Ask Paradox (almost) Anything Thread (no support/tech or code questions)

[Fishman786]

How long before Paradox releases a game about paint manufacturing? It could have 200 different companies, and over 2500 different types of paint. You would be able to discuss big deals with bridge-painters and supermarkets and such, and you could even watch the drying process in realtime. I think it would draw a lot of new interest in Paradox games, since this genre is highly-underrepresented.

 

[Killerflood]

I've been reading alot in the CKII forums and it appears like there are many people who are completely new to the company. I say this because there are quite a few people talking about paradox's policies like it's something totally new. (I just came back from a thread where the OP hailed the new patch - he was probably over exaggerating but still - a "new expansion".)

What does the company generally think of the ones who are more experienced to "EA business" types and are sometimes astounded by the different practices of paradox? (Note: "EA business" was just me trying to come up with a way to express my point.)

 

[Susana]

How is the PEGI rating done?

Do they send some inspector to your officers to test the game ir see you playing it to establish a rating, or do you just tell them the features and, based on that, they make a decision as to the age group and flags (violence, drug use, strong language, etc)?

All age-rating agencies require material to be sent to them (video, final game build) along with all text files, dialogue, and various forms. Based off that they give you an age-rating. After launch, they require reference copies of the final game. Fines are pretty hefty for any information left out or incorrectly explained so with a few very public exceptions I don't think that's ever an issue.

Kind regards
Susana

 

[Susana]

I've been reading alot in the CKII forums and it appears like there are many people who are completely new to the company. I say this because there are quite a few people talking about paradox's policies like it's something totally new. (I just came back from a thread where the OP hailed the new patch - he was probably over exaggerating but still - a "new expansion".)

What does the company generally think of the ones who are more experienced to "EA business" types and are sometimes astounded by the different practices of paradox? (Note: "EA business" was just me trying to come up with a way to express my point.)

I recently found a video interview that Fred did in 2007 (I believe - Castellon can correct me) where he mentioned our 35.000 member strong community. Today we are closing in to 380.000 members on this forum and with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube we are probably up to 500.000. So yes, we are growing. And you'll find many "new" members around, with really varied backgrounds. Some of them will appreciate who we are and what we do - some will not. I think our philosophy is the same now as it was then, we try and be as clear as possible about who we are and what gamers can expect from us. For some that will exceed expectations, for some they'll expect nothing less and some will think we fall short. But I still can't think of a single company with the same global reach that we have where even the CEO is on a first name basis with so many people in the community and I think that direct link to the community is something all of us are really proud of and will continue to work on, whether we're half a million or a million gamers.

Kind regards
Susana

 

[Barkhauer]

Are you anticipating problems when people try to play your games on Windows 8 tablets with touchscreens?

 

[th3freakie]

How long before Paradox releases a game about paint manufacturing? It could have 200 different companies, and over 2500 different types of paint. You would be able to discuss big deals with bridge-painters and supermarkets and such, and you could even watch the drying process in realtime. I think it would draw a lot of new interest in Paradox games, since this genre is highly-underrepresented.

I am interested in this concept, but I cannot see it work as a game without several and constant pirate-related events and decisions.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

I recently found a video interview that Fred did in 2007 (I believe - Castellon can correct me) where he mentioned our 35.000 member strong community. Today we are closing in to 380.000 members on this forum and with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube we are probably up to 500.000. So yes, we are growing. And you'll find many "new" members around, with really varied backgrounds. Some of them will appreciate who we are and what we do - some will not. I think our philosophy is the same now as it was then, we try and be as clear as possible about who we are and what gamers can expect from us. For some that will exceed expectations, for some they'll expect nothing less and some will think we fall short. But I still can't think of a single company with the same global reach that we have where even the CEO is on a first name basis with so many people in the community and I think that direct link to the community is something all of us are really proud of and will continue to work on, whether we're half a million or a million gamers.

Kind regards
Susana

Definitely. Even when I'm not actually playing Paradox's games, I'm still interested to see what's going on in the community and get little hints here and there about future projects. I can say without a shadow of a doubt I wouldn't feel as much of a connection to the games if it wasn't for the actual connection to the company that I have here.

It's like having mates who happen to make amazing computer games. Pretty good deal.

 

[Sarmatia1871]

I am interested in this concept, but I cannot see it work as a game without several and constant pirate-related events and decisions.

As long as the Knights of Malta are included, I am happy.

 

[Castellon]

Are you anticipating problems when people try to play your games on Windows 8 tablets with touchscreens?

I play EU2 on my tablet, but I pretty much had to use a mouse, the interface is just not designed currently for touch screen.

 

[James The 1st]

Are you anticipating problems when people try to play your games on Windows 8 tablets with touchscreens?

Touchscreens are just a fad, serious PC users will just stick to the much easier to use mouse.

 

[Weijun]

I recently found a video interview that Fred did in 2007 (I believe - Castellon can correct me) where he mentioned our 35.000 member strong community. Today we are closing in to 380.000 members on this forum and with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube we are probably up to 500.000. So yes, we are growing. And you'll find many "new" members around, with really varied backgrounds. Some of them will appreciate who we are and what we do - some will not. I think our philosophy is the same now as it was then, we try and be as clear as possible about who we are and what gamers can expect from us. For some that will exceed expectations, for some they'll expect nothing less and some will think we fall short. But I still can't think of a single company with the same global reach that we have where even the CEO is on a first name basis with so many people in the community and I think that direct link to the community is something all of us are really proud of and will continue to work on, whether we're half a million or a million gamers.

Kind regards
Susana

The 2007 figure might be a little higher than that. I am member #56,744, and I joined in 2006.

 

[Castellon]

The 2007 figure might be a little higher than that. I am member #56,744, and I joined in 2006.

Every once and a while the forum kicks unconfirmed / banned ... accounts if you will recall we lost about 35k member count when we updated the forum software and it removed those type of accounts which is why we ended up passing the 200k mark twice.
So you can use member number and join date as rough indicators, but not accurate member count.
But Susana, is under being conservative by estimating our current potential reach at 500k, when you consider that the average ratio of guests to members on the forum at any given time is about 3 to 1, that is a total of 4 times 350 which is 1.4 million for the forum alone. Now not all of them are active at any given time and the number of unique visits to the site is Less than that, but still some incredible growth.
I can tell you that the average user spends 7:58 minutes on the site per visit. So considering that some people will click out of the site rather fast, it means that a lot are spending a very long time here.
Some days we peak with .0014% of all page hits on the internet landing here, that might not sound like a lot, but the total number of page hits on the internet in a day is a vast number.

 

[steveh11]

It's like having mates who happen to make amazing computer games. Pretty good deal.

<- THIS. Exactly this.

 

[nimrod123]

I can tell you that the average user spends 7:58 minutes on the site per visit. So considering that some people will click out of the site rather fast, it means that a lot are spending a very long time here.

shit, you people are like google, you find out what i do, i mean i'm one of those trolls that came out of the woodwork and now spend far to much time here , i mean it took me 2 weeks to go from 50 posts to 300+

Some days we peak with .0014% of all page hits on the internet landing here, that might not sound like a lot, but the total number of page hits on the internet in a day is a vast number.

thats actually kind of scary.

i have got to say that the quality of the posters here is surprisingly good, my previous experiences are total war center and the BF3 places, TWC is alright, but BF3 is horrible. For this reason i must applauded your work for this

 

[Kallocain]

2nd what is the rough number of internal staff working directly for paradox currently? and kinda releated, how much growth if any has the company experinced in say the last 2 years.

We have grown a lot. When I joined in 2009 we were 12 people in the development team. Now we are 22 plus interns.
The company as a whole has grown about as much. Still not huge, but not tiny either.

 

[Naselus]

i have got to say that the quality of the posters here is surprisingly good, my previous experiences are total war center and the BF3 places, TWC is alright, but BF3 is horrible. For this reason i must applauded your work for this

The Deep strategy games which PI produces tend to appeal toward a substantially more mature audience than BF3 or Total War, so a lot of what happens here is amateur academic debate. Of course, that appeals to people who will write a 5000 word post on the inaccuracy of Bismarck becoming Chancellor by event in 1862, when (naturally) we all know his title under the Prussian state was Ministerprasident until 1873. But yeah, even the multiplayer forums don't sink to the level of 'I spooged you good you frakmunkee lol'.

 

[Seli]

The Deep strategy games which PI produces tend to appeal toward a substantially more mature audience than BF3 or Total War, so a lot of what happens here is amateur academic debate. Of course, that appeals to people who will write a 5000 word post on the inaccuracy of Bismarck becoming Chancellor by event in 1862, when (naturally) we all know his title under the Prussian state was Ministerprasident until 1873. But yeah, even the multiplayer forums don't sink to the level of 'I spooged you good you frakmunkee lol'.

Another factor, also related to the audience I assume, is that people stay around. Which means that even with the quick growth there is a core of people transferring forum culture to the newer members. Even with only the publicly available information about posts there is probably enough information around here about interactions, group dynamics subgroups and movement of people for a few masters theses.

 

[AndrewT]

i have got to say that the quality of the posters here is surprisingly good, my previous experiences are total war center and the BF3 places, TWC is alright, but BF3 is horrible. For this reason i must applauded your work for this

Another contributing factor are the Moderators and Admins. We have fairly strict rules and are quite strict about enforcing them, and have enough (carefully vetted) volunteer mods and demi-mods to read pretty much all posts in all forums, so bad content gets jumped on and removed quickly.

That rewards mature and considered posters, and deters trolls and flamers, which is all to the good.

 

[Taiisatai64]

Another contributing factor are the Moderators and Admins. We have fairly strict rules and are quite strict about enforcing them, and have enough (carefully vetted) volunteer mods and demi-mods to read pretty much all posts in all forums, so bad content gets jumped on and removed quickly.

That rewards mature and considered posters, and deters trolls and flamers, which is all to the good.

Could you maybe lend some advice to the EVE Online forum moderators, they don't seem to understand the concept of rule enforcement... wandering through those forums really reminds me of how fantastic the forums here are

 

[CanOmer]

Can you use map or other elements of Magna Mundi in Eu4 or new expansion (if there will be) ?