Lucid Dreamers Development is currently working on a new Master of Magic clone, called Empires of Sorcery. It will have many of the features you remember from MoM, and expand those ideas in a lot of ways. World maps will be new and unique each time a game is started. The overland map will be very familiar, with cities, dungeons, temples, magical founts (nodes) and other features. Character creation will also be similar, with choices of magical powers from different schools, special skills, and several races to choose from.

The magical system will be more intricate than MoM. Spells are organized into elemental schools (fire, earth, air, water, life, death) as well as sorted by similar effects (summoning, protection, destruction, mentalism and more). There is much overlap of these schools, and where two schools meet there will be unique spells.

City management is very similar to MoM as far as constructing buildings and training units, but some features have been added. Assigning population to different jobs (farming, production, research) will give you more flexible options but still a very simple interface, and moving population from one city to another will be much easier. The addition of a build queue allows you to plan ahead and means you'll have to check on your cities less often.

The alternate planes from MoM, light and dark, are also included in Empires of Sorcery. It will also contain options to include several more alternate planes at game creation.

One of the biggest new features of Empires of Sorcery is the Undead as a playable race. An entire kingdom of skeletons, zombies and more powerful Undead creatures, organized into cities and armies. The Undead empire will play by very different rules, and will add a very unique experience to the game.

More information about EoS is available at the Empires of Sorcery homepage http://www.empiresofsorcerygame.com/ and wiki page http://wiki.empiresofsorcerygame.com/index.php/Main_Page . Lucid Dreamers is running a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to pay for artwork and other resources for the game, which can be found at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lucid-dreamers/empires-of-sorcery

Have you ever read a book that is being written while you read it ? In ancient times when men were real men, women were real women, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real furry creatures from Alpha and only the boldest dared to dream about 2D games whole new style of games has emerged - massive multiplayer in first crude form - telnet games. They have brought new elements - communication and cooperation (as well as new cool ways of wreaking havoc). Comparing to classic adventures there is no game ending - player can explore the world, steal from other players, help newbies or just go troll hunting. Player controls avatar in virtual world with simple text commands - such as "go north", "go south" or "kill troll" and the world is being described in the same way. Avatar has to face many dangers - such as hunger, thirst, trolls* and other players. MUD themes varies from Napoleon wars to Star Wars. They also have different core engine that participates on gaming experience - most namely DIKU or Circle MUD. Interesting fact - MUDs are very much alive even today despite nowadays fancy 3D MMORPG - that is a big victory for human fantasy (perhaps also for the fact that you can open window with text even in work or school). So if you're interested in trying one - try my favourite www.aardwolf.com

* author (that's me) is not a shapist and has nothing against trolls who besides having big clubs and green skin are great fellows