Open Source Master of Magic HD Multiplayer Remake

[Blake00]

If there's any oldschool Dos TBS Master of Magic fans lurking in these forums I've recently made a video (as part of a up and coming Civ related games in HD series) touring what I feel is the best MoM fan project out there called Master of Magic – Implode’s Multiplayer Edition, a brilliant Open Source Java MoM engine rebuild that supports larger maps, up to 14 players (either Human or AI), and any modern resolution like HD 4K etc. The only it's missing is AI and some good bug fixing and polishing.

   

Although sadly it's creator Implode has gone AWOL and the project has been inactive for a while now..

But hopefully one day he'll return to it, or someone else will finish what he started due to it being opensource...

Edited April 30, 2021 by Blake00

[Blake00]

OH MY GOD!!! :O
 
Looks like I don't have to worry about this unfinished fan remake anymore as it appears we've got an official Master of Magic sequel or Remake on way (courtesy of Slitherine who've bought the rights from Atari's IP dungeon and just made the announcement on their site)!!!

Guess this explains the mysterious Atari activities I noticed recently. Clearly they reacquired MoM so they could sell it to Slitherine for $$$.

I'm such a super fan of this 25 year old game that I run a MoM fans facebook group so as you can image I'm SUPER EXCITED about this news lol.

I can't can't believe that after all these years a real sequel just might be happening now. Sadly most of the old MoM forums are long dead so if there's any fans here who know of a good old MoM2 wishlist/feature request list out there please let me know and I'll go post it over on the Slitherine forums (which I've just signed up to).
 
They've probably barely started the project yet so now is the time to get fan feature requests and wish list items in front of their faces. If the remaining fan base doesn't speak up now then god knows what sort of game we'll end up with. So now is the time to act!

My list:

 

• BIG ONE - More than 4 enemy players. Implode's MoM HD Multiplayer Remake allowed EVERY wizard in one game for super 14 player games which would have bee EPIC and so much fun had he finished the project.

• Larger maps (Insectiside fan patch added huge map size to the original)

• Limited Spying (most fantasy rpgs have thieves/rogues so it fits and stealing spells would be fun)

• Time limit and bigger cost on time stop spell (if you're planning on having that annoying spell again)

• Demand or give cities in Diplomacy (most 4x games have this now and I like using it to play god/peacekeep and save bullied Civs and minor factions from deaths door)

• Expand Grey Neutral Faction into lots of minor factions with identities and race affiliations (eg a minor Elven race with a minor elf wizard that likes Elven main civs and makes trouble for others.. this is another thing done in modern 4x fantasy and space games)

• More worlds and/or an underground world (although this has already been done before in AoW, HoMM & Warlock series)

• More ocean content eg HoMM series filled oceans with shipwreck lairs and treasures (even Morrowind had underwater caves filled with creatures and treasure so this is not new to fantasy games). You could even have a Merfolk faction with cities in the ocean. The fun Fantasy and Midgard scenarios for Civilization 2 Test of Time had a good underwater Merfolk faction with lots of sea based units/creatures.

• Not essential but some cool weather effects would be a fun immersion factor (especially as you can tie spells into them for gameplay events such as huge storms and earthquakes etc). The Official Playstation remake of Master of Magic has clouds rolling over and some cool weather effects from spells. The new Civ6 addon Gathering Storm is another good example of world changing weather effects.

• Talk to Seravy, he's da man on all things MoM and the creator of the super popular MoM overhaul mod Caster of Magic

 

EDIT: BIG NEWS! Slitherine have indeed spoken to Seravy as they releasing his Caster of Magic as an official DLC to Master of Magic on Steam and GoG!!!
https://blakessanctum.wordpress.com/2020/02/25/caster-of-magic-master-of-magic-mod-is-now-on-steam-gog/

EDIT2: On top of that Slitherine have also now setup an official Master of Magic forum! And they've kindly moved my ever growing MoM2 wishlist thread into there too.
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=590

EDIT3:
And if all that isn't enough Seravy has hinted that he is working on a Caster of Magic 2! A full MoM rebuild in a new engine with all of CoM's changes built in and much more due to being free of the old games limitations. Eg full 14 wizard salughterfest games!!

 

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Edited May 3, 2021 by Blake00

[Blake00]

WOAH!!! The good news keeps coming for MoM fans. After years Implode has returned from his self imposed exile (think kungfu movie where the bad guy bests the good guy so the good guy climbs up a mountain and learns better kungfu with some old guy with a grey beard who never speaks and then the good guy comes back and kicks the bad guys ass lol) and released a new version of his HD Multiplayer remake of Master of Magic with for the first time FUNCTIONING AI!! This is the moment many like me have been waiting/hoping for.. hopefully people try it and give him some feedback!

Announcement: https://mom.pjj.cc/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9815

Download: https://sourceforge.net/projects/momime/files/

[Blake00]

Big news! Looks like Seravy's Caster of Magic 2 (possibly renamed to 'Caster of Magic for Windows' now probably by Slitherine lol) is coming out of private beta and going public on steam soon.

What is also very interesting is that it says on the announcement that it supports custom resizable windows and presumably resolutions! I'll try to confirm that since that would be awesome news as Seravy had zero interest in higher viewing resolutions when I last talked to him about it (eg he was gonna keep it at 320x200 still lol). Maybe Slitherine or all his beta testers kept pestering him about it and he found a way to do it lol. Either way it's great news. Modern resolutions plus full 13 Wizard slaughterthon games are gonna be epic! Have wishlisted! Before anyone asks no it is not multiplayer lol (try Master of Magic - Implodes Multiplayer edition remake for that).

https://steamcommunity.com/games/1146370/announcements/detail/3055100754907446252

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[Blake00]

Seravy's new Caster of Magic 2 (or Caster of Magic for Windows as Slitherine are calling it) has been officially released on Steam, GoG & Slitherine's own store a few days ago! Sadly my hopes for modern resolutions were dashed (it just stretches 320x200 in a window) so Implodes fan game above is still the only one that does true HD stuff, however CoM has so many other benefits eg a gazillion bug fixes & balance changes, super smart AI opponents, more spells, more buildings, more advanced game modes & options, and best of all NO MORE 5 PLAYER LIMIT!! So umm 14 Wizards going at it in one game? Yes please!

 

Feel free to drop by the Master of Magic fans Facebook and Discord groups to discuss. Seravy himself is kindly answering questions and bug reports on the discord too!

 

I know some people aren't huge fans of CoM's changes but maybe Slitherine will take Seravy's new engine source and do a 'MoM for Windows' one day too. Probably wishful thinking but you never know!

 

Familiar but not quite the same 

 

14 Wizard carnage incoming

 

Cool new options

 

Looks the same but apparently the new combat AI is naaaasty

Edited May 3, 2021 by Blake00

[Blake00]

I'm a little late to the party with this even bigger news but OMG lol.. After 25 years of nothing it really is an amazing time for us diehard Master of Magic fans! There I was a few weeks ago getting excited about Seravy’s new Caster of Magic 2 for Windows release and then something even more amazing got officially announced, as we finally have confirmation of the Slitherine mystery MoM project I’ve posted about here before! Slitherine are working with Thea series creators MuHa games on a Official Master of Magic Remake!!! MuHa are a small indie studio so sure enough it's nothing AAA however the new remake already looks and sounds pretty good! I can already see people complaining about the hexes and lack of multiplayer but neither of those bother me. You can find the announcement videos (they've remade the old intro!), some nice pictures, and game info on their new Steam and GoG pages!

But I'll stick a few here too! 

Trailer/Intro:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W44WH6pEXHY

Dev Interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCQHNKX6AtY

 
 

Edited June 7, 2021 by Blake00

[MrFlibble]

I'd love a completely libre, open source Master of Magic remake along the lines of Freeciv for Civilization.

[Blake00]

On 8/9/2021 at 12:07 AM, MrFlibble said:

I'd love a completely libre, open source Master of Magic remake along the lines of Freeciv for Civilization.

Me too mate.. me too! Unfortunately Implodes MoM-IME project is the closest we've got to that dream. He's been making great progress lately too! But yeah if there was a whole team working on it the project would have been finished years ago.

Anyway MuHa appear to be doing monthly (or at least trying to do monthly lol) developer diaries for the official Master of Magic remake... looks pretty good although some of the Wizard redesigns are not as good plus everything seems a bit bland and lacking colour compared to the original.

First dev diary
http://muhagames.com/dev-diary-1-june-2021/



Second dev diary
http://muhagames.com/mom-dev-diary-2-august-2021/



Third dev diary
https://muhagames.com/mom-dev-diary-3-september-2021/

[MrFlibble]

On 9/8/2021 at 12:04 PM, Blake00 said:

Me too mate.. me too! Unfortunately Implodes MoM-IME project is the closest we've got to that dream. He's been making great progress lately too!

I vaguely remember there being a fantasy-themed mod for an old version of Freeciv that still used square, non-isometric tiles somewhat similar to those in MoM. I wonder if this could not become a foundation for a free/libre data set to be used with the new engine recreation?

It must have been one of those mods listed here, as I cannot find it on the new site.

[Blake00]

On 9/26/2021 at 9:14 PM, MrFlibble said:

I vaguely remember there being a fantasy-themed mod for an old version of Freeciv that still used square, non-isometric tiles somewhat similar to those in MoM. I wonder if this could not become a foundation for a free/libre data set to be used with the new engine recreation?

It must have been one of those mods listed here, as I cannot find it on the new site.

Yeah I also found that Magic mod a while back while I was doing my huge fantasy and scifi Civilization scenario search and it sounded interesting but sadly was for an ancient version of FreeCiv. There's a Alpha Centauri inspired one for FreeCiv as well that looked cool but like most FreeCiv mods they become broken quickly due to new version releases and modders just lose interest and gave up sadly. If only FreeCiv was more modder friendly.

Anyway yeah it's a shame that mod didn't inspire someone to do a full branch off separate from regular FreeCiv development for a 'FreeMoM' like game as that's what happened with the FreeCol project. It used FreeCiv as a base for a Colonization remake and then broke away for form its own project and 20 years later it barely resembles FreeCiv (for better or worse haha).

[MrFlibble]

On 10/22/2021 at 9:31 AM, Blake00 said:

Anyway yeah it's a shame that mod didn't inspire someone to do a full branch off separate from regular FreeCiv development for a 'FreeMoM' like game

Actually I was more thinking along the lines of making a free/libre data set for the existing MoM engine recreation -- or does it depend on the original DOS binaries or something?

Like I wonder why no one ever tried (AFAIK) to do a free/libre data set for OpenXCOM, even though I guess some assets from UFO2000 could be used as a basis for the Battlescape mode.

[Blake00]

10 hours ago, MrFlibble said:

Actually I was more thinking along the lines of making a free/libre data set for the existing MoM engine recreation -- or does it depend on the original DOS binaries or something?

Like I wonder why no one ever tried (AFAIK) to do a free/libre data set for OpenXCOM, even though I guess some assets from UFO2000 could be used as a basis for the Battlescape mode.

Implodes project is definitely not using original dos binaries or files. He's done all the code himself from scratch and transferred all multimedia into his own files.

There are 2 or 3 guys building libaries in the reverse engineering subchat over on my Master of Magic Discord. Can't remember if libre was mentioned though.

[Blake00]

Haven't updated this thread in a while with all the latest official Master of Magic remake dev diaries and I thought I'd better post about their latest 9th dev diary as that has a application link for people to apply to be involved in beta testing! So if there's any lurking MoM fans here who want in on that, go apply now!

Ninth Dev diary:
http://muhagames.com/master-of-magic-dev-diary-9/



For those who haven't seen all the previous dev diaries here they are...

Eight dev diary
http://muhagames.com/master-of-magic-dev-diary-8-february-2022/



Seventh dev diary
http://muhagames.com/master-of-magic-dev-diary-7-january-2022/



Sixth dev diary
http://muhagames.com/mom-dev-diary-6-december-2021/



Fifth dev diary
http://muhagames.com/dev-diary-5-november-2021/



Fourth dev diary
http://muhagames.com/mom-dev-diary-4-october-2021/



Earlier dev diaries are in the thread posts above this one!

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