Respect Your Gamer

[Realitycrash]

I've always loved Paradox games. They have got some real ambitious titles and the synergy between Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV resulted in a game that blows Civilization out of the park.

Heretic, we do not speak of such blasphemy on the Escapist. As repentance, play 200 turns on Deity-difficulty.

 

[Abomination]

I've always loved Paradox games. They have got some real ambitious titles and the synergy between Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV resulted in a game that blows Civilization out of the park.

Heretic, we do not speak of such blasphemy on the Escapist. As repentance, play 200 turns on Deity-difficulty.

I'm talking about from a geo-political nation/empire simulator. Not the "gaming" that Civilization has turned into.

 

[putowtin]

Huzzah!
Huzzah!

Common sense prevails!
Huzzah!

(Back to Crusader Kings II)

 

[Pinky's Brain]

I don't see how you can blame EA for all that.

For instance Bioware still interacts with the community ... or at least the Dragon Age team.

The Dragon Age team makes a lot of decision which the community actually loves and honestly defends it's decisions on the forum. More open world, multiple starting races, Qunari protagonist, they at least acknowledge the issues we have with the dialogue wheel and autodialogue ... even though they REALLY don't like that we use the term autodialogue.

The Mass Effect team doesn't acknowledge anything, not the problems people have with sequels, not the problems people had with the storytelling in ME3 (they just straw men that we didn't want Shepard to die, they never touch the real problems), nothing.

Big budget teams have the luxury to be arrogant because so much of their audience doesn't really pay much attention to anything but the advertising any way ... but they don't have to make use of it and I don't really see EA or Activision published games standing out in this respect either, it just completely depends on the devs.

 

[Qvar]

This is good info. Without the context, I gotta say, that link really looked like a company trying to nickel-and-dime their customers to death. That's a LOT of DLC there, and even at only $2 a pop, if you want the complete experience, it really adds up. Good to hear that the big picture is much less damning.

I haven't played Crusader Kings 2, but I have played Magicka for many hours and I've never felt like it was lacking anything. You could say they're modular games, like the old times when you could buy more books for your pen and paper D&D collection. You have the core game, then you can also buy this new adventures/colorful robes/whatever they made later. Or don't. They're just something you can add, if you feel like it.

 

[revjor]

Thirded? Most of those dlc came out in chunks months after and apart so it's not like day one they just released a bunch of stuff cut from the game to sell.(I believe that is known as Capcoming)

Not a single one of those DLC has felt like a ripoff to me because:
1. The game was polished and packed with content from day 1. It was easily the most day one ready game I've played in years.
2. They update the game with free content constantly. Most major game changing mechanics in a new expansion given to all players for free.
3. I watched those DLC getting made through dev diaries and know they were made well after the game was finished.
4. If you don't want to pay for their portrait/music DLC but still want new portraits and music? They provide directories to portrait/music mods on their own forums.
5. $1.99 is nothing for a 3-5 song pack or a Portrait pack. TWO DOLLARS is fair payment for a single person spending weeks writing new music/illustrating.
6. Almost every time a modder asks for a certain part of the engine to be able to be modded they provide. Which has given the world the best Game of Thrones game on the market. (and REALLY AWESOME new Elder Scrolls game)

This is good info. Without the context, I gotta say, that link really looked like a company trying to nickel-and-dime their customers to death. That's a LOT of DLC there, and even at only $2 a pop, if you want the complete experience, it really adds up. Good to hear that the big picture is much less damning.

The big DLC bundle always goes cheap during a steam sale too.

 

[AntiChrist]

Even though I love Paradox' grand strategy games as well as believing demo and mod support to be causes deserving of attention, the article left me mildly bothered. Am I missing some crucial context? Why is this studio manager's personal statement - praising his studio's virtues - featured content on the Escapist?

Is it as a consolation prize for having lost the GOTY bracket to Star Craft?

 

[II2]

I, uh, like the part where he said... everything he said?

Seriously, though, I don't have much to add to that comprehensively great article other than my enthusiasm and support for a developer(s) who both creates excellent titles and goes about it with an attitude and MO I respect point for point down the line. Keep it up!

Amen.

 

[Kevin Puszert]

Honestly, why should they?

They know you'll buy whatever they are selling. They know they make more money pandering to your baser impulses than they will trying to appeal to your higher sensibilities. They know you need a fix to escape the pain of daily living and will do nearly anything to get it.

Virtual Reality isn't here to enhance reality, its here to replace it.

 

[RoonMian]

Bold statement. Might work for a smaller company, but how do you expect to sell that to your shareholders? Most which have very little idea how gaming and the gaming community works and will most likely see it as "letting the terrorists win".

That's one of the many reasons why the concept of the shareholder value needs to go. Even the inventor of the concept starting saying that years ago.

Adapting that old saying attributed to Henry Ford to the gaming industry: "Shareholders don't buy games."

 

[Oskar Hinriksson]

If only Paradox was the developer who had given us X-com: Enemy Unknown, I have some ideas and would like to mods the shit out of that game but alas they made that game hard to mod even though they said they ware "pro" mods.

A very good read and very good advise.

 

[PuckFuppet]

I've said this before on this forum, and I'll say it again, despite the sheer scale of the DLC's that they offer for CK2... I've never felt the need to buy any of them. I've played the game with and without them, and its been a great experience both ways (admittedly nothing raises the tension like 300k+ angry Aztec's burning most of your Kingdom to the ground, but the Mongol Horde suffices).

That said I rabidly consume any DLC they release, when they release it. Often I won't even see the effect in my game, I regularly play long and drawn out MP games with house rules out the wazoo (neatly enforced by a simple to maintain and install 22mb mod I might add) and that aside I usually don't play with the sound turned on making the song packs useless... in game at least. Considering how accessible their stuff is my background playlist has several tracks they've released, usually good stuff too.

 

[Caiphus]

I'm a fan of Paradox, and this article resonates extremely well with a lot of my personal ideals on how the game industry should run. So well done. It's a shame that I'm just not smart enough to play a lot of your games. It's a good thing that "losing" is fun in Crusader Kings II, because I sure as hell can't do anything else.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Bold statement. Might work for a smaller company, but how do you expect to sell that to your shareholders? Most which have very little idea how gaming and the gaming community works and will most likely see it as "letting the terrorists win".

You could sell it to shareholders by showing them the evidence that displays how the money being spent to combat piracy is lost capital. The big companies know that anti-piracy techniques don't work and have admitted as such. I think the shareholders know this too by now. It's no secret.

 

[JohanAnderssonPDX]

As some have already replied here..

The amount of DLC for CK2 is a lot, but they are all optional. We've also added multiple-dlc's-worth of content into free patches, that are available for everyone.


As one thing I forgot to mention in the article, is that what type of gamer I am myself.. For games like World of Warcraft I can spend lots of money on cosmetic stuff like a sparkling horse, but in Candy Crush Saga, I refuse to pay a single dime, as I want to beat the game without using paid-cheats.

Thats the philosophy as a gamer I want to add in to how to I make games.. DLC's should be optional, and make you feel you get something for it, not as a way to "level quicker" or "go past a paywall".

 

[Crossborder]

As some have already replied here..

The amount of DLC for CK2 is a lot, but they are all optional. We've also added multiple-dlc's-worth of content into free patches, that are available for everyone.


As one thing I forgot to mention in the article, is that what type of gamer I am myself.. For games like World of Warcraft I can spend lots of money on cosmetic stuff like a sparkling horse, but in Candy Crush Saga, I refuse to pay a single dime, as I want to beat the game without using paid-cheats.

Thats the philosophy as a gamer I want to add in to how to I make games.. DLC's should be optional, and make you feel you get something for it, not as a way to "level quicker" or "go past a paywall".

I don't think the amount of DLC's being released is wrong, but I understand where people who do think so are coming from. It's easy to get overwhelmed by the cheer amount of choice. I think this isn't a problem with the DLC's, but rather with the way they are presented on the store page. DLC categories would go a long way, for example, dividing them between songs/cosmetics/gameplay.

One thing don't agree with is other games like Victoria 2 being neglected in favour of the more popular Crusader Kings 2 and EU4. It's kind of sad seeing new content being released for those games, while the economy in Victoria 2 is still broken, and the A.I still has some major issues.

 

[RDL_Razor]

Something PGI needed to learn 2 years ago when they painted a pretty picture of MWO to come.