The sad state of affairs

[richiedamien]

Paradox and UV have their differences, everyone has seen that by now and the start of this thread by PI is the confirmation of it.

I have now seen the last interview from Ubik, personally I don't agree with the way things were passed on that interview but then again I and everyone else on this forum will know little on the details that brought things to this level.
Again, I don't agree with the decision of taking this to public in the way it has been done, as someone already said this is a very bad PR management and both sides have taken the wrong decisions by coming to public with half-truth's and half-statements and allowing everyone create a massive raw about this subject.

This is a major setback for both PI and UV either they want it or not they are and will loose money with this and looking to the amount of people that is really interested in the game. What both companies don't understand in my view is the image damage this is creating for both.

I am sorry that the development of this game is not going well, but PI and UV have to think that this is their fault, both of them, for your sake seat down, discuss the problems and try to bring this game to a good port.

HARSH REALITY is that the game is not happening and from what I can see the options are either it won't happen or it might take a few more months to be released and from a FAN POINT OF VIEW that is hard to take after so many months waiting.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
- Winston Churchill

[Windmolen]

Heh. In IT projects I used this kind of language as an ordering customer to shake the tech guys up, to get their act together and get moving NOW, as a last chance to get things right. Delays of 1 year are NOT good for business, ever, whatever the product is or how good it can be. Not acceptable at all, a hard and tough message has to be sent. It'll probably turn out just fine, if enough progress is made in the coming weeks.

[Ivashanko]

Blaming it all on MP seems a little convenient to me. I do not believe that Paradox would make such a negative statement if MP were the only issue here.

I want the game to come out but I'm not interested in buying a beta.

[Robmel]

I hope that PI and MMtG team will eventually come to common ground and release the game even in its current condition. Just by the fan interest alone this seems to be the most awaited mod-turned-game of all PI titles ever.

[Jia Xu]

Addressing some thoughts here in this topic.

1) People bringing up SOTS2, have you considered that the poor reception of that game's release state may have been what provoked PI to become more strict about the stability of gold submissions from client developers?

2) Public beta-testing doesn't seem to be an option that would create a lot of utility. The purpose of beta testing is to find problems. They don't need to find problems. They know what the problems are. The issue is that the problems aren't being fixed. Major crash bugs that are over half a year old? It sounds like the developers don't know what they're doing, no offence intended.

3) If the developers aren't competent enough to ever fix these issues, then it makes absolutely no sense for PI to continue bankrolling the project. If the game can't be released until its stable and if its clear the game will never be stable, then continuing to throw money at the problem isn't going to help anyone or anything. It means the project is done and it has failed. Time to move on.

[Helius]

Still, it is not a good idea to discuss this publicly.

With all due respect to Paradox, they are the ones who decided to make this a matter of public discussion, by starting this thread with a bombshell announcement.

[Gytis]

After reading the original post, I was very surprised and deeply worried about the fate of the game. It was the one I waited the most in past few years. It is a shame to see such a deep misunderstanding between developers and publisher. Anyway, I do not think that Paradox insisting on having Multiplayer from Day1 is 100% logical. Sure, all Paradox games have it, but lastly I hard Paradox is trying to diversify with different games.

First, Multiplayer is not the main feature of the game, that draws players. This is no first person shooter, or real time strategy, or online RPG. This game could be perfectly played Single player and most players would never notice there is something missing. And if it would be clearly communicated to players, that a game only has Single player, no one would be frustrated. If it would be clearly stated, that Multiplayer support might be comming as patch if at all, everyone would know what to expect and there would be no deceived buyers. It's not missing features that frustrate players, it's false promises. Make clear from Day 1 that you are getting only Single Player with this game and suggest anyone wanting a Multiplayer to get Eu3, Ck2 or Sengoku.

Second, if a secondary feature is so much hurting the game that even a question of cancelling arises, why not make a bold move and just axe it. Or postpone. Indefinitely, if needed. There are many games, that were hyped about incoming features and were released without ones. And MM developers were actually always careful about MP support, so no hype here. For example, just look at such developer as Blizzard. Even after so many years of development with probably the best designers in the world it just had to accept they won't make such a really wanted feature of PvP into release and will patch it in the future (with no date set). Why can't Magna Mundi postpone it's own PvP? It's not like Universo Virtual have more resources as Blizzard . And Diablo 3 was clearly longer in development than MM.

Third, I don't see why it is so detriment for MM to have Multiplayer. It will never, never be as stable and deliver as good experience as EU3. It took many years to iron out the multiplayer of EU3. And anyway, the draw of MM is that it's more deep and challenging that EU3. But in Multiplayer you get that kind of experience anyway because of live opponent factor, so even with MM having Multiplayer I bet most fans would choose the stable EU3 experience.


So from my point of view would be to just remove the feature of Multiplayer from the launch, CLEARLY COMMUNICATE it isn't there and that the game simply wasn't built with Multiplayer in mind and carry on.

[Helius]

There you go, you criticized the publisher again. This is unprofessional behaviour. Your team should seriously sit down and have a chat on what thoughts to communicate to the public and what not to. If you are angry at them, then may be it's best for you not to write anything at all and let a more level-headed team member do the PR.

I, for one, feel justified in explaining my side of the story, after the publisher decided to give theirs.

[Captain Gars]

Let's keep spam and pictures of dead helicopter-cats to a minimum in this thread, thank you.

[Varning]

stuff about multiplayer

That isn't the only problem with the game, it's just the devs attempt at damage control to blame it all on multiplayer issues.

[Helius]

If the game is in a state as you claim then why would PI write the OP?

I do not have the faintest idea. If you had access to the game, you could make up your own mind. Since you do not, it comes down to whom you are more inclined to believe.
If I could legally do so, I would send you a copy of the game, right now, and I am convinced that you would agree with my assessment of the game's state.

[PreciousTritium]

Again, I'm a big fan of the mod, and was very much looking forward to this game, but I actually went back and watched the trailers and "let's play" videos for the first time, and the game just seems....unfinished.

Especially in the video that was released a week ago, the game seems fragile and unpolished. It definitely didn't seem like it was going to be ready for release in a month.

Still, I believe in this game, and would happily contribute to a kickstarter. I would just prefer less naive optimism and/or misdirection from the devs.

[SpartanSoldier]

Mattias,

What the hell kind of post was this? A title like "The sad state of affairs" and the gloom and doom language of the post is very unprofessional. If the game is having major issues that are so bad that you need to cancel, than just say that. If you are not going to cancel (which seems to be the case), but you are still having major problems, then post an apologetic yet optomistic thread expalining the problems in detail. If there is some disagreement between the developers and the publishers, why on Earth would you make it public? There is a reason parents don't want to argue in front of the kids. It makes them sad. We are the kids! We don't want to understand any internal disagreements, so stop yelling in front of us and hurry up and finish our toy. =)

[Helius]

I understand that as devs working on a project for a long time it's hard to admit a fault or even being criticized but maybe it was the only way for the publisher to get a message to a team who doesn't want to listen.

I can assure you that all of us have been willing to admit the full extent of the bugs the game still contains, SP (some bugs, but works reasonably well) or MP (broken).

I know this thread has become unwieldy, but if you were to go back to our posts, you would see that none of us are in denial. We would not have chosen to discuss the state of the game in public, on our own. But to assume that Paradox found us unwilling to admit that anything was wrong, or to address bugs reported, is pure conjecture on your part.

In prior 'milestone' deliveries, we have worked off the list of bugs diligently and conscientiously. Never once have we ignored or called into question the validity of a complaint by Paradox.

With the current release candidate, which the OP discussed, I have only received a full list of bugs after this thread was begun.

I do understand that Paradox must feel frustrated with the slow progress on this game. Heck, I am frustrated with it, too! I am not sure why this is now an issue they take public, or why it is now that they felt they needed to cancel the game. But that it their right and their business.

[Kroisistan]

Having watched this go back and forth for a bit now, I have a humble suggestion: Paradox and UV should agree to close this thread. The same basic assertions are being repeated with no real progress, and I just can't see this going anywhere good. I mean, this can't be good for publicity, or for Paradox/UV team relations. If Paradox opened this thread to take the pulse of the community about how much we want this game and what compromises we'd be willing to accept, a new thread explicitly about that should be opened. Paradox has explicitly polled the community before - I remember polls about CK2 DLC that were well received. It seems far more productive for Paradox and UV to talk to each other, then issue a joint statement about the future of MMtG. Until there is such a thing, we're just going in disappointed, angry circles.

That's just how I'd handle it, as a fan of both Paradox and of Magna Mundi. I wish both sides the best, I do.

[JWSIII]

I have nothing insightful or useful to say, but as my sig suggests, I am rooting to see this game come out; Magna Mundi has not only been a huge pleasure in my life personally, but has even been an activity to share with my father (playing signle player games side by side now that he is retired), and we have both been anticipating this game highly. Best of luck to all involved.

[Zolotaya]

I can assure you that all of us have been willing to admit the full extent of the bugs the game still contains, SP (some bugs, but works reasonably well) or MP (broken).

I know this thread has become unwieldy, but if you were to go back to our posts, you would see that none of us are in denial. We would not have chosen to discuss the state of the game in public, on our own. But to assume that Paradox found us unwilling to admit that anything was wrong, or to address bugs reported, is pure conjecture on your part.

In prior 'milestone' deliveries, we have worked off the list of bugs diligently and conscientiously. Never once have we ignored or called into question the validity of a complaint by Paradox.

With the current release candidate, which the OP discussed, I have only received a full list of bugs after this thread was begun.

I do understand that Paradox must feel frustrated with the slow progress on this game. Heck, I am frustrated with it, too! I am not sure why this is now an issue they take public, or why it is now that they felt they needed to cancel the game. But that it their right and their business.

This is a great way of putting things - one that I echo.

If you look at what I said, what Ignatich said and what Helius has said about the actual state of affairs you would see that we all said that the game is not yet ready for release, but it is far from the cancellation step. As both Helius and Ignatich said: Another 4 to 6 weeks and it should be ready.

The "Let's Play" videos focus n specific mechanics to allow people who learn by seeing a way to absorb what the manual details for those who learn by reading.

[SpartanSoldier]

Having watched this go back and forth for a bit now, I have a humble suggestion: Paradox and UV should agree to close this thread. The same basic assertions are being repeated with no real progress, and I just can't see this going anywhere good. I mean, this can't be good for publicity, or for Paradox/UV team relations. If Paradox opened this thread to take the pulse of the community about how much we want this game and what compromises we'd be willing to accept, a new thread explicitly about that should be opened. Paradox has explicitly polled the community before - I remember polls about CK2 DLC that were well received. It seems far more productive for Paradox and UV to talk to each other, then issue a joint statement about the future of MMtG. Until there is such a thing, we're just going in disappointed, angry circles.

That's just how I'd handle it, as a fan of both Paradox and of Magna Mundi. I wish both sides the best, I do.

Agree 100%. Close this thread.

[Archaalen]

The public statements on both sides (publisher and dev team) seem to have been made at this point. Further contributions by the forum no longer seem necessary. Let's give this conversation a rest, please let this thread be closed.

[dolorez]

One thing still confuses me... MM Dev Team suggested that they have been working part time all the time for little compensation, yet Paradox is unwilling to continue funding the project. Those 2 statements seem contradictory.

Now, to my attempts at constructive comments. My best guess is that the contract between Paradox and UV clearly states the division of property between the two parties, with Paradox licensing the EU3 engine, DW renderer and possibly parts of the code that were reused, while UV retaining intellectual property of their developed code. If there is no more hope for reaching an agreement for continuing the work between the two parties, there are 3 possible solutions:

1. the game never gets published, Paradox loses the invested money, loyal and dedicated moders and take a reputation hit in the eyes of their fan base while UV loses lots of time of their work - this is a LOSE-LOSE situation
2. UV decides to write an engine from scratch and license a 3^rd party renderer, the game gets even more delayed but eventually get released. Paradox loses as much as in the previous case while UV keeps on investing - another LOSE-LOSE, but maybe to a lesser extent
3. UV decides to license the engine and the renderer from Paradox and release the game on their own. The money for financing could be acquired from Kickstarter (for instance, Wasteland 2 by InXile gathered almost $3M) - it's more of a WIN-WIN, both parties get some money.

So, I would say to UV guys - continue talks with Paradox and try to work things out. If it's impossible, put your money where your mouth is, and ask the fans to do the same. If you still see the commercial potential of this game while Paradox no longer does, this would be an ideal solution for everyone. Plus, you would gain full control over the game and could concentrate on fixing the SP at the expense of MP. Also, from the marketing standpoint, that would allow you to capture more money from people willing to pay more for the game.

Also, having this option on the table might be beneficial twofold - you would prove you are very serious about what you are doing, and give you some more bargaining power.

Lastly, forgive me for stating the obvious. Reading UV staff's posts "between the lines" I can see they were considering a similar alternative (but chose not to elaborate on that).
I wish I could enjoy my first post on PI forums in a different situation

Boa sorte Universo Virtual! Gostaria muito de comprar Magna Mundi. Saudações da Polónia