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The mods add detail, challenge, and generally an enriched experience for players who want to stick with the games. Personally I found EU3 a much better game after I added Magna Mundi. But I prefer HOI2D vanilla to any of the mods I have tried for it.
Agreed, while I would go further in finding that EUIII is unplayable without MM.
Explain to me, how is paying to participate in a public beta-test functionally different from, oh, just buying a Paradox game on release?
For the player: the game arrives earlier. For Paradox: The money arrives earlier.
Actually 1453 is recommended, but I usually start 1399 with no serious issues IMHO.
EDIT: And yes, if Paradox ever decided to have a public beta: sign me up!
The problem with a Public Beta is that there is too much loss (basically, leaking of all the problems in early builds) with no gain (since most of the people won't bother actively participating). I seriously doubt Paradox will ever agree to that.
A better idea would be for Paradox to post minister lists and such so that players can suggest improvements.
I doubt it would work, just imagine all those double reports, false reports, and other wrong data. Who would manage to control so many informations coming avery day?
How many buy a game at the beta level to help testing the game? I don't think it will be that many. And why should they not bother participating if they where nerd enough to pay to be part of something like that? You are taking about the hard core fans here - we would play the game 24/7 (as we usually do when a new version comes along).
With loss I presume you talk about leaks of privileged info? Why would that happen? Paradox would only accept over 18 and an NDA would be signed. That would take care of that.
Orthank said:
Paradox manages the existing betas, why should they not manage another 50 or 100? Normally when the game go on sale the number of "double reports, false reports, and other wrong data" is a LOT higher.
But I sadly don't believe this will happen, even if it's a good idea.
A closed beta is completely under Paradox's control they choose who gets in and what there supposed to be looking for whether they be scriping, historical or gameplay problems and is open to a couple hundred who are all dedicated to testing the game more for improvement than fun.
You add an Open Beta to the equation and Paradox lose all of that control. They gain a much larger audience of "testers" and by that I mean a lot of people who simply treat it as a demo and make there opinion off that. Yes a lot more people who send in bug reports but Paradox is no where near as big as other companies who have entire departments dedicated to quality assurance. Paradox will also no longer really have a choice on who gets in and if they did it would just waste a lot of resources choosing them.
Open beta is a bad idea. Just turns out as a bad demo with no feedback. Only reason it's so popular now is probably server testing for online games.
Paradox should do a wider closed beta for people willing to pre-order. They'd only get hardcore fans like us willing to pay and eager to give meaningful feedback. Hell I'd be willing to do actual development work for free after reading these dev diaries. They're doing near exactly what I wanted out of a sequel so far.
Paradox should do a wider closed beta for people willing to pre-order. They'd only get hardcore fans like us willing to pay and eager to give meaningful feedback. Hell I'd be willing to do actual development work for free after reading these dev diaries. They're doing near exactly what I wanted out of a sequel so far.
I hope they note the post count and date of joining. I was never in a Paradox beta and I'm slightly disappointed
You do need mods. I've been playing Paradox games since EU II, and they require mods. TRP is necessary after a certain point in HOI II, just like Magnus Mundi is necessary for me to get more than a week of enjoyment out of EU III. Crusader Kings wasn't complete until Deus Veult, and Rome was barely worth playing until VV, niether was Victoria before Revolutions+VIP. Now because Paradox both offers unrivalled depth to its game engines and substantial support I am a loyal fan and avid player of their games, however if they just came out and version 1.0 of each of those games was the final version I would have stopped buying from them a long time ago (along with most other gamers... version 1.0 of a Paradox Game is very buggy). So what I am putting out there is why not just do officially what they are already doing unofficially, but in a manner that isn't going to piss off the casual gamer.
Since the initial release for Paradox is about where Stardock starts with their beta testing for pre-order customers (perhaps a little more advanced, but in some instances not), why not avoid alienating all of those customers who expect a complete product by using those of us who are willing to contribute our time and dedicated enough to pre-order?
Stardock has shown this can work quite well, and I think that since Paradox Games typically come out in such an unfinished state (by nature... they are so very complex for a computer to handle), I at least think that it is something to consider for the future.
Last time I checked, I played every single Paradox game on the EU/EU3 engines, and not a single time was there a total mod (except maybe one for EU1 - Improved Grand Campaign or something like that) that didn't wipe out at least a handful of essential game features, as well as introduce absolutely bizarre gameplay and balancing decisions. Like "elite units," faster combat in HoI2 (for people who can't wrap their heads around the concept of abstraction and provinces being BIG PLACES), colonization totalnerf in VIP, Maori nation-states, Kwantung Army as a puppet state and other seriously bizarre stuff. Thank you very much, I've been 100% vanilla (other than my own tinkering) for 2-3 years now, and am happier for it.
Playing P'dox since 2001, EU1,2 and 3 CK and DV, Hoi, Hoi2 .... And the only mods I use are the graphical ones (I feel the graphism are soso in Hoi2).
Being a programmer, I usualy rely on myself to modify what seems to be modified (my opinion, my choices, and my failures also).
Most of the Mods out there (such mod33 that I love a lot) are somehow lacking of balance, and to compensate it rather than to equilibrate their work they create a new unbalance ; something like 2 bad = 1 good ...
Bad thing with those who pre-order getting a beta...someone would just pre-order and distribute it. I loved Paradox games to death, I got hooked on Hearts of Iron II. Then Doomsday, then Armageddon. I came across EUIII complete the other weekend in store. Because it was a Paradox game, I bought it. Expected to be good, and it has surpassed by expectations. It was great, I have a hard time not playing it. 30 hours over the past week? Too much I tell yea, too much....
Honestly, I think Paradox should use a cd-key system. They deserve every dollar they can get for these games.
Only mods I use are graphical aswell. DAIM is an exception, check my sig for why. AI puts up one hell of a challenge. And by challenge I mean kicking human player's asses around.
Honestly, I think Paradox should use a cd-key system. They deserve every dollar they can get for these games.
Only mods I use are graphical aswell. DAIM is an exception, check my sig for why. AI puts up one hell of a challenge. And by challenge I mean kicking human player's asses around.
It's the very same risk as releasing the game anyway, except that there's much less interest in downloading public beta "ware" than downloading a finished game.
All I can say is that public betas for pre-ordered customers simply work for some companies. I participated in this kind of beta for Stardock's GalCiv II and its two expansions, and from what I know it was a good experience for both sides. That said, I don't believe Paradox will do it either.
A lot of assumptions here is that the current "problem" is due to betas suck. Adding a million betas with a million feedback does not change the fact that Paradox has limited time and resources for development and coding.
A lot of beta suggestions and developer dreams must be shelved or postponed in order to get the base game out on time.
Meanwhile, it is not as if the game you see was mostly developed a year earlier and betas are just playing around with it. Core parts of the game are added up to release date, so there is not as much time as thought for "big picture" playing and testing of the game that is released and played by customers.
Now, adding a million programmers might get us somewhere...