Majesty 2: Auto-Diku

[schild]

Anyone else pick this up today? I'd really like to see how Multiplayer works.

[Aez]

I should pick it up tonight. Never played the first one, you'll probably roll me over.  I'll be on vent once it's installed.

[schild]

I don't know if "rolling over" is how it works. I haven't the slightest how it works really.

[Demonix]

got it, its an updated majesty, which is a very good thing :)

Dunno if I will ever do multiplayer, but I hope there are more campaigns than what I am seeing on the overhead map.

[ezrast]

Downloading it now. And nothing's on my schedule this weekend. So, yeah.

[Johny Cee]

When one of my local stores gets a copy, I'll be on.  I loved Majesty I.

[Aez]

Looks ok, runs really fast for the graphics.  I have a weird scrolling  glitch and can't find a solution.

From reading the forum trying to find fix, apparently it's not as good as Majesty 1.

[Aez]

Well, fixed the glitch by running on only one processor.  Meh.  Wait a little but if you're short on cash.  Looks boring.

[gryeyes]

Same developer as space rangers right?

[Ingmar]

Game won't even start for me. I get a 'ran out of memory' error and a crash when trying to start it (from Steam.) 

[Tarami]

The game is meh. Completely lacks depth. Survive the first fifteen minutes and you've won the map. Takes great pleasure in cockstabbing you at every turn.

My BiiF would be to avoid.

[schild]

The game is meh. Completely lacks depth. Survive the first fifteen minutes and you've won the map. Takes great pleasure in cockstabbing you at every turn.

My BiiF would be to avoid.

What maps did you base this on, because I find it absolutely untrue. Also, I always play at 5x which is AWESOME.

[Tarami]

Maps 1-8 or so. What is it that you want me to elaborate on? The lack of depth? The initial zerging? The cockstabbing?

[schild]

I read about the cockstabbing in reviews (in the lack of money) but I haven't really run into it heavily as long as I managed things correctly.

[Tarami]

It's not lack of money that bothers me, even if what you do the majority of the game is waiting for cash to trickle in while trying to keep your retarded heroes from commiting collective suicide on a werewolf lair, or even worse, not even properly committing suicide and instead get followed back to town which will be sacked in short order. Unstructured diatribe follows.

The cockstabbing I'm speaking of is the dozen of small design "features" that just rub me the wrong way. Graveyards. Seriously, I just lost a level 1 hero to a marauding mob and I have to build a tower to deal with the magically appearing undead? Same for sewers; they don't perform their function, which would be to deter overbuilding, because when you're at the point where you have overbuilt and produced several sewers, you're so laden with gold that you can just drop towers to deal with them. Building (of anything) that can't be cancelled. Task flags that take your money upfront rather than after completed task. If I drop a flag on a mob, give it a reward and nobody whatsoever appears interested, why is it costing me money? AI that is absolutely atrocious for an in-directly controlled game. Look, your guild hall is on fire, how about killing those two, apparently pyromanical, rats? No, then what about the bear that's chewing on your friend's face? True, I'm sure he had it coming anyway. And, maybe the greatest sin ever conceived in game design, enemies appearing out of nowhere (in MJ2's case, the edges of the map.)

My point is that so much of the difficulty comes from absurd, punishing ideas in combination with the scenario design. Like the "Dark Tower" map, where you have to build a level 2 wizard guild to counter being nuked every third minute. Why didn't they just put a level 2 guild there and cut my funds by 1600? It's not like there's a choice, you can't get anything up and running unless you build that guild first thing. The same thing applies later in the same map, when you're attacking the dark tower itself; you're supposed to use your dwarves as they're extremely resillient to magic, but since they will be pretty high level, you need to drop a significant reward to get them going and that will also draw every other hero there, who will be unconditionally slaughtered. You can't even lose at this point, you're just waiting for your now only two living heroes to finish the job. Everything up to that point was just a slaughter of generic lairs in any case.

"Rat King" and the dragon map are two thematically similar maps, where a boss mob will come and slap you around occasionally, but without ever really being a focus or real danger. You're still going through the motions, expanding to trade posts, murdering generic lairs and finally taking your 20+ level 15 heroes, dropping a 20K reward on the boss for the hell of it and leaning back while the map finishes itself. In general the game can go from brutally hard during the building stages, to a total yawnfest the second half.

I don't know, maybe I'm being too harsh, maybe I was expecting too much. I had been looking forward to the game and I expected a lot more than a gimped RTS. It can be fun in instances, when the game isn't doing its best to fuck with you and just let you focus on the "sim" part of in-directly controlling and levelling heroes.

[ezrast]

I haven't played it a whole lot, but as far as I can tell you could just as easily have been writing about the first game. I haven't played enough of 2 to form an opinion yet, but it seems like the problem is more of pacing/tuning than any particular cockstabby features. I imagine multiplayer is an entirely different game in that regard. Anyone care to dork around with it tomorrow?

[Tarami]

I haven't played the first, but even so this one has been significantly downsized from that one. Maybe especially grating for me is that they dropped the sandbox mode, which could have saved this game and let me just play with the heroes as I wanted.

As for the perceived cockstabs (don't read too much into my use of that exact word, they're not on the level of what MMOs do, but still severly misguided ideas in my opinion), they were hardly important features even ten years ago. They could easily have been cut, simply because they don't add anything except minor annoyances that together build up to major annoyances. In my opinion this is a kind of game that should take more cues from Settlers than from Warcraft. It should be about enabling construction and "simming", not about trying to burn the player's town to the ground at every turn. I never have time to look at things like what armour or items my heroes carry, in part because it doesn't matter for shit (as you can't affect it, so you just have to run with whatever gear they do or do not have) and in part because I'm busy directing them all over the map. The only real difference between directing the units in MJ2 compared to any other RTS is that it will cost me money here. They won't take any initiatives, they won't act constructively outside of my direct commands. The attack command in StarCraft is more inventive than it is here. The odd ranger may wander off to get killed by mobs he can't handle.

Bear with me here while I enter retard land, but what I wanted or even expected to see was something that more closely resembled The Sims: The Diku Expansion, in which heroes took initiatives, even formed their own fixed parties, raided lairs for gold and loot and where the player could influence the heroes in more than one way. Maybe even a way of forming simplistic quests for your heroes, kill X rats, find holy relic et.c. Build an attractive city to attract more and better heroes, training facilities to let them improve once there and inns to keep them happy. Something that atleast aspired to being a simulation (it's right there in the title of the game, for Christ's sake) worthy of release 2009. It's a much more ambitious concept, sure, but right now it's the usual build-stuff-upgrade-zerg that you apply in every RTS. It feels like this is a significant short-handing of the concept. The Sims: Battle Royale would be awesome.

Oooh, I see what you did there. Had me going again.

[Aez]

I'm not sure I completely understand multiplayers but it seems to be VS only.  If it's the case, it's retarded.

And for Tarami's complain.  So far, the game doesn't even come close to Hinterland as a Sim/Diku which is pretty sad considering the budget difference.

[Tarami]

It's versus only. There's no coop in MJ2 (there was in MJ1.)

[dusematic]

It's not lack of money that bothers me, even if what you do the majority of the game is waiting for cash to trickle in while trying to keep your retarded heroes from commiting collective suicide on a werewolf lair, or even worse, not even properly committing suicide and instead get followed back to town which will be sacked in short order. Unstructured diatribe follows.

The cockstabbing I'm speaking of is the dozen of small design "features" that just rub me the wrong way. Graveyards. Seriously, I just lost a level 1 hero to a marauding mob and I have to build a tower to deal with the magically appearing undead? Same for sewers; they don't perform their function, which would be to deter overbuilding, because when you're at the point where you have overbuilt and produced several sewers, you're so laden with gold that you can just drop towers to deal with them. Building (of anything) that can't be cancelled. Task flags that take your money upfront rather than after completed task. If I drop a flag on a mob, give it a reward and nobody whatsoever appears interested, why is it costing me money? AI that is absolutely atrocious for an in-directly controlled game. Look, your guild hall is on fire, how about killing those two, apparently pyromanical, rats? No, then what about the bear that's chewing on your friend's face? True, I'm sure he had it coming anyway. And, maybe the greatest sin ever conceived in game design, enemies appearing out of nowhere (in MJ2's case, the edges of the map.)

My point is that so much of the difficulty comes from absurd, punishing ideas in combination with the scenario design. Like the "Dark Tower" map, where you have to build a level 2 wizard guild to counter being nuked every third minute. Why didn't they just put a level 2 guild there and cut my funds by 1600? It's not like there's a choice, you can't get anything up and running unless you build that guild first thing. The same thing applies later in the same map, when you're attacking the dark tower itself; you're supposed to use your dwarves as they're extremely resillient to magic, but since they will be pretty high level, you need to drop a significant reward to get them going and that will also draw every other hero there, who will be unconditionally slaughtered. You can't even lose at this point, you're just waiting for your now only two living heroes to finish the job. Everything up to that point was just a slaughter of generic lairs in any case.

"Rat King" and the dragon map are two thematically similar maps, where a boss mob will come and slap you around occasionally, but without ever really being a focus or real danger. You're still going through the motions, expanding to trade posts, murdering generic lairs and finally taking your 20+ level 15 heroes, dropping a 20K reward on the boss for the hell of it and leaning back while the map finishes itself. In general the game can go from brutally hard during the building stages, to a total yawnfest the second half.

I don't know, maybe I'm being too harsh, maybe I was expecting too much. I had been looking forward to the game and I expected a lot more than a gimped RTS. It can be fun in instances, when the game isn't doing its best to fuck with you and just let you focus on the "sim" part of in-directly controlling and levelling heroes.

Thanks.  I was waffling.  You saved me $50.  Quality post.

[Ingmar]

Hey, at least it runs at all for you. 

[NiX]

Hey, at least it runs at all for you. 

By the looks of it, is that a bad thing?

[jakonovski]

Tarami's post illustrates differences in perception pretty well. For me, Majesty 2 is basically a modified Tower Defense game. So I actually get enjoyment from many if the things he hates.

[Severian]

I've been playing it, just finished dragon level. Didn't play the first Majesty. The things he hates seem to be the point of the game, the lack of direct control, doing the best you can despite the heroes being idiots. You can only make one a lord (a carryover hero) at the end of a win so it doesn't matter too much if half of them get slaughtered at the end of a scenario. Being continually harassed during the first half is what keeps it interesting. If you didn't like how it played out that actually gives you incentive for what little replayability this title might have (which is very little). Example: figuring out if there is a way to create all-dwarf parties and send them after the magic castle while, say, forming your other units in ranger-led parties in an inn on the other side of the map with exploration objectives, or rogue-led healerless parties who will run at the first sign of trouble.

It's true that the tactics don't seem to have much depth, as far as I can tell the details of all the various systems in play don't need to be understood, you just keep building up everything, make sure the money keeps flowing in, and then whenever you feel like it you send the zerg after the final objective. Maybe that will change by the tougher battles by the end, we'll see.

[Aez]

I destroyed the magical towers with only 3 high lvl hero showing to my attack flag.  I had lots of money so I spamed the heal spell on the hero targeted by the towers.

[gryeyes]

A single hero destroyed all but one of the towers. I didn't even notice it for awhile he would just pound away/run off and heal/return. I cant recall his exact level but it was below 20. The awful Hero AI makes this game painful,im like 3-4 hours in and losing motivation to re-enter.

[Aez]

Well, I played all day.  Having fun.  I'm half way through the campaign.  The dragon mission is the most annoying so far.  The rat king one was the funniest.  It gets much better when you unlock dwarf, elf and advanced class.  Money become an issue and you have to pick what you want, unlike the first levels where you basically build everything.

I just completed a map where you have to accumulate a set amount of money in a time limit.  It played like a puzzle.

My first impression was bad but putting a few hours in it is worth it.  I will have enough for my money if I just complete the campaign and be done with it.  It's also a game starving for content, an expansion really improve gameplay.

[bhodi]

This game is majesty with a new skin. You can also create parties. Game's about what I expected, annoying hero AI and all.

Just a note, sewers aren't there to deter you building a massive city, they are there to level your low level heroes until they can go out into the wild without getting instagibbed.

Heroes don't appear from the edges of the map, they appear from the lairs and go directly to your town.

[Tarami]

This game is majesty with a new skin. You can also create parties. Game's about what I expected, annoying hero AI and all.

Just a note, sewers aren't there to deter you building a massive city, they are there to level your low level heroes until they can go out into the wild without getting instagibbed.

Heroes don't appear from the edges of the map, they appear from the lairs and go directly to your town.

You can level off lairs easily, or just by setting your heroes to defend any building in town. I don't think I ever explicitly used the sewers for levelling my heroes, because it costs money to do it efficiently and you're not accomplishing anything additional. Waiting for the heroes to wander into the proximity by chance can result in a lot of waiting. The fact that sewers scale in number directly in relation to the town size argues that they aren't there for the early game. I think even graveyards scale in type and number of spawns they produce.

And yes, mobs appear from the edges off the map. Try exploring and cleansing all of it and you'll still have mobs trickling in, seemingly out of nowhere. What you mention is true though, mobs spawning from lairs are homing once you've discovered the lair.

[gryeyes]

Heroes don't appear from the edges of the map, they appear from the lairs and go directly to your town.

They also wander in from off screen,they also lock on to your town before you discover their hidden lairs. Sewers also provide too much pressure to just be an early leveling tool for heroes. You have to divert some pretty substantial resources to make sure you don't get overwhelmed when you have a large town.

[Aez]

For the sewers, I'm doing pretty well by placing a turret and a guild close to them.  Heroes often defend the area around their guild for free when they're not on a mission.  It saves me some cash and let me use my denfed flag on the lone building that sprawl far from the town's tower defend flag in my town.

I also like to build my town in a straight line to a close trading post instead of doing a circle around my palace.  It optimizes the defensive resources of the trading post because it also defend a side of the town.

[sidereal]

Weird to hear reviews written as if Majesty 1 never existed.  I CAN'T CONTROL THE GUYS!  

It's possible Majesty 2 exists just as fan service for those of us who loved Majesty 1 (or those who would have but never ran played it for whatever reason).

The whole point of the game is to figure out how to win despite the complete asstardery of your heroes.  If they were smart, the game would be pointless.  By which I mean, it would be Dungeon Siege without inventory control.

This is just Majesty 1 with better graphics and a few tweaks.  Here's my advice to people on the fence: Go buy Majesty plus the Northern Expansion for like a buck-oh-five in a bargain bin somewhere.  If you like that, you will also like this.  If not, you will have saved yourself 48.95.

[Tarami]

If you're referring to my "review", you're missing the point entirely. I never complained about the actual indirect control of the heroes. On the contrary, I criticized that it was so limited (as in, I expected more, less obvious ways to manipulate them), in combination with the heroes being fuck-stupid, even more so than they appear to have been in the first game, which by gaming standards is ancient.

A semblance of intellect wouldn't make the game pointless. Looking historically at games with claimed or actual simulation aspects, I can't come up with a game where better AI would make it less interesting, where single-minded stupidity was a feature. Sims 3 for example had some significant improvements in the behaviour of the Sims, which made it more interesting to "meta" your Sims than it was before. In fact, that's pretty much what makes Sims interesting as a game at all; that the characters have lifelike (well, occasionally) behaviour independent of the player. Gaming the systems indirectly IS interesting, that's just not what you're doing in Majesty. I would maybe call the control of units in Majesty deferred rather than indirect, because they are doing exactly what you tell them to, just in a vaguely roundabout and sloppy manner. They're not making a choice, do what I tell you, or do something you like, they do what I tell them or nothing at all.

The bottom line is, with better AI you can make a more interesting and, speaking in absolute terms, a more challenging game.

I'm not looking to convert the choir. I just don't see why I, or anyone, should give the game a pass when it's actually doing less than its almost 10 years old prequel, graphics not withstanding. Like I said, it's enjoyable now and then in its own right, it's just not what it says on the box.

[Sjofn]

I found the heroes to be roughly as stupid as I expected, personally. But then, I played the first one.

Honestly, I read your review and thought, "Sweet, it sounds just like the first one. I bet he didn't play that." S'cool you didn't like it, but for the people who did like Majesty 1, and basically want an updated version, this will fill your needs.

[gryeyes]

Is there any way to force a unit into a party? Wizards get slaughtered and I cant find an easy way to snag them into a group,so they get big and mean.