Deadhold

[Pyro]

Deadhold, might be the closest thing to a new Myth game we see.

[BIG KROK V8 SS]

Will probably flop like another M3. Us guys who like the instant command, less graphical, more realistic physics engine are virtually extinct, except in the Myth world.

[Myrk]

Sweet.

[Edulus]

Maybe Renwood would enjoy helping out on this project. Looks like they have some vacant posts.

[shadow]

Great !
Looks like shitty M3, but anyway.
GOOD NEWS

Can we stick that topic, so everybody can see it ?

[punkUser]

Can we stick that topic, so everybody can see it ?

Um... it's not exactly going to fall off the first page any time soon

[shadow]

Can we stick that topic, so everybody can see it ?

Um... it's not exactly going to fall off the first page any time soon

U work in gamedev right ?
Tell us, who is behind this game.

[punkUser]

Tell us, who is behind this game.

It says right in the video - it's some of the folks who worked on M3 and some other games. I know nothing more than what's in their video

[adrenaline]

this looks pretty sick actually... like a modern myth clone. even the characters are similar...

warrior... warrior
ranger... bowman
sapper... dorf
lost... thrall
mimic... ghast
frost giant... trow or forest giant
sneak... wight
medic... jman

I will definitely give this game a chance if it means playing a myth-like game with a vastly larger user base.

[Arsenal]

It seems cool but I can't get over just how much it looks like myth 3.

[Father Xmas]

also wtf those ppl aint playing myth with us ?

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/09 ... -deadhold/

[fisj]

Hey all,

I'm one of the devs on Deadhold. If you have any specific questions I'll do my best to answer them.

There's a thread up on the Tain forums where I've also been answering some questions from the community, along with a summary of what we're up to.

http://tain.totalcodex.net/forum/viewto ... f=2&t=6689

PS. Pyro, thanks for posting about Deadhold here!

-fisj

[BIG KROK V8 SS]

Please make it using sprites and better physics instead of trying to make it look as realistic and unplayable as possible (like Myth 3 and the flop it was).

[adrenaline]

kirk.. it's 2014 ffs...

[wwo]

Fisj. Holy shit. I just had a flashback involving TFL dwarf physics and 3-hour arguments about The Black Company.

[edit] Okay, so my question is: what were some of the literary inspirations for the setting?

[vinylrake]

It seems cool but I can't get over just how much it looks like myth 3.

You should really try to get over it - it's not even a game yet, there's nothing to test, it's not even a demo yet, and all the artwork will change. What you see in the video was set up to test the code to see how the unit control, movement and physics and other underlying game mechanics work.

[BIG KROK V8 SS]

kirk.. it's 2014 ffs...

Sprites are more accurate and precise and play better.

[shadow]

Kirk thinking in right way.
May be not sprites, but units moving and etc looks rly bad. Similar to M3.

[shadow]

Hey all,

I'm one of the devs on Deadhold. If you have any specific questions I'll do my best to answer them.

There's a thread up on the Tain forums where I've also been answering some questions from the community, along with a summary of what we're up to.

http://tain.totalcodex.net/forum/viewto ... f=2&t=6689

PS. Pyro, thanks for posting about Deadhold here!

-fisj

Firstly.
This is actually best news in last decade. For MYTH community.
Secondly.
MYTH 2 is a brilliant game from Golden Era. (Myth TFL was great too)
Now, 16 years after, you guys trying to make spiritual remake for this game.
And I guess we must make points about what making that game so great.
1) Gameplay.
Advanced physics (esp in 1998) , game balance, units movements etc. Pleasure to just play in MYTH 2. (And look on M3, game suck in every move.)
By default, the best way is keep original gameplay. Cause you can make it worse but can you make it better ?
2) Community & Tourneys
That's why the show is keep going. MYTH is a competitive game. Singleplayer in this game is just warm up. So game need in-game tourney system, stats, ranks, record saving etc.

Graphic part is not so important, u can sacrifice it for gameplay.

Will be great if GKG spare his thoughts (if he not already behind that situation).

[fisj]

Shadow's right, this is a pretty good time to discuss MythI/II and pick out the best bits. Perhaps it might also be good to discuss some ideas on how Myth could be done better now. /gasp sacrilege!

These are pretty much the discussions the deadhold devs had when we sat down and looked at everything for the first time.

So two questions:

1) What are your top 3 Myth features - essential core parts that make Myth, Myth.

2) What ways can we improve Myth? Imagine you're Bungie sitting and watching Braveheart eating pizza, and you find yourself in 2014 with computers that are 100 times faster - what crazy ass things would you design now that you're not facing the same technological limitations?

Also consider the cultural changes in games too. Myth was a pioneer in terms of online play, and imo set the standard for a long time, but the industry has moved farther and really expanded what it means to be online, beating the snot out of your friends on the battlefield.

Some responses to other questions, comments:

big krok - For me, this is one of those Damned if you do, damned if you don't situations. We're not using sprites because we're not doing a retro remake, but given that, I'd try to _really_ drill down into why sprites felt better. My take? Sprites often let the brain kinda fill in the gaps, and I suspect 3D can travel into an uncanny valley sometimes.

One example of something where we feel we have a definite improvement in the works is our rag-doll gibs. You can kick the severed bodies parts around with units and they're all floppy, its hugely entertaining.

The other issue with it "looking like myth3" can be hard to parse. If it looks like Myth III because it uses polygons, well, guilty as charged. However, in my opinion this probably falls into the "We didn't make the art style good/strong enough" category. We'll have to see how this progresses.

Deadhold will be a different game, there will be distinct differences (which we hope are for the better), but the good news is that this will be an iterative process where the community can help us shape the course we take. Sounds bullshitty, but that's my intention.

wwo - Much like myth, deadhold's story is an amalgam of different literary, historical and mythological sources. One definite influence was the Malazan Book of the Fallen series:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malazan_Book_of_the_Fallen

I love and hate this series. Steven Erikson did so much right, and so much wrong. Ten freaking books! His character and world building was amazing, but it really failed (for me) in other places.

You might not believe me, but I didn't know the seventh book in the series was dedicated to Glen Cook, until I looked up the wiki page writing this post ... such a small world.

Good discussion! Thanks for the thoughts, and keep em coming.

-fisj

[par73]

It seems cool but I can't get over just how much it looks like myth 3.

i imagine that's because it's probably the only time you've ever seen myth characters with 3d models before in your lifetime.

[par73]

1 myth lobby
idk how this could even work in the modern era, but you need to utilize the same classic myth lobby organized in an old (ranked, tourney) and new (matchmaking, co-op). i feel like this aspect could also drive some players away, so there should be rooms with no chat and chat moderation. myth solidified itself as a game for adults and landed the mature rating, but i started playing when i was about 7 or 8

2 the controls
i liek them alot
however im not so sure they will work with a lot of gamers, especially if you were looking to push this to a console or a tablet as an app.
you have 4 aspects of control: camera control, formation control, preset control and function control. camera includes minimap, formations + the ability to change them, presets and unit selection, functions like special, scatter, taunt. i think that is very key in re-creating the experience.

3 the multiverse
myth is a very unique game in that one game could be the same as another game is of a very slim chance, probably smaller than wwo having kids at this point in his life. Myth is like a game of chess where the lines on your chess board no longer exist. The game was structured in it's physics and balance, but with limitless possibilities came the chaos that made this game so enjoyable for many. I call this, free style play.
The simplest most blunt way how i played myth to other people is to say 'there are dwarves that throw molotov cocktails to blow things up'
in retrospect of the game experience i had with mumbo jumbo's creation, this was limited and felt too clunky to actually be a believable aspect of the game. I call this a linear, one-month gaming experience.

[drunken_deer]

TLTR PAR73. In Essence, do not make a rock papper sissors game and label it strategy.

[par73]

rock paper scissors game is strategy so please refrain from posting here again unless you're willing to post something constructive. i could probably beat you 9/10.

another thing i liked was the 16 player 8 on 8 games. would be interesting to see 12 on 12 or, gasp, 16 on 16, but the 8 on 8 was nice and comfortable for most maps and unit distributions. Even the 8 on 8's on small maps were comical and good fun if players didn't irrationally complain about getting 3 units.

[Lod=Legend]

I DEMAND a alric replacement called LOD... With COMET behind name

[Lod=Legend]

WHY NOT 16 vs 16 ??????

[Lod=Legend]

SWITTERS !!!!!

[shadow]

Agree with par
1) Lobby is a big part of MYTH culture.
But how lobby must look in 2015 ? How lobby will keep few thousands (I hope) players ?

2) Controls, yeah. Also camera speed, formations adjustings etc must be in game controls.
Competative game.
MYTH is a PC game. 100% sure we don't need consoles, and especially tablet trash.
App-companion (for chatting in lobby, watching whos playing etc) for tablets is good idea, but game ? NEVER.

3)Agree. More ways for play, more chances for comebacks, more opportunities ... is better.
Also there must be options for control randomness (like - no duds in tourney games)
The Devil is in the details !

Also I might add:
- Tourney organazing system and advanced Ranking system based on game Stats (can add clans, friends, foes etc here)
That's pretty important for any competative game, and esp MYTH.
I will try explain my thoughts about it with some drawnings later.

[vinylrake]

MYTH is a PC game. 100% sure we don't need consoles, and especially tablet trash...

Myth WAS a PC/Mac game, but Deadhold isn't Myth, and it isn't 1998 when the idea of releasing a game that ran on Macs and PCs was still a novelty. You might not need consoles or tablets or other handheld devices to play Deadhold on, but this is going to be a commercial game - e.g. the developers want to be paid for their time and effort - so the larger the range of platforms they can release the game on the wider the potential audience. Limiting the game to desktop/laptop isn't a smart thing to do - unless their market is solely made up of aging Myth players who are stuck in 1998. Plus the Unreal Engine they are using already allows them to make the game once and deploy it on all kinds of different platforms, why would they limit the game to just PCs/Macs?

[Myrk]

There's no way Myth could be played with a console controller.

[punkUser]

There's no way Myth could be played with a console controller.

Yeah it's actually one of the few games that plays better with touch than a controller actually (it's actually doable with the former... not as good as mouse but quite playable).

[c⁄J⁄Iılk c⁄J⁄Iån ◊§t◊]

I'd like to see it so that games allow many more players but with a tiered captain system, so that a captain can assign lieutenants or whatever.

I also wonder if power units that are used only one or two at a time (like hgh or trow) could have a more complex fighting system, with their play incorporating elements of fighting games into the 3 dimensional environment à la Oni.

[par73]

a captain can assign lieutenants by saying 'A, B, North. A Split B.'

[shadow]

MYTH is a PC game. 100% sure we don't need consoles, and especially tablet trash...

Myth WAS a PC/Mac game, but Deadhold isn't Myth, and it isn't 1998 when the idea of releasing a game that ran on Macs and PCs was still a novelty. You might not need consoles or tablets or other handheld devices to play Deadhold on, but this is going to be a commercial game - e.g. the developers want to be paid for their time and effort - so the larger the range of platforms they can release the game on the wider the potential audience. Limiting the game to desktop/laptop isn't a smart thing to do - unless their market is solely made up of aging Myth players who are stuck in 1998. Plus the Unreal Engine they are using already allows them to make the game once and deploy it on all kinds of different platforms, why would they limit the game to just PCs/Macs?

You one of the developers ? I call MYTH 100% PC game not cause I have something against consoles and tablets etc.
How u gonna adapt squad-based RTT for consoles and esp. for tablets ?! What u gonna sacrifice for that ?
Who is your target audience on consoles and tablets ?

[punkUser]

How u gonna adapt squad-based RTT for consoles and esp. for tablets ?! What u gonna sacrifice for that ?

You do know that Myth 2 has support (windows) tablets/touch since 1.8, right? In terms of what you sacrifice, the answer is basically just presets. The rest works pretty well (via band select and double click). Obviously you can't be quite as fast as with a mouse but as I've pointed out to folks, it's better than a touchpad (by far), and some people even play Myth with touchpads

[browning]

m2's single unit micromanagement aspect is the most satisfying i've seen. instead of relying on hit rates and other random variables, you are in control of everything
the micro skill in a game like wc3 seems dumbed down in comparison

m3's gameplay felt sluggish (like those deadhold demos)
the movement, the animations, everything is just too slow

[vinylrake]

...You one of the developers ? I call MYTH 100% PC game not cause I have something against consoles and tablets etc.
How u gonna adapt squad-based RTT for consoles and esp. for tablets ?! What u gonna sacrifice for that ?
Who is your target audience on consoles and tablets ?

I am not in any way affiliated with the Deadhold team so I can't say who their target audience is, or what they would have to give up on different platforms but it's only common sense that when you are creating a commercial product (game/app/or other) that you want to make it accessible to the largest audience possible.

In terms of what is possible on different platforms look at the new apple watch. Most people said (or still say) smart watches were doomed to fail or be just a tiny niche market because the screens are too small to do touch screen gestures that everyone is used to. Apple changed the interface so instead of using the same user interface gestures you use on a phone or tablet, the watch uses a combination of touch along with a knob (seriously. you turn it to zoom in and out and move around) and a button so you can still use apps without your fingers blocking the screen. Sure the watch itself is overpriced and ridiculous, but it's a good example of how you can make something work if you aren't afraid to experiment with the interface.

I wouldn't want to play Myth using a console controller, and some things would be difficult to implement, but there are some things that could be given up. For example I think presets as they are would be near impossible to implement smoothly with a game controller (it would take forever to create them) but if there were a standard set of presets (e.g. mellee, missle, artilery, scouts, all-units) which could be cycled through quickly you could get a lot of the benefit of presets without the difficulty.) Likewise the overhead map with it's dynamic zooming/dragging-to-resize/etc would be a pain - or at least cumbersome, but if there were a few presets so you could switch between thumbnail, heads-up-transparent-overhead and no overhead that would probably meet 95% of player's needs in game.

[Pyro]

How u gonna adapt squad-based RTT for consoles and esp. for tablets ?!

As PunkUser stated, Myth already has some Tablet support.

[shinco]

MYTH is a PC game. 100% sure we don't need consoles, and especially tablet trash...

Myth WAS a PC/Mac game, but Deadhold isn't Myth, and it isn't 1998 when the idea of releasing a game that ran on Macs and PCs was still a novelty. You might not need consoles or tablets or other handheld devices to play Deadhold on, but this is going to be a commercial game - e.g. the developers want to be paid for their time and effort - so the larger the range of platforms they can release the game on the wider the potential audience. Limiting the game to desktop/laptop isn't a smart thing to do - unless their market is solely made up of aging Myth players who are stuck in 1998. Plus the Unreal Engine they are using already allows them to make the game once and deploy it on all kinds of different platforms, why would they limit the game to just PCs/Macs?

You one of the developers ? I call MYTH 100% PC game not cause I have something against consoles and tablets etc.
How u gonna adapt squad-based RTT for consoles and esp. for tablets ?! What u gonna sacrifice for that ?
Who is your target audience on consoles and tablets ?

Millions of people who own tablets and consoles?

shinco

[shadow]

I know PunkUser.
Myth already has some (x86) Windows Tablet support u mean ?
They have like 3% of tablet market. Anyway this is pointless.
I'm not against new ways.

Just want hear answer from developers. What they think about platforms and audience.
Cause playing competitive squad-based RTT on PC/Mac and on consoles and tablets is really different stories.
As I remember they planned multiplayer release for PC in Q1 2015.

Also, great targeting shinco. Five balls.

[punkUser]

Myth already has some (x86) Windows Tablet support u mean ?

As soon as any other platform that Myth 2 runs on supports touch we'll gladly add support too Anyways the point was not that many users play that way, but just that we've obviously tested it (and the barrier to entry here is pretty low now if someone is sufficiently curious... ~$120-150 x86 full windows tablets are available) and it works pretty well. Definitely way better than on a gamepad/console.

But yeah I agree on PC focus. Just saying it's totally possible to target both PC and tablet with similar gameplay in this genre, which is not true of many other genres (ex. FPS sucks on tablets).

[wwo]

tablet gamer = casual gamer

Might as well just make it a Facebook game, or browser/flash game.

[Dantski]

Would you play Angry Ghols on your phone?

[shadow]

What about Angry Dorfs ?

[par73]

I'd buy both of those rather than Angry Birds

[fisj]

Hey all,

Some answers to comments and questions:

par73
Myth lobby - Myth would be our baseline, and we have yet to put a lot of thought into the design yet.
Controls - Yeah we're running controls that are pretty close to myth right now (kindof a mmo myth hybrid camera), but we'll probably try out a range of variations, and or give players configurability, with some presets.

shadow
Myth Lobby - By all means explore that. Like I said we don't have a definitive design. It's pretty interesting that the industry generally went with matchmaking, cutting out a huge social aspect. Presumably this is because consoles are the predominant platform for multiplayer FPS, and the sheer numbers of people aren't conducive to meaningful conversation. So, if Deadhold did have a myth-like lobby, or something akin to IRC, how could we keep it manageable? Would people like matchmaking as well?

More chances for comebacks - I think this is something that our ability and relic system will address, but we haven't gone into that much yet.
Tourney and stats - Yes, that's pretty much assumed.

c⁄J⁄Iılk c⁄J⁄Iån ◊§t◊
More complex fighting system - Yes the abilities and relic system extends unit capabilities through the commander, additionally the units will have vastly more choreography and personality, react to their environment etc. This is all possible because we have the power of polygons, skelletal meshes, Inverse Kinematics and behaviour trees.

shadow: Consoles, tablets, etc - fun discussion time!

Deadhold will be PC/Mac/Linux. We went through similar discussions, but it essentially boils down to a few factors:

1) PC gaming is back, with a vengeance. (thankfully) Steam is dominant, and extremely profitable.

2) Making a PC game, and a tablet or console game is making 2 or three games. RTT on a console sounds like (to put it nicely) a nightmare. Tablet _could_ work very well, but again the tempo and response will never match a PC, and pitting someone on a tablet, vs a PC in an MP match would be pretty one sided.

3) In my opinion, multiplayer on mobile isn't mature enough, or a strong enough demographic within mobile. The only time someone might want to run an MP match on a tablet would be on the couch, certainly not the usual use case, where people pull out a phone for 5 minutes outside while waiting for a sandwich. There's a reason why the average game/level time on mobile is easily in the single digits of minutes.

I always imagined that Myth was similar to playing a piano, and I always loved it when I felt like I was "in the zone". Its hard for me to imagine any other input than a mouse and keyboard achieving that. We do like money (its useful), but I think part of getting to the "money hats" level (imho) is knowing where a game's strengths lie, and on what platforms it shines brightest.

I'll throw out some other random high level ideas/categories:

Persistence, Progression, Skins and Armor (cosmetic), Custom cheers/taunts, Different and more complex behavior, chaining orders to units (walk along this spline, attack this unit with harassing behavior), unique attacks for specific units against others, ragdolls, different unit abilities and ways for them to interact with each other, landscapes can now be fully 3d, castle sieges, different gamemodes.

That said, the gameplay should remain simple, but deep, we're not trying to clutter up gameplay, we're sifting for the nuggets that will truely enhance the gameplay.

-fisj - (fisj@deadhold.com)

[Renwood]

I often have said that a future myth game if on consoles would have ZERO option to play it with a gamepad. You can buy a wireless mouse AND keyboard for around $20 these days. Consoles also have USB interface now, so they can use any old mouse or keyboard laying around to play something like Deadhold. That being said, sticking to a target platfrom of PC/mac/linux is better for production. When the game ships, you can always add other platforms like console later. Look at R* and GTA V, Next MONTH its coming to PC/XBone/PS4

People are used to paying a lot more $ for the entry level to play a game on their console. So for example if Deadhold was $40 on PC/mac/Linux then the console version could be $60 BUT it comes with a coupon or something to get a official Deadhold wireless mouse and keyboard through NewEgg mail order or something.
The company (Deadhold guys) would have to pay royalties for the Unreal4 engine game's use on console platform like XBone and the like.
That I believe do not exist when making the game for computer platforms. At least that is how it works for games made with Cryengine (which I follow very closely) In addition, you also need to pay royalties and money up front to get your games into the Xbox LIVE and Playstation market places.
but, with so many hundreds of millions of potential customers, we would not be looking at a "Point of diminishing returns" scenario.
Also the system specs are exactly the same on every console, thus making sure the game works for everybody in the same way without all kinds of crazy bugs due to the millions of different component configurations available on computers. i.e. its a lot quicker to bug fix and trouble shoot games targeted for consoles. I also tend to believe that a Myth-Like game is something that the console players are REALLY missing out on and could wow the hell out of them and be a "Must have" Then again, maybe they all just wanna play GTA and Madden. The flipside of this is that, if you make an AWESOME RTT/RTS/wargame on consoles, you will REALLY stand out due to there not being 1000 "ME TO" products on the console market. Where with Computers, there are TONS of RTS and war games to choose from.

About how not to make it look/feel like M3

Having played the HELL out of myth 3 back in the day (I was completely unstoppable on that game often killing all 5 other teams on a 6 team FFA map by myself with no problem) and since then (over 10 years now) having examined why m3 failed to get a following EVEN from the myth community and Bungie myth era players and what the issues were for the general consensus that M3 was just not "Mythy" enough in feel or gameplay. I always said that the next myth title should be awesome and sprite based in a 2014 kind of way. This is to nearly guarantee that is has that Mythy feel and gameplay and a better chance of not just getting die hard fans, but hundreds of thousands of all new fans as well. The following (Myth5) sequel or myth title would go full 3D in a modern engine though. There are too many benefits to going full 3D over sprites and if done correctly could fix 99% of the issues of 3D being not as good at the current sprite based system is. in addition a LOT of the problems that make 3D units not mythy enough has been a conversion ooga and I have been having for many years. We have found many ways to fix these issues and address this problem.

I would like to suggest that we all DO get on Myth III together and take some notes. Playing through the entire myth 3 solo/coop levels and lots of FFA for at least a few weeks so that people do not confuse the odd feelings of playing a new game and having to get used to it, with NOT liking something just because its different. Anything NEW feels very strange at first when you have played a similar game for years and years. When Myth 2 came out, after playing TFL for 14 months strait even myth 2 felt very strange and took getting used to. Just the addition of the twice as many frames of animation for M2's units vs TFL's half as many frames and thus choppy animations took getting used to. When you have to buy a new keyboard or mouse it feels very odd and takes at least a week or 2 to get used to after playing with the same ones for years. (I just bought new wireless mouse and keyboard and suffer from this)

Deadhold is a great idea, with an awesome engine running it, and a great team behind it with REAL m2srb-ish street cred as they have all been in the myth family since 1997. In case people do not know, fisj one of the main Deadhold devs created THE FIRST all NEW myth map ever made for TFL called "If I Had A Yeti" he made his own tools to do this with hex editing due to bungie not even having released ANY tools for people to make their own myth maps and content at the time. Also iggy worked on The BF1942 mod desert Combat which is one of the greatest mods of all time for any video game ever made, and used to have millions of players years ago.


There is hope for mythy gameplay now in ways there has never been before!

Sounds pretty PEACHIE to me!

-Renwood

[Renwood]

Myth already has some (x86) Windows Tablet support u mean ?

As soon as any other platform that Myth 2 runs on supports touch we'll gladly add support too Anyways the point was not that many users play that way, but just that we've obviously tested it (and the barrier to entry here is pretty low now if someone is sufficiently curious... ~$120-150 x86 full windows tablets are available) and it works pretty well. Definitely way better than on a gamepad/console.

But yeah I agree on PC focus. Just saying it's totally possible to target both PC and tablet with similar gameplay in this genre, which is not true of many other genres (ex. FPS sucks on tablets).

Punkuser, does this mean there is currently or you are going to add windows 8 touch enabled monitor support?
This would be the only reason I would EVER buy windows 8

[Gehennom]

1) What are your top 3 Myth features - essential core parts that make Myth, Myth.

2) What ways can we improve Myth? Imagine you're Bungie sitting and watching Braveheart eating pizza, and you find yourself in 2014 with computers that are 100 times faster - what crazy ass things would you design now that you're not facing the same technological limitations?

1: The three top things that made myth feel good to play? Imo..

a) Battles are won (mostly) with strategy and pre-battle micro, rather than in-battle micro. If you engage your melee poorly, there's not much you can do, and if you engage well, you don't need to keep fiddling with things. You can archer dance a little, and aiming your dwarves well helps, but you can't stutterstep kite or anything. I think this mostly comes from the small amount of friction in your movement-- the turn speed, the hitstun, that makes it hard to effectively redirect units quickly. Makes the game a lot more about how smart you are with your troops, rather than how good you are at aps micro.

b) Games are quick. At the height of myth 2, you could complete a game, matchmaking and all, in 15 minutes. If you had 2 hours to play in a night, you could get 8 complete games in, with very different game types, troop compositions, and maps for each. If you're winning, you get to enjoy your victory quickly, and if you take an early beating, you don't have to wait very long before it's on to the next game. You can feel free to experiment with new strategies, because it doesn't cost you very much if it doesn't work out. Same goes if you're playing with your friends and someone wants to play a game type that you don't like as much.

c) Coordinating with your teammates, working together as a team, felt great. MCC was mostly into ffas, but those times when we ventured into the world of team play were wonderful, and I really wish I'd done more team play back in the day.

2: How would I improve Myth?

I'm not entirely sure. I would like the game to be more friendly to new players. Myth 2 shipping with default formations that would get your melee dead against any experienced player was awful. Click-to-attack killing your forces was awful. Stronger tutorials and advice on how to engage your forces usefully would be great. Further reductions in micromanagement would be welcome (I liked tfl's less-accurate archers because of this-- there was less point to the archer dance or the zerk zig).

I would like less aoe damage and more aoe troop disruption. Instead of dwarves, I'd like to see, say, a wind mage that blows your forces into disarray, or an ice mage that freezes your troops, putting them in danger from the opponent's melee.

I would like to be able to zoom out a lot farther. Myth often felt very cramped, particularly on the higher-mesh maps.

I have an idea that it would change things significantly if army sizes were larger-- if instead of 27 wars, 45 thrall, 24 bows on desert, you maxed out at something like 200 wars, 300 thrall, 150 bows. But I'm hesitant to put that on my wishlist, because I'm not sure if it would change things for the better or not. And it would probably force a lot of other changes to work well.

I'm a little frustrated with this question, because it feels like I'm just finding tiny little improvements to make, rather than big 'crazy ass' things. Myth was so well done, though, that it's hard to find big things that would improve it.

I have a question for the Deadhold team as well: Given that you're advertising your experience with Myth 3, what do you think went wrong with M3, and how will you avoid it this time?

[punkUser]

2) Making a PC game, and a tablet or console game is making 2 or three games. RTT on a console sounds like (to put it nicely) a nightmare. Tablet _could_ work very well, but again the tempo and response will never match a PC, and pitting someone on a tablet, vs a PC in an MP match would be pretty one sided.

Absolutely, I think it's important to focus the effort especially with such a (currently) small team

3) In my opinion, multiplayer on mobile isn't mature enough, or a strong enough demographic within mobile.

True for concurrent multiplayer, which is what you'd probably want for this sort of game, but obviously not true for async multiplayer.

Anyways sounds like you guys have things well in hand. I definitely encourage you to follow your core design here and not get too side-tracked or focused on feature creep for the time being, despite all of us having lots of stuff we'd all individually love to see

Punkuser, does this mean there is currently or you are going to add windows 8 touch enabled monitor support?

Yes, that has been there since 1.8. Didn't you watch the 1.8 promo video? It can definitely improve if more people start using it (smoothness, inertia, etc.) but what is there is already reasonably playable and great for watching films.