Same old paradox same old sloppy work

[naggy]

But , since DD, I saddly notice a move backward. Games are more like beta release, gross errors in the coding

I want to start by saying:
1.) I've played lots of Paradox games out of the box.
2.) I'm a software tester.

You're full of crap. (no offense, just being blunt). EU2 was largely unplayable out of the box, and took 2 patches to be stable, as I recall. HoI's AI couldn't beat a turnip out of the box. I seem to remember that Victoria crashed more than a drunken politician at release.

EU3 and Rome, at release, were relatively stable, and had decent AI. Were there problems? Yes. EU3's graphics and event design were a complete departure from EU2, and the biggest complaints until NA/IN were balance issues (not surprisingly).

Paradox provides better stability, functionality, and support than many enterprise systems I've worked with (and those systems usually had very good programmers). God knows I've watched enough systems go splat on release. For the complexity offered, Paradox has less defects than many other systems.

Bottom line: complexity breeds defects.

 

[unmerged(70700)]

Paradox is the only game company that truly tackles the vision of the type of game I want to play. And they continue to support the games they've released until they WAD.
I don't know much about programming (dang wish I did, but I got more interested on the hardware side of things) but these games are amazing.
Yes, Rome VV is still not perfect but it's good even now. Like EU3 I get lost in that dreamlike state where it's half strategy/half role-playing, and before I know it, I have to stop and go to work.

Thank you Paradox for the great games. (KISSY KISSY!!)

 

[unmerged(90249)]

I want to start by saying:
1.) I've played lots of Paradox games out of the box.
2.) I'm a software tester.

You're full of crap. (no offense, just being blunt). EU2 was largely unplayable out of the box, and took 2 patches to be stable, as I recall. HoI's AI couldn't beat a turnip out of the box. I seem to remember that Victoria crashed more than a drunken politician at release.

EU3 and Rome, at release, were relatively stable, and had decent AI. Were there problems? Yes. EU3's graphics and event design were a complete departure from EU2, and the biggest complaints until NA/IN were balance issues (not surprisingly).

Paradox provides better stability, functionality, and support than many enterprise systems I've worked with (and those systems usually had very good programmers). God knows I've watched enough systems go splat on release. For the complexity offered, Paradox has less defects than many other systems.

Bottom line: complexity breeds defects.

No offense taken (anyway I do not know what blunt mean, LOL, maybe plain speaking?) because somehow you agree on my point :

What was acceptable for EU2 (because small dev team, small company with litle background or experience on that kind of soft) is starting to be (in my opinion) not acceptable for VV.

The main coding errors are for sure removed , well they simply use the same engine that get improved time after time (all improvement made on EU3 were given to Rome and those for IN were given to VV .exe).

What I am saying is the QC (what you are doing for a living if I get you right) is not up to the task, and not up to what a customer of nearly 10 years is waitign for.

Please notice I directed my comments to the JUNIOR CODERS , as I assume someone like Johann or any other project developpers are certainly not involved in the writting of the events, their triggers and their actions. So yes they delivered something that we were dreaming to have in the early 80', but that is not perfect, that is not even finished correctly.

Anyway I also agree that is saddly a trend in the industry in general (even major actors such as Sage for accounting, or MS or Sun or .... deliver softs that are not totaly finalised ... the reason being purely monetary).

P.S. Do not scream that much I am full of crap, my boss would maybe believe it and reduce my salary (this month everyone got a salary cut of 15% but I who got an increase of 10% ... so I believe him to be happy with the softs I deliver)

 

[naggy]

P.S. Do not scream that much I am full of crap, my boss would maybe believe it and reduce my salary (this month everyone got a salary cut of 15% but I who got an increase of 10% ... so I believe him to be happy with the softs I deliver)

Not screamin' at you. Blunt is in fact being plain speaking.

Part of the problem is the limits of QC - a company has to balance QC with budgetary concerns, development speed, and a release schedule. A pristine, bug-free application is no good when delivered 5 years late. The other problem is that customers demand ever more complex applications. More features means more opportunity for bugs, it's as simple as that.

Remember that to test all these changes, you often need brand new campaigns (since often changes get made tat are not save game compatible), and you need to run the app for quite a while to verify things - testing this app is far more time intensive than most apps.

Congrats on the raise BTW: in these times, it's definitely a good sign!

 

[unmerged(11375)]

Paradox is not perfect (which I guess makes them just like the rest of us), and yes, some of their games have had "issues".... but their's are the "only" games that I play! I'm not a programer either, but IMHO they have the most complex games on the market. Yes, ROME is not perfect yet, but hey.... it's only a frigging game and it'll be fixed soon enough!

Like a friend of mine once said, "If you think life sucks, then you suck!"

 

[Fookison]

I agree!!! If we scroll back on the forum a few months when EU3 Vanilla first came out, there were so many people slamming it and now... it is claimed to be the best of the EU bunch with much added input from the end users and a few expansions later. It is good for us to beat up the game and provide input to Paradox, who respond through patches and expansions to tweak the game to a classic!! Way to go Paradox for listening to the end users and responding with inexpensive expansions to enhance the game experience to a fine conclusion. And for those who still need more, there are the mods!! I am looking forward to what Paradox will unveil to take EU Rome to the next level of perfection. Thank you Paradox for listening and responding!!!!

 

[unmerged(90249)]

Not screamin' at you. Blunt is in fact being plain speaking.

Part of the problem is the limits of QC - a company has to balance QC with budgetary concerns, development speed, and a release schedule. A pristine, bug-free application is no good when delivered 5 years late. The other problem is that customers demand ever more complex applications. More features means more opportunity for bugs, it's as simple as that.

Remember that to test all these changes, you often need brand new campaigns (since often changes get made tat are not save game compatible), and you need to run the app for quite a while to verify things - testing this app is far more time intensive than most apps.

Congrats on the raise BTW: in these times, it's definitely a good sign!

One more time I do agree about QC, budget concern and dead line. Both of us know those very well IRL.

Fact is , back 10 years ago when EU1 was released, because the small budget the QC was mainly done by the customers with quick release of patch or with Johann helping the people who were willing ot hack the .exe (case of the eu2 map for exemple).

My rant is that business model (close in the concept to the 'open software') where the interaction btw the seller and the buyer is strong (because it allow to distribuate a part of the cost) is still carried out. that is not a problem , but became a problem when 1) the live time of the soft is reduced (compare the 9patches for eu2 with the 2 for ARMA that had a life time about 1 year). 2) when the initial release is rushed only to fit with commercial reasons 3) when the customer is pushed in a model : take it like a man or leave it.

I will give you an exemple : Format your HD, install XP SP2, then install VV ... It will not work because a librairy is missing and yo uhave to DL it from Microsoft. If I do not register and access the support forum, how will I know? Compare now with EU2 path 1.5 where Johann suppressed the CD verification. A customer at that time was considered as a mature person (if yo u do not buy the product , the company will not survive so no other game) ; now we are considered by the commercial department like teens who need to be controlled (the game is fine IF you add the missing lib, that lib can be found only by the support forum that you can access only if you have the licence). So in this conditions , how dare they want to rely on a faithfull community to improve their products (assuming any improvement for VV will also appear in the .exe for the next game, such as HOI III).I do not work for free, nor for my boss nor for P'dox.

 

[unmerged(51416)]

Nice theory except that if Rome had never been released, then Rome:VV as it is now would never have been the way it is either, as there would have been no customer feedback to inform the changes.

This, in essence, confirms what ericB wrote. Paradox team is not big enought and the games are rushed - look at the pace they are released, and remember that other games are supported in the mean time. The released games are really full of bugs and hardly playable.

While we do have impact on how patch develops (not only bugs we track, but also additional features we would like to see are added - in expansions), it's really annoying that we have essentially become beta testers. Many obvious bugs should be tracked down during beta tests, as now the best solution is to wait for final version of the game... Even worse, some general, "big" bugs (like the paratrooper bug from vanilla arma) are still not fixed, making part of vanilla game completely unplayable. Community patches do fix things, but it's supposed to be dealt with by devs.

I must admit I strongly prefer system of beta patches in HoI and EU2 to "big" patches of later games.

 

[Alexander Seil]

The public beta test model was around long before you joined in 2005, Keraunos. A quick look around the forum at that time would've confirmed that, in fact, yes, all Paradox games are basically beta-tested by the customers. Been that way for 8 years now.

 

[unmerged(12303)]

This, in essence, confirms what ericB wrote. Paradox team is not big enought and the games are rushed - look at the pace they are released, and remember that other games are supported in the mean time. The released games are really full of bugs and hardly playable.

cant really say hardly playable - HOI2 was playable, though it had it share of bugs, at least it didnt crash in SP like hoi1 did all the time....Although IMO just before release they should get some extra beta players to play the game with a fresh view as indeed the errors that slip by make you wonder if anybody actually playes the games.

 

[unmerged(51416)]

I know, I've been around longer than this I should have written down that we become less then beta testers simply because felt feedback is now much weaker - we don't get patch every week, but couple of months; if we try to contact devs, only small percentage of those tries are successful. Long time ago it took 1 day to release trigger list - now it takes weeks, if not months.

I can understand that a lot more people play paradox games, but team needs to grow, to keep up the high standard of feedback we got used to.

 

[candelarius]

Interesting topic, I think I'll chime in...

I'm a long time Paradox game player, but, I don't post in the forum very often. I agree with many points made in this forum:
-Paradox is the only game campany that makes games the way I imagine a perfect wargame should look. They are simply the best pure strategy games available.
-They also tend to be a little buggy "out of the box". I made the mistake of buying some of them "out of the box", like EU3, and spent weeks of frustration waiting for the next patch to come out.
-But never have I had a game be "unplayable". Even EU3, "out of the box", was completely playable...just unbalanced (*see note below).
-So, I intentionally waiting for the first expansion (VV) of Rome to come out before I purchased it. I followed it's development and drooled over the possibility of playing a Paradox Rome game, but, when I visited the forums and read all the complaints, I immediately put off on buying the game until this past week.
-I love EU:Rome and I think it is the best EU game yet. I'm a pretty hardcore PC strategy gamers but even I like to see some sort of "pretty-ness" to the visuals of the game. EU:Rome tends to combine the solid strategy gaming experience of past EU games while bring the franchise "up to date" with more flashy, 3D games that have come out in recent years (re: Total War). I think EU is the best blend to date of modern visuals and solid strategy gaming.

*Note: Crusader Kings is the only exception to the rule, IMO, of a game that Paradox just completely failed to successfully put together. I even read once in an interview where Paradox (Johann) agreed! I really, really, really, really tried to get into CK for many years, because the time frame and the concept really appeal to me. But bugs remain, even after Deus Vult, and the game still suffers from random annoying crashes. After all this time of waiting for it to get completely fixed, it is now extremely visually dated. So, CK, sadly, has been retired from my Paradox collection. I'm hoping one day we'll see a CK2.

With that said, EU:Rome combines many of the great aspects from CK, such as the character system, but, actually does it better. In CK there was too much to do and too many characters to track. Rome does a better job of simplying the best aspect of CK and EU3 and putting them into an attractive, competitive, enjoyable gaming experience. Plus, it's set in Ancient Rome....what could be better.

 

[unmerged(12303)]

vicky didnt really work out of the box IIRC.
BTW it was the only game IIRC that - in effect - caused one of the developers to "leave" the company. Yea CK was a mess as they picked it up from that Russian company IIRC "snowball" was it?

 

[Alexander Seil]

I like this system. Half the fun with any game is waiting for it, and it's rather exciting to wake up one day, check the forums and realize there's a new patch out. And Paradox patches have LOOOONG change lists...

 

[coreymas]

I like this system. Half the fun with any game is waiting for it, and it's rather exciting to wake up one day, check the forums and realize there's a new patch out. And Paradox patches have LOOOONG change lists...

You have yet to see a long list my friend.... just wait until.... oh better stop talking now...

La di da di da di da.....

 

[lucaluca]

You have yet to see a long list my friend.... just wait until.... oh better stop talking now...

La di da di da di da.....

 

[Nikolai]

He's talking of the change list for the coming patch, what's so hard to understand?

 

[Alexander Seil]

Except not for Rome, I think

 

[Nikolai]

How do you know?

 

[Alexander Seil]

a) Long list mentioned
b) HoI2 beta test medal

Take a look at the Cumulative Bug List in the Doomsday forum. We pretty much know all VV problems, and most of them aren't that huge deal, plus Doomsday was waiting for the last patch for like a year now.