I have been and continue to be an avid supporter of Paradox. I've spent hundreds of dollars on games and dlcs, even though I find the development model the company has come to represent somewhat distasteful. The games are good enough that I am, broadly speaking, willing to overlook that. CK2 is still my favorite game of all time.
With that said, this is the first time I have felt genuinely ripped off by this company. I recently bought Megacorp after reading a bit about all the great changes -- yet, perhaps foolishly, I did not see the posts about how absolutely unplayable the game is right now until I had already invested three hours in a run-through. If I hadn't done that, I would genuinely have returned both DLCs. As it is, I am trapped with them right now.
I hope someone at Paradox reads this and hears us. You will LOSE us if you continue to conduct yourselves in this way. Views and metrics of community interest in Imperator: Rome are already way down, and I personally have come to believe that over and above some of the arbitrary design decisions made in the development of that game (which I have voiced separately in that forum), it is overwhelmingly likely that Imperator will be empty and unsatisfying. However, I am equally certain that the first two to four hours of gameplay will be a blast and feel very fresh -- enough that the army of sycophantic reviewers will give it a 9/10 across the board. We will then be stuck with a broken product that we will convince ourselves is worth waiting for, when it's really just bad business and disrespect for a very loyal fanbase. Paradox's QA apparently never plays past that length into their own damn games.
To those of you who will make apologetics for this behavior and immediately leap to Paradox's defense, please understand that this comes from a place of love. I adore the concept of these games and frankly I was initially very excited about the new economy changes that this update brought. The pops have been dramatically improved.
But the fact that I can't run this two year old game on an absolutely top of the line PC is an absolute slap in the face. I can run AC Odyssey at full settings with no lag or framerate drop. And I won't even go into the anemic, boring and weak AI in a patch developed in 2018. Even if I try to hold off on building fleets to make the game harder, I still roll over everyone. It's pathetic.
What's worse, I strongly suspect that Paradox knew about these problems with the update and put it out to increase Christmas sales. That level of cynicism bodes ill for their further projects, and I personally am done purchasing anything until Paradox meaningfully engages with the community about why they did this and what they plan to do to rectify it in the future.
With that said, this is the first time I have felt genuinely ripped off by this company. I recently bought Megacorp after reading a bit about all the great changes -- yet, perhaps foolishly, I did not see the posts about how absolutely unplayable the game is right now until I had already invested three hours in a run-through. If I hadn't done that, I would genuinely have returned both DLCs. As it is, I am trapped with them right now.
I hope someone at Paradox reads this and hears us. You will LOSE us if you continue to conduct yourselves in this way. Views and metrics of community interest in Imperator: Rome are already way down, and I personally have come to believe that over and above some of the arbitrary design decisions made in the development of that game (which I have voiced separately in that forum), it is overwhelmingly likely that Imperator will be empty and unsatisfying. However, I am equally certain that the first two to four hours of gameplay will be a blast and feel very fresh -- enough that the army of sycophantic reviewers will give it a 9/10 across the board. We will then be stuck with a broken product that we will convince ourselves is worth waiting for, when it's really just bad business and disrespect for a very loyal fanbase. Paradox's QA apparently never plays past that length into their own damn games.
To those of you who will make apologetics for this behavior and immediately leap to Paradox's defense, please understand that this comes from a place of love. I adore the concept of these games and frankly I was initially very excited about the new economy changes that this update brought. The pops have been dramatically improved.
But the fact that I can't run this two year old game on an absolutely top of the line PC is an absolute slap in the face. I can run AC Odyssey at full settings with no lag or framerate drop. And I won't even go into the anemic, boring and weak AI in a patch developed in 2018. Even if I try to hold off on building fleets to make the game harder, I still roll over everyone. It's pathetic.
What's worse, I strongly suspect that Paradox knew about these problems with the update and put it out to increase Christmas sales. That level of cynicism bodes ill for their further projects, and I personally am done purchasing anything until Paradox meaningfully engages with the community about why they did this and what they plan to do to rectify it in the future.
