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Propaganda?
It's not propaganda, it's a ten dollar solution. I'm sure you all have credit/debit cards.
It's not propaganda, it's a ten dollar solution. I'm sure you all have credit/debit cards.
Besides, Communists wouldn't encourage you to be a part of a capitalist scheme
You are right that they wouldnt, but communist propaganda is known not for its anti-capitalist behaviour but for its outright lies.
If one buys VV, he should buy it for the extra features, not in order to fix one bug or another. In fact, i have had more errors and CTDs with VV then with vanilla Rome.
How someone willingly advises others to buy an expansion which should have been a patch is beyond me. If you want an example of what a real expansion should be, look to RTW: BI, Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne and plenty others. PI's charging for fixing a bugged game is ridiculous. That's why I didn't buy Armageddon (Seriously, paying for 6 MB worth of info? What was the REAL cost of building that expansion? 0,00001 €?), nor EU 3 (Funny how people argued that they found it perfectly reasonable that IN didn't already have NA included, people had to buy two expansions to play a complete EU 3, so as not to anger the people that originally bought NA, and I didn't see a revolt when EU: Complete was launched), nor EU: Rome (Didn't even tried the demo of this one, the player reviews told me it was a very bad game), nor will I buy HoI 3 until I'm pretty sure its good AND complete.
Pizza and beer guide to PC game prices
Well a pizza and beer costs me about ten pounds, euros, dollars, francs or whatever; and lasts about half an hour.
That means a full price game needs to be at least a couple of hours fun.
Overall I think expansions are good value and, sadly for PC game manufacturers, I now wait for version 2 to do at least most of what version 1 promised. So they miss out on full price sales. Not enough gameplay/installation testing with ordinary people rather than experts with top end PCs and poor or non existant manuals are my bug bear.
I like physical copies with manuals and have most games in that form be they Paradox, Combat Mission, AGEOD's, Total War, Sid Meier's Gettysburg.
Armageddon and Vae Victis are the only downloads that I've paid for. I was hesitant - as I am every time my credit card details go out - and ten euros is just about the limit. It took me several goes to get VV to work without having to uninstall the original and start over, so I was pretty unhappy for a few hours which have now been out weighed by a few more hours of slaughtering and being slaughtered.
Blimey, that almost became a rant.
Well a pizza and beer costs me about ten pounds, euros, dollars, francs or whatever; and lasts about half an hour.
That means a full price game needs to be at least a couple of hours fun.
Overall I think expansions are good value and, sadly for PC game manufacturers, I now wait for version 2 to do at least most of what version 1 promised. So they miss out on full price sales. Not enough gameplay/installation testing with ordinary people rather than experts with top end PCs and poor or non existant manuals are my bug bear.
I like physical copies with manuals and have most games in that form be they Paradox, Combat Mission, AGEOD's, Total War, Sid Meier's Gettysburg.
Armageddon and Vae Victis are the only downloads that I've paid for. I was hesitant - as I am every time my credit card details go out - and ten euros is just about the limit. It took me several goes to get VV to work without having to uninstall the original and start over, so I was pretty unhappy for a few hours which have now been out weighed by a few more hours of slaughtering and being slaughtered.
Blimey, that almost became a rant.
6 MB can be a much larger XP than a 200 MB one Jolt. It depends on what is changed.
Phreaps it can. Though I've yet to see an example which corroborates your sentence in gaming. I've seen game patches with more weight than the 6 MB which also introduce a lot of experience. And they were free.
Ot went the same work into IN as it went with EU3 alone IIRC Johan's statement. Graphics take space, lots of it. Major tweaks in game functionality takes very little space. Remember, most things in PI games are changed in the code and text files.
![Sute]{h](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/styles/paradox/owneditems/avatars/Stellaris_pre_order/s/stellaris_avatars_fungoid_12_special.png){kind=avatar}
Yes... lets compare with WoW. Try doing a little math comparing the amount of money you spend on WoW with the amount of money you spend on Rome. Be sure to include the monthly subscribtion fee. No MMORPG (or expansions thereof) shows you the real price tag. The amount of money you pay for the game doesn't cover the development costs. They just figure, at you will keep paying the subscription, until their costs are paid.
Imagine the quality we could get if we all paid Paradox a monthly subscription, that could cover the expenses tied to creating patches and new features.
I have had far less problems with EU3. I thought the NA, and IN add-ons were worthy of being called expansions, since the timeline was expanded.
Now with VV, there were only gameplay changes, which means it should've been a patch... But hey, I got both for $25, so I can't complain.
Now with VV, there were only gameplay changes, which means it should've been a patch... But hey, I got both for $25, so I can't complain.
Perhaps Paradox should develop a similar business model and charge a monthly sub and provide its games, expansions and patches free to the subscribers.
What price do you put on intellectual property? The Mona Lisa cost a couple of quid, say, for paint and canvas but is priceless. Similarly the simple idea that created Google is worth billions.
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Sute]{h;9505905 said:
You pay monthly to maintain the ONLINE servers, not the game itself. You pay the game itself when you buy it on stores.
But really, games like Warcraft 3 (note: warcraft 3 is NOT WoW) are STILL being patched after their release years ago, without forcing the users to pay one more euro. And certain patches added new features like new heroes, or new maps.
And quite frankly having to pay a monthly subscription to Paradox is out of question with such games designed mostly for single player use. Paying 50€ is already enough IMO - it is for other producers (some that made far better games), it should be for paradox as well.
I'm arguing for something along the lines of Strategy & Tactics Magazine that has been published for decades (by various owners). Each subscriber receives an historical magazine that comes with a board wargame simulation, most of which are never played. Similarly, there are thousands of magazines with paying subscribers so think of your subscription as the membership fee in the Paradox Video Game Club which entitles you to the games, expansions, patches, tech support and forums. A steady income would be better for Paradox who, judging by the number of game companies that go broke, is probably just one or two badly received games away from going under.
[by the way, the last time I looked the sub or S&T was about £120 per year for 6 issues - people will pay that sort of money if they like something enough]
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That could only work if Paradox is consistent in adding new contents and fixes. At their current rate of 1 patch per 6 months -- when they're feeling nice, who's going to pay for this kind of "subscription"?
Now we all know the WoW and Blizzard success has been some kind of unprecedented phenomenon. So let's be fair and not compare the small independant Paradox to such an mainstream industry giant.
Instead, take Stardock for example -- another mid-size independant developer. Stardock and Paradox are similar in many ways: from the genres they cover, their active and creative communities, the depth of their design, to their pricing, business model and portfolio, and their attitude toward piracy. But unlike Paradox, Stardock has managed to build a reputation for consistently giving their customers more bangs for their bucks, listening to the community, and otherwise makes all kinds of effort to improve the player's experience in and out of the actual game. Any one of GalCiv2's free bimonthly (roughly) patch is comparable to a PI expansion in terms of tweaks, fixes and additional content; and all that on top of the fact that all of Stardock's games are highly stable and feature complete out of the box.
All in all, not unlike Blizzard, one gets the very distinct feeling that Stardock is not out to rip off their customers, which is something I can't say for PI with confidence.
But now back to the OP. If we think of it in terms of game theory, it's perfectly reasonable that he should encourage everyone to buy VV if he himself has already done so. It may be cynical and somewhat lacking in subtlety, but it's all very rational.
The way that Strategy & Tactics works is that most of the games are designed independently 'out of house' and simply developed (polished up) and published in the magazine. Paradox seems to do the opposite of that by creating its games 'in-house', which is why there are relatively few of them. If Paradox became more of a developer/publisher of indie game designs it would no doubt be able to offer loads of new content to its subscribers in the same way as S&T.
VV added a whole new character system, Senate, court, revamped interface, etc. Not really stuff you put in a patch.
Timeline expansions in NA and IN were superficial. I never played a whole GC anyways. The greatness of expansions comes from the features building up the game engine, such as different rebel "causes" and colonial distance limits.
The "whole character system", IMO, should be bigger. They should have added something like in CK. The player should be able to interact more with the game.
I still ask myself why Paradox introduced the character system into Rome, if at first it served near no purpose. With the expansion the player interacts more with it, but even so, barely.
I totally agree that the character system is....... to put it bluntly crap, and it frustrates the hell out of me cos it could make the difference between an eu3 clone set in Rome but not as good. Or an eu3 successor set amid the intrigue and politics of Roman times, where your own people can become your biggest enemy and keeping your empire together can be as challenging as building it in the first place.
Personally the only things I have got out of Rome so far is the modding experience from trying to make it more interesting and the inspiration to buy Crusader kings.
I hope PI doesn't give up on it cos it could work but that's exactly what it needs, more work. Till then I'm afraid I'll have to stick to playing CKDV.
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