Pings and Minimap are payed content?

[Tha Pink Guy]

I hope this was just a mistake, Pinging the map is payed content... ..Because it's part of the mini map?

Here is the link: 24:04

As you can see he said "Pings are part of the expansion, since they are tied to... Since they are in the mini-map"

Not one single game I have even heard of would make you pay £15.49 for a mini-map and the ability to easily communicate with friends via a basic ping system. You say it yourself it's difficult to communicate when you are talking about because there is literally thousands of provinces and the majority of which aren't named.

I am a very dedicated customer to your company but I will not buy this DLC or any future for HoI4 if this is true.

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

According to the Dev Diary it is indeed part of WtT, not Cornflakes, and as such a paid feature.

Personally I don't care in this instance because I already have bought the DLC when I pre-ordered the game, but I agree that such a feature should not be put behind a paywall.

 

[Edungeon]

Something have to be part of the DLC, even if I would like everything to be free. Saying that, this mostly cosmetic feature being behind a paywall is fine, I never felt the need of a minimap, so it is better for other features to be free in its place.

 

[Tha Pink Guy]

The apathy from both of you is worry, an industry standard which is part of both EU4 and CK2 since the launch of both of the games, Hearts of Iron 3 had a mini map at launch as well. Adding a map and putting it behind a paywall isn't okay especially since it should have been there at launch.

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

The apathy from both of you is worry, an industry standard which is part of both EU4 and CK2 since the launch of both of the games, Hearts of Iron 3 had a mini map at launch as well. Adding a map and putting it behind a paywall isn't okay especially since it should have been there at launch.

It was a conscious design decision to have no minimap.

And calling me apathic while I even agreed to you that this feature should be free?
That's not the way to gather support for your cause...

 

[Tha Pink Guy]

It was a conscious design decision to have no minimap.

And calling me apathic while I even agreed to you that this feature should be free?
That's not the way to gather support for your cause...

You literally said you don't care because you already bought it, that is by definition apathy.

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

You literally said you don't care because you already bought it, that is by definition apathy.

True if I would have said I didn't care at all. Which I didn't.
But I _personally_ (e.g. subjectively) simply cannot complain about specific features being free or not if I receive them regardless.
I can however objectively be your opinion. Which I am.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Not one single game I have even heard of would make you pay £15.49 for a mini-map and the ability to easily communicate with friends via a basic ping system.

Are you saying that you think that the minimap and pinging is everything you want out of the expansion and that you will not use any other feature except this? Because if your not then your probably paying like 2% of that for the ping and minimap and 98% for all the other features in the expansion.

I think it's a solid choice to have small optional features like this which are possible to live without as paid content and core features be in the free patch, rather then the other way around!

 

[VKW]

Something to keep in mind, at least for the pinging aspect, is that odds are that the vast majority of MP games will include WTT, so assuming that the host for your game has the DLC then it shouldn't matter if you buy it. The only thing you're really missing out on is the mini-map in single player, which I would also agree should probably have been included in the patch, but when all is said and done isn't a huge issue either way.

 

[Oddb@ll]

These kind of issues always come up with DLCs. If something is included in the paid DLC some people think it's wrong: "why was this small thing not a free feature??".

On the other hand, if it's NOT included some think that the DLC is not worth it. "A quick money grab void of interesting features. Why should anyone buy this featureless DLC?"

Damned if you do, damned if you don't I guess.

 

[Duke_Dave]

Its a non-essential feature for multiplayer = Perfect DLC content.

 

[JerkyJerry]

Not one single game I have even heard of would make you pay £15.49 for a mini-map and the ability to easily communicate with friends via a basic ping system.

I don't understand how you can be a member of this community for as long as you have been (nearly 5 years), own as many games and expansions as you do and still draw the conclusion that you are paying $15 for those two items alone?
You honestly think that is how Podcat works? Our Podcat? Not in a million years!
My advice to you would be spend more time reading this forum. You will find that you are incorrect about Podcat and PDX.

 

[Lord of Beer]

If the host has all the DLC (and why would you waste time with a host without all of them?) then you'll get it as well. Its a non-issue.

HOI4 easily has 500+ hours worth of entertainment if you play SP+MP. So $19.99 every 6 months for a DLC that funds a free patch for everyone plus some great new paid features is a bloody bargain.

 

[Silver-fox]

I don't think I've ever missed the minimap. I certainly don't consider it to be needed or essential, and paradox obviously thought the same when they decided not to include it in vanilla.

Its not essential, players have done fine without it, many probably wont touch it (i won't) - Its an minor addition Paradox thought would be useful to some players and therefore acceptable to me that its included in a paid DLC. Its optional. As all DLC is.

 

[Holdy]

How dare the developers wanting to get paid for their work...

The company basically creates a product and wants to sell it, and all the time people come along and shout "I want that for free, otherwise you are a bad company".

 

[stl3l9n]

You only need the pinging in multiplayer and you should have the dlc in multiplayer anyway... Seriously what's the fuss about?

 

[Tha Pink Guy]

I totally understand where most of you are coming from, yes you are totally right if I were joining public games into multiplayer lobbies then this factor will literally not effect me at all. The problem is the lack of empathetic thinking for those whom either don't play multiplayer or in my case are the host of multiplayer games and have to justify to my friends purchasing this game.

Asking people to pay for a feature that was part of the game before it and games parallel to it within the company itself is shocking to me. I have been telling my friends from the release of HoI4 that it's not ready yet, this was the patch/DLC I said is now the best time to purchase the game. Now after finding this out, I have no intentions of buying the DLC or even playing the game again.

This is in my opinion objectively a bad decision and one made in a bubble I frankly don't understand. This is the only game i know of that has ever charged money for a minimap before and that's simply wrong.

 

[Fulmen]

It's strange seeing so many people disagree with the OP. Do people really enjoy sheepishly paying extra for what are staple release version features in strategy games?

I can somewhat forgive pinging costing extra even though it's been a standard feature in strategy games for ~15 years. But even PDX strategy games all had minimaps at release prior to 2016.

I for one do not wish to pay extra for features that were in HoI4's predecessor games at release. But PDX's DLC policy with HoI seems to be the following:

1) Release a game cut down in content compared to its predecessors.

2) Slowly fill in the gaps with DLC over the years while throwing in some new content as well.

3) Profit.

They did it with HoI3, they're doing it with HoI4. They didn't go all the way with HoI3 and so in many ways HoI2 is still the richest HoI game content-wise, save for AoD and DH that weren't developed by PDX.

And btw I'm not talking about reworked mechanics or anything like that. If something didn't work well in HoI3 and they had to reinvent the mechanic for HoI4 and then the customer had to pay extra for it, that's fine.

I'm talking about features that worked more or less exactly the same in previous games: events, decisions, country-flavour, etc. that us owners of the previous HoIs are effectively having to repay for. That is not fine.

Finally, this isn't about practicality; "don't worry, the host has the DLC, so you get the features too". I myself pre-ordered the FM edition so I've already paid for this DLC years ago.

This is about principle.

 

[Holdy]

A minimap was never communicated to be in the base game (if I am not mistaken). People always knew what the base game would content. Paradox never lied on that. What you can criticise Paradox for is, that they released the game with a really bad AI. People couldn't know that before release (thats why you might not want to preorder ).

But in this case the Buyers always knew that there won't be a minimap and neither a pinging option in the base game (again, correct me if I am mistaken). I do not understand how with every DLC (not kidding, every single one) people complain about the DLC policy and that they have to pay for something. Welcome to capitalism, thats all I can say...

If Paradox really communicated beforehand, that there will be a minimap and a pinging option in the base game, shame on my head.

 

[Black Turtle]

In a recent Paradox podcast, Johan identified three feature gruops as paid content:

1. Qualtiy of life.

2. Mechanics that give players more power.

3. Flavor mechanics.