Can we take a moment to appreciate Paradox Interactive?

[Duuk]

It feels strange to me to compliment someone/something for not being terrible..

Believe it or not, this type of feedback is just as important as the feedback of our wallets. I say that because of EXACTLY Blizzard.

World of Warcraft still makes an insane amount of money. But it makes insanely less money than it did years ago and it makes it from different sources, mainly by milking the cow of every possible bit they can. The "new" team is tasked with just juicing WoW for every penny and keeping whatever hamster wheels going that they can and doesn't really seem to be tasked with growing the project anymore.

The positive feedback and the reminders that we appreciate Paradox's development team and development process as MORE than just "You give us games to push buttons and it is strictly transactional" is VERY important because we need to maintain the healthy relationship. I never want to have a wall between Paradox and the fans where Paradox will suddenly decide to tell me that I'm "doing fun wrong". I think I said earlier in this thread that I didn't buy this most recent World of Warcraft expansion and I have no interest in doing so. It's the first one I've ever skipped. It made me sad when I realized I had no interest in it, but when I read how the new subraces had to be "unlocked" through reputation grinds I realized that I just don't want to do the things that the WoW team wants me to do.

They think I'm doing fun wrong. I want to fly around on my cool mounts, do quests. Once in a while do a dungeon on my alts after I've quested my way through the content on my gnome hunter for the Alliance (orc hunter for the Horde). I don't want to do grinds to unlock my flying. I just don't. I don't want to grind my way through anything. I work long hours in my job. I work long hours in my secondary career in politics. When I have the spare time to login to Azeroth, I don't want to WORK, I want to shoot ogres in the face and loot their corpses.

So when I'm happy with Paradox, I want to tell them I'm happy with them, because I never want them to forget I'm happy with them. I don't want my entire interaction with them to be Frederik looking at the P+L and telling Johan that his team put out a good product and everyone gets a 3% annual raise (and that Johan got more stock options). I want them to laugh and have a good time. I want them to KNOW US and enjoy talking to us.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

I understand your point but i think you are greatly overestimating how this kind of feedback could really influence a big developer.

Big companies do what brings money to them; if your games keeps selling well then no amount of negative feedback in forums/social media is gonna make them steering away from the path they have chosen. It's always a tiny minority who gives feedback about games, even for PDX. WoW is still selling extremely well, so even if they were as feedback-friendly as PDX they absolutely won't step back from their path.

Of course PDX is waaaaay better than a lot of big guys in the industry, but if some day they will decide to go down "that" path, and doing so wouldn't harm their profits, no forum feedback would steer them away from it. Having an "healthy relationship" with a big company is perfectly fine, just don't think it matters more than making money. It doesn't. Their survival depends on money; of course getting profits AND be appreciated by fanbase through constant feedback is the best thing ever, but profits are what keeps them afloat.

I really really really hope they won't, and i firmly believe they will do anything before resorting to it, but if some day they find they HAVE to do that kind of things, they will do. The same Stellaris/EU/CK/HoI/whatever team wouldn't be able to stop it.


Cheers to PDX for being WAY above average, but let's keep our eyes open and remember that if you absolutely want to make a difference, not buying a product is a way way way more efficient feedback than any social interaction. If people were really interested in stopping the "bugged release" thing, they should just not buy at day one. Buying at day one and complaining later hasn't changed a damn thing and never will, even with them being extremely polite, receptive and genuinely caring people. Mainly because the people who interact with us aren't, i suspect, the ones that ultimately take this kind of decisions (deadlines and such).

 

[Dracoknight]

Thank you devs for caring about making something decent for your players despite of angry managers, unreasonable costumers, idiotic bosses, out-of-touch marketeers, frothing investors, hungry children, demanding wives, heavily watered coffee and crunch hours that last way over the humane work limit for even a third world country peasant.

 

[Wenla]

No... by that logic Norway and Iceland would be ATLANTIC countries because they have access to the Atlantic sea. Would be new for me it the Atlantic was called 'American Sea'.

Well… OK, I try to give an other (better) example for you:

Wikipedia says that UK, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and France are connected to the North Sea, so those countries are Northern/Nordic countries?

 

[Thure]

Well… OK, I try to give an other (better) example for you:

Wikipedia says that UK, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and France are connected to the North Sea, so those countries are Northern/Nordic countries?

That's a bad exemple, since 'North' is not as distingush as 'Baltic' or 'Atlantic'. It's a geoghraphical direction so it doesn't work that way with the North Sea. Also... do you know about this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_region

 

[Duuk]

WoW is still selling extremely well, so even if they were as feedback-friendly as PDX they absolutely won't step back from their path.

Except... it isn't. It's being MONETIZED really well. There is a difference. The current team at WoW is tasked with keeping the grind alive for the people willing to grind and throwing shiny things to buy at the people that will buy them while exploiting every possible way to make new cash. Notice that Classic Wow is now a thing, which was Never Going To Happen... until it did so they can get people to pay for it again. Monetization of the IP by creating a login of a previous patch. Subscription numbers stopping being a metric years ago because WoW isn't selling well, it's being milked for profitability.

It would be akin to Paradox charging people to re-release Classic Stellaris for the 1.9 Experience for Pre-FTL rebalance.

 

[Dandere]

They're pretty cool but the DLC always costing 4x more than the game by the time they're done isn't a business model I like. 20 bucks is a lot for some mechanics changes. Not that I won't buy it,, they're great changes. But there are companies who would include this sort of thing in free updates and not gate really obvious stuff that should be in the base game (like Titans) behind DLC.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

Except... it isn't. It's being MONETIZED really well. There is a difference. The current team at WoW is tasked with keeping the grind alive for the people willing to grind and throwing shiny things to buy at the people that will buy them while exploiting every possible way to make new cash. Notice that Classic Wow is now a thing, which was Never Going To Happen... until it did so they can get people to pay for it again. Monetization of the IP by creating a login of a previous patch. Subscription numbers stopping being a metric years ago because WoW isn't selling well, it's being milked for profitability.

It would be akin to Paradox charging people to re-release Classic Stellaris for the 1.9 Experience for Pre-FTL rebalance.

I use "selling" in a wide sense. Paying for old versions, microtransactions, whatever, i piled every "money making" effort into the "selling" pile. What's important is that Blizzard is still milking a whole lot of money from WoW and it's working despite what a lot of gamers like or don't like.

The point is: if it works, if it makes money, the company is unlikely to step down from it. No amount of feedback on forums/social media would make them step down unless it's something that goes really really big in numbers, so way more than the "normal" feedback of the player base. Unfortunately, this kind of scumbag moves still pays, if it wasn't, companies wouldn't do it. Companies usually doesn't do this kind of thing because they are inherently "evil", but because it works.

I don't see PDX doing it in any forseeable future, though.

They're pretty cool but the DLC always costing 4x more than the game by the time they're done isn't a business model I like. 20 bucks is a lot for some mechanics changes. Not that I won't buy it,, they're great changes. But there are companies who would include this sort of thing in free updates and not gate really obvious stuff that should be in the base game (like Titans) behind DLC.

It's well known that DLCs pay for the constant updates of the base version. In this case, Megacorp paid for the huge work behind the whole redesign of the economic system. I'm 100% cool with this. I just don't like it being released when there seems to still be game-hampering bugs like AI not building fleets...

 

[Duuk]

They're pretty cool but the DLC always costing 4x more than the game by the time they're done isn't a business model I like. 20 bucks is a lot for some mechanics changes. Not that I won't buy it,, they're great changes. But there are companies who would include this sort of thing in free updates and not gate really obvious stuff that should be in the base game (like Titans) behind DLC.

Except that it's a business model that has worked for decades. Essentially Paradox's Grand Strategy games are MMOs with a subscription. The exception is that you don't need to pay monthly and you only have to buy the expansion content you want to use and the updates are given to you free, paid for by the people that want to use all of the content. And have all of the cool units with the different colored hats. And want to make sure that our children in CK2 have exactly the right colored beards. And that the Mongol units use different shaded horses than the Arabian units. BECAUSE HORSE SHADING MATTERS DARN IT.

You're welcome, courtesy of the people with all the shiny badges under our names.

 

[Hyomoto]

While I don't fully agree with their DLC model, it's fair to say Paradox does two things well: they are upfront about their costs, and they use their profits to continue development. To me, that's a consumer and developer friendly stance to take. I'm most certainly willing to say: "Paradox, you represent one of the few smaller publishers that still produces games in a way that doesn't try to screw over your customers and I respect and hope that continues."

 

[Dandere]

Except that it's a business model that has worked for decades.

I am a capitalist at heart, but a business model working does not require me to like it. I'll admit I'm glad Paradox probably isn't going out of business any time soon.

You're welcome, courtesy of the people with all the shiny badges under our names.

I'm pretty sure I have a lot of those shiny badges, unless there's some special requirement.

Do I have a real complaint? I guess not. I wish Paradox was less business savvy. That's different from thinking they're doing it wrong and believing that if only they'd accept my ideas about giving everything away for free surely they'd be so much more successful.

 

[Hyomoto]

I am a capitalist at heart, but a business model working does not require me to like it. I'll admit I'm glad Paradox probably isn't going out of business any time soon.

I'm pretty sure I have a lot of those shiny badges, unless there's some special requirement.

Do I have a real complaint? I guess not. I wish Paradox was less business savvy. That's different from thinking they're doing it wrong and believing that if only they'd accept my ideas about giving everything away for free surely they'd be so much more successful.

Do keep in mind Paradox is a publisher who also has a development house. It's hard to separate the two, but it's likely the developers aren't very business savvy, they are game developers and very likely are in it "for the art" so to speak.

 

[FiddleSticks96]

As far as I'm concerned, this thread I started was mainly for the Stellaris dev team, who aren't part of the business end. As a bunch of nerds crunching code all week so we can keep re-experiencing a product we already bought, I thought some nice words thrown their way was overdue. So I say again, I appreciate the dev team for their work and their good and active role in the community.

 

[Arutar]

As far as I'm concerned, this thread I started was mainly for the Stellaris dev team, who aren't part of the business end. As a bunch of nerds crunching code all week so we can keep re-experiencing a product we already bought, I thought some nice words thrown their way was overdue. So I say again, I appreciate the dev team for their work and their good and active role in the community.

Well said.

Now please fix pop growth an teach the A.I. a few new tricks

 

[fLany]

I doubt I will ever use the DLC / paid features, yet I bought the DLC again - Megacorp, just to support this team in their work on this awesome project
I love the changes in 2.2 and I am looking forward to seeing what you guys will come up with next

 

[Delthor]

Do keep in mind Paradox is a publisher who also has a development house. It's hard to separate the two, but it's likely the developers aren't very business savvy, they are game developers and very likely are in it "for the art" so to speak.

This is true of most studios. Most feet-on-the-ground developers really do want what's best for the game, and they'll often be fighting with the powers that be to try to make that happen on players' behalves. Unfortunately, most studios, especially larger studios, have a huge push from their financial backing to grow bigger, draw in more players, do more for less effort, etc. The result is that the devs are hamstrung in making the game as good as it could be.

So yes, thank you, Stellaris devs for being amazing. But also, thank you to those higher ups for mostly letting them do what they need to do to make a great game. A rather rushed release with enough quality issues that it's almost a beta test is actually a pretty small price to pay for a game where the developers spend an immense amount of resources improving the base game mechanics that no one has to pay for. I hope you'll continue to give them the space they need to make money by making a great game, rather than through the less savory practices that many other developers are forced to employ.

 

[Tisifoni12]

I think Paradox are fantastic. I discovered them when I got a copy of EU2 some years ago.

But I also recognise that they are trying to do very, very complicated things and are heirs to gaming conventions and tropes that can work against innovation or constrain design. There is also the difficulty of making not very clever AI present a challenge.

I do think Paradox sometimes try to make game systems more complicated than necessary.