Hi again!
Last week I asked about what you wanted to see in future Dev Diaries and I’ll answer one of the questions you asked in this week’s DD. What would I like to add/change in CK2?
I’ll start off telling you what I like with CK2.
What sets CK2 apart from me are the numerous stories it produces. When I play it at work (yeah, that’s something I try to do when I’m not too stressed out), I often feel the urge to tell people on the team what happened to my characters. Like when I’ve sent out my first born son to join the Varangian guard and he comes back a homosexual and suddenly I’m playing a Norse Viking, the King of Sweden who has a lover bodyguard. There are very few computer games that allow for that gaming experience.
The other component that I think makes most PDS games fantastic is multiplayer. Sure it’s not the smoothest multiplayer experience you can have, but it’s one of the most rewarding. Just the scope of battling through hours and hours of gameplay, forming and breaking alliances, planning, plotting, make it fantastic, be it in Sengoku, March of the Eagles, Europa Universalis or Crusader Kings. CK2 adds the personal touch and story building upon that. In our current office multiplayer, we had one player seducing two popes (pope and antipope), giving them and another player the lover’s pox while another player became emperor of the HRE (we were all playing inside it). The new emperor was unfit to rule and soon we had revolts eating us up from the inside and France wanting a piece of the cake from the outside. A faction to remove our emperor formed and soon Magnus ‘the cruel’ was no longer the emperor and I got the opportunity (read punishment) of trying to bring order to the realm. I struggled for a couple of months, trying to patch together something resembling an army of what was left and slowly beating back some of our enemies. Magnus ‘the cruel’ had other plans though and managed to ambush and capture me during my travels. I was immediately beheaded and a new emperor rose to the throne. Several years later we managed to catch and kill Magnus and restore order to the empire. About the same time Dirk ‘the devil’, a former rebel of the empire, became our new emperor.
To me this is great entertainment. It’s more than just the game.
What I really want more of in CK is stuff that make our characters more important and more alive. I don’t feel strongly for any particular part of the map, religion or government, I just want more interesting characters and more ways to interact with them and for them to interact with you. As a project lead I also have a burning desire to focus on quality making sure we deliver bug free product with great performance. Those are difficult goals for a game that was ambitious to start with and then has been extended for over 2½ years.
A little teaser info that will be discussed more in future DDs.
Last week I asked about what you wanted to see in future Dev Diaries and I’ll answer one of the questions you asked in this week’s DD. What would I like to add/change in CK2?
I’ll start off telling you what I like with CK2.
What sets CK2 apart from me are the numerous stories it produces. When I play it at work (yeah, that’s something I try to do when I’m not too stressed out), I often feel the urge to tell people on the team what happened to my characters. Like when I’ve sent out my first born son to join the Varangian guard and he comes back a homosexual and suddenly I’m playing a Norse Viking, the King of Sweden who has a lover bodyguard. There are very few computer games that allow for that gaming experience.
The other component that I think makes most PDS games fantastic is multiplayer. Sure it’s not the smoothest multiplayer experience you can have, but it’s one of the most rewarding. Just the scope of battling through hours and hours of gameplay, forming and breaking alliances, planning, plotting, make it fantastic, be it in Sengoku, March of the Eagles, Europa Universalis or Crusader Kings. CK2 adds the personal touch and story building upon that. In our current office multiplayer, we had one player seducing two popes (pope and antipope), giving them and another player the lover’s pox while another player became emperor of the HRE (we were all playing inside it). The new emperor was unfit to rule and soon we had revolts eating us up from the inside and France wanting a piece of the cake from the outside. A faction to remove our emperor formed and soon Magnus ‘the cruel’ was no longer the emperor and I got the opportunity (read punishment) of trying to bring order to the realm. I struggled for a couple of months, trying to patch together something resembling an army of what was left and slowly beating back some of our enemies. Magnus ‘the cruel’ had other plans though and managed to ambush and capture me during my travels. I was immediately beheaded and a new emperor rose to the throne. Several years later we managed to catch and kill Magnus and restore order to the empire. About the same time Dirk ‘the devil’, a former rebel of the empire, became our new emperor.
To me this is great entertainment. It’s more than just the game.
What I really want more of in CK is stuff that make our characters more important and more alive. I don’t feel strongly for any particular part of the map, religion or government, I just want more interesting characters and more ways to interact with them and for them to interact with you. As a project lead I also have a burning desire to focus on quality making sure we deliver bug free product with great performance. Those are difficult goals for a game that was ambitious to start with and then has been extended for over 2½ years.
A little teaser info that will be discussed more in future DDs.
