Ask them to mod the game, you mean? Or as an actual position on the team?
How do you know it doesn't? Have you seen the list of issues that 5.2 is addressing, including at least two CTD causes?
Yes, you are correct on that one, and magna mundi, and darkest hour, and those are just the ones being sold, let alone the free ones . Notice a pattern here. Seems like modders are the ones doing the work that developers can't, or sometimes won't do. Not that paradox is alone, I got the same vibe when I was a fan of total war. I mean what is a better game, Rome total war or Rome Total Realism/ Europa Barbarorum? What's better, Medieval 2 or Stainless Steel? Now, I don't think TW holds a candle to paradox games, in fact I got into paradox games after I got tired of the shallowness of TW. But I always am concerned when I hear of support for games being finished by modders instead of by the developers. Sure, I think developers can't do it all, and modding should be encouraged, but the presence of the latter should never be an excuse for the development being half finished. That is however a sentiment that all too often I here from forums: "it's okay, the modders will fix the problem, give them time" If that is the case, modders need to be hired out for their efforts. Glad to see that that is happening on several titles at paradox lately so that is a good step.
I, for one, would love to have access to the source code. Wouldn't have a clue where to start actually modifying it, but still.
Now that the discussion is turning into Rome 2 may I ask if someone is willing to start doing it as a mod for Vae Victis? My own idea is to start around 300 A.D and modify the game to have East and West Rome, barbarian invasions, Islamic caliphates and their conquest etc. but yet I haven't got anything really big done.
I still always will say that the reason that companies don't give games the attention they deserve is because people who purchase the games are content with letting modders fix half broken games. As long as someone does it, the players are happy, and the developer gets away with churning out unfinished games and adding beta patches before moving on the the next games. Don't get me wrong, pdox is better than some developers. But the more they are makeing new games and new expansions, the more they seem to be dropping previous projects, or handing them off to modders. I am playing Darkest Hour now, which is the example of modders saving games that developers have forgotten. The developers could have made HOI 3 as good as Darkest Hour, and yet with all its eye candy and paid expansions, HOI3 is still getting complaints (and is too much for my computer even on low settings) , while a 10 dollar game like DH for me seems to have done wonders to an old engine. with more work being not only promuised but done. Truth is there are still modders at work on Rome, and I wish the same had been considered to support the modders if they were going to drop the project. Treat every game you put out there with equal care, and you show your customers that you care about them all equally as well, not just because they happened to get lucky and choose the "popular" game of the bunch.
