Biggest fears over transition to 3D

[UniversalWolf]

I was specifically responding to the suggestion that everyone agrees Majesty 2 ought to be 3D. I don't agree. I never said there were no advantages to 3D, because clearly there are some. You can see that from Paradox's EUIII engine, which allows easy changes of screen resolution and easy zooming in and out.

Now I'll give you an example of a game that was ruined by switching to 3D: Baldur's Gate. Neverwinter Nights was utterly horrible compared to the Baldur's Gate games. Yes, a few things were improved by moving to 3D, but the cost was appalling. BG had beautifully-rendered backgrounds to every area. They were so good that several times when I entered a new area for the first time I said to myself, "Wow, that is cool!" Neverwinter Nights traded that experience for crappy, blocky, ugly, ugly, ugly, repetative 3D graphics. When I entered a new area in NWN I said, "Wow, every area in this game looks exactly the same." That game took years of patching and improving before it was even playable - not because it's hard to make a good CRPG, but because the 3D implementation came with so many teething problems and limitations that the heart of it - the story - was placed on the back burner. Without all the user-made mods it would still be rubbish.

My first choice for Majesty 2 would be an isometric hybrid 3D-2D system along the lines of the one used by Temple of Elemental Evil. Beautiful game, ToEE (and tragic, but that's another story).

Changing the camera angle makes a huge difference. It makes the game feel very different.

Ultimately, moving to 3D qualifies as fixing something that wasn't broken. I'd rather see the broken things fixed, especially since - I assume - the budget for Majesty 2 isn't earth-shattering. It's one thing for a giant studio to pour millions into making a flashy, cutting-edge, 3D engine, and quite another for a smaller company to attempt the same thing.

I'm holding out hope that Majesty 2 will be a good game. There's no reason it can't be a good game. I just don't like "improvements" that make it less like the good parts of Majesty 1. When I play Majesty today, I never say to myself, "This game would be really good if only the graphics were 3D."

 

[unmerged(60143)]

Loppan, babysitting is pretty much the ONLY direct control you have over the action in this game. You have very few direct offensive spells, mostly useless against anything but henchmen. If you can't babysit heroes, the game would devolve into a match to see who can spawn units fastest then fling them in vaguely the right direction.

(Well, assuming you have no subtler directives at your disposal than bounty flags, at least. That, or you could alter sovereign spells so that they have more gradual/persistent/delayed effects, so that the player is obliged to think ahead.)

Plus that you have the whole kingdombuilding bit, not to steer the heroes but it's another part of the game. I thought the gameplay was nicely balanced in Majesty, there's room for improvement, but bringing more tools to babysit won't make the game better imo. The ideas about subtler directives would fit into the game better and not bring more micromanagement to the game.

This is as long as we're talking about the SP-part of the game, which is what I played almost exclusively. I got the sense that you perhaps were coming from a different perspective.


@ UniversalWolf: I agree in almost all points, NWN was a huge disappointment, but somehow they still managed to sell tons of copies. They made more expansionpacks to it than BG2 and I don't think they'll ever go back to making 2D-games.
The 2D/3D hybrid in ToEE might be nice, but it also came from a small dev and the game was very buggy from what I've heard. Troika, the devs, aren't around anymore...

Changing the camera isn't necessary just because you go from 2D to 3D, is it?!

Maybe Majesty2 could be made in 2D, even though no one makes such games today apart from one-man-devs, but would they be able to showcase the game without the game being ripped apart by the gamingcommunity before anyone's even tried it? You would be happy to play it, but they need to sell the game to a younger audience than those who played the original too.
I'm not saying the game will be better by moving to 3D per se, I just think that there wasn't any other choice.

 

[Spiderman]

You have very few direct offensive spells, mostly useless against anything but henchmen

I love Lightning Storm! When I can afford it, that is...

However, I think this was intentional. Again, since the focus is supposed to be on the heros, you aren't supposed to intervene a whole lot and when you do, it's "mighty" expensive (usually not a problem late-game when your economy is rolling though).

Which I guess agrees with the whole babysitting thing - you make sure your heros survive so *they* do all of the work, not you sitting back in the castle using sovereign spells.

 

[Hassat Hunter]

Which is why Legendary Heroes was such a horrible quest, since it went against it's own premises of having the heroes do the work. Vigil for a Fallen Hero took it too far (still; I loved that one. We need more like it in MFKS2, and we can now steer the randomcy a bit more with cross-over heroes etcetera.)

Nope. Not once when playing MFKS did I think "this really needs to be done in 3D". But it just wouldn't be a wise choice to release a 2D game in this time anymore (unfortunately). Cyberlore also knew that when making Legends, and I have to say the screenshots of that game made me wish they just sticked to 2D... horrible. However I have to say the movies and screenshots already given show that it does look pleasant to the eye, so as long as camera control and overview won't get lost, it might be a nice addition instead of annoying distraction.

On the discussion of "babysitting"; personally I would prefer less direct control for the Sovereign even than in MFKS (with spells) and more 'direction' (reward flags, structures, proper recruitment etc.)

 

[unmerged(56970)]

I was specifically responding to the suggestion that everyone agrees Majesty 2 ought to be 3D. I don't agree. I never said there were no advantages to 3D, because clearly there are some. You can see that from Paradox's EUIII engine, which allows easy changes of screen resolution and easy zooming in and out.

Now I'll give you an example of a game that was ruined by switching to 3D: Baldur's Gate. Neverwinter Nights was utterly horrible compared to the Baldur's Gate games. Yes, a few things were improved by moving to 3D, but the cost was appalling. BG had beautifully-rendered backgrounds to every area. They were so good that several times when I entered a new area for the first time I said to myself, "Wow, that is cool!" Neverwinter Nights traded that experience for crappy, blocky, ugly, ugly, ugly, repetative 3D graphics. When I entered a new area in NWN I said, "Wow, every area in this game looks exactly the same." That game took years of patching and improving before it was even playable - not because it's hard to make a good CRPG, but because the 3D implementation came with so many teething problems and limitations that the heart of it - the story - was placed on the back burner. Without all the user-made mods it would still be rubbish.

My first choice for Majesty 2 would be an isometric hybrid 3D-2D system along the lines of the one used by Temple of Elemental Evil. Beautiful game, ToEE (and tragic, but that's another story).

Changing the camera angle makes a huge difference. It makes the game feel very different.

Ultimately, moving to 3D qualifies as fixing something that wasn't broken. I'd rather see the broken things fixed, especially since - I assume - the budget for Majesty 2 isn't earth-shattering. It's one thing for a giant sudio to pour millions into making a flashy, cutting-edge 3D, engine, and quite another for a smaller company to attempt the same thing.

I'm holding out hope that Majesty 2 will be a good game. There's no reason it can't be a good game. I just don't like "improvements" that make it less like the good parts of Majesty 1. When I play Majesty today, I never say to myself, "This game would be really good if only the graphics were 3D."

Beautifully said... Where do i sign up at your fanclub?

 

[UniversalWolf]

@ UniversalWolf: I agree in almost all points, NWN was a huge disappointment, but somehow they still managed to sell tons of copies. They made more expansionpacks to it than BG2 and I don't think they'll ever go back to making 2D-games.

You're quite right, and it's sad. Games in general have been getting worse over the past ten years or so. Not that there aren't some good ones being made, of course.

The 2D/3D hybrid in ToEE might be nice, but it also came from a small dev and the game was very buggy from what I've heard. Troika, the devs, aren't around anymore...

The story of the failure of ToEE and Troika is a sad one. Activision seems to have leaned on them to put the game out long before it was ready, with disastrous results. The ToEE community have labored long and hard to try and get the full potential out of it.

I like all Toika's games. Too bad they're not around anymore.

Changing the camera isn't necessary just because you go from 2D to 3D, is it?!

No. But then why switch to full 3D at all?

However I have to say the movies and screenshots already given show that it does look pleasant to the eye, so as long as camera control and overview won't get lost, it might be a nice addition instead of annoying distraction.

I think it looks okay, but compared to ToEE it's a wallflower. I honestly think if a developer put the effort into making a pure isometric game with rendered 2D backgrounds, they could produce something that made people say, "Wow!"

For example, I'd rather have buildings that merge together to make the settlement look like a town than have 3D - that would be real innovation.

In any case, I'm not trying to sound like I'm ripping on M2. I really hope it turns out to be a worthy sequel, and I haven't seen anything that makes me believe it can't be one.

Beautifully said... Where do i sign up at your fanclub?

I'd let you join, but unfortunately there have to be limits. Fanclubs can only be so big before they become unmanagable.

 

[Nerdfish]

the technology behind NWN and NWN2 engines are vastly superior then that used by BG engine. NWN also sold more copies then BG series, admittedly computer gaming has became more popular during NWN's time, but the game was far more accessible then its predecessor.

TOEE used a much upgraded version of BG's turn based system, but the game failed, so did the studio behind it.

The performance of a game is not always obvious or intuitive before hands, however we can say with some confidence that advancing technology driving the game is likely to benefit its performance in the market.

 

[Spiderman]

Which is why Legendary Heroes was such a horrible quest, since it went against it's own premises of having the heroes do the work

Is that the one where you start out with one of any hero, can't build Guilds or temples, and fight the Abomination?

 

[Hassat Hunter]

No, It's the one where you have to destroy 6 barrows on a gigantic map in a tiny time-scale, with less than one handful of heroes.

 

[Nerdfish]

Monsters don't argo buildings on that quest. so you can do it with wizard towers and lightning bolts.

That's pretty much the only way to do it, actually

 

[Hassat Hunter]

Ehm, plenty of Anti-building Aggro monsters running around during that quest. Now if only the Solarus would stick around the base to kill off THOSE foes.

And yes, that is the ONLY way... with buildings and sovereign spells. Totally unlike the rest of the game, that is about the heroes. Plz no repeatal Paradox/1Co.

 

[Spiderman]

Well, I thought you send some heros out to kill some barrows and Bolt the rest.

It is different from the usual Majesty paradigm, but since it's only one quest out of the many, I thought it was a good change of pace

 

[UniversalWolf]

the technology behind NWN and NWN2 engines are vastly superior then that used by BG engine.

If you say so. BG was a much better game than NWN, technological superiority or not.

NWN also sold more copies then BG series, admittedly computer gaming has became more popular during NWN's time, but the game was far more accessible then its predecessor.

If there had been no BG, would NWN have been successful? I doubt it. NWN made it's living off of BG's success.

Imagine if NWN had not been far more accessible than BG. Returns might have outnumbered sales for the first time in history. It's accessability was it's sole redemption.

Sales are a sad fact of gaming - a neccessary evil, where business and art collide. I don't factor them one bit into my assessment of whether a game is good or not, just like I don't decide Independence Day was a good movie just because it sold lots of tickets.

TOEE used a much upgraded version of BG's turn based system, but the game failed, so did the studio behind it.

Failure or not, it's a better game than NWN, and vastly more beautiful. The game's failure was a result of business decisions triumphing over good design sense, not a result of ToEE being a bad game, or having a bad concept. Troika's demise was a very bad thing for gaming, but they've left an impressive legacy. I guarantee people will still be playing their games ten years from now. That's the kind of quality they were striving for.

The performance of a game is not always obvious or intuitive before hands, however we can say with some confidence that advancing technology driving the game is likely to benefit its performance in the market.

I guess. Just because a game is full of flashy newness and sells a billion copies doesn't make it good, and I won't buy it unless I think it's good.

I still occasionally play Sid Meier's Colonization, which is about 15 years old, has 256-color graphics, and never caught on the way Civilization did, because it's a great game - better than Civilization, in fact.

Great games are like that - they last. Majesty will last. I'm not sure about M2 yet.

The rub on cutting-edge technology is that you can convince people to buy something that has it, even though that thing is rubbish in every other way.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

If there had been no BG, would NWN have been successful? I doubt it. NWN made it's living off of BG's success.

NWN made its living off having a merely decent campaign with a couple of obvious turn-offs (such as the extremely similar companion quests in each chapter), a fairly good rules implementation... and having true multiplayer support for player created dungeons and gaming worlds. It is also attractive to those who like focusing on one character. NWN1, while the absolute depth of storytelling for Bioware, still presented better proper storytelling than most contemporary competitors. The expansions, focused less on expanding the core system than on presenting new campaigns, provided very nice campaigns.

For the singleplayer gamer who likes running a party rather than single main character, the BG series, especially BG II, presented the better game, no doubt about it - looking better, having more tactical depth, and having a much, much, better and longer campaign (and yes, I'm one of those who felt let down by NWN too), but Infinity engine could not even begin to carry off the things that NWN, its expansions, and its sequel do.

With every screen lovingly painted by hand and having collision and masking layers made by hand too, the BG setup was one that did not fit at all into the design vision for NWN - a true D&D world and campaign builder that ordinary players could use, a game with persistent player dungeon-mastered content on hosted persistent worlds.

Without any BG previously (and without PS:T, without IWD), would NWN have been a success? I'm pretty sure it would since it was still, even for the single player who prefers parties, a pretty good CRPGs compared to what it was competing with for attention span when it was released, and for those interested in the multiplayer part, nothing before or since (except its successor) comes close. The pay off (for the single player) was NWN2 and its expansion, which features good campaigns, though overly linear for my taste, and the reintroduction of actual party members rather than mere henchmen.

That said, I'd love to see a party based huge scale not-completely-linear dedicated singleplayer CRPG again, despite the fact that anybody capable of making that can probably make almost as much money by making something much cheaper on a smaller scale with considerably less content (are we ever going to see the 200h+ content of BGII again? For a standalone product, I doubt it anytime soon - just too expensive for too little gain)... Bioware's Dragon Age might fit the bill or it might not, but who else is even trying?


As regards 3D vs 2D:

3D based has a much easier time dealing with different screen formats than 2D sprite based, and there are ever more different formats being practically used. Even as late as the late 90'ies, you could choose one screen format (such as 640x480) and be reasonably sure that the vast majority of your customers would play it on a screen where that format was supported and looked good, but with gamers playing on laptops or stationaries, with anything from 13" to 21" monitors and different supported resolutions, a developer saves a heck of a lot of work in the long run by saying fuck resolution, fuck making different sprite sets and backgrounds to match the resolutions we choose to support, we'll use one 3D model per thing we want to represent and let the player choose the resolution that fits him.... which is one of the major reasons that even games that look 2D are most commonly 3D games with a fixed perspective these days - despite the loss of the crisp drawing quality that the best of artists can present.

...and that's without even thinking of the hassle of getting your game onto the shelves if it isn't in 3D.

You are either a bloody idiot, very sure of yourself, your market, and your ability to sell your games, or run on a truly minimal budget with no 3D artists to choose to develop a professional game using 2D rather than 3D these days.