HOI3 and Paradox Business Practice

[Vulture]

On a totally unrelated note... the game was shelved at 90$ in Australia?
Is that a normal game price over there? Holy mother of Christ...

EDIT: seems I got emu'ed *blush*

 

[Erebos]

$90 AUD = $77.5 USD / 53.5 Euro / 46.9 Pound / 3753 INR

Bloody hell. That is expensive.

 

[Vulture]

No. But you are apparently a poor reader. I suggest taking some English classes. Maybe you can find one with a focus on reading comprehension?

*sigh*

Come on. Stop it. No need to insult the man's intelligence. Hush hush, back to the question at hand

 

[Dale]

On a totally unrelated note... the game was shelved at 90$ in Australia?
Is that a normal game price over there? Holy mother of Christ...

Yes. Hence why we have a 7-day return policy, and 30-day return on faulty software.

Now you can understand why I'm so pissed off at holding a faulty product. Hmmm.... I may return this for Mario Party and Resort Sports on WII.

 

[unmerged(153642)]

A few piece of simple facts I think most will agree:

1. HOI3 is a rushed game on release - while being very ground breaking, close to conceptual I say, unfortunately it's so buggy, unable to deliver features that have been promised.

2. PI is devoted to fix their products with patch and patch - ARMA now still undergoing 1.3beta2 is the best testament of this.

3. The 1.2 patch is less than satissfactory - Very true, to certain extend (myself included) it's a big let down. The pre-release readme told us there are 400 lines of fixes, very promising. But erhh.... turn out some major bugs are just as bad as before(stormy weather, broken logistic, bad theatre AI, buggy production AI, to name a few).


Now let's anaylst the above facts. Considering 1) and 3), this raise a concern that something was quite wrong with the quality assurance of the game release and patch relase. PI could have done better, no argument over this.

While most believe HOI3 will eventually mature as we still strongly believe in 2), the damage is already done. It's hard to deny the cold feeling at the moment. I (and probably many of us too) held off any serious attempt on the game from mid-August until the highly expected 1.2. Now with 1.2 replacing 1.1c, the cycle repeats, the community just more disappointed.

Personally I know 1.3 will release to fix more bugs but at the same time the confidence is slowly eroding away. The memory of buggy sluggish gameplay over the few weekends is still haunting. I wish I had spend my quality time on some other stuff instead. I still have yet to start another serious 36GC campaign with 1.2.

P.S. In the locked post the OP mentioned, someone claimed to be beta-tester said PI ignored his(their) bug report to release the game. His statement was quickly refuted by mod as flat out lies and was banned as a result. I think it is this incident added fuel to the fire between OP and the mod. So now, gravity of the argument drifts from gaming experience to the manner of forum moderating - just what I observed, I might be wrong though.

 

[dhelmet99]

Paradox should have released the game to those who pre-ordered as a paid public beta a couple months before full release. This would satisfy those of us who know Paradox and are willing to pay for the privilege of beta-testing their games. From my observation it is mostly new forum members that are the most vocal complainers, and I believe that is because they did not know how Paradox operates. By waiting to fully release the game until it's a bit more polished (obviously a couple months isn't enough to get everything) the company will look much better to new customers and to reviewers. This is not an original idea, but I don't think it has been mentioned in this thread.

To some extent Paradox also reached for the stars with HOI3 and came up short. They could have further tweaked HOI2:Arma and kicked up the graphics, but instead chose to rebuild everything but the economic aspects from practically scratch. They also added the ambitious AI options, the complicated weather system, and the logistical system. The game is so complicated that it will be incredibly difficult to get the AI to a high level; it has to consider the huge number of provinces, how to supply its troops, keeping them in an appropriate hierarchy and what the weather is like. In retrospect I think it's clear that Paradox would have been better served by adding fewer aspects to the game, but leaving the option to add things later in an expansion.

 

[TheFlemishDuck]

Paradox is an absolutly fantastic company. You will never be dissapointed in them as long as you remember 1 crucial rule:

Buy all youre paradox games 6 to 9 months after release.

You will love them. Beautifull and stable games for a mere 10$. A hit every time. Ive known Paradox for near 10 years and this is how it always has been. Look at the list of Paradox games on this forum, about all of them had major flaws on release, sometimes almost unplayable, but now they are all great and enjoyable games, and cheap to pick up atm.

I wouldn't like paradox to dissapear neither. Enough great company's making games like these have vanished in the past. And Paradox is not a money machine neither, look at their year figure's, it's a company with at best a mariginal profit ratio, Johan will never get rich like that. The company can keep it's head above water, but just barely, the have to work hard and each of their products have to sell enough or they could easily get into trouble.

What Paradox IMO should do is reverse their pricing policy. As it is now they're products are getting better in time while also getting cheaper. That doesn't make that much sense. Id say; a new off the shelf Paradox game should cost 25$, but as it get's better with new patches then after a year it should hit about 50$ or more. Makes more sense to me.

 

[mlepkows]

On a totally unrelated note... the game was shelved at 90$ in Australia?
Is that a normal game price over there? Holy mother of Christ...

A few days ago I bought a local copy of HoI3 for 90PLN, which is the normal price for games around here. Curiously, that amounts to 22 Euro or 31.5 $ What's more, polish distributor was kind enough to implement a simple swith to allow me to play either polish or english language version.

Maciek

 

[RobbieE]

Paradox should have released the game to those who pre-ordered as a paid public beta a couple months before full release. This would satisfy those of us who know Paradox and are willing to pay for the privilege of beta-testing their games. From my observation it is mostly new forum members that are the most vocal complainers, and I believe that is because they did not know how Paradox operates. By waiting to fully release the game until it's a bit more polished (obviously a couple months isn't enough to get everything) the company will look much better to new customers and to reviewers. This is not an original idea, but I don't think it has been mentioned in this thread.

Euh, no... I only post because I had to register for the game. I have played many Paradox games and if I wanted to fill out all reg keys there would be at least 12 more. And I have been reading this forum for 10 years now. So in that perspective I am not a "new" guy.

"We were in the same pub but we never spoke al these years."

OH, and great work on the statistics!! Really made me reasses the composition of my divisions! (just to make my point a bit stronger)

 

[unmerged(134628)]

If this game only cost $40 I wouldn't mind waiting. However, in Australia it's hit the shelf at $90 (full big-title price).

As I've said before, for $90 it is not unreasonable to expect a product to work out of the box.

RRP $69.95
http://www.ebgames.com.au/pc/product.cfm?id=15435&refer=productsearch

That price will drop too before too long.

 

[mbabbs]

I think it's a little cheeky to publicly comment on a game made by another company and then to release a game that players universally describe as "unplayable".

However I have some faith in HOI3 being a playable and enjoyable game by 1.4.

Having said that I havent bought it yet, so what do I know eh !

 

[jju_57]

Wrong.

There are lots of problems with PI games. Just no point in bemoaning them.

If you have an actual bug, report it on the bug forum and get it fixed in the next patch. If you dont have an actual bug, but just dont like it, solve your problem by modding.

I have been modding since I bought the game. Obviously, I am changing things that I dont like. I just dont come on here and go "why is the OOB for Germany so stupidly constructed? I have to spend 15 minutes every new game fixing it. ARGH!" There is no point in that. I just fixed the OOB myself and now every new game doesnt begin with restructuring the OOB.

Complaining out in this forum is just for the sake of complaint, just to make yourself feel good, just to release your stress, just a result of your own anger management problems.

So please show me where in their advertisements ort box cover or anywhere where it states "May require extensive moddeling for it to be an workable game". You don't know anything about me and you assume to know what I can't or won't do.

I do change variables all the time. I have been trying to test the weather variables to get the game to work. But weather, supply, CTD's, AI production, puppets declaring war on you, bad spying, etc, etc etc are not things we should have to change ourselves. If I want a tank to be uber or weak so be it. But their stated goal (go back to developent diary if you don't believe me) was to have a 'realistic' weather engine not to mention the 'best and strongest AI' to date. Great goals but these are things PI should fix or better yet have been released in their product.

 

[RobbieE]

A few days ago I bought a local copy of HoI3 for 90PLN, which is the normal price for games around here. Curiously, that amounts to 22 Euro or 31.5 $ What's more, polish distributor was kind enough to implement a simple swith to allow me to play either polish or english language version.

Maciek

And now we can conclude that economics truly is an amazing thing! So how is your country doing on the Big Mac Index?

 

[unmerged(154518)]

Paradox should have released the game to those who pre-ordered as a paid public beta a couple months before full release. This would satisfy those of us who know Paradox and are willing to pay for the privilege of beta-testing their games.

That might actually work as a business model, especially for Paradox games. Paradox says "this is a beta! you can buy it now if you agree to beta for us", for a slightly reduced price, or perhaps an included t-shirt or something ("Pity me, I beta'd for Paradox"). They get a small cash infusion, with six months or so of rigorous beta tests from a bunch of crazed gamers who'll eagerly note every tiny little flaw in the game, and who'll send dozens of pages of spreadsheets with every bug report. They'll also get thousands of machines to improve their AI on.

It wouldn't work for most game companies, but it might work for Paradox.

 

[Cyprian]

The game runs fine on my system. Even before 1.2, it ran fine. Now it runs very fine. Nice and speedy during the pre-war years where there are fewer decisions to make.

I therefore assume that anyone who says the game is unplayable to them is one of the following:
1. A Liar
2. Using a hacked copy that is causing some kind of problem.
3. Too stupid to actually play the game, so the hard parts of the game appear to be bugs to them (for example, command structures).
4. Using a computer that has some kind of pre-existing problem like malware or poor drivers or just plain fubar.
5. Actual victim of a real bug, thus you should complain to the bug forum.

If the game is not unplayable to them, then no further complaints are really that valid to me. The game is moddable. You can change anything you dont like. Dont like the drift system? Set all drift variables to zero. Dont like the 6 month build time for airbases? Cut it to 3 months, or a day. Whatever you want.

And if you are too lazy to mod, then here's a quarter. Call someone who cares.

This is a seriously bad and unintelligent post. Some of us love WWII and have a life. I for example have 2 kids how about you? I have to take care of them. I have a wife that I love to spend time with. Gaming is a hobby to most of us. I dont know how old you are but maybe you have all this time to devote to the game. Great for you, but dont be so naive that everyone has all this time. Or they are just dumb, or they are lying. I cant stand it when people are so naive. So please stop. I have plenty of experience with the first 2 releases of this game. And I have been on the forums here for a long time looking at posts to learn and solve problems. There have been problems/bugs with every release, but what I have seen from this game has far exceeded anything I have seen on the other releases including the add-ons. So there must be some pretty significant things wrong still with this game. I believe there are and to me this game is unplayable at this point, because of the "lag" with clicking on stuff and the scrolling all over the place its annoying. Oh and I work 50 hours a week too.

 

[MicBass]

My humble opinion:

The game was and is still not ready for selling. Was Paradox aware? This cannot be said for sure so I won't say. If so, that would have been cheating. If not one can have huge doubt about their QA and their internal communication and I would assume they have presumed too far.

Small company? Then concentrate on one thing, but do it right.

Moddable? Great respect to everybody who contributes to save this game, be it bugreports, suggestions or mods. You are our hope atm. But mods should be a fine extra on top or to give some different taste for different players. Not for fixing a broken vanilla (or a broken 1.2).

IMO they have given away a lot of precious credit to a hell of a fanbase.

What can I do? Report bugs and never again buy a Paradox title that early.

 

[FenrisLokison]

Paradox is an absolutly fantastic company. You will never be dissapointed in them as long as you remember 1 crucial rule:

Buy all youre paradox games 6 to 9 months after release.

This.

Unfortunate gamers like me who can't wait and buy the first release of a paradox game must deal with the 6 to 9 months it take to perfect the games

it's so regular, it's almost like a mother nature's law

 

[unmerged(18239)]

HOI3 is a great idea released in pre-beta state to the un-suspecting public (none of the reviews told about the bugs, at least none that I saw)

You didn't read my preview(s)+AAR then?

While I agree with many of you on the bugs and problems with HOI3 I am not going to get a refund for three reasons:

1. I am having fun with HOI3 as it is atm, it is not perfect but it can be a lot of fun.
2. Paradox will fix this over time and I am not in a hurry
3. Mods will improve the game as well to everyones personal taste and sattisfaction

And, chapeu for Vulture for such a good job with such a difficult crowd.

 

[unmerged(156866)]

So please show me where in their advertisements ort box cover or anywhere where it states "May require extensive moddeling for it to be an workable game". You don't know anything about me and you assume to know what I can't or won't do.

I do change variables all the time. I have been trying to test the weather variables to get the game to work. But weather, supply, CTD's, AI production, puppets declaring war on you, bad spying, etc, etc etc are not things we should have to change ourselves. If I want a tank to be uber or weak so be it. But their stated goal (go back to developent diary if you don't believe me) was to have a 'realistic' weather engine not to mention the 'best and strongest AI' to date. Great goals but these are things PI should fix or better yet have been released in their product.

Did you not see my direction to go to the bug forum? If you have reported the bug, they are aware of the bug, and they are working on a patch to fix that bug; wait for the bug fix. I bet that it would take a lot less time to fix bugs if people would actually post detailed info on the bug's nature rather than come on here and just complain.

The game has been released for 1 month. It has the most complex interactions of any game I have ever seen. This is not just some hex wargame release by Matrix, this is a comprehensive WW2 simulation. They just released a patch that fixed tons and tons of problems & still you are dissatisfied. What will satisfy you? Perfection? Probably not.

 

[RELee]

I'm perfectly fine with both HOI3 and the Paradox business practice. In the six years that I've been playing Paradox games they were all released with bugs and Paradox has made a commendable effort to eliminate the bugs.

In the 25 years that I have been associated with the computer technology industry, I've yet to see any program, game or otherwise, that was bug-free. I've seen some doozies in what were supposed to be very professional business-related programs. Microsoft, Novell, Adobe, HP, and any other business in the industry you can name have been victim to the unexplainable bug.

I personally blame the clone PC market. Before that disaster got out, IBM had a nice lock on the PC market and all programs worked as expected, since the development platform was identical to the production platform.

But now I'm showing my age again.

I'm happy. I came into this with my eyes open and knew exactly what I was getting into. Before too long, HOI3 will be right up there with HOI2 and the other Paradox gems. In a few short years, HOI4 will be experiencing the exact same birthing pains.

New market idea for FredrikII...Pardox gaming PC's. Sell PC hardware to match the development platforms. Build your own, mark them up 50%, sell them to the non-technical players. Got bugs? Fix 'em with your very own Paradox-compatible hardware.