My thoughts about crossworlds

[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.

[onepiece]

@Dwagginz; Yeah I remember that they had this crazy idea of adding to almost all the units a second variation with little colors changes and tweaks (or was it a mod?)

Over the years they will look at new countries to develop games, not just in eastern europe or Northern asia (Russia). They are cheaper to produce and the people there have ideas that are fresh or add variety to a saturated market.
They will also make games that appeal to other audiences (adults or older people) with more mature themes (not tits XD). Think of Wii but done correct.

[Dwagginz]

Originally Posted by onepiece

@Dwagginz; Yeah I remember that they had this crazy idea of adding to almost all the units a second variation with little colors changes and tweaks (or was it a mod?)

Official expansion, I think it was the second one. It added units like the Paokai (From Dark Messiah Might & Magic) and a new upgrade per unit, which was usually a very nice remodel of the base unit. They did differ from the original upgrade, but I think it was often more of a "One has higher defence and morale, the other has higher attack and crit chance". I've got a booklet somewhere detailing all of the units :p

Originally Posted by onepiece

Over the years they will look at new countries to develop games, not just in eastern europe or Northern asia (Russia). They are cheaper to produce and the people there have ideas that are fresh or add variety to a saturated market.
They will also make games that appeal to other audiences (adults or older people) with more mature themes (not tits XD). Think of Wii but done correct.

I'll be honest - I enjoyed Divinity 2 and KB:AP more than quite a lot of non-European/Russian releases. I think European/Russian games have a charm about them that's lacking in the more popular releases. I think Kirill Pokrovsky had something to do with the excellence of Divinity 2, though :p

[onepiece]

@Dwagginz, Probably since the soundtrack for Divinity 2 is awesome. Love it.

Must be because in those territories the way of seeing things and the mythology associated with it is different and it allows for games different than the usual american/japanese ones we've had for the last 20 years; which are seriously most of the same know and you can count the original ones with the fingers in one hand (not for the indie games which are more innovative and fresh).

@BB; I suppose you're right since a good portion of the "upgraded" units have some more/less details and small changes.
The thing is that when you have a lot of units and many are very similar, you fell as if they just have like 10 basic models and with that they create 30 units (not in the game just an example).
I suppose it makes it easier and cheaper to program and work for the developers but it tends to get a little bit tiresome. And since most of the models where introduced with TL, they fell "heavy" now.

[BB Shockwave]

Funny thing is, for a long time I thought the red and emerald green dragons were the same 3D model - I only realized they were totally different when once I faced all three in battle. Nice work, Nival!

[Dwagginz]

Originally Posted by onepiece

@BB; I suppose you're right since a good portion of the "upgraded" units have some more/less details and small changes.
The thing is that when you have a lot of units and many are very similar, you fell as if they just have like 10 basic models and with that they create 30 units (not in the game just an example).
I suppose it makes it easier and cheaper to program and work for the developers but it tends to get a little bit tiresome. And since most of the models where introduced with TL, they fell "heavy" now.

That should be enough of a reason for a "KB2", if we're going to call it that. I'm sure Katauri have learnt a lot from these three games, and if they apply it to a KB2, it'd be great.

I hope they'd give us a better choice of characters, though.

[BB Shockwave]

Originally Posted by 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.

The thing is, if you want to do such things, you need to make a detailed model, and then make some of its "parts" disappear by deleting the alpha layer. In fact, KB did this too. Check Thorns and Royal Thorns - Royals have these spines and spikes on them. Or the various spiders - each one has different extremities. Orcs and Veteran Orcs differ by Veterans having the totem pole on their backs.