I know how hard it is. If you do not - please try to do something similar first. Also - fund several games and sell them. Only after that somebody will listen to your assumptions seriously. So far you just do not know what you are talking about. No offence.
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I know how hard it is. If you do not - please try to do something similar first. Also - fund several games and sell them. Only after that somebody will listen to your assumptions seriously. So far you just do not know what you are talking about. No offence.
We, fellow strategy players, understand how hard it is to make the game that works on every machine, has decent framerate and graphics, is easy to control, has some strategic depth and something resembling balance. Even the best games in this genre get some (mostly deserved) critique but we love them for trying to think highly about players, not just feeding them cowclickers and shooters.
Thank you and take my money.
[SUB](even though you'd probably screw up balance, won't add enough depth and AI cause those things are contradictory and still don't give me new elven legacy, at least the old one was on steam sale recently)[/SUB]
Ok, but how hard is to make game prototype?
I can't imagine as barely started programming, but for experienced developer? How hard + time consuming is to make game prototype? Test certain design? Change it? Refine it? Not make whole complete game, but test certain design aspect, test concept if they could work.
Experimental gameplay is the worst in terms of development time. And if we are talking about prototypes - some games need very complex and detailed prototypes to understand if they are fun. Situation is even worse if we are talking about the game, in which AI behavior is one of the main gameplay elements.
Alexey, I strongly suggest you to not continue this line of conversation. I actually agree with you, but getting into a personal conversation on something like this will almost for sure lead to some disaster.
I'm glad to see some developer responses here, but I feel there's a couple of points that need to be made or explored or clarified before the conversation can progress.
The first question I'd ask is "What counts as a 'proper' Majesty game?"
Alexei has mentioned (perfectly correctly) that developing experimental prototypes is one of the most time-consuming and risky forms of development, and Shams has similarly mentioned the high cost of development due to, e.g, triple-A graphics content- but maybe fans of the franchise aren't especially looking for both these things. In a certain sense, I think that Paradox's problem has been either with trying to do both at once (in the case of Maj2) or trying to do neither (in the case of Majesty Mobile.)
I've already posted extensively on my personal view of the missteps made in Maj2's development, but I don't hold up Maj1 as a flawless jewel of a game, and I certainly think that it could be improved on. In that respect, Maj1 and Maj2 can both be viewed as valuable learning experiences.
(I would just mention that Cyberlore studios already put together a fully-functional prototype engine for a Majesty sequel (Majesty Legends) over a decade ago, and a lot of the new features they were talking about got me very excited. Now, I have no idea if the code/assets for that are still lying around the place, or what the ownership rights are, but at the very least it could be worth talking to some of the folks who worked on that.)
So I guess I'd ask, what kind of game are folks talking about here? Do folks want a heavyweight Sim title? A hybrid RTS? ASCII graphics or an occulus headset?
The first question I'd ask is "What counts as a 'proper' Majesty game?"
Alexei has mentioned (perfectly correctly) that developing experimental prototypes is one of the most time-consuming and risky forms of development, and Shams has similarly mentioned the high cost of development due to, e.g, triple-A graphics content- but maybe fans of the franchise aren't especially looking for both these things. In a certain sense, I think that Paradox's problem has been either with trying to do both at once (in the case of Maj2) or trying to do neither (in the case of Majesty Mobile.)
I've already posted extensively on my personal view of the missteps made in Maj2's development, but I don't hold up Maj1 as a flawless jewel of a game, and I certainly think that it could be improved on. In that respect, Maj1 and Maj2 can both be viewed as valuable learning experiences.
(I would just mention that Cyberlore studios already put together a fully-functional prototype engine for a Majesty sequel (Majesty Legends) over a decade ago, and a lot of the new features they were talking about got me very excited. Now, I have no idea if the code/assets for that are still lying around the place, or what the ownership rights are, but at the very least it could be worth talking to some of the folks who worked on that.)
So I guess I'd ask, what kind of game are folks talking about here? Do folks want a heavyweight Sim title? A hybrid RTS? ASCII graphics or an occulus headset?
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Here's another question or two that might be worth pondering.
Question 1. What is the best-selling PC game franchise of all time?
Question 2. Did The Sims Medieval not suck ass, and still move half a million units?
Question 3. What kind of game is Majesty?
These may be slightly rhetorical.
Question 1. What is the best-selling PC game franchise of all time?
Question 2. Did The Sims Medieval not suck ass, and still move half a million units?
Question 3. What kind of game is Majesty?
These may be slightly rhetorical.
I don't understand. If those questions were as insightful as you seem to think they are, then the original Majesty would have moved millions of units and Cyberlore Studios would still exist. It seems pretty plain that in the real world, a superficial similarity to The Sims has approximately no effect without the name. The Sims Majesty might very well sell, but so far nobody has even suggested such a thing and so I am not certain what you're driving at. Majesty isn't actually a Sims-like game in any way except that you don't have direct control over the heroes, so a partnership with Maxis seems unlikely to me. I have played both and there is no similarity in the gameplay.
Besides that, you cannot propose both that the devs make a low-budget version of Majesty and that they appeal to The Sims demographic, to whom looks appear to be extremely important (much of the DLC for that series is strictly aesthetic enhancement.)
The best suggestion might be for some sort of experiment with Kickstarter to see whether the interest levels are indeed as limited as the developers think. Beyond that, pretending that we know more than they do about how much it costs and how much the series has made historically seems extremely arrogant to me. If we know better, then we should be making Majesty 3. I suspect, however, that we do not know better. I suspect that most of the people reading this post have precisely zero days experience in professional game development, either from a programming or business perspective. Would you post on a medical forum that a doctor who says he cannot cure cancer simply hasn't asked the correct questions? This thread seems very disrespectful to me.
Besides that, you cannot propose both that the devs make a low-budget version of Majesty and that they appeal to The Sims demographic, to whom looks appear to be extremely important (much of the DLC for that series is strictly aesthetic enhancement.)
The best suggestion might be for some sort of experiment with Kickstarter to see whether the interest levels are indeed as limited as the developers think. Beyond that, pretending that we know more than they do about how much it costs and how much the series has made historically seems extremely arrogant to me. If we know better, then we should be making Majesty 3. I suspect, however, that we do not know better. I suspect that most of the people reading this post have precisely zero days experience in professional game development, either from a programming or business perspective. Would you post on a medical forum that a doctor who says he cannot cure cancer simply hasn't asked the correct questions? This thread seems very disrespectful to me.
Grygus:
1. I don't see the thread itself as disrespectful.
2. Your comparison with doctors is actually quite wrong
doctors don't know quite a lot of things about molecular biology, statistics etc., all these things that may help find answer to specific case of cancer.
3. I am asking questions "how hard it is? Where are problems? Why there are so little gameplay concept proofs?" while Alfryd is (as he posted) trying to make one himself! This doesn't sound disrespectful to me. Rather, what you are saying seems to pretty close to that line.
1. I don't see the thread itself as disrespectful.
2. Your comparison with doctors is actually quite wrong
doctors don't know quite a lot of things about molecular biology, statistics etc., all these things that may help find answer to specific case of cancer.3. I am asking questions "how hard it is? Where are problems? Why there are so little gameplay concept proofs?" while Alfryd is (as he posted) trying to make one himself! This doesn't sound disrespectful to me. Rather, what you are saying seems to pretty close to that line.
And isn't there some sort of game engine, where certain characteristics could be tested? Something where prototype could be (ugly, badly optimized) sketched and observed.
And a huge waste of money to even program that. It is the reason companies hate to release demos. It takes a lot to make one. It takes a lot to do concept test as well.
Ugly, badly optimized, and running poorly.... this isn't going to tell you anything about the potential of the game. Think of some of the games you've played that seemed similar, but one is much more fun than the other. Maybe the poor one had a single mechanic that was awful, or a really bad visual representation of something, or just poor pacing. You can't prototype everything, not in a way that tells you much about how the game goes.
Unless you have a very strong vision of the game you want, to start with, prototyping won't really get you anywhere.
IIRC, the original Majesty did actually sell a respectable fraction of a million units before going to the bargain bin (we've never gotten exact figures, but the devs dropped a couple of strong hints. Bear in mind the original Sims only sold 2 million.) There are a number of reasons for why Cyberlore went under (much of it having to do with difficulties in finding a publisher who 'got' what majesty was about,) but the inherent virtues of the concept is not one of them. (Not that Maj1 didn't have a few design warts, but I think Legends would have mostly corrected those.)
I'm not literally suggesting that we get Maxis on the phone (if only), but I would say that approaching Majesty as a Sim-type game, rather than an RTS or 4X title, is a better handle on it's psychological appeal and design agenda. Because, yes, I think one can say that Majesty is a Sim-like, in the same ways that Crusader Kings is a Sim-like- because it is dominated by the personalities and agendas of quasi-autonomous virtual people. That's what makes it work.
Alternatively, as I suggested elsewhere, Paradox could actually adapt the engine behind one of their existing Grand Strategy titles to the Ardania setting. Because Paradox actually excel at Simulationist development, and I consider them to be 9/10ths there already.
I'm just sort of baffled by Paradox's underlying strategy here when it comes to doing things with this franchise. We've had a mediocre RTS and half a dozen money-squeezing expansions. We've had a tower defence game, a mobile port with half the original's content, an abysmally-received dungeon-keeper ripoff, and- very belatedly- a reasonably-successful 4X game which at this point bears almost no resemblance to it's source material. It appears that Paradox are willing to try anything and everything with this franchise, throwing just about any idea against the wall to see what sticks... except for making an honest-to-Krolm Fantasy Kingdom Sim. When clearly, someone is managing to make money off exactly that idea, with an inferior design.
(And on the subject of Kickstarters- Shams has already said that money is not the problem here per se. Though you do make a perfectly valid point about guaging potential interest. *shrugs* I dunno.)
Paradox is not Ino-co, so they don't exchange game engines or something else.
Warlock is only published by paradox, they have nothing to do with the development of the game.
Warlock is only published by paradox, they have nothing to do with the development of the game.
But Paradox are the actual owners of the Majesty IP. They've preferred to license it out to various other companies, but if they wanted to make a game within the franchise themselves badly enough, they certainly could. There's no technical or legal obstacle here, and as I understand it, Paradox already have an established and financially viable player-base for games in the same mold. (Hell, a lot of the promos for CK II were already going in a pretty comedic direction.)
Now, naturally, this still wouldn't be a 'proper' Majesty game in the sense that it wouldn't be an isometric-perspective quasi-RTS-thing. The graphical presentation and overall scale would clearly be vastly different. But I think it could be closer to the original in spirit than most other developers could manage, and I'd certainly buy it in a heartbeat.
Now, naturally, this still wouldn't be a 'proper' Majesty game in the sense that it wouldn't be an isometric-perspective quasi-RTS-thing. The graphical presentation and overall scale would clearly be vastly different. But I think it could be closer to the original in spirit than most other developers could manage, and I'd certainly buy it in a heartbeat.
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I think you are wrong, paradox is not the owner of the majesty francise, they are the publisher.
The devs and the owner of ardania world stuff is Ino-co, they developed some games in this selfmade fantasy world and only cooperate with paradox as publisher.
So if you want a real majesty game you must speak to ino-co, but this has nothing to do with any game the devs from paradox produced.
Paradox has own devs for their games and use own engines, additionally they act for other devs as publisher too, don't mix this up.
Here a list fron the Ino-co site:
As far i know these are all fantsy games with the use of their own created world of ardania.
The devs and the owner of ardania world stuff is Ino-co, they developed some games in this selfmade fantasy world and only cooperate with paradox as publisher.
So if you want a real majesty game you must speak to ino-co, but this has nothing to do with any game the devs from paradox produced.
Paradox has own devs for their games and use own engines, additionally they act for other devs as publisher too, don't mix this up.
Here a list fron the Ino-co site:
As far i know these are all fantsy games with the use of their own created world of ardania.
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Thank you for explaining why some of us want the W2 city limits to be optional.
huh, wut?
Paradox is owner of Majesty IP
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/105508/Paradox_Acquires_IP_Rights_To_Cyberlores_Majesty.php
Colombo, you are right; that was badly worded. The thread itself is completely fine. Asking why there isn't a sequel is perfectly legitimate; I clicked the title because I had the same question. But we got an answer from someone in a position to know what he's talking about. After that is where I think disrespect starts to creep in. Why ask if you're not going to accept any answer except the one you want? That's not honest dialogue. There are a couple of posts here that are explicitly disrespectful. But of course, the entire thread cannot be described that way. Apologies.
I still think that assuming a professional is incompetent is disrespectful. That's where the doctor analogy is coming from: I'm not saying doctors cannot be wrong, and I'm not saying they cannot be questioned, but if you just assume they're wrong simply because you don't get the answer you want, without any evidence or knowledge aside from knowing what you want to hear, that's not genuine inquiry or respectful; it's petulance.
Alfryd appears to be right; the IP belonged to Paradox in 2007. I did not find anything more recent on the matter. But given that Paradox never made the original Majesty, I'm not sure it's legitimate to criticize them for not following up on a game they never made in the first place. All they have to go off of is Majesty 2, which may or may not have sold well. They are telling us that it wouldn't be worth the investment from a business standpoint; how can we dispute that except out of contrariness? It doesn't make sense that it would be highly profitable and they just don't want to do it; of course Paradox wants to make successful games! There is also an opportunity cost; if making Majesty 3 would net them $x, but making Warlock III would bring in $2x, and they only have the resources to make one of them, then Majesty 3 doesn't make business sense even though it would make money. I don't know. But the guy who does has told us it isn't likely. Beyond expressing disappointment because we want to play Majesty 3, what can we say to that? What's the point of arguing with him?
I still think that assuming a professional is incompetent is disrespectful. That's where the doctor analogy is coming from: I'm not saying doctors cannot be wrong, and I'm not saying they cannot be questioned, but if you just assume they're wrong simply because you don't get the answer you want, without any evidence or knowledge aside from knowing what you want to hear, that's not genuine inquiry or respectful; it's petulance.
Alfryd appears to be right; the IP belonged to Paradox in 2007. I did not find anything more recent on the matter. But given that Paradox never made the original Majesty, I'm not sure it's legitimate to criticize them for not following up on a game they never made in the first place. All they have to go off of is Majesty 2, which may or may not have sold well. They are telling us that it wouldn't be worth the investment from a business standpoint; how can we dispute that except out of contrariness? It doesn't make sense that it would be highly profitable and they just don't want to do it; of course Paradox wants to make successful games! There is also an opportunity cost; if making Majesty 3 would net them $x, but making Warlock III would bring in $2x, and they only have the resources to make one of them, then Majesty 3 doesn't make business sense even though it would make money. I don't know. But the guy who does has told us it isn't likely. Beyond expressing disappointment because we want to play Majesty 3, what can we say to that? What's the point of arguing with him?