What Majesty 2 Did right and What it missed

[Nerdfish]

Everyone

I have been slowly playing through all of Majesty 2 mission with randomization on again, and comparing it with Majesty HD. Here are a few thoughts that what the squeal did right and what it didn't.

First thing first. I think the lead designer didn't have the right idea what majesty is about. Majesty 2 was a strategy game, you did the right things at the right time in order to survive endless waves of spam. But Majesty was never about that. Majesty was about being the king, and as a king you did whatever you want - A sandbox. The point of majesty was never to have a hard game. I think this was the consequence of outsourcing development to Russians that probably made WW2 games before hand. The result of this is that new players find the game too hard and drops and instantly, thus killing the community or any popularity for the game. Majesty 2 need more Settlers and less Warcraft.

Also majesty 2 missions tend to require repeating the same openers, warrior, cleric, rogue, and another rogue or ranger guild. doing anything else almost always failed the mission. in majesty 1 you can have more variety. Honestly, Nobody play majesty to spam, or to fight spam.

Along the same line of thought, The developers put in a great deal of efforts making sure quests are strategic challenges. For instances buildings have no armor and were very vulnerable compare to high level heroes, Defenses gets expensively quickly and certain monsters can only be defeated by heroes. Trading post and temples can only be built on remote sites. While this makes it so you can't just defend, it also prevent you from walling in and just play sandbox. Again, Majesty isn't about having a well balanced strategic challenge, and having a focus on balance chased away most of existing players, who plays to ant-farm. Now all but two people remain. (Three, on a good day) I think the issue is that majesty II didn't really have a beta. and there was no feedback warning the developers from previous community members that this is a completely different beast.

A final consequence things only happen if the player order them to. There are no initiative. Heroes will ask for help when they should run. Hero will do nothing without flags. Heroes on a quest will walk right by a monster going for the town. This this doesn't happen with RTS units on attack move, This cannot be an oversight of the AI development, but rather a deliberate choice. And it's a bad choice, It's a mark of a bad games that if you look away for a second, everything is dead. The requirement for player multitasking and babysitting multiple events is pretty much antithesis of the majesty spirit. Basically, in attempt to quickly make a good strategy games, Majesty 2 sacrificed every principle that made majesty what it is. It's no more a sequel than the tower defense game.

Majesty 2 is technically a very impressive strategy game. The art asset is great and the combat system is amazing. In majesty rarely does heroes have more than one ability. in majesty 2 even warriors have 4 or five skills. It makes battles explosive and exiting to watch, if you are not too busy constantly casting buffs. Music were set the mood nicely, although not as epic as the music in Majesty 1.

The Artifact system is clever. It gives you a good feeling of the Sovereign's power, although I wish there were optional ones that could be collected. The Pranks between elves and Dwarves, Paladins and Priestesses and cute.

The writing is remarkably witty and the slapstick humor is hilarious at times. After playing beating the final mission of kingmaker with an endless number of tries, I did get a good laugh out of the goblin's motives. Ha, didn't see that coming.

Making the game expandable via DLC is actually a good idea, just make sure it works on steam.

If Paradox intend to invest in another majesty, please make a city builder. Paradox make great city builders, and it is my honest advise that Majesty is a city builder with a heroes and monsters. Please have a Beta with both Majesty and Magicka player to make sure it has what players want (to buy).

I have every Majesty and Magicka game (even Warlock and Wizard wars), I think Paradox have great potential if they apply the same dedication to Magicka towards Majesty.

 

[Alfryd]

Wow, NF, it's been a while... nice to see you're still around. (I hear draxxynnic is working for a guild-wars e-mag?)

I do feel that the original game could have stood a few more abilities for the benefit of non-magical classes, but I think the designers were coming from a very different background there. Majesty's combat & spellcasting are the child of 2E D&D and BRP Runequest, whereas Maj2's mechanics are the child of Diablo & World of Warcraft. Both have their weaknesses, but I respect the fact that magical classes felt legitimately different in the former.

I heard that Maj2's humour improved substantially in Kingmaker, but unfortunately I never got around to playing it (can't quite remember why, but I suspect the DLC never made it to Mac.) The art style never clicked for me, though.

Otherwise, total agreement here. I've been screaming this to the four winds for years, but the lack of an early beta and near-total disconnect with the original's fanbase really sent development off in a strange direction. Some of that was unavoidable, given the time-delay since Maj1 was released, but things like turning down the original's designer and total-unawareness of Legends' existence can only be ascribed to Paradox/InoCo not doing their homework. Subsequent franchise-developments (like Impire, DoA or Warlock's incomprehensible marketing) give the impression not so much of a poorly-formulated strategy as an absence of any strategy whatever.

 

[Nerdfish]

I ran into draxxynnic at the Age of Wonders community, and had an argument with him about foxes.

Not sure about 2E DnD. Majesty 1's spell's have no cast per day, it doesn't have cooldowns or mana, wizards just cast them as fast as possible.

 

[Alfryd]

A fair point. The way that Maj classes have different XP quotas and fit the overall dinky rogue/fighter vs. uber mage/priest paradigm just feels very much like a product of AD&D culture before 3E was released. The steady drift of Gygax's confused and crotchety, yet oddly endearing, sim/gamist hybrid into a solidly power-gamer-focused product over the years has been... quite interesting. (I gather 5E is different again.)

 

[Nerdfish]

Yeah, Dnd is turning into a small squad skirmish game recently. 5E is indeed different again

 

[Polite_Orc]

Majesty 2 need more Settlers and less Warcraft.

Hello! I just go by and want to say a few words. I really dont think concept of Majesty2 is bad. Its great. Crush kingdoms of your friends in the endless multiplayer battles in dynamic and fast skirmish, as it was in the misson of maj1, when you need to assault the barbarian kingdom. I want it!
Less independency of heroes is needed for that, and outpost concept of Majesty 2 is great.
Wars of kingdoms, why is it worse than a city builder?

I think you and other fans are go too far, when you analyze the concept of the Majesty 2. The main problem of Majesty 2 is not a lack of some rpg classes, not style of artwork, and bad reception of the old gamers. The reason is, Majesty 2 was made badly. Its multiplayer is in theory good, but was coded bad and in fact unplayable. Its kingdoms AI, a necessary part of that kind of game, is none.

I would really like to play a re-make of Majesty 2.
Majesty 2 could be a great game and still be popular, but it was just made broken. That's all, imo.

 

[Alfryd]

I'm not sure I know how to talk to you, Polite_Orc. We evidently have such different tastes that whatever you see in Maj2 is something I'm wholly ignorant of. I might suggest that Maj2 had little to offer in terms of gameplay or artwork that isn't better implemented by the thriving MOBA or tower-defence genres, but perhaps there was some subtlety to the former's mechanics which set it apart from the madding crowd. If so, I'm blind to it, and that's my failing.

However, I would say with some confidence there's been a dearth of quality citybuilders and fresh blood in the Sim genre over the past decade or so. The closest we got to a re-tread of Maj1 was Sims Medieval, which I didn't think much of (and Majesty Mobile, which was actually reasonably good, but never really developed fresh content or mechanics.)

And I would definitely say that Paradox wholly misconstrued what set Majesty apart from most other games, and that marketing Maj2 as a sequel to Maj1 was a real strategic blunder. Maybe I'm just spiteful, but something galls me about the notion of this stupidity being subsequently vindicated. (And I say this as someone with nothing but respect for Paradox as a development team and a steward of community when it comes to the great bulk of their in-house titles.) But I yam what I yam.

 

[Nerdfish]

Polite_Orc, the issue with Majesty II is that it tried to be a RTS instead of Successor of Majesty Fantasy Kingdom Sim.
It's not a bad game, but it's not majesty.

During M2's development, I went to great length to propose that multiplayer should not be a priority. Nobody cared. LOL.

 

[Alfryd]

...You did, now that I look back. I think I said something about co-op MP being moderately popular, but I can't really remember at this point.