Another point: "We're spoiled"
This dev diary in between launches thing is relatively new all around. EU4 started it first and only recently, CK2 is dabbling in it now. I don't think it's a sign of anything specifically.
How many other dev studios would get fan responses of "Is this game dead?" every time they post ("too little") information?
Thank you for the DD and reveal of the redesign.
No. DD's on a regular basis is not a newly used devise - and your question at the end is farcically posed. We as a community are no more "spoiled" than Paradox as a developer is "spoiled". The relationship between the community and the studio may be unique or have unique elements to it that others do not share but this does not equate to being "spoiled".
The DD as a communication tool has been regularly used throughout Paradox's history. Some developers use it more and have more experience in using it than others.
What is new and what every community member should appreciate is the commitment of this current CK2 team to this devise. Some people have a harder time communicating this way than others.
There are things that I dislike (such as the re-emergence of deference to the EUiv flagship in marketing etc shown recently) but I am very thankful this DD deployment effort is in effect. This type of effort only grows more important as the game and its community matures, something I've been saying since I first started speaking up here.
One immediate player benefit would be that we could have scalable font sizes, instead of having to squint to read the text or use mods for larger font sizes.I believe that CKII, along with other Clausewitz games, handles fonts in an antiquated way. It does not use the operating system's normal on-the-fly creation of glyphs. Instead certain glyphs (selected according to Windows-1252, originally the character set for Windows 1.0!) have been saved as bitmaps, and PDX then use custom code to build them into words. Adding another font would presumably mean checking all the code (including any ugly hacks) still worked as intended, so it's not straightforward.
IMHO, 21st century font handling should be a priority for all future Paradox games (starting from HoI4 and Stellaris), but it's an under-the-hood change that will involve lots of developer time for little immediate player benefit. I can understand the temptation to focus on other things that look good in the next dev diary.....
One immediate player benefit would be that we could have scalable font sizes, instead of having to squint to read the text or use mods for larger font sizes.
I think you are missing the point, these things are for free, you don't pay any money to get them.interfaces improvements are great, but not worthy of my money... I hope newt Dev goes further into real changes
Could we get the old elective mechanics back, please?