Official wish list for King's Bounty 2

[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]

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.

[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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.