Constructive community anyone?

[Chengar Qordath]

That is exactly what happened here. At release, the devs clearly felt that the AI was alright, and whenever there's a forum post saying otherwise the devs would ask for a screenshot and save game about the issue, after many of these posts, the devs still asked for the same. Firstly, QC should have tested this and SEEN those problems, which weren't at all fringe cases before release, and secondly, after release, instead of admitting that the AI is broken, the devs hid behind this bearucratic wall. I think that most upsetting thing me and other players have with this game and the 'paradox model', is that day-one purchasers and preorderers are effectively beta-testers. And while it's true that talking about this won't help the situation much, I feel that if the devs/paradox executives came out and said something along the lines of 'We're sorry the product was so poor at launch, we pledge to solve all the significant problems within x months, and that as an apology for selling an unfinished game, we will give away x for free.' This will generate a lot of goodwill within the community and placate most of the playerbase. But instead of that, they're announcing two paid DLC's before the core game is even fixed, that's pretty much as big a slap in the face as you can get.

Yeah, much as I love Paradox games they really feel like they ought to be Early Access releases for the first year or so of their lifespan. People are usually far more tolerant of bugs and problems when there's proper acknowledgement that said issues exist and the dev team is working on them.

To be fair to Paradox, the ease of online patching and the DLC model has more and more companies going down the "Our players are beta testers" path. Paradox games are some of the only ones I consider buying at any time other than years after release when they're on sale.

 

[Balesir]

To be fair to Paradox, the ease of online patching and the DLC model has more and more companies going down the "Our players are beta testers" path. Paradox games are some of the only ones I consider buying at any time other than years after release when they're on sale.

I think you'll see this trend continue, and not just because of the ease of patching. The games themselves are getting so complex that unearthing all the quirks needs thousands of beta testers, not just dozens.

 

[Chengar Qordath]

I think you'll see this trend continue, and not just because of the ease of patching. The games themselves are getting so complex that unearthing all the quirks needs thousands of beta testers, not just dozens.

True, but at the same time the combination of the DLC model and easy patching has led to games generally having a far less stable core design. Because it's gotten so much easier to change things, game devs are far more likely to do so. Having recently gotten back into EU IV after not really playing it much since launch, the difference is pretty stunning even without any DLCs in play. Titles by other companies can have even bigger shifts over time.

I suspect that part of why games have gotten more complicated is the push to constantly add more features to fill out DLC. Each new EU IV DLC has to add a couple new subsystems and exclusive features to entice the buyers, and each of those new systems brings in new bugs and throws the game's balance out of whack. I don't know much about programming beyond some very basic modding skills, but I'd have to imagine it's hard to fix bugs when the code's changing all the time. Imagine how frustrated some poor programmer would be to spend months fixing up the Air Warfare AI code, just to find out the next DLC coming down the pipeline would completely change how air warfare worked.

 

[Gwydion5]

The reason that I think this is that, from contacts I have with the devs here on the forums and from the tweets etc. that they write, my impression is that they are well organised, have a good idea what their aims are and set about moving towards them in a rational and coordinated way.

For me, community engagement / marketing would not provide enough data or evidence to make an argument about the internals of projects being well coordinated or rational. In addition to understanding how a company functions, PR/Marketing is probably the least truthful data and evidence to use, since their purpose is to promote the good, and mitigate the bad. IE Fox News advertises itself as fair and balanced, but I wouldn't say that is true because they state it or believe it. Proof is in the pudding, and so you must look at what is rather than what is said / believed.

On the "game development is different to software development": the software angle - converting game mechanics into coding - will be pretty similar to other IT development, pretty clearly.

The point of my response is to demonstrate that software development and game software development are more similar than dissimilar. There are differences no doubt. But to say that those differences means you can't compare IT experience in software development projects to this seems a bit misplaced and not true.

It's not the development of the computerised game that is different - it's the actual underlying game design.

I think you would have to give an example of game design that is not comparable to general software development, for me to understand what you mean specifically. I mean, I get what your trying to say, I'm just having trouble seeing the importance of the distinction and where it's applicable in such a way as to be exclusive and relevant.

 

[lihp]

For me, community engagement / marketing would not provide enough data or evidence to make an argument about the internals of projects being well coordinated or rational. In addition to understanding how a company functions, PR/Marketing is probably the least truthful data and evidence to use, since their purpose is to promote the good, and mitigate the bad. IE Fox News advertises itself as fair and balanced, but I wouldn't say that is true because they state it or believe it. Proof is in the pudding, and so you must look at what is rather than what is said / believed.

You definitly can not know for sure. Still with some experience on people in this regard as well as the result and how it evolves, there is also a pattern. That pattern to me looks like a well coordinated and rational approach. Apart from that I actually do have a lil bit more insight, than only the forums.

The part of PR/Marketing people by you is misleading since he didnt refer to such statements, neither did I.

 

[lihp]

The point of my response is to demonstrate that software development and game software development are more similar than dissimilar. There are differences no doubt. But to say that those differences means you can't compare IT experience in software development projects to this seems a bit misplaced and not true.

Obviously already by the name: software development and game software development. Meaning game software development is a subset of software development. Its somehow irritating that discussion came up anyway on how those are "so" different. (not against you @Gwydion5 or @Balesir but against the original poster bringing that wild claim up)

 

[Balesir]

I suspect that part of why games have gotten more complicated is the push to constantly add more features to fill out DLC. Each new EU IV DLC has to add a couple new subsystems and exclusive features to entice the buyers, and each of those new systems brings in new bugs and throws the game's balance out of whack. I don't know much about programming beyond some very basic modding skills, but I'd have to imagine it's hard to fix bugs when the code's changing all the time. Imagine how frustrated some poor programmer would be to spend months fixing up the Air Warfare AI code, just to find out the next DLC coming down the pipeline would completely change how air warfare worked.

At this stage of the design, what I see from Paradox is that they have a forward plan for what they want to introduce as the basic systems get established. This is heartening, but it does introduce complications (for them), because they need to consider not only what changes and bug fixes will do in the current code base, but also how they will behave when the intended overlaid changes are introduced. I think you see that in the AI front /battle planner development, for example, and I think the movement blocks are an unintended development to help "tame" the AI, but that will need to be removed again later if other intended changes are to be achieved.

For me, community engagement / marketing would not provide enough data or evidence to make an argument about the internals of projects being well coordinated or rational. In addition to understanding how a company functions, PR/Marketing is probably the least truthful data and evidence to use, since their purpose is to promote the good, and mitigate the bad. IE Fox News advertises itself as fair and balanced, but I wouldn't say that is true because they state it or believe it. Proof is in the pudding, and so you must look at what is rather than what is said / believed.

You have to "read between the lines", obviously - marketing statements are often not a guide to anything, even though I think Paradox are generally as genuine in them as they can be. But if you read what the devs say they can do/can't do straightforwardly/intend to do/don't intend to do, a picture emerges of a clear "design vision" that is reasonably well communicated internally. Several replies to threads also show that there is a clear division of responsibilities and reasonably good communication between members of the dev team. All these are indications of internal coordination that cannot easily be faked (assuming someone even wanted to and saw a need to).

The point of my response is to demonstrate that software development and game software development are more similar than dissimilar. There are differences no doubt. But to say that those differences means you can't compare IT experience in software development projects to this seems a bit misplaced and not true.

Quite: I'm agreeing with you in this respect. The coding side of the project will be far more similar than dissimilar, I would expect.

I think you would have to give an example of game design that is not comparable to general software development, for me to understand what you mean specifically. I mean, I get what your trying to say, I'm just having trouble seeing the importance of the distinction and where it's applicable in such a way as to be exclusive and relevant.

This is the "functional design" side of the project. All IT projects have one, but they can be very dissimilar. I have worked on designs of software for business processes; I have also designed games. The two are totally dissimilar. The first deals with potential business scenarios, data correspondance with the real world, requirements of legislation and standards and a slew of other details. Game design deals with player decisions, game balance, reflections of theme and gameplay experience (quality of components, etc.).

If you want an example, take a board game from the shelf and analyse it. Consider the design decisions made during its creation. Ask why those decisions were made. Ask what alternatives there might be, and how they would change the game experience. We can discuss it here, if you like, but I have no idea what you might have access to, so me picking one really won't help. For instance - do you have a copy of Settlers of Catan?

 

[Gwydion5]

The part of PR/Marketing people by you is misleading since he didnt refer to such statements, neither did I.

I'm not sure how it is misleading. Forums, Twitter, etc... are all in the arena of Public Relations and Marketing. These things do not capture the internal discussions, processes, coordination, communication, decisions, etc... in terms of how projects are managed. So I just don't know how we can credibly say what it is or isn't without that information.

For instance - do you have a copy of Settlers of Catan?

I have played many board games and P&P games, including Settlers of Catan. So you can use that to demonstrate your point.

But if you read what the devs say they can do/can't do straightforwardly/intend to do/don't intend to do, a picture emerges of a clear "design vision" that is reasonably well communicated internally. Several replies to threads also show that there is a clear division of responsibilities and reasonably good communication between members of the dev team. All these are indications of internal coordination that cannot easily be faked (assuming someone even wanted to and saw a need to).

As I said above, the problem is that there are filters between internal and external communication that will not be the whole picture. Without knowing the internals, I don't see how we can make a judgement or speak to that. Look at it this way, how you speak/engage employees is totally different than how you speak/engage with customers. So I'm not sure how we can make a determination on something based on half the information necessary.

 

[lihp]

I'm not sure how it is misleading. Forums, Twitter, etc... are all in the arena of Public Relations and Marketing. These things do not capture the internal discussions, processes, coordination, communication, decisions, etc... in terms of how projects are managed. So I just don't know how we can credibly say what it is or isn't without that information.

Nah not really. Reading some marketing statement is different to SteelVolt demosntrating what he is currently working on or achieved and you still got the result ingame, where there are several optimizations one can observe.

 

[Axe99]

As I said above, the problem is that there are filters between internal and external communication that will not be the whole picture. Without knowing the internals, I don't see how we can make a judgement or speak to that. Look at it this way, how you speak/engage employees is totally different than how you speak/engage with customers. So I'm not sure how we can make a determination on something based on half the information necessary.

Only someone working within the building would actually know this (as even having insight to the 'developer' side of the forums (which may or may not exist, but I'd be surprised if it didn't) still wouldn't be a clear indication). That said, Paradox do get quite a lot achieved, and at a good pace (I know it feels like a long time between expansions for us, but from the perspective of 'getting things done', an expansion every 6 months from a core team of somewhere between 10 and 20 (another guess, but I think at least close) is actually a pretty good pace. Throw in the level of quality (and while people can argue complaints about the AI relative to WW2 are fair because it's a WW2 game, when we're looking at quality from a software perspective comparisons with other software are the most appropriate ones - and HoI4 scrubs up very well here) and Paradox would have to be doing very, very well to achieve what they do if they weren't run relatively well.

This, of course, should be interpreted in the context of humans not being particularly well adapted to operating in the kinds of organisations (or societies) that we do - evolution just doesn't move fast enough to keep up with how we organise ourselves (and health care, social safety nets and what-have-you aren't doing evolution any favours either, noting that I'm not suggesting health care and social safety nets are a bad thing ) - so there will always be 'inefficiencies' if we were benchmarking organisational performance to incredibly intelligent and capable robots who had been designed to work in such an environment, relative to creatures evolved from apes that have thrown themselves together in large, complex organisations before their brains were ready for it .

 

[Dalwin]

Yeah, much as I love Paradox games they really feel like they ought to be Early Access releases for the first year or so of their lifespan. People are usually far more tolerant of bugs and problems when there's proper acknowledgement that said issues exist and the dev team is working on them.

To be fair to Paradox, the ease of online patching and the DLC model has more and more companies going down the "Our players are beta testers" path. Paradox games are some of the only ones I consider buying at any time other than years after release when they're on sale.

I would say that one company that performs well in that pattern is Amplitude Studios. Both Endless Space and Endless Legend were well polished when they entered EA, but then quickly improved and had clear signs of how user feedback shaped the final product.

 

[C-Breeze]

While the plumbing is hard to fix when your building is built, you have to wonder why the plumbing is broken in the first place. Possibly after many people tried to warn against those issues the architect still went ahead with the faulty plumbing? Maybe the architect liked faulty plumbing? Or maybe the architect doesn't feel the plumbing is broken?

It's a fair question, and to be honest, I wish I knew the answer. Just between you and me, (no one else reads this right?) - I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during some of the early concept meetings. To this day I remain quite puzzled as to why you would choose to purposely design a game with no naval supply system and no secondary checks for things like local superiority, (to name but two glaring omissions). The aforementioned pesky little fly could have eavesdropped in on the rationale and boy, the stories he could tell.

Nevertheless, what's done is done and my lamenting it now isn't going to undo it. I've posted numerous times suggesting they go back and address some of these omissions, but 10 months down the road, they still appear to be MIA.

C'est la vie.

Sorry, I thought we were past that point for a long time...

Most readers of the forum should be by now aware that a fix isnt easy.

No need to be sorry.

You're probably correct in your assertion, it's just I'm no expert on what most readers think or know, so I tailored my remarks to reach as broad an audience as possible. Dare I say, you're likely far more qualified than I to judge the condition of most readers. Something I have little interest in doing.