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[Hanzoku]

Core content isn’t developed or delivered until later because modern gamers are OK with games being delivered at full price while still being in beta or even alpha stage of development.

Conspiracy theory + lack of knowledge about software development again. Bug-ridden trainwrecks are few: most often it's people foolishly expecting unrealistically perfect QA.

Eh, I can’t be bothered with an internet argument about this, so I’ll keep it short. Expecting games to be delivered feature complete and largely bug free isn’t a conspiracy theory or a lack of knowledge about software development. It’s simply old-fashioned, from an era when that was far more common. Modern development is based on delivering a minimally acceptable framework and maintaining cash flow adding features via DLCs and micro transactions. It’s the entire basis on how Paradox games work, look at Stellaris from it’s launch to its current incarnation.

[IronyOwl]

And every dev is entitled to think "I don't care". Perhaps Johan's mistake is saying it so overtly, without PR in the middle.

Every dev is entitled to, but assuming their goal is to make a game people enjoy, it makes them a shitty dev. Assuming that is not their goal might make them a shitty dev regardless.

And the PR thing is one of my favorite fallacies. "Oh, people are mad that I lied/screwed up/said stupid things, clearly the problem is that the foolish masses can't be trusted with information, I should stop talking to them." It's a common refuge for people with no coherent means to address criticism, that the people you're supposed to be servicing are just complete assholes and the only way to make things better is to stop giving them information so they can't respond to it.

It's basically just a really, really petty tinpot dictator situation. I didn't screw up, the idiot masses just need me to guide them harder.

Core content isn’t developed or delivered until later because modern gamers are OK with games being delivered at full price while still being in beta or even alpha stage of development.

Conspiracy theory + lack of knowledge about software development again. Bug-ridden trainwrecks are few: most often it's people foolishly expecting unrealistically perfect QA.

And yeah, full price is full price. I wonder in which parallel dimension companies would release games proportionately discounted according to the bugs/content they have, dictated by some divine oversight. Any criticism involving "full price" is largely a strawman anyway, considering the sales culture, regnant for years now. Don't like the current state of the game? Wait and see, and maybe get it when it's cheaper if it picks up.

It's hard not to sound like I'm defending Paradox, but I suppose I'm mainly tired of seeing the same old clichés cropping up again and again, demanding impossible standards because what do people know anyway.

Dude, games enter early access for full or full-ish price all the time. I'm not gonna pretend like normal gamers know anything at all about software development, but the latter half of the quoted statement is ironclad fact.

I have also yet to see anybody seriously bitching about unrealistically petty or rare bugs. Whenever I see people complaining about bugs and lazy development and released in pre-alpha etc, it's for crippling, common flaws that would be indefensible to leave in or not know about.

Maybe it's the theme. Perhaps the Roman period (which doesn't even cover the Empire) is rather niché compared to the Middle Ages in general, the Age of Exploration, World War II and even a generic space opera.

I mean, maybe. But if you've got a bunch of people who have actually played the game telling you it's shit mechanically, why would you casually vault straight over that to speculate on theme popularity?

Core content isn’t developed or delivered until later because modern gamers are OK with games being delivered at full price while still being in beta or even alpha stage of development.

Conspiracy theory + lack of knowledge about software development again. Bug-ridden trainwrecks are few: most often it's people foolishly expecting unrealistically perfect QA.

Eh, I can’t be bothered with an internet argument about this, so I’ll keep it short. Expecting games to be delivered feature complete and largely bug free isn’t a conspiracy theory or a lack of knowledge about software development. It’s simply old-fashioned, from an era when that was far more common. Modern development is based on delivering a minimally acceptable framework and maintaining cash flow adding features via DLCs and micro transactions. It’s the entire basis on how Paradox games work, look at Stellaris from it’s launch to its current incarnation.

I agree with parts of this but many of the oldest and most beloved titles were absolute trainwrecks on launch and had no good way to get patched into less trainwrecks. Even as things matured on that front, patching out the obvious problems after launch became a very common practice.

The modern strategy of fuckhueg game studios/brands pushing out crippled titles and fixing them afterwards is definitely new, but it's far from unprecedented.

[Salmeuk]

The co-star of this drama is the cynical fallacy that games are deliberately, conspiratorially released with less content, specifically cut to be sold afterwards as DLC, showing a blatant ignorance of how software development (and plain logic) works.

There was a point in the history of game development where this 'plain logic' you describe was a foreign concept. Post-release content updates were exciting and rare, and seen as the developer going above and beyond their expected duties.

I think you underestimate the ability of larger studios to treat their games like capital. Development costs are ridiculous for AAA titles, and these days the largest developers (not sure if Paradox counts) take into account the longevity of a games profitability when they decide how much to invest. It's not a cynical attitude in and of itself; these developers don't see anything wrong with this style of development. To say this kind of development doesn't exist is untrue.

I'm not saying that strung-out development is necessarily a bad thing, though it often is. I just can't believe we've reached the point where people are defending it as normal. Times have certainly changed.

[Cruxador]

just listened to an interview with johan: https://play.acast.com/s/vicegamingsnewpodcast/onbeinganentertainerandmanasystems-aninterviewwithparadoxsjohananderson

so gratifying to hear him say that imperator was a failure and mana was a mistake

he typically doubles down so hard against any criticism

Johan did double down initially, and the outcry got even worse.
Oh funny that, I can't find the post he made on the Paradox forums anymore, I wonder why...



Edit: Found it

Honestly, I can see where Johan is coming from. Imperator has got a lot of very clean and thorough design. From the perspective of someone who has been working on it a lot, it's surely easy to miss the fact that this design isn't really translating into interesting gameplay, or that the design is really only laying a solid foundation that they haven't adequately built upon.

Core content isn’t developed or delivered until later because modern gamers are OK with games being delivered at full price while still being in beta or even alpha stage of development.

Conspiracy theory + lack of knowledge about software development again. Bug-ridden trainwrecks are few: most often it's people foolishly expecting unrealistically perfect QA.

And yeah, full price is full price. I wonder in which parallel dimension companies would release games proportionately discounted according to the bugs/content they have, dictated by some divine oversight. Any criticism involving "full price" is largely a strawman anyway, considering the sales culture, regnant for years now. Don't like the current state of the game? Wait and see, and maybe get it when it's cheaper if it picks up.

It's hard not to sound like I'm defending Paradox, but I suppose I'm mainly tired of seeing the same old clichés cropping up again and again, demanding impossible standards because what do people know anyway.

They -- Paradox themselves -- have literally confirmed that it's was nearly everyone. Imperator was commercially a success, however, people stopped playing it immediately, and the amount of players hasn't risen since. Sure, only a minority got vocal about it. But the vast majority of players bought it, tried it, and was so disappointed that they didn't try it out again. This by Paradox's own words.

It'd seem Imperator crashed harder than other flagship PDX games, but player counts have been slowly rising. CK2 also started fairly small, being the sequel to a rather secondary game in the company's lineup, and slowly climbed in time as more content rolled out.

Stellaris went through a significant crash, and while it's never been able to hold me past the early game despite several attempts and increasing numbers of DLCs, its player count has risen over time and is now relatively close to CK2's.

Maybe it's the theme. Perhaps the Roman period (which doesn't even cover the Empire) is rather niché compared to the Middle Ages in general, the Age of Exploration, World War II and even a generic space opera.

It remains to be seen whether Paradox sticks to their guns and keeps improving/expanding Imperator, or determines it best to let it go the way of the likes of Sengoku and March of the Eagles.

CK2 was a totally different release than Stellaris or Imperator. Everybody was super hyped for it, there was no real concern of it being dumbed down (which is often the general thrust of the harshest criticism for sequels) and from pre-release to the leaked version through the proper release, people were enthusiastic about it.

And it can't be a matter just of time period preference, or else there wouldn't have been such a big difference in the relative players of CK1 vs EU3 and CK2 vs EU3.

Also, Sengoku and March of the Eagles were never really mainline games, they were meant to be one-off titles. Stellaris may very well have originally been too, they said something to the effect that they were caught off guard by the enthusiasm.

[Hanzoku]

I think what Paradox discounted with Stellaris is they were filling a void that had (and continues to have) very little competition. Grand strategy sci-fi games are almost unheard of. All of the clones and successors tend to follow the MoO II format where you're expected to micromanage every planet in your empire and its production queue, and your grand war fleet consists of a dozen ships. MoO III was the last one to attempt grand strategy, and it didn't... go so well.

As Stellaris shows, there's definitely a crowd interested in grand strategy sci-fi, there's just not a lot of games that cater to it.

[IronyOwl]

Honestly, I can see where Johan is coming from. Imperator has got a lot of very clean and thorough design. From the perspective of someone who has been working on it a lot, it's surely easy to miss the fact that this design isn't really translating into interesting gameplay, or that the design is really only laying a solid foundation that they haven't adequately built upon.

This is honestly one of the more interesting things about Imperator. It's got a weirdly satisfying UI and is absolutely filled with tiny little lessons and improvements from previous games... but it still doesn't really go anywhere with it. It's like they learned a lot from their previous titles, but none of it included how the actual game works.

[Trolldefender99]

I'm still not sure why they scrapped the population mechanics from Victoria 2. They never used it in any game since, which is weird.

That is one of the main reasons why I like MEIOU so much for EU4, because they have proper population and its even overall better than how it is in Victoria. Except I liked the gameplay in Victoria 2 of just getting a ton of immigrants and with a mod, playing Mayans and getting more immigrants than anyone else in the world lol. That is the only way I play victoria 2

[Lidku]

I'm still not sure why they scrapped the population mechanics from Victoria 2. They never used it in any game since, which is weird.

That is one of the main reasons why I like MEIOU so much for EU4, because they have proper population and its even overall better than how it is in Victoria. Except I liked the gameplay in Victoria 2 of just getting a ton of immigrants and with a mod, playing Mayans and getting more immigrants than anyone else in the world lol. That is the only way I play victoria 2

Its probably too complicated to re-emulate. I believe the original makers of the POP system in Victoria 2 left the company already.

[Teneb]

I'm still not sure why they scrapped the population mechanics from Victoria 2. They never used it in any game since, which is weird.

That is one of the main reasons why I like MEIOU so much for EU4, because they have proper population and its even overall better than how it is in Victoria. Except I liked the gameplay in Victoria 2 of just getting a ton of immigrants and with a mod, playing Mayans and getting more immigrants than anyone else in the world lol. That is the only way I play victoria 2

Its probably too complicated to re-emulate. I believe the original makers of the POP system in Victoria 2 left the company already.

Wasn't Johan bragging at some point about him being the maker of the POP system?

And Stellaris has a version of that system, even if simplified.

[Cruxador]

I'm still not sure why they scrapped the population mechanics from Victoria 2. They never used it in any game since, which is weird.

That is one of the main reasons why I like MEIOU so much for EU4, because they have proper population and its even overall better than how it is in Victoria. Except I liked the gameplay in Victoria 2 of just getting a ton of immigrants and with a mod, playing Mayans and getting more immigrants than anyone else in the world lol. That is the only way I play victoria 2

Its probably too complicated to re-emulate. I believe the original makers of the POP system in Victoria 2 left the company already.

Wasn't Johan bragging at some point about him being the maker of the POP system?

And Stellaris has a version of that system, even if simplified.

Stellaris is different enough that l don't think it can be called a version of the same system. Imperator is closer, in fact, since it has pops that you don't do much to directly (mana aside, but they seem to realize that's a rough mechanic) and change strata, which have numeric effects on the economy and military and so on, rather than holding jobs. I would still consider the Imperator system to be distinct from the Vicky system, most notably in that it is an abstraction whereas Vicky means each pop to represent one household.

[Trolldefender99]

I'm still not sure why they scrapped the population mechanics from Victoria 2. They never used it in any game since, which is weird.

That is one of the main reasons why I like MEIOU so much for EU4, because they have proper population and its even overall better than how it is in Victoria. Except I liked the gameplay in Victoria 2 of just getting a ton of immigrants and with a mod, playing Mayans and getting more immigrants than anyone else in the world lol. That is the only way I play victoria 2

Its probably too complicated to re-emulate. I believe the original makers of the POP system in Victoria 2 left the company already.

Well...MEIOU did it (though not exactly how it works like in victoria 2) and its just a team of modders. In MEIOU 3.0 I believe it is, its gonna be even more advanced as far as population goes and a ton of food mechanics and stuff. And they are doing it for free...and its just modders...

I dunno if too complicated is much a reason when modders can do it without even being paid to do it. Granted, it DID take them an immense amount of time to get the population in and 3.0 is taking a long time. So in that regard, maybe it would take paradox too long to release each game with population mechanics like that. But I don't see that much a viable excuse when modders do it for free.

But if MEIOU devs did it in EU4, it shows it can be done (again).

Never been a fan of the abstracted population that is in imperator and stellaris. Actually, stellaris would be a ton better with an actual population mechanic. Instead of waiting ages for a population to grow from 1 to 2...you can see it literally grow from 856, 857, 910, 920 (random numbers) and actually see progress. In Stellaris waiting for a pop to grow is actaully very boring because it takes such a long time for it to grow. While it be roughly the same every 1k can get a new "unit" (I guess?), but at least you'd see an actual growth in that population than a dumb incredibly boring progress bar.

And aurora 4x and Distant Worlds both do population, and not sure about DW, but aurora is made by just one guy. Granted aurora is very different of course, but still...

tbh, I think the real reason is cause paradox wanted to simplify most of their games. HoI4 is the only one (at least for me) that is confusing as heck for their new games, but so was HoI3. But there are HoI3 fans that say HoI4 is more simple, but dunno never got into that particular series. But a lot of people found victoria 2 too niche (along with some of their other older games), so they just simplified the whole thing.

In any case...I don't see it much a reason they can't do population when MEIOU does it.

[Trolldefender99]

To be a bit more on topic with Imperator though, the above were just examples...but...

What would be vastly more fun and satisfying

Watching a migrant move to another nation/province/city. Or a single population converting/growing...going from 1 to 2 and watching a progress bar

...or...

seeing actual population migrate or convert and you can see each population converting or growing and see actual progress without a progress bar being involved at all.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Migration and more politics would be great. RN its just a big old map painter (though I will maintain the military and combat show great potential for being very fun--road building and castrametation are surprisingly engrossing).

I feel weird about the Paradox grand strategy genre rn. Mechanically, I think its probably pretty difficult to model better politics, diplomacy, and interesting characters (which in itself is a strange thing to want for a grand strategy game I suppose, but Paradox just keeps teasing us with a subpar version of it) but I wish the roleplaying in my head was better reflected in the games themselves. (Like CK2 I suppose).

Like I always end up creating these grand narratives for my EUIV campaigns and its just like.... ah, I wish it was in game lol.

[Teneb]

Migration and more politics would be great. RN its just a big old map painter (though I will maintain the military and combat show great potential for being very fun--road building and castrametation are surprisingly engrossing).

I feel weird about the Paradox grand strategy genre rn. Mechanically, I think its probably pretty difficult to model better politics, diplomacy, and interesting characters (which in itself is a strange thing to want for a grand strategy game I suppose, but Paradox just keeps teasing us with a subpar version of it) but I wish the roleplaying in my head was better reflected in the games themselves. (Like CK2 I suppose).

Like I always end up creating these grand narratives for my EUIV campaigns and its just like.... ah, I wish it was in game lol.

The thing is that they have Crusader Kings 2 which shows they can certainly make better roleplaying elements. It's like the Imperator team didn't even talk to the CK one.

[Greenbane]

Bit of a late response, but...

There was a point in the history of game development where this 'plain logic' you describe was a foreign concept. Post-release content updates were exciting and rare, and seen as the developer going above and beyond their expected duties.

I think you underestimate the ability of larger studios to treat their games like capital. Development costs are ridiculous for AAA titles, and these days the largest developers (not sure if Paradox counts) take into account the longevity of a games profitability when they decide how much to invest. It's not a cynical attitude in and of itself; these developers don't see anything wrong with this style of development. To say this kind of development doesn't exist is untrue.

I'm not saying that strung-out development is necessarily a bad thing, though it often is. I just can't believe we've reached the point where people are defending it as normal. Times have certainly changed.

The fact many modern games have a post-launch DLC plan doesn't necessarily mean the core game's willfully underdeveloped just so that said plan can exist. Of course companies want their games to be profitable over a longer timespan. This is business, after all. But they also need the money from DLC sales to actually produce said additional content.

While such a methodology can certainly be abused, I generally defend it because it's a positive factor more often then not. Over time, it gives us more fleshed out games than we've had in the past. Does it cost gamers more cash, over time? Yeah, but some gamers want to have the cake and it it too. I'll gladly pay more money to a dev willing to keep expanding a game I enjoy.

There's no rose-tinted past in which game development was better. Earlier games were less complex and therefore less prone to a bug-ridden release. And those that had one were in many cases forever crippled due to the lack of post-launch support. As far as expanded content's concerned, a successful game may have gotten one or two expansions at best. Expansions themselves were quite uncommon.

CK2 was a totally different release than Stellaris or Imperator. Everybody was super hyped for it, there was no real concern of it being dumbed down (which is often the general thrust of the harshest criticism for sequels) and from pre-release to the leaked version through the proper release, people were enthusiastic about it.

And it can't be a matter just of time period preference, or else there wouldn't have been such a big difference in the relative players of CK1 vs EU3 and CK2 vs EU3.

Also, Sengoku and March of the Eagles were never really mainline games, they were meant to be one-off titles. Stellaris may very well have originally been too, they said something to the effect that they were caught off guard by the enthusiasm.

I'm surprised about the enthusiasm around Stellaris, but I suppose much of it comes from the fact space opera sci-fi caters to a large audience. And as it was said earlier there's not much in the way of competition. I'm miffed the DLC continuously expand the later portions of the game, and ignore the fact the mid-game is a gaping chasm.