King's Bounty MMO

[fastjaw24]

Originally Posted by Nevar

I don't believe this is true. As far as I'm aware, KB is considered a cult classic- it has a small, dedicated number of players. There aren't that many people who prefer turn-based strategy over an FPS, RPG or RTS. I just don't think there is enough demand for KB to ever be a best-selling series, and it's not just because of the problems with WotN.

For the same reason, though, I don't think the devs will ever invest a lot in a multiplayer version of KB. You can argue and tell me HoMM has multiplayer, but HoMM is a different series.

You don't have to prefer turn-based strategy over a certain genre in order to get a top selling game. You have to be able to make the game fun for people to play and put a lot better effort into your game then this game got. I play every type of genre game made as long as I find the game fun to play. Do I think that King's Bounty in its current condition is going to be a top seller....hell no. But you go on to say that turn based strategy can not be a top selling game and that is wrong. Civilization 5 is a turned based strategy game. Hell I mean its more turn based then King's Bounty is and people buy the crap out of it. Is it number 1 selling game of all time...no. Civilization is a good example of how if you make a turned based strategy game and you do a good job people will play it no matter what kinda game they like.

Why do people buy Civ 5? Well for one its a long running proven series that kinda started out like a cult classic but got pretty popular. They also buy it cause its a lot of fun to play and they do not care what category or genre it fits in. I mean hell over 2 years after release its still 1 of the top 10 played games on steam so I say turn based strategy can be a top seller if the effort is put into it. I have a lot of friends if I asked them if they liked turn based strategy games they would tell me..."no". But then I go on to say "but you play Civ 5 and its turn based strategy." And they say "Well that game is a lot of fun to play"

Even DragonAge on pc they thought people would not like the fact that you can pause the action. So basically DragonAge has turned into almost like a turn based strategy where you pause...issue orders...unpause and then repeat the process. But again where most people said it was a bad idea you have people that only want to play on PC cause of that feature alone that is not available on console.

I could argue from a single player point of a lot of people told Bethesda you going to have to make your game multiplayer or its just not going to sell. And they refused to make it multiplayer and after Morrowind,Oblivion,Fallout 3,New Vegas(they only partially developed this), and then Skyrim they basically continued to improve their game as time went and now not only have a best selling series they literally have thee best selling single player game of all time. Take a look at Arena(Elder Scrolls 1) would you have said that series would become the number 1 selling single player game of all time? Arena was crap it was pretty bad but a few people liked it. How about Daggerfalls(Elder Scrolls 2) would you have said it then? Probably not, so to say that King's Bounty is not capable of becoming a best seller I think is very wrong.

I know you going to say well civ 5 has multiplayer and you are right it does. Then you will go on to say that a single player turned based strategy game will never make it as a best seller. And well you could be right there,but you never know with their current effort especially with wotn. I see this game getting maybe one more installment if they do another halfazz job like that again.

At this point I think King's Bounty has a very good foundation to become a lot better selling of a game(not like we trying to make a best seller out of E.T. from Atari) it just depends on how much time and money 1C Company is willing to give it. And by my guess is not much.

[Nevar]

Wow, okay. That's a lot of thoughts. I'll try to answer in order:

1.) I concede on the fun-to-play argument. It's true that a fun game can sell regardless of genre, IF people will be willing to try it.

2.)Digression: I tried Civ 5 and I didn't like it all that much. To this day I still feel like that was 20+ USD I could have spent elsewhere (I got it on sale). I've actually played Warlock: Master of the Arcane more, which is less known, less elaborate, (and less expensive) but similar. Although I think a lot of it has to do with me never having played Civ 1,2,3, and 4... And also the fact that Civ doesn't have undead. i.e. I don't like historical games.

3.) I totally agree with the Bethesda part. I have a lot of friends who never played any of the Elder Scrolls games before Skyrim (personally, I've never played Morrowind).

4.) The idea of a turn-based strategy game where you're seriously trying not to lose any units is a core mechanic of KB that is just... not for everyone. That was one of the things that turned me off when I first started playing KBTL. I got over it, but not everyone will.

[fastjaw24]

4.) The idea of a turn-based strategy game where you're seriously trying not to lose any units is a core mechanic of KB that is just... not for everyone. That was one of the things that turned me off when I first started playing KBTL. I got over it, but not everyone will.

Personally this is where I think the game could be a lot better. Why do they pretty much give you gold after every fight? It is to refill your army but yet a lot of people try not to lose anything or hate to lose any units. What bothers me is not to lose units its the act of having to go travel across continents to go get a resupply which becomes very tedious for a game like King's Bounty. I know comparing Civ to King's Bounty is not the same thing but you know in Civ you have to sometimes lose some to gain a lot and I think they need to implement this into King's Bounty a little better. Can't say I think HoMM is a lot better about this but(personally like King's Bounty style game better) you are going to lose units in HoMM and you are constantly having to balance your odds of loss and gains vs your enemy. Where as in King's Bounty its just about that one fight pretty much.

2.)Digression: I tried Civ 5 and I didn't like it all that much. To this day I still feel like that was 20+ USD I could have spent elsewhere (I got it on sale). I've actually played Warlock: Master of the Arcane more, which is less known, less elaborate, (and less expensive) but similar. Although I think a lot of it has to do with me never having played Civ 1,2,3, and 4... And also the fact that Civ doesn't have undead. i.e. I don't like historical games.

And I am sure you are not the only one to feel this way. Turn based Strategy games tend to be a niche market that sometimes fills a niche by quite a bit like Civ pulled off. I have yet to play Warlock yet but I have it on my soon to do list it always comes up as the number 1 fantasy style game like civ so definitely a to do in the future for me. Most people would say historical games are boring and well most are but I do like the way Civ pulls off some good historical battles from a fun point of few. But then again Civ is not for everyone and I could see someone hating the game just as much as loving it for others.

And also the fact that Civ doesn't have undead.

Civ 2 test of time expansion is a fantasy based expansion revamped a little from the normal civ with most of the races from say like King's Bounty including undead. Again you may not like it cause the graphics are quite out dated and it is similiar to civ but if you can withstand older games it might be worth looking into. It was an expansion that a lot of people said "Why did they not make another one like test of time" I would like to see another one like test of time myself in civ 5 style or possibly upcoming civ 6 but I am not going to hold my breathe. I think Warlock is as close as we going to get to a fantasy civ for awhile. Civ tends to have a habit of the last expansion of almost every Civ made tends to far outrank the others. Civ2-test of time,Civ3-Conquest,Civ4 is still up for debate, and Civ5 Gods and Kings.

Also a few others is Fallen Enchantress I heard is like a fantasy Civ it just got released. Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic is another and Master of Magic too(which I did not really care for)

[Nevar]

Yeah, the real problem with KB (particularly this one since gold is not a constraint) is how tedious refilling your army is. I believe we agree on this point.

I actually edited out what I said about Fallen Enchantress. I was going to say that, on the Steam Top Sellers list, it's the only one even slightly similar to KB that's in the Top 50. But then I decided there wasn't much point in pointing that out.

Warlock is lots of fun, although the AI is terrible and there are still quite a few bugs. Still, it gets updated a lot. I wish there was a magic tech tree, though.

Unfortunately, the graphics of Civs 1 and 2 are just a little below what I can stand. I can still play some PSx games with their blocky graphics, but the first two Civs just look a little too old for my taste.