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Dev Diary #108: Dev Diary Scheduling & Community Activities

Greetings!

It’s been (almost) two weeks since the release of Friends & Foes, and the sheer amount of reactions and feedback to it and the accompanying Bastion Update has been fantastic to see! From the many emergent stories that have been posted around the Internet (one about a peasant crush ascending to the position of councilor and subsequently being murdered by a noble out of spite comes to mind) to the impressive screenshots of vast Mongol Empires and powerful AI realms - it’s great to see how many of you returned to the game and think that it got a breath of new life. In fact, despite the smaller size of this update, more of you came back to the game and ran a longer campaign than ever before!

Of course, if you’re experiencing any issues, pop over to the Bug Forums and report them: Link
As of the newly released 1.7.1, we’ve concluded the planned updates for this release, though if something significant appears, we’ll look into fixing it before the next update.

As for the future, we’re hard at work on upcoming content, and we’ve been for quite some time. Previously we’ve explained that we run our projects in parallel - what we’re working on in the Stockholm studio has been in the works since before Friends & Foes (but it’s bound to take some time yet, do not expect anything too soon). Our sister studio in Thalassic is also hard at work heading up the work on upcoming content and updates, this too in parallel with work in Stockholm. While we can say that Friends & Foes was the last paid content of the year, we’re hoping to have another smaller free update out before the year is over (no ETA for now). Additional clues about what we’re working on might appear over the next few months…

A change we want to make going forward is to be more transparent with our Dev Diary schedule. We don’t want to post so-called ‘filler’ Dev Diaries, and with the cycles being longer between updates we instead want to use this time for other kinds of activities with the community. For the sake of full transparency, for smaller updates (such as free patches or event packs) we’ll have at most two Dev Diaries. For larger updates (such as Flavor Packs) we’ll have around four, while Expansions will have roughly 2-4 months' worth of Dev Diaries.

So what will we do instead? A variety of things - we might have Discord AMA’s, hangout streams with Devs, or sometimes we might post a Dev Diary about something not related to an update - for example, about how we work or plans we have for the future.

If you want to partake in some of this, here’s where you can find us:

Discord: Chat with your fellow Community members, staff members, Modders, and other Content Creators. Also a perfect place if you want tips or a game to join!

Twitch: We stream weekly and go through all the latest and greatest content that we have. This is also a great place to chat with others and ask questions of our team.

YouTube: If you haven’t happened to catch our Streams or just want to see a collection of all our videos, this is your one stop shop for all Crusader Kings III official videos.

Twitter: Our latest and greatest spot for news and interaction with our Community. We are always online, as they always say. Feel free to follow us and see what we have going on from day to day.

Facebook: Just a nice relaxed place to hang out and socialize with our Community and see what everyone is up to.

Reddit: If Facebook isn’t your speed, we also have a great resource in Reddit for conversations and more detailed threads regarding the game and any questions you might possibly have.

Steam Workshop: While we do not control the content of Steam Workshop, it does contain a great number of highly interesting and resourceful Mods from our Community and has a ton of troubleshooting and technical information.
 
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Of course, if you’re experiencing any issues, pop over to the Bug Forums and report them: Link
As of the newly released 1.7.1, we’ve concluded the planned updates for this release, though if something significant appears, we’ll look into fixing it before the next update.

Something significant? Like a bug that leads to "Game Over" in your ironman-playthrough, although you still have several legitimate heirs?

I really don't want to be mean, but it really would have been better if you skipped DD again, for another bug-fixing-patch this week.
 
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A change we want to make going forward is to be more transparent with our Dev Diary schedule. We don’t want to post so-called ‘filler’ Dev Diaries, and with the cycles being longer between updates we instead want to use this time for other kinds of activities with the community. For the sake of full transparency, for smaller updates (such as free patches or event packs) we’ll have at most two Dev Diaries. For larger updates (such as Flavor Packs) we’ll have around four, while Expansions will have roughly 2-4 months' worth of Dev Diaries.
Sorry if this was already anounced somewhere, but am I reading right that dlcs will be more diversified in terms of making dificulty?
...
1) event packs (mainly text things to fill the game)
2) flavor packs (includes textures and 3d object pain)
3) expansions (full on mechanic additions or overhauls)
 
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As of the newly released 1.7.1, we’ve concluded the planned updates for this release, though if something significant appears, we’ll look into fixing it before the next update.

Oh well, kinda hoped for 1.7.2 to address a few more bugs like "empty messages" and maybe add some more memories.

what we’re working on in the Stockholm studio has been in the works since before Friends & Foes (but it’s bound to take some time yet, do not expect anything too soon). Our sister studio in Thalassic is also hard at work heading up the work on upcoming content and updates, this too in parallel with work in Stockholm.

How about some small tease for now? ;)

For the sake of full transparency, for smaller updates (such as free patches or event packs) we’ll have at most two Dev Diaries.
Can we make it three? Or do you count "patch notes release Dev Diary" as not Dev Diary?
 
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Is it implies no dairy for a few weeks until it will be two weeks ahead of a minor update planned for this year or a few months ahead of a bigger one? A lot of pieces of information, but no clarity about the schedule. Especially given that two studios are working on things in parallel.

I guess the schedule is that eventually, we might see a diary, maybe on one of the 14 Tuesdays left this year. And once we see it we need to estimate how big what it talking about is and go back to try to crack this riddle.
 
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Yeah. My Guess was that there will be a Major Pack in Q1 2023. But I guess there will be smaller or no Dev Diaries until it can be announced in one to two months.
 
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Intrigued as to what exactly is going to be in this free update.
 
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I appreciate the improved communication.
Did i understand correctly that we will have no dev diaries until we get close to the update that is supposed to come later this year?
That'd be unfortunate, because i really like dev diaries, but i get that they take some time to put together and you want to have something concrete to show for it.

Note:
In the summer break the Stellaris team decided to use some (normally skipped) dev diaries by talking about their in-progress experimental rebalancing of content.
While certainly not as brimming with new information or content, those have been received quite well by the community.
It got a lot of feedback and ideas to rebalance relics so they are more useful for more types of player empires, while still being strongly themed.
I personally would classify those types of dev diaries as successes, too. I like seeing a bit behind the scenes with unfinished content.
 
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A bit disappointed there will be no 1.7.2. I'd like to see a create head of religion fix, considering the bug was introduced back in 1.6.0 (and one of the bug tickets literally has someone posting exactly what code to change.) Prioritizing big crashing bugs is important, but polish matters too.
 
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After critique on communication over the last month or so regarding the pricing announcement and lack of clarity on future content, the response is… we will be reducing Dev Diaries, but don’t worry we can have a hangout session on Discord ‍♂️

Takeaways… no further DLC for the year and less frequent communication headed your way.
 
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While we can say that Friends & Foes was the last paid content of the year
Damn, content for the game is so painfully slow.

No pressure for the team, but either the next year/expansion is amazing or I see the game hemorrhaging players and being abandoned in another 2-3 years.
 
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No more paid content this year.. and Friends & Foes was a passion project?
So.. there is no more until 2023 except a small patch?
The passion project as PDX said was an extra that wasn't part of their plan etc, cool, but that means there was only planned one flavour pack this year alongside one expansion.

That makes one flavour pack a year, and so far an expansion pack every third year.. I know I know it won't be exactly like that but:

CK3 released in 2020
Northern Lords released in 2021
Royal Court expansion and Iberia flavour pack released in 2022

So that makes it plausible to believe that:
2023= one flavour pack early that year and maybe one more late that year.
2024= expansion release about three months in(march)
2025= very early release of flavour pack and one more released about 8 months in maybe
2026= third expansion released in spring
2027= flavour pack in February and maybe one more in September..

I'm going off the rails here but.. it's just so little for so much waiting..

Edit: this is me trying to guess optimistically
 
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