DDRJake as a Dev?

[Madbadger]

To Jake: Congratulations!
To Paradox: Also congratulations, and a very smart move.

As an old school wargamer (more than 40 years since I played my first one, and yes, that makes me feel old), I am generally not interested in game videos unless they are both entertain me and teach me something new. DDRJake's do both, and I was very relieved to hear that they will continue, now that he is working for Paradox.

To those who haven't watched his EU4 streams on twitch (they usually get posted to youtube somewhat later), he is always looking for edge cases, exploits, and unusual or outrageous new things to do. Many of the detailed strategies in his older videos will no longer work--because key mechanics tend to get patched out after he draws attention to them--but he always finds new ones, which is no doubt why Paradox decided he was a perfect fit for QA.

He is most famous for his world conquests as Ryukyu (I believe he has performed The Three Mountains achievement 3 times - once in EU3 and twice in EU4), but he doesn't rest on his laurels. He has a pleasant voice, a showman's instinct, and a storyteller's sense of timing. I've learned more about how poorly documented EU4 mechanics work and interact in practice from Jake's streams than any other source, because he always explains how the tricks work, afterwards.

I was particularly fond of the swindler's patter he imitated during the slow motion magic trick at the heart of "Quetzalcoatl Finance", the game where he got the 'Sunset Invasion' achievement. Whether he is eradicating Christianity as the Papal states(Sunshine Pope), making the HRE animist as Sweden (Brownskin), or just kicking back and culturally enriching the world in a new way (Basque in Glory), they are worth watching.

Check them out.

 

[Korsan82]

Congratulations, you've posted the single dumbest thing I've ever read on these forums! Have a cookie.

Excuse me, but what's so dumb about it? I'm referring to his claim that Paradox is a kind of indie sized game studio. I don't support that claim, so what's up with you and your personal insult here?

 

[Atris]

so DDRJAke will now be nerfing himself? thats like getting paid to punch yourself!

kidding ^^

congratulations!

 

[Wizzington]

the game is becoming less fun patch after patch. especially since they're balancing the game around multiplayer which drags down single player. (i play both single player and multiplayer and single player gameplay should always be the priority)

Weird how player numbers keep increasing. People sure must hate fun!

 

[Golladan]

When it comes down to it the tobacco refinery mission bug is a pretty low priority one to fix. Just because something is an easy fix doesn't mean that it'll get done fast. It still takes time to do, time they might think is better spent elsewhere.

So what changed in the last year that they finally fixed it now?

Just now, in over a year, they had enough time to fix it? And didn't have enough time to fix it for patch 1.9, which was specifically released to fix these kinds of bugs?

And if they had time to fix such a low priority bug, why didn't they also fix this one (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...on-to-annex-Berar-targets-Brabant-s-provinces) which I reported around the same time as my last bump to the refinery one, and is just as easy to fix? I guess these kinds of bugs need to be around for over a year before the developers can take enough time to fix them.

 

[jdrou]

Congrats!

To me, Wiz feels like a commoner as he was the authour for CK2+, a mod which he shared to the community here on the forums before joining Paradox. There was a time when each big thread issue with CK2 in the foum was oftenly responded by "CK2+ fixes it," or "go and play CK2+". Doomdark too was an old modder, by the way.

Also Captain Gars (was a modder under a different nickname) and more recently Trin Tragula. Several formerly volunteer moderators have also been brought in-house over the years.

 

[Reezy]

If you (or the person I was quoting) are genuinely offended by what I said, I really don't know what to say.

Try imagining what happens in reality when a human being says something like that to the face of another human being. You seem to be arguing that it wouldn't be considered offensive, which is objectively wrong and you know it.

 

[Sredit]

I don't think you are the right person to judge about what Paradox Dev Studios can afford - with all respect.

So they have a QA department, then we have these options:
1) QA does its job, Paradox doesnt listen -> Unprofessional
2) QA doesn't do its job, Paradox exclusively tests via multiplayer office games with 1 guy representing QA -> even more unprofessional
3) There is no QA -> unprofessional.

If Paradox wants to take on bigger projects they need to expand and get their stuff straight. If they don't do that EU5 will be again built on the very same faulty design and marketing approach as EU4 which I prefer to call EU3.5

I work in QA for a different game developer. There are obviously more than just the three options you've listed, but let me just tell you how QA generally works during the development process, to debunk a lot of the negative perceptions in this thread.

Ok, so we have a game, and the company determines that there is a market for additional content (DLC). So the developers need to create that additional content and add it to the base game. During the development process, QA will test basic functionality of the new features while they are being put together. It will be buggy as heck, but the goal is to get it up and running and in a semi-workable state. We expect there to be bugs... sometimes lots of bugs. Once the key criteria of the functionality works, then QA will bug all of the polish issues like alignment, wrong tooltips or whatever else makes it look unfinished, ad hocing around the feature to simulate a normal user experience.

Now, once all of the new features are added to the game, and all of the patch's main bug fixes are included, QA will run a checklist of key functionality FOR THE WHOLE GAME, including new features. Checks include things like:
[ ] User can declare war
[ ] Allies are correctly called to arms
[ ] Attrition is calculated properly
...etc, etc

Notice how I included a check for attrition, which as Arumba discovered after El Dorado was released, was completely broken. When someone from QA goes down the checklist, they would probably just check to see that units can take attrition. They don't check EVERY possible scenario involved with taking attrition, because the checklist would take forever if that was the case. The purpose of the checklist is to ensure that nothing is majorly messed up. Unit took attrition? Check, moving on. Unlike Arumba, they won't be sitting there for 8 hours with a calculator and spreadsheets deducing exact numbers and expectations from every angle. That's just unrealistic.

Bugs are often the knock-on results of other bug fixes or feature evolutions (such as making the disaster system more transparent). As we see from every patch, the EU4 devs fix a lot of bugs. Combined, there is a huge potential for small things to slip through the cracks; the slight changes here causing unwanted slight changes over there. No QA team on the planet could find everything that eventually pops up after release. Even the "bigger" issues. After one hour of release, the user base has already clocked on more man-hours than were put into the entire development cycle of the DLC/patch. And QA is only a fraction of that cycle.

Recall my explanation of the checklist earlier in this post. Notice that I said the checklist is only run AFTER the features are added and the old bugs are fixed. So the build is theoretically ready to be released at this point. The devs throw it to QA to check at the end of feature development. I don't know how release dates are determined at Paradox, but I suspect, like most companies, they are decided well in advance. Management tells the devs, "Hey, have all these features done by this date or we won't make any money". Then they tell QA "Hey, make sure this is ready to be shipped by this different date, or we won't make any money". QA takes the build after feature development ends, runs their checks, and every time they find something, tell the devs "Hey, this is broken, we need it fixed before our release deadline". The devs fix it and QA checks that it is fixed. Rinse, repeat.

Unfortunately, sometimes there just isn't enough time to fix everything. The queue of bugs will be too large to fix before the deadline. The major known issues get prioritized, and the minor ones will be fixed in the next patch or even hotfix.

The dev multiplayer sessions have their own usefullness. They simulate actual user experiences, where some of the more annoying issues can crop up. Simple checklists miss such issues, because they don't look at the game as a whole. The granularity of checklists hides bigger issues. I'm glad Paradox utilizes both.

Ultimately, from an outsider's QA perspective, I think a lot of the hate directed at Paradox after patches is unjustified. The devs are obviously engaged with their project. And the small QA team have an almost impossible task in ensuring the quality of a game which exists in a niche market with a massive feature complexity.

If anybody expects the patches to go smoothly, they're kidding themselves. I don't begrudge the developers for releasing when they do. It ensures new content comes out more regularly. Consumers-as-QA isn't ideal, but let's be realistic in this situation.

Bravo EUIV devs
Bravo EUIV QA

I know what it's like, and you are doing fantastic. Keep up the good work, and I look forward to what comes next

 

[kente]

I work in QA for a different game developer. There are obviously more than just the three options you've listed, but let me just tell you how QA generally works during the development process, to debunk a lot of the negative perceptions in this thread.

Ok, so we have a game, and the company determines that there is a market for additional content (DLC). So the developers need to create that additional content and add it to the base game. During the development process, QA will test basic functionality of the new features while they are being put together. It will be buggy as heck, but the goal is to get it up and running and in a semi-workable state. We expect there to be bugs... sometimes lots of bugs. Once the key criteria of the functionality works, then QA will bug all of the polish issues like alignment, wrong tooltips or whatever else makes it look unfinished, ad hocing around the feature to simulate a normal user experience.

Now, once all of the new features are added to the game, and all of the patch's main bug fixes are included, QA will run a checklist of key functionality FOR THE WHOLE GAME, including new features. Checks include things like:
[ ] User can declare war
[ ] Allies are correctly called to arms
[ ] Attrition is calculated properly
...etc, etc

Notice how I included a check for attrition, which as Arumba discovered after El Dorado was released, was completely broken. When someone from QA goes down the checklist, they would probably just check to see that units can take attrition. They don't check EVERY possible scenario involved with taking attrition, because the checklist would take forever if that was the case. The purpose of the checklist is to ensure that nothing is majorly messed up. Unit took attrition? Check, moving on. Unlike Arumba, they won't be sitting there for 8 hours with a calculator and spreadsheets deducing exact numbers and expectations from every angle. That's just unrealistic.

Bugs are often the knock-on results of other bug fixes or feature evolutions (such as making the disaster system more transparent). As we see from every patch, the EU4 devs fix a lot of bugs. Combined, there is a huge potential for small things to slip through the cracks; the slight changes here causing unwanted slight changes over there. No QA team on the planet could find everything that eventually pops up after release. Even the "bigger" issues. After one hour of release, the user base has already clocked on more man-hours than were put into the entire development cycle of the DLC/patch. And QA is only a fraction of that cycle.

Recall my explanation of the checklist earlier in this post. Notice that I said the checklist is only run AFTER the features are added and the old bugs are fixed. So the build is theoretically ready to be released at this point. The devs throw it to QA to check at the end of feature development. I don't know how release dates are determined at Paradox, but I suspect, like most companies, they are decided well in advance. Management tells the devs, "Hey, have all these features done by this date or we won't make any money". Then they tell QA "Hey, make sure this is ready to be shipped by this different date, or we won't make any money". QA takes the build after feature development ends, runs their checks, and every time they find something, tell the devs "Hey, this is broken, we need it fixed before our release deadline". The devs fix it and QA checks that it is fixed. Rinse, repeat.

Unfortunately, sometimes there just isn't enough time to fix everything. The queue of bugs will be too large to fix before the deadline. The major known issues get prioritized, and the minor ones will be fixed in the next patch or even hotfix.

The dev multiplayer sessions have their own usefullness. They simulate actual user experiences, where some of the more annoying issues can crop up. Simple checklists miss such issues, because they don't look at the game as a whole. The granularity of checklists hides bigger issues. I'm glad Paradox utilizes both.

Ultimately, from an outsider's QA perspective, I think a lot of the hate directed at Paradox after patches is unjustified. The devs are obviously engaged with their project. And the small QA team have an almost impossible task in ensuring the quality of a game which exists in a niche market with a massive feature complexity.

If anybody expects the patches to go smoothly, they're kidding themselves. I don't begrudge the developers for releasing when they do. It ensures new content comes out more regularly. Consumers-as-QA isn't ideal, but let's be realistic in this situation.

Bravo EUIV devs
Bravo EUIV QA

I know what it's like, and you are doing fantastic. Keep up the good work, and I look forward to what comes next

this is one the most interesting post i have read on this forum

 

[LanMisa]

I work in QA for a different game developer. There are obviously more than just the three options you've listed, but let me just tell you how QA generally works during the development process, to debunk a lot of the negative perceptions in this thread.

Ok, so we have a game, and the company determines that there is a market for additional content (DLC). So the developers need to create that additional content and add it to the base game. During the development process, QA will test basic functionality of the new features while they are being put together. It will be buggy as heck, but the goal is to get it up and running and in a semi-workable state. We expect there to be bugs... sometimes lots of bugs. Once the key criteria of the functionality works, then QA will bug all of the polish issues like alignment, wrong tooltips or whatever else makes it look unfinished, ad hocing around the feature to simulate a normal user experience.

Now, once all of the new features are added to the game, and all of the patch's main bug fixes are included, QA will run a checklist of key functionality FOR THE WHOLE GAME, including new features. Checks include things like:
[ ] User can declare war
[ ] Allies are correctly called to arms
[ ] Attrition is calculated properly
...etc, etc

Notice how I included a check for attrition, which as Arumba discovered after El Dorado was released, was completely broken. When someone from QA goes down the checklist, they would probably just check to see that units can take attrition. They don't check EVERY possible scenario involved with taking attrition, because the checklist would take forever if that was the case. The purpose of the checklist is to ensure that nothing is majorly messed up. Unit took attrition? Check, moving on. Unlike Arumba, they won't be sitting there for 8 hours with a calculator and spreadsheets deducing exact numbers and expectations from every angle. That's just unrealistic.

Bugs are often the knock-on results of other bug fixes or feature evolutions (such as making the disaster system more transparent). As we see from every patch, the EU4 devs fix a lot of bugs. Combined, there is a huge potential for small things to slip through the cracks; the slight changes here causing unwanted slight changes over there. No QA team on the planet could find everything that eventually pops up after release. Even the "bigger" issues. After one hour of release, the user base has already clocked on more man-hours than were put into the entire development cycle of the DLC/patch. And QA is only a fraction of that cycle.

Recall my explanation of the checklist earlier in this post. Notice that I said the checklist is only run AFTER the features are added and the old bugs are fixed. So the build is theoretically ready to be released at this point. The devs throw it to QA to check at the end of feature development. I don't know how release dates are determined at Paradox, but I suspect, like most companies, they are decided well in advance. Management tells the devs, "Hey, have all these features done by this date or we won't make any money". Then they tell QA "Hey, make sure this is ready to be shipped by this different date, or we won't make any money". QA takes the build after feature development ends, runs their checks, and every time they find something, tell the devs "Hey, this is broken, we need it fixed before our release deadline". The devs fix it and QA checks that it is fixed. Rinse, repeat.

Unfortunately, sometimes there just isn't enough time to fix everything. The queue of bugs will be too large to fix before the deadline. The major known issues get prioritized, and the minor ones will be fixed in the next patch or even hotfix.

The dev multiplayer sessions have their own usefullness. They simulate actual user experiences, where some of the more annoying issues can crop up. Simple checklists miss such issues, because they don't look at the game as a whole. The granularity of checklists hides bigger issues. I'm glad Paradox utilizes both.

Ultimately, from an outsider's QA perspective, I think a lot of the hate directed at Paradox after patches is unjustified. The devs are obviously engaged with their project. And the small QA team have an almost impossible task in ensuring the quality of a game which exists in a niche market with a massive feature complexity.

If anybody expects the patches to go smoothly, they're kidding themselves. I don't begrudge the developers for releasing when they do. It ensures new content comes out more regularly. Consumers-as-QA isn't ideal, but let's be realistic in this situation.

Bravo EUIV devs
Bravo EUIV QA

I know what it's like, and you are doing fantastic. Keep up the good work, and I look forward to what comes next

Thank you for your insight.

By the way, while it should be obvious: Jake wasn't offered this job. And it was not created for him. It was an open job offer and like any normal person he had to convince Paradox to hire him and not someone else.

 

[Wizzington]

I work in QA for a different game developer. There are obviously more than just the three options you've listed, but let me just tell you how QA generally works during the development process, to debunk a lot of the negative perceptions in this thread.

Ok, so we have a game, and the company determines that there is a market for additional content (DLC). So the developers need to create that additional content and add it to the base game. During the development process, QA will test basic functionality of the new features while they are being put together. It will be buggy as heck, but the goal is to get it up and running and in a semi-workable state. We expect there to be bugs... sometimes lots of bugs. Once the key criteria of the functionality works, then QA will bug all of the polish issues like alignment, wrong tooltips or whatever else makes it look unfinished, ad hocing around the feature to simulate a normal user experience.

Now, once all of the new features are added to the game, and all of the patch's main bug fixes are included, QA will run a checklist of key functionality FOR THE WHOLE GAME, including new features. Checks include things like:
[ ] User can declare war
[ ] Allies are correctly called to arms
[ ] Attrition is calculated properly
...etc, etc

Notice how I included a check for attrition, which as Arumba discovered after El Dorado was released, was completely broken. When someone from QA goes down the checklist, they would probably just check to see that units can take attrition. They don't check EVERY possible scenario involved with taking attrition, because the checklist would take forever if that was the case. The purpose of the checklist is to ensure that nothing is majorly messed up. Unit took attrition? Check, moving on. Unlike Arumba, they won't be sitting there for 8 hours with a calculator and spreadsheets deducing exact numbers and expectations from every angle. That's just unrealistic.

Bugs are often the knock-on results of other bug fixes or feature evolutions (such as making the disaster system more transparent). As we see from every patch, the EU4 devs fix a lot of bugs. Combined, there is a huge potential for small things to slip through the cracks; the slight changes here causing unwanted slight changes over there. No QA team on the planet could find everything that eventually pops up after release. Even the "bigger" issues. After one hour of release, the user base has already clocked on more man-hours than were put into the entire development cycle of the DLC/patch. And QA is only a fraction of that cycle.

Recall my explanation of the checklist earlier in this post. Notice that I said the checklist is only run AFTER the features are added and the old bugs are fixed. So the build is theoretically ready to be released at this point. The devs throw it to QA to check at the end of feature development. I don't know how release dates are determined at Paradox, but I suspect, like most companies, they are decided well in advance. Management tells the devs, "Hey, have all these features done by this date or we won't make any money". Then they tell QA "Hey, make sure this is ready to be shipped by this different date, or we won't make any money". QA takes the build after feature development ends, runs their checks, and every time they find something, tell the devs "Hey, this is broken, we need it fixed before our release deadline". The devs fix it and QA checks that it is fixed. Rinse, repeat.

Unfortunately, sometimes there just isn't enough time to fix everything. The queue of bugs will be too large to fix before the deadline. The major known issues get prioritized, and the minor ones will be fixed in the next patch or even hotfix.

The dev multiplayer sessions have their own usefullness. They simulate actual user experiences, where some of the more annoying issues can crop up. Simple checklists miss such issues, because they don't look at the game as a whole. The granularity of checklists hides bigger issues. I'm glad Paradox utilizes both.

Ultimately, from an outsider's QA perspective, I think a lot of the hate directed at Paradox after patches is unjustified. The devs are obviously engaged with their project. And the small QA team have an almost impossible task in ensuring the quality of a game which exists in a niche market with a massive feature complexity.

If anybody expects the patches to go smoothly, they're kidding themselves. I don't begrudge the developers for releasing when they do. It ensures new content comes out more regularly. Consumers-as-QA isn't ideal, but let's be realistic in this situation.

Bravo EUIV devs
Bravo EUIV QA

I know what it's like, and you are doing fantastic. Keep up the good work, and I look forward to what comes next

I will just quote this post to say that it's a very good post and gets most things right in terms of the realities of game development and QA. Thank you.

 

[Promanco]

Weird how player numbers keep increasing. People sure must hate fun!

Am I the only one who enjoys when Wiz gets sassy? lol

 

[unmerged(243999)]

Am I the only one who enjoys when Wiz gets sassy? lol

Nope.
Last time, it's what reminded me Guns Drums and Steel2 was out and I needed to give Paradox more money. XD

 

[zedyue]

Am I the only one who enjoys when Wiz gets sassy? lol

I'd like it more if the sass didn't sound unreasoned, incorrectly reasoned, or nested in a fallacy.
You can get all the new players you want but that has nothing to do with whether or not that other guy is right with the single vs multiplayer argument (Which I don't care about because the devs have stated they are going to do what they want in regards to multiplayer so the single vs multiplayer argument isn't actually relevant to much; I just dislike bad arguments because I have no life)

 

[Wizzington]

I'd like it more if the sass didn't sound unreasoned, incorrectly reasoned, or nested in a fallacy.
You can get all the new players you want but that has nothing to do with whether or not that other guy is right with the single vs multiplayer argument (Which I don't care about because the devs have stated they are going to do what they want in regards to multiplayer so the single vs multiplayer argument isn't actually relevant to much; I just dislike bad arguments because I have no life)

No worries, the 'balanced for MP' argument is just as rubbish as 'EU4 is patching out all the fun'.

 

[Soulstrider]

Congrats DDRJake

Also on this thread, people telling me all the fun I have been having playing SP EU4 is false, thanks for informing me.

 

[TheChronoMaster]

I'd like it more if the sass didn't sound unreasoned, incorrectly reasoned, or nested in a fallacy.
You can get all the new players you want but that has nothing to do with whether or not that other guy is right with the single vs multiplayer argument (Which I don't care about because the devs have stated they are going to do what they want in regards to multiplayer so the single vs multiplayer argument isn't actually relevant to much; I just dislike bad arguments because I have no life)

The arguement he was responding to was 'the game gets worse every patch', as a statement of fact.

He responded with 'player numbers are increasing'.

The implication there is that the former is one (or both) of two things:

1) Irrelevant, as 'good' does not mean 'profitable'.
2) Wrong, as people will play things they consider 'good'.


It's also worth noting that multiple devs have said multiple times that the primary balance work for the game, including breaking new ideas and testing, is done in SP, with office multiplayer being supplemental. But that gets ignored ALL THE TIME, because it's not convenient to the narrative that certain people want to make for themselves.

 

[Karnak]

Weird how player numbers keep increasing. People sure must hate fun!

I keep paying for your stuff, but i keep not playing since things never work the way they are supposed to.

 

[TheChronoMaster]

I keep paying for your stuff, but i keep not playing since things never work the way they are supposed to.

He said player numbers, not buyer numbers, and we know from past experience that Paradox has access to metrics of how many people play the game at any given time, on any given patch. I'd assume he means the number of people who actually play regularly is increasing.

 

[Soulstrider]

I keep paying for your stuff, but i keep not playing since things never work the way they are supposed to.

That sentence doesn't even make sense, if you are not playing then you don't count in the statistics. If you keep paying and not liking it then you have either issues or way too much disposable income.