Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester on Hearts of Iron 3

[unmerged(13000)]

Then don't patch your game past 1.1c and delete ALL of the decisions and events in the game. And take away and requirements for behavior in the Script folder for the various AIs.

Won't have to because the game isn't going to be scripted like that. ha hah

 

[przy]

It's not a "shit storm". Assuming Paradox are even remotely like a normal publishing house all the more ranty threads get ignored as soon as anything useful is got out of them

MORE IMPORTANTLY, as I suggested earlier the game is not unplayable or even un-fun for everyone. I can play through it at decent speed with no game breaking bugs (as long as I play a country where the fun of my game is not hit by the poor ai performance for certain countries). That said.... what if Johan has had the same experience as me playing the game.... that makes his statements essentially true.

Oh and i'll buy HOI4, as will most of the ppl buying HOI3. Brand loyalty is a funny beast and people WILL decide their final opinion on HOI3 post patches. It's easy enough to see by reading the forums.... people saying "I know other releases have been bad but i'm still upset this one is too" will say it again after they buy HOI4 on release day .

Amen

 

[bonfire101]

Well as of 1.1c puppets are still clearly bugged.

Having them declare war on faction members or on their own master and things like that, while not game-breaking are certainly issues that need to be taken care of.

I'm sure some of this is due to the fact that the AI scripts are so broad, that there are no scripts that are puppet-specific.

Heck allies and puppets even send spies to slow down their own friendly nation's research.

Yep, puppets are screwy.... which is made worse by the fact annexing followed by partisan management is not a lot less painful.

The spy activity is the worst though . They need to simply make it that puppets with spies in their motherland click on counterespionage and never change it at a push they might get to choose between that and support ruling party.

 

[Schwarzie]

Explain exactly WHICH core-concept is broken?

Yes, it has crashes at savegames, yes there could be interface improvements, yes, the AI could be better at performing some issues, yes, there could be performance boosts.

At first, for me things are broken if they didn't work as they should. And should in form of as I think they should. broken doesn't nececarrily mean that is broken beyhond possible repair, simply because this is a piece of Software

And because i see broken in this way (other may call it issues of find whichever word suits them best) all the points you mentioned above are broken in my view.

I dont want to state everything which doesnt work as intended (supply, ai, diplomacy, trading, OOBs, Map, combat-ai, Naval bombers not finding a invading transportfleet, performance, savegame corruption etc) in all detail since it is already written down in several threads. (But of course will do so if you want it )

So my overall point is: Not everyone here necessarily means the same when speaking about 'issues', 'broken' etc.

And of course people are feeling pissed if they buy a game and feel like they are beta testers. Well i tried to participate during beta, but wasn't chosen. Now i payed to be betatester. To be honest, im not really happy about it. So far i didn't even know that this is some kind of 'standard' for Paradox releases. My first Paradox Game was HOI2oomsday, that worked finde from the start, installed it, patched it, no major issues. (Major issues are things which annoy me like a totally random AI, and a strange threat system which has no place for opportunistic behaviour and which even promote outright suicidal behaviour )


So far this is the first Thread i see a direct reply to the problems outside of the Patch Thread. I appreciate that.

 

[TheLoneGunman]

Won't have to because the game isn't going to be scripted like that. ha hah

Well I'll be holding my breath for an expansion in that case!

 

[unmerged(13000)]

I get the sentiment but Japan invading anywhere in western Europe is retarded... it would have been logistically impossible and they wouldn't have done it as it provides no derived benefit.... they wanted accessable natural resources.

I don't mind alternative stuff and quirky stuff can be fun sometimes but too much of what happens is basically retarded..... Some people (me included) want the OPTION to play world war 2 historically at least until Danzig or war.... and have events to be realistic in that they make sense, even if they are not historiccally accurate.

Didn't you read the media comment? He said the MODDERS can do that to make it historically accurate. They are shooting for a DIFFERENT audience.
Hurray finally an mainly ahistorical game a great whatif game a game that won't be boring as hell after two times playing it.

 

[TheLoneGunman]

Didn't you read the media comment? He said the MODDERS can do that to make it historically accurate. They are shooting for a DIFFERENT audience.
Hurray finally an mainly ahistorical game a great whatif game a game that won't be boring as hell after two times playing it.

Well my post was not trying to make the game hardcoded to do anything drastic.

Just to seize historical opportunities if they present themselves.

If Mexico happens to be pissed at Germany and somehow manages to get into naval range (once this bug is fixed), and wants to invade Germany, than it can damn well be my guest!

I just want Mexico to have a good reason and a good plan for doing so!

 

[unmerged(13000)]

Well I'll be holding my breath for an expansion in that case!

Well I'll try to come to your funeral then cause i don't think you can hold your breath that long.

 

[bonfire101]

Didn't you read the media comment? He said the MODDERS can do that to make it historically accurate. They are shooting for a DIFFERENT audience.
Hurray finally an mainly ahistorical game a great whatif game a game that won't be boring as hell after two times playing it.

I wasn't saying historically accurate.... I was saying remotely sensible.

Things like the USA joining the Comitern and Japan in the allies are not sensible

 

[TheLoneGunman]

I wasn't saying historically accurate.... I was saying remotely sensible.

Things like the USA joining the Comitern and Japan in the allies are not sensible

Well I'll defend ravinhood on this one.

While these 2 examples you have given are highly unlikely, given the right circumstances they would certainly be possible.

The Great Depression was a cause of fear among many around the world of a communist takeover.

It's entirely possible that with enough influence from the Soviets that communist or at least elements that were on the far left while not exactly Stalin's boys could swing the idealogy of the United States. With a good enough speaker and the ability to rally the unemployed masses, if the US even lost partial political power to the communists and their policies began to actually work for the middle and lower classes we'd see a dramatic shift.

So what I'm saying is that if managed to affect US politics enough via espionage as the SU, I see no reason why the US would start drifting towards the Comintern.

Now if you mean the US joining the Comintern in 1936, then I can understand.

As for the Japs, I'm quite sure that if the SU ended up being the aggressor in the late 30's instead of Germany, Europe and the Allies would have looked to Japan for help, much in the same way the Allies looked to Stalin for help against Hitler.

Edit:

My point being, if the right circumstances can be reached then it should be sensible.

Edit Edit:

All of which is currently possible with the broad scripting tools we now have to help guide the AI!

 

[cougar46]

Then maybe my particular brand of ethics is old-fashioned now and I'm completely out of touch, but false advertizing and lying to my customers isn't on the menu. Ever. Period. If it ain't fit to sell, it doesn't get sold, whatever the cost. And if that meant me going out of business that'd be my own damned fault, not an excuse to jip other entirely innocent people and make them feel they'd been taken for fools.

Personally I regard this shit-storm of having real value, IF it finally forces Paradox to recognize they've stepped over the line and causes them to determine to change their ways. They have clearly decided their fawning fan-base is an invitation to take acceptance of shoddy workmanship for granted, and they need to be sent the message they're wrong.

"Give somebody an inch and they'll take a mile." HoI1 was the inch, HoI2 was a foot, HoI3 is the mile. I think they'll discover when they come to sell HoI4 that this mile was a mile too far.

Obviously though the game is playable for quite a few people, me being one of them. You have to understand if I find it extremely difficult to believe that your version of the game is COMPLETELY unplayable while mine, minus the features which need to be improved on and the bugs and glitches that ruin immersion, is not only playable but enjoyable. If all the developers and beta testers had their games running as mine does then in my opinion their was no false advertising and they released the game at an opportune time.

Small companies are generally short on time when it comes to releasing their products, they got it to a point where it was playable on their machines as well as the beta testers, fixed any remaining game breakers through the 1.1 patch which was out before the game was even released, gave a hotfix 3 days later to fix a nasty bug created by 1.1 and within a month of release will release 1.2 which not only fixes and polishes a ton of stuff but actually adds in quite a few user requested features. What more could you realistically ask for considering you don't know the exact circumstances of the release?

I'm sorry you feel you got "jipd", but at least make some constructive rants and useful points instead of calling Paradox liars and calling for their jobs. When you buy a game at release date there is ALWAYS a chance for these type of situations to occur no matter who the developer/publisher is, maybe you should start waiting a few weeks after a games release before purchasing if you have this many problems.

 

[Oerdin]

W...T...F?! Happy with the release? The man is either a bare-faced liar or he's been lied to by those beneath him. "Gotten some feedback". Oh, is that what he calls page after page after page of outraged howls. But clearly he hasn't been reading the forums, or how else could he trot out such utter cant.

I think Paradox's big whigs see their job as talking up the game no matter what hoping this drives sales. General Motors did this for decades and ignored that their real job was to make great cars not crappy cars and then trying to talk them up. Hopefully Paradox doesn't go down that road any further.

 

[The Disaster]

Just like "broken", we clearly have different meanings for "unplayable".

HoI3 is "unplayable" for me not because the software will not run but because the experience it offers me is sufficiently far below my expectations (realism, sensible AI, nations building and researching sensibly - not building 1000s of escorts etc) that I cannot enjoy it in its current form.

I'd rather play something else at present, and await the patch. This does not make me happy, as I have been looking forward to this game for ages.

 

[TheLoneGunman]

I think Paradox's big whigs see their job as talking up the game no matter what hoping this drives sales. General Motors did this for decades and ignored that their real job was to make great cars not crappy cars and then trying to talk them up. Hopefully Paradox doesn't go down that road any further.

Well unless you're going to try and compare Victoria 2 as the equivalent of GM actually trying to sell the Pontiac Aztek, I don't think we need to be too worried.

PI is looking more and more to its hardcore fanbase for ideas and support, while most companies don't even acknowledge their fans.

Have any of you looked at CA's forums?

CA just released a statement and trailer for Napoleon: Total War and they got a swarm of negative responses on that thread because people feel that Empire: Total War isn't fixed yet.

CA hasn't addressed ANY of those customers to my knowledge.

 

[unmerged(13000)]

I realize that there are two parties among the fans. I know many of you like it the way it is and you too have the right to enjoy what you like. But I completely disagree with the line I qutoed. You may not have a game but for many of us the HOI series is about this single sentence below:

Win as Germany against history, against the odds.

The ultimate HOI game, one day I hope, will provide me the option to play a historical game, as Germany, and will gave me a next to impossible challenge to win WW2. I want to try and try again, with a different plan just to see how my panzers come to a crawl in the Russian winter, how I run out of oil, how I lose the Battle of Brittan, the Tonnage War, and how all this defeats me.

That to me, and many of us would be a sweet game. That would be simulation.

The open ended approach is great, but let's not forget about the hard core crowd that prefers historical. How about please everyone, with some scripts. Would that be difficult? Would it be worth the effort to please 100% of your fans instead of 50% (or whatever 40-60%).

HOI3 going the direction of EU3 is bad news to me. I have EU3 and I am still playing EU2. HOI3 was day 2 buy for me because I wanted the box, but ended up getting the d/l version. EU3 was day 1 buy. EU Rome or Napolen never made it to my list and in general EU is off of my list for good.

If that is what PI wants, they will lose HC fans. No doubt. They may gain some new crowd though. Is this the way to increase sales? I don't know. I am sure they have a marketing department to crunch the numbers.

Long time polls and facts prove that the hard core crowd is few and miniscule compared to the casual wargamer. Only about 2% of consumers are hard core wargamers (and I got this information from a very reliable publisher). Thus games have to be and must be made for casual wargamers if a company wants to stand out in the "mainstream" market and/or survive.

What's unfair and I can symphathize with hard core wargamers is they are the ones to get these companies started. They are the ones that put in the money in the beginning like for Creative Assembly and Paradox and Battlefront and then when they get you hard core gamers money then they have enough capital behind them to go out into the MAINSTREAM and make even MORE money off of casual wargamers making the kinds of wargames THEY/WE/I like. The hard core wargamer is left in the dirt wondering why? Why? WHY? But, well that's just the way the thing works. Support a garage programmer long enough and they will eventually turn on you hard core wargamers.

Look what happened to the Total War series? Up to MTW Vikings invasion the series was hard core great. Then when RTW came and it was mass marketed and created for the mass market look what happened to the hard core portion of the game? The ai is horrible, the games are horrible they are easy as pie to beat from RTW to present day ETW. Easy because that's the way mainstream casual players want it. They want instant gratification and the ability to scream how they beat the ai on vh/vh and think they are great wargamers or stratigists. lol Look at the colors of the units in RTW are they historical? lol Not on your life. Same with M2TW and ETW nothing is really historical and ETW doesn't have a navy game at all. lol

And now the trend must change for Paradox since EU:III, EU:Rome, Crusader Kings (which I like) and now HOI III, and just wait till you see Vicky II I bet you hard cores really scream then. haha

 

[unmerged(16850)]

Didn't you read the media comment? He said the MODDERS can do that to make it historically accurate. They are shooting for a DIFFERENT audience.
Hurray finally an mainly ahistorical game a great whatif game a game that won't be boring as hell after two times playing it.

Glad you are happy. What you describe is exactly what we got. The only problem is that is not the game that was advertised (according to the developer diaries, pre-release interviews or what was written on the packaging). If this is the game Paradox intended to make, where an allied Japan will be dropping troops into axis controlled France while Nazi Germany will be invading Comintern America at Pearl Harbor, then I feel duped.

 

[The Disaster]

Currently the HoI3 experience is like playing chess while your opponent thinks it's checkers.

Why agonise over tech and production choices when other major nations are apparently researching nothing, building the wrong units, or planning to invade somewhere on the other side of the planet.

 

[TheLoneGunman]

Glad you are happy. What you describe is exactly what we got. The only problem is that is not the game that was advertised (according to the developer diaries, pre-release interviews or what was written on the packaging). If this is the game Paradox intended to make, where an allied Japan will be dropping troops into axis controlled France while Nazi Germany will be invading Comintern America at Pearl Harbor, then I feel duped.

Well a lot of that silliness will stop once the AI has a proper Naval Range.

 

[hamster83]

Relax guys, it's obvious that Paradox employees are well-meaning. In 1-2 weeks tops when patch 1.2 roll out most of the problems will be fixed.

Why piss off the hard working team when they are obviously working overtime to fix bugs AND create specific interface improvements asked for by fans?

I don't think some of you realize how hard the Paradox crew have been working, much much harder than most people, and probably driven by passion for the game rather than money.

 

[The Disaster]

Long time polls and facts prove that the hard core crowd is few and miniscule compared to the casual wargamer. Only about 2% of consumers are hard core wargamers (and I got this information from a very reliable publisher).

A) Where are these figures?
B) Do you really think casual wargamers make up much of the market? Most gamers want to play the Sims, HL2 etc - that's where the money is.
C) And please define "the hard core crowd". (You don't need to refer to me directly - I accept that I'm in this category!)