What do we have a right to expect?

[unmerged(169743)]

Hello all,

A thought has been bugging me for some time. Majesty 2 has been made 10 years after the original Majesty, yet when the forums were a tad more active, there was a great deal of discussion about whether Majesty 2 was better than it's predecessor. This thread is not about that discussion, rather some of the broader meta-issues surrounding it.

The foremost of those issues that I want to discuss is the extent to which time and technology should contribute to a better game. This is quite a broad topic, and I'm not referring just to Majesty 2, pretty much to any game/sequal.

What I cannot fathom is how and why a game made 10 years after another could not be infinately superior to it. That there is a discussion of Majesty vs Majesty 2 at all is proof enough of that, regardless of what stance you take on the issue. In fact this is a lie to some extent. The reasons are partly embedded in tighter schedules, higher budgets and higher pressure, leading to less room for innovation. But surely these inhibitions are only partly mitigating factors?

More technology and more money does not equal a better game. Why not? Why does/might a sequal have less features and content than its predecessors? Why is the rate of improvement so slow and so erratic?

These questions apply as much to the games following Baldurs Gate II (and other games too) as they do Majesty 2.

One oddity of any computer/video game, is that often there are limits of what hardware is capable of, so some things are represented in other ways, by text as opposed to ingame feature, or simply by being ignored or left to the players imagination. Yet surely as hardware and technology get more developed and more powerful, features that were impossible to introduce formerly could and should be implemented. I'll leave it to your imagination as to what kinds of features I'm talking about, there are countless ones. Ultimately, why are some of those things which were incapable of being done before, not been introduced now?

I have not given any justice at all to the extent and importance of these issues, principally because I want to make this an open debate. I'm interested in hearing your ideas on the extent to which time and technology and money should make a better game. More specifically in the case of Majesty 2, what do we, as customers (and the developers to the heritage of the title), have a right to expect in terms of quality and progress in the game?

Again I don't mind when a game is a bad, or even when a great game idea is wasted by poor execution, but what infuriates me is when a sequal or successive games offer less and are inferior to their predecessors. I am reminded here as to what Peter Jackson said about the Hobbit movie (im sure everyone here has heard of the hobbit considering all the LoTR references) the reason he did not want to direct it, was because he did not want to compete with himself after the crowning achievement of LoTR. If a successor cannot offer something definatively better than its predecessor, why try to succeed it at all?

 

[unmerged(169164)]

Re hashing what I already stated.

Ten years earlier, you played Majesty, singled out what made that game be good and projected the game ten years later on this basis: a Majesty 2 i ncluding the magnified by two times singled out features would be awesome.

This was the projection, a mental projection.

Ten years later, Majesty 2 comes and the basic features you projected on did not make it through the evolution of gaming .
Therefore Majesty 2 is built on another core.

Same for Baldur's gate. Projection gave for example an even more convoluted scenario, with real quests etc...

Ten years later, the said features did not make it through the evolution of gaming.


Many game features simply did not make it.

And the evolution of gaming has not meant the features improved by ten fold.

 

[unmerged(203067)]

Quality can never replace quantity.


Seems the evolution of gaming is only about graphic hype rather than true entertainment, that´s much more common than i had wanted and i saw it openly when playing many games of ps2 many years ago.

 

[SirGrotius]

I think it's simply that M2 is more of an RTS game than the original.

 

[WaltherModel]

I think it's simply that M2 is more of an RTS game than the original.

I think the point they were making were more what HeroicSpur said "If a successor cannot offer something definitively better than its predecessor, why try to succeed it at all? " which led to a point thats been made in this thread, as well as a few times in other threads that, M2 is a game people will tend to play for a month and "shelve" - the sense of "finishing" the game - a lack of re playability(though I risk making it seem as the point is ONLY the lack of the freestyle mode - but I mean the lack of re playability as in desire to continue replaying).

You are correct, yes its more of an RTS, but I think the larger issue is, RTS or not, its more generic and has lost the elements which made the original so endearing (and thus kept people from "shelving" it)

 

[unmerged(169164)]

True entertainment: subjective.

Mass Effect 2 was promoted as a suicide mission game. When finishing my first run, the conclusion came it was not a suicide mission game. Preserving most of your team( taking one, two, three loss over 12 members) was straigthforward.
When I pointed that out and told that the surviving the mission should not have been straightforward, people came out to tell that I wanted the players to fail.
My perception of entertainment while playing a suicide mission game was that surviving should not be a given. Most of other players' perception was that it would give a failure feeling and would not be entertaining.

People prefer to play through games, to consume games. Entering a gameplay should be easy, clear , straightforward. The gameplay itself must be freeflowing.

You sit in your couch. No longer read the manual. Discover the game as you play it.

The sim genre is in poor shape.
Games like the sim city did not make it.
I played the Silent Hunter series quite a lot and noticed that it evolved the same way.
SH2: you have a calendar to time your attack on a convoy as it is preferable to attack at night, no moon. So you have to follow a convoy, hunt it until the right moment appears. Could last long.
SH3: navigation officer gives a weather report and no longer a calendar.
You no longer have to follow a convoy over days to attack it.

Simulations for some of them were expected to grow more and more complex, more and more realistic. They took the reverse path to achieve a more free flowing gameplay.

Fact Majesty 2 is more a RTS than a sim might be linked to the fall of the sim genre.

 

[unmerged(203067)]

instead of "true entertainment", call it "innovation or originality". There is some of that already and always has been but , you know, most devs sticks to the most "profitable way". And that´s remaking centered on graphic improvements as the fancy marketing call.

Majesty 2 should have been economically sucessful if there are 3 expansions (2 on it´s way) of it and another port being made.

 

[Hapuga]

If the game is profitable, people love it. Otherwise they would not buy it. This means, that there are more of those who love this game, then of those who do not like it for some reason.
This game has an ok meta score and people buy it. This means, that Devs are on a right way.

Remember, number 1 goal of any company is profit generation (except NPO's)

 

[DorthLous]

Proof that they have not screwed up too much, yes, although even then, some fantastic marketing could help. Proof they are on the right path however.... not so much.

If I give you The Best Game Of All Times. Everyone on Earth buys 2 copy. Then someone makes a follow-up. The follow-up, while good, departs on about 10% from the original recipe. Considering the original was The Best, it is still a great game and people still buy it in mass. However, sales are lower than the first. Are the developers on the right path because they were profitable? Not if their goal is to sell the most copy or to make the most popular game. However, their goal might have been to simply try a variation they've always wanted to see of that game. Then, yes, good, their vision is more than viable. It all depends of the goals.

You could compare the popularity of Majesty 1 and 2, but it wouldn't be quite fair. In the meanwhile, the proportion of players has sky-rocketed. The original game turned into a cult thing and all the original fans bought the second first, asked questions later. As for the distribution, Paradox is a giant and it's name carry a weight. The original team behind Majesty didn't have that luxury.

So is Majesty 2 making them money? Obviously, from what we've heard. Is it a move in The Right Direction. Paint me unconvinced.

 

[Hapuga]

Yes, good thinking. With one exception. Majesty 1 wasn't The Best Game Of All Times. It was a good game. It was underestimated like many good games are.

Majesty 1 was not a tremendous commercial success. This is 1. 10 years have passed. People forgot that such game exists. This is 2.

Ofcourse, there is a fanbase that loves and cares for majesty. But the majority of buyers did not hear about this game before. I didn't, for example. I played M1 after M2.

 

[Alfryd]

Yes, good thinking. With one exception. Majesty 1 wasn't The Best Game Of All Times. It was a good game. It was underestimated like many good games are.

The original Majesty was flawed in many ways, but I think it had, and has, tremendous potential. But I also think it's flaws and strengths have been misunderstood.

According to Jay Adan, Majesty sold rather well, but short enough of the 1 million mark that they had a hard time convincing publishers to back a sequel. Call it- what?- half a million before it hit the bargain bin? Maj2 is apparently selling "okay", though it's hard to get definite numbers (The XBox version clocks in at about 13K in unit sales- you might multiply that by a factor of 10 on the PC, allowing for all the price price cuts.) But this is mostly guesswork.

I'll try to cover the subject in more depth in another thread.

 

[unmerged(169164)]

If the game is profitable, people love it. Otherwise they would not buy it. This means, that there are more of those who love this game, then of those who do not like it for some reason.
This game has an ok meta score and people buy it. This means, that Devs are on a right way.

Remember, number 1 goal of any company is profit generation (except NPO's)

Connection between profits, love and the act of buying a game is loose.

Gamers can love a game that is not profitable.

A game that is profitable might be hated by players.

Fact is that people are somehow rich enough to spend money on stuff they dont forcefully love or even know to be bad. Or for simply trying/experiencing to be able to talk about.

I think that games are no longer a field for passion. People like/dislike games.
The offer is too important to spend enough time with a game to start to love/hate it.

With all the social networking going on, people also buy a game to take part to their gaming communauty. If they want to feel a member, they have to buy one copy. They buy their entry ticket to the group. They will discuss their experience and once it is over, move to another game. Peer pressure. Hype.

Establishing a connection between profitability and an enjoyable experience appears pretty loose. Games are items of consumption like many other things.
Not much different from movies. Quite a lot of people go to the theater to see movies they know they will appreciate as crap. Quite a lot of remakes these days, talking around, reading forums show that a number of people think the move will suck. Yet they go and see it. At the end of the movie, they come up "yes, the movie sucks" but they still go. Movie is profitable. Was known to be crap before. Is confirmed to be crap after.
Behind all this, more powerful driving forces than quality itself with people consuming for consuming. The whole trick is to manage to channel the forces.

 

[unmerged(169743)]

I would like to add a couple of points to this debate. Firstly, I think one of the big errors starting to creep into games making has been an increasing focus on asking questions like 'what do gamers want', and when you try to create a check list, when you try to focus on making a game profitable you actually achieve the adverse effect. I'm not saying that things like marketing and using certain concepts and ideas is bad, what I'm saying is that when you tailor a game to sell or to a specific audience, you've already gone down the wrong path. A good game WILL stand on its own. Increasingly we're seeing indy titles do well, because they just try to be innovative, and simply by merit of being small, it helps explode them further.

Let me give you a few examples. Firstly Sins of a Solar Empire, small developer Ironclad Games, make a small budget space rts/4x game,it becomes a phenomenal success, I think IGN labelled it a gamer of the year. It tried to implement features and concepts progressively, rather than showing fear about what not to do. Similarly Chien said that gamers want a community, I'm sure many people thought that too, but look at the almost rebirth of 1 player rpgs. The concept/idea/approach seemed dead in the modern industry, but look at Fallout 3, Dragon Age, Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect and others. The lesson? A GAME WILL DO WELL IF IT IS GOOD. Again marketing etc is important, but games CAN stand on their own merit. Also consider a game like Civilization, slow-paced, games can go on for hours, but it still has a huge following, in the modern day 'quick game' thing.

I personally think that the problem here is that the developers of Majesty have not been brave (and many others too). They have tried to make a game that will sell, rather than building one on its own merits. What I do NOT mean to say is that the developers should have just updated Majesty 1 and improved on it. With 10 years of advancement, Majesty could really have gone so far. When I mentioned in my OP about

'some things are represented in other ways, by text as opposed to ingame feature, or simply by being ignored or left to the players imagination. Yet surely as hardware and technology get more developed and more powerful, features that were impossible to introduce formerly could and should be implemented.'

Things like making dungeons where heroes actually enter them, go inside and fight monsters, in a fluid map which seamlessley integrates interiors with exteriors. Or making a really unique, special AI. To be honest, when the game is about heroes doing their own thing, you surely can't ignore the big sign which reads 'This Game Could Become One Of The Best Of All Time', how so you ask? Well, what does Majesty emphasise that no other does? Free hero behaviour of course! What's the first thing you should work on therefore when you make the game...? One would have thought having an AI that is truely groundbreaking would be what made this game special, I sincerely do not understand doing a shoddy job on it could be justified. And linking back to the idea of marketing and profit and what have you. What better marketing device than boasting about a near human ai! Some people would buy the game just to see that. I suppose if people suggest that money is the crux of these things I go back to two points I have already made, firstly be brave, and secondly, 'If a successor cannot offer something definatively better than its predecessor, why try to succeed it at all?'

 

[unmerged(169743)]

And just to add to the point about a games ai being a viable selling point, consider Galactic Civilizations II

 

[Hapuga]

(sigh)

Ino_co... The company that made this game... They are, so to say, not on the same level where, say, Blizzard is. I hope that sparks some thoughts why the AI is not "on the level" and why other things are shoddy.

 

[jpinks]

I would just like to see some support from the Developers. I cant finish the game as it keeps hard locking my pc no error messages or nothing. To me thats the sad state of gaming today. Rush it out the door hype the hell out of it then move on to the next expansion. The idea of quality games is dying or dead with a few exceptions. I think passion in developers is now replaced by trying to build hype or buzz about games not a real passion for games.

 

[unmerged(203067)]

I have heard really bad stories told by people who worked in some game creation companies.... that could be related. Many of them left the industry and refused to go back, seeking another kind of job not related.

Is like their "dream" of being game developers got killed by somewhat the reality they saw on those companies.

 

[unmerged(169164)]

Similarly Chien said that gamers want a community, I'm sure many people thought that too, but look at the almost rebirth of 1 player rpgs. The concept/idea/approach seemed dead in the modern industry, but look at Fallout 3, Dragon Age, Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect and others. The lesson? A GAME WILL DO WELL IF IT IS GOOD. Again marketing etc is important, but games CAN stand on their own merit.

Mass Effect, ME2, Dragon Ages, Fallout 3 all had a game communauty that peaked over three months after release. They had a bigger starting communauty and probably consequently, a bigger remaning communauty after the three months period.

My thoughts is that Majesty 2 should not be blamed for what is an adaptation to the modern population of gamers.

RTS genre has been trhiving better than sim genre through the gaming evolution.
Save games which are well established franchises, sim genre is rather dead.
Even a sub sim genre like the one introduced by Sim which has a sizeable audience of supporters did not make it.

Refreshing a game after ten years has bearings.

The communauty bellying up here is no different than most game communauties.

Good games might stand on their own. But hype, peer pressure is really something.
Especially with pre ordering option in the cards.

 

[unmerged(169743)]

If this game is more of an RTS then give me direct control. That simple. The whole point of having indirect control is that you don't need to micro-manage, the game becomes naturally a sim, where heroes have lives that they lead of their own accord. By making the game more of an RTS you're just making indirect control redundant, the game is entirely about fighting (I admit Maj1 leant heavily in this direction too, but not to the same extent), why do heroes need to act of their own accord? It's just a burden.

Personally i think the comment made by the devs about the game being more of an RTS is a joke. Tens of thousands of pounds if not more gets spent on marketing, yet you miss something so obvious that the name of your game is Majesty 2 The Fantasy Kingdom Sim? hardly.

 

[unmerged(169164)]

I approach the thread as being generalistic, not a specific discussion on Majesty 2. I took enough flak a few months ago to go back on a discussion over Majesty 2 gameplay.

I dunno for the sentence. Everything is a matter of IP, of trademark etc
Could it be that the sentence is registered as IP, kind of forcing the use?

It is deceiptful but the world we live in being the world we live in, I would not be surprised if there was something like that.