Fantasy strategy game will be announced this next week

Cruel, kind, mysterious...I don't know what to make of this one-liner

Awesome! Please don't be shy on screenshots.

And please put up the preorder page along with the announcement

Looking forward to this one.

O.M.G.

Thank God I will have Fallout 3 to get me through the waiting on Tuesday. . . but how do I survive the waiting until Tuesday?!

And, if we're very lucky - on Thursday early morning, the second beta 1.995(rc) for GC2 will be made available too... right?

Indeed, indeed. Currently, I'm playing World of Goo. A lot of fun if you like that type of game. Check it out if you haven't seen it. More than worth the 20 bucks.

Huh, this Wednesday is still October. I thought you said you wouldn't be announcing this until November...

I guess I shouldnt look a gift-horse in the mouth. Now, I must patiently wait until Wed.

is it going to be anything like age of wonders, i still love the original game. one of the best fantasy turn based strategy IMHO

though i guess you didn't say turn based, i just remember that from somewhere. Though i know it will be good comming from where it is. look forword to it

Oh giddy giddy giddy.

And when can we download the beta?

The Beta should start in the spring (I think I heard Feb. last, but I'd imagine later than that).

I was just thinking about this last night- and now it's announced ahead of schedule.  Pretty cool.  SD has done a really good job of keeping quiet about the whole thingm much to my disappointment.

Good to know, Brad.  Looking forward to seeing what's in store.

Fantasy strategy, eh? Do I have something to replace my inexplicable love for Heroes of Might and Magic?

In the report SD sent out, it said beta before June Not very specific there..

Pah, just give me the sources and I'll compile it myself. I'll just fill the missing bits with pictures of eet. June is way too long.

Btw. for those who want to know a bit about an earlier vision of Brad about not-MoM I present the following quote:

Quoting Frogboy, reply 0

1) Character building. The player is a character in the game. Nearly all magic in the world actually flows from the player. If you've ever read The Silmarillion (Tolkien) all the magic in Arda basically comes from the spirit of the things created by Eru. So in this sense, the player is a kind of Valar of sorts who can choose to invest their growing power into their creations/minions or into themselves (or a bit of both). That's an over simplification but the point is, part of the game mechanics is having to choose between making your forces more powerful or actual character.

2) The game is very spell-centric. The 3D engine is being designed so you can do Populous style spells to the world. Since it's turn-based (as opposed to real-time) that also means you can have some ridiculously fancy spell effects.

3) Very distinct magic schools.

4) You cannot build heroes. They have to be recruited and there's no Inn. Ones ability to attract heroes is one of the game mechanics and "interesting choices" players have. Those heroes can be wimpy or powerful depending on how the player chooses to use and invest in them.

5) There is massive scaling in this. At the beginning of Fellowship of the Rings (the movie edition) you could see just how powerful Sauron is. In this, if you manage to get a dragon, that dragon can wipe out hundreds of units. And by scale, we mean there's thousands and thousands of troops. One ancient dragon is taking out hundreds of troops.

6) Cities are built and improved and local geography matters. I won't say more on this right now.

7) Multiplayer will involve all players moving at the same time.

8) Battles zoom in so that tactical combat can occur which is also turn based.

I do want to stress that the goal for this isn't to be a MoM clone. It has its own game mechanics, many of which are in common with MoM since, in a sense, both want to have a lot of Civilization-style elements.

One advantage of being designed in 2007 is the hardware requirements are probably going to be higher than our other games. I want to see large battles. I want to see creatures that can wipe out massive numbers of foot soldiers and such. I want to see magic spells that can flood terrain, raise mountains, ruin worlds. I want to see the land sicken and die when evil takes it over.

If we'd done a MOM2, we would have been faithful to the Master of Magic mechanics. But since we're doing a new game, hopefully we'll be able to make a game that combines favorite elements from many games plus adds our own on innovations to the genre. But it'll be some months before we start putting up any previews or anything (or even announce the game officially).

Potentially old not-MoM screenshot:

The screenshot is called Elemental which was once the name of a supposed turn based fantasy strategy game.

Two design screenshots (a dragon and a watermill) can be found here.

Also a small blurb from here says:

That's about all I found about not-MoM.

Sounds exciting.  I like those design decisions.  The stuff about large scale, terrain deformation, world affecting spells, and just general epic wizard battling is a great flavour when done right.

I am thinking of Sourcery (Terry Pratchett), where the wizards all build huge towers and throw magic at each other, with most of it rebounding off and laying waste to the surrounding terrain (it's a far better book than I make it sound).

Or throwing fireballs in Black & White, now that was a joy.  Superheating stone for dropping on people's houses, and breaking up that huge pile of rocks in the final level to make an everlasting fire.

And Dominions, a game with a lot of problems which still somehow manages to hook me in.  Swarming frost giants with flame-blessed flagellants, sacrificing blood slaves, mermen and kraken fighting undead hoardes at the bottom of the sea. And all the while the mages and priests put on a light show.

Most of all: fortresses in the sky, mana nodes, regenerating death trolls, phantom warriors, war bears, invisible flying warships.

Woohoo!!!  NMoM will get an official title soon. I cant wait!!!  I think it should be called 'Magic of Masters!' or 'Monsters of Magic' or better yet 'Magisterium of Might'.

BTW: Everyone should give Van some karma for that post.

I'm in school on wednesday and the damn IT guys have blocked Stardocks site so I have to get home first to see the announcement! 

Excellent collection of facts, Vandenburg!        (Hey, is Vandenburg your last name?)

From what's been rumoured, it appears that GalCivIII will not be incorporating our beloved Metaverse style system into that game... a shame really, but I wonder if there are designs to introduce such a system into the upcoming nMoM fantasy tbs game.

It would be great fun to have Empire stats for that one... just think of the possibilities!

WOOT Finally we get some info... Also on a side note i can finally clone jump... work in 3hours.... this is going to be a rough monday... and i am sick... sometimes I really hate myself.

Awesome

SD should hold a naming contest. They list five likely names, one of which is the real one let the community guess and justify why they think a name is the official one and lets see who can select the right one.

Well...

It's Not-MoM, right?

So...

Is it DaD?

My apologies if someone has already made this joke, particularly as I know it's lame, but someone had to do it, and I didn't see anyone do it yet.

Happy! Happy! Happy!

Am I the only person who dose not really care about this new game. Maybe that will change once some actual info is released.

LOL well if they need more capital for developing it, they could always put it up for pre-orders who in turn could then help to beta it!  Im sure though, that no one else ever does that

I love Stardock's beta system. There are so many games I knew I was going to get, but the betas were random selections and junk like that.. with SD, if you preorder you're in, so yay