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Greetings!

It’s a new year, and we thought it would be interesting to give all of you an update on the status of the team! There’s quite a few of us, and we hope you’ll enjoy this brief insight into who’s working on updates, fixes and exciting new content for your enjoyment!

My name is Carmille and I work as a Producer on CK3; I’ve been with the team for about one and a half years now. CK2 was one of my favorite games and the reason that I joined Paradox to begin with, so naturally I am feeling quite blessed to work on the project :)

Firstly, an announcement! It has been decided that Alexander Oltner (aka @rageair) will be stepping up as the new Game Director for the project! Alexander is the (now former) Design Lead for CK3, and has spent many years designing features for both CK2 and CK3. He started at the company in 2015 and, if you’ve tuned in to any of the pre-release streams or interviews, you surely know who he is already. Long-term fans might even recognize him as the lead designer behind Holy Fury for CK2, or perhaps you’ve seen him in one of the many past Dev Clashes. We have full confidence that Alex will be able to take up the reins and steer the project towards a bright future! The former Game Director, Henrik Fåhraeus (known on the forums as Doomdark), is ascending the ranks and will instead act as the Creative Director for many titles, CK3 included.

With that said, let's move on to the team itself!
You might think that with the release of the base game, the amount of people working on the project would be reduced. We’re actually doing the exact opposite, and are in the process of expanding the team instead! This will give us a lot more flexibility and freedom and should allow us to work on several different things at the same time.
Naturally, we need to train and onboard our new team members so it is not something we can start with straight away, but our hope is that you will see the effects within a not so distant future.

Now, how many are actually working on CK3 and what are they doing?

The team is made up of many different disciplines, working together to create amazing experiences! We’ll go into more details on each of them below.

Producer

We have four people working in Production (myself included). Our job is to help the team bring the design to life and into your hands. We do this by setting up (and iterating upon) processes and workflows, identifying deadlines and milestones, making plans to hit those dates while staying in good shape and ensuring that everybody knows what to do. We can often be seen grooming CK3s task and bug database and making sure everything is according to plan, up to date and representative of the current situation as well as spending a lot of time looking at numbers in spreadsheets.

Game Design

Our Game Designer is working very closely together with the Game Director. Their focus is split between what is currently being developed and nailing down the design for future expansions. They can very frequently be seen playing the game as it is being developed and make tweaks or highlight areas of concern so that the feature feels as great in the game as it looks on paper.

UX Design

Just like Game Design, our two UX Designers have their focus split between what is happening in the game right now and what is being designed for future expansions. UX Design and Game Design work closely together and make sure that new features are both fun and user friendly. They focus on interactions and user interface, although they can often be seen giving feedback on when something just doesn’t feel intuitive.

Content Design

Although the two previously mentioned design disciplines can sometimes be seen creating content for features as they are being developed, it's the Content Designers that create the vast majority of it. We have eight Content Designers working on CK3, and unlike the other two Design disciplines, they are almost entirely focused on working with what’s being developed in the game here and now. They pride themselves on creating historically plausible content, and will spend a lot of their time researching something before it is being put into the game. They are skilled scripters and writers and very passionate about ensuring that all features have a soul made out of supportive events, decisions, interactions, etc.

Code

There are seven Programmers and two Tech Leads working on CK3. The Tech Leads are responsible for the overall technical health and spend a lot of their time setting up (and iterating upon) processes and best practices for the project. They play a major part during all development stages and are constantly aware of the big picture and the challenges that could come with it.

Our Programmers are responsible for building the functionality and foundation of the features themselves. They work very closely together with the other disciplines on their features and can often be seen providing Code Support or in other ways using their skillset to make life easier for the non-coders. They will also keep an eye on performance and the overall stability of the game and jump upon an issue as soon as it appears.

Art Director

There is one Art Director working on CK3, and their responsibility is the overall artistic vision. They work closely together with the Game Director and Production, but also with all of the Artists in the team.

2D UI Art

We have three 2D Artists on the team and they can often be seen collaborating with Code and UX Design to bring the interfaces of new CK3 features to life after Code has provided their framework. They will also create icons and illustrations as well as investigate artistic improvements to the UIs that is not part of the UX design.

2D Concept Art

Our two Concept Artists help the game team by visualizing assets before they are to be created by a 3D Artist.

3D Character Art

Just as the name indicates, our three Character Artists work on anything related to our characters. This not only includes the characters itself, but also the clothing, headgears and hairstyles. In addition to that they are also responsible for creating the Units that are walking around the map. They can often be seen working closely together with Animation.

3D Environment Art

These Artists work mostly on the map itself. We have four of them and they can often be seen creating holdings, ships, siege weapons and other map assets. They are also painting the map as well as making sure that all the units, holdings and other buildings are located where it makes sense, both from a historical perspective and an artistic one.

Animation

There is one Animator working on the project and their main focus is on bringing our characters and units to life. They can be seen working on brand new poses and adding more variety to existing ones to make sure the characters show a wide range of different emotions and visually support different situations.

VFX

CK3 is not a very VFX heavy game, and because of this we do not have a VFX artist working with us full time, but only on demand.

QA

Our QA is the glue that keeps everything together. We have a core team of seven QA, but expand to a lot more once we are starting to wrap up and getting ready for a release. They can often be seen playing the game and testing the new features as they become ready, but it is important to note that this is not the only thing they do. They have a holistic view of quality and work closely together with all disciplines to make sure that the end product is as great as possible. Sometimes this is achieved through testing alone, but other times they can identify a need to redesign / introduce more content to a feature that feels a bit weak or perhaps a need to tweak a process or workflow within the Project itself.

Audio

The Audio team works on all PDS games, so we can’t really claim them for ourselves.
When they do work on CK3, they are often around two to three people and can be seen working on sound effects for our new features as well as composing music that fit the theme of the expansion.

Naturally, we don’t all work on the same features or fixes at the same time, that’d be very confusing! We’re divided into smaller groups, each focusing on their own set of features or content. Once a week we have a couple of hours set aside to make sure that everybody on the CK3 team has time to sit down and play the game and see for themselves how everything is being tied together.

The team is currently busy working on two things: one is big and the other is smaller. The smaller of these you'll be hearing more of in the coming weeks...
 
You've been around for a while, you should be familiar with Paradox's journey throughout the years. They've had a lot of issues in the past, but they listened to their audience and have been steadily working on those issues over the years; last year's release of CK3 and today's release of Imperator 2.0 are sure signs of the progress they've made so far. They've still a ways to go, but I perceive a positive trend ever since the release of Imperator 1.0 and for now I feel confident on the months to come.

I'm not being obtuse with my transparency comment, it is one of the issues Paradox had to work on.

I agree with you that it was ill timed as a first dev diary after months of no publications, but I do not think the backlash in this thread is appropriate.

It is not just 'some negative responses', and so I stand by my comment.

Paradox is working towards self-improvement. Could this community say the same about itself?
Just to touch on this, as someone who has experienced the Paradox launch of games for quite a while I think a lot of people like me are frustrated with the absolute silence from the Dev team. If this post was released right at the new year I don't think a lot of us would have an issue with the way things feel. I know personally I've been very frustrated with the fact that the last diary of any substance was back in November with the release of the Ruler Designer which to be honest should have been there at launch.

From the way things are looking it looks as though we won't get a substantial amount of content for at least another 3-5 months maybe even more. I know I was expecting some sort of minor content drop in Q1 given that the game was released in the summer of last year.
 
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As for the CK3 team expressing disappointment with the reaction. I don't really get it the thread is packed with responses whether negative or not shows a dedication to the game which can only be good. Of course I condemn any direct hate or threats that may emerge.

On that note like everyone has said communication will hopefully be better in the future. If you're willing to give dev diaries like this then there was no reason there wasn't a dev diary that said "We're back from Christmas holiday! guys and getting back to work!" Then another saying "New hires are coming in look forward to meeting them soon!" Then this dev diary wouldn't have been so shocking to basically everyone.

My point is if there isn't a rule that dev diaries can only be about direct release work it opens up the type of dev diaries you can do in between major updates. Because even if you're working hard from an outside customer perspective no communication = no work. I understand it can be hard to balance. I'm looking forward to more updates in the future!
 
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For the next diary i would be very pleased if you could give us at least a rough estimate of when the next patch or first DLC will drop...
 
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I trust the Ck3 team, if that team got bigger...



The next DLCs should be amazing :eek:
 
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Hi everyone!

Thank you for your patience as we've gone through this thread to delete a lot of the toxicity here. We're happy to see so many fans passionate about games, but please remember that everyone involved in making this game, from the Dev Team to Marketing to Moderators involved in this thread, we are all people too. You being disappointed in our content is fine! That criticism is not the problem! You calling us names or being generally toxic is not fine however. So I will open up this thread again, and I want you all to take another look at all of our rules, but especially our rules about Toxic behaviour and about not responding to Moderator/Admin actions. If you get a warning and think it's unfair you are always welcome to ask about it in a PM, but you cannot ever do it publicly in a thread. Those are our rules, and you have all agreed to them when you signed up to the forum. Be kind. It's that simple.

3. We do not tolerate Toxic behavior and if you are found to be spreading Toxicity you will be issued a suspension and final warning. If you are found to be spreading Toxicity again your account will be permanently banned.

In general any post that is overly negative, doesn't contribute to the forum or simply contains foul language and insults is toxic. If your post doesn't contribute and instead serves as a way to stir up more negativity and rage from other users, it's toxic. Keep this in mind:

- Look at your post history. If the majority of your posts are troll posts against other players or telling other players that the Paradox team doesn't care/doesn't listen/doesn't know what they are doing, that's not productive. Don't reply to posts to say no one will reply. If you aren't looking to help the player with a question please do not respond.

14. All administrative actions taken by the Forum staff should be considered a settled matter. These actions include, but are not limited to: delete/close/move thread/post, banning, warnings and Infractions. Public posts challenging or questioning the decision of a Moderator or Administrator will be deleted and penalties liable by the user. Users that wish to contest a decision should send a PM to the Moderator. If the situation cannot be resolved to mutual satisfaction, then you can escalate the matter by sending an e-mail to: forum_admin@paradoxplaza.com. Any decision given from there is final and not subject to debate.
 
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The positive side is that if people get upset about it, it’s because they love the game too much !

But yeah, this Dev Diary was an epic fail.

We’re all looking forward to the next updates !

Strength and Honor !
 
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Glad to hear the team's expanding. Welcome to all the new staff.

Like the OP said, I'd assumed that the DLC/patch team would always be smaller than the original team who created the game. With that not being the case, it sounds like a huge amount of work is being done creating new content for us. Looking forward to hearing about it.
 
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Apparently I need to repeat myself: Do not reply or comment to what I, or other Admins & Moderators, write. Do not ask about it. Do not allure to it. You want to discuss or ask for clarification, PM us. It's that simple. But I will clarify something here, just this once. But again, do not reply to my post. Just don't. Talk about the DD only.

According to our rules, if the comment only brings negativity, then don't post it. That's toxicity according to us. Because there is a difference between saying "I would've preferred a DD about x or y" compared to "I hate this who cares you're all stupid". And yesterday we got a lot of the second kind. There is no reason to come on our forum only to say how much you hate us. Yesterday was proof of that. I'm an admin here, I'm where the buck stops. I want this forum to be an open place where you fans can express opinions, both positive and negative. But that doesn't mean that all criticisms is accepted. We have rules in place for a reason, and it's not just for the dev's sake, it's also for all of our users. I hope that clarification made sense. So again. Read the rule below carefully. Memorise it. It doesn't mean that everything you post needs to be positive towards it. But it does mean you can't be negative if it doesn't serve a purpose.

- Look at your post history. If the majority of your posts are troll posts against other players or telling other players that the Paradox team doesn't care/doesn't listen/doesn't know what they are doing, that's not productive.

 
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Nice to hear the team has grown and glad to see an official communication, but disappointed that after 5 months we've not heard a peep about what's coming next, despite indications being that we'd hear first in 'mid-Jan' then 'mid-Feb'. Will it be mid-March now, since you're saying "you'll hear in a few weeks?" If so, I'm starting to wonder if something is actually wrong behind the scenes like what was happening with HoI4's development.

Again, as others have said, for those of us who bought the Royal Edition we were banking on the game being great - which it is, but we also bought in with the expectation of knowing what the rest of our money was going to be spent on in relatively short order, given expectations set by other PDX titles. At least a roadmap or some kind of a hint or teaser on what's coming up is warranted.

If we truly don't hear anything until beginning of March at this point then that's just not cool. Come on, man.
Thats why you dont preorder. Its my first time checking in with dev diaries since the games release and Im sorry to see that my decision to not trust Paradox with promised content seems to have been correct. Heres to hope for some kind of redemption in the not so distant future.
 
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I am definitely looking forward to seeing what the next weeks hold and hope that we do see DDs and information throughout that time as was stated. Hopefully this will mean the new DLC will be released in a few weeks, but if not, at least knowing what it will be will be nice. I've shelved CK3 since around November and hope to see something new that will bring the interest back.
 
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Very surprised with the way some of the community reacted, I wish the new team members good luck and have fun making this fantastic game better! Very excited with the holy fury lead moving up, that can only be a good thing.
 
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Thats why you dont preorder. Its my first time checking in with dev diaries since the games release and Im sorry to see that my decision to not trust Paradox with promised content seems to have been correct. Heres to hope for some kind of redemption in the not so distant future.
I mean whenever the DLCs do come out I'm getting them at a really discounted price since I pre-ordered with the Royal Edition...so there's still a benefit to it. Its just disappointing its taking so long to know what I'm getting for the down payment.
 
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I love 21st century capitalism, where you have in production 4 producers that don't produce but manage...
 
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I love 21st century capitalism, where you have in production 4 producers that don't produce but manage...
Better than socialism where you have 40 people who neither produce nor manage! ;)

Jokes aside, though, you may have missed the part where they describe that position's duties: "setting up (and iterating upon) processes and workflows, identifying deadlines and milestones, making plans to hit those dates while staying in good shape and ensuring that everybody knows what to do. We can often be seen grooming CK3s task and bug database and making sure everything is according to plan, up to date and representative of the current situation as well as spending a lot of time looking at numbers in spreadsheets."
 
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I won't harp on about how this DD could've been handled better as that's been done to death in this thread already.

What I will do, which I feel is more constructive, is explain why I personally felt frustrated and underwhelmed by yesterday's update, which I suspect is shared by a lot of other people in the community. Namely I'll point to this news post that was dropped on the 8th Feb:

"Our next Dev Diary is scheduled for mid-February.
From here, things will ramp up and you will be able to learn more about the future of Crusader Kings III!
We thank you all for your patience while we are working very hard to produce the high quality content you all deserve.
See you soon! "


Now I don't know about you, but to me that implies that the DD posted yesterday was going to have more info about future content updates/DLC than it did. That might not be what the devs intended, but that's how I interpreted it. And given the reception, that must be how a lot of other people took it as well.
I think part of the problem is that quite a few people have pre-purchased the first three DLCs which were "announced" (in the sense that we knew that they were going to be made and/or were on some level 'in the works') in the Royal Edition six months ago, but as of yet we still have no idea when they're coming or what they're even going to be about. Of course people are starting to lose their patience.

I was really looking forward to this DD because I'm excited to see what awesome content you guys have in store. So yeah, when after an extended radio silence, all I got was a 'Meet The Team' memo and not the content info that I feel I was led into anticipating, I felt frustrated and let down. That's not really Paradox's fault, but maybe whoever makes these news posts can be a little clearer about what to expect in future ones?

That being said, congratulations to all team members old and new! CK2 is one of my all-time favourite games, and I have every expectation that the content you're working on for CK3 will make it more than a worthy successor. Although it would be nice to not be kept in the dark about that for much longer ;)
 
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