Why not a PROPER Majesty Game?

[Alfryd]

Doesn't have to. Moba games are quite popular. Best pov for strategy games is isometric. Isometric RPGs are popular too.

Yeah, I think something similar to Baldur's Gate-era production values would probably be fine for a first outing. This does kind of raise the question of scale that you mentioned, though. I mean, Paradox themselves specialise in very high-level simulations, on the scale of nations and empires. In theory Majesty is concerned more with the mid-level scale of cities and towns (i.e, a Fantasy Kingdom), but I think in practice it's primarily concerned with the fine-scale level of individuals and communities, given that you'll have at most a few dozen characters around the place in Maj1.

So, if, as you suggest (and I'd love to see it) you have the heroes starting at the bottom (solo/hero party) and working their way in scale up to the top (commanders of legions/ministers of state), then the question of how you appropriately represent and translate between each of these levels of detail becomes an important one.

Of course, CK is notable in that, in a way, the game is both about very large and very small scale interactions, in that power over vast estates is concentrated in the hands of an elite 'community' of nobles. But if you want to start on the grand-strategy province-level and drill all the way down to an isometric view of some first-level, fresh-minted newbie warrior dispatching a random varg in a cave someplace... then you're almost committing to writing three different games and hoping you can glue them together at the seams.

...With that said, I really want to play that game.

 

[unmerged(812080)]

Well, yes, it does- an optional one. But my point is that you can also zoom in to a first-person perspective, which means that all the game's art assets need to have their quality raised to that of an FPS game (or pretty close.) Which means development is expensive. ...Which is what I was concerned about.

That's third person, but I see your point.

 

[Colombo]

Alfryd: then lets try to design something. Lets try to see what the design could allow, how many levels, which abstraction should serve the best gameplay experience while preserving the spirit of Majesty.

 

[Alfryd]

@ Colombo: Well, I can't say I haven't obsessed over this exact subject to an unhealthy degree, but (A) I've already posted those ideas here and elsewhere, (B) actually putting my ideas down succinctly would be tricky, and (C) I kind of feel like we're already straining the bounds of appropriate discussion for this board without going into a 14-page digression on this front.

(I have been trying to find some technical solutions to a lot of the same difficulties in my SF citybuilder project, but there's a lot more... well, citybuilder included in that mix. Which might not be a bad thing, but until the grand-strategy elements are properly implemented, I can't entirely claim that cat's in the bag. Unfortunately, the time investment also prevents me from simply making CK 2: The Fantasy Kingdom Mod.)

One thought that occurs to me would be to model the management of your kingdom strictly on an abstract city-or-province level of abstraction, a la Civilisation, then using a pseudo-random seed generator to spontaneously generate small-scale environments whenever you want to look at them.

This has a couple of advantages- specifically, it gives the feeling of having a vast world at your fingertips, without having to note the fall of every sparrow, and you don't need to have sharply-defined map 'edges', since portions of the world just materialise into being based on the player's PoV (assuming a top-down isometric view, of course)- meaning that a hypothetical adventuring party could stroll around indefinitely without appreciable loading times. (You could almost compare this to Diablo or Dungeon Siege, or the City View in Civ II/III.) You'd lose out on the ability to micromanage building placement in a given settlement, but, well... TBH this was never a particular strong point of the original Majesty, and arguably fits better with the rule-by-delegation philosophy. (You might still reserve that right for your personal palace complex, if you want to pull in the Dungeon Keeper/The Sims/Dwarf Fortress demographic. @Lynneiah: A controllable sovereign would also fit in well here...)

The vast majority of a settlement's population could be represented as random walker-sprites, with actual 'heroes' being 1-in-a-hundred exceptional personalities. And it would be relatively simple to add more depth to the economic or political model, since the actual large-scale background simulation would be relatively abstract. But you could retain and deepen the sense of exploration, the adventuring comeraderie and personality AI, the finding of lairs and dungeons to plunder. I think, on balance, this would probably be the best way to 'scale up' majesty, given the balance of the original game's strengths and weaknesses.

 

[Alfryd]

Anyways, without belaboring the point too much, I would say there is an extra advantage to keeping the primary simulation on a very large-scale, abstract level: you could get proper scaling in time as well as proper scaling in space. Meaning that if the game has to span over in-character years upon years, it can do so. Heroes could fall in love, get married and have children (though not necessarily in that order.) Dynasties could rise and fall. Agrela-associated heroes could actually reincarnate as new characters, or krypta-associated rulers could summon the shades of their ancestors (or indulge in some magically-augmented eugenics. Which appears to be a thing in CK.) Monster kingdoms could be ruled for centuries by the same deathless/immortal villains, growing steadily in power and influence until you manage to beg, steal or borrow the artifacts needed to truly destroy them.

But when you elect to send your sovereign-character to lead your armies in person, the view shifts to an actual battlefield, surrounded by your generals and honour guard, where you give last-minute deployment orders and fling yourself in the thick of the fray. Or, when you're sitting at home in the palace throne room, you might ascend the stairs to your Tower of Far Seeing, where a crystal orb lets you scry on the progress of the ranger-led party you dispatched, leagues distant, and just now approaching the yeti's lair. You ask the monks at the temple to pray for Dauros' protection- and lo, when the yeti falls upon your prostrate ranger, he finds his sword-arm to be firm as a rock. Et cetera et cetera.

It's essentially just a graphical interface to events that are mostly decided procedurally, but in principle, it could be a hell of an immersive one.

 

[Nalia]

I don't think Majesty 2 followed through on the premise of the original. Neither Warlock nor Defenders either, though I appreciate the survival of the franchise.

Majesty was a puzzle game, like Angry Birds. Paradox tried to turn it into Starcraft and hey ho surprise Blizzard still does that better. The whole audience of Majesty was the same people who play Candy Crush and Fruit Ninja. They probably still play the original Majesty, too, because if they wanted to play Warcraft they'd have bought that.

I dunno about demographics and ROI, but M2 wasn't able to capitalize on the already built up market the franchise had. And casual games players usually dwarf other games by a factor of 10.

 

[Colombo]

Nalia: but competitive multiplayer is very important for survival of game.

I have heard many discussions about survival of RTS etc. Designing game that allows competitive multiplayer while at the same time with deep, sort of randomized gameplay with many possible paths of development (as more seen at original Majesty rather than Majesty 2, where instead of roleplaying as in Maj1, where I often went with "now Ill have warrior-oriented town!" or "now I will play clerics", in Maj2, the best and quite often the only possible strategy was to build standard warrior, thief and cleric guilds as usual in every mission).

You can see, that many people picker about EU4 being more multiplayer than singeplayer and that it suffer from it (couldn't see their arguments, a lot of pondering but no one said why and which mechanics originating in multiplayer hurts singleplayer).

 

[Spiderman]

Majesty was a puzzle game, like Angry Birds.

How so?

 

[Alfryd]

@Nalia: I suppose you could interpret Majesty as a puzzle game in the loose sense that you have to 'work out' a system for beating a given quest, and in that it's often interpreted as a 'casual' game, but I'd have to agree with spidey that's it's not the most obvious interpretation? While there's probably some overlap, I dunno if the people who play Candy Crush and Fruit Ninja necessarily play Dungeon Keeper or Pharoah.

@Colombo: One of the mistakes Maj2 made was to require expansion to and capture of 'holy ground' before building temples, which generally required having an ensemble of powerful heroes before you could specialise in particular troop types and strategies. (And by that point, you could generally capture multiple holy sites, or build a hall of champions, with no particular restriction on temple heroes, so there wasn't any particularly hard decision-making involved.) So yeah, the whole thing degenerated into a repetitive slug-fest.

If one went in an RTS-ish direction, I'd probably make most or all temples available straight away, but keep most of the mutual-exclusivity, and make upgrades (for extra spells, living space and bonus recruitment levels) dependent on palace level/settlement size, et cetera. I'd imagine that giving the player some interesting tactical tradeoffs/commitments right from the start, without being too overpowered.

 

[Colombo]

Alfryd: that what I had on mind when talking about central player character.

 

[unmerged(221012)]

In short - I don't think it's possible to do in a profitable fashion. This is due to A: The cost of a proper M3 game would be high and B: I think that the audience for a PROPER majesty game is too small for A to be viable.

We'd love to - we love Majesty to death and we've looked at this in twenty different ways but can't make the math the work. Even if just was a break even affair we might consider it.

I hope someone comes to us and convinces us they can make a great Majesty game with a smart budget.

Regards,

Shams

Why not see about using something like Steam's Greenlight or Kickstart? Where the Fans and Players can donate money to try and get it going? Personally loved Majesty but Majesty 2 just didn't feel the same and some of the missions were just downright annoying....hate that dragon....and caused me to stop playing since it only had a Scenario mode and no random map generator couldn't blow off steam after an annoying mission and ended up just putting it aside for some other time

 

[Alfryd]

As I understand it, Shams said earlier that funding isn't the problem here so much as return on investment- either in terms of time and attention, or in terms of financial expense- i.e, that even if such a game actually made more than it's money back, that Paradox have other potential projects to work on that are more profitable in absolute terms.

Personally, I'm reminded of the following old piece-

Despite the fact that constant invention is critical to the industry, game companies still refuse, as far as I can tell, to fund any kind of research. Instead, each new game is itself a "research prototype", full of risks and unknowns. You might as well write "and here a miracle occurs" right on the PERT chart and be done with it.

The thing about funding R&D is that you don't measure progress in terms of profit margin, but in terms of information gain. There's a fundamentally different mindset involved, in that even if you ultimately want to see practical applications, you're not immediately concerned with ROI. I kinda feel that's where Paradox should be headed when it comes to updating Majesty and finding it's true audience.

EDIT: Shoot. I accidentally the whole post. Fixed now.

 

[Alfryd]

Alfryd: that what I had on mind when talking about central player character.

One could certainly imagine an analogous system in place there, but hypothetically speaking a playable sovereign (or persistent household) might actually be a counterpoint to that- e.g, a way to get access to personally-cast krypta/lunord magic in a settlement otherwise heavily geared toward dauros/agrela infrastructure. (Then again, it might be difficult for a krypta/lunord worshipping noble to get to run a dauros/agrela settlement, if you take political considerations into account.)

I'm a little bit leery of treating the development of a character's skill-set/attributes in the same way that you might do installing material infrastructure, though- at least from a simulationist perspective (and we are talking about a Sim design agenda here.) e.g, things like investing gold to buy Magic Power X or HP Boost Y might make sense for a piece of architecture, doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you're going with, e.g, practice-based nonlinear skill progression for your heroes. The latter is arguably much more 'organic' in that it allows for gradual (and potentially reversible) character development over time based on actual behaviour.

*shrugs* It's hard to say, though. And to an extent it depends on just how divorceable the sovereign is from their kingdom- e.g, if the game is focused primarily on moving from one quest-scenario to another and re-founding settlements from scratch each time, or with allowing the sovereign to march forth on side-quests with a handful of picked companions, then the powers and aptitudes of the king/queen become pretty important. Whereas if the game is focused on investing heavily in a single settlement where the king/queen rarely ventures far outside their palace complex, then the powers/aptitudes of the latter aren't all that distinguishable.

(I would just mention that re-establishing infrastructure from scratch with every mission was definitely one of the stranger aspects of Maj1, and there were definitely a few quests- like Scions of Chaos or Vigil For a Fallen Hero- that would have made far more sense as an adventuring-party quest than as a base-building exercise. So I dunno- maybe you could do a little of both?)

 

[Colombo]

One could certainly imagine an analogous system in place there, but hypothetically speaking a playable sovereign (or persistent household) might actually be a counterpoint to that- e.g, a way to get access to personally-cast krypta/lunord magic in a settlement otherwise heavily geared toward dauros/agrela infrastructure. (Then again, it might be difficult for a krypta/lunord worshipping noble to get to run a dauros/agrela settlement, if you take political considerations into account.)

I'm a little bit leery of treating the development of a character's skill-set/attributes in the same way that you might do installing material infrastructure, though- at least from a simulationist perspective (and we are talking about a Sim design agenda here.) e.g, things like investing gold to buy Magic Power X or HP Boost Y might make sense for a piece of architecture, doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you're going with, e.g, practice-based nonlinear skill progression for your heroes. The latter is arguably much more 'organic' in that it allows for gradual (and potentially reversible) character development over time based on actual behaviour.

*shrugs* It's hard to say, though. And to an extent it depends on just how divorceable the sovereign is from their kingdom- e.g, if the game is focused primarily on moving from one quest-scenario to another and re-founding settlements from scratch each time, or with allowing the sovereign to march forth on side-quests with a handful of picked companions, then the powers and aptitudes of the king/queen become pretty important. Whereas if the game is focused on investing heavily in a single settlement where the king/queen rarely ventures far outside their palace complex, then the powers/aptitudes of the latter aren't all that distinguishable.

(I would just mention that re-establishing infrastructure from scratch with every mission was definitely one of the stranger aspects of Maj1, and there were definitely a few quests- like Champions of Discord or Vigil For a Fallen Hero- that would have made far more sense as an adventuring-party quest than as a base-building exercise. So I dunno- maybe you could do a little of both?)

Rather than single string of missions or long campaign, several Zeus style short campaigns build around central theme. With central levelable character that would enable you to divert some points to priests (or even ecumenism/tolerance so you could have all priests, for heavy skillpoints investment, that you could rather divert into better economy or stronger leader or better trainer...).

 

[Alfryd]

Rather than single string of missions or long campaign, several Zeus style short campaigns build around central theme. With central levelable character that would enable you to divert some points to priests (or even ecumenism/tolerance so you could have all priests, for heavy skillpoints investment, that you could rather divert into better economy or stronger leader or better trainer...).

That doesn't sound like a bad campaign paradigm, though I've only ever played Zeus sporadically, so I couldn't comment in much depth. Not sure how you'd combine that with a more 'sandbox' approach, since the citybuilder campaigns were usually pretty linear (unless you go back to Caesar 2.)

I do vaguely remember drawing up pros and cons for various noble houses (which I think Nerdfish took a stab at as well,) which might be loosely analagous to the various factions in SMAC. e.g, House Sydrian specialising in piety and martial leadership, House Tholar in relics and scholarship, House Valmour in trade and racial/religious tolerance, et cetera. You could toss in a basic legislation system similar to social engineering to give the process a little more nuance and flexibility. (SMAC is interesting, actually, given it's the only game in the Civ series that makes use of blind research, and yet the only game in the series where it makes no sense- because you're not actually inventing new technologies, just re-implementing old ones, and... *sigh*. But I digress.)

...even if such a game actually made more than it's money back, that Paradox have other potential projects to work on that are more profitable in absolute terms.

I should just mention that I'm not trying to be deliberately pessimistic here, (and with reference to R&D, I'm not saying that you can't make some highly educated guesses about where the franchise *ought* to go.) What I'm suggesting is that, instead of throwing huge pots at money at shoving a single big majesty sequel out the door and *hoping* it makes back the investment right away, I reckon Paradox would be better off releasing a series of cheaper-to-make games to experiment with different gameplay formulations, refine the formula based on player feedback, and ramp up production values as the audience grows.

(Also, with reference to that article- that piece is over a decade old, and things are somewhat better these days, given the rise of indie developers and the casual/mobile games market. ...Around the same time that publishers realised that all those folks who liked Adventure Games hadn't just fallen off a cliff someplace.)

 

[unmerged(267474)]

In all seriousness, I think it's for the best. With the direction the series has gone, I'm not sure if a "proper" Majesty game is even possible anymore. Ardania has changed so much (as of Warlock, I don't even think it has a consistent geography anymore), the line of Sydrian is apparently AWOL (though my head-canon likes to view Rjakh as the latest descendent; PLEASE bring him back), and so many new elements have been added to the mythos that even if something more in line with the metaphorical "good old days" (the original game) won't feel quite the same again. I like the Warlock series and enjoy it as a fresh take on a setting I've loved for a long time, though part of me will always see it as a separate continuity from the undying glory of the original. *shrug*

On a side topic, I think part of my love for the core games is a central aspect I've found that I like in several other games. "Majesty", "Dragon Age: Awakening", and visual novel "Long Live the Queen" all have an alluring element of "ruling the land without having to micromanage every aspect of daily life." Anyone else agree? Boiled down, that's what I like a lot about those games, and while there's other gameplay besides, that's the core thing that really clicks with me. Maybe consider a more "Game of Thrones"-esque take; being the ruler on a personal level and making decisions in court on how to run the land while also dealing with individual heroes, nobles, religious figures (maybe even the gods themselves?), and diplomatic envoys on a one-to-one basis. Think there's a market for something like that?

 

[S0ny B1ack]

...

On a side topic, I think part of my love for the core games is a central aspect I've found that I like in several other games. "Majesty", "Dragon Age: Awakening", and visual novel "Long Live the Queen" all have an alluring element of "ruling the land without having to micromanage every aspect of daily life." Anyone else agree? Boiled down, that's what I like a lot about those games, and while there's other gameplay besides, that's the core thing that really clicks with me. Maybe consider a more "Game of Thrones"-esque take; being the ruler on a personal level and making decisions in court on how to run the land while also dealing with individual heroes, nobles, religious figures (maybe even the gods themselves?), and diplomatic envoys on a one-to-one basis. Think there's a market for something like that?

Maybe a bit OT, but you should check out King of Dragon Pass (you can buy it on GOG), it is a bit old, but still playable It is almost exactly what you describe in the end of the post (there is a PC and an iOS version IIRC, and they said the iOS version sold a lot better than the PC one...)

 

[AltarofScience]

Before I got totally sidetracked by playing EVE obsessively I made a lot of headway on a game that was based in Majesty with elements of CK2, KODP, and Emperor, plus some original features like a sovereign that existed as a unit. Sadly I expect that EVE will take up the majority of my time for the near to medium future. I'm currently filthy space rich and only growing more filthy, I mean rich...

 

[Alfryd]

Well, you never know. Stranger things have happened...

It's true that the type of gameplay you find in Majesty is probably more important than the Majesty franchise itself, and there's nothing in principle to stop other developers from trying to reproduce/improve on that basic formula. They just don't seem to be actually, y'know, doing it.

It's fair to say that, yes, Warlock and Co. can more effectively be thought of as Fantasy Wars spinoffs than elements of the Majesty franchise. So I'd incline to do a flat-out continuity reboot, or just set the 'sequel' at around the same time as the original majesty- more a remake than a sequel.

With that said, I'm not advocating a clone of the original game's mechanics. Without going into too much detail, I think an expanded economic system, better inter-kingdom relations, more polished AI and life-simulation, and a more cohesive overall campaign structure would benefit the title greatly. But the actual setting, building architecture and art style I'd keep largely intact, since it complemented the core gameplay so well. Like they say- why re-invent the wheel?

 

[Tarantian]

In short - I don't think it's possible to do in a profitable fashion. This is due to A: The cost of a proper M3 game would be high and B: I think that the audience for a PROPER majesty game is too small for A to be viable.

We'd love to - we love Majesty to death and we've looked at this in twenty different ways but can't make the math the work. Even if just was a break even affair we might consider it.

I hope someone comes to us and convinces us they can make a great Majesty game with a smart budget.

Regards,

Shams

You represent everything that is wrong with the gaming industry, and by your logic, paradox shouldn't make 4x or GSG games either. Also how hard is it to create a game like the original majesty? That seems like the sort of project that would be good for an indie studio with limited assets.