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So Syndicate is out, and it's a bummer like everyone knew it's going to be.

What about Cartel? Still not making it?
 
Syndicate is a fun online co-op shooter. I wouldn't call it a bad game.

I would. It's another lame boring one-of-ten-thousand cliche shooter out of factory. They could all just die instead of releasing 50 of those a year. Zero artistic value in each of them, zero progress in gaming industry too.
 
The problem with syndicate is that if you rename the game to lets say.. "Corporations" that would be the same and no one would care.

Its not syndicate like most that played know it. It dont have a dark setting almost cyberpunk.

If you see the intro of syndicate 1 and play the first missions and this new game you will see both worlds are not the same.
No problem with the game, but that game is not syndicate. Just putting the name on it and saying is from the same world don´t make the game worth to share the same spot as the classic one.
 
It seems to me that you haven't tried it, and are just venting anger at the industry that no longer has you as it's primary target audience.

It's this industry's problem that they make games for pirate kiddies rather than people who have money to spend. ;-)
 
I would. It's another lame boring one-of-ten-thousand cliche shooter out of factory. They could all just die instead of releasing 50 of those a year. Zero artistic value in each of them, zero progress in gaming industry too.

It's time for me to admit that I have been working on Syndicate for little over one year. During that time 33% of all bug reports came from me ;-)

After that I started at Paradox.
 
Wow, that's impressive. I can't imagine betatesting it 8h a day, 6 days a week for over a year, a boring scripted repetitive FPS game with addition of all the bugs and CTDs which are normal for an alpha/beta version and with completely disastrous lack of replay value. I just can't. I'd go crazy by the end of the first month, American Beauty or Fight Club job quitting scenes come to mind here. ;-)

But then again, maybe it's easier in scripted FPS than with Paradox games, where there's much less control of the environment and the game goes on on its own for many years, and each time the result is different. When you only have to make sure player goes from A to B without game crashing on him, and enemies jump out of C and D at the right time, maybe that's easier to work with than a long sandbox game where player can pick one of two hundred countries and play them in a million ways (typically entirely wrong ways, as proven by the "How to play Netherlands" threads in the EU3 forum) for a few centuries and then you have to ensure the board will be balanced, plausible and challenging throughout?
 
Paradox games and steamlined AAA titles are developed in a completely different way. I would guess that at least 75% of all content never makes it to the the final product in a AAA title. So what you see as a 10 h gameplay is at least 40 h gameplay, with 30 h that you will never see. You are not alone with that opinion though. The AI programmer for Syndicate said once on a friday beer "I don't understant you at the QA department... It's not like you are plaing the same game for 3 years... You are playing the same BROKEN game for 3 years!" :D

The thing about QA is not playing the game, though. It's breaking the game, being part of a creative process where you see your own and other ideas grow, reporting bugs, improving your own and other people routines, finding exploits and loopholes, writing documents and communicating issues to others... and everything else you can come up with to improve the quality of the game. So if anyone tells you that QA is dull because you are "playing the same game for 3 years" I dare to say that they have not been QA themselves... or they are not specially good at their work.

The better you are, the more time you will spend on improving the game instead of playing a broken game. I'm sure that this doesn't come to you as a surprise as you are one of our best Beta testers.

Saying that I have to admit that I indeed enjoy both playing and working with Paradox titles MUCH more than AAA titles. It was one of the major reasons why I quit my job at Starbreeze.
 
Well, I guess QA really depends on the environment you're working in and the project.
As long as you enjoy the project, it'll be nice to propose new stuff, changes, search for loops...

If you're on a project that you don't like, it will be a pain in the ass... it's true for games but also for any other projects and for QA as well as for the developpers... (right now I'm not overjoyed with my current project, that's why I'm here...)
 
Something tells me that AAA-title developers focus on what actually makes money, hence target audiences and focus groups are important.
The typical gamer these days isn't a kid, but rather a young adult. Your personal tastes are not the same as the tastes of the big mass of gamers, and that is fact. I can name quite a few mature, adult people that enjoy the games you label as "kiddie" games. It's a matter of personal preference, not age. A lot of games made by PI are way too complex and demanding for people to play, especially if one just wants to get home after a demanding day at your job, and relax by playing something online with friends.

If the general public wanted more complex and hardcore games (non-kiddie games) then Paradox Interactive and Firaxis would be AAA studios, and InfinityWard and DICE would not.

Frankly, I feel insulted by your elitist tone.
 
Will there be any new information about this game in the next 6 months at least? one would almost think that the information that got out for the Rock paper Shotgun article was a mistake:D
 
One thing is for sure, if you are ever going to make it, and need someone to complain that it's not true enough to the original, you can call me any time of day or night. :)
 
It's time for me to admit that I have been working on Syndicate for little over one year. During that time 33% of all bug reports came from me ;-)

After that I started at Paradox.

Was it Johan's strategic genius that led you over to the other side?
 
It's hard to not notice the increase of quality of Paradox games sort of coincides with your employment... And I really like this new strategy, AHD, CK2, Sengoku, all solid on release, no more forum rage, no more forum whine, no duds. I don't know how much it burdens Paradox financially (nor I think I should I be told), but from customer's perspective, I really appreciate this new approach.

In other news, Shams is looking for project managers via his Twitter account. Maybe for Cartel? :)
 
I don't have as much of a problem with all the FPSes today. A lot of them are really, really shitty. But that's because they're what's popular. They're the big thing, so people make a lot of them. And since they make so many of them, there's gonna be a lot of shitty ones. In the eighties and nineties there were a lot of shitty sidescrollers, a lot of shitty fighting games, now there are a lot of shitty FPSes. Because FPSes are the big thing. There's gonna be a lot of people making them.

If grand strategy in the style of Paradox games became the next big thing, there'd be a lot of shitty Paradox-style Grand Strategy games.

But there's always gonna be grand strategy, there's always gonna be adventure games or whatever it is that 'your' genre is. The smaller the genre, I think, the more likely there are to be good ones. People are gless likely to put them out as a cash-grab.

Whether Syndicate's horrible, amazing, or good-but-too-unlike-the-original, I don't know. I haven't played it. I'm yet to see an FPS I like. Not that FPses are all horrible, honestly. I used to love playing some PS2 James Bond game with my buddy Natty. We also played the Halo 2 Co-op campaign a couple times. But when it comes down to it, my genres are sports and grand strategery.
 
This sounds like it's going to be a strategy game just like the original Syndicate. Paradox really needs to get into the FPS market and make something like ArmA but have the same "good graphics" and learning curve as the AAA FPSes.