Why not a PROPER Majesty Game?

[Spiderman]

But hopefully that's cleared up now, so let's briefly recap the other main suggestions:
(A) Different limits on guild placement, based on exponential pricing outside of, city size limits, or the like.
(B) Larger henchman population to reduce/outsource hero mortality or act as 'junior heroes'.
(C) Perhaps using heroes to lead/rally henchmen into battle/massed invasions(?)

So Spiderman, which of these would you feel is problematic? I know that point (C) was discussed at some length in the older Majesty 3 thread, so I can see arguments both for and against. Point (A) seems to be a solution to a problem that mainly existed in Maj2, but doesn't seem actively harmful by itself. Point (B) I'm unsure about, but would seem to dovetail with the idea of extra civilian classes, if you e.g, had some adept trainees to sweep the altar (who does cast all those sovereign spells, anyway?)

Anyways, I would be interested to know what you'd want to see in a hypothetical Maj3, so by all means, fire away.

Remember, these are *my* views and thoughts.

I personally didn't see A as a problem, so not even sure what needs to be tweaked about it.

I think B takes away from the Majesty spirit. The point is the hero to do the main fighting and is the "army"; adding henchmen has them take on that role greater than I'd like.

And C is the same thing. There are plenty of games where a "hero" leads "henchmen" into battle, I don't want Majesty that way.

The only things I might tune in Majesty is

1) making Elves not so dominant with their economic bonus, perhaps to the point of removing it and giving them some other kingdom bonus. Which may entail not making the whole kingdom gold-bound, which unfortunately would make it more resource gathering such like Stronghold or Warcraft. I'm not sure how to get around it now.

2) Adding a bit more sim detail to hiring heros, as opposed to just clicking a Hire button and they come. Post a "Wanted" ad and have a hero show up after a while.

Due to the nature of the game, I don't think it'll ever be balanced between single and multiplayer though.

No, he didn't. He repeatedly accused my of "playing game wrongly". This is not emphasizing singleplayer context and speaking about unimportance of power level. That is self-righteousness.

This was in response to you repeatedly claiming that (low level) heros were suicidal when in fact you were forcing the condition. *My* heros were never suicidal, so if I don't see the behavior, you can't claim it's a defect in the game.

 

[Alfryd]

I personally didn't see A as a problem, so not even sure what needs to be tweaked about it.

I think B takes away from the Majesty spirit. The point is the hero to do the main fighting and is the "army"; adding henchmen has them take on that role greater than I'd like.

And C is the same thing. There are plenty of games where a "hero" leads "henchmen" into battle, I don't want Majesty that way.

I can understand your ambivalence on point C, but bear in mind: Colombo has been complaining about junior heroes' tendencies to bite off more than they can chew. If fighting-henchmen really acted like junior heroes, and were sensible enough not to tackle major threats... then you'll still, in essence, need senior heroes to deal with big monsters, et cetera. They'll still do most of the 'army work'.

You see, in general I found that the behaviour of henchmen in Majesty (both 1 and 2) took away from the game's spirit, in that they showed very little free-will or self-interest. It bugs me a little that they just spawned for free and would never flee in terror or buy potions or asked for a daily salary. I'd kind of like to see henchmen (perhaps citizens is a better word?) behave more like heroes (in the sense of having their own agendas and sense of personality, rather than necessarily being combat-focused.)

In short, I don't think it contradicts the 'spirit of Majesty' to have more henchmen with depth and autonomy, rather than fewer henchmen with less.

I also think that point (A) is a legitimate complaint, though it mostly applies to Maj2- the latter does tend to force a relatively same-y build order on the player in most quests. Having a different system of checks and balances might at least do no harm.

This was in response to you repeatedly claiming that (low level) heros were suicidal when in fact you were forcing the condition. *My* heros were never suicidal, so if I don't see the behavior, you can't claim it's a defect in the game.

Well, strictly speaking, since you can only prod (low level) heroes to chase monsters by offering bounties, that's not 'forcing' the condition. The heroes are still voluntarily putting themselves in untenable situations, so they're still effectively suicidal, and that's arguably a defect in the game. (I will say that I found this much more problematic in Maj2 than Maj1, however. Also, it might actually be appropriate behaviour for, say, greed-addled rogues.)

 

[Hapuga]

But Hapuga, as I understand it, the GEM engine does not support randomly-generated maps, and never has. And since freestyle permutations and fractal maps contributed a good deal to the original's sense of discovery and openness, again, I would have to say it does not fit the game perfectly.

Paradox and InoCo may have had the best intentions in the world, and I can sympathise with the position of the developers, but I don't think the end result of Maj2's design can be blamed on mere accident or technical problems. This is a game that does not even allow you to continue playing after a quest has ended, when ant-farming was one of the pleasures of the original. There is no technical difficulty or cost there, it just never occurred to either Paradox or InoCo that anyone might want to do this. When the gulf between the designers and the fanbase is this wide, you have a problem.

While what you are saying is true, we don't know what the engine truly offers. Creating procedural terrain with something as simple as Perlin noise and applying height and slope based texturing is not rocket science, and extending a powerful engine to have that is not really that difficult. Of course, I have no idea what kind of tools and restrictions the developers had with the engine kit. However, I think that it was never planned in the first place. I mean, they did not do it not because they couldn't, but because they didn't see it as a necessity.

 

[Alfryd]

*shrugs* I vaguely recall the devs saying that they couldn't modify the GEM engine for this purpose, even if they'd wanted to- but maybe that was based on legal rather than technical restrictions. I'm mildly curious about what engine Warlock is based on, since (as Tarantian pointed out) they do have random terrain generation working there. (On the other hand, the AI there is still pretty weak.)

In any case, I do appreciate you bringing some numbers to the discussion. I mean, in theory, if InoCo managed to somehow take Maj2's engine, add random freestyle maps, fix the multiplayer, restore sanity to the AI and increase the range of content to match the original in all respects... Then I'd still hate the art style and bastardized setting with a fiery burning vengeance. But for all I know, it could sell pretty well. I guess that would count as a net win?

But I mean, speaking personally Hapuga, what do you consider to be the most vital aspects of the franchise? I mean, are you actively opposed to going in a sim-heavy direction, or would you just want to make sure that certain aspects of Maj2's design is kept intact, or do you feel that I'm just being unfair to the devs?

 

[Colombo]

Honestly, Majesty has the power to combine sort of city-building with competitive multiplayer.

You know when you build your perfect city in City-Builders (eg. Caesar), you defeated all those enemies they send after you with your legions and towers...

and now what?

In Pharaoh, you could build all those pyramids etc.... but that took hell lot of time. Where nothing happened.
In Zeus, you could even try to defeat others... but then you got only some resources... that you did not needed to expand. Well, you have opened new trade opportunities... yeah..
Caesar, not even that.

You could try to push Caesar etc. to send legions after you and try how many would you survive (I defeated attack of around 18 legions at once, it was quite cool due to perfect geography when they spawned in corridor and I could fire from towers at them).

But in Majesty... hell, I can see what I can become.

 

[Hapuga]

*shrugs* I vaguely recall the devs saying that they couldn't modify the GEM engine for this purpose, even if they'd wanted to- but maybe that was based on legal rather than technical restrictions. I'm mildly curious about what engine Warlock is based on, since (as Tarantian pointed out) they do have random terrain generation working there. (On the other hand, the AI there is still pretty weak.)

In any case, I do appreciate you bringing some numbers to the discussion. I mean, in theory, if InoCo managed to somehow take Maj2's engine, add random freestyle maps, fix the multiplayer, restore sanity to the AI and increase the range of content to match the original in all respects... Then I'd still hate the art style and bastardized setting with a fiery burning passion. But for all I know, it could sell pretty well. I guess that would count as a net win?

But I mean, speaking personally Hapuga, what do you consider to be the most vital aspects of the franchise? I mean, are you actively opposed to going in a sim-heavy direction, or would you just want to make sure that certain aspects of Maj2's design is kept intact, or do you feel that I'm just being unfair to the devs?

There is a very thin line between when the game is perceived as a successor and when it is perceived as a plain copy or completely different game. If M2 was closer to M1, a lot of people would bash the devs for being lazy and unoriginal, while a lot of people would praise them for being true to the ancestor. Change too many things - and you will get the exact opposite reaction. Truth is as always - somewhere in the middle. It is completely impossible to have each and every community member and player happy. There will always be people who will be against certain features/additions. A perfect design is a golden ratio between new changes that will attract new players and old elements that will keep as many hardcore fans as possible. Again, it is impossible to please everyone - a company must sacrifice one thing to get another. If the sacrifice is successful - the amount of player types will be mostly satisfied and the amount of those who dislike the change will be minimal. A bad change is when you lose your old players AND fail to attract new ones.

That's why I said that M2 was on average accepted warmly. While some old fans wanted more, the company chose a direction on newer target market, and it was almost successful. A lot of people liked brighter, warmer and kinder Majesty 2. One of the indications of that was - I was getting a lot of comments like "I like to play this game with my girlfriend/family" which does not happen too often for the game of such type, and even for strategy games in general.

Please note, I am not saying a single word about that M2 is better than M1, or that I like the change of direction more or I like it less. I am merely trying to explain how things work in the market, and why sometimes "weird" decisions are made by the companies. While they may feel weird for us, hardcode fans, in the underground level, on average, developers know what they are doing. Great example would be - Diablo 3. As a hardcore D1 and D2 fan, I dislike D3. Does it mean that it is a bad game? Definitely not. It is the direction the company took, and it sold well, and I congratulate them on that direction. But before I go on an even more horrible tangent...

If you want to know my personal (my own, completely biased) opinion, I would say that I like both games almost equally. I like M2 more, because I spent so much time on the game, I know it inside out. Over the years while developing the expansion I learned so much from it. And saw all the dark sides and limitations of it, too. I know that in some cases, just with a little amount of effort it would have been a much better game. Yes, I would like to have a sandbox type of a gameplay. I was able to have sandbox levels with heavily scripted events. It was pretty fun. I was able to write a script-based kingdom AI, and it turned out pretty well too (except that I had no time to polish it properly, but I still have all source). There are a lot of artifacts in the build, leftovers from previous game (Men of War), unneeded files, file duplicates and many many little things that indicated that developers had very little time. The core is there. The potential is there. And it disappoints me greatly when I think about what could be done and that it was never reached. They were SO close. That's why I said that GEM engine is good. Even without procedural level generation, the game could have been so much better.

 

[Alfryd]

That's why I said that M2 was on average accepted warmly. While some old fans wanted more, the company chose a direction on newer target market, and it was almost successful. A lot of people liked brighter, warmer and kinder Majesty 2. One of the indications of that was - I was getting a lot of comments like "I like to play this game with my girlfriend/family" which does not happen too often for the game of such type, and even for strategy games in general.

Just wanted to remark that I find this a little strange- the original Majesty was significantly darker in places, but mostly in subtle or occasional ways, and it was still a pretty kid-friendly experience. For every quest involving mind-warping eldritch horrors there was one involving henchmen catapult rides. (I don't think it even merited a PG-13 rating, which Maj2 technically did, on account of blood FX.)

Personally, I grew up on that sort of thing, so I actually like a little 'bite' in kid fiction. And I'd have to say that, even if Maj2 had come out completely bug free and in perfect working order, the soul of it would still be dead to me. Even freestyle SP and working MP wouldn't be enough. The underlying Sim was just gone. Imperfect as Maj1 was, it had that.

I know it's not possible to please everyone, but if I ever got away with finishing a game within the franchise, I at least wouldn't want to exclude people through carelessness. I'd want to find out what people want from a Majesty game, consciously analyse which desires are mutually incompatible, carefully assess the costs and benefits, and only then tell them their ideas are stupid before selectively stealing them.

(What can I say? I'm a people person.)

While they may feel weird for us, hardcode fans, in the underground level, on average, developers know what they are doing. Great example would be - Diablo 3. As a hardcore D1 and D2 fan, I dislike D3. Does it mean that it is a bad game? Definitely not. It is the direction the company took, and it sold well, and I congratulate them on that direction.

The thing is, even when this works- and I'm sure it can- regardless of financial success it's still kind of ethically reprehensible. If you want to make a radically different kind of game, well and good, but then don't advertise it as a sequel, because that's banking directly on existing fan loyalties, along with all their baggage and expectations. (To be fair, D3's differences in tone were mainly cosmetic- I hear the mechanical changes between D1 and D2 were much more jarring.)

Of course, this raises the question of whether the kind of game I'm looking for is really a Majesty sequel, exactly. (Even Cyberlore didn't just tack a '2' on the end.) Based on feedback here, I'm pretty confident that what Colombo and I want is 90% compatible, and I even think that a lot of the friction between him and Spidey is due to preconceptions over the terms 'hero' and 'henchmen'. (Henchmen from Maj1/2 were, IMO, the single weakest aspect of both games... so when Colombo or I say "I reckon Maj3 could expand on henchmen", it's possible that what he's hearing is "Maj3 could use more oblivious shuffling drones". When one might actually mean "Henchmen should have more presence and personality".)

On the other hand, it may turn out that, e.g, certain aspects of a deep Sim or Citybuilder make multiplayer awkward. Maybe what Colombo wants is intrinsically at odds with what you or Spidey might like to see. I just think it's important to make sure we're not just flailing around with differences in terminology.


But seriously, Spidey? Elves? That's it? Talk about a failure of imagination.

 

[Colombo]

Yeah, both Majesty 1 and Majesty 1 was fairy-tale fantasy settings, but both Majesty 1 and Majesty 2 were completely different... feeling of those fairy tale setting. Both were over the top in completely different aspects and somehow more realistic in others.

edit: Thats why I stopped discussing after the number of units sold and quality of Maj2 and rating, because I myself give it higher rating than I thought and I feel that there is something wrong with Maj2 but still it is relatively decent game.

So, that is what most of us said. Majesty 1 and Majesty 2 are different games with similar mechanics. Fans of Majesty 1 don't get Majesty 2 and in reverse.

Something like Cossacs 1 and 2. Both were good games, both were in the same genre... and shared a lot of mechanics. But both had different graphical aspect and feeling and many mechanics turned them in different games.

Btw. Alfryd, have you played early build of Age of empires online? They had amazing thing. You got research tree for your civilization and unlocked different branches as you played. Not just smaller bonuses, but units etc. So basically, you got many civilizations inside one civilization. You could set up your civilization in that way that you were centered economically and on elephant rush with some spearmens and towers for early defense (Egyptians) or push all your technology to cavalry etc. Like those major civs (Egyptians and Greeks) weren't civilisations but beta civilisations and you customized your own by your playstyle, like you customize your deck in Magic the Gathering. Different decks share some feeling because of color you play, as they have some fundamental strengths and advantages, but they can vary wildly.

 

[Alfryd]

In Pharaoh, you could build all those pyramids etc.... but that took hell lot of time. Where nothing happened.
In Zeus, you could even try to defeat others... but then you got only some resources... that you did not needed to expand. Well, you have opened new trade opportunities... yeah..
Caesar, not even that.

You could try to push Caesar etc. to send legions after you and try how many would you survive (I defeated attack of around 18 legions at once, it was quite cool due to perfect geography when they spawned in corridor and I could fire from towers at them).

But in Majesty... hell, I can see what I can become.

It's interesting that you mention this, since I would have said that a large-scale sandbox campaign structure and inter-kingdom relations were actually an area in which both Maj1 and Maj2 were desperately lacking. I agree completely that this is an area which could and should be developed- and it's an area in which Paradox happen to have vast expertise, which helps- but it's not a particular virtue of the game as-is, and not really specific to multiplayer.

One thing that struck me about the original game, for example, was that a number of quests didn't make a great deal of sense as elaborate base-building exercises- vigil for a fallen hero, scions of chaos, the siege, etc.- and would have been much better represented as either small, independent adventuring parties on a dedicated mission, or large-scale tactical battle simulations. Nor did it make a great deal of sense that you had to rebuild your kingdom over from scratch, time and time again. I'm not sure how you'd go about tackling that problem, but it's worth thinking about.

Yeah, both Majesty 1 and Majesty 1 was fairy-tale fantasy settings, but both Majesty 1 and Majesty 2 were completely different... feeling of those fairy tale setting. Both were over the top in completely different aspects and somehow more realistic in others.

The original european fairy-tale is perhaps the single darkest fantasy setting imaginable. Modern-day sanitisations of the old story-cycles can barely blot out the horror.

I can't say I've played AoE online- I'm afraid one look at the art style kind of put me off- but I'll see if I can't look into it. It definitely sounds interesting.

 

[Colombo]

It's interesting that you mention this, since I would have said that a large-scale sandbox campaign structure and inter-kingdom relations were actually an area in which both Maj1 and Maj2 were desperately lacking. I agree completely that this is an area which could and should be developed- and it's an area in which Paradox happen to have vast expertise, which helps- but it's not a particular virtue of the game as-is, and not really specific to multiplayer.

One thing that struck me about the original game, for example, was that a number of quests didn't make a great deal of sense as elaborate base-building exercises- vigil for a fallen hero, scions of chaos, the siege, etc.- and would have been much better represented as either small, independent adventuring parties on a dedicated mission, or large-scale tactical battle simulations. Nor did it make a great deal of sense that you had to rebuild your kingdom over from scratch, time and time again. I'm not sure how you'd go about tackling that problem, but it's worth thinking about.

We had already discussion about it. I suggested you to take a look into Zeus and their camping. Instead of always building every city from scratch, they enabled you new buildings, changed global politics a bit and expanded map a bit (so new resources were shown). This make great gameplay in expanding the same town and trying to fight new conditions and not just building new city from scratch while repeating the basic steps for X-time. Some RTS used this in similar style (in one mission, you are bulding base and defending, in another you are using that base to attack enemy, or in reverse).

My text was more about city-building elements in competitive games. They are usually really simple, but they are pushing the game into not microing economy by peons, but more managing economy. More hands-off approach. Kohan, Rise of Nations...

The original european fairy-tale is perhaps the single darkest fantasy setting imaginable. Modern-day sanitisations of the old story-cycles can barely blot out the horror.

Yeah, brother Grimms... or how it is written in the English

I can't say I've played AoE online- I'm afraid one look at the art style kind of put me off- but I'll see if I can't look into it. It definitely sounds interesting.

They have changed it to more traditional and more shallow tech tree that you unlock. And I could argue that while gameplay was quire classic, the art style did to AoEO something what it did to Maj2

 

[Spiderman]

I can understand your ambivalence on point C, but bear in mind: Colombo has been complaining about junior heroes' tendencies to bite off more than they can chew. If fighting-henchmen really acted like junior heroes, and were sensible enough not to tackle major threats... then you'll still, in essence, need senior heroes to deal with big monsters, et cetera. They'll still do most of the 'army work'.

You see, in general I found that the behaviour of henchmen in Majesty (both 1 and 2) took away from the game's spirit, in that they showed very little free-will or self-interest. It bugs me a little that they just spawned for free and would never flee in terror or buy potions or asked for a daily salary. I'd kind of like to see henchmen (perhaps citizens is a better word?) behave more like heroes (in the sense of having their own agendas and sense of personality, rather than necessarily being combat-focused.)

In short, I don't think it contradicts the 'spirit of Majesty' to have more henchmen with depth and autonomy, rather than fewer henchmen with less.

See, I disagree with all of this pretty much as I'm happy with the henchmen's role and *don't* want to see it expanded. See below for more...

Well, strictly speaking, since you can only prod (low level) heroes to chase monsters by offering bounties, that's not 'forcing' the condition. The heroes are still voluntarily putting themselves in untenable situations, so they're still effectively suicidal, and that's arguably a defect in the game. (I will say that I found this much more problematic in Maj2 than Maj1, however. Also, it might actually be appropriate behaviour for, say, greed-addled rogues.)

That's not necessarily true and not what Columbo described when pressed for more detail. Low-level heros BY THEMSELVES (tired of asterisks ) will go towards reward flags if they deem it worth their while BUT will also evaluate the monster strength and flee if too strong. INDIVIDUALLY they might beserk and "take on more than they can chew" but this is not general practice and frankly, I think it's indicative of individual hero behavior - a brave but foolhardy Warrior might take on a Vampire while a more prudent one flees. Low-level heros WITH high level heros will similarly go towards reward flags (at this point generally high to attract the high level heros) but do the same evaluation: this is why Change of Heart was implemented in NE, because players were tired of heros fleeing when they could take on the monster (either by themselves or with a bunch of others).

Generally speaking though, reward flags are unnecessary in the game as a whole: in scenarios, heros have to defend against the monster rush and thus are Defending the Guild/Realm and are not really suicidal; well, they kinda are but are needed to fight or you'll lose. Once the initial rush is over, they (usually pretty high level after that) can wander around and take care of themselves. In Freestyle, unless there's a similar monster rush due to the settings, heros can wander around and explore on their own and choose to fight whoever they come across or flee as previously described. By the time you have enough money to set a reward flag (because frankly, you should start out with 10K gold because otherwise, you've won the freestyle anyway), heros again should be either high enough level to take on whatever you're putting it on and/or there should be enough heros answering the flag that collectively they can take on whatever. But again, the reward flag is unnecessary; you should have heros by this time who have Raid a Lair or Fight Monster or whatever as one of their primary decisions and will go get them anyway.

If M2 was closer to M1, a lot of people would bash the devs for being lazy and unoriginal, while a lot of people would praise them for being true to the ancestor. Change too many things - and you will get the exact opposite reaction. Truth is as always - somewhere in the middle. It is completely impossible to have each and every community member and player happy.

This is so true. Maj2 appealed to those players who liked that kind of play (and perhaps some of the old Maj1 players who wished it had some of that play) while Maj1 appeals to those who like THAT kind of gameplay. You're never going to satisfy everyone; witness this very discussion about differences of what people would like to see as a true Maj2 successor. Ultimately all of this discussion is for naught because the people who actually want to make the game have their own ideas on how to do it and *may* consult threads for fleshing out of ideas. But I have never heard of a case where someone sees posts on a forum and thinks "hey, I should make that game because those are good ideas" - but if there are cases, I would suspect those said people would be brought in since it *is* their idea and thus it goes back to making a game based on what the coders/designers think it should be made.

 

[Colombo]

When I finally learn how to kill trolls trough internet, I will be famous. And rich.

 

[Alfryd]

See, I disagree with all of this pretty much as I'm happy with the henchmen's role and *don't* want to see it expanded. See below for more...

Uh... much as I appreciate the clarification... I'm still a little unclear on why this makes a more detailed henchman-economy or hero-apprenticeship system into a bad idea? I mean, it's likely enough to make for a different game in other respects, but I don't see how it would make hero AI any more or less suicidal than before.

But perhaps more generally... if you really wouldn't change anything significant about Maj1, then... why would you particularly want a sequel in the first place? Or are you just looking for, e.g, graphical improvements or better match-making services?

 

[Alfryd]

We had already discussion about it. I suggested you to take a look into Zeus and their campaign.

*Furrows brow* Oh, yes- I remember now, couple of months back earlier in the thread. I suppose I like the basic concept, I just didn't the idea of a linear storyline being imposed (which I suppose is quite distinct.)

Caesar 2, interestingly, did present a very crude kind of 'sandbox campaign', in that an AI player would compete to conquer territories at the same time as you, and you could more or less pick and choose which you wanted to govern.

Anyway, this is a potentially very complex topic, and I've only given it cursory thought so far, so I'll probably have to come back to that in more detail later.

 

[Colombo]

*Furrows brow* Oh, yes- I remember now, couple of months back earlier in the thread. I suppose I like the basic concept, I just didn't the idea of a linear storyline being imposed (which I suppose is quite distinct.)

Caesar 2, interestingly, did present a very crude kind of 'sandbox campaign', in that an AI player would compete to conquer territories at the same time as you, and you could more or less pick and choose which you wanted to govern.

Anyway, this is a potentially very complex topic, and I've only given it cursory thought so far, so I'll probably have to come back to that in more detail later.

I have always tried to play Caesar 2, it always crashed It had interesting provincial view. And army.

Well, you don't like linear storyline, but it was linear in both Majesty and in majority of strategy games. It is quite expensive to make non-linear storyline. In every game.

Age of Wonders had great branching storyline.

 

[Alfryd]

The storyline in Maj1 was not linear, in the sense that you could, for the most part, pick and choose the quests you wanted to undertake. (You could criticise the quality of that story, in that there was very little sense of cause-and-effect between each episode, but it certainly wasn't linear.)

I would, however, have to dispute the idea that non-linear storylines are inherently costly. That's essentially what Paradox specialise in producing in their grand-strategy titles: procedurally-generated narratives. A story is simply an account of the non-trivial consequences of the non-trivial choices of non-trivial characters. As long as the choices, the characters, and the consequences are there, you have a story. Plot may or may not be helpful in that regard.

(On a smaller scale, this is arguably also what Majesty achieved, in that the outcome of a quest might be dependent on the decisions of your free-willed heroes, and players had the same urge to tell stories about them afterward. Which is part of why I feel this kind of sandbox campaign structure would fit the franchise so well.)

 

[Colombo]

The storyline in Maj1 was not linear, in the sense that you could, for the most part, pick and choose the quests you wanted to undertake. (You could criticise the quality of that story, in that there was very little sense of cause-and-effect between each episode, but it certainly wasn't linear.)

I would, however, have to dispute the idea that non-linear storylines are inherently costly. That's essentially what Paradox specialise in producing in their grand-strategy titles: procedurally-generated narratives. A story is simply an account of the non-trivial consequences of the non-trivial choices of non-trivial characters. As long as the choices, the characters, and the consequences are there, you have a story. Plot may or may not be helpful in that regard.

(On a smaller scale, this is arguably also what Majesty achieved, in that the outcome of a quest might be dependent on the decisions of your free-willed heroes, and players had the same urge to tell stories about them afterward. Which is part of why I feel this kind of sandbox campaign structure would fit the franchise so well.)

Well, I would argue that Majesty did not had unlinear storyline. It was linear. You could chose some mission before others, but that had NO gameplay impact. I could also argue that Majesty did not had storyline at all, just bunch of loosely connected missions.

And I wouldn't put randomly-generated world and interactions in the same box as nonlinear storyline. Because otherwise I could argue that Diablo had nonlinear storyline.

 

[Alfryd]

Well, I would argue that Majesty did not had unlinear storyline. It was linear. You could chose some mission before others, but that had NO gameplay impact. I could also argue that Majesty did not had storyline at all, just bunch of loosely connected missions.

The latter is a reasonable argument, but the former is not. Clearly, having no plot contradicts having a linear plot. (But frankly, I preferred that to being railroaded down a substandard plotline. At least I had freedom.)

And I wouldn't put randomly-generated world and interactions in the same box as nonlinear storyline. Because otherwise I could argue that Diablo had nonlinear storyline.

That's not really what I'm talking about. Take a look at at this AAR, for example. There are clearly non-trivial characters- the members of noble houses who run the country. They are clearly making non-trivial decisions- about church vs. state, pride vs. expediency, strength vs. tolerance, who to marry, when to make peace, etc. And the consequences are clearly non-trivial- empires rise and fall on that basis. Frankly, this is better material than the average strategy game ever manages to pre-script.

In Diablo, on the other hand, your choices have no non-trivial consequences- your interactions with NPCs are limited purely to trade and information, and even death is only a temporary inconvenience. There's randomisation, but the randomisation has no real effect on the outcome.

Now, it's true- you can argue that Maj1 had little or no real overarching story. But at least within a given quest, while you'd rarely be able to alter the ultimate outcome, you could certainly alter the fates of the various heroes who joined you- just as they could alter eachother's. For more than a few players, that clearly had some significance.

I'd recommend that you read Ron Edwards' Setting and Emergent Stories, which I found to be a mild revelation in this area (albeit in the context of tabletop role-playing.)

 

[Colombo]

Ron Edwards doesn't have good reputation among anyone other than his fan group

Nonlinear story doesn't equal nonlinear gameplay. If you brought RPG-theory, there is distinction between storytelling (and then non-linear campaign, railroading and hidden railroad that look like non-linear) and simulationism, that has no "campaign" at all, but stories emerge from gameplay.

 

[Alfryd]

Right, but my point is that you don't need a pre-scripted plotline, branching or otherwise, in order to "have a story". You can do it procedurally, which is relatively cheap. And I think this approach would mesh pretty well with Majesty's overall play philosophy.

I don't agree with RE on every point, but I think he's bang on the money here.