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Londinium

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They (PDX) are more interested in porting their games to consoles than creating good grand strategy games these days. Just look at the CK3 forum.... that is why they are having such a slow development cycle and don't do anything really innovative and add buttons mostly....so they can port it to console!

Chasing New Audiences and profits over catering to a niche fanbase... but that is capitalism and would probably happen eventually.

They decided IR wasn't salvageable (console portable) and did just enough to mollify the diehard niche IR fans and the game went the way of Sengoku and March of Eagles.

That is my opinion and you are free to disagree.

The CKIII port was outsourced to another studio. Of course that doesn't explain why CKIII development has been glacial and the most recent major DLC was massively overpriced in a slightly worrying development for Paradox DLC but I doubt PDS were utilising massive resources for the console port. Most likely just answering questions about the codebase when/if needed.
 
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The only thing i would argue, is what IR is a finished, well rounded game. That was done with Marius update. It has so much potential, which will likely never be realized.. but it is a very well rounded and finished game, as it stands now.
Completely agree. The Imperator team did a great job with the Marius update - it did have so much potential.
 
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They (PDX) are more interested in porting their games to consoles than creating good grand strategy games these days. Just look at the CK3 forum.... that is why they are having such a slow development cycle and don't do anything really innovative and add buttons mostly....so they can port it to console!
Can’t speak for CK3 since I don’t follow that (and don’t want to, until a naval system gets implemented), but Stellaris is ported by a third-party studio and doesn’t seem to be spending developer hours, only bringing in some extra cash.
 
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Maybe we could try this.

Instead of us asking to risk the costs and time to do it for us, we work at creating the conditions to make it worth their while to do it.

Get out there and preach it. Talk it up. Get more players. Get more buyers of the game and DLCs. Do our part to prove to the devs that it's worth the investment to put work into the game again.
Thing is, for a lot of people, the game not being under active development is a no-go. They won't spend money and time learning a game that won't evolve anymore, especially with gamers already acustomed to PDX games and their policy of constant rework and new game mechanics. And PDX won't invest time and money neither considering the current player base. This is a vicious circle
And it saddens me a lot, because I:R is currently my favorite PDX game in their roster
 
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Lamisatr

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The update was almost a a year ago when they said they were "pausing" :D development of the game. If you couldn't read through the lines or the corporate BS then I don't know what to tell you.

The game wasn't going to make any money going forward because of the tiny player base, but it's better optics to say "pausing" rather than "ending".

I'm a fan of the game and currently playing Invictus mod. But thinking PDS are going to come back and do anything substantantive at this point is just delusional, it is just not how corporations operate.
 
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Lamisatr

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Maybe we could try this.

Instead of us asking to risk the costs and time to do it for us, we work at creating the conditions to make it worth their while to do it.

Get out there and preach it. Talk it up. Get more players. Get more buyers of the game and DLCs. Do our part to prove to the devs that it's worth the investment to put work into the game again.

Already been tried. But the core of CC's and players who loved the game when it is was still under development was far too small to make a difference. ya think that core player-base is any larger now?

This community has done and did do everything imaginable and more to help out this game, in the end PDX didn't care what we did, how we tried to help or anything else and they killed it solely for financial reasons.

That's all there is to it.

If you want to help this game, go and help out the Invictus mod, join that community, make suggestions etc because PDX are not coming back to this game.
 
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The game wasn't going to make any money going forward because of the tiny player base, but it's better optics to say "pausing" rather than "ending".
Officially the game has been put on hold due to lack of personnel. If, as you say, paradox has in fact said the end of the development of the game: Paradox has therefore LIED to us. Should you still trust a company that lies to its customers? The answer is no. If paradox wants to stop the development of the game definitively, all they have to do is say so, instead of hiding.
 
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Imho PDX does not have much to win by saying "pausing" rather than "ending". To save face or whatever for one year? Even when they said we are pausing they still faced a backlash and even higher negative reviews than usual. I think that if they indeed were sure that they would stop development at the time they could at least make some final bug fixing pack and fully open the game to moders plus be 100% clear to the game's small playerbase.
Indeed as time progresses chances that they are going to return to the game are becoming slimmer. 2022 has come and shortly we will be reaching one year since the announcement of the pause if I am not mistaken. Maybe things just didn't go well with rebuilding a team.
It is unfortunate but I still enjoy both the vanilla game and Invictus mode.

@Arheo @Snow Crystal @Trin Tragula
Being part of the old Imperator team please kindly inform the responsible colleagues that any feedback would be welcomed from our side.

I wish you all a happy Easter!!! :)
 
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Officially the game has been put on hold due to lack of personnel.
I already forgot what was the reason why they stopped the development and if they "paused" the game due to lack of staff then I rather think they would rather finish one or the other game finally. In contrast to a game that is developed from the beginning, you don't need a huge team to further develop an existing game, so for me there is a chance of getting a small team for Imperator: Rome if one or the other game is released and successful

I'll say it a thousand times and just because I'm optimistic I'll say it again: I'm still optimistic that they will come back :3
 
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I don't think it's lack of personnel. A single dev could work on the most egregious bugs, and a single QA could ensure the quality of the release (or at least whether it fixes what it's supposed to).
 
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I don't think it's lack of personnel. A single dev could work on the most egregious bugs, and a single QA could ensure the quality of the release (or at least whether it fixes what it's supposed to).

I work in wealth management and understand the pressure Paradox is under currently. They REALLY want Vicky 3 to launch well and give them a positive story to sell for going forward. Paradox is viewed as a growth firm, correctly or not, and so, something good after multiple disasters or near disasters would be huge for them. This is why even having a single dev on Imperator right now seems "too much".

I'm sure their goal at Paradox is to avoid ending in the death-spiral like for example Funcom did, where they end up being bought by a massive firm like Tencent and become just an insignificant division which could end up closed if it had the last 24 months happen for example.

I offered to buy 1,000 copies of Imperator:Rome on Steam and distribute them to people I know like ancient world games, if they'd restart development in 2022. Lets see what they do. The fact that they didn't even respond to me suggests perhaps they don't think I'm entirely serious, but I am.

I've been around Paradox since HoI (the first one). I always appreciated the firm's support of its products, way back when patching wasn't much of a thing. I'm going to be honest though, I'm bored with EU IV, thought they should have fleshed HoI III out better instead of moving on to Hoi IV, am not excited for any of the CK games, but the prospect of Imperator and perhaps a game that starts with chalcolithic migrations and ends in the late bronze age where iron-using Sea Peoples wipe out most of the Mediterranean civilizations? Yeah, thats the stuff I want. Alas......

Although I have been a shareholder of Paradox since the IPO and made plenty of money on it, I'm not happy to have lost the pre-IPO firm, and it feels like I have. But, when Vicky is done (and I am at least mildly excited about it), Imperator will have a chance to be resumed or ditched then.
 
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They decided IR wasn't salvageable (console portable)
This is a very good point.

I:R wasn't built ready for console portability like CK3 and Vicky3 are, it seems. And the infamous initial launch and following months put off enough of the originally large playerbase that Imperator wasn't going to get an expensive third party conversion into a console port like Stellaris did.

And since their recent target audience is the mass market and profit-oriented fast gamers (rather than loyal players and immersion-oriented roleplayers). Combine that with DLCs that didn't sell that well (in comparison to say CK2 DLCs) even after game revived itself with 2.0 because they didn't really bring much actual content (mission trees and modifier monuments lol) and numerous issues being left unfixed in every patch since release, it was inevitable that this game would be scrapped.

So much wasted potential for such a revered time period and game theme. They could've at least not used the corporate PR speak, and told us if Imperator Rome 2 would be planned in the next 8-10 years, so people could move on in peace. Kinda like what CA did when they scrapped Total War 3 Kingdoms - really bad idea but they were at least honest about it.

I wonder what is going on in the company. At least Victoria 3 is going to be good, same with CK3.
 
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Last week, PDX interactive released their annual report that I recommend everyone to read it here https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/...tive-ab-publ-publishes-annual-report-for-2021

In page 19, PDS studio lists Imperator explicity as a game developed not in development though.

1650047371464.png


I want to believe that there was a problem of staff and you cannot put anyone to develop the game. It requires a team that love the game and want to grow with it, adding to the problem of staff.

About the low numbers of players, If possible, I would compromise for less updates and expansions in comparison with their other games.

But for now, as they said last time, they do not have anything to show us yet.
 
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I work in wealth management and understand the pressure Paradox is under currently. They REALLY want Vicky 3 to launch well and give them a positive story to sell for going forward. Paradox is viewed as a growth firm, correctly or not, and so, something good after multiple disasters or near disasters would be huge for them. This is why even having a single dev on Imperator right now seems "too much".

I'm sure their goal at Paradox is to avoid ending in the death-spiral like for example Funcom did, where they end up being bought by a massive firm like Tencent and become just an insignificant division which could end up closed if it had the last 24 months happen for example.

I offered to buy 1,000 copies of Imperator:Rome on Steam and distribute them to people I know like ancient world games, if they'd restart development in 2022. Lets see what they do. The fact that they didn't even respond to me suggests perhaps they don't think I'm entirely serious, but I am.

I've been around Paradox since HoI (the first one). I always appreciated the firm's support of its products, way back when patching wasn't much of a thing. I'm going to be honest though, I'm bored with EU IV, thought they should have fleshed HoI III out better instead of moving on to Hoi IV, am not excited for any of the CK games, but the prospect of Imperator and perhaps a game that starts with chalcolithic migrations and ends in the late bronze age where iron-using Sea Peoples wipe out most of the Mediterranean civilizations? Yeah, thats the stuff I want. Alas......

Although I have been a shareholder of Paradox since the IPO and made plenty of money on it, I'm not happy to have lost the pre-IPO firm, and it feels like I have. But, when Vicky is done (and I am at least mildly excited about it), Imperator will have a chance to be resumed or ditched then.
The goodwill, and good press one could get by having just a single person working on older titles, occasionally patching something seems very very high. At such a low cost. Especially with a community like this, with a long loyal "historian" fan base that will play and interact with the games for many many years.

We once got a "private" patch for victoria 2 by some devs. Why not do that again? It's such an easy cheap win. Especially in this corporate drone age. It would suit paradox perfect, well at least the paradox we knew some years ago.

Yeah yeah I'm naive and I don't know how the world works, but I refuse to accept that something like this shouldn't and can't happen. Guild wars 1 recently did something somewhat similar and picked up some steam. I'm sure I've read about older games getting support too. There has to be something else than faceless we support case x and y to sell more copies corporate crap. Paradox is not quite there though but it's rather grim.
 
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The goodwill, and good press one could get by having just a single person working on older titles, occasionally patching something seems very very high. At such a low cost. Especially with a community like this, with a long loyal "historian" fan base that will play and interact with the games for many many years.

We once got a "private" patch for victoria 2 by some devs. Why not do that again? It's such an easy cheap win. Especially in this corporate drone age. It would suit paradox perfect, well at least the paradox we knew some years ago.

Yeah yeah I'm naive and I don't know how the world works, but I refuse to accept that something like this shouldn't and can't happen. Guild wars 1 recently did something somewhat similar and picked up some steam. I'm sure I've read about older games getting support too. There has to be something else than faceless we support case x and y to sell more copies corporate crap. Paradox is not quite there though but it's rather grim.
I mean, I ended with being sad to have seemingly lost the Paradox of my 20s. I agree with everything you're saying. Maybe if we stomp loudly enough, someone will make it happen at Paradox?
 
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Will Steel

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The goodwill, and good press one could get by having just a single person working on older titles, occasionally patching something seems very very high. At such a low cost. Especially with a community like this, with a long loyal "historian" fan base that will play and interact with the games for many many years.

We once got a "private" patch for victoria 2 by some devs. Why not do that again? It's such an easy cheap win. Especially in this corporate drone age. It would suit paradox perfect, well at least the paradox we knew some years ago.

This is a great point.

To give example of a similar game who went through a similar ordeal, but was revived by a small but engaged team -

Total War Rome 2 (2013) - it had one of the most terrible launches in the history of gaming, and game's bad design and wonky features resulted in slow death of the community and modding (and affected sales of their other games) over the next few years. Patches and DLCs came in, were fixed and things were "stable and playable" like they should be, but extremely boring not enjoyable (hint hint). Fewer and fewer people were playing it every month.

The game was essentially dead by late 2015 as people moved on to Total War Attila (or went back to older games).

Then in 2017, a small new team under another director picked the game up, and it seems they did it out of passion and fun more than anything else. They usually listened to suggestions, began adding many features that the community had requested for half a decade, and also added back many features missing in comparison to older games.

The result was phenomenal - Rome 2 Total War practically rose from the ashes, the community reappeared, modding restarted full scale and is still going strong, and it has become one of the best selling (and most played) Total War games ever. They even made new DLCs and those too sold well. Even if it still has many problems and issues, the game (and the company) redeemed itself in the eyes of people.

Had PDS not decided to abandon Imperator completely, they could've earned a lot of respect by assigning a team who likes this game to keep working on it. It already had a base to work and build upon.
 
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Glanyr

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I am very new to the paradox franchise, in fact, Imperator: Rome was my first game i ever played really. I bought a CD version of HOI 3 back when i was young but never really got into it. Imperator brought me into the most interesting time period for me and i loved it, despite all it's issues at launch. I have played it around 400 hours in total.

As i saw it got good updates i also looked into other Pdx games but decided to only buy Stellaris in the end. It was a great idea to do so and i have to say it is a really well rounded game with great updates coming out. I remember back in the days on mondays when i was waiting for the I:R dev diary, now it is the same for me on thursdays with Stellaris.

But i have to say, after I:R got shelved, it stopped me from buying other games. I was considering CK 3 but decided against it after all since i didn't want to buy another game that possibly get's abandoned after a year. Long story short - After shelving I:R i lost a lot of trust into Pdx, even as a new customer. I still have hopes they come back to it eventually as there is only so much a modder can do.

If it was true that they just lacked personnel and it wasn't a simple excuse, i think we might get something sometime soon now that the Covid situation get's back to normal. Maybe it makes it easier to hire stuff.

All we can do is hope. I agree with Will Steel, Total War Rome 2 really got a nice treatment and made me put about 1000 hours into it in total while also buying every dlc, even if i didn't enjoy them as much. I really hope we get a shift back these days from getting companies to sell us full priced games while they are half baked. If we had I:R 2.0 as a launch version, i am sure things would be way different.



Can someone tell me when was the last time, we actually got a response in here from someone "official"?
 
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