Victoria 2 demo

[Lützow]

As time goes by you will see more frequently and larger stacks of rebels spawn.

This is in particular annoying as the alterations in design - compared to the predecessor - also changed the focus in gameplay. Victoria/Revolutions was all about shaping a nation by domestic activities and one could play it primarily as a business simulation without waging war - unless it got enforced to you. The streamlined economy in Victoria 2 took away most of the former occupation and seduces the player to expand his borders for compensation. Hence it will become a problem when the troops are scattered somewhere in the world while a revolution arises in your own country. However, if you keep them at home and renounce aggressions toward your neighbours, there is not much to do in this game but staring on the screen. PI announced to address the reb problem with next patch, but that doesn't make up for the lack of player interaction.


Out of Eight rated Victoria 2 with 5/8

http://www.outofeight.info/2010/08/victoria-ii-review.html

[diablo1]

Out of Eight rated Victoria 2 with 5/8

Lol he pretty much stuck to his guns of his early beta preview then with that score.

[JaguarUSF]

ORIGINAL: diablo1
Lol he pretty much stuck to his guns of his early beta preview then with that score.

Pew pew!

[jomni]

5/8 is actually not a bad score.

[diablo1]

ORIGINAL: jomni

5/8 is actually not a bad score.

It is when one only buys games that get 7 or 8's. Or A's and B's or 80's and 90's.

[goodwoodrw]

Well, may I say I think I have just bought my last Paradox title. It has absolutely nothing to do with the product they sell, but if they want to treat their customers with the type of disrespect as just shown to me on their forum I have no interest in supporting a company like them whether it's software company or any other company supplying any other type of goods or service, I am not interested giving them a single $.
I was warned for this

Dear goodwood2,

You have received a warning at Paradox Interactive Forums.

Reason:
-------
Arguing Moderator Decision

When safferli informed people not to keep asking when the patch will be released, he wasn't inviting further commentary on the matter. Please read the forum rules and refrain from contradicting a moderating decision in public. If you feel the need to complain about a moderating decision then do so via Private Message.

This is a 0-point warning rather than an infraction.
-------

Original Post:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/sho ... p=11516794
Quote:
Quote:
Moderators reply to a poster asking when the patch will be available.
Originally Posted by safferli View Post
It's done when it's done, further asking will be considered spam.
My reply
Joking I hope, or is this 1933?
Warnings serve as a reminder to you of the forum's rules, which you are expected to understand and follow.

Crikey Battlefront and Matrixgames adhered to this type of rule, they wouldn't have too many members left to post
I know I sound a bit cranky about this, but I feel deeply offended about this, and intend to right formal letter of complaint to the of Paradox.
Thank you Matrix for allowing me to vent my disappointment.

[JaguarUSF]

ORIGINAL: jomni

5/8 is actually not a bad score.

It depends on how many games you buy a year

[Lützow]

Their forum policy is weird. With 220k registered members one could think they would acquire sufficient bandwith, but when you have like 7k+ visitors on Matrix board at primetime, PI forum already goes down at 1500+. Likewise they're obviously to niggardly for hiring more moderators and the few ones doing this job are sometimes not able to cope with the task. Paradox became quite large for an indie studio and now they treat their customers worse than some mainstream publisher.

[goodwoodrw]

I just sent letter of complaint to the moderator. I may sound silly, but I'm sick of companies treating customers poorly. I work in retail and if I treated customers the way PI treats their paying customers, I'd get the sack! I'm going make a stand on this.[:@]

[JaguarUSF]

By the way, anybody read this review of Victoria II? I shall quote:

In the meantime though it'd be unfair to think of this new turn-based strategy as mere filler.

Turn-based? Oh my.

Oh, and my review never got picked up on the Paradox forums (or placed on the official review list). Wonder why...

[Lützow]

As impossibly complex as it is deep...

The endless complications involved with even apparently simple tasks will put off all but the most committed.

Sometimes I wonder what these guys are doing in their everyday life, when they consider games like Victoria 2 as impossible complex. Frankly I fail to see what should be so hard about reading an instruction of 100 pages with a rather easy level of difficulty, apart of pure laziness. In my work I meet more challenges in terms of continously knowledge expanding and problem solving, as any strategy ruleset could provide and I guess that concerns the majority of jobs, unless one is spending his time with flipping burgers or alike.

Wish the times would come back when computer owners were students or hobbyists with keen perception, who taught everything on their own. Back then games didn't need to get dumbed down for the sake of sales numbers. [:(]

[JaguarUSF]

I found Victoria II to be one of the least challenging Paradox games to learn, thanks to the automation. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

[diablo1]

I found Crusader Kings to be the least challenging but I still liked it. I still think it's the best one of the entire series. I really like starting out as a count and working my way up to a kingdom.

[LarryP]

ORIGINAL: diablo1

I found Crusader Kings to be the least challenging but I still liked it. I still think it's the best one of the entire series. I really like starting out as a count and working my way up to a kingdom.

I've played that game for hours on end, and I always end up giving in to bugs. Plus the interface seems so unfinished. I like the game but it's hard to play for those two reasons.

[diablo1]

Did you ever upgrade to Dues Vult Larry? I've played complete games after installing that expansion. Interface so unfinished? In what ways? I easily maneuver around with it.

[LarryP]

ORIGINAL: diablo1

Did you ever upgrade to Dues Vult Larry? I've played complete games after installing that expansion. Interface so unfinished? In what ways? I easily maneuver around with it.

Yes I upgraded to Deus Vult. Interface is still not good for me. The game just plays like it needs more work. The Ledger bleeds through to the bottom items and when you click the ledger, items below it open up. The construction management is really cheesy. Many menus bleed through to items underneath and clicking them opens items below them. I've played it on three machines and it's the same.

[33Vyper]

What kind of copy protection does the game have?

CD in drive? Or some silly log in thing?

[LarryP]

ORIGINAL: 33Vyper

What kind of copy protection does the game have?

CD in drive? Or some silly log in thing?

I don't know of any copy protection. I have the downloaded version on two computers.

[ilovestrategy]

ORIGINAL: Widell

Well, the lipstick thingy can said of many games and sequels, and at one point the patch is a new game, and I think most people are OK paying for it. Of course there are many games that, IMHO, exploit this and effectively charge for (sometimes mega, but still) patches, but there are also many examples of where it is reasonable. I guess we all have to make up our own minds of what we are willing to pay for..... Personally I love the Football Manager series, but I am not willing to buy the same (more or less "patched") game every year, so I end up buying last years version, but every second year or, at a huge discount

Those that feel this way about Vicky I versus Vicky II can probably wait a year, and get their piglet for almost nothing. Others have the option to get it now and pay more I guess...

I do the same thing with the John Madden Football games. Every other year or I buy last years game for a few bucks VS. $60.

[Bamilus]

BASB, you're not alone.

I left PI because of the way they treat people on their forums. The developers and moderators are arrogant and they are very draconian. I've supported them since 2002 and have bought at least 15 of their games, but still they banned me over the smallest thing (long story but basically a moderator gave me an infraction for something so minor and ridiculous that I argued with him and he banned me).

Not to mention that to download mods or get tech support you have to register a serial key to your forum account. No big deal, right? Well, you can't unregister the key and if your account gets banned then you no longer have access to mods or tech support. And you can't re-use that key on a non-banned account. Regardless of why you get banned I think it is absolutely ridiculous that they can deny a paying customer the right to download mods or get tech support.

And for those unfamiliar with PI games.....PI games need mods to survive. What I mean is that PI games in their vanilla form usually contain the gameplay mechanics but not a lot of meat and definitely very little fluff. Very little is fleshed out because PI has a huge modding community and they know the modders will implement the actual "meat" of the game (in the form of new countries, events, units, scripts, etc). This system works out pretty well but as you can see from the above paragraph it is a huge blow for a paying customer to all of the sudden lose access to mods because the vanilla versions of PI games are garbage (unlike most Matrix Games that are usually near perfect in their vanilla forms, like WiTP).

Also, even if you have the CD keys for the expansions registered, you still can't download mods because it requires the base game CD key (even for expansion mods). Makes no sense.

I'm aware that most mod downloads aren't hosted on the forums but the fact remains that without a CD key you can't download the sizeable minority of mods that are forum attachments nor can you post in the mod forum.

It sounds lame but honestly I've repurchased three or four PI titles because I've put hundreds of hours into them and I wanted to be able to continue to download new and updated mods.

With the rate of bannings on the PI forums (everyday) and the fact that the reason for the ban is never publically listed and you can't see the users old posts through their profile, I am sure PI is making a pretty penny off of suckers like me who are forced to rebuy the games we love to get new CD keys to register.

As for Victoria 2:

I'm a big fan of the first Victoria. This game has a lot of polish and honestly, even though there are some bugs (annoying rebels, promotion system) it is still very playable at this stage. I am not giving Paradox a free ride, I tore into HoI3 for it's hideous release and stupid patches and to this day refuse to play it. V2 is different, however.

I usually agree with Out of Eight reviews but I totally disagree with his 5/8. This game is very polished and many modders are working close to 24/7 to fix the promotion system. I am positive that in a few weeks (hopefully with the release of 1.2 and the further development of mods) that the game will be completely playable all the way until to the end date. It already is technically fully playable now but you get some late game world economy and pop promotion issues. Regardless this is the most solid PI release in a long time. I'd say 6 or 7/8 right now and it will easily be an 8/8 within 6 months (especially if the VIP2 mod gets released).

And to whoever asked....V2 has no DRM. I don't know of any Paradox games that do.

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I really want to say that I will never buy a PI title again, but I know that isn't true. I've played too many thousands of hours on their games. I wish I could just say screw you to them like they have to their loyal paying customers but it's hard to stop playing the type of games you grew up with.