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New Kickstarter Update

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Rhel said:
In the real world, outside of your conspiracy bullshit fantasy world, they damn near always include all actual fixes in the free patch that accompanies all their expansions. Whether or not you consider a given DLC worth buying is another question, but they're almost always new content/gameplay that you can still play the base game without.

Besides, they're not in any way obliged to add any content, no matter how miniscule and pointless, for free. They sell a game, you buy the game, done. So long as the game contains everything they say it contains you are not entitled to the tiniest bit of extra content.
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No, they don't. Utopia, Apocalypse, brave New world, all held changes that the community had been asking for en-masse for ages that were ONLY AVAILABLE to the paid versions. They had slight and minor changes to give you a taste, but even then if you didn't have the paid version you were missing out on the most important factors of the base mechanics that were being addressed in that content update.

Are they obliged to add any content? No, but this is something that game developers have done for years and something Paradox charges for, fixing the base game to a playable and enjoyable state costs us $10-20 piecemeal bit by bit until the game is worth over $200's invested fully in. Remember this is the SAME company that upped the prices 20-40% on an 8 year old title. They're not doing these changes with benefiting the community in any way, and even EA does these kinds of mechanics updates and changes to the base game for free.
 
I have a question for you who posts that Paradox or any other game companies does, or does not do things for the good of the community.
Or, that these companies only do things to earn money.

My question is:
How many of you work for free? WHY would any company do anything unless they earn profit?

I am really curious, because the comments about games only do this and that for money, or X "should be free", is getting quite common.
I dont understand these questions, so I really want to know.
 
Atalvyr said:
The Story Packs have way more than "4-10 stories". They are either long storylines that provide new game endings (Synthetic Dawn, Distant Stars) or several smaller storylines that act like mid-game "bosses" (Leviathans).

As for the expansions, Apocalypse added: Titan-class flagships for fleets and their star base equivalents Ion Cannons, Colossus-class planet destroyers, Unity Ambitions, Marauders. Those are they paid parts. The free parts were: Complete rework of Starbases, Complete rework of FTL / Galactic Terrain, Rework of fleets, Rework of armies, more Ascention perks + technology + traits.

If the paid part of the expansion looks slim, it is only because they free parts are as substantial as they are. Added up, there is enough new stuff in there that most companies would call it a sequel and charge you $49 all over again. What games are you buying where the developers are putting in this much work free of charge?
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These "Storylines" have a grand total of a couple paragraphs of writing and re-use the same crisis mechanics from the beginning of the game.
 
Congrats HBS and Paradox! This news guarantees that BattleTech will have a long life, plenty of expansions, and can live up to its full potential. Thinking about the expansion possiblilities just send shivers up my spine. 30 years of content which can be drawn upon. I look forward to seeing every TT concept eventually put into this game.

Now HBS has the breathing room to do this.
 
The machine rebellion introduced with Synthetic Dawn is much much different from the original crisis. It has to be, since the player (and AI) can now be fully synthetic themselves, making the original crisis outdated. They included this reworked crisis for free and the had you pay if you wanted to start as a synthetic race. The crisis in Distant Stars can take several different forms (or none at all) and basically has its entirely own progression tree to even unlock, with as much content to it as any other crisis.

I get that the fans have been clamoring for the Stellaris expansion features for years, but that does not equate to the company "owing" it to them to develop these features for free when they were never a part of the shipping product people bought and paid for. I have alot of things I want my favorite games to include - BattleTech could have done with more story outside the main campaign and about twice the Mechs, but I knew what the game consisted of when I bought it.

Which developers are you referring to that have completely reworked their games, added meaningful new mechanics or pumped out new story content - all for the low, low cost of free?
 
Kurnn said:
I have a question for you who posts that Paradox or any other game companies does, or does not do things for the good of the community.
Or, that these companies only do things to earn money.

My question is:
How many of you work for free? WHY would any company do anything unless they earn profit?

I am really curious, because the comments about games only do this and that for money, or X "should be free", is getting quite common.
I dont understand these questions, so I really want to know.
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Right there with you.

Gamers hating on game developers for earning money for thier mortagages baffles me.

If there is publisher or company you don't like and don't want to give money to, OK, I have all kinds of companies I do not like to do business with...but to berate the builders of the things you like for gaining money? Makes no sense.

And the level of perfection so many gamer hold to the builders of the game is also just as ludicris.
This software does not protect human life, it is a game and therefore should never go through the same processes needed to build code for running military HW, yet Ihave seen advocates of just that for games...
[Mod edit: personal] :)
 
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People are allowed to give feedback on which business practices they like and which they don't. That is how businesses improve. [Mod edit: personal]
It is perfectly reasonable to say "I am willing to pay for X but not Y, so I dislike it that this company is charging for Y." Companies don't need you to come to their defense [Mod edit: snark/hyperbole]
 
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Valaska said:
No, they don't. Utopia, Apocalypse, brave New world, all held changes that the community had been asking for en-masse for ages that were ONLY AVAILABLE to the paid versions. They had slight and minor changes to give you a taste, but even then if you didn't have the paid version you were missing out on the most important factors of the base mechanics that were being addressed in that content update.

Are they obliged to add any content? No, but this is something that game developers have done for years and something Paradox charges for, fixing the base game to a playable and enjoyable state costs us $10-20 piecemeal bit by bit until the game is worth over $200's invested fully in. Remember this is the SAME company that upped the prices 20-40% on an 8 year old title. They're not doing these changes with benefiting the community in any way, and even EA does these kinds of mechanics updates and changes to the base game for free.
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Nope. It's actually [Mod edit: personal] greedy expecting all this addition content to be added free in a $40 game or $20 when on sale.

All the artwork, all the addition music, all the the development of new mechanics that go into creating the additonal content. Content that is all optional extras. The game, of course works just fine without Leviathans, Utopia, SD and Apocalypse.
.
The idea of a business - any business is to sell goods and services that people want, it's kind of how they stay in business. If a content pack is of no interest to you, you're not losing anything by not getting it. If you think it's not worth the RRP, then wait a few months for a sale.

Either way DLC is not required to play the game, only required if you actually want the additions provided in the DLC.

The 2 DLC packs that I feel are most recommended are Leviathans and Utopia, both of which go on sale at fairly regular intervals. I can see Distant Stars becoming a favorite of mine too as they keep making additional updates to 2.1.
 
I think everyone's posture on paradox is clear. Personally I also think that trying to discuss or debate with certain people who can't, or just don't want to, enter reason, is more times than not a huge waste of space and time in a discussion forum. But that's a strictly personal opinion.

Besides all that, we've been told by a moderator to keep the thing on topic...I propose we do so? ;)
 
Packrat said:
People are allowed to give feedback on which business practices they like and which they don't. That is how businesses improve. [Mod edit: personal]
It is perfectly reasonable to say "I am willing to pay for X but not Y, so I dislike it that this company is charging for Y." Companies don't need you to come to their defense [Mod edit: snark/hyperbole]
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Feedback in support of the people that work so hard to make these great games is also allowed.

On most game forums, questioning the reasoning and outlook of people that chose to be, shall we say, 'exacting', in what they expect from game software is also allowed.

I like to add the point of view that game developers are just humans. (maybe some AIs but keep that quiet)

Games are products like any other products, as are the companies that build them, so of course they have to create and sell good products to survive.
Pretty basic.

Those products will have flaws and people will righly bring up those flaws in asking for them to be fixed, mitigated, etc.

Expecting things that were never planned, expecting no bugs, expecting games to do things 'just like it is in TT', and then going after development teams 'with torches and pitchforks' for not producing the impossible is not reasonble feedback, IMO.

As far as I am aware this is valid feedback.
I am sure the very nimble ninja-like moderators here will let me know...they have already snipped my snark and I am trying to play nice.
 
I think it's also very possible to tune the tone of one's feedback to the appropriate level, and not treat everything the devs do as a cardinal sin or capital crime...

Not balancing weapons the way one personally would like to see is not a crime against humanity on the part of the devs.

On the other hand, certain business practices can legitimately open their bosses to some pretty harsh criticism (although still not at the "crime against humanity" level some take it to, sheesh).
 
Valaska said:
Yeah, no. Seriously, no longer will you get fixes or patches, welcome to the Nickle Dime company.
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Val? Is that you?

*grabs the back of @Valaska 's hand and licks it for salt content*

Yep...as salty as usual...but is it you?
cJMWboC.png
 
This is fantastic news. I'm excited to see how HBS will expand on battletech.

Regarding the DLC debate. I see a lot of people who own stellaris complaining about lack of free content. I challenge you all to play a campaign in stellaris with no mods or DLC. Then go to the steam settings and revert the game to the 1.0.0 version and play another campaign. Every difference you notice is free content, and there are a lot of differences. Those differences were funded by the paid DLC.

It's a fantastic development model if you want games that grow and improve over time. Which is why I'm so excited about this news.
 
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