Magicka Message Board older than one year ago

While it’s definitely about time to bid a fond farewell to Magicka’s colourful mages and their crazy spell-slinging ways, we can always find a moment for one of Paradox/Arrowhead’s live-action trailers. In The Other Side Of The Coin, you’re evil. Things are about to get… darkly.

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Changelist for version 1.4.7.0
• Added new DLC; Other Side of the Coin (including 1 new story challenge, 1 arena challenge, 6 new achievements and much more)
• Added new DLC; World's End Challenge
• Added new DLC; Mirror Crystal Cavern Hideout Challenge
• Added new DLC; Volcano Hideout Challenge
• Added new DLC; Evil Villain Robes
• Added new DLC; Aspiring Musician Robes
• Added new DLC; Peculiar Gadgets Item Pack
• Added new DLC; Heirloom Item Pack
• Challenge/Versus mode now properly updates level list when switching between online and local games.
• Updated localization for certain languages and achievements.
• Added a bleed resistance to some NPCs and bosses.
• Fixed the art size of the Outsmouth challenge in the Online lobby.
• Fixed an issue where the game would crash when hosting certain levels using Italian.

More Magicka arrives tomorrow and it’s of the vampiric, necromantic variety. “Being bad feels good” it proclaims in the launch trailer below, to which I must reply that I probably killed more people while trying to be a hero in Magicka than I’ll ever kill by actually putting on an evil hat and setting out to cause harm. I think I’ve sucked all the fun out of Magicka’s jugular already and very tasty it was, but there’s nothing weirdly attractive about this DLC, no Lovecraft or ‘Nam, so it’s probably the first one I’ll pass on. I did enjoy the frolicking pinata ponies though. They were very well done.

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Arrowhead Game Studios is preparing the next DLC adventure for its wizard-powered adventure Magicka. The Other Side of the Coin DLC expands upon the story of Magicka by placing players in the boots of Alucart, an evil vampire who is in no way related to Alucard from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

The Other Side of the Coin will cost $4.99 and also includes four new challenge maps when it becomes available for download on June 14.

Version 1.4.6.5
- New robe available, Reddit Robe

Run for higher ground, for the deluge has begun. As you may be aware, the GDC is in full swing now, which means announcements of a ludic nature are flooding my inbox and I only need to adjust the intricate series of valves that is my protective system ever so slightly to let them slip through, one at a time. Or maybe three at a time, as Paradox have announced a trio of games.

The first two are Dungeonland, in which three players control heroes in a twisted theme park while a fourth plays the Dungeon Master attempting to kill them, and RED Frontier, a multiplayer RTS. Let’s start with the new game from Arrowhead, creators of friend-murdering simulation Magicka. Going by the name The Showdown Effect It’s a side-on multiplayer action game. Here’s how it looks.

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#theshowdowneffect PC specialists Paradox unveiled three new games at GDC yesterday. One is The Showdown Effect, which if you can make it past the intro in the trailer above unfurls into something that looks like Worms and Quake III had a tiny, split-screen baby. More »

Updates to Magicka have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

- Updated the Hungarian localization.

Updates to Magicka have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

- Added a new Magick; Confuse to the Original Campaign and the Basic Magicks pack.

Indie publisher Paradox just wrapped up a press event in their hometown of Stockholm, Sweden. You might know Paradox as the publisher of games like Magicka and Penumbra: Black Plague. They've just announced new games for 2012, including: Magicka: The Other Side of the Coin Another expansion for the indie darling, Magicka, whose review you should definitely read...

Here’s your other piece of Paradox news, via the fine folks of Strategy Informer, and our Jim stuck in the Swedish wastelands without access to a wifi signal: Magicka has sold a shitload. And there’s more to come, with the announcement of a new expansion pack, The Other Side Of The Coin.

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* Fixed Hungarian menu fonts

The Steam Holiday Sale doesn't stop for anyone or anything -- not the end of a year, an era or the world -- and today, New Year's Eve 2011, is no different. The 13th day of the Steam Holiday Sale offers 75 percent off L.A. Noire, Bit.Trip Runner, the Hitman franchise, Magicka, both BioShocks, Hoard, GRID and the Counter-Strike series, and more titles at various other deduction rates.

Check out all the deals before the year and our life as we know it ends.

Magicka Changelist 1.4.5.3

Fixed a network crash for the Final Boss in The Stars Are Left Campaign.
Fixed a crash in The Stars Are Left Chapter 2 related to Intel and ATI cards.

Arrowhead tell us that Magicka: The Stars Are Left should be available at online stores later today and to herald the alignment of the code, here is a pleasing video. The familiar robed figures are present but the combination of Lovecraftian and noir stylings makes them all the more entertaining, even if they’re not accidentally blowing one another to wizbits. Before the release of the DLC the game engine received what is described as a “major overhaul”. I haven’t had a chance to test that out yet, though I will be trying out this blasphemous content as soon as I get my claws on it.

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Magicka is free on Steam this weekend. Download, play, if you like it, buy it for the sale price of £1.99. Thought I’d get that out of the way.

I know it’s only been a couple of days since we mentioned the expansion but if you’re rabidly opposed to Magicka and Lovecraft, you’ll just have to skip past the rest of this post. I apologise in advance to your much abused scroll wheels. Your reward for sticking with me is a fifteen minute video that contains two of the developers, right there on your screen, answering questions about The Stars Are Left. See for yourself.

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Changelist 1.4.3.2
Adjusted fairy dialog timing.
Fixed collision geometry in Chapter 8 final scene.
Fixed a bug in the Epic staff.
Fixed incorrect positioning of steam store highlight.
Fixed a bug in arcane/life beam damage calculation.
Fixed a bug where Fafnir would stop acting if a player was revived by the faerie.
Fixed a bug where Death would stop acting if a player was revived by the faerie.
Updated recent localization.

Paradox and Arrowhead have put out a trailer for the forthcoming Magicka expansion, The Stars Are Left, and you can see it below. The trailer comes with a huge list of tech improvements that will be applied in the coming update, including the vital “less falling through the floor”, which is a patch note that could be added to any game and receive a thumbs up from us. The tweaks are mostly visual improvements, however, so killing those Lovecraftian monsters – including giant pink spiders – will be less likely to send you insane. Something like that.

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Patch 1.4.3.1 Changelog 2011-11-15

• Added saveable checkpoints. Checkpoints will now save your progress up to that point.
• Added an automatic-revive fairy for single player games.
• Added an option to revisit old chapters in a campaign.
• Fixed decal limit graphics option.
• Added additional graphical options for particle effects.
• Improved server browser usability.
• Improved body collision detection and overall physics.
• Frame rate stuttering should be less noticeable for some users.
• Extended particle system with particle lights.
• Added bleed status effect, similar to the poison status effect it can be removed by healing.
• Added a stunned state and stun damage property, when a character is stunned they're unable to act for a character specific amount of time.
• Added gamepad rumble when a player character is revived.
• The seven day cruise achievement will now display its achievement progress.
• Level restart will now properly reset any active particle effects.
• Both confuse and fear particle effects will now properly stop when a character drowns.
• Fixed a gamepad issue in the campagin menu, where a user could reach invisible menu items.
• Improved etherealize network synchronization.
• The space robe's now use the correct portrait.
• Characters with grab abilities will now properly play a grab-intro animation.
• Increase life/arcane beam range.
• Fixed a bug in the loading screen where it sometimes wouldn't render properly.
• Fixed a bug in the credits, if a user changed language in the same game session, then the credit language would not be updated.
• Charm will now properly affect other enemy players.
• Collision between a projectile and a spell mine will now properly cause the mine to detonate.
• Pure water barriers no longer causes push damage, earth-water and ice-water barriers still do though.
• Decreased Fear range from 10 to 5 units.
• Decreased aura and buff intensity and details to reduce the graphics clutter.
• Casting a lightning spell within an area shield will now properly target the closest target.
• Overkilled frozen characters will now properly explode.
• Overkilled frozen characters will now properly spawn frozen gibs.
• Fixed some minor colouring issue on the health bars.
• Marginally increased the health bar height on player characters.
• Damage numbers caused by status effects will now properly display for network clients.
• Fixed an issue which incorrectly set the players team in non-versus games.
• Fixed an issue where non local characters could get stuck in casting self animation.
• Beastmen will now properly crouch before jumping.
• Fixed user input control when feared or panicking.
• Fixed a small bug in the AI, enemies should now be more responsive.
• Fixed arcane bolt when used by the rogue robes, it will now properly shoot the projectile like with other robes.
• Fixed Chapter 4 scene 2 (inn) fade to black bug.
• Changed the resolution of:
"Content\EffectTextures\ParticlesC.xnb"
"Content\EffectTextures\ParticlesD.xnb"
"Content\UI\HUD\CounterAnimation.xnb"
This resolves the "Texture Width/Height too large" error and renders the "http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1989214" fix obsolete.
• Fixed proper removal of status effect light source when a character is burning and killed.

Where do I start here. Magicka was made by Paradox Interactive, and is exclusively for PC. On to everything else

GAMEPLAY

In Magicka, you are a wizard. Your goal is to defeat numerous enemies with your wizardly magick. You use different elements for your main source of attack, eight of which are bound to QWER and ASDF while two others are made by combining water and cold or water and fire. You can put up to five different elements in a spell, and activate it using certain button combinations. There are also a little more than 20 Magicks that you can find, which are similar to spells but the order matters and Magicks are activated using the space bar. You use the left mouse button to move around. You can play multiplayer, or go it alone and try to get things done that way. The game isn't particularly entertaining and is brutally unforgiving when you are playing alone, but it really gets interesting once you get some friends together. Your buddies are capable of reviving you, which lowers the difficulty even if they do kill you about as often as they bring you back to life. The main source of fun here is seeing exactly how ridiculous everything gets. Meteor Shower and Crash to Desktop will likely kill your pals, but are absolutely hilarious when they go right or horribly wrong. The multiplayer of this game is some of the most fun I have ever had, simply because of how funny the whole thing is. Expect to die often, and in absurd ways. Amazing/10

Story

Like most every multiplayer-oriented game, the story is a very weak point for this game. The whole thing is incredibly simple, and mostly serves as an excuse to get you to go to certain places. It kind of works though, as you are usually too busy trying to see exactly what is and isn't immune to Crash to Desktop to think about how poor the story is. Not completely terrible/10

Graphics

The game is pretty stylized, but it doesn't exactly look the best. Don't expect something on the level of Crysis or really any good-looking game. One thing to note is that the graphics don't look overly dated or irritating, so at least it has that going for itThe character animations are pretty basic, but they don't do a terrible job at simplicity. Some animations are quite satisfying, oddly enough. Try giving your sword ice and then swinging it, or killing a monster while it is slowed by cold. Neat stuff. Some cool stuff/10

Sound

Of similar quality to the graphics and the story, none of the sound effects or music are anything particularly special. Likely the most important part of the whole thing is that the sound effects and music aren't really grating. Much of the music at least fits whatever is going on at the time, which is certainly good. There aren't very many satisfying sound effects, most of the satisfaction from your attacks is from the big numbers, the resulting gore, and on rare occassion the animations. Decent/10

.Overall

The story is poor, but very rarely does anybody care about that in a multiplayer-oriented game. The sound effects won't make your ears bleed, but it isn't often that you will find yourself casting a spell specifically for the noise it makes. It isn't ambitious with the graphics, but it reaches the goals it has set for itself quite well. The gameplay is the main selling point here. This game is one of the best multiplayer experiences available, and the concept is interesting enough. The spell casting system is only slightly robust, but the way the elements interact with eachother and with enemies is enough to get you experimenting and quite frequently *crag*ing things up. Which is good, since *crag*ing things up is exactly what the game is about. Great for plenty of laughs and fun times, so long as you have a few friends. I would be only slightly adamant about recommending this game were the pricetag higher, but as it costs only $10 for the base game on your average day it is certainly worth the cost. Excellent game/10

tl;dr: AWESOME MULTIPLAYER FUN SPELLS WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THE STORY AND SOUND GRAPHICS AREN'T VERY GOOD YOU SHOULD GET THIS GAME

Features

• Added to camera tracking an influence towards enemies in the immediate vicinity.
  
• Added Polish localization.
  
• If any versus game has one or less players it will automatically end.
  
• Added an ethereal state to newly respawned players in versus mode.
  
• Added two new achievements
  

Fixes

• Versus network games now properly synchronize spawn positions, this prevents characters from spawning in the same position during a Krietor mode reset.
  
• When local players are dead the camera will now instead track network players.
  
• Characters charging during a Krietor mode reset are now properly reset to an idle state.
  
• Fixed an issue where if in a rare situation a necromancer area casted with both poison and earth elements a crash would occur.
  
• Fixed an issue where a NPC (ie daemon lord) would drop an item which had not been cached, resulting in a crash.
  
• Self shields are now correctly removed when casting invisibility.
  
• Earth projectiles now gain some deviation on its trajectory whenever they destroy targets.
  
• Added some stability to game start.
  
• Adjusted self casted projectile spells position and direction.
  
• Improved fire efficiency greatly.
  
• Magick and Item packs are now properly hidden in lobby when Krietors Tourney is selected.
  
• Fixed a bug where characters casting a spell with their weapons while being feared would not properly reset the spell effect.
  
• Fixed the movement influence on avatars when they are feared.
  
• Krietor versus mode will now properly remove an active Meteorshower magick when it resets.
  
• Nullify will now affect every entity, independent of distance.
  

The Paradox/Arrowhead partnership continues to produce some of the best material in gaming. The live action trailer for the new PvP expansion for Magicka is a delight, and you can watch it below.

This new PvP expansion is free, but there are also $.99 map packs, as Paradox explain. There’s “Vulcanus Arena, a sci-fi themed map that doubles as a PvP map and a challenge map,” and “the chilling Frozen Lake map as well as a “stop staring at me, you’re freaking me out” Watch Tower map.” All of which adds up to some solid cheap extras to our favourite comedy mage game. Carry on, Paradox/Arrowhead.(more…)

Preview new maps for PvP and more in this update walkthrough!

Arrowhead and Paradox are a cheeky bunch. Magicka’s irreverence became infamous in the moment they announced DLC for a fantasy magic game themed around the Vietnam War. Their cheeky approach has continued, after they learned a while back that the Paradox booth at E3 would be immediately next to Bethesda’s megabooth. The result? See below for the full version.

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PvP gameplay highlights this trailer in which you crush your "friends" and see them driven before you!

Arrowhead has finally conjured up a launch date for its proposed PvP patch for Magicka, details on which were previously reported. The patch is free and releases on June 21, allowing up to four mages to step into the arena and duke it out a test of willpower.

Hit the jump for the press release and a new trailer showing off the dangers of locking four mages in a closed-off environment. Nobody puts mage in the corner!

A PvP patch is currently in development for Magicka (sure, we knew that) but Arrowhead Games Studio CEO Johan Pilestedt has offered a clearer picture of what to expect in a post on PC Gamer -- one that details measures being taken to ensure play balance in the patch.

NEW YORK - Paradox Interactive and Arrowhead Studios have heard the rallying cry from Magicka veterans everywhere: Players want the chance to be killed by endless hordes of monsters, and not just by their comrades. That chance has finally arrived, with a pair of new, Challenge Maps soon available fo...

Magicka is to get two new challenge maps, “Caverns” and “Marshlands”, each featuring a swarm of monsters that a player must take on with magic violence. You can check out the details of the maps in question in a video, below. However, one map will be free, and one will cost $1.99. Which will be which? Well that’s being decided in a poll just here. Looks like Caverns is the firm favourite, but maybe it’ll turn around for poor old Marshlands.

“These maps will be released on April 26th, one of which will be offered without requiring so much as a single potato,” say Paradox, cheekily.(more…)