Dear Johan, Paradox, and fellow gamers,
I write this because of late, many of the threads and comments in these forums have taken on a negative tone, and I believe it is once again time to remember why it is we all started playing Paradox games in the first place.
On one level, all of us here probably love history. I have played many games by many companies in my day, but none so accurately reflect history as those by Paradox. The events included in Victoria are many and they are detailed, and the research that went into the allocation and placement of ethnic groups astounds me. The quality is evident in the nature of the criticisms. I do not deny that finding that there are too many Poles in Posen is good cause for a gripe, but let us not forget that we’re lucky to find a game that actually goes into that kind of detail at all. Even in the events, the criticisms speak to the nature of Paradox’s achievement. So the American purchase of Alaska was not included. So it’s hard to unify Italy. There are three (Three!) ways to unify Germany. There are events leading to the creation of a civilized Japan, China, and Persia. There are events leading to all the major wars during the game period, from the Franco-Prussian to the Crimean to the Boer and the Spanish-American. I believe this is definitely a laudable achievement for any company, and especially for one that is the size of Paradox.
Second, though we love history, we also play these games so we can get satiate our innate desires to change history. Therefore, we ask for a game that can balance history with ambition. We want a game that can accurately allow Bolivia to secede from Peru and yet also make it possible for a talented player to take over Japan with Mexico. This is exactly the game Paradox has delivered to us, and for that, I thank them.
Third, with their long experience in making these sorts of games, Paradox has undoubtedly realized that it cannot satisfy all its customers. This is why it has gone to great lengths to make its game code easily modable. I have absolutely no experience in writing code in any language, and yet I can read well the text in the event files. Victoria even comes with a built-in party editor. We should all thank Paradox for not only giving us great games, but also with providing us the tools to make them even better for ourselves and for our own personalized, discriminating tastes.
Yes, Victoria has some bugs, and yes, it has some issues. But I ask all of you to think for a moment about all you do in a typical minute of Victoria. How many buttons do you click? How many units move across your screen? How many kinds of factories and goods do you scroll through? If, after all of this working correctly, you can still feel justified in complaining that the Suez Canal event is badly designed then go ahead, but remember all the things that work before you go around criticizing a game that, for something so mind-bendingly complicated, works brilliantly.
I am in no way suggesting that we should stop our criticism of Paradox or of its games, but this criticism should be constructive, and, at the very least, it should be polite towards those who have poured so many hours into the game. Paradox provides us a service that no one else can give, and, though we may pull out our hair when eight provinces return to their owner’s control because of 10,000-man partisan units, we have to keep in mind that at least we have partisans to fight. I’d rather deal with ten million partisans than have to go back to the water of other games after having tasted the nectar of Victoria.
On a personal note, Victoria was not only the first Paradox game I purchased, but also the first real-time strategy game I ever bought. I had been raised on classics like Civilization and Imperialism, and I always denied that anyone could model the complexity I desired in a real-time format. I was very, very wrong.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a plea. I implore you to recognize that in Paradox we have something special—a group a programmers willing to sit through the long hours and make the kinds of games no one else is willing to make. It is games that like this that drove me to study history, politics, and geography, and as a college student, I am now studying for a career in the foreign service. This is all thanks to people such as those in Paradox, people who know how to grab the attention of the historically-minded gamer and take the fascination to the extreme. Remember that Paradox is made up of people just like you and me, who, really, just want to play a great game.
Therefore, I think that in spite of all the criticisms, all the negative posts, all the bad reviews and complaints and frustrated threads, we should all give Paradox, the moderators, the beta testers, and especially Johan, a sincere thank-you.
Thank you all,
Memnon
I write this because of late, many of the threads and comments in these forums have taken on a negative tone, and I believe it is once again time to remember why it is we all started playing Paradox games in the first place.
On one level, all of us here probably love history. I have played many games by many companies in my day, but none so accurately reflect history as those by Paradox. The events included in Victoria are many and they are detailed, and the research that went into the allocation and placement of ethnic groups astounds me. The quality is evident in the nature of the criticisms. I do not deny that finding that there are too many Poles in Posen is good cause for a gripe, but let us not forget that we’re lucky to find a game that actually goes into that kind of detail at all. Even in the events, the criticisms speak to the nature of Paradox’s achievement. So the American purchase of Alaska was not included. So it’s hard to unify Italy. There are three (Three!) ways to unify Germany. There are events leading to the creation of a civilized Japan, China, and Persia. There are events leading to all the major wars during the game period, from the Franco-Prussian to the Crimean to the Boer and the Spanish-American. I believe this is definitely a laudable achievement for any company, and especially for one that is the size of Paradox.
Second, though we love history, we also play these games so we can get satiate our innate desires to change history. Therefore, we ask for a game that can balance history with ambition. We want a game that can accurately allow Bolivia to secede from Peru and yet also make it possible for a talented player to take over Japan with Mexico. This is exactly the game Paradox has delivered to us, and for that, I thank them.
Third, with their long experience in making these sorts of games, Paradox has undoubtedly realized that it cannot satisfy all its customers. This is why it has gone to great lengths to make its game code easily modable. I have absolutely no experience in writing code in any language, and yet I can read well the text in the event files. Victoria even comes with a built-in party editor. We should all thank Paradox for not only giving us great games, but also with providing us the tools to make them even better for ourselves and for our own personalized, discriminating tastes.
Yes, Victoria has some bugs, and yes, it has some issues. But I ask all of you to think for a moment about all you do in a typical minute of Victoria. How many buttons do you click? How many units move across your screen? How many kinds of factories and goods do you scroll through? If, after all of this working correctly, you can still feel justified in complaining that the Suez Canal event is badly designed then go ahead, but remember all the things that work before you go around criticizing a game that, for something so mind-bendingly complicated, works brilliantly.
I am in no way suggesting that we should stop our criticism of Paradox or of its games, but this criticism should be constructive, and, at the very least, it should be polite towards those who have poured so many hours into the game. Paradox provides us a service that no one else can give, and, though we may pull out our hair when eight provinces return to their owner’s control because of 10,000-man partisan units, we have to keep in mind that at least we have partisans to fight. I’d rather deal with ten million partisans than have to go back to the water of other games after having tasted the nectar of Victoria.
On a personal note, Victoria was not only the first Paradox game I purchased, but also the first real-time strategy game I ever bought. I had been raised on classics like Civilization and Imperialism, and I always denied that anyone could model the complexity I desired in a real-time format. I was very, very wrong.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a plea. I implore you to recognize that in Paradox we have something special—a group a programmers willing to sit through the long hours and make the kinds of games no one else is willing to make. It is games that like this that drove me to study history, politics, and geography, and as a college student, I am now studying for a career in the foreign service. This is all thanks to people such as those in Paradox, people who know how to grab the attention of the historically-minded gamer and take the fascination to the extreme. Remember that Paradox is made up of people just like you and me, who, really, just want to play a great game.
Therefore, I think that in spite of all the criticisms, all the negative posts, all the bad reviews and complaints and frustrated threads, we should all give Paradox, the moderators, the beta testers, and especially Johan, a sincere thank-you.
Thank you all,
Memnon
