha.. lots of great possibilities)

I *really* like what they did with the lizardmen; fantastic models, creative enemies (love the gobot/choska) - I hope they break away from the traditional high fantasy mold and run with some new race ideas.

[Heroe]

My wishlist:

Top priority - Removing the most annoying and irritating sound in gaming history(demonologist summoning whistle sound!)
Remove the readme from screen like i saw in crossworlds
Remove the tips/hints from loading screens.
These things above are the most annoying and easy to fix, yet no devs care about these...

Different cities - A bigger cities where character can improve or fight to death

Better item realisation(there was none game in kings bounty where i managed to find full set.Also Items repeats itself in different shops :(

[Jah]

My wishlist:
Remove the tips/hints from loading screens.

What's so annoying about that? :confused: Loading times in KB are pretty short anyway - it's not like you'll be spending hours staring at that screen.

[KarlosCV]

For me KB games are almost perfect as they are so I'm more concerned the devs decide to "go mainstream" and produce another forgettable realtime halfass crap which the market is overflowing with.

But I suppose some things can be done even better:

1. The story can certainly be presented in a more immersive way, I mean text boxes with still head pictures (beautiful as they are) are usable but nothing to be too excited about. I'd also gladly do without some of the more eye-rolling fantasy clichés like divine chosen one trying to save the world and generally encourage the devs to give us a story we can finally care about a bit.

2. The quests can be more variable, not just the traditional find/fetch/kill scenario.

3. As was already mentioned, definitely improve the unit description - what counts as archers, beasts, humanoids, what influences who and how and so on.
I also found useful minor things like a detailed breakdown of Morale composition, would be nice to extend it to the other attributes as well (why my Attack, Defense, Resistances, Initiative or Damage is what it is and what influences it).

4. Item management - can subscribe to that. It's frustrating to have several half-completed sets and never find the rest of the items.

I left two most important things for the end:

A) The later stages of the game are always far too easy and only some heroes and bosses present a reasonable challenge. The first half is wonderful because it forces the players to try different strategies and finessess and really use all those special abilities and spells. Later stage battles are basically decided in the first two rounds, then another two or three for cleaning and ress...a bit boring.

B) MAKE OTHER RACES/UNITS MORE USABLE - IMO some units and whole races are too underpowered/underused, mainly because it's very difficult/frustrating/impossible to ressurect them. The whole point of the KB games is to lose as few units as possible, so you don't have to trudge up and down (a bit less frustraging in AP, with the ship and reserve improvements) to replenish the stock. The demons are notoriously fragile in this respect, also the undead can be ress only with the eviln spell which is slow and frustrating and and the "heal" ability of vampires and ghosts is usable maybe in the first 1/10 of the game, then it's totally worthless (I lose 20 of 21 vampires after one whack from an enemy and the last unit replenishes its health - big bloody deal).
Also some of the abilities are annoying on the AI side and worthless in your army (like some units after heavy losses avoid attacks or the troll changes into stone after death and so on).
After 5 replays (TL and AP) I found out I always drifted to using similar units and strategies (with the same hero classes of course) - always paladins, mostly dragons and bowmen, because they're the most convenient in most situations.
It would be nice if the game encouraged you to use demons, undead, dwarves, orcs, goblins or lizards in certain environments or situations (seriously, has anyone EVER used Dwarves, Foremen or Miners?) and/or discouraged you from using the traditional fixtures like paladins or dragons more often (it's better to drop dragons for battles against demons for example but I'd like to see much more of that).

[Dwagginz]

I'll think of some "better" ideas later.

1. More female troops. Yes, I'm a bit of a perv :p But seriously, I think that there aren't enough female troops around to really make the female items any use.

2. Higher quality translation, w/ better dialogue system. Not a fault with Katauri as such, but I felt that a lot of dialogue was just walls of text. A better translation will also help correct some minor faults - It's a good translation, don't get me wrong, but I feel it could be a little better.

3. Customisable protagonist. Allow us to play as a male or a female, and perhaps customise their armour. I'm not suggesting the in-game representation, nor the portrait, should change with items found in-game, but it'd be nice to have, say, the Paladin Amelie but with her "normal" hair colour (i.e. black/brown)

4. Troop replenishment. One of the problems I found was that it can be very difficult to find a certain unit. Some of us aren't good with keeping our troop numbers (i.e. We can't do no loss), and it can be hard to replenish our favourite troops. I think it can be solved a few ways. Firstly, having a castle where you can "order" troops you need. Secondly, stores replenish their number of troops after a certain number of hours.

5. Going from point #4, how about a "main" castle for us? It could have a number of features, such as a similar system to HoMMV's tavern where you can find different companions.

6. Romance, perhaps? It might be a little out of place, perhaps not, but it'd be nice if a certain number of companions were "romance" options. There'd be no benefit to them (To keep things fair), but it'd just be a bit of fun. So, for example, there could be a Demoness who's a romance option and to win her heart you'd have to kill X number of troops. Because of the level of randomisation, it'd have to be of a certain type. So, 10 Human Units as another example. For simplicity's sake, how about allowing all for both male and female characters? So "Bill" could win a male's heart, "Amelie" a female's heart.

7. Not being royalty! We've done it in three games, it'd be nice to be something else such as a Lord's child or similar.

[onepiece]

@Dwagginz; liked point 4-5. A real base you could develop, get new quest as you progress, interact with characters, do some battles for fun (test new strategies or units and at the end of battle you don't win exp or money but also don't lose units)
Point 6 could be but I don't see much possibilities considering the past games (also I don't think Bill is the best name for your heroic avatar XD)

Point 7 is strong now in my list. Could even try a Dragon Age origin (multiple origins) or Fable II (start as a poor bastard and end as a king/queen) :cool: although I hardly think katauri would do it (please??)

@PuceMoose and @jake21; More puzzles are welcome. Also love to change the camera and look at the exotic land and see the smalls details (the squirrels in the trees, the snow that falls, the fish in the water, etc.). More of them are welcome.
Traps could be a very interesting strategy (new unit "trapper", ability : Put traps!)

New "full" races like the ones you put (Holy S***!! It's Killer Hyacinth!!) could be very fun. Then would like to request some arabic ones (like from Rise of Legends, loved the design of the units there)

@KarlosCV; new and more complex quest (the likes of go there/return/go/return and kill X -do search this are too boring and common). Some quest that have an impact on the story (save x so he will help you later but not as a seller like the in TL)

More heroes or special battles in the last quarter could help (also better AI)

The problem with the other races is that they rely on certain items and spells to have full power (paladin, dragon, etc. are already way strong as they are). Thorns, dwarves, undead, etc.

The miners and foremen, with the cooper flute and some other dwarves items are like a stampede, droids with the engineer and the correct items become nasty and thorns need diploma of botany and etc. Some units are more useful as the more complete the game is since you have more possibilities to make them become useful. The same with enemies (dragon eye, sword of the dragon, shield of rekross, dragon hunter's shield and bracelet of fury mince the dragons). The problem is having the correct items/spells/units/skills when the situation arrives.

@Heroe; I don't think item repetition is bad. Most of them won't have a replica since is too much of a coincidence that there are 2 of them. And 2 allow for some new strategies to different units so is just plain luck on what you get.

Also the tips in the load screen is good for people who are beginning to play the game (What's wrong with it? ) Maybe they could be deactivated in the option screen (in my opinion the game needs more variety of load screens and tips, they repeat too much)

[Dwagginz]

@onepiece; With point 6, I just used the default names ;) Bill Gilbert for TL, Amelie for AP ;)

I love the idea of testing an army, too. I hadn't thought of that!

[onepiece]

@Dwagginz; I know but the name Bill Gilbert, in a Russian game, even in an English one sound ridiculous and not epic (well I called him Pepe Tapia in TL XD...which is a joke in my country).

Gotta love the people who give names at katauri (maybe we should make a thread: Name the hero of KB2!! With my invincible hero: Pompeyus the destroyer!!)

[Dwagginz]

Bob.

That's my entry :p

[markgil]

unless the next katauri game that they are going to announce between now & Nov is KB2, it will probably be a long while if ever that they get around to making a sequel.

[Heroe]

Well, there are som big bugs/stupid things in this game like:
1spider can put web on 100bears and bears cant move.
1dwarf who throws fire or poison to 100bears, and next turn bears get 1k damage.
1 beholder can put to sleep any number of units(1lvl) to sleep.
Etc...

Another big thing is yeah, this game should have more different heroes/companions to choose...
More depth in castles, caves would be nice.Bigger maps too.
Leveling shouldnt be only for getting more units, but for something else.

Hints/tips in loading screens AND in main menu of crossworlds with huge list of "FEATURES" is a very very bad habit devs are making. Just leave the empty screen with beautiful scenery, no need to throw bullc*** in there.Im not harsh, just im letting u know how it makes many players feel.
But im not sure they will care about this threat, since it already contains a ton of improvements and no dev will take so much improvements in game...

[Dwagginz]

Well, there are som big bugs/stupid things in this game like:
1spider can put web on 100bears and bears cant move.
1dwarf who throws fire or poison to 100bears, and next turn bears get 1k damage.
1 beholder can put to sleep any number of units(1lvl) to sleep.
Etc...
That's not a bug, nor a stupid thing. It's how the game works, and it's how many games of the same genre work.


Leveling shouldnt be only for getting more units, but for something else.
It is for more things than a higher Leadership total. You increase your skills, unlock abilities (via runes, of course) and become more powerful. Without Leadership, you can't take units, so that's vital to the levelling and gameplay process.

[Metathron]

1dwarf who throws fire or poison to 100bears, and next turn bears get 1k damage.
1 beholder can put to sleep any number of units(1lvl) to sleep.
Etc...

I agree with you here, these effects should be scaled, at least the poison/fire after effects should be.

Hints/tips in loading screens AND in main menu of crossworlds with huge list of "FEATURES" is a very very bad habit devs are making. Just leave the empty screen with beautiful scenery, no need to throw bullc*** in there.Im not harsh, just im letting u know how it makes many players feel.
But im not sure they will care about this threat, since it already contains a ton of improvements and no dev will take so much improvements in game...

However, here you've lost me. Why is looking at an empty loading screen better than seeing some basic tips that could help beginner players? Who are all the many players whom this causes as much grief as yourself (apparently)? This is the first time I've heard of such a complaint and, frankly, it's beyond ridiculous.

[malcolmm]

I agree with you here, these effects should be scaled, at least the poison/fire after effects should be.



However, here you've lost me. Why is looking at an empty loading screen better than seeing some basic tips that could help beginner players? Who are all the many players whom this causes as much grief as yourself (apparently)? This is the first time I've heard of such a complaint and, frankly, it's beyond ridiculous.

I agree. Now that I'm a veteran of KB, I don't even notice the tips.

As someone else said, the biggest improvement they could make is to make it more challenging in the later stages of the game.

My biggest wish for KB2 is really simple - make KB2. I'm confident that if they decide to make KB2 it will be great.

[onepiece]

@Metathron and @Heroe; fire and poison does a % damage according to the amount of total health the stack has (and takes into consideration resistance and defense I think). So the more enemies there are; the more health the stack is going to have and the more damage it's going to take:

Ej: With 23000 lds you can have 1150 Miners with 22 health each (25300 total health) and 9 Black Dragons with 1000 health each (9000 health in total). If the are both poisoned and the poison does 10% of the total health, the miners are going to take 2530 damage (which kills 115 of them) and the dragons are gong to take 900 (which doesn't kill any)

That's how it works (at least most of it)

[Metathron]

@Metathron and @Heroe; fire and poison does a % damage according to the amount of total health the stack has (and takes into consideration resistance and defense I think). So the more enemies there are; the more health the stack is going to have and the more damage it's going to take:

That is perfectly fine. What is not is that the number of attacking creatures who cause the effect can be ridiculously low, i.e it does not scale. One puny bowman who does 3-4 damage should not be able to inflict 800 burning damage.

But anyhow, we've had this discussion when AP came out. So in battles I do everything I can to prevent the above silliness from taking place. :)

[Saiko Kila]

That is perfectly fine. What is not is that the number of attacking creatures who cause the effect can be ridiculously low, i.e it does not scale. One puny bowman who does 3-4 damage should not be able to inflict 800 burning damage.

But anyhow, we've had this discussion when AP came out. So in battles I do everything I can to prevent the above silliness from taking place. :)

Actually the damage does scale according to count of attackers. But the damage also scales to number of troops in attacked stack, so there is always a sweet spot. Increasing attackers numbers increases the effect but decreases the number of defenders, and thereby the base for percentage based damage. So, fire effect from 30 bowmen will be about the same as from 300 bowmen, when they attack 50 elfs. However, in the first case they will kill some 3 elfs when attacking first, and in the second case they will kill like 25 of them, the fire effect kicks afterward. The sweet spot in that situation would be - I don't remember exact numbers but like 50-100 bowmen. That would cause the most severe burning effect. But of course it is better to decrease enemy numbers as fast as possible, so using 300 bowmen is going to be preferable, even if the fire damage we'll see won't be that impressive.

Anyway, such calculations are not really the way it seem natural and I agree that they should fix it somehow.

[Metroplex]

New hero, new world, new story.
Ability to capture enemy capitals and raze it to the ground!

[onepiece]

@Metathron and @Saiko; I consider that the fire and poison abilities are also part of a strategy.
That way even if 100 archer look weak they can be dangerous since they can burn so people should take that into consideration. Also it will mean that if you don't want to lose units; you should dispel the effect (or resurrect more units later).
It's an anti-strategy for groups of thousands of units or if you are a Mage and do low damage with units.

@Metroplex; love the raze idea. Maybe even do some raids (some AI heroes plus you against a ridiculous strong enemy).

[Jan0s]

Top priority for me would be even better game mechanics, I dont care about story, walls of text or nice pictures very much.

In one word, I like more synergy in the game!
I really like the way this game offers strategical and tactical options, like when you think pffff spiders and snakes until you find this ridiculous artifact, which adds like +15 to spider attacks and increases their speed and you think wtf, I might test a spider combo out.
Or when you see all those slow dwarven units until you find artifacts which boosts them immensly and suddenly you can see a nice strat with them.
Or the humans with the guardsmen/royal griffins being commanders of the bowmen and swordsmen to boost their moral.

Those were the moments this game went from great to totally awesome for me :)

Also an option at the start of the game to have some COMPLETE sets of artifacts in the game would be nice. I've never managed to get a full set (despite some minor one's). This is always pretty frustrating imo.

An option to buy or otherwise change to a new repertory of artifacts/troops at useless merchants would be nice.

I'm totally fine with the looks of the game though.

[Metathron]

Give us the option of choosing which troops to take into combat, right before combat starts, like in HoMM V.

[shqiponja_hayabusa]

I wish we could be able to command more than 5-units. Say 7..

I wish for a display bar in battle mode showing us the forces ratio, how's the battle going, who's winning or loosing.

I wish we could make companions from our own troops.

[jake21]

I wouldn't mind seeing the trophy idea expanded a bit (but without going over the top; no offense but I think the orcs are a bit over the top).

I also wouldn't mind seeing a much larger more rpg'ish map with some text quests and more puzzles.

[KarlosCV]

I wish we could be able to command more than 5-units. Say 7...

Oooh, that'd be really sweet and would make battles even more strategic and sprawled.

Better yet - enlarge the battlefield, add more strategic elements like hills and covers! So that most battles in later stages wouldn't be 3-turns bores, especially for mages (cast twice Fire Rain in the first round, mop up the pieces in the second, rinse and repeat).

I don't care the game eats up like 30 hours already, I want even battles that would average 20 turns! :grin:

[Dwagginz]

I've started playing HoMM V again, and I had a few thoughts.

1. Troop slots being independent of each other, i.e. more than one slot for a unit. It'd be nice to have 2 slots of, say, Archers. It'd fit nicely with the expanded unit slot number someone mentioned above.
2. Skirmish mode, too. Random generated maps :D

[ckdamascus]

Increase the reserve size for both the roaming army and castles.

Allow people to sell scrolls anywhere, not just castles.

Make it easier to scroll/see/navigate to scrolls you have sold. Scrolling through like 10 times to see if you left a Flaming Eye scroll is no fun.

[onepiece]

@ckdamascus; yeah they should just scroll all the 4 scrolls (XD) at once since you can see them, not just 1 at a time. More spaces for reserves is also appreciated.

I would also like to ask for description on how the abilities and spells evolve (level 1-3). There's a mod that does it so it shouldn't be that difficult and there wouldn't be any need for a mod when the game ships (so no waiting to know if it's useful to develop something just to see it wasn't so good).

[markgil]

their next game will be an MMO due out in 2012. what a major disappointment after 3 excellent KB games. guess they decided to go after the $ instead.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/10/26/interview-katauri-interactive-on-royal-quest/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RockPaperShotgun+%28Rock%2C+P aper%2C+Shotgun%29

[ckdamascus]

their next game will be an MMO due out in 2012. what a major disappointment after 3 excellent KB games. guess they decided to go after the $ instead.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/10/26/interview-katauri-interactive-on-royal-quest/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RockPaperShotgun+%28Rock%2C+P aper%2C+Shotgun%29

In a weird way, I am sort of glad. I lose waaay too much time with this game. :)

This is sort of a nifty penultimate end for an excellent genre. Too bad we couldn't add all the nifty adjustments we always wanted.

[Metathron]

The graphics look nice, but an MMO is an MMO, so for me that's a no go.

Hopefully HoMM VI will be good enough to satisfy my turn-based strategy craving.

[KarlosCV]

Well, it was good while it lasted, I guess.

Anyway, I wish them luck on the uber-overcrowded MMO market.

[Mandea]

"We consider the future of games to be in the MMO genre."
bullshit. Biggest lie. WE want money and that's where most come from would be a better statement.

Single player games will always exist. I have no pleasure playing against a human opponent nor mood (most times). But I'm sure one day we will see KB2.

[ckdamascus]

"We consider the future of games to be in the MMO genre."
bullshit. Biggest lie. WE want money and that's where most come from would be a better statement.

Single player games will always exist. I have no pleasure playing against a human opponent nor mood (most times). But I'm sure one day we will see KB2.

Is it the biggest lie? Maybe just a little misleading. :) If people are willing to spend more money there, then clearly there is a sizable market of players there. Even if the ratio is an average MMO Player generating 2 times more than a single player, you still need the basic numbers to make it worth while. Whereas the most hardcore of MMO players will spend far more than the average single player, you got weird dudes like me who is willing to buy this game as a downloadable and rebuy it as a retail copy. :)

In short, as single player lovers, we are probably in the minority now

Once enough MMO's flop (you'd figure they would realize that by now, but they claim they want to break into the Diablo-esque niche), we should hopefully see another type of game return, hopefully turn based, but it really could be anything.

Would be nice to see more high end turn based strategy games come back. But hey, remember the first King's Bounty was released over 20 years ago. I just hope we don't have to wait another 20 years for King's Bounty 2. :)

[jake21]

So two comments I guess:

I'm clearly disappointed they have gone this route as I am personally not interested in MMO. However, i will note that KB seemed to stagnate a bit (esp with regards to area building) from the first game (the third had only marginal changes from the second; and the second used quite a bit from the first with a very simpilistic overall map; which seems odd as MMO generally thrive on well constructed areas; but perhaps their MMO will not be area driven).
-
While I wish them luck (and hope that one day they will return to well conceived single player games) I think you are being a bit harsh on their decision. While clearly money has a role here; they probably desire a break from what they have spent the past 3 years working on and it is generally healthy @ the personal level to do something very different every few years. Conversely their market spreads from Russia to Eastern Europe to Europe to USA and I suspect the size of their market spreads in a similar fashion. I.,e., if their largest market is in Russia and former Eastern Block then MMO makes good business sense providing they have an offering that will appeal to their market.
-
If they are very successful in this venture perhaps they will have enough capital to fund two teams (one to maintain the MMO and hopefully one to do a new and creative single player game).
-
Last but least they did provide us an editor so perhaps the community will develop a nice add on (hopefully they will fix some of the most glaring issues with the editor). I personally have not yet fired up the editor but if my creative streak returns perhaps I will give it a shot (I used to do work on diki-muds; but have not done anything graphical). Alas I hate hassles so I will definitely wait until the comments on the editor sub-board are more positive.

[onepiece]

@Ckdanascus; "you got weird dudes like me who is willing to buy this game as a downloadable and rebuy it as a retail copy" Now that's a comment (and a deep purse). I take my hat off to you!!

[Mandea]

In short, as single player lovers, we are probably in the minority now


I disagree (I need real official numbers to see the whole picture) but that's not the point. Even if we are it's only temporary. Everything is cyclic in this world :D

[pavned]

I was hoping for a King Bounty 2 or a Space Ranger 3!

Very sad they decided to take the MMO path!

[ckdamascus]

I disagree (I need real official numbers to see the whole picture) but that's not the point. Even if we are it's only temporary. Everything is cyclic in this world :D

Well, just anecdotal evidence. I would surmise we are the more sophisticated gamers. Would you agree, there are less sophisticated gamers compared to "normal" gamers? Walk into a game store. The average person there, is the average buyer.

How many times do you hear normal, casual gamer people ask...

"can I play it online?'
"does it have good graphics?"
"oooh I love trophies!"

I don't know about you. When I tote the powerful game play of some older games, people just go "ugh the graphics look so bad", I don't want to play it. Or, it is too hard to learn!

Instant turn off for them.

Or, if you got a game with bad graphics, but it is highly addictive, it tends to be only online.

Like that maplesyrup online game or whatever.

Most successful games so far? 3d shooters. Call of Duty, yeah? It can be played ONLINE and it has GOOD graphics, and it probably has some form of trophy system.

By the way, I never played Call of Duty or the sequel or whatever. Halo, etc. I won't deny that there is money for the developer there though.

I'm clearly the minority demographic here.

I think this game is pretty easy to learn, but in hindsight, trying to explain it to my brother... I can see it has a fairly high learning curve.

People don't usually love that.

I'm not saying we don't exist as a somewhat sizable force. But for economical reasons, we are a relatively horrible return on investment for software developers.

Sure you will run into a handful of people who long for the older games and such, but if we were all peasants fighting 1v1 in the KB arena, we'd lose horribly even with buffs. :)

Unfortunately, I think we are at the end of the turn based strategy revival already. :(

[onepiece]

Ckdamascus; while it's true that online (be it multiplayer or MMO) it's king now (even Call of Duty or Halo are bought for it's online modes), it's not that false that single player it's a minority.
It's more correct to call it..."diverse" (in terms that there are too many people in it and they are a little..."tired" from all the junk games that there are now.

Most games now are simple commodities (in the sense of sold to the masses) so they have a weak singleplayer or one that get's old very quick so they tend to be overlooked by "hardcore" gamers but if the thing has a strong multiplayer, they it's pure money.

KB has a strong singleplayer but has lacked multiplayer (even now the editor doesn't allow it). And it's developed by a company that doesn't have a history of big hits at worldwide scale nor it's of the most played genre (hack'n slash, RPG or FPS) so it lacks that massive appeal the others have.

Is the game that niche? I wouldn't say so. I would say that more that it has been very bad marketed to a wider audience (how many people you know knows this game?). Plus the game has some mechanics (lots and lots of text, no voices, slow start, extremely long duration, and some mistranslations) that doesn't appeal to that many people.

Now do we know of much money the Katauri or 1C have made from KB? If it was a lot, they would have continued but if they went the MMO way I assume they haven't made that much (of course this has some trouble because MMO are way more expensive than non-MMO games, so they would have need to win a lot of dought or they got a big publisher or partner)

Now, can we blame them for going that way? If they don't have success yes. If they do no. Katauri are part of 1C (I think) so they also have some orders from above to do what's more profitable.

Now I believe they are going that way (MMO and hack'n slash) because we're seeing a revival of the genre (was never dead but it has come more alive now) from various titles: Titan Quest (sadly Iron Lore has closed but are now formed as a new company that's developing a new game), Sacred (the II was not good and the company got sold; I think the new publisher is going to try Sacred 3), Torchlight (from the guys that had mythos until they went bankrupt because of Hell Gate London) and more importantly: DIABLO III (no need for presentations). And this one is probably gonna come in 2012 (the same date as Royal Quest), so while I don't think 1C or Katauri are gonna be competition (or they would be ripped off), I think they are gonna try for "complementation": As when you get tired of playing one, the other is similar yet has something new and you don't need to learn how to play it (no learning curve).

Are we at the end Ckdamascus? Let’s do a little history on what’s happened recently: HMMV had 3 games (expansion included) that didn’t made a huge impression, they had a spin off in DS and PSP plus there is now HMM Online and the next game (Heroes VI) is going to try and get the winning formula again. Disciples III, well I haven’t played it but seems nobody liked it. Another big name? Not that I can’t think of (maybe someone has some other game?). And of course KB, AP and CW.
So at the end, none of the above have done a “revival” per se of the genre. Now why was it?...multiplayer (MMO Online doesn’t count). That severely limits the market and the interest of the public as the genre is limited to people who love more slow paced and thinking thank heavy action. Think of how many people follows professional chess vs people that follows professional soccer, basketball, tennis, etc. So without it, the player is only limited to play against the computer (and we know how much we like to B**** against the AI).

Now if they did the correct thing going MMO, only time will tell.

p.S: Sorry for the long message.
EDIT: Royal Quest will have Diablo style gameplay. And about payment, it definitely won't be free .

Now i don't know how they are gonna compete against the massive amount of free MMO that will be available in 2012.

[joasoz]

I find it rather odd when they get successful by making a quality single player strategic game, and then say that the future is in MMO`s. A great KB2 would make more money and give great experience to the team. Instead they risk it all on making a MMO. People here say that they go where the money is. As far as I have read not many MMO`s are financially successful. Most of them flop and a few manage to make money. Only a select few are money machines. Look at Age of Conan and the fiasco that has turned out to be.

KB2 would have been the best choice. Alas it is not to be :(

They ended the great seires on a bad note for me. The editor released in Crossworlds gave me hope, but I find NOTHING on the forums to download and play based on the editor. A hoax??

[Dwagginz]

They ended the great seires on a bad note for me. The editor released in Crossworlds gave me hope, but I find NOTHING on the forums to download and play based on the editor. A hoax??
Oh, come on, be fair! It came out in the middle of September, and it's not even November yet, so give people time to make something after getting to grips with the editor.

R.E. The "niche" aspect mentioned above; King's Bounty is based off a long-dead franchise (King's Bounty, funnily enough), is developed by a Russian developer and published by a Russian publisher, is a hybrid of turn-based strategy and RPG, is PC-only and is an entry into a "sub-genre" that never got big. King's Bounty is pretty niche, but Katauri have succeeded with it because they developed a high-quality title that was unique enough in today's market to satisfy a number of people. As onepiece said, the only other competitors are Disciples (Which didn't do brilliantly with its third iteration) and Heroes of Might & Magic/Might & Magic Heroes (as it was renamed for the sixth game), neither of which are high profile franchises now. I think Fantasy Wars/Elven Legacy were similar, but they're not really a franchise as such, and never got much success.

R.E. Katauri making an MMO; If I'm still aware of it in 2012 then I'll look into playing it, but I don't think it's the right thing. The MMO business is seriously saturated and in the next two years we have Guild Wars 2 (Heavy hitter), DC Universe Online (Heavy hitter) and Star Wars: The Old Republic (Heavy hitter), not to mention there'll be another WoW expansion probably in 2012 (If they keep up the 1 per 2 years speed), FunCom's The Secret World, Runic Games' Torchlight MMO, Interplay's Fallout MMO, a good number of expansions and I'm sure there'll be more coming out. I don't wish them failure on this product, that would be wrong of me. I just don't think Katauri or 1C will find success with this product because it'll be overshadowed by bigger and heavier fighters.

Champions Online has had to go F2P to stay afloat, EverQuest 2 is experimenting with F2P, Pirates of the Burning Sea (I think it's called that) has gone/will go F2P, LotRO has gone F2P. We could be here for a while listing games that haven't had the success they either need or deserve. The market's even worse with free-to-play MMOs because there's so many of them around. Royal Quest, I fear, will just be another drop in the ocean of online gaming and I don't think 1C or Katauri need to contribute to it. Look at the feedback to Royal Quest, it seems (to me) to be largely comprised of "We don't need this", "Why are they doing this?" and other statements questioning the need and the wisdom in regards to making this game. Katauri have made their name with high quality single-player games, and I don't see why that should cease to be. I'm just guessing here but I would wager that more people want to see a King's Bounty 2 or a Space Rangers 3 than an MMO or seeing Katauri go down in flames.

[onepiece]

@Dwagginz; I had forgotten about all those big MMO that come next or in 2 years. Still Katauri or 1C could never try to compete against them. It's more of a diablo clone (doesn't sound pretty) than your typical MMO (which curiously, are very much diablo clones; kill, collect, do, loot, repeat, etc..).

The only way for them to success is to do a very fast paced game and very light in terms of requirements and infrastructure so they can overcome the high cost of the game with a good amount of players.

By the way, has anybody looked at the recommended requirements for the game (http://www.royalquest.com/)? A HD 5870 or GTX 470, 20 GB, Core i5-760 or phenom 2 X4 965? That's quite the PC there and while 2012 is far away and there is no date of at the beginning or end of that year, and that the requirements are gonna be more satisfied by more people at that moment, it's still a lot of power (doing a graphics intense MMO has never worked before)

[Dwagginz]

The sys reqs really throw me off. They're ridiculously high, to be honest, at least in regards to other MMOs. It's over a year away and they've got sys reqs out? Why?!

As for the more Diablo-esque games, there's Torchlight 2 (2011, IIRC), Torchlight MMO, Diablo 3 (2011?) and probably a few more that I can't remember. I just don't think that Royal Quest is "needed", nor is it the wisest game to make. It sounds good, I won't deny that, but "good" means utterly nothing in the market. All Points Bulletin sounded, and looked, really good, but that went down in three months (I think there were bigger issues surrounding it, but it just didn't take off either). Tabula Rasa didn't last long, either.

[Metathron]

It would be nice to see one or two new hero classes, though that would probably call for a lot of inventiveness and balance work on the part of the developers.

[amyndris]

I love TBS but it would be accurate to say that it is a very niche genre now. Look at the top tier TBS games in the past, many of the franchises have fallen. X-com's next iteration will be a FPS. Front Mission is now a FPS. Master of Orion has no sequel in place and I would argue that it's spiritual successor is Sins of the Solar Empire a RTS.

Many other TBS franchises have gone in hibernation like Master of Magic/Orion.

Even the active TBS series like King's Bounty, Heroes of Might and Magic and Disciples, Fire Emblem Disgaia and even arguably Advanced Wars don't see large install bases compared to FPS or RTS.

With the sole exception of Civilization, TBS don't really have a large target audience anymore. Oh how I miss the 1990s.

[ckdamascus]

I love TBS but it would be accurate to say that it is a very niche genre now. Look at the top tier TBS games in the past, many of the franchises have fallen. X-com's next iteration will be a FPS. Front Mission is now a FPS. Master of Orion has no sequel in place and I would argue that it's spiritual successor is Sins of the Solar Empire a RTS.

Many other TBS franchises have gone in hibernation like Master of Magic/Orion.

Even the active TBS series like King's Bounty, Heroes of Might and Magic and Disciples, Fire Emblem Disgaia and even arguably Advanced Wars don't see large install bases compared to FPS or RTS.

With the sole exception of Civilization, TBS don't really have a large target audience anymore. Oh how I miss the 1990s.

I never played Sins of the Solar Empire, but Galactic Civilization II is the closer spiritual successor. It also does not seem to crash as much as MOO2 did. :)

[onepiece]

Well I gotta say I also enjoy some fast-paced action (FPS, shooters or the great metal slug XD (X is the best)) from time to time (sometimes KB gets to slow and TIME consuming XD (which is good considering all the bickering now because of the short-expensive games debate). So newer TBS should be faster (which is contrary to their spirit but not incompatible), that way they could target a wider audience (and add voices Katauri, the masses claim for them; even when the voice sucks and add nothing but BS).

Still I think that Katauri could have made a MMO of KB (they had most of it done anyway with the singleplayer games; only add abilities to do multiplayer battles, and team battles, way more items and units, spells, etc. and more exploration).
I still think they missed a great online niche (multiplayer TBS)

[Metathron]

So newer TBS should be faster (which is contrary to their spirit but not incompatible), that way they could target a wider audience


Sounds like what is happening with Heroes 6, but I won't say it's a bad thing until I have played the game.

[KarlosCV]

Sounds like what is happening with Heroes 6, but I won't say it's a bad thing until I have played the game.

The last HOMM installment was a huge letdown, at least for me, I just lost interest in the middle of the game and never came back. Uninspired, dull, tired.

Recently though I bought Disciples II on Steam for a few bucks and looking fwd to play it. Anybody knows this game? Supposedly the closest relative to the KB franchise.

And what about that Fantasy Wars game? Anybody can recommend this?

Anyway, if Katauri wants to play the most competitive, expensive and crowded league with the big boyz, it's just an oppportunity for some other small developer to fill the TBS niche, which - in my opinion - is certainly not negligible. The HOMM franchise made tons of money on it, Disciples and KB was also relatively very successful, so there are still lots of TBS gamers waiting for somebody to give them what they want.

[onepiece]

@KarlosCV; Well I played fantasy wars but it's more like a blend between RTS and TBS.

You have mission with objectives like any RTS but play in a defined battlefield in turns and your units can be upgraded, and can get new ones (buy, join, etc.) and there are some items that make them stronger.

I can recommend it but I prefer KB (although maybe you should play Elven Legacy, the sequel; I tried it a little and found it to be more polished than the first).
Look for some vids at YouTube to see if it suits you.

I also played HOMM V (never played another one) and was playing it until KB TL arrived and byebye HOMM!! (Seriously KB is way better than Heroes; maybe Ubisoft will want to buy KB and make KB2?)

[Dwagginz]

maybe Ubisoft will want to buy KB and make KB2?
No no no no no no no no no no!

The number of these types of game are tiny, we don't need one publisher to own two of them as there'd be no competition.

[onepiece]

No no no no no no no no no no!

The number of these types of game are tiny, we don't need one publisher to own two of them as there'd be no competition.

I meant that since Ubisoft is the owner of Heroes and since they have been staggering as of late, maybe they would like to do a game that while not been as "popular" as Heroes, is way better and faster (they will need to get rid of all the amount of text though)

Since when is KB competition against Heroes? Is not as if KB is so marketed against it in the first place. The fact that they are similar doesn't mean they are competing and make the genre evolve.

EDIT: Better to have 1 good quality game than 2 bad games (not that CW was bad but it lacked the quality and quantity of the previous installment (way to edition of the year)). And is not as if KB2 is gonna come soon from Katauri or 1C since they re busy with Royal Quest (until 2013 there won't be a new KB game)

[Dwagginz]

King's Bounty is, as mentioned above, one of three "major" franchises in this niche genre. Ubisoft have HoMM/MMH, 1C/Katauri have KB and Akella (I think) have Disciples. If 1C/Katauri wants to "beat" Ubisoft, they have to innovate. In return, Ubisoft have to innovate to beat KB. Even if KB isn't directly going after HoMM/MMH's sales, it is still a competing IP.

Ubisoft have been "staggering", as you put it, because they've done it to themselves. They don't put out many titles worth caring about, they alienated their PC userbase (Arguably their biggest) with their absolutely appalling DRM measures, and they seem happy to refresh the same IP again and again. Silent Hunter is on #5, Settlers are on #7, Assassin's Creed is on #3, Prince of Persia has had 5 or so titles since the days of the PS2/Gamecube and so on. They don't put anything out that's really worth buying.

[onepiece]

Yep but the principal problem with KB is the way is marketed. Did you see some big previews on important sites for KB? Some big trailer or videos? A big marketing campaign and a lot of advertising everywhere?
Today games that make money are: way more marketed than produced (in terms of amount of cash expended) or extremely addictive (KB falls in this category, at least for us in the forum). Maybe Katauri or 1C don't have enough to market it at world wide scale but if they want to make it bigger, they should associate with a big western publisher.


I still don't think that KB is competition against HoMM (competition to me is more like Call of Duty versus Medal of Honor, or WoW vs Conan, Warhammer, Aion, Lineage, etc.). It's true that HoMM and KB are similar but the market they are aimed is different, therefore I don't think they are competing even though the IP are very similar.

It's true that Ubi has made a lot of refreshments to their franchises but even KB has made that to an extent (CW is more of a refinement over AP and even so lacks the innovations that made AP great; it's way too edition of the year)

Of course I would prefer if Katauri made a sequel to KB, but as it doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon, maybe a new developer could do it and try the new things we keep asking for?
Even if the game would be bad, we could play the old games (the problem would be the damage to the brand )

[markgil]

maybe they just ran out of idea's for KB and wanted to try something new. i only hope H6 will be good unlike H4 & 5 and that the MMO doesnt tank badly enough that they will never be able to do a KB2. it would also be nice if I2 would announce warlords 5 & warlords battlecry 4 and quit with the puzzle games already!

[KarlosCV]

As for possible older alternatives we can resort to - anyone knows this:

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/age_of_wonders_shadow_magic

They've just rolled it out on GOG and it has enthusiastic reviews.

[RichardTyler]

I thought I'd post my 2c.

At first I wanted to make a long list. Eventually I decided to point out just the most crucial issues, the way I see it. (I tried to sort them in the order of importance)

1. Correct English
Unfortunately KB games were written in a very poor English and I wonder why so few people have pointed it out. It's not only grammar (although some of the grammar mistakes are just sooo ugly), but the whole linguistic approach is non-Aglo-Saxon. It's Slav. To me it's on the edge of acceptance. You can't release a game with such language errors! This is absolutely crucial. So perhaps making sure that the next KB is written in a proper English would be good.

2. Storyline
This is more individual and might be just me. I see KB storyline as a very simple one, too simple. And too flat. I understand that the entire concept of KB involves a nice, warm and kinda sunny ambience, but still the storyline could definiately be enriched. It's not only KB, I think a lot of the computer games lack a lot in the storyline department.
Come up with some 3D characters, add some story arch, add more conflict. In other words make it more epic. Additionaly taking the KB's charm, perhaps introducing some romance plot/plots wouldn't hurt.

3. Inventory
I see nobody's mentioned this. Inventory management is terrible. Consider implementing folders and give players a possibility to arrange the items by putting them in different folders (or they might be bags instead of folders). With an option to name the folders. So you could have a folder "boots" or "female robes" or "my items" or "useless junk" etc etc.

4. Lack of 'farming'
Sometimes I would find myself stuck, as I didn't have enemies on my current level. I had to travel much looking for a match. I was surprised that there had not been any 'farming' spots in the game. I mean enemies that respawn, so you can fight them again and again untill your skills increase.

5. Game balancing issues
I think it was mentioned already and some people seem to consider it to be serious. To me, it's a minor flaw and the game is playable, although I must admit I was stuck in a few places and had troubles moving on. (see my comment on the lack of farming)

6. Items balancing issues
To me items are imbalanced. I couldn't gather a single set. Some items seems overpowered to me, while others are plain junk. This is not a major thing, but improving it would add to the game.
Maybe once in a while a selection of merchandise in shops could change, giving player more variety.

7. Lack of maps
Some areas don't have maps, especially the dungeons.

[jake21]

age of wonders have a very good following and there are some great scenario @ aow.heavengames.com. Most of them require the fan made patch4 which is quite good. However the graphics are dated and there have been a few complaints about the ai at higher competitive levels (I've always found the ai to be ok; not exceptional but ok esp with the fan made scenarios which are much better than the campaign which is a bit lame).

My biggest beef with the game today is the graphics; I just have a bit of issue picking out fine details in games like aow2, avernum 6 and divine divinity on larger monitors. (I mention the other two games which have similar graphics in case you have played any of them). Anyways of the turn based fantasy games aow-sm is my favorite - head and shoulders above disciples and heroes of magic series but it is a different type of game (imho) than KB series.

As for possible older alternatives we can resort to - anyone knows this:

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/age_of_wonders_shadow_magic

They've just rolled it out on GOG and it has enthusiastic reviews.

[onepiece]

RichardTyler; I agree with most of your opinions (good this thing need a good inventory sorting/viewing option!!) but I disagree with the 'farming' one. The game doesn't have it because you have to use what little it gives you (yep; enemies are here to make you stronger not to resurrect like crazy).

The farming one would allow any difficulty to be just too easy although I agree that a certain amount of farming could be allowed (come units of your level could resurrect so to get new levels)

Most of the sets are not that hard to use (of course don't try to get the 4-5 item sets, but the 2-3 sets are very possible to obtain). Some items are to bad because they are meant to be used at the beginning and to have a little options at the start and don't feel 'naked'.

The maps in the dungeons could be nice, although they are not that big to get lost.

Instead of farming I propose a dynamic difficulty (you can change difficulty any time and the change doesn't affect your items(units(etc.). The enemies and amount of exp changes so to adapt to the desired level of difficulty. Of course you would get the nickname "Amelie, the weak minded" XD.

I think the story is simple because almost no one cares about it (although the first one was very funny with a little Diskworld XD). Is true that they could do a less generic story or more complex and developed (a world that was changing as you progressed) but we'll leave that for the next game XD (maybe WE SHOULD write the story?)

[Metathron]

I also disagree with the farming as well as the inventory one; the current inventory is not terrible - you can sort it by cost or by type which is fine by me. Good points otherwise.

[RichardTyler]

Good to see some responses. Usually when a game has an editor there is a strong base of fans. I don't know about KB. I was widely surprised to see no fan made scenarios (I mean other than mods that add/tweak the existing stuff).

I see your point of view and it's interesting to read it and compare. Honestly I really found lack of farming a bit annoying, but it was mostly in KB TL. In AP/CW it was much better, since you could travel between the islands quite fast. Changing the lvl of difficultly dynamically would help. Not a bad idea at all. Or perheps teleporting might be implemented. Let's say you press a button and you can teleport to a number of key places on the map. You might even have an option to set up such teleport points of destination yourself.

Inventory is a pain. Yes, you have some options to sort the items and I used them, fine (especially sort by type). Unfortunately it was far from what I felt was needed (I had a dozen of items). Perhaps it's not much of a coding work to implement the folders/bags or improve the inventory in some other way.

I would like to elaborate a bit on the storyline issue. You have been warned, if you find it boring or you think I brag :) just skip the next paragraph.

I disagree that you don't care for the storyline in a game. You might think that you don't care, but imagine just having a game with a queue of fights, no purpose whatsoever. KB is not a drama type of a storyline, but it seems like an epic tale with this particular type of a warm ambience (sweet sweet KB). What struck me was that I virtually found no antagonist. Just a protagonist. (you know, no Doctor No, Lex Luthor etc... Nobody to stop Amelie from collecting the jewels) So no conflict in a real sense. How did the protagonist change at the end of the story? Not by much, I'd say. Compare it with any of Warner or Disney movies or a book. Even an average one where you have a lousy stroyline... It might seem that Amelie had travelled to another world and came back after a long journey, but I'd argue that it's the experience during this journey that counts, not a journey itself. It's like assuming - OK, since Amelie will travel to another world, we don't need to do much more with the storyline. I mean I'm not expecting any pre-defined story (well, surprise me Katauri!), but certain story elements help to make an interesting one.

Add poor English to that and you have lots of reading that puts you off.

I was wondering why Katauri didn't do the voice acting. Perhaps they don't have native speakers to do the job... To me good VO adds a lot in games.

[Jah]

Usually when a game has an editor there is a strong base of fans. I don't know about KB. I was widely surprised to see no fan made scenarios (I mean other than mods that add/tweak the existing stuff).


I haven't even opened the editor myself, but based on the comments I've read, it's so clunky and unintuitive (and apparently has bugs, too) that hardly anyone has bothered to put enough effort into it to create new scenarios. Looks like Katauri threw the editor in more as an afterthought. :(

Kind of reminds me of Majesty 2 (developed by 1C) whose editor was also nearly useless. There was even a contest - with prizes - for user-made scenarios; as far as I know, it was canceled due to a lack of entries.

[onepiece]

@RichardTyler; with the story I meant that most people don't care about a deeply or complex story or a very single and generic one (the authors obviously don't want to add that much story here; they aren't trying to create a complex living world that you feel connected with it a la Bioshock).

I don't meant I don't cared for the story (In fact I rode every text line in AP). It's just that most people don't care if it's a generic story or a very good one if there are other things that limit the fun they have with the game (they won't care much about it since they they have other issues: Bugs/inventory sorting problems/Editor crashing/skill mistranslations, etc. XD). When they are having fun, they will want to learn a little more of the story, simple as that.

Of course every game would benefit from a better story so it doesn't feel as a copy&paste job.

Voice acting would be very expensive and would be difficult for Russian developer since the game has a lot of text (look at some of The Witcher original text/dialogue problems in the original edition). They would need to reduce it or get more funding, and since KB is very niche, I don't think that will happen but since the text in general is above average, it could benefit the game (although the new voices that are at the beginning of CW (where you meet adult Amelie) give me the chills man)

[Jah]

Voice acting would be very expensive and would be difficult for Russian developer since the game has a lot of text (look at some of The Witcher original text/dialogue problems in the original edition). They would need to reduce it or get more funding, and since KB is very niche, I don't think that will happen but since the text in general is above average, it could benefit the game (although the new voices that are at the beginning of CW (where you meet adult Amelie) give me the chills man)

Voice acting would be very low on my priority list for KB. Hiring actors costs money, and you'd need a different set of actors for each different language version. I'm afraid they'd just end up doing a half-assed job with it and either hire a bunch of cheap, talentless amateurs, or have three or four actors each playing 20 different characters. I've played many games where they've done just that (Oblivion, anyone?), and in my opinion that tends to reduce rather than improve immersion. A possible compromise would be to give voiced dialogue to the most important characters with the most lines and keep unimportant side characters silent.

[RichardTyler]

Some really good comments here. I both enjoyed and benefited from reading these.

@Jah: I actually spent some time with the editor (just for the heck of it) and it's not as bad as people say here. At first it looks complicated and weired, but once you follow the attached documentation carefully it all starts to make sense. True, there seems to be a nasty bug with the textures, but you can find a way around it. So making a new, custom scenario is not more daunting than in any other game. Don't get me wrong, it is daunting in every game. :grin: :grin: :grin: You can't help it. :rolleyes: Hours spent with 3D Max, textures, models, dialogs, storyline, scripts... blah blah blah.

Perhaps that's the reason why there is always a limited number of participants in fan-made editor contests, no matter what game. It's a heck lot of work!!!

VO: I see your point. Yes voice talents must be expensive to be hired and they would either do a partial vo (only some main dialogs) or limit the text or get same actors to do multiple chars. All are bad solutions. Still, imo VO adds a lot to the game, if done properly.

@onepiece: With all due respect, I disagree. I believe that a good storyline makes or breaks the game. I mean I hear you that whan a game has a lot of technical bugs, inventory problems etc. you can't evaluate the storyline (first things first). Yet I see a game as a form of storytelling (similar to the movies, books, comics etc.)

What attracts people in games? Is it only how fast you shoot or how good the technical fireworks look? I'd say that a storyline catches your attention and you either stay with the game or stop playing it due to the lack of further interest in the storyline.

[onepiece]

@RichardTyler; well that depends if the story is the most important part of the game (as in an RPG). NO ONE plays shooters, FPS, racing games, etc. for their story since is just an excuse to do things in some a defined order. What's important in them is the gameplay.

It doesn't mean that AP has a bad story (is not that bad) but KB made a better one and felt more ambitious and fun, although AP felt faster and better executed since the game is shorter and also has better gameplay.
Would Bioshock be that great of a game if the art, artistic value, the decorations, story and all of that makes Rapture so unique and well executed, from a story point of view, was the only good thing about it and the game sucked as an FPS or had horrible gameplay? I don't think so.

A good storyline always help but if the game has a bad story or none and yet the execution of the game, the gameplay and the rest of it is great, does it matter that much? Some games are not played because of their great stories but because of how fun it is to just play them not mattering if the story is good, bad or just silly.

I agree with you that a good games deserves a good story but AP wasn't that bad. It didn't have a BAD guy but, do every story have them? It just makes it easier for people to feel anger and want to accomplish the goal if there is one (the amount of games without a BAD guy is so small that is good to have some games that just care about adventure without bothering about a ridiculous excuse to advance, such as killing a random dude).

Without more comments waiting for your answer.

[Jah]

I agree with you that a good games deserves a good story but AP wasn't that bad. It didn't have a BAD guy but, do every story have them?

I think Demenion and Baal would both qualify as "bad guys".

I basically agree that while it would be great to have both good gameplay AND a good plot, the thinness of the plot in the KB games never really bothered me too much. Essentially, I consider KB to be a strategy game with RPG elements, rather than a pure RPG in the traditional sense, and strategy games tend to be pretty light in terms of plot anyway. I think it also has to do with the light, not-too-serious style of KB in general; in a game full of puns and intentional silliness, I wasn't really expecting particularly deep characters or thought-provoking plot developments. While it's possible that the developers simply didn't care enough about the plot to put much effort into it, I think one could also argue that its lightness may have been at least partially a conscious stylistic choice.

[Mandea]

I would love to have a KB2 that wouldn't make KB1 obsolete. They should be complementary one to the other so we would still play KB1 after KB had been released.

[RichardTyler]

A word of warning: This post came out longer than I think I originally intended, so please take it easy.

@onepiece: Of course, you are right. Certainly there are different types of games and sometimes you just fancy a good shooter or some crazy cars action (e.g. Need for Speed series). You don't need a storyline for these at all. More than that, I believe that some games might have non-orthodox storylines, might be impressions or a bunch of quests, which are not connected. And it's fine. It all depends on the type of the game.

However isn't it that a good storyline makes a game complete and mature? Isn't it that there is a difference between a shooter and a game with an interesting (often deep) storyline?

Perhaps it's good to know the canon to deviate from it, criticize it or modify it? Certainly one can be a storyline genius and might come up with a good script "just like that". Although, to be honest, I usually found that when I try to write a script "just like that" I am stuck and cannot do it right (sometimes even begin). On the other hand, certain story elements and a pre-defined story structure is there to help you. So when you start with a vision of a script, based on the canon, you usually have a storyline ready and you just fill in the slots. And it's not true that your storyline is not interesting if you make it that way.

What I'm trying to say is that I believe that people are hard-wired for stories. And the folks from Hollywood have good reasons to follow storyline patterns, because those paterns work.

TBH I didn't play Bioshock (drat, I will get it and play it, since you say it has such a deep story) Yet, many games just amazed me with interesting storylines. Take Lara Croft series or Indiana Jones or Star Wars... You still have all the technical stuff in such games, yet take those brilliant storylines.

I remember that some long time ago I discussed the issue of computer game elements with some of my friends. Other than the storyline, as far as I recall, the following elements were mentioned:


eye-candy architecture
good, realistic models (how you present a model with a certain "polygon budget")
textures
playability (some bad looking games might be damn playable)
music and ambient sounds (often neglected)
VO


Might be something else, I don't remember.

Concerning KB, I certainly liked it and enjoyed playing it. What I was saying is that I believe such a game could benefit a lot from having a storyline script, which is more according to the canon. I found KB text-heavy. Yes, I read it all as well and found it interesting, but not everyone will. Look what they do in movies: they cut some great scenes and remove it from the movie entirely, simply to keep the pace (there is no time in the story to fit certain scenes in, despite how great they are).

You have a main KB quest, yes. All fine, but to me it's "just another quest", rather than a full storyline. So KB is a set of quests, usually not connected one to the other.

The bottom line is, it's nothing which development team couldn't do. It's more like they didn't think it was right.

I basically agree that while it would be great to have both good gameplay AND a good plot, the thinness of the plot in the KB games never really bothered me too much. Essentially, I consider KB to be a strategy game with RPG elements, rather than a pure RPG in the traditional sense, and strategy games tend to be pretty light in terms of plot anyway. I think it also has to do with the light, not-too-serious style of KB in general; in a game full of puns and intentional silliness, I wasn't really expecting particularly deep characters or thought-provoking plot developments. While it's possible that the developers simply didn't care enough about the plot to put much effort into it, I think one could also argue that its lightness may have been at least partially a conscious stylistic choice.

That is a very interesting approach. What you say: "its lightness may have been at least partially a conscious stylistic choice", it's well said and I take your point. Yet I still say that the game would benefit much from a better storyline. KB was silly in parts (fine, I enjoyed it a lot), but consider that some parts were not that silly. Or rather they were based on hard facts. You can't argue that Baal attacking the city and Amelie desperately searching for a remedy is light and silly, isn't it?

I think Demenion and Baal would both qualify as "bad guys".

Alright, but there is a difference between a well developed 3D character, a flat 2D one and a "background character", which is there to fill the emtpy space. It's a matter of how these characetrs were developed, how their role in the storyline was presented. And even more, it's about the whole storyline approach.

What do we know about Baal other than it's a demon, who attacked the city?

[onepiece]

I will give a more proper answer in 1-2 days when I have more time. In the mean time, good critic. It shows you care about the game and would like it to become a greater game.
I think the "reason" of the game (collect the 7 stones, find Gil and kill baal) is very simple and one tends to forget about it. Hell in zelda: a link to the past, the important thing was to defeat the dungeons (great game BTW) and zelda was just an excuse.

I think this game is more of like: adventure, creatures, items, magics, strategy and the context is just to give some coherence to what and why you do it. That being said, it doesn't mean I would like it to be more full and richer and a bit more complex (not that much since that is also part of it's magic).

It's true that one would want a BIG and EPIC story with a BAG guy and a GIRL (hot somewhat naked and very exotic) but that also is cliche. When you go on a field trip; you care about the reason for going or just enjoy the time there doing whatever you feel like doing?

Hell why don't we start a thread in which we create a new story and try to make a mod using it as a base?

[RichardTyler]

Hell why don't we start a thread in which we create a new story and try to make a mod using it as a base?

Good idea. I might contribute.

Perhaps developers pay some attention to it and -at least- give it some thought what they might take from it and incorporate into the next editions of KB. (I hear they go mmo? too bad, I somewhat see KB as a single-player game)

[onepiece]

I shouldn’t be writing this (got too much work to do) but since I can't think of something else, may as well try this idea for a KB story XD. If there are some mistakes (mostly since English is not my mother tongue and it got a little difficult to write this) people point hem out to correct them. Thank you for reading.

Let's get on with the setting. After finally beating Demon Lord Baal and being crowned Queen, Amelie finally enjoys her time doing what all queens loved by their people do (enjoy expensive and pompous parties, forgetting about their people welfare, letting vile politicians take control on matters such as law and taxes, taking bad decisions biased by envious and corrupted advisers, start a military expansion damaging the relations with peaceful kingdoms, squandering money on exotics and expensive gifts, etc.) so the country has grown weak, the people are starting to riot against and even some voices are starting to claim the queen's head, with the said individual being toss into jail or executed in public.

Meanwhile, the remaining eight Lord of Hells, seeing as one of their own has been obliterated by a puny human, start their own civil war, since some lower demons feel the eight Lords are not that powerful and want to rise in power, so several factions arise against each other. One of this factions, leaded by demon Sakara, a powerful and cunning black fire demon (a demon made from a different kind of fire than a normal demon) has a very "special" idea. He wants to imbued himself with the blood of the vanquisher of Baal (Amelie) as to increase his already powerful and strange abilities and gain the powers of "The child of the gods". For this, he has devised a plan in which he would thrown the world of Endoria into a full global war, in order to weaken the bonds that hold their realms apart and finally gain access to Amelie, while throwing the demon realm into a full war against Endoria, with the excuse of stopping their civil war allowing each faction to have complete control over a region of Endoria, while plotting to weaken their ranks and conquer two worlds in one move.

As this happens, disease and death spreads into the once colorful land of Endoria, launching the people into anarchy while the monarchy collapses as the only son of Amelie, Eolo, dies. With no successor to the throne, and no king either, power avid politics, knights, noblemen and clerics try to seduce the queen, in order to be their consort for her to harbor their child, as to gain more power and for their bloodline to succeed the crown line. One of this men is Soma, a rogue demon living on Endoria since hundreds of years ago, contacted by Sakara to gain the queens favor and get her one step closer to him.

With the "Discworld" in this state, our story begins when a young man wakes himself on distant shores after recovering consciousness from a shipwreck...

[Meegor]

No cheats...

[bucazaurus]

My wishlist:

Remove the readme from screen like i saw in crossworlds
There is so need to wait for KB2 to do that .This can be solved - See the picture .




My wishlist:

Remove the tips/hints from loading screens.
This can be solved too - Remove the load_screen_tips lines from eng_windows.lng file in sessions\addon\loc_ses.kfs

[Fatt_Shade]

It been some pause, so it seems ppl either abandoned hope for KB2 :-( , or simply taking break from this game.
As for my wishes for sequel :
1) When going from 1 location to another like traveling to new islands in AP and CW you get some reward if you completed certain quests. Not some super strong bonus just so no more map kiting :-) You play linearly you get some reward (and pet on the head :-), if you kite islands no reward for you, and much lower final score on end (for longer traveling time).
2) More unit ability sinergies with hero skills. Like Quick draw with all archer, or Summoner with all sumoning unit ability`s. They made Rune mage depend on unused runes, why not expanding this new feature for other units , might runes for dmg , mind for heal/resurect , magic for something like evil beholders hypnotise, or archmages telekinesis. This way in situations when you have lets say 13 mind runes, and need 14 to upgrade Prayer to lvl 3 you`ll get some use from them, untill spending them for skill.
Like that Rune mage is only unit that benefits from unused runes, it`s just seems unfair to other units that have certain talent`s.
3) Some neutral creeps spawning , so it`s not 1 time island/area killing and getting exp. Something like every day game time there are some new wandering enemy creeps but that island/area specific, so after going to other places to get quests/items/units when you return to previous you`ll be stronger/higher lvl so this new enemy stacks wont bring much of exp but would provide some chests during battles, and advancement in medals/or pet dragon(maybe returning of spirits of rage) after it.
4) Changed medal advancement. I think it`s great way to reward players for tactisc, and planing of battles, but it`s not even lvling, only 3 lvl each is low. For example grand strategy it`s obsolete to finish battles with no loss after 50, no need to kills units with trap after 100 etc. On other hand maybe +2/4/6/8/10% crit chance from rage use on 1/3/7/12/21 K rage used in battles, this way you get 3lvl of medal at about 50+ lvl hero, almost end of game when it`s not much bonus since you get much more from skills or items. Or for +mana medal for mage 600 casting for +15 mana ???
5) Same as medals goes for pet dragon, every skill have cap after which cant be rased any more. In KB-TL with rage spirits you could skip some skills all together to boost ones you pick to use (if you had luck after lvling spirits to have right choice).
If i play Warrior class and have 150+ rage why cant i have stronger pet dragon then Mage with 82 which is most cost for lava call.
6) As above more lvl`s for spells. Lets say 5 lvl, but diferent effect/dmg distribution.
So if you have enough magic crystals and mana you chose between casting more suport spells, or 1-2 devastating.
7) Changed class specific skills, and couple of them. Example if you pick Bloodthirst get 2 new skills after, but they exclude each other, maybe 1 more lvl after that. That would make some differences in playing style.
8 ) Difficulty changed, now it efects enemy strenght, gold income, pet dragon. ANd none of those things directly influence final score in game. Gold is important until mid game, after it`s just something you carry around. No matter if you pick Normal/Hard/Impossible diff lvl you get same amount of runes after lvling, and all spells have same efects and dmg output in all diff lvl`s, while pet dragon is crippled on higher difficulties.
9) And something to be done with Final score formula. It doesnt take in calculation pet dragon, unit`s killed/lost ratio (for those that play imposible no loss would get some bonus in scoring higher, now it`s just personal challenge), or number of companions ( if your faithfull to 1 man, or whore yourself to any1 that wants to follow you :-) it doesnt affect score game). Now it`s highest score for 7 day with all quests and 60+lvl, but if we skip some quests like returning antidote potion to Rusty anchor, and geting tools for breaking that stupid meteorite to ELon, we could get it done in 6 days (or even less with 2-3 less quests and maybe 1 lvl cause bonus exp form those quests arent that high late game, and will get 100+ more points in score. So in this formula game developers f...ed up : you play shortest game possible we`ll reward you with more points after.
Instead of playing diferent possibilities/units/tactics you need to use what units you get on 1 island to clear it as much as possible before going to next, and when you return to that island to finish some quest left behind there almost no enemy to fight with units you got on other islands.
10) Some kind of multiplayer would be great. I`m not thinking MMO. but something lie Hot seat/Lan games from older HoMM. Cause now AI just isn`t enough challenge as is always with some live opponent, and if would be more fun :-)

[valoel]

Some thought on potiental new Classes - I have like a million new ideas for modding the current version aswell as a sequel :)

Warrior Classes:

Knight
Alignment: Good
Prefered Race: Human
Hero Focus: Might and Leadership
Unit Bonus: Morale
Spellcasting: Low(access to a few mass beneficial spells)
Leadership: High
Unique Medals and skills

Death Knight
Alignment: Evil
Prefered Race: Undead
Hero Focus: Balanced Magic/Might
Unit Bonus: Enemies have bad morale
Spellcasting: Medium (only "death magic")
Leadership: Medium
Unique Medals and skills

Berserker
Alignment: Neutral
Prefered Race: Orc
Hero Focus: Innate Abilities
Unit Bonus: Adrenaline
Spellcasting: Innate
Leadership: Very High
Unique Medals and sKills

Mixed Classes:

Ranger
Alignment: Good
Prefered Race: Elf
Hero Focus: Archery
Unit Bonus: Speed
Spellcasting: Above Medium(only access to good spells)
Leadership: Medium
Unique Medals and skills

Beastmaster
Alignment: Neutral
Prefered Race: Neutral animals and Beasts
Hero Focus: None
Unit Bonus: Enhanced Animals
Spellcasting: Summoning
Leadership: Medium
Uniue Medals and skills

Dwarven Keeper:
Alignment: Neutral
Prefered Race: Dwarf
Hero Focus: Resistance
Unit Bonus: None
Spellcasting: None
Leadership: Below Medium
Unique Medals and skills

Reptilian:
Alignment: Neutral
Prefered Race: Lizard
Hero Focus: Enemy have lower resistance
Unit Bonus: Regeneration
Spellcasting: Limited
Leadership: High
Unique Medals and skills

Wizard Classes:

Necromancer
Alignment: Evil
Prefered Race: Undead
Hero Focus: Death Magic
Unit Bonus: None
Spellcasting: Death Magic
Leadership: Low
Unique Medals and skills

Mage:
Alignment: Good
Prefered Race: Human
Hero Focus: Good Magic
Unit Bonus: Magic Damage increased
Spellcasting: Order/Good
Leadership: low
Unique Medals and skills

Demon Lord:
Alignment: Evil
Prefered Race: Demon
Hero Focus: Damaging Spells
Unit Bonus: High Initiative
Spellcasting: Fire/Chaos
Leadership: Very Low
Unique Medals and skills

[odyody]

bosses more easy

[onepiece]

Then it seems it's time for the creator of this thread to once again give his (almighty XD) opinion.

Since it seems the dev's won't be doing a 4th KB (KB; KB:AP, KB:MotO...) it seems plausible that we now can say whatever crazy thing we want to do or see in a future, or even in the present game (MotO).

Odyody; really? Easier bosses? Bosses are not that overpowered in case you are aiming for normal playthrough, that is you can lose a few units in a battle and won't CARE you don't achieve a perfect score (as if it exists) . Those aiming for no-loss game will have a good time planing new strategies and realizing that even in the hardest difficulty, the boss are not impossible and in fact very easy if you are really experienced and know how to play and plan your strategy.

Valoel; good ideas, now I would just like for someone to explain it very easy to me how to mod the game an keep it alive (hell, Titan Quest and Inmortal Throne have like 4 complete mods create by the players themselves even after IronLore closed it's offices; I haven't even seen a single REAL mod for KB) But I also have interesting ideas but that, probably and sadly, won't ever see the light because the dev's can't do a good editor and/or explain how it works.

Fatt Shade; well I'm taking both a break and somewhat lost hope in KB2 XD. I hope Katauri doesn't end with Royal Quest (RQ) as Ascaron did with Sacred 2 (a project far too ambitious with too many faults, that despite being fun wasn't profitable enough to keep the company alive).
It was far more safe for Katauri to do KB2, since by the time they complete RQ there would be to many games far similar to it, when there would be like a single game that would have competed against KB2 with online multiplayer (someone wants 8vs8?)

New ideas? Well it seems I've run out of it (maybe if the forum looked more alive and the dev's said "Hi, we're working on KB2 !" I would be having new ones)

For now, let's just rest until Katauri come back to us and say: "I'm sorry, I was too prideful and forgot about you, our players. Now it's time to redeem myself developing, the long awaited, King's Bounty 2"

[Fatt_Shade]

For now, let's just rest until Katauri come back to us and say: "I'm sorry, I was too prideful and forgot about you, our players. Now it's time to redeem myself developing, the long awaited, King's Bounty 2"
Yea it would be nice to see/hear some real news about anything related to KB2. Blizzard have enough sense to at least give bait for players : Were making Diablo3, but we dont know when or if we`ll finish it, but now there are millions of ppl waiting for it, because they know something is in process. Katauri finished Crossworlds, and since then no news at all of continuing, it`s great game, i like much thing, there are problems and some unclear things about relations units/items/spell atc but all fixable. In my opinion we need new campaigns and multiplayer most, all other things can be fixed with moding, or some patch. That`s all, no need for changing graphic or game engine, it works great, sound is OK, graphic OK, story OK(only need to prolong it, or if they want mix some new storyline ,doesnt matter). Only thing it`s SHORT. We play 1 campaign with 3 hero classes, but when finish it with 1 class, changing class wont make anything different in game, you still play same quests, same enemy heroes, same islands. I except that KB2 type of games cant make profit like D3, Starcraft2 of WoW, but i think that Katauri should keep with what they do great - strategy games Real time, Turn based doesnt matter. I`ll repeat myself with this fact, KB games lack allot for no multiplayer of any kind, but making MMO will ruin whole story and great world they made so far. But until next part of KB franshize, i`m waiting for Ubisoft to finish HoMM6 and hoping it wont disappoint me like 5th.

[onepiece]

Well, Never played a HoMM before the 5th. I was playing that one when KB came out and after playing it, MoMM felt so boring and slow (seriously slow) that KB became the only game I played. In fact I haven't yet finished Homm V XD

[rickah88]

Well, Never played a HoMM before the 5th. I was playing that one when KB came out and after playing it, MoMM felt so boring and slow (seriously slow) that KB became the only game I played. In fact I haven't yet finished Homm V XD

You should give Heroes 3 a try(Armageddon's Blade & Shadow of Death expansions). I still play this game after all these years.
Granted the graphics can't compete with anything current, but the gameplay is quite enjoyable. I've downloaded a collection of over 500 maps and have only gotten through about 300 of them. I can still find people making new maps so the enthusiasm is still there.
Anyway, I would suggest looking into it and giving it a try. You can get Heroes 3 Complete very cheap, which has all three games on 1 disc.

[ckdamascus]

You should give Heroes 3 a try(Armageddon's Blade & Shadow of Death expansions). I still play this game after all these years.
Granted the graphics can't compete with anything current, but the gameplay is quite enjoyable. I've downloaded a collection of over 500 maps and have only gotten through about 300 of them. I can still find people making new maps so the enthusiasm is still there.
Anyway, I would suggest looking into it and giving it a try. You can get Heroes 3 Complete very cheap, which has all three games on 1 disc.

I loved Heroes 3, however, I run Windows 7 64 bit now and I heard there was a lot of problems playing that game in Windows 7.

I could run it in a virtual machine, or I could slide over to my old windows 2000 machine. :)

I'd much rather be able to play it natively on my primary machine though.

[Fatt_Shade]

I agree with `rickah88` , HoMM3 is great game. I like unofficial expansion Wog, that was created by some Rusian team ( they really love turn based games :-) Great idea for individual exp for units which made us to play carefully and perserve our army, but allas it was full of bugs.
There are so much custom made maps, and all of them can be played differently but for me most fun in HoMM3 was in Hot seat/Lan with some friends. That`s why i would love for KB2 to have some kind of multiplayer option, untill then were just wishfully adding to this list :-)

[onepiece]

Now if just the editor could be used to create new mods and give some more variety to the game (seriously needed since OotM is the same as in AP). Anyone having results using the editor or am I just too noob XD

[OGKingsBounty92]

The ONLY issue I had with TL was the rarity of artifacts and/or some units and less enemies towards the end. For example I found the Pain Skull towards the end of the game and there wasn't enough enemies around to unlock it. I figured AP was the same after reading some reviews but I was happy with AP because of the large degree of options and large amount of different artifacts.

Either Pet Dragon or Rage Chest is fine for me..just give us more enemies, yes even filler ones (remember, now you DON'T have to fight them if you don't want to) in case we get an artifact that needs X amount of battles to unlock towards the end.

So just MORE enemies and..Keep up the good work, the game is excellent as it is. You make some of these ridiculous request changes throughout this thread and it won't be KB anymore. I don't need a pretty new dress or new pink boots for my character or a new look or options to change character..I need more GAMEPLAY! \m/

[rickah88]

I suppose my biggest wish for KB2...would be KB2!!!! I hope this great series continues forward!

[onepiece]

I suppose my biggest wish for KB2...would be KB2!!!! I hope this great series continues forward!

You took the word out of my mouth

[Fatt_Shade]

But why think small ? Lets request something more : KB3, KB4 and KBultimate :-)
Royal quest still is geting time/money and they will finish game 6 years to late to get any atantion from mmorpg comunity, and i`m afraid 1c/katauri wont take that well :-(
If you do something good, stick with it. Why they want to redevelop warm water(saying in my country) ? Instead fixing/expanding things they already have in hands they try to take part of mmo profit from blizzard and such.

Great thing about this series (KB) is great game play, available combinations, replayability to try/check things you thought during curent playthrough . . .
So instead wasting time/resources on RQ why not prolonging story and ading couple of elements in already existing game. In this tread there are some great ideas (mostly mine from earlier posts :-P ), but other are good aswell.
So once again i only ask for any news about continuing of KB series to w8, or i`m just going to buy WoW acount and finish with it. I`we seen what it can do to a person :-( , pls katauri dont make me do this :-D

[ckdamascus]

I love King's Bounty Armored Princess/Crossworlds to death, but I think it might be the end of King's Bounty.

I wouldn't hold my breathe for the sequel. I do hope I am completely wrong though. :)

[onepiece]

@Fatt Shade; In my country we say rediscover the wheel; and remember that I have provided good ideas so don't take all the credit yourself XD

Well, if nothing more, we might have to do what the community did with Titan Quest, re-mod all the game (if only the editor could be useful...=( )

I might add that I'm still waiting for KB Exxeleron!!: In search of more booty

[Fatt_Shade]

@ckdamascus As you said, we all fear we came to end of this series.
@onepeace For moding i looked at some files and item/skills (some of them)/spells and such are simple to change but thats not what makes game.
When i tried to add rune bonuses to some unit talents (like rune mage have) i had no f...ing idea how to do it. I`m more of hardware guy networs etc, this coding and moding not my stuff really.
I`w mentioned before HoMM3-WoG game that some russians made and it had great ideas (exp for all units and lots of new skills, and no loss game really shined there, but since it was made by gamer`s not proffesional programers it had to much bugs to really hit market). Simmilar mod was made here for KB-AP but on tread lots of ppl said it was unbalanced since enemy creeps never changed while player get super/imba strong units from it after 10-15 lvls, so never tried it myself. So all in all not much hope for continuing of KB world.
I`ll just go and commit digital sucide and get WoW acount :-)

[Celinna]

my biggest wish

I want Amelie back !!!
loved to play her again in KB2

and of course Kings Bounty 2 :)

[Fatt_Shade]

You loved playing Amelie in KB2, but you wish KB2 to come out.
A bit confuzed my friend ? :-P

[joasoz]

They could at least use the current semi-functioning editor and whip out another KB standalone game. It would be cheap to make, and it should sell quite well.

Kings Bounty: The Ogre Supremacy :) I would buy it without reading a single review....

[onepiece]

King's Bounty: Even more loot XD

[Fatt_Shade]

Why more loot ?
Every game i played so far i finished with more then 4 mil gold, and at least 50 items i dont use, w8ing to get neatness skill do destroy them.
For mage hero no need to buy new units if you have sacrifice spell, paladin have resurrection skill to keep his losses to minimum, only warrior might have some problems keeping his army to full.
Who ever played Diablo2 know how horadric cube changes game, since best items in game arent found but made from runes/gems/socketed items so how about making something like that adding variety. 90% of items in KB2 are useless after 10th lvl even more if you pick some exact build and stick with it (only undead, or shrek build, all dragon army etc). So change item mechanics, and get some way to make new items of old weak ones with runes/gold.

[onepiece]

I agree with you Fatt Shade, most items are ot useful after a while and most players won't use them, but they are still interesting to add variety to try new strategies and make some less races or units more usefuls.

My intention with the "more loot" was to meant it was more of everything (items, units, spells, summons, etc.)

Maybe, "King's Bounty 2: Even more of everything"?

[jake21]

Will there be a king bounty 2 ?

[1darklord]

I hope so, they are some of the best games I've played in years. :)

Daniel.

[Mandea]

There will be a KB MMO (or something like that). That's what they're working on right now. I can bet there will be a KB2 sometime, but not in the next 2 years.

[onepiece]

They made a spin-oof for facebook : King Bounty: Legions

http://apps.facebook.com/kingsbountylegions/

[archaven]

If there's a KB2.. what i need is unlimited reserve slot!. i hate to dismiss my hirelings that i may need to frequently swap in and out the creatures i want for certain battles. this is key for 0 casualties.

i wished in KB2 they don't have the reserve slots limitation. apart from strategy i also like to play with different types of creatures. so if i have unlimited reserve slots, i can swap in and out and mix with different types of creatures i want before i bring them in to the battle.

[Darkeonz]

Since all quests and such are text based, I really would love if there were some sort of tool where users could create their own campaigns. It should be that hard. It would be pretty awesome if they could make custom games. Even games where they can edit certain units and such for a specific game type

[markgil]

even with no new KB game in the near future, if ever, there are a few recently announced TBS games coming in 2012. they both look quite interesting imo:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/09/20/masters-of-the-broken-world-preview/

http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/warlock-master-of-the-arcane

[Fatt_Shade]

Since all quests and such are text based, I really would love if there were some sort of tool where users could create their own campaigns. It should be that hard. It would be pretty awesome if they could make custom games. Even games where they can edit certain units and such for a specific game type
There is editor, not 100% realiable but it can be used for much things. Some russian`s made whole new island with new race deadlizards and bunch quests (Red Sands).
Grimeleven made edit for that mod with some more new units, and changes (Red Sands Extreme).
And every unit/item/skill/medal you can edit to your idea. Only problem is to figure out what you want to change in game, and keep it balanced.

[Granamyr]

Looks like we'll be getting a new KB here in Spring....Warriors of the North. Screenshots don't look much different than any other KB, just a bit more polished.

http://www.1cpublishing.eu/game/king-s-bounty-warriors-of-the-north/overview

As to what I'd like to see, items that you can craft and then "unlock" based on how powerful they are. Much like that skull of pain that eats half your mana but becomes pretty good after 50 battles, something like that but you define what the benefit is.

Say you want a +30% dmg for archers and you want it to be footwear. Well this would cost about 100k, its original stats would be +5 defense for all archers but their attack is halved, requires 50 battles to unlock.

Every time you add an effect, it gets more expensive, the "before unlocked" penalty is greater and the number of battles required to unlock goes up. Race or type specific attributes would theoretically decrease the price/penalties so making your boots archer specific would be less expensive than just a global +30% physical dmg but specifying them as boots would make the price go up.

I'd also like to see a random battle generator so that you're not limited to a fixed number of enemy encounters.

[1darklord]

Yay can't wait. :grin:

Daniel.

[Fatt_Shade]

@Granamyr Hm , i wouldnt call it simply polished. It look there are lots of new units, so i hope they have new skills not just old skills/units in new models. Also no more rage spirits/pet dragon but new runic magic, so i expect it same use of rage in battles, maybe different mechanics but influenced by amount of runes you have accumulated like for runic mage/mystic passive abilities bonuses.
Great idea for new item upgrading system, something like runic staff from red sands mod, or trigger companion unit bonus. I have no idea how to make such item, but it sure can be done.
Also i would like to see choice skill/medal tree. like you pick some ksill and unlock other 2, then pick 1 of those and so forth but picking 1 way of upgrading locks other so you have to choose your build carefully and in advance plan how to play (save game in critical skill choices if want to try later different build), or something similar for medals - when you get some medals to certain lvl you unlock others, as it was in ap/cw we could build guardian angel to max lvl with archamage cheat in less then 20 battles, trapper medal with inquisitor cheat, treasure searcher with kiting . . . So if you want to play as was planed you develop hero in that order, of if some ppl want to rush through game that can be done also, but with some penalties. It players choice what to do.
Also change cap for attack/defense stats, intellect have no maximum for bonus spell dmg/duration, so why is there max for att/def stats. Bladeking here made something i asked him to try and it works great, so something like this could be implemented in new game, check his last post on page :
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=22725&highlight=attackb&page=6
I playedf bunch of mods for this game, and must say there are great ideas ppl added in their mods, so i at least hope that game developers check this forum for some ideas of what players want in game. If not were all f...d :-)

[katsukilove]

Played The Legend to Crossworlds, sincerely looking forward to King's Bounty 2, take your time, make it decent, I will wait.

Things I love from The Legend
+ Exploration
+ Rage Guardians

Things I love from Armored Princess/Crossworlds
+ Pet dragon (although the 4 guardians from TL are better)

Things I love in common
+ Spells
+ Limitless unit combination
+ Storyline and quests (some are really humorous)
+ Musics are good (but so few of them)

Basically I don't have bad comment on a game which gives me the feeling of "just one more turn".
- Graphic engine can be improved
- More good musics

[V0kesss]

[QUOTE=onepiece;186920]Hi everyone. In order to keep order in the forum and not use other threads to say what we want to see in a proper sequel (KB2 for convenience), I'm making this thread so everyone can post here.
Be respectful of other people opinions and let's have some fun until the game arrives (which is obvious to me even if they don't say anything)

Let the wish posting commence!

First what I WANT

More customization: Change the appearance of the hero and different models for each class; both male and female.

A new class, because the skill tree looks very saturated or maybe expand it with a 4th column.

More classes of "helpers", not just from the other sex (like the guild heroes from the arena, so you can "buy" them) and give them a more complex role in battle, as in controlling some units of his own or do some special attacks (in the Arena there where ones that did it).

Some "special" battles: Like 10 turn limit or the enemy get new units every x rounds, no magic/rage, etc.. to add a little variety (as in defender of the crown).
More 2 vs x battles.

More funny situations (as in TL) but also some more serious things (as in AP/CW).
More engaging second characters (is there even 1 engaging second character in the 3 games? Even the hero is not charismatic). Make some characters return (in the same game not in expansions) to add a feeling of progress. They feel very static and droid-like.

A better exploration system that takes the ships from AP (fast movement) with the big settings and continuity from TL. Some new lands never seen before (jungle, desert, etc.) because since TL the settings have been almost the same (demons, mountain with ice, underground, forest, lakes, etc.)

Some unique designs with navigation puzzles (a lo Golden Sun where some of your magics also have effects on the map?)

Better description for the items and don't make such mistakes with the abilities and skills (paladin prayer, army drum, etc.). Please correct them with a patch (it's not that difficult)

More original units (most of them are a bit generic both in terms of design and gameplay). The more originals are the droids, the gobots and the devil fish XD since they are very unique to the game (not generic to other games) and have some unique gameplay style (well not the devilfish)

Try to not use creatures that have been used so much (bye bye dragons....okay those can stay XD) but look more into traditional folklore form other cultures. Just in my country (Chile) there are like 100 total different creatures from the myths of different cultures that can be used in a game. Imagine in Russia (500-1000 maybe?)

Make units more complementary to each others (unit that boost units not used so much (snake, spiders, dragons). Also some classes lack level 1 units (demons, dwarves) and some are way more developed than others (elves have too many units next to demons).

Also describe better what is a "humanoid warrior" or what count as a "projectile" (just say what units are affected like you did with the new classes unique skills )

More bosses with unique style arenas (the driller is a good example)

More female units!!:-P

Great music (the games have always had great music but listening to "Glory Ride" while writing this makes me ask for more of it)

__________________[/I try to get in contact with the developers ( or modders ) of the King's Bounty series. I want to contribute to the fourth possible episode of King's Bounty series where ( and here comes the bomb) the Spirits of Rage return. Your wish list is quite good and helpful, and I have some similar ideas. If anyone can get me in contact with them, I'll gladly do my best to make the fourth episode a badass story..]

[V0kesss]

[QUOTE=DGDobrev;186991]So far the news are that KB may become a MMORPG or another type of online game, so be careful what you wish for :)[Duel of Spirits of Rage would be great if becomes MMORPG. My opinion...]

[onepiece]

We'll I'm back after a full year of not being on here...and still no signs of KB2 (and by just reading on the forum about WOTN, well it seems KB is getting milked till its udders are completely dry...)

So it seems, my fellows King Bountiers, we'll have to create KB2 ourselves:-P

[onepiece]

does someone have interest in this or is it too crazy of an idea to do it? tell me what you think about it

[markgil]

still no word about a true sequel to KB? with all the success of this series, i can't help but think that there will be an announcement eventually. perhaps in 2014?

[jake21]

Well I'm not sure if there will be one anytime soon. Another developer took a stab and produced warrior of the north and i think the reception was a bit cold; katurai is sucked into royal quest and from what little i could dig out i suspect they will be working on it for several more years.

[markgil]

Well I'm not sure if there will be one anytime soon. Another developer took a stab and produced warrior of the north and i think the reception was a bit cold; katurai is sucked into royal quest and from what little i could dig out i suspect they will be working on it for several more years.

thanks-sorry to hear this. the series was top notch before WON and i had hoped that katuri would want to capitalize on KB and produce a true sequel.

Lords of Discord which failed on KS seems quite similar so perhaps if they every get going it will make katuri want to make KB2. i hope KB does not die with WON as imo it still has a lot of possibilites.

[1darklord]

I didn't realise WOTN was by a different developer, that explains why it isn't nearly as good then. Real shame. :(

Daniel.

[jake21]

Well take it as her-sey; but the impression i get from waht i read is that katurai served as consultant and 1c softclub did the actual development but I could be in error.
-
Btw nuclear uniion might be a decent game to keep an eye on (schedule is q2 2014 but these things always run late). It is being done by 1c; there is a RPS article.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/07/06/interview-best-way-talk-nuclear-union/#more-114719
and
http://www.nuclearunion.com/
(which has another interview; but no news in 6 months).
-
hum guess it is only related to KB by having the same publisher. I personally wished katurai had done space rangers 3 or KB 2 rather than royal quest (which does not interest me and seems late to the mmo party) but it is what they wanted to do so is life. Maybe afterwards they will do KB 2 ?


I didn't realise WOTN was by a different developer, that explains why it isn't nearly as good then. Real shame. :(

Daniel.

[BB Shockwave]

I didn't realise WOTN was by a different developer, that explains why it isn't nearly as good then. Real shame. :(

Daniel.

Well... this explains a LOT. :( Why the heck did they give the game to a totally new team?!?

[AtrixWolfe]

I would really like to see as many if not more female units as male, as well as quite a few that are genderless
why? Because the princess set was a cool idea but it upset me there's like 4 female units in the entire game. Come on.

Also make unicorns not suck, in heroes 4 they were amazing but I find no use for them in King's Bounty even vs demons there's better choices

Other than that... please innovate and develop :) Because I like your game a ton already.