Can we get some dev assurance?

[Sandwchbull]

While glad your not rushing hoi4 out, still alarming. I've seen a couple posts on here that have made reference to East vs West being cancelled. References to Blizzard and their horrendous methods of handling release and announcement timelines to games and hoping Paradox doesn't go down the same path. Yet we haven't seen really any response from the Paradox team especially Johan, he is the top dog and the way he mentioned the delay in release on here is a little discouraging for us fans. No word from podcat, I bug Bjorn repeatedly, but figure its time to leave him alone.

So I'll leave it like this, as a final set of questions to Paradox. Is the game still coming out, are you 100% committed to this project, are we wasting our time reading and looking for information in anticipation of something that may never be released and lastly, how about a roadmap of where you are in development, just some details. You will find several developers out there give a roadmap, current status even talk about bugs and progress with their fan base quite candidly just to keep everyone in the loop.

None of us want to waste our time and with the currently very quiet group of devs not saying much, seems possible this title is up in the air?? Help us out folks. Thank you!

 

[duhsveti]

It's HoI4. It's one of their flagship titles. I highly doubt they would cancel it, ever.

 

[Caesar15]

What the other guy said, it won't be cancelled. And it probably won't be delayed either, if they can't get their crap together after this, then that's a serious problem. I don't see any cancelling though.

 

[Denkt]

Paradox is 250% commited to the project, they chosed to delay the game so they could implement improved features.

 

[pontifex_medius]

East vs West was not a PDS production, but was developed by independent modders. As such the threshold for cancellation was far lower than for a flagship production like HOI4. Also, Johan tends to keep his responses here brief, so don't be alarmed that he didn't elaborate. PI has the stockmarket to consider, and has to be discreet about revealing information about releases, especially on delay. Still, I agree we should get some more response from the devs, and I expect that to happen in the next DD.

 

[glarnak]

I think we all hope that it will not be cancelled. However, without some sort of confirmation that it will be made or discarded, I can see why some people would get nervous.

it can be very tough asking such questions as that and get responses from fanbois and their view on HOW Paradox handles such a situation.
That is only their view though, colored as it is with their hopes and dreams.

Until a paradox employee answers, we can only wait and hope, that it indeed will be made.

My opinion is though, that it will be made. Paradox has spent time and money on the project.

We are no longer in the "old" days, where buggy releases were released from Paradox. I do believe (and hope) that their tendency since the days of CK2 and the "smooth" releases since then, have become the norm of which they handle their games.

Have a good one!

Glarnak

 

[sapper66]

At the end of the day it is a business decision. Which always has the possibility of cancellation.

i assume from a business perspective it will come down to just how much effort will be required to invest into the game to make it work properly, be fun for pds standards and potential profitability.

Every game series must eventually come to an end and run its course.

While i like what i see in hoi4 and hope it is finished and released as it appears to substanciially inprove the series from its predecessors. Hopefull, they are just regrouping and figuring out a plan forward. Whatever that plan is, we will eventually find out.

 

[safe-keeper]

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hearts-of-iron-iv-release-date.854374/

 

[ringhloth]

PDS is cancelling all of their flagship games, and is instead going into the fishing business.

Skyline has taken that spot

PDS doesn't develop the Cities series. They simply publish it. A developer would never have another developer's game as their flagship.

 

[Pete0714]

I've said it before. While I want to see this game very much, I do see the similar pattern here to other cancelled games, whether it was their own or no. Communication and Dev diaries losing frequency, delays announced. In other situations, promises and positive attitudes of developers and Paradox were shared right up until the end, then a sudden drop of the bomb. I don't see this happening with HOI, since it is one of their core of core games. If it did, I think Paradox's reputation would be pretty shot. But the pattern disturbs me greatly.

 

[Alexander Seil]

East vs West was not a PDS production, but was developed by independent modders. As such the threshold for cancellation was far lower than for a flagship production like HOI4. Also, Johan tends to keep his responses here brief, so don't be alarmed that he didn't elaborate. PI has the stockmarket to consider, and has to be discreet about revealing information about releases, especially on delay. Still, I agree we should get some more response from the devs, and I expect that to happen in the next DD.

Paradox Interactive is a private company. They care about their pile of cash in the bank, not the stockmarket, and that pile of cash is regularly topped off by CK2 + EU4. You're confusing them with their former parent company, Paradox Entertainment, which has nothing to do with software nowadays.

I've said it before. While I want to see this game very much, I do see the similar pattern here to other cancelled games, whether it was their own or no. Communication and Dev diaries losing frequency, delays announced. In other situations, promises and positive attitudes of developers and Paradox were shared right up until the end, then a sudden drop of the bomb. I don't see this happening with HOI, since it is one of their core of core games. If it did, I think Paradox's reputation would be pretty shot. But the pattern disturbs me greatly.

Dev diaries for this game have been coming out like clockwork every month, and they're feature updates (including features changed since the last dev diary). Paradox forum communication is always sporadic, because "forum communication" means Johan woke up 15 minutes early and banged out a one-liner while half-way through his morning coffee. It has been that way for 15 years now...

 

[MatteFnatte]

This is funny 250%? If that was the case the game would have been out as stated originally. PI doesn't have the manpower to do this. They have their hands in so many cookie jars to make money they are spread thin for even HOI4. Flagship, I doubt it, Skyline has taken that spot and if HOI4 does come out before end of this year, I would be amazed considering how much time people in Sweden get off from work. Hell they only work about 7 months out of 12 over there!

Haha this is quite funny, and maybe somewhat true, we calculate about 1750 hours of work per year, it differentiates between sectors of course.

 

[aruon]

like most of the above posts have said in some way, there's just no chance of HOI 4 biting the bullet. it's a 1st party title (unlike EvW r.i.p) with a pedigree (unlike Runemaster), and part of the grand strategy genre, their bread and butter (also unlike Runemaster). it ain't going anywhere, it's just taking longer than expected to get to the finish line. now if we go for months without so much as a smartass remark from Dan Lind or Johan, THEN we can have cause to worry... because a forum without smartass remarks is just sad.

EDIT: uh... just for morale reasons, can we get a smartass remark?

 

[MatteFnatte]

like most of the above posts have said in some way, there's just no chance of HOI 4 biting the bullet. it's a 1st party title (unlike EvW r.i.p) with a pedigree (unlike Runemaster), and part of the grand strategy genre, their bread and butter (also unlike Runemaster). it ain't going anywhere, it's just taking longer than expected to get to the finish line. now if we go for months without so much as a smartass remark from Dan Lind or Johan, THEN we can have cause to worry... because a forum without smartass remarks is just sad.

EDIT: uh... just for morale reasons, can we get a smartass remark?

Yes I agree that a cancellation is out of the question, maybe it is really hard to set a date for the developers at this stage because of various factors,
and that is why they haven't announced a final release date (or quarter)

 

[Baltasar]

Developing software is a complicated art. And it really is an art. Give them a break. It'll come in it's own time.

 

[Centurion1973]

At best, we might get some progress update in tomorrows DD.

 

[aruon]

Yes I agree that a cancellation is out of the question, maybe it is really hard to set a date for the developers at this stage because of various factors,
and that is why they haven't announced a final release date (or quarter)

yeah that's why most release dates are with quarters instead of months of days. plus they unveiled HOI 4 a bit too early.

 

[podcat]

like most of the above posts have said in some way, there's just no chance of HOI 4 biting the bullet. it's a 1st party title (unlike EvW r.i.p) with a pedigree (unlike Runemaster), and part of the grand strategy genre, their bread and butter (also unlike Runemaster). it ain't going anywhere, it's just taking longer than expected to get to the finish line. now if we go for months without so much as a smartass remark from Dan Lind or Johan, THEN we can have cause to worry... because a forum without smartass remarks is just sad.

EDIT: uh... just for morale reasons, can we get a smartass remark?

The delays are due to a faulty final drive, just what made the Panther tank so bad compared to russian and american vehicles. :3

...

Basically, HOI4 is a big complicated game and it turns out making a game that isn't dumbed down, have awesome interfaces, and be stable and fun everywhere takes longer than expected. We are never going to announce a game before it has at least hit alpha again, because if you are trying to make a great game you just don't know exactly how long something will take until you get to that point and are happy with things. HOi4 isnt getting canceled and its fun to play at the moment, it just takes longer to get things to the quality level paradox is all about these days.

 

[mdw1985]

The delays are due to a faulty final drive, just what made the Panther tank so bad compared to russian and american vehicles. :3

...

Basically, HOI4 is a big complicated game and it turns out making a game that isn't dumbed down, have awesome interfaces, and be stable and fun everywhere takes longer than expected. We are never going to announce a game before it has at least hit alpha again, because if you are trying to make a great game you just don't know exactly how long something will take until you get to that point and are happy with things. HOi4 isnt getting canceled and its fun to play at the moment, it just takes longer to get things to the quality level paradox is all about these days.

Thanks for the info podcat!!! Very much appreciated!!! Can't await the dd tomorrow!

 

[Poh]

References to Blizzard and their horrendous methods of handling release and announcement timelines to games and hoping Paradox doesn't go down the same path.

We havnt gotten a release date by any point. In August '14 Johan dropped a remark about Q1 '15. In Q1 '15 we were told hopefully Q2 '15 and we were told that when they knew we would get a release date.

are we wasting our time reading and looking for information in anticipation of something that may never be released and lastly, how about a roadmap of where you are in development, just some details.

Iirc we have been told a few times that the game hasnt had its Alpha accepted internally. Which probably means that they have parts they arent 100% satisfied with. We have been told by podcat that the battle planning system was on the third iteration.
We allso know that they need to get past this milestone before they can announce anything.

Communication and Dev diaries losing frequency, delays announced.

The DD hasnt been losing frequency. We have gotten 1 each month except december since february last year. And we will probably see another tomorrow. I'll grant you we have seen less activity from the devs but i would assume that it has to do with two things. 1 working hard to further the state of the game and 2 because they do not have so much to talk about at the moment.

EDIT: another thing to take into account (thats my own theory) is that HoI4 is pretty complex and its a whole different beast from HoI3. Im unsure about exactly how the difference in the games play into how tricky it can get during development. But i think EUIV was closer to EUIII than HoI4 is to HoI3, then again i have no clue about game development.