Age of Wonders III

[jb]

Very exciting news. Age of Wonders III is coming.

Age of Wonders II is the game I played before I played wesnoth. I lost years of my life, but I'd gladly trade it again.

Here is the official website:
http://www.ageofwonders.com/aow3live/

The fun part, it looks like the devs are doing Q&A in the old forums.
http://aow.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/foru ... on=t&fn=36

[Blarumyrran]

I don't like it at all, it looks ugly! Age of wonderses were inferior to master of magic, the only important thing in which they were better was graphics, and now even that point is gone D: The overworld look is alright, but the battle look is horrible and the unit designs are ugly or too pulp, too - eg look at this guy, what does he think he is a superhero or something?

[Shinobody]

They don't look bad, they just... don't look much like AoW anymore.
I mean, one thing these games didn't have, was "overdone" style. Everything was kept relatively realistic and, so most nations footmen were just a guy in chainmail, with shield and sword/axe (most looking rather practical), rather than some outlandish designs typical for high fantasy, while heroes were adventurers in travel coats, not super-buff guys in golden armors (I mean, I guess the guy Blarumyrran shown was supposed to be undead version of Archon Titan - but Titans didn't look like that, they had proper full armor and more sensible proportions).
Designs looks like they tried to copy HoMM/King's Bounty too much because they're popular. I mean, even units are now squads, so I wouldn't be surprised if EXP/veteran system was gone too.
It might be not a bad game - but I'm not sure if it'll even feel like AoW anymore.

[jeorgeban]

Even I don't think that AOW 3 looks that bad, improved graphics and art of this game has impressed me a lot. Good thing is that this game still holds the nature of exploration which has hooked me around for years.

[Piko555]

Well. I am a total fan of AoW series, which played it since the very early childhood, and I have to say it's fantastic to me that it comes back. And I'm even more happy when I see how great this is... And I'm getting more sure it'll be a great game with every new Dev Journal. Summaring: I'm very happy.

[Cackfiend]

really looking forward to this and Warlock 2

in the mean time i've been playing a lot of Warlock master of the Arcane

[johndh]

I prefer the simplicity of the first Age of Wonders to, for example, AoW: Shadow Magic. I haven't played AoW 2 yet, but from what I gather it's basically identical to AoW:SM. The first game was focused more on exploration and conquest with relatively minor city construction. In the sequels, they did improve some stuff like the magic system (I barely use magic in #1 because there's seldom enough mana) and making archers much easier to use, but most of the new features were just a distraction from the main gameplay. Examples include bombarding you with notifications at the beginning of each turn that you had to actually dismiss, instead of just showing a "news feed" in the bottom corner that you can look at but don't have to interact with, and the city construction part that just becomes a huge time sink. It's so easy to spend all of your gameplay time building up your cities and constructing new buildings, instead of actually conquering your enemies. I think this is a problem with a lot of sequels in general, in that they try to cram in as many new features as possible to the point that it becomes distracting from what made the original game fun.

I mean, one thing these games didn't have, was "overdone" style. Everything was kept relatively realistic and, so most nations footmen were just a guy in chainmail, with shield and sword/axe (most looking rather practical), rather than some outlandish designs typical for high fantasy, while heroes were adventurers in travel coats, not super-buff guys in golden armors (I mean, I guess the guy Blarumyrran shown was supposed to be undead version of Archon Titan - but Titans didn't look like that, they had proper full armor and more sensible proportions).

I think the reason so many games go for that overdone style is that it's easier to tell units apart at a small scale if they're overdone like that. If you look at Warcraft 3, even the lowly footman has a massive and distinctly-shaped sword and absurd shoulder pads. The problem with AoW's more realistic style is that it can be hard to tell the difference (at a glance) between a dude with a bow and an otherwise identical dude with a pike. Of course, they could have easily introduced more costume variation without making them outlandish, but my point still stands. I prefer the more realistic style myself, but it does remove a valuable tool in an artist's toolbox for making units distinct.

When I play AoW, I often imagine what it would be like to make a game like it based on Wesnoth, where the individual battles play out like BfW, but with more of a 4X / grand strategy overworld.

[caoraivoso3]

The game is free? I saw the site and it shows something to buy.Is it online?

[Pentarctagon]

The game is free? I saw the site and it shows something to buy.Is it online?

It is not free, it costs $40 on steam.

[Plastic1]

Hi so is this game worth this $40?

[jb]

Yeah dude, totally worth the money.

I've clocked about 600 hours already.