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[DorthLous]

Well, a good way to cut a chunk of those prices is to have a library, if you had wizards. All heroes gain increased int, 5% cut in research prices (however, watching it, I think it was 10%, so the description and effect would mismatch, though uncertain about this.) You guys manage to make me want to play MSK1:NE each and every time ^^

 

[Spiderman]

I just "cheated" playing Fortress of Ixmil: In a nutshell, I built a Temple of Krolm, then an Outpost, then destroyed the Krolm temple so I could go Agrela/Dauros... Ixmil appeared right next to the Outpost and destroyed it and I couldn't rebuild another fast enough to prevent my Barbs from leaving... so I reloaded

Anyway, the only research cost you're cutting is the weapon/armor research, which is 1200 minus 5%/10% is only a savings of 60/120 total. It's not enough to justify the building of a Wizard's Guild at 1425(?) and then a Library at 760-ish, for a total of 2185. You might as well just pay the full price for the weapon/armor research.

 

[Hassat Hunter]

All heroes gain increased int

+1 INT to the range at recruiting, it doesn't work retro-active for already hired heroes. Don't ask me how many libraries you need to make it +2 or +3 though, I cannot remember.

5% cut in research prices (however, watching it, I think it was 10%, so the description and effect would mismatch, though uncertain about this.)

5% for lvl 1, 10% for lvl 2. Unlike the Blacksmith (bonus to construction cost!), that's 5% whatever level it's on.

it explains in detail why AI is realism and in his opinion even more important for realism than for example graphics or sounds. About that point I never mention the reverse (nor this).

Ehm, no. No, it doesn't...

There's one exception with other heroes of an enemy kingdom. They are attacked only in some special cases so most often you need flag them to have heroes attack them

That's quite odd, especially considering the game is made with MP in mind. Why do they just let enemy heroes go unchallenged? Shouldn't they be far higher priority than monsters? : puzzled :

 

[Colombo]

About the need to put any flag on nearly every living creature that's totally wrong. Let your heroes live much more than you are doing. Try it, I do it constantly and know they don't need that I flag any stuff.

You are playing the game with no patience making you use flag in hurry and I bet use very high sum ... blah blah blah

I am using nearly no flags. So I am dissapointed by no own inniciative of my heroes. Only staying in town doing nothing interesting. Thas why I am sad with Majesty 2.

 

[Alfryd]

There is a hidden fear system in this game that should have been explained better in the manual. Heroes gain courage based on the number of allies around them...

Where are you getting this information from? I can't say I've observed this behaviour myself.

 

[Alfryd]

Oh, just for the record: healers followed warriors, wizards, and tax collectors, rangers and wizards followed barbarians, wizards also followed monks. And that's it. (Also, follow-and-support sucked.)

 

[unmerged(139034)]

I am using nearly no flags. So I am dissapointed by no own inniciative of my heroes. Only staying in town doing nothing interesting. Thas why I am sad with Majesty 2.

This is an extremely common complaint, post it directly on Fred's page to ensure he takes notice.

 

[unmerged(166420)]

Its also a really stupid complaint.

Regardless of how you dress it up, its effectively complaining about having to actually play the game.

 

[Nesrie]

Its also a really stupid complaint.

Regardless of how you dress it up, its effectively complaining about having to actually play the game.

Actually, you disagreeing with someone else's opinion doesn't make it a "stupid complaint." If can't discuss things with people who disagree with you, then don't discuss things.

Now a simulation game, which the Majesty series is partially, should not require that the player force feed orders in order for every little thing to happen in the game. That is a system of a plain RTS. If they wanted to do a fantasy themed RTS, like there are dozens of in other games, then remove the Majesty name and call it an RTS. As it is now, and using the original as a drawing board, the heroes had enough personality to do more than walk around town like some sort of blank minded puppet waiting for the puppet master to tell them what to do. They have little initiative of their own, again a symptom of a vanilla RTS unit.

 

[Alfryd]

Its also a really stupid complaint.

Regardless of how you dress it up, its effectively complaining about having to actually play the game.

It appears you don't understand what the term 'simulation' actually means. It is by definition a system where internal cause and effect are the most significant deciding factors.

If I play SimCity, the fact my zones' growth and development is largely autonomous does not mean I am 'not playing the game'. On the contrary- the whole point is to choose the combination of zones and services that will require the least subsequent maintenance possible. If I play the Citybuilder series, the fact my walkers' behaviour is 99% automated (and substantially random) does not mean I am 'not playing the game'- the entire purpose of play is to set up transport infrastructure and supply chains that minimise demand for further micromanagement.

The analogy should be exact in the case of Majesty, it's heroes, and the economic buildings you provide. The purpose of play would be to establish self-sustaining systems of interaction that render your further input largely unnecessary. This then frees your attention to dwell on, e.g, large-scale strategic coordination (quest flags and the like,) or simply on creating as large a settlement as possible.

More than that, indirect control without hero initiative is basically combining the worst of both worlds- you now have to babysit your heroes relentlessly, but they won't do anything useful by themselves to compensate. And finally, it's a question of verisimilitude. It doesn't make sense that these widely varying classes would have nigh-identical personalities with no detectable agenda outside of 'maximise profit'. Yes, some heroes are basically cutthroat, amoral mercenaries. Then again, some classes are basically NOT cutthroat, amoral mercenaries. Paladins, for example.

 

[DorthLous]

Heh, playing Torchlight like crazy since it got out (excellent game by the way, worth far more than the 20$ sale tag ^^ ) and first thing I did is a caster class quickly followed by leveling his summons and pet. Now I try and find the best equip to boost them and stay out of trouble as much as possible. I use tactic in my fights so that they get as little damage as possible and me as well. I thaught spells to my pet who use them way too often, but still, use them. Thing is, looking at those minions and pet go, I feel their AI is just under the level of Majesty 2. And it's an ARPG. It doesn't make sense said heroes in M2 don't act at least as if they were aware of some danger to their owner (guild, central buildings, etc.) the same way my minions do in Torchlight.

Why do minions from hell care more about me than heroes for whom I build houses, temples, marketplaces, houses, provide guard and peasant to maintain their homes, etc. Why can I control the behavior of my pet (aggressive, defenssive, passive) better than I can control my heroes, yet they don't act by themselves? I think that's the point everyone is trying to make. The way they are now, it isn't credible, it isn't much fun (for those complaining about it, at least) and it completly destroy that immersive feel we need from the game.

Side note, a complaint was made for a lack of way to respec and within 6 hours, an official mod came out. They are also releasing the complete editor (and it's a huge one, well done too) in a matter of days to everyone. Hard to not feel if they could do that with my 20$, I should expect more from M2 that got my 40$ as a pre-order...

 

[unmerged(166420)]

Majesty has never been a simulation game.

Its been a strategy game through and through. It may have gone from marquee turn based to real time, but its still a strategy game. If we take it as a 'simulation', it is extremely simplistic, basic and downright boring, somewhat akin in complexity to a game you'd find on a gameboy.

Pretty much the entire economy comes down to building a money making building, and having a tax collector go to it and coming back. To increase the amount of money from a building I upgrade it, suddenly it earns me more money. There is no careful balancing of zones, traffic densities, beautification, transit times, public transport types and costs, job types and income disparity so I'll thank you not to compare this to Simcity in any way shape or form.

So lets say our market is targeted by monsters that like markets, like ratmen and trolls in the original and dragons in this one, so we build a tower next to it for defence and to shorten the tax mans route. This is less akin to any type of important simulation decision and more akin to building a turret next to a resource point.

Moving on to what we actually spend this money on. We either build more resource buildings, or munchkins that kill stuff. Of course I over simplify that, they of course exist to kill stuff or do secondary actions, this may involve killing more stuff or planting herbs. They have no wants and needs for you to manage, loyalty to ensure or anything to simulate that they are actually alive, they just exist to kill stuff. To argue otherwise is to ignore the conga lines that existed when your cleared the map and a minotaur entered from an edge, all those happy little minions out for blood regardless of distance, terrain or actually being able to see the thing because there is a great big castle in the way, they know the minotaur is there is its going to get it.

The majesty series is about as much a simulation as Company of Heroes. If you squint hard enough it may look like one and it does have that lovely title on the front of the box passing it off as one, but its not in any way a simulation game over an RTS.




Now with that said, its a stupid suggestion because the game is not built to handle it. A fair few monsters being able to one shot most early game heroes, map sizes, spawn rates, income rate. To make this game effectively capable of being played anything like the old majesty 1 you'd have to change everything. Including but not limited too increasing the income, reduce the monsters strength down to a heroes level, reduce equipment bonuses, completely change the health potion mechanics, reduce the spawn rates, increase building toughness and generally rebalanced the entire game from there along with developing new AI to drive it all.

Of course I'm sure the developers would love to go through with this suggestion, all that's required is to completely remake the game bar graphics, overriding several design decisions in the process and probably completely screwing the player over in the campaign with all its proximity triggers, unless they completely remake all that as well which they would probably have to.

Now before anyone takes it that wrong way I'm all for heroes getting more personality and automation, rangers exploring more of the map than your average cleric for example. I do not want them however to rampage around the map just because the town ran out of rats, knocking down lairs and pissing off any boss monsters on their own and completely voiding the whole point of the flags and any need to use them like the first game.



Edit:
Torchlight was made with an open source engine, that's half the production costs gone right there.

 

[Alfryd]

If we take it as a 'simulation', it is extremely simplistic, basic and downright boring, somewhat akin in complexity to a game you'd find on a gameboy.

There were plenty of Majesty players who ant-farmed purely for the hell of it without victory objectives being remotely important, and plenty more who find the game uninteresting without it's Sim elements, so clearly they weren't as boring as you suggest. (Most of the sim elements, in fact, came under the heading of hero AI. Which Maj2 has shot in the gut and left to bleed. As a side note, Animal Crossing appears to make plenty of money.)

I am 100% in favour of increasing Majesty's depth WRT sim elements, not to mention the fidelity of it's AI- I am thoroughly aware of Majesty's many deficiencies when it comes to providing satisfying Simulationist play. It simply strikes me as being less deficient in this respect than when it came to satisfying RTS-style play.

You want to argue that Maj1 was a strategy game? Class/faction balance is a joke, economic balance is nonexistant, strategic options boil down to a frenetic war of attrition and multiplayer was plagued by interminable stalemates due to 85+ dodge/parry scores for all senior heroes, only fixed by the sorceror's abode which- you guessed it!- gave the player direct control over units. As a strategy game, Maj1 was mediocre at best.

Moreover, many of these deficiencies are irreparable without seriously undermining Majesty's key selling point- indirect control. Saying that Majesty isn't a Sim ignores not only the spirit of the game, the title of the game, and the original developers' own plans for a sequel, but the fact that indirect control is an inherently Simulationist feature. Let me stress this again- Majesty's most important selling point is a Sim feature.

Now with that said, its a stupid suggestion because the game is not built to handle it. A fair few monsters being able to one shot most early game heroes, map sizes, spawn rates, income rate. To make this game effectively capable of being played anything like the old majesty 1 you'd have to change everything.

You're right. Not only have the developers' stripped away the single most vital elements of the original game, but the core assumptions that caused them to do so have had consistent ramifications which make correcting the situation almost impossible. They would effectively have to rewrite the game from scratch. That is probably the single thing that most annoys me about Maj2. It is a carefully polished and delicately balanced game built upon fundamentally misguided assumptions.

 

[Analad]

Majesty has never been a simulation game....

I wrote I would not spam here anymore so apologize to do so anyway. But I see you are going on the wrong path I took.

Since when have you played Majesty 1? Myself I hadn't since many years, ie few month after the release of the xp (that I never played). My remembering was very obscure, just that it was a great game but I had complain, never enjoyed the squirmish mode, didn't found the re-playability of the campaign good but by trying different combination of heroes on some favorite maps. Yes a great game anyway.

When I started replay Majesty 2 it was a real fun and when I saw the constant whining here after some time I tried replay some Majesty 1 maps. Beginners and Advanced, didn't get much fun. Until I played yesterday "Quest for the Holy Chalice". It's a quiet full map with only few events, nothing impressive, for a strategy point of view nothing noteworthy.

But I was looking some details and it was working only because of that and it made a flash, ha yes now I remember why I enjoyed so much Majesty 1. Not a strategy game nor a sim, but the multiple sim details are a major part of its gameplay fun.

I was hoping (perhaps like you) more controls, more shift to strategy, and many more points, some covered by Majesty 2.

But looks the result, it's not the replayability, it's just the game limits. As a strategy game it's a failure with ton of holes, including two distinctive way to play any map with very few map exception and only because of time limit (camp in town or hurry destroy any den). I'm not sure Majesty was doing much better on this point of view but it had ton of details and a world living complexity that was building a large part of his charm.

Is it possible to make a more strategy game than was Majesty 1 with a similar base system? I don't know but Majesty 2 didn't succeed it.

 

[Hassat Hunter]

Majesty has never been a simulation game.

Nor a RTS. So why should it turn in one?

downright boring

Odd people still play it 9 years after date and it got such a huge fandom then...

Now with that said, its a stupid suggestion because the game is not built to handle it.

Yeah? Not quite so it looks to me. But let's take your "impossible" stuff, think about it for 5 seconds, then make a suggestion that can easily work in the current MFKS2 framework:

A fair few monsters being able to one shot most early game heroes

Actually, I think heroes level too fast and become too strong too fast, and most monsters are too weak. Lowering XP for heroes and making monsters stronger would be my desire. And nerf those darned Rogues darn it!

map sizes

Fine, you got an issue here.

spawn rates

Why can that not work with self-hunting heroes? Hell, with them being pro-active, monster spawn might even be increased to keep the map populated .

income rate

Looks fine to me. Well, besides the 100% return of hero spendings. But changing that has little effect on the game. I wonder how making heroes being pro-active changes the economy severe. Or do you mean you no longer need to spend 2000 gold to have a map explored? See how fast the increased deaths of rangers take that from you again...

Including but not limited too increasing the income

Okay... as said above, why? After all, as you say it flags become "useless" (not true) and thus you still have more money regardless. What do you have to spend so much more on with pro-active heroes. Well, besides Fear flags...

reduce the monsters strength down to a heroes level

Or increase it so they aren't so darned f**king weak.

reduce equipment bonuses

Okay. Why? What does hero activity has to do with item bonusses?,

completely change the health potion mechanics

Congratiolations... another why? Are you opting for making it "like MFKS1" or do you just say this because you expect it to be turned into an exact MFKS1 clone?
The current method is an improvement upon MFKS1 and works well within the frame, even with pro-active heroes. Why the hell do you want to switch it back to the old model?

reduce the spawn rates

Or... increase them to re-act to the more active heroes. Or just keep them the same. Lairs are pretty much a no-factor in MFKS1, their working in MFKS2 is an improvement. And would work with heroes who also simulate lives besides fighting.

increase building toughness

Why (yes, there is a trend growing here)? Buildings are pretty much as tough as MFKS1, they just get attacked WAY more often here. Good job on asking change on something that hasn't been changed at all...

and generally rebalanced the entire game from there along with developing new AI to drive it all.

Because warriors actively seeking out foes, rangers exploring, dwarves drinking and healers planting herbs is going to make the balance completely freak out. Sure...
Such actions would replace the "seeking for adventure" routine and there you go, not less time on usefull, nor more time on "unuseful".

completely screwing the player over in the campaign with all its proximity triggers

ALL those. Let's count with me.
Bloody Offenses = "Escort. You probably wait with Rangers here anyway"
Ratman King, Commerce = Escorts can be repeated infinitely. A non-issue
Demon Advisor = Dragon/Ogre lair. Do not spawn immediate anyways.
Big trouble = I am pretty sure getting a temple earlier is a BIG pain. Oh wait; it ain't.

knocking down lairs

Then don't hire the heroes who can do that? I mean; Rogues wont (too much loot to steal) and rangers probably neither. Beastmasters rather "patrol" around them. However; Paladins could do that. But then don't get all surprised that lairs go down when hiring Paladins.
THAT'S all MFKS is about remember? Hiring the appropriate heroes for the appropriate tasks. And if hiring "invalid" ones, DEAL WITH IT!

and pissing off any boss monsters on their own

What is this fear flag I hear about? Must be an awesome thing. Haven't used it, but awesome none-the-less.
Let's see what bosses they can violently murder you off:
* Royal Feat? Nope, it's fixed arriving and going.
* Ratking? Same. A too early caravan escort might trigger him too early, but it never arrives your kingdom without escort.
* Demon Advisor/Skeleton King? Njet; Fixed to attack you on day 80.
* Balrog? Well, it can... but that's not because of your heroes. If you remember the quest. Fighting some lone hero might actually give you the recharge time you need to charge the Crown to actually save your town!
* Drakk of Bloody Offenses? Yeah, SURE. All that single hero has to do is fight 30 vampires, beat down 3 castles and then some. Guess Drakk posses a real threat to that one!
* Ancient Lich? Stuck on her/his corner of the map.
* The Big Trouble? Congrats, the one and ONLY map where self-exploring and pro-active heroes can cause you issues. But if you don't use a fearflag, you pretty much ask for it anyway.

Well, great argument! Let's not improve the heroes because one boss *might* pose issues but ONLY IF you do NOT utilise game-functions.

completely voiding the whole point of the flags and any need to use them like the first game.

You mean like that Fear Flag thingie I have yet to use, like, EVER in my entire game-experience of MFKS2?
Also, I doubt you no longer need defense and attack flags because of this change.
Explore flags is another matter. But their intention never was to have them be placed all over the damned map just to explore it. It's function was just to explore a certain section faster (there was another function for this, called "Farsee", it was a Wizards Guild spell). Which it can still do in MFKS2. I don't see how forcing to use them improves the game-experience at all.

TL;DR version: Heroes could be made more pro-active and with more personality within the current framework of MFKS2 without too many other radical changes. Like somehow other people think are necessary.
Planting plants doesn't take hours you know, and besides, the more aggressive warriors fill the protection void that causes. Win/win to me...

 

[unmerged(169164)]

The sim "debate" is getting so old.

Every video game is a simulation. Now there are video games genres.

Does Majesty, marketed as a fantasy kingdom sim, belong to the sim genre? Definitively. Still tastes very different from a train simulator or flight simulator.
Or Football Manager.
Majesty is a sim game elaborated on a non existent reality, a fantasy kingdom.
The Sims requires to strategize as much as Majesty. Does not make the Sims a strategy game (funnily enough, I've just checked Wikipedia on this and the Sims are refered as "an American strategic-life simulation game")
Classifying Majesty as a strategy game treats poorer Majesty 2 as the strategical depth of the latter is even shallower.

In mind, fact that Majesty was coded nine years ago. With all the limitations that could go with this, including in terms of genre classifications.

Comparing Majesty and Company of Heroes is odd. CoD was never marketed as a sim game. Coded by a company specialized in RTS. The usual communauty resisted the bits of simulation introduced in this game like tanks being busted sometimes by shell bits because this kind of addition is counterproductive to competitive play.

Sidenote on the lairs in Majesty: it happens that heroes can grow bored of busting lairs so they can stop by themselves bringing one down. Or they can be lured away from doing it if a flag is put on a monster nearby with the adequate sum of money. Does not work every time but it works.
The behaviour of heroes to lairs is not that simplistic as it is often introduced on this forum.
An important notice to recall as improving a feature does not require the removal of the said feature.
More behaviours towards the lairs could have been introduced or the already present behaviours grown subtler.
Heroes could have grown tired faster, lairs could have been mended by monsters, lairs could be upgradable getting them tougher and therefore discouraging to heroes, lairs could introduce a defense reaction from monsters (with monsters going back to their lair or out of it to defend it leading a lone hero to flee) etc as the issue might not be that heroes attack lairs but bring them down.
There were options to keep heroes attacking lairs but being less efficient in doing it. As heroes bringing down lairs sounds more the issue than heroes attacking lairs.

Of course, this kind of improvement is expectation that can be normally developped to a sequel.

 

[Alfryd]

The sim "debate" is getting so old.

Every video game is a simulation.

Every video game (generally) incorporates elements of simulation, strategy and protagonism, but it's still useful to decide which of these is going to be the primary focus of play: challenge, verisimilitude, or story-creation. Each makes rather different and often conflicting demands- balance (in the first case) often conflicts with plausibility (in the second case) often conflicts with thematic freedom (in the third case, which may be impossible to fully satisfy in a video game.) I'm basing this all on GNS theory.

Gamist. This player is satisfied if the system includes a contest which he or she has a chance to win. Usually this means the character vs. NPC opponents, but Gamists also include the System Breaker and the dominator-type roleplayer. RPGs well suited to Gamists include Rifts and Shadowrun.

Narrativist. This player is satisfied if a roleplaying session results in a good story. RPGs for Narrativists include Over the Edge, Prince Valiant, The Whispering Vault, and Everway.

Simulationist. This player is satisfied if the system "creates" a little pocket universe without fudging. Simulationists include the well-known subtype of the Realist. Good games for Simulationists include GURPS and Pendragon.

Here I suggest that RPG system design cannot meet all three outlooks at once. For example, how long does it take to resolve a game action in real time? The simulationist accepts delay as long as it enhances accuracy; the narrativist hates delay; the gamist only accepts delay or complex methods if they can be exploited. Or, what constitutes success? The narrativist demands a resolution be dramatic, but the gamist wants to know who came out better off than the next guy. Or, how should player-character effectiveness be "balanced"? The narrativist doesn't care, the simulationist wants it to reflect the game-world's social system, and the gamist simply demands a fair playing field.

 

[Spiderman]

The sim "debate" is getting so old.

It's quite obvious that different people have different ideas of what "sim" means to them and thus what they expect out of the Majesty series. It's a "debate" that will never end, akin to discussing/defining the term "casual" as it applies to players of Magic: The Gathering or whether the US should have entered/stayed in Iraq

 

[unmerged(169164)]

Genres are defined to help what they help. They are usually more a convention rather than personal tastes or opinions.

There has been a lot of input on what expectation is thanks to this game.

I dont think there is leeway when it comes to a follow up. Continuity put constraints.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
I have not read the article.
I played at least one game said to be good games for each type of player.
I cant remember being motivated the depicted way. Especially Shadowrun whose fluff was remarkable to me. Never played this game with a system breaker mind. Not even a dominator mind.

I'll read the article.

 

[Flammifleure]

Now with that said, its a stupid suggestion because the game is not built to handle it. A fair few monsters being able to one shot most early game heroes, map sizes, spawn rates, income rate. To make this game effectively capable of being played anything like the old majesty 1 you'd have to change everything. Including but not limited too increasing the income, reduce the monsters strength down to a heroes level, reduce equipment bonuses, completely change the health potion mechanics, reduce the spawn rates, increase building toughness and generally rebalanced the entire game from there along with developing new AI to drive it all.

So, kids, the lesson to take home from this is: if you liked the original Majesty, don't play Majesty 2 -- they have no similarity at all! Or, if you do play, pretend the game has a different title.

My own humble opinion is that as a game considered by itself, it is all right. I prefer the original Majesty, however. I generally had an attachment to my settlements and heroes; an attachment I don't really feel in Majesty 2. This is undoubtedly for the reasons delineated by the sages who have preceded me.

The one thing I feel competent to comment on, the lore/background, is likely of no interest to anyone in this topic except Alfryd, whom I secretly suspect agrees with me.

Narrativist. This player is satisfied if a roleplaying session results in a good story. RPGs for Narrativists include Over the Edge, Prince Valiant, The Whispering Vault, and Everway.

I am undoubtedly a narrativist by this classification.