Magicka Weekly Community Update 5th of May 2011

  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

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Jan 27, 2011
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ATI HD 3870
Some users on the forums have reported that the latest catalyst drivers solved the driver reset issue with Magicka. Some have even reported improved frame rates on their ATI cards. We are currently not satisfied that the HD 3870 issue is solved, and it will remain that way until more users have reported the same. We would like to ask all the Magicka players that use a HD 3870, and had the driver reset problem earlier, to report if the drivers indeed solved the issue.

The Arrowhead Twitter
The Arrowhead Twitter account has been somewhat inactive lately but it is now becoming a bit more active. It will mostly contain news about what's happening in the office and if you feel like you want to share our wisdom (bad jokes, interesting developments, hints of what to come or just meaningless filler tweets) you can follow us at twitter.com/arrowheadgs.

Interview with Fredrik Wester
Fredrik Wester, the CEO of Paradox, talks in an interview with Joystiq earlier this week about a Magicka sequel, moving to Stockholm and the possibility of Magicka for consoles. If you are interested in the interview you can find it here: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/03/magicka-sequel-planned-first-game-and-vietnam-expansion-sold-o/

Fred is a great guy and Fred loves to talk. Who knows, you'll probably see a Magicka sequel down the line, but at the moment we've got so much more fun stuff to do for Magicka. We also have some ideas for other projects that we would very much like the chance to work on.

Its going to be really cozy to get closer to Paradox and we are looking forward to sharing beer with them more often. But just for the record, they are not owned by Arrowhead, yet, at least. Trollface_mini.png

May the WED be with you!

/Arrowhead Team
 
ATI HD 3870
Some users on the forums have reported that the latest catalyst drivers solved the driver reset issue with Magicka. Some have even reported improved frame rates on their ATI cards. We are currently not satisfied that the HD 3870 issue is solved, and it will remain that way until more users have reported the same. We would like to ask all the Magicka players that use a HD 3870, and had the driver reset problem earlier, to report if the drivers indeed solved the issue.

The Arrowhead Twitter
The Arrowhead Twitter account has been somewhat inactive lately but it is now becoming a bit more active. It will mostly contain news about what's happening in the office and if you feel like you want to share our wisdom (bad jokes, interesting developments, hints of what to come or just meaningless filler tweets) you can follow us at twitter.com/arrowheadgs.

Interview with Fredrik Wester
Fredrik Wester, the CEO of Paradox, talks in an interview with Joystiq earlier this week about a Magicka sequel, moving to Stockholm and the possibility of Magicka for consoles. If you are interested in the interview you can find it here: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/03/magicka-sequel-planned-first-game-and-vietnam-expansion-sold-o/

Fred is a great guy and Fred loves to talk. Who knows, you'll probably see a Magicka sequel down the line, but at the moment we've got so much more fun stuff to do for Magicka. We also have some ideas for other projects that we would very much like the chance to work on.

Its going to be really cozy to get closer to Paradox and we are looking forward to sharing beer with them more often. But just for the record, they are not owned by Arrowhead, yet, at least.View attachment 35467

May the WED be with you!

/Arrowhead Team

Great stuff! I don't remember saying all those things, I blame the media. And society.
 
Have you considered Kickstart as a way for alternative funding? I mean: you have proven yourself and selling your soul to fine capitalists is only one option of funding. Just my 3 cents here.
 
Have you considered Kickstart as a way for alternative funding? I mean: you have proven yourself and selling your soul to fine capitalists is only one option of funding. Just my 3 cents here.
3 cents? Have you considered mugging irve for funding? He seems to have spare cents to throw around. Just my 2 cents :p

On topic: hope the move goes well for you guys. We're looking forward to all the fun you have in store.
 
Is it just me or are Nordic game developers epicly talented? I mean, Starbreeze had the Riddick tittle and it kicked ass especially since they had their custom engine. Frozenbyte bought their engine from Finnish developer for shadow grounds and trine(?) and their games are awesome.
Anyway. I wait to see more content for Magicka and news about the engine planed sequel. Hopefully we see custom one so it's more available for different platforms and modding.
Where does arrow head plan to go with sequel?
More elements?
Make more complex system?, like having the order of the elements count in spells or have majority decide on the "format" of the spell?
Possibly bring something completely mind blowingly different?
 
Is it just me or are Nordic game developers epicly talented? I mean, Starbreeze had the Riddick tittle and it kicked ass especially since they had their custom engine. Frozenbyte bought their engine from Finnish developer for shadow grounds and trine(?) and their games are awesome.
Anyway. I wait to see more content for Magicka and news about the engine planed sequel. Hopefully we see custom one so it's more available for different platforms and modding.
Where does arrow head plan to go with sequel?
More elements?
Make more complex system?, like having the order of the elements count in spells or have majority decide on the "format" of the spell?
Possibly bring something completely mind blowingly different?
More elements? 26! one for each letter of the alphabet!
Or: Magicka 2: the final element! (just one element and 36 different ways of casting it).

To be honest I think Arrowhead are still focusing on Magicka 1 at the moment. Once they've experimented on us for another year they'll find out what people want from the game, what works and what doesn't work. Then they can get to making Magicka 2. Until then I look forward to more wacky content ^_^
 
Mostly I was just speculating. And no, even just two more elements would allow more complex spells.
I noticed that they could have done lot more with the magic system (such as make the order matter when you put the elements so for example DDFF would be Magma boulder and FFDD would be fire ball with strong impact.
Or more shape adoptions like SA would give you arcane lightning beam but AS would give you lightning with the arcane gib explosion. Also things like SAA would add lightnings "jump" effect on hit to nearby things while you shoot the beam. Of course the ASS would then give more radius for the gib explosions. Now I wonder how awesome would it be to have FSSSF spell where small flame thrower sets things on fire and if they die from the fire they will explode setting other things on fire. Or FSFSF to link the thing happen twice.
 
Mostly I was just speculating. And no, even just two more elements would allow more complex spells.
I noticed that they could have done lot more with the magic system (such as make the order matter when you put the elements so for example DDFF would be Magma boulder and FFDD would be fire ball with strong impact.
Or more shape adoptions like SA would give you arcane lightning beam but AS would give you lightning with the arcane gib explosion. Also things like SAA would add lightnings "jump" effect on hit to nearby things while you shoot the beam. Of course the ASS would then give more radius for the gib explosions. Now I wonder how awesome would it be to have FSSSF spell where small flame thrower sets things on fire and if they die from the fire they will explode setting other things on fire. Or FSFSF to link the thing happen twice.
I must admit I'm both intrigued and repulsed by the ordering idea. It sounds like if could be really interesting and make some really interesting spells but it also sounds like it might be overcomplicating things a little bit.

You're right: They could easily add a couple more elements for a sequel.. but what elements? People have been asking for Poison and I'm sure you could find another one easily. I was mostly just fooling around with the 26/1 ideas. Although 8 is still plenty in my opinion. 10 might be too much, but I couldn't say conclusively without giving it a try.

I'd like to see another adventure sometime in the near-ish future. And a load more missions. I prefer the Vietnam mission to the challenges personally (although a good challenge is still fun).
 
More elements? 26! one for each letter of the alphabet!

Do want.

I'm still hoping for difficulty settings or modding capabilities. For example, say there was a hard mode where every enemy had 1-2 elemental immunity auras (including physical). You'd actually have to think about your spells. D:

If more elements are added (in Magicka or in the sequel) perhaps you could equip only 8 of them at once? Of course this would prohibit certain Magicks so maybe the important Magicks would use locked elements that you can't unequip.
 
Hey, if you guys do a console release, why not use Steams crossplatform play with PSN? It would be interesting, and would be a fun experiment to compare how the controler and Keyboard hanlde in this kind of COOP.
 
If more elements are added (in Magicka or in the sequel) perhaps you could equip only 8 of them at once? Of course this would prohibit certain Magicks so maybe the important Magicks would use locked elements that you can't unequip.
Thats actually neat idea for character specialization. And forget the locking. If you don't take those elements then you are just fucked and that's half the fun!

@Zenstar
There is lot of "elements" that are not touched often. Chinese have Metal and Wood as elements. I've played RPs with Blood, Dark, Light and Time as elements.
 
Thats actually neat idea for character specialization. And forget the locking. If you don't take those elements then you are just fucked and that's half the fun!

@Zenstar
There is lot of "elements" that are not touched often. Chinese have Metal and Wood as elements. I've played RPs with Blood, Dark, Light and Time as elements.
Yeah. I can think of more elements to add but I can't think of many that would either be useful or would be very different to some of the ones we already have. But then again I'm not a designer on the game so haven't put much time into trying to come up with more :p
 
To be honest I think Arrowhead are still focusing on Magicka 1 at the moment. Once they've experimented on us for another year they'll find out what people want from the game, what works and what doesn't work. Then they can get to making Magicka 2. Until then I look forward to more wacky content ^_^

I think this woul;d be the best for them too, there's so much they can still do with Magicka 1, it would be a shame to instantly push out a sequel and have Magicka 1 fade a bit.

Better to really let 1 live its life first and have people get full enjoyment out of it, and release more content / campaigns first, then have number 2 revolutionise things a bit, rather than just being more of the exact same.
 
Well, I see this issue with two ways.
1) First one has just been released. And It would be "bad" to release the sequel same year for reputation of the game. Especially when there still are lot of stability issues.
2) They can't change the game engine unless they do new game (sequel) and with out decent engine the game continues to be laggy and unstable as it is.
 
I would like the idea of Magicka releasing buyable DLCs on a constant rate. Like one bigger DLC every 4-6 months, or smaller ones every month. It would eliminate the angry nerds shouting "omg y u make new game?", while keeping Magicka alive. I wouldn't mind paying a couple of euros every month.