My thoughts about crossworlds

[Dwagginz]

I don't think Katauri, nor King's Bounty, will ever hit the "big leagues", and I don't think it's their fault. It's more to do with, in my opinion, turn based/real time games like this are a niche market. If you look at Disciples III, which one could argue was the highest profile release in this genre since HoMMV, that completely bombed and I guess it was partially due to the genre just not being overly popular.

I do think King's Bounty 2 would be the best bet. The graphics are looking a little dated and it'd be nice to see a better engine and perhaps bigger worlds. Also, I'd like the dialogue to go from walls of text to something a little more interactive. I think that'd be nice, personally.

I'll agree with onepiece's suggestions completely, though. I think 1C and perhaps Katauri could do with a better translator, along with more thorough proof reading of their work. It's not uncommon for a pluralised word (As an example, Warriors) to be referred to with the singular term, leading to slightly odd comments in the combat log such as "Warriors is..."

And again, he's right about the expansions. KB:TL > KB:AP was fine. KB:AP > KB:C was bordering on being a bit poor. There's some meat to it, I won't disagree there, but I personally felt that it was a bit on the thin side for a £15 game and that it was little more than a collection of mods.

[Metathron]

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

who cares that units are recolors. They play IMMENSLY differently then the units they are recolored from.

Well, I do, and I'm sure there are others out there who do as well. Gameplay, visuals and sound/music are all parts of immersion in the game. Certainly, gameplay is the most important of the three, but the others are important as well. So the new units "just" bring different gameplay to the table, whereas the sounds and visuals are practically the same. So yeah, for me that does take away from the immersion somewhat.

Originally Posted by onepiece

-With better translation (hire some professionals or ask us devs)
-Correct their mistakes (come on, why does the paladin prayer ability says the same thing?) and bugs

Yep, polish is probably Katauri's biggest challenge, and other Russian developers' too, if I may venture to say so.

Originally Posted by Dwagginz

There's some meat to it, I won't disagree there, but I personally felt that it was a bit on the thin side for a £15 game and that it was little more than a collection of mods.

That sums up my thoughts on the game as well.

[BB Shockwave]

Metathron, KB-CRossworlds in an expansion... to a game that was pretty much an expansion to the KB Legends game. It's more like a mod, but it turned out to be much more then that, however I think you have had too high expetations.

Armored Princess WAS the expansion of King's Bounty - it had new units (graphically too), new skills, spells, etc. - but the main game and about 85% of the units were the same, just recolored. So yeah, AP was an expansion -a standalone expansion, but expansion nonetheless. Crossworlds on the other hand, was a not-standalone mod to AP.

I was expecting frankly a lot less from Crossworlds (I thought Orcs on the March will be another short campaign) so I was pleasantly surprised. I think they made the main AP game much better without taking away any of the old game's fun factors.

I was never expecting new unit 3D models - making those would have meant this expansion would have taken more then a year to make.

Regarding translations - I found some errors in the english version too (sadly there is no Hungarian for AP yet), but seeing as the text in the game is in an extractable format somewhere, even us fans could fix that easily. I love KB for it's open attitude towards modding. Makes the game stay in circulation much, much longer thanks to the community. I mean, look at Titan Quest - the company is long defunct, but people are still making mods for that game.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

Metathron, KB-CRossworlds in an expansion... to a game that was pretty much an expansion to the KB Legends game. It's more like a mod, but it turned out to be much more then that, however I think you have had too high expetations.

Armored Princess WAS the expansion of King's Bounty - it had new units (graphically too), new skills, spells, etc. - but the main game and about 85% of the units were the same, just recolored. So yeah, AP was an expansion -a standalone expansion, but expansion nonetheless. Crossworlds on the other hand, was a not-standalone mod to AP.

I was expecting frankly a lot less from Crossworlds (I thought Orcs on the March will be another short campaign) so I was pleasantly surprised. I think they made the main AP game much better without taking away any of the old game's fun factors.

I was never expecting new unit 3D models - making those would have meant this expansion would have taken more then a year to make.

Regarding translations - I found some errors in the english version too (sadly there is no Hungarian for AP yet), but seeing as the text in the game is in an extractable format somewhere, even us fans could fix that easily. I love KB for it's open attitude towards modding. Makes the game stay in circulation much, much longer thanks to the community. I mean, look at Titan Quest - the company is long defunct, but people are still making mods for that game.

After steamrolling past the two short campaigns (which have a lot of replay value by themselves, since I would love to retry them with different strategies and they are short, so no major commitment), I was really shocked to see Orcs on the March looked like a re-skinned Armored Princess.

I was almost sad... until I played it.

I highly suggest people to simply try playing it and you will be surprised. The new training schools, the new items (integrates new items plus the old gift pack mod), the new unit skills, and new spells, all open up NEW strategies.

They really did mods to the game to help eliminate some really old standing issues.

At a high level, the major changes was eliminating the near requirement to kite (or luck) and to help make far more units viable in the game. I am talking about Impossible NoLoss games.

I lamented that the game devolved heavily into using only a handful of units.

a) royal griffins and black knights were the only units with more than one counter attack, making them verrry ideal for certain combinations. Now this is no longer true!

b) black dragons were deadly and awesome, but there was no way to resurrect them, among a lot of other level 5 monsters (cyclops) and even level 4s (royal thorns), etc. Now this is fixed with rune mage.

c) rune mage also helps condense many units into one, thus allowing people to use more varied units while maintaining the old gameplay style. Plus the level 5 resurrect ability is great.

d) the orc team is totally revised, allowing for incredible combinations and now, much harder enemies.

e) training school allows you to AVOID needing to kite or worry if your game randomly generated enough units.

[fld88]

I don’t think it is fair calling any of the King’s Bounty games unpolished. There were a very few minor inconsistencies but overall I would rate all 3 as having above average polish. I never crash.

But beyond polish, and as a programmer myself, I’m amazed of how thoughtful the programmers and designers were in putting so much thought into every nuance of these games--the design, the interface, the playability, the graphics, the spells, the items, the creatures ,etc. I’ve never seen a game that had so many useful spells and items that you have to change up depending on the situation. I’m really impressed with the Kings Bounty series.

That said I have one disappointment in the Crossworld’s expansion so far. Previously I enjoyed playing as a mage the most and was able to get through the games with just the right amount of difficulty. However I gave up on playing March of the Orcs as a mage--it was just too much of a hard, old slog and I while I know I could have eventually got through it I was not having fun. However it is great fun playing as a warrior.

[onepiece]

@ckdamascus; then how many rune mages and mind runes would you need to resurrect a BD? 5 of them according to me and 20 mind runes, which may seem like a lot but if you play carefully that may be enough (but that seems to take resurrection skill into consideration so maybe a little less)

There are new things but most of them are very small compared to what AP brought. Only the orcs are almost totally different and even some spells are the spirit's abilities from TL. That's why hardcore fans are a little dissapointed and maybe angry XD

@Dwagginz; you totally get what I want to say. Of course this type of gameplay may be very niche like but that doesn't mean they can open to a broader audience if the do a better work (maybe more marketing and voices)

@metathron; agree with you on the cost (maybe they are gathering resources (gold?XD) for KB2?. I also agree that recolored units don't allow for a better immersion but I also agree with BB that they allow for very different strategies so it's not as bad as it could have been (think generic hack'n slash)

@fld88; Yep. Most of the spells, while you may not use them, are very varied and allow for very different type of styles and you will have them because you know, sometime, you will need them.

Although I think the more spells there are, the mage class gets the most of them (more mana and easier to develop mage skills and do more damage with spells)

I wouldn't call the game unpolished but more that the developers don't look at the game after they finish it (and we have pointed almost all the issues here in the forum) so it's more that they are being lazy.

Now I'm playing as a mage in hard and made a kite run. Couldn't believe that you could get to level 21 without fighting and whoever said it is right. You can even get up to level 23 perhaps.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by onepiece

@ckdamascus; then how many rune mages and mind runes would you need to resurrect a BD? 5 of them according to me and 20 mind runes, which may seem like a lot but if you play carefully that may be enough (but that seems to take resurrection skill into consideration so maybe a little less)

Technically one, practically, a handful. Or, if you have shaman to heal th black dragon, just one.

If you can heal the unit to max, then use a resurrect, then you can revive the unit. So if you lost one black dragon, and it was fully healed, you could get away with one.

Originally Posted by onepiece

Now I'm playing as a mage in hard and made a kite run. Couldn't believe that you could get to level 21 without fighting and whoever said it is right. You can even get up to level 23 perhaps.

I really don't know what it is. I usually have a hard time beating impossible mage no-loss without kiting, but this time it was MUCH easier. No need to kite at all, and I didn't even farm out specific items.

The better unit distribution, ability to pick the right units with training schools, and rune mage really have altered the game quite a bit to make Impossible No Loss games easier.

The mid-game is trickier though since the orcs are ridiculously overpowered.

Regarding polish, admittedly the game does seem a little unpolished (AP) but it was super solid and stable (AP).

Crossworlds has some bugs unfortunately. (the shaman trophy pop up bug) and dialogue bugs too on Debir, etc.

That said, it is still pretty darn good and I highly recommend it to everyone.

[Dwagginz]

Originally Posted by onepiece

@Dwagginz; you totally get what I want to say. Of course this type of gameplay may be very niche like but that doesn't mean they can open to a broader audience if the do a better work (maybe more marketing and voices)

I'm not disagreeing, but I think all KB could manage (In my opinion) is roughly the level of HoMM, and that's if the series is lucky and somehow Katauri or 1C (Who owns the license?) can get a deal with a bigger publisher, ergo more money for development.

The polish point I think changes on what you apply it to. In terms of gameplay? For the most part, KB is polished. Visually? It's polished. The translation? Good at best. It's not perfect though, and suffers from a number of minor mistakes and poor translations.

[onepiece]

Originally Posted by Dwagginz

I'm not disagreeing, but I think all KB could manage (In my opinion) is roughly the level of HoMM, and that's if the series is lucky and somehow Katauri or 1C (Who owns the license?) can get a deal with a bigger publisher, ergo more money for development.

The polish point I think changes on what you apply it to. In terms of gameplay? For the most part, KB is polished. Visually? It's polished. The translation? Good at best. It's not perfect though, and suffers from a number of minor mistakes and poor translations.

The problem is that there are not such high profile games from eastern Europe and Russia (except Metro 2033 and The Witcher (great game)and some others) so I think it could be hard to get a publisher with a game that already has a niche style of gameplay. But since it's way similar to HoMM, maybe Ubisoft or someone would take it into consideration (of course that depends if the ones who own King's Bounty want to)
But iIf they get one, they would get an immense increase in popularity worldwide.

The only problem from the visuals comes from the fact that many units (as in almost all other games) are very repetitive. I would ask for more unique designs and not copy/paste design and change colors (inquisitor/priest)

[Dwagginz]

I, personally, think Katauri could take another bit of inspiration from Nival's HoMM V and make the second/upgraded unit look similar, but different. I'm sure that very few unit upgrades were straight recolours, and once you added the expansions you had two or three different models per unit (Succubi, for example, came in 3 variations), even if the major difference was the removal/addition of visual effects.

I see your point about high profile games, but on the other hand if you look at, as you said, UbiSoft, publishers are looking at "outside" talent. HoMM V was Nival, MM:H VI is by Black Hole (Budapest). There's a lot of talent in Eastern Europe and Russia with studios like Katauri and CDProjekt RED and hopefully over the years we'll see a bigger uptake of them.