Quote:
Originally Posted by joasoz
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.