I owned Second age and Deckmasters expansions on PPC and they were great expansion decks to the original. All I have to say is this: I want this game, but I'm not planning on purchasing it if there is no multiplayer, at least over LAN/Bluetooth.
Great to hear that the game wasn't forgotten. Now all I want to know is wether Online Multiplayer will be added or not. I will buy the game anyway, since I already play the game with my friends and we actually created Tournaments between the 4 of us which proved to be a surprising lot of fun. However I would still love Multiplayer for those times when I can't play multi on local. I will 100% buy the game, Multiplayer or not. Multiplayer would increase that chance to 150%. P.S. - I would suggest the dev to post his own preview of the game on the upcoming games forum. It really helps sales and visibility, as far as I've noticed after following toucharcade for close to 2 years now.
GC-based multiplayer is much easier to implement than I would ever have thought. I've talked to the Orions folks on this matter and they promised they'd look into this; that is, implementing GC (remote) multiplayer, something that was painfully missing from the PPC version.
Online multiplayer would be phenomenal. I played M:TG for years (even played in the U.S. Nationals twice) and have yearned for something to scratch that itch for a long time. I could even see this in some kind of Tournament mode. The possibilities are very interesting if they can ever be implemented. All we need is for Pocketmore to be ambitious! C'mon guys!
if there is multiplayer, and with the right advertising, this second installment will become VERY successful, i know it.
I'm very, very excited for Orions 2, and while I'm upset at the lack of support the first Orions received from the developers, we gotta keep in mind that was almost two years ago. The AppStore was quite different back then and I think they learned a few lessons. The real problem was that they don't realize the strengths of their product. Orions 2 would be massively popular, I believe, if they: 1) Axed the campaigned mode (most Orions fans will tell you they seldom, if ever, play the campaign mode). The gameplay in the duels lends itself perfectly to the mobile platform (I've tried every other CCG and they all suck), and I think the campaign mode is really just a hindrance. A better campaign mode would be to simply face a string of oponents of increasing AI level, with the option to get a card from their pool by winning. By the time you reach the final AI oponents, you should have enough cards to craft a number of different decks. Much more straight forward than managing resources, building buildings and buying cards. 2) Included multiplayer. This is a NO BRAINER for a game like Orions, especially when you consider that multiplayer games make their fans convince friends to buy them, so that they have more people to play with. Like I mentioned before, I have a big following on twitter, and I'd relentlessly plug Orions 2 there if it had multiplayer. 3) Adjusted the price to better reflect the nature of AppStore gaming. A relatively obscure game (yes it was a hit on the PPC scene, but how many iOS users even knew what a PPC was?) with a $5 price tag and no free trial version, and they wonder why it didn't sell well? Like many have said, I believe Orions is well worth the five bucks. But you're not going to convince people who never heard of the game to drop the cash on it. 99 cents is the golden price point -- as someone else pointed out, it's close enough to free that people will be willing to buy it if the descriptions, screenshot and reviews look promising. And Orions is not, at ALL, a hardcore game (the duel mode, anyway, isn't). I have an extensive M:tG background -- 10+ years -- but I've introduced Orions to many friends who have never played Magic, and they picked it up quite quickly. Give it multiplayer and you'd have fans teaching their friends to play it. They said they'd consider multiplayer, but I'm not holding my breath Oh well. I'll be buying it regardless. But just imagine how incredibly amazing Orions 2 would be with GameCenter-powered, voice chat-enabling multiplayer. Since we're in that topic, why so few games add voice chat?
It's also smarter to release the game in January. Right now Gameloft and EA and hogging the limelight, Orions 2 would not be noticed.
With GC, it's really-really easy to add multiplayer. Even the most simplest form (random matchmaking), which only took me some 2-3 hours to come up with a full GC Pong clone (see my demo source codes), would be great. I really hope the PGM folks do implement at least anon matchmaking. (Invitations are a bit more hard to implement.)
Any sort of multiplayer would be great, but anon-matchmaking would feel too impersonal and not that much different from playing against the AI. The real beauty would be GC multiplayer with friends list, leaderboard, perhaps even achievements? I hate getting excited because even though Orions is a gem, the developers were a bit shortsighted the first time around. Here's hoping they realize the potential of Orions this time around.
Dunno. Programmatically, it's VERY easy, as can also be seen in my voice chat-enabled source code Pong demos. Also, it works just great without major hiccups.
IMHO, even anon MP would be great. The AI is so easy to kill in duel, particularly with custom decks using exclusively cheap bump-up cards like Satyr at the beginning. A human opponent may be far harder to beat.
Well, here's hoping, man. I try to never get my hopes up for games and just keep my expectations low to avoid disappointment, but I'm such a fan of the first game, it's hard to not get excited. It's downright tragic that MoreGames doesn't realize the potential Orions has. Downright tragic. They have all the groundwork laid out, all they need to do is to make it more AppStore-compatible (make it more casual by dropping the campaign more, price it according to the established standards) and for the love of God, GIVE IT MULTIPLAYER. I am 100% sure it won't have multiplayer right out of the gate. And knowing their history, I won't hold my breath for updates. Did you know Orions hasn't been updated for exactly two years today? Seriously. Talk about mishandled IP. How I wish someone like Gameloft would acquire Orions.
Campaign Tried it once, meh. Don't need it, the game rocks by itself but I do like the idea of ramping up AI in a new type of campaign mode. That should work nicely.
That's what I'm talking about. The only "campaign" mode Orions really needs would be something like a fighting game -- a succession of increasingly dificult AI players, which upon beating would grant you 1-2 cards from their pool (maybe more depending how bad you beat them?). By the time you reach the final "boss", you should have most, if not ALL the cards from the game, which you could then use to craft a deck to beat the last AI opponent. That Heroes of Might and Magic-style city building and resources management doesn't suit a game like Orions. Not that I don't like HoMM, I absolutelly LOVE it. But Orions should really capitalize on its strengths, and the city building portion of the game isn't it.
Agreed. I only once played thru the campaign, back in the WinMo days (and haven't even touched Campaign on the iPhone) - and spent 99.999% of my time in Duel.
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Great news, I'm looking forward to this! Considering that the Windows Mobile version of Deckmasters costs like $13 (as an add-on, you also need to own the original!), I will be willing to pay up to $2.99 for the iPhone version! But why did it take them more than two and a half years to port to iPhone??
That's a good question. Also, hats off to you, Kyle, for being a good sport on the competitor's thread.
