Magna Mundi - The Sad State of Affairs

[mike2R]

I've played the mod for years, and have been anticipating the game since it was announced.

Now it seems unlikely to happen, due to Paradox's concerns (probably entirely reasonable) about the quality of the product.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?611749-The-sad-state-of-affairs

(http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?611749-The-sad-state-of-affairs)I don't want to play a buggy mess any more than Paradox apparently want to put their name to it, but I really really hope there is some sort of reprieve. There has always been something about Magna Mundi that no other strategy game managed. Partly the difficulty I think; the way it would punish you for overextending yourself in a way that few games dare to do. And the aim of the game designers - not to make yet another world conquest simulator, but to try to make playing a nation in a realistic fashion a rewarding experience.

I'm a sad panda :(

[Velko]

Ah, I've been waiting to see this pop up here too. As a formerly-regular Paradox-forum-goer, I have been following MM for a while now... And I must say it has been a hilariously doomed trainwreck pretty much since day one. From what that above-linked thread tells us, it seems that it's also an example of disastrous project management.

But, I will refrain from writing any more on this, as this thread too will no doubt be soon filled with Magnadrones proclaiming their everlasting loyalty for ubik and his Golden Master Product.

I must add though that perhaps my favourite moment in that thread is the part where a MM dev talks about what professionalism really is, and mentions Hegelian Marxism in the first sentence.

[Raaritsgozilla]

God god will this ever die?

The Magnadrones must realise that the mod was good, but a reversion to EU2 is not what EU3 needs, especially with so much feature bloat and whining/fingerpointing/rants from the MM dev team :/

[mike2R]

Since you've anticipated it, I'll spare you the long-winded explanation of why the game was actually going to be amazing :)

I'll just say I've had literally hundreds of hours on the mod, and while release quality was always going to be suspect, I've had absolute faith that the core game design was good and would work. Feature bloat was only an issue in the mod since they were cramming functionality into systems that was never designed to take it. Once you knew learnt the interface quirks this lead to, all the systems worked together very well.

Ok, maybe that was moderately long-winded...

Incidentally they were/are working on the EU3 engine, not EU2.

[Velko]

Well there we go, it has been cancelled.

Cue endless paranoia and conspiracy theories.

[mike2R]

I'll admit to being a little surprised by the antipathy. This was to be a highly niche game which had little exposure - the lack of interest in this thread fairly eloquently sums this up. Short of going out of their way to read the game's own forum, how did anyone manage to get irritated enough by this project to build up this level of dislike?

Anyway, what happened to just not buying a game you didn't think would be worth your money?

[Unaco]

I'm only seeing 2 people expressing some negative feelings towards the game, but also towards the Developers. I'm guessing the Developers have somehow alienated these 2 individuals, along with a lot of others.

As for the game... always a shame when something is canned. Did sound quite ambitious, although I haven't been following it. A few friends who have been confirmed that the cancellation isn't too surprising... there has been trouble with it for the last 9-12 months, screenshots looking horrid, features only being half implemented and then abandoned, and devs focussing more on politics outside their game than inside the game. Is a shame, because from the little I've seen of the game, the whole Historical simulational thing was quite interesting.

If they haven't been able to produce a stable release candidate in the last 9 months or so, then it probably is for the best that this is laid to rest.

[mike2R]

No real argument with that. It had bug-ridden release written all over it, and with Paradox clearly making a major effort to salvage its reputation in that area...

I just really wanted it to work. It was firmly aimed at a small niche: people who like their strategy games to hurt :)

And while for other genres like RPGs I'm a big fan of the illusion of challenge, and the game making me feel awesome :) I love a punishing strategy game. With the mod I've crashed and burned France into a death spiral. Twice. Which if you've played EU3 should tell you something about how different I hoped the game would be...

[vinraith]

I'm sorry to hear this, I've dabbled a bit with the mod (back in the MM Gold days) and thought it was an interesting twist on the EU3 formula. At what point was the mod dropped in favor of a standalone release? That is, is there a version of MM that works with Divine Wind? Is it solid?

[mike2R]

I'm sorry to hear this, I've dabbled a bit with the mod (back in the MM Gold days) and thought it was an interesting twist on the EU3 formula. At what point was the mod dropped in favor of a standalone release? That is, is there a version of MM that works with Divine Wind? Is it solid?

IIRC development of the mod stopped fairly soon early in the HTTT expansion lifecycle. It never made it to DW, and the HTTT version was more of a simple port from the IN one, than a proper full update - HTTT additions made the game significantly easier since the mod wasn't really balanced properly around them. It is still very very playable if you can roll back to that version (probably not if you have the game on Steam).

I thought this was going to be the major problem for them to be honest. The mod was extremely popular when the game was announced, but dropped off most people's radar in the intervening time. But given what problems have actually sunk them, I guess they really couldn't afford the time to keep working on the mod.

In hindsight I wish they had been less ambitious. I'd have been perfectly willing to pay for a game that was basically the mod, but properly integrated into the engine rather than stuffing complex features into systems that were never designed to take them. Then they might have been able to work on their bigger ideas as expansions, while having an active community.

[vinraith]

In hindsight I wish they had been less ambitious. I'd have been perfectly willing to pay for a game that was basically the mod, but properly integrated into the engine rather than stuffing complex features into systems that were never designed to take them. Then they might have been able to work on their bigger ideas as expansions, while having an active community.

Yeah, I'd have probably bought into that too. THanks for the info about the mod history. I've got the original collection on hard copy and the expansions on Gamersgate, so I can easily roll back to any point I like (one of many reasons I avoid buying strategy games on Steam, actually). Would you say the MM experience is stronger with just the IN version?

[Kelron]

My problem with MM, though this is based on an ancient version, is that I felt like it was overzealous in trying to force me onto a historically accurate path. I'm all for making it difficult to conquer the world, but one of the things I enjoy about EU3 is the possibility for plausible alternate history scenarios. It felt like MM was trying to stifle that.

It also seemed to put too much strain on the event system, with popups every 10 seconds. That combined with later expansions doing a lot to make the game more challenging and less conquest-focused meant I was happy to stick with vanilla and smaller mods.

[deano2099]

No interest in the game, but this does appear to suck.

Why just give up entirely? Can't help but think they could make some money back by putting out the current version with source code for $5. And that'd be interesting, at least.

[mike2R]

Yeah, I'd have probably bought into that too. THanks for the info about the mod history. I've got the original collection on hard copy and the expansions on Gamersgate, so I can easily roll back to any point I like (one of many reasons I avoid buying strategy games on Steam, actually). Would you say the MM experience is stronger with just the IN version?

Personally I play MMU (the HTTT version). The team always made a point that the MMP2 (the IN version) was a better representation of how they wanted the mod to be balanced, but I like some of the extra features in the base game. My calling it just a port under-represents it a little, there is some new stuff in there. And being a little easier isn't such a bad thing sometimes :) It can still be absolutely brutal to you...

Oh and I'd check exact patch requirements too. I'm not sure if they ever updated to all the HTTT patches or not.


My problem with MM, though this is based on an ancient version, is that I felt like it was overzealous in trying to force me onto a historically accurate path. I'm all for making it difficult to conquer the world, but one of the things I enjoy about EU3 is the possibility for plausible alternate history scenarios. It felt like MM was trying to stifle that.

This is more or less what I like about it :)

It is a question of degree though. I feel that MM lets me create plausible scenarios for my own definition of plausible. I've ruled the HRE as Austria with a (mostly) velvet fist, and used my position to both eliminate the scourge of Protestantism from Europe and dominate the Pope. I've explored round the Cape of Good Hope as Portugal, turned the Indies into a private lake, and at the same time brought huge tracts of South America under my rule (then utterly failed to maintain a functioning administration to govern my vast empire). I have bitten off more than I can chew as France, seen my realm overrun by civil war and had to disband my armies because I could no longer pay them, then had the nations of Europe swarm me like vultures.

I never managed that level of connection in vanilla (though to be fair I haven't played it in years). I always had one aim: to expand. The game always became about this province and this province and then this province. Sure you could play it differently, but you'd have to basically role play it. Optimal play (I thought) was pretty much always to attack as quickly as you could burn the badboy.

MM is not on rails. Apart from a few fix events to stop repeated implausible outcomes, the constraints on you are those of the game systems. These can be overcome, but individually and with effort. So you have to focus, and make use of starting conditions, geography and other nations. For me personally this makes the game - I get to play a nation, not one hungry hippo among many :)


It also seemed to put too much strain on the event system, with popups every 10 seconds. That combined with later expansions doing a lot to make the game more challenging and less conquest-focused meant I was happy to stick with vanilla and smaller mods.

Yeah, there's a lot done though events; various modifiers and stuff that get adjusted, and you can get a lot of pop-ups. There are a lot of very good event pools as well, but the mod certainly creaks a bit with everything it is asked to do.


No interest in the game, but this does appear to suck.

Why just give up entirely? Can't help but think they could make some money back by putting out the current version with source code for $5. And that'd be interesting, at least.

I don't know the details, but unfortunately I seriously doubt they have the rights to do so - they were developing from the EU3 code-base licensed to them by Paradox. Paradox say they have pulled the plug, and that seems to be that.

[KDR_11k]

Paradox's concerns (probably entirely reasonable) about the quality of the product.

Where were those concerns when Gettysburg Armored Warfare was pushed out the door unfinished and hardly playable?

[Subatomic]

Where were those concerns when Gettysburg Armored Warfare was pushed out the door unfinished and hardly playable?

Huh, so I guess Paradox should continue to publish buggy and hardly playable games instead of stepping up their quality control? It sucks for this particular game of course, but what would you do if you were a publisher rather infamous for buggy and unfinished releases? Continue doing so or striving to do better? (And from the sound of it, they already gave the developers several months more time to bring the game to a playable state, sometimes you just have to cut your losses and say "that's it").

[Malawi Frontier Guard]

Where were those concerns when Gettysburg Armored Warfare was pushed out the door unfinished and hardly playable?

Well for one thing that game was made single-handedly by a handsome multi-talented prodigy who can do no wrong.

[Kelron]

Sounds like Paradox were having problems with the team, not just the game. If they give the developers time to fix it, but the developers turn around and say it's fine and doesn't need fixing, they're not leaving Paradox much choice.

[BTAxis]

I'd just like to step in now and announce that I have absolutely no opinion about this subject whatsoever. Thank you.

[deano2099]

I don't know the details, but unfortunately I seriously doubt they have the rights to do so - they were developing from the EU3 code-base licensed to them by Paradox. Paradox say they have pulled the plug, and that seems to be that.

I meant Paradox. They've paid for the game, may as well get something back.

[NathanH]

I meant Paradox. They've paid for the game, may as well get something back.

I guess that even if you sell something really cheap and make it clear that it's a bit shit you'll still be running the risk of getting a bad reputation. If you could restrict your sales only to consumers with a reasonable and nuanced view informed by knowledge of the situation, you're probably not going to get that many sales!

[Unaco]

I meant Paradox. They've paid for the game, may as well get something back.

What Nathan said above. Also, I don't think releasing the Source code for their main game Engine, for $5 a pop, is really the greatest idea for them as a game developer.