Livy Update and Free Punic Wars Content Pack Coming Soon!

[JosunUrashima]

I think it's a not-so-subtle reminder that they are dishing out additional content free-of-charge. So, yes, it's good PR. And I appreciate it is as a gesture from PDX to fans -- a token of good will for sticking with them after the big belly-flop launch.

Smart move making the content pack free, IMO. Hopefully will help to rebuild the player base.

For people wondering why it's a free content pack and not part of the patch - check the roadmap. The plan was always to have a minor DLC alongside this patch. The team very wisely have decided to make that DLC a freebie. It's content that was originally planed to be sold that is now being given for free instead.

Eh, the problem is that if it's clear most of us are able to recongize it as a marketing ploy, and are able to recongize that in reality it's basically just free content that's just separate from the patch,... and their aware that enough of us are smart enough to figure such out...

is it really a good ploy, or something that could easily be taken as either meh at best ("why have them be separate if it's free") to bad ("Their insulting our intelligence by making THIS the content pack when it's free and basically part of the patch")

People found a way to complain about free content. Unbelievable...
Anyway, thanks devs ! Looks cool

People can find a way to complain about anything.

That being said, I can get some of where there coming from, especially given the rocky launch and how this can in many ways come across as a "Please like our game? Pretty please? Here have something shiny please play and like and buy our game more now?"

You mean being 0£ is not humble enough?

Priced humbly? Did you even read any of what you replied to? It's free, man.

There are people out there who think if it's free it's not actually DLC.

 

[Exard]

There are people out there who think if it's free it's not actually DLC.

Rightly so. Because you could just include them in the patch without separate download. I mean....just in terms of naming, every patch is additional download content. But this is something different to the patch and is a thing we usually see as DLC , so they get my absolution. Sadly there is too much abuse of free DLC from several countries, PDX isn't one of them because they call it free update x.y.

 

[Rabid]

That being said, I can get some of where there coming from, especially given the rocky launch and how this can in many ways come across as a "Please like our game? Pretty please? Here have something shiny please play and like and buy our game more now?"

I don't know how you can read "Our product didn't come up to the high standards the consumer has come to expect of us so we will improve it at no additional cost" as anything other than excellent customer service. Maybe I'm too jaded from years of working in industries where the absolute bare minimum quality of service is standard and the majority of players are happy to keep it that way.

 

[Gogote54]

That being said, I can get some of where there coming from, especially given the rocky launch and how this can in many ways come across as a "Please like our game? Pretty please? Here have something shiny please play and like and buy our game more now?"

I understand what you mean, but I would temper the "buy more" thing. If they give players a present to redeem themselves, that is one of the most sincere way to make a gift (don't we do this in our everyday life ? Giving presents to please the people we like, especially when we did something wrong and want to apologize ?).
That being said, they send the gift to already customers, not potential ones. As far as I know, it's not like they are making a huge ads campaign on the internet to show people who did not buy the game yet "Look we make our players lots of gifts, love us ! Please love us ! And buy, buy, BUY !!!"

I agree that the line between greedy marketing and genuinely be nice to customers can be thin, but I prefer to be optimistic and not have this "every company always tries to manipulate me into buying more stuff" approach, even if it is probably true most of times.
Of course one can always reduce everything to money and interests because, for a company, taking care of customers is cheaper than find new ones, etc. But then, why not reduce one's own approach, as a customer I mean, to money and interest and consider free content a 100% win for him/her ?
What I try to say here, with my weak english, is that if complaining can be explained (rocky launch as you said), there is no rational reason to complain, in my opinion of course. And since we are not totally rational creatures, why not choose the positive irrationality instead of the grouchy one ?

PS: I was not trying to be pontificating with my message (when re-reading I realized it could misinterpreted). I just let my mind roam a bit around this idea of complaining for free stuff.

 

[AlleyTheToaster]

There are people out there who think if it's free it's not actually DLC

It was planned as a DLC, was announced already, long time ago they said it'll be a DLC, and most-likely before they decided it will be free, they already made trailers and stuff. So just for consistency, yeah, it's a DLC.

 

[Monkbel]

so, was 1.3 released? or is it going to be released? If latter, then when?

 

[Jamey]

so, was 1.3 released? or is it going to be released? If latter, then when?

It is not released. I have not heard a more specific release date than Q4.

 

[JosunUrashima]

I understand what you mean, but I would temper the "buy more" thing. If they give players a present to redeem themselves, that is one of the most sincere way to make a gift (don't we do this in our everyday life ? Giving presents to please the people we like, especially when we did something wrong and want to apologize ?).

A certain amount of context however is usually important. Sometimes the manner in which such gifts are given as way of apology actually make things worse.

That being said, they send the gift to already customers, not potential ones. As far as I know, it's not like they are making a huge ads campaign on the internet to show people who did not buy the game yet "Look we make our players lots of gifts, love us ! Please love us ! And buy, buy, BUY !!!"

No, but as I've been told before, half of Paradox's marketing for it's games comes from word of mouth, so them doing this could in theory induce the players themselves to tell others about it.

What I try to say here, with my weak english, is that if complaining can be explained (rocky launch as you said), there is no rational reason to complain, in my opinion of course. And since we are not totally rational creatures, why not choose the positive irrationality instead of the grouchy one ?

PS: I was not trying to be pontificating with my message (when re-reading I realized it could misinterpreted). I just let my mind roam a bit around this idea of complaining for free stuff.

For some people, it's either easier or more catharic for the negative grouchy approach instead

I don't know how you can read "Our product didn't come up to the high standards the consumer has come to expect of us so we will improve it at no additional cost" as anything other than excellent customer service. Maybe I'm too jaded from years of working in industries where the absolute bare minimum quality of service is standard and the majority of players are happy to keep it that way.

Some of it can easily come down to a case of semantics, which the internet has an absolute love of getting into heated arguments over.

As someone said, if it's going to be free, just as the patch is, why not just combine them into one thing? Why call it DLC when it could just as easily be part of the fixes and small updates (which one could technically call DLC as well anyways). And why make it so that one has to take extra time (yes, I know people who do actually get infuriated at this) at having to spend even a short bit of time doing an extra download when they would have just preferred it in one package.

 

[Badesumofu]

As someone said, if it's going to be free, just as the patch is, why not just combine them into one thing? Why call it DLC when it could just as easily be part of the fixes and small updates (which one could technically call DLC as well anyways).

Because the content in the content pack very clearly falls into category of stuff that would generally be paid content. They've made something that would usually be for sale and they are giving it away instead. Johan went into it a bit at the con about what will be paid and what will go into the patch. The content in this pack very clearly falls onto the paid side of the line. They quite wisely didn't think it would be a good idea to start selling DLC for this game yet, and so the pack is free.

It's partly expectation management, it's partly PR, it's partly marketing. It's all pretty upfront and honest though. It's not like the PR-speak nonsense that was being spouted about Galaxy Command - that was disingenuous and dishonest rubbish. This is quite simply a dev team who doesn't feel they've met consumers' expectations and don't feel it would be right to start charging for additional content just yet.

 

[Bleek]

I've played 4 hours of Imperator since launch, I had it on pre-order.

But, the previous and this latest update will bring me back. It's looking very positive.

 

[Jamey]

I'm saying money is a fungible resource, and budgets are allocated by teams (most likely). I have no problem with firing people, but its quite likely that there's plenty of other teams with GFX needs that could use them. In all the complaints people have had about Imperator, the visuals are somewhere around complaint #999.

People are not fungible assets.

My experience is that moving a developer or QA from one team to another causes a substantial loss of productivity from that person as they learn the new product and code base. That adjustment period is generally measured in months, with a gradual increase of productivity over that time.

I doubt that it makes sense to make that swap because that there will be a need to reverse that swap in the near future. Plus, the changed features in 1.2 clearly used substantial art time for the new UI elements, which any further major changes or additions to game mechanics would also require.

 

[Appius Kala'ci]

Damn i think ill love that map mode manager!!

 

[DominusNovus]

People are not fungible assets.

My experience is that moving a developer or QA from one team to another causes a substantial loss of productivity from that person as they learn the new product and code base. That adjustment period is generally measured in months, with a gradual increase of productivity over that time.

I doubt that it makes sense to make that swap because that there will be a need to reverse that swap in the near future. Plus, the changed features in 1.2 clearly used substantial art time for the new UI elements, which any further major changes or additions to game mechanics would also require.

We’re talking GFX, which should be pretty universal.

 

[Jamey]

We’re talking GFX, which should be pretty universal.

It sounded to me like what was being discussed was a short term swap of GFX employees for Dev/QA. My point is that the value of the Dev/QA is less than you might think due to onboarding time (and, it wouldn't surprise me if there was a similar factor on the art side due to needing to maintain consistent art styles within a game - I just can't speak to that from personal experience). I doubt that it makes sense to make a short term swap in most circumstances, and in the long term the GFX personnel are going to be necessary for any game.

 

[riadach]

• Improved Map: Greater detail for some map locations including Sicily, the British Isles, parts of Greece and the Baltic region.

More Irish factions?

 

[LeSingeAffame]

• Improved Map: Greater detail for some map locations including Sicily, the British Isles, parts of Greece and the Baltic region.

More Irish factions?

On stream Johan said there wouldn't be one nation in Ireland anymore
I don't know if he meant there would be more (I hope so) or if they would remove the one we currently have

 

[Snow Crystal]

• Improved Map: Greater detail for some map locations including Sicily, the British Isles, parts of Greece and the Baltic region.

More Irish factions?

Yes.

 

[LLforce]

1- Make mission tree dynamics and shared by all nations and let the player choose what trees he wants to commit.
(ex: anyone that conquers a sicilian province or garantees a sicilian nation gets acess to the sicilian mission tree. Missions not tied to conquest are a must. ex: Rome city of marble, terraforming projects like irrigations or clearing forests to make farmlands...)
2- Give meaningfull bonuses for having a friendly nations on your border and maluses for having hostile nations in the border.
(ex: population growth, tech share and trade income as bonuses. Or loosing manpower, gold and raid events if they have low civilization as penalties)
This is very important when playing tall and a simulation of the expenses of pacifiying a frontier. ex: roman empire in gemania and byzantium in the danube or basically any ''civilized'' nation bordered by ''barbarians''.
3- Avoid Eu4 path of giving a bonus to each nation. Ex: carthage/venice has better ships, sparta/prussia better armies. Instead make the law system great. Carthage should start with laws that make their navy great. Hellenic nations with laws that reduce assimilation but gives better output for its citizens. Any nation could pass those reforms at a cost. GIVE US CONTROL.
4- make slaves like migratory tribes and let us raise them from a province and ressettle them somewhere else. If a hostile army intercepts them they gain control of the slave horde.
(give them high maintnance cost to simulate the cost of sending the slaves to far away places.)

 

[Lord Lorkan]

We have worked quite diligently since our Cicero Update! The Livy Update is making progress and along it will come the free Punic Wars Content Pack! We shall now go back to building an even greater Rome! More information below!

Punic Wars Content Pack

When the rulers of Messana invited Roman protection for their Sicilian city, they could not have expected that they were igniting a fierce rivalry that would set the Western Mediterranean aflame for over a century. Carthage had traditionally seen Sicily as its sphere of influence and it could accept no equal on the island. Rome and Carthage would go to war in 265 BC, in the first of three wars that would finally end with the sack of Carthage in 146 BC.

This free content pack for Imperator: Rome includes new events and units models to illustrate the greatest wars of the classical age - the superpower showdown between the nascent Roman Republic, and the established Carthaginian Empire.

The Punic Wars content pack includes:

• Roman Mission Pack: Ten unique mission trees for the star of Imperator: Rome to guide your conquest of Italy and neighboring regions.
• Carthaginian Mission Pack: Ten unique mission trees for the children of Tyre to help you plan your mercantile and military dominance of Africa, Spain and the rest of the west.
• Numidian Unit Model: New army model for the Numidians, North Africans often hired as mercenaries by larger powers.
• Carthaginian Ship Model: A unique ship design for Carthaginian navies.
• New Music: Three additional music tracks to soothe your conquering soul.

Imperator: Rome 1.3 - the Livy Update

The most recent update to Imperator: Rome is named for Titus Livius, the Roman historian whose work was the foundation of schoolboy learning well into the modern age. His wrote stories about heroic Romans like Horatius, Camillus and Decius laying the foundation of a great city, providing role models for centuries.

The Free 1.3 Livy Update to Imperator: Rome is also concerned with characters and how they create lasting legacies, drawing you into the drama of history being written before your eyes.

• Character Experience System: The more characters are asked to do, the better they become. Cultivate young talent as they climb the ranks, with new events for experienced statesmen.
• Family System Reworked: Fewer families to track, but great families are more important. Watch their fortunes rise and fall as they accumulate prestige.
• Procedurally Generated Missions: New mission system produces contextual goals and rewards that reflect your current situation.
• Improved Map: Greater detail for some map locations including Sicily, the British Isles, parts of Greece and the Baltic region.
• Map Mode Manager: New map mode manager lets you customize the manager menu so it emphasizes maps you rely on.
• Inferno Graphics: The drama of war is now illustrated on map, as cities burn while under attack.
• And much more: The Livy add-on will include other changes that will be announced in coming weeks.

Keep The Great Work, Rome is my Favorite History Period and this looking better and better.

 

[We Who Are About 2 Die]

• Family System Reworked: Fewer families to track, but great families are more important. Watch their fortunes rise and fall as they accumulate prestige.
• Improved Map: Greater detail for some map locations including Sicily, the British Isles, parts of Greece and the Baltic region.
• Map Mode Manager: New map mode manager lets you customize the manager menu so it emphasizes maps you rely on.

Family System Reworked: Please add a foreigner tab to the character/family menu. It is a hassle to find characters that migrated to your nation as is.

Improved Map: Is the mentioned areas the only ones expanded? Because, the Nile Basin and African Horn feel like backwater afterthoughts. While Persia does not feel immense (given its size) in the slightest. Lastly, India could use more provinces.

Map Mode Manager: Does this mean that there more map modes added?