Dev Diary #110 - A Study in Black

[Fogbound]

Greetings!

A few weeks ago we shared our floor plan for the future, and this week I’d like to give you some tidbits from the studio itself. I will tell you a bit about the history of our studio and what we are about - interlaced with random quotes from the team collected throughout the year (courtesy of Wokeg - I think they paint a pretty accurate picture of the minds in our midst).
So if you are eagerly awaiting updates on what’s coming for the actual game, I’m afraid you will have to wait a little longer.

Firstly though, a brief introduction might be in order since I am very much a ‘behind the scenes’ kind of character (and you will rarely catch me writing diaries):
I was the Lead Producer on Crusader Kings III (until after its release in 2020). Having then spent some time with the space faring folks over in the Stellaris studio, I rejoined the CK3 team at the start of this year to create Studio Black - home of Crusader Kings - as the Studio Manager. And here we are.

Random quotes, part 1

PDS - A Tale of Studios​

The story of Paradox Development Studio goes back more than a quarter of a century - a pretty incredible feat in itself and a testament to the sheer talent, passion and motivation of the people working here. As we’ve added more games and grown the studio over the years, there came a point where we wanted to get the studio closer to to our games again, and at the end of 2020 PDS was divided into three sub-studios: Green (Stellaris), Gold (Hearts of Iron) and Red (Crusader Kings & Victoria). At this point, our friends at Europa Universalis had already set sail to warmer latitudes and set up Tinto in Spain.

As Victoria III was ramping up their efforts (and a big shout-out and CONGRATULATIONS is in order - the release is happening TODAY ), it was time to build a castle of our own, hence studio Black was born on February 14th (I’m sure you can figure out why I chose this date).

Random quotes, part 2

Court Positions​

Having the right people in the right place is of course paramount to any kind of development - in our case, that means we rely on our Programmers, Designers, Artists, QA Testers and Producers to bring our game to life, with the help of central support from Audio, Engine Team, User Research, Marketing and many other departments.
Building a studio around an existing development team is quite a luxury - most often, you would start from scratch; with limited funding, resources and just a great dream (and hopefully a team) to carry you forward. In our case, it was rather the other way around (great game & team = check!), which means we can focus more on filling skill gaps and making sure we have a good support structure in place.

Random quotes, part 3

Character DNA​

You might think that with the roots firmly planted in the dynasty of PDS, we all share the same culture DNA? You’d be wrong. Something I discovered back in the day (moving from the EU4 team to the CK2 team at the time), was how some subtle, yet noticeable, parts of the team culture seemed to stem from a very central core. This theory was confirmed as I stepped away to the realm of Stellaris for a while; the essence of the project team culture was as firmly rooted around Jeff and other shared moments as CK ever was around… keeping it in the family.
However quirky and meme-friendly each game teams culture might be, there are also some very noticeable similarities that confirms what Paradox is very much about, when it boils down to it: Helpful, Curious & Nerdy (in that ‘Hey, I’m really into cross-stitching medieval tapestry, want to know more?’ kind of way).

Random quotes, part 4

Keeping the Legacy​

So where are we headed as a studio, you might ask? Well, we are all here to keep the legacy of Crusader Kings alive and well. We have an amazing game at the earlier stage of its lifespan, and a team of highly creative and skilled people to help realize the incredible potential of CK3. I won’t pretend that 2 years of pandemic haven’t had an impact on our work, but we are truly committed to keep making releases for CK3 that we are proud of - and that we hope you will find hundreds (maybe thousands?) of hours of enjoyment from, for many years to come!


That’s it for today folks, next time we’ll have some more game specific updates for you all!

A part of our team, having a royal blast at this year's PDXCON!

 

[PDS_Noodle]

Nah, crunch is always hurtful in game dev. It means the project was poorly scheduled and now the bad scheduling is being paid for by the physical and mental well-being of the workers. It also produces a poorer product, as human beings generally don’t produce their best collaborative and careful work under pressure.

From your mouth to God's ears!

CK3 is a project that hasn't crunched in any way for the entire time I've been on it. I can promise anyone that crunching during any of that time would not have led to more or better tangible results. I - and I'm sure many others in the team, but I won't speak on their behalf - am very proud of CK3's long record of no crunch, and you're exactly right that crunch would not be conducive to anything positive.

 

[PDS_Noodle]

Cheeky double-post because I forgot to quote insert in the last post because I'm very tech-savvy. Did you know I work in the tech industry?!

This is more of an essay type question, probably only answerable if random staff have the time and the urge to do a good deed, but:

You mentioned the pandemic having an effect on your work. I know I’m going out on a limb here, but I assume some of the folks who work on CK3 are also nuerodivergent* (in game dev? for a niche genre? shocking, I know!). Combined with the intricacy/interconnected nature of the work, I figure this is as good a place to ask as any.

What are some of the tools or resources that you’ve found helpful for dealing with, well, all this? Has there been any particular tools you’ve found for managing work loads, or information in changing settings (from home to the office and back)? Any lessons learned from structuring tasks?

This may be beyond the scope of the questions you expected for this DD, but the blend of noisy, chaotic, diverse, and creative work with the much more precise, routine and consistent work… well, I figured I might as well see if I could pick brains for absolutely selfish reasons.

*ADHD, we in the hous— okay now we’ve run out of the house— okay now we’ve forgotten where we live but we did find a cool rock

Super interesting question actually. I'm not neurodivergent (as far as I know, anyway!) but I'll try and answer a little bit regardless.

During the buildup to CK3's release - and after for quite a while - during the height of the pandemic, I lived in a small 25sqm apartment in Stockholm. Now I'm pretty happy in the company of myself, but I can tell you now that it wasn't much fun being stuck in there day-in, day-out, especially when my 'commute' to work consisted of getting up and walking the metre or so between my bed and my desk. I'm also the sort of person who enjoys the buzz of the office and being surrounded by my team, so it was a pretty mentally draining time, to say nothing of the usual stresses that releasing a game causes!

My solutions were multifaceted. I heard lots of people espouse the value of taking regular breaks, but for me that didn't work at all; I work best when I'm in a flow and will happily churn through hours and hours of work if I'm in the mood. Breaking up that flow to force myself into a break often just served to lose me focus for the entire day. Instead, I let myself get taken by those flows when they happened and worried a little less about keeping rigid track of my time. Nobody is 100% productive 100% of the time, after all, and I figured it's better to have a shorter amount of time working at peak efficiency than twice as much time of unfocused drudgery. So I just let it take me when it would, and resolved to not sit there worrying about how much work I wasn't doing when it didn't. There were other things too, just like Surtur said. The walk before/after work was something I was sadly ill-disciplined with, but generally works for a lot of people.

This is a subject I can talk about for absolutely ages, actually. Like I said, I missed the buzz of the office quite a lot, and it really is a shame we couldn't have quite the same celebration as you usually have when a game releases due to the global pandemic. I do count my blessings, though, because as tough as it was as a QA, having transitioned to design since then I can say with confidence that I would not be anywhere near my current level of mild competence were I not able to spend hours a day at the office pestering an endlessly patient Wokeg to teach me very basic things.

It all worked out in the end, of course! Anyway, my main takeaways: let the inspiration take you when it comes, chill out and worry less when it doesn't, and try and maximise time spent doing the things you can do productively.

 

[Meka66]

So, one last question than, if there ever isn't any "crunch" why do we always see messages about taking off after release for a well deserved break? I always assumed that was due to crunch and I agree with that, but if you are still just working your 32 to 40 hours a week, not sure what it is in Sweden like you normally do, why a special break after release?

We may not be in the office until past midnight in the lead-up to a release, but we're still working damn hard to get these games out the door in a state that we can be proud of.

I can promise you, if we adopted the style of development you're advocating for in this post, the only thing that would happen as a result is everyone would be tired, unable to focus, and most likely a lot of our best people would quit. We're not mindless drones tapping away at a keyboard all day, we're human like you and we enjoy what we do. It's not in anyone's best interest to crack the whip on a group of passionate talented people to make us "work harder", that's just not how the world works.

But, you can always roleplay as that kind of boss in our new game Victoria 3 available for purchase now on store dot steampowered dot com!

 

[PDS_Noodle]

I don't think there is any doubt that Royal Court missed its deadline last year. Pretty sure internally you planned on having an expansion pack released in 2021. Anyway, that is fine if your culture is no crunch.

I'm 50 years old and I've been in software development for over 20 years. I've never felt crunch to be a "bad" thing unless it was misused e.g. you can't crunch all the time. Maybe its a generational or age thing, but I've always done some of my best work on a deadline. I've always been a burst worker e.g. I like to work 10 to 16 hour days for a period of time, then take off.

The software products we've done usually have a month to three months of crunch. Anything more than that we would determine we need to push the release. After release and the "red zone" "hot zone" whatever you would call it, we give people off and they have very reduced work schedules for at least as many months as the "crunch" went on.

So our dev cycle is low at the start, then ramps up to a steady pace then peaks a few months before release, then after post support craters down low again.

You and I have pretty different values on what makes a game team tick, then, I'm afraid. I've been in this industry for a decade now, and I've seen enough bright and motivated young people with dreams and ambitions of making it in the industry burn out through crunch to never ever be a supporter of it, to say nothing of the people in your situation who get way less of a chance to see their family and young children.

When you institute crunch, you harm morale, long-term productivity, happiness and also quality. If we had crunched on Royal Court it might've been out sooner, but it also would've been worse and the repercussions would still be being felt right now, let alone in a year's time. It's simply not a good way to develop video games.

So, one last question than, if there ever isn't any "crunch" why do we always see messages about taking off after release for a well deserved break? I always assumed that was due to crunch and I agree with that, but if you are still just working your 32 to 40 hours a week, not sure what it is in Sweden like you normally do, why a special break after release?

Because releases are stressful and breaks are important. Even if you're working the same hours, the intensity always ramps up a little towards a release, and it's good to have time to mentally reset. It helps us avoid burnout, makes people happier and more productive, and also gives us some valuable downtime to rejig our processes and make some fun passion project content.

I think missing Royal court in 2021, was less than ideal. I would of thought having some crunch for the last three months of 2021 to make the release hit before year end would of been what I worked towards.

Well, I can tell you for a fact for me at least that would've been incredibly counterproductive. Like I said earlier, it might've been out sooner, but it'd have been worse and it'd have a reasonably high human cost. Some things are just not worth it.

So, Studio Black is based in Stockholm, right? And based on job listings I have seen before, Paradox Thalassic in Malmö is also involved in the development of CK3? I'm curious about how the collaboration works. Do you focus on different aspects of the game?

Thalassic have worked alongside Studio Black as an extension of the game team, the two studios working in tandem but primarily with separated projects. Most recently you'll have seen Fate of Iberia led by Thalassic, for example, made whilst Studio Black was focused on Royal Court. We don't focus on different aspects of the game past that - Thalassic don't only work on intrigue and schemes and Black only work on warfare or anything like that - but depending on what we're developing we do tend to be spending the majority of our time on certain aspects of the game just by default, but that's just software development.

Obviously, having two teams, one larger and one smaller, spread across two different cities presents a challenge. It's not as bad as you'd think given the pandemic has trained us well when it comes to remote meetings and the like, but being able to grab someone and chat face to face remains a really big advantage that you lose when there's the width of Sweden between you and the other office. But that's just life innit!

 

[Wokeg]

I would be interested to know, how you got into coding? (wth you meaning the people at the CK development studio)

^^' Dunno if ye're counting designers in that, but personally, I got into scripting after pestering my coworkers about niche content for CK2 too many times. Past a certain point they just said "do it yourself and we'll look it over", and I gave it a bash.

if i learn how to program and come join your studio will i be allowed to sit in the big chair instead of mr oltner sometimes

:eyes: I cannot confirm that the team regularly sits in Oltner's chair and makes grand proclamations whilst he's away.

So, Studio Black is based in Stockholm, right? And based on job listings I have seen before, Paradox Thalassic in Malmö is also involved in the development of CK3? I'm curious about how the collaboration works. Do you focus on different aspects of the game?

That is correct - generally, we've worked very closely together throughout their time with us, but we are different studios and Thalassic grows more independent with time (which means that we do tend to focus on different areas nowadays even though we haven't always historically).

 

[Wokeg]

Absolutely unrelated question to the above, does the Union at PDX’s various studios represent all staff?

Difficult to find unions that are global, I'm afraid, and we've got studios in Sweden, the US, the Netherlands, France, and Finland. I can only speak for Sweden, but here, all PDX-employed staff have the option at least. Sadly not everyone has chosen to join, but our unionisation rates are still fairly strong and the Swedish unions are present across all of the Swedish studios. We have two unions available here, one of which is a more sort of general union and one of which is a slightly more technical union that only recently opened up to us.

As far as I'm aware, the only staff here who don't have access to these unions are office support from agencies (e.g., the cleaners). Not actually sure what their union situation is, though naturally I hope they're in one.

I'd like a feature that lets us choose how assassinations are done. Different options would have higher likelihoods of success, or higher subtlety, or invoke different bonuses for sending a message. Case in point: if my king is a known murderer with high dread, he shouldn't care about being sneaky when it comes to killing.

Preaching to the choir! The murder system is flavoursome but it's been set up in such a way that it's actually a bit annoying to add to. I have hopes of overhauling it to make it much easier to add to, as well as some day adding [REDACTED] so that you can [REDACTED] more freely, which should help with the general murderability rate pretty substantially.