They had bugs at release... you just forgot them.
Fallout 4 was buggy as hell when it came out. I couldn't even finish some questlines because some NPCs got stuck.
GTA 5 was out for a year or so before it came for PC.
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Stellaris feels like a game made by EA.
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They had bugs at release... you just forgot them.
Fallout 4 was buggy as hell when it came out. I couldn't even finish some questlines because some NPCs got stuck.
GTA 5 was out for a year or so before it came for PC.
Oh I totally get that other people had awful experiences with them at launch. I'm just saying I didn't.
Hence what I said about my luck.
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every game that comes out has bugs that needs to be fixed with patches/updates and along with balance patches, the devs are active they have made 2 patches for Stellaris in 4 days and they will continue to do patches/updates I am sure
Tbh I can see it as us milking them for extra content, because this way we'll get a much bigger, more interesting game than if it all had to be there at launch.
Elaboration: Yes it would be less expensive, but I'd rather pay 200 (currency units) on a single big game of some quality than 2 or three games of the same total size and average quality because of the increased complexity due to feature interaction.
Then you shouldn't have bought the game. Guess what? It is the consumer who is responsible for knowing what they are buying. Stellaris' list of features, and list of not present features, where well known prior to launch. If you buy a game without doing your research then it is your fault if you got a game you didn't like.
I personally feel Stellaris is a complete game, they could never release a DLC and it will still be a good game (after a few patches for the AI). I am sure PDS will release expansions, and they will cost money. Why? Because IT COSTS MONEY TO MAKE A GAME. Do you go to McDonalds, buy a burger and then ask why you didn't get free fries with it? Because clearly a burger by itself isn't a complete meal and you need fries for it to be complete, and it is clearly McDonald's responsibility to provide you with a meal, regardless of what you actually purchased. /s
Stellaris isn't as good now as EU4 was on release, but that is to be expected. A lot more dev work went into graphics compared to EU and this is a new genre for PDS, knowledge doesn't transfer 100% across different genres. If you failed to think about what you were doing and just clicked 'buy' then maybe this will teach you to learn some self control.
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It's not as simple as people getting accustomed to pay 100$ for a game. There are big differences between working for 5 years on a project and then trying to make a profit from it by selling it at 100$, or go bust (because after 5 years, it's one or the other), or releasing it à la PDS, after a couple of years with an average or below-average price and, subsequently, frequent DLCs that build on it: that mirrors more closely the financial needs of studios. They take an assumable risk initially (PDS wouldn't have gone bankrupt if Stellaris had sold poorly; it's a project done with a reasonable amount of time and effort), use that money to develop the first DLC, then use that money to develop the second one, etc etc. It's pretty ideal from their point of view, it's a safe and gradual source of income. They're getting a constant amount of money safely over a prolonged time, instead of taking a huge risk.
I think we'll be stuck with the DLC model for a long time. It just makes all the sense for devs.
I think we'll be stuck with the DLC model for a long time. It just makes all the sense for devs.
To wear my analogy thin, if a customer came back with the tent he bought and told me that he bought it wrongly thinking there'll be a front storage space/side windows/even something as small as light fixtures and wanted to return it. We'd accede.
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That is a very simplistic approach.
There are more than one way to make money: You can do it by scumming people on the edge of legality or by honestly making job you can do as best you can do.
There is professional pride - to do some thing as good as no one ever done.
And there is a limit on how much money sane person needs to have, after that it is not uncommon to do charity work or you know make game to make a good game not to make it most commercially succeseful one.
If company is there to make money by any means at its disposal it does not deserve niether brand loyalty nor slack on bad releases such as stellaris was nor their dlc practice
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I said this when the IGN and PC Gamer reviews popped: maybe the game still needs one more year of development.
Now I can confirm by myself that the game still needs, at least, one more year of development.
But at least it's not the fiasco of Swords of the Stars 2, you can actually play this game at launch even if features are missing.
Now I can confirm by myself that the game still needs, at least, one more year of development.
But at least it's not the fiasco of Swords of the Stars 2, you can actually play this game at launch even if features are missing.
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A very dodgy analogy.
You are comparing a physical product to a software.
Hotfixes and patches are an old and well working system in software development. (not only for video games)
If you think that PDS doesn't deserve your loyalty because their actions go further than the normal behavior from a company and into "overt money-grubbing" territory, well, then don't give it to them. No one's forced to like PDS, or anything else for that matter. Just like no one is forced to criticize a release that was absolutely in line with what they expected, and they have no reason to criticize. In fact, they can even defend it.
We're all free to do whatever we want. That's the beauty of it.
No features are missing. The features that were announced and planned are in the game. The features that people thought, on their own, that the game should definitely have, sometimes are on it and sometimes they aren't.
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And I agree that software, especially software off steam, should be more returnable than it is. But it is too easy to just copy the game files to another directory, & run it through a mock steam, or in offline mode (temporarily at least), and play a game without buying it. I kinda wish there was better DRM so we could return things easier, but I also don't want there to be better DRM because then there would be more DRM and it would be everywhere.
And to add on to your example: Often retailers will charge a 'restocking' fee for large equipment (mostly I see it with TVs and appliances, no clue about tents and outing gear as the only retail I worked was PetSmart and Frys), so even then the customer is losing something for his lack of careful purchasing.
That I am. Arguably unfavourably, but not the way you think. You can't run out of digital keys, while it costs the price of one tent to refund and (as you must) dispose of the tent.
That would be awesome, appearence of customer rights made huge improvements on how physical good were produced and distributed. Having the same applied to software products would have similar effects
If you for some reason find yourself in MacDonalds buying a Big Mac meal you expect it to come with fries and a drink, and sweet curry sauce!
Never said that you had no right to think however you think. But it is a bad strategy from a customer stand point
Tell that to advanced diplomacy feature. Slave revolts want some love too. And sectors are there only in the name.
As I said, it is nonsensical to compare software to a physical product. By the same logic you could compare a novel to a tent. You can't ask for a refund because you dislike it. (well in case for steam games you can, for 2 hours)
I trust Paradox and a few other game companies way more than any of the other game companies, like EA I so don't trust them. So I have faith that Paradox will fix issues for this game like bugs etc and so on, but then of course while fixing bugs and patching the game they might inadvertenly without knowing cause more bugs to appear
Not that this is what I'm doing, but that's not strictly true (to my ire, sometimes).
That we can debate. I think that criticising a company for "money-grubbing" and equating them with EA when, in my view, they aren't guilty of that and they are nothing like EA, might lead them to conclude that cultivating goodwill with the customer base is not working out. They all seem to be up in arms anyway. Therefore they might decide to choose a different strategy, and sell an opaque "expansion" for 20$ that consist only of new hats for the species. Therefore, I criticise PDS when I think they have messed up (there were a couple of early patches in EU4 in which I just wasn't seeing, at all, what they were trying to do with the game, and therefore I expressed my disappointment, quite prolifically in fact), and I defend them when I think they have done well. It's about maintaining a healthy feedback with the devs.
The diplomacy is more advanced than that of other strategy games, and less advanced than that of others. "Advanced" as a word is quite ambiguous. About slave revolts, I haven't experienced that part of the game yet (never played with a pro-slavery faction) so I couldn't say. And sectors, in my experience, do what they have to do: they take away planets from me because I can't realistically manage more than 5 optimally without pausing every month, and make buildings for the pops as they pop out, in a less than ideal fashion because, well, it's an AI. I don't have any problem with sectors myself, they do what I expected them to do, somewhat basically and roughly because this is 1.0. But the feature IS there and you can definitely use it.
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