Hello all! I have been watching the forums the past few days since Leviathan's release and want to take a few moments to address some of the ongoing trends that have left me concerned not only for paradox staff members, but the community that has itself been so integral to the development of great games.
First, I want to remind every disappointed fan about the current technological debt within Eu4. For anyone who hasn't read Johan's post about the current development philosophy I have included a link. Dev Diary 20th of April 2021 Its a great post that provides a lot of context to what has been going on behind the scenes at paradox during the Covid-19 pandemic. This has not been a normal year for the studio, and still they managed to close over +1000 bugs that were leftover from previous patches. Its true that the leviathan release has resulted in a flood of new bug reports, but this is not because the team hasn't been doing any work this year. The actual code that runs the game is incredibly complex because it's been worked over and changed countless times since the game's original release in 2013. Every time a new patch comes out, it is almost like the studio is designing a whole new game, except they have to make the new code work with the old. A lot of blame has been placed on the QA team, as though Paradox isn't aware of the bugs in the game script. They definitely are, but changing the code so that it works takes time with a game as old as Eu4.
So, you may be wondering at this point why the studio doesn't just focus all their efforts on reducing the bug count instead of releasing new content. The answer is simple: content releases are one way that the studio brings in new funds to pay its dev team. Paradox's business model is actually quite similar to crowdfunding in that the game you pay for at the original release is very different from later states of the game. These $20 releases (which is actually a low price point for game content) are one way that Eu4 continues to get better as a game and stay relevant for fans. However, the game has incurred a huge amount of technological debt at this point, so each new release feels like a slap in the face to fans when they just see the bug count increase rather than decrease. No one is talking about the massive amount of bugs that were just closed in this patch because the new ones are so glaring. Unplayability due to lost saves is a particularly frustrating thing to encounter with a game that takes as much time as Eu4 does (I myself lost an ironman save this patch and was disappointed).
The question I would like to pose to the community is this: how can we help Paradox with the technological debt of the game? If the studio depends on releases to generate revenue to pay their teams, how can it do that while also reducing the overall bug count? I am genuinely asking because it is sad to watch my fellow players (whose frustration I totally understand) tear Paradox apart for a problem that they have been trying to fix for years. I welcome y'alls thoughts on this.
First, I want to remind every disappointed fan about the current technological debt within Eu4. For anyone who hasn't read Johan's post about the current development philosophy I have included a link. Dev Diary 20th of April 2021 Its a great post that provides a lot of context to what has been going on behind the scenes at paradox during the Covid-19 pandemic. This has not been a normal year for the studio, and still they managed to close over +1000 bugs that were leftover from previous patches. Its true that the leviathan release has resulted in a flood of new bug reports, but this is not because the team hasn't been doing any work this year. The actual code that runs the game is incredibly complex because it's been worked over and changed countless times since the game's original release in 2013. Every time a new patch comes out, it is almost like the studio is designing a whole new game, except they have to make the new code work with the old. A lot of blame has been placed on the QA team, as though Paradox isn't aware of the bugs in the game script. They definitely are, but changing the code so that it works takes time with a game as old as Eu4.
So, you may be wondering at this point why the studio doesn't just focus all their efforts on reducing the bug count instead of releasing new content. The answer is simple: content releases are one way that the studio brings in new funds to pay its dev team. Paradox's business model is actually quite similar to crowdfunding in that the game you pay for at the original release is very different from later states of the game. These $20 releases (which is actually a low price point for game content) are one way that Eu4 continues to get better as a game and stay relevant for fans. However, the game has incurred a huge amount of technological debt at this point, so each new release feels like a slap in the face to fans when they just see the bug count increase rather than decrease. No one is talking about the massive amount of bugs that were just closed in this patch because the new ones are so glaring. Unplayability due to lost saves is a particularly frustrating thing to encounter with a game that takes as much time as Eu4 does (I myself lost an ironman save this patch and was disappointed).
The question I would like to pose to the community is this: how can we help Paradox with the technological debt of the game? If the studio depends on releases to generate revenue to pay their teams, how can it do that while also reducing the overall bug count? I am genuinely asking because it is sad to watch my fellow players (whose frustration I totally understand) tear Paradox apart for a problem that they have been trying to fix for years. I welcome y'alls thoughts on this.
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