Maybe Im too harsh?

[Tactics]

Am I to harsh? Here is the story..

I recently fell back in love with Hearts of Iron and as a result developed an interest in "Victoria". I knew that HOI had alot of bugs upon release so I decided to do some research on "Victoria" before buying it.

I browsed forums and read reviews all over. It seems that while a small group really likes the game, as is. The vast majority find it ridden with bugs, CTD's and wacky AI. A lot of people described the game as "incomplete".

I found this quote in the paradox forums...

The game was ready when it was released. We had fixed all reported bugs, and were convinced that it was great. However, we did not play every single country in all campaigns ourselves, so we had to acknowledge that there would be imbalances at times.

However, it does not seem that we were right, as the reviewers disliked the game, and hardly anyone bought it.

So from now on, we'll focus on games easier to play, and where we can put down enough inhouse testing time to make the games super-balanced before release.

I suspect that the policy we have had of patching games, extending the game with features hurt us more in the eyes of the masses. Of course hardcore fans like it, but average joe just sees patch = broken.

ps. basically, only the sales the first 2 months matter for a game to the developer. The fraction recieved from games in bargain-bin is <0.01$ for us.
__________________

Johan Andersson
Europa Universalis I/II - Lead Programmer
Hearts of Iron - Lead Programmer
Victoria - Lead Programmer
johan@paradoxplaza.com

I read that and my jaw dropped. I read that and it sounds like this....

We made a really complex game and didn’t test it fully. As a result it had alot of bugs. The consumers called us on it and now we are screwed. He goes on to say "We will focus on games easier to play". In other words, Games easier to make.

To harsh?

Later in the thread he follows up...

I didn't say that we would never do another EU2-complexity game again. I said that it was more likely we would aim for that complexity than for Victoria complexity.

And this thread shows exactly why it’s not worth it to make super-detail, since there's always someone bringing up some little detail from his nations past we were not aware off.

Johan Andersson
Europa Universalis I/II - Lead Programmer
Hearts of Iron - Lead Programmer
Victoria - Lead Programmer
johan@paradoxplaza.com

Isn’t the point of a super detailed game to be correctly super detailed? If I purchase a game recreating a historical era, I sort of expect the makers to know every detail of subject matter.

Maybe I’m being too harsh or reading his words wrong? I read that stuff and think the guy is a total cop-out. Anyone have thoughts?

Quotes from:

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/sho ... page=1&pp=

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

I know some will just say bugger off Les no one wants to here YOUR thoughts on it.

Well its a free world, and my opinion is as good as the next guys.

I think what might be the problem with HoI and Victoria, might be an insistence on assuming it would work simply because it did for EU and EU2.

There is no basis to assume that what worked in one setting, is automatically valid whereever you employ it.

We have not seen any success in converting Steel Panthers World at War into a modern game for just that reason. To many elements of the modern battlefield just don't fly using the same software. End result, there is no modern Steel Panthers World at War variant.

SPMBT by the way is based off different software and hence is not the same game as Steel Panthers WaW. And that is an important fact to remember. They just "look" the same.

So that is precisely why I think (regardless of those that like it, they are not everyone), that HoI failed dismally to get me to buy it. Because it was the wrong setting, for the software it was built on. You can't automatically take a game that uses decades or more of time, and crush it into a specific 6 years of specific history, and get your way just because you feel like it.

They attempted to much, and it shows. They made the game knee deep in complexity, and it shows. The made it impossible to cut the AI out of the picture, and it shows. They snubbed the predictable value of turns that work, and it shows.

And they insisted they could ignore all the troubles that were created with HoI and insisted none of it had ever happened when they made Victoria and it shows.

And some people insist that because I have not bought the game therefore I could not possible be capable of formulating an opinion. And no doubt a response will in time show that.

But frankly, I have been wargaming for decades, and the absence of bad wargames on my shelf is an indication I know what I am talking about.

If I had the resources to market a grand strategy wargame, it would have an AI that I could leave off if I wanted. It would use hexes. It would have turns. And it would look like a cross between all that makes World in Flames and Third Reich wargames that we all know don't need me saying they are a lot better than HoI will ever be credited as having been.

We will be claiming A3R and WiF as timeless classics long afer HoI has become three letters no one can recall the meaning of.

[Greyshaft]

Well its a free world, and my opinion is as good as the next guys.

True... but do you also acknowledge that the next guy's opinion is as good as yours?[:D]

[Grouchy]

I do have a different opinion then Les on it.
IMO there is not much wrong with the software it was built on.

Got Victoria from a friend who didn't like it just for Christmasa and the patch was already out when I started to play it.

Personally I think that if you liked EU and/or HOI then you probally will like Victoria.
I certainly had enough value for my money, and did spend alot of hours on the game and still play it.
But have to be honest I modded it heavily and some official gametweaking/patch would be nice. A better UI would help also, hate all the clicking I have to do when I upgrade my railroads.

More on general/average terms, the game might be too hardcore. Think Paradox made the same mistakes as 25 years ago the makers of boardgamers did made. The Grognards love all the extras, but for the average gamer it is just too much and the game becomes inacceseable for them.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

I will support the comment vis a vis board games going to far. I can actually list a number of board games, that started out great, were simple initially, which made them great, and then the tweak demons got ahold of it, and were convinced they were more than briliant enough to perfect perfection.

Often a great game becomes great, because the initial vision made it great, not all the superfuous fluff that was added to it several versions later.

There is no reason to assume automatically, that an endless spiral of tweaks mods and super detail actually makes a wargame "better".

I have a pet project (totally unsure it will ever see the light of day let alone worth buuuuut), to return ASL back to just SL, but with all the myriad nations made available.
Squad Leader made Squad Leader a household name, not Advanced Squad Leader.

Sometimes too much detail spoils the experience.

[Muzrub]

HOI should have been made better, they should have took more time.

Its not just the historical issues that plague the game, or its "complexity" its the actual mechanics of that game that has caused most of the problems.

I personally think HOI could have been more complex in terms of trade and dimplomacy + the military side of things. But I still would have enjoyed the game if the AI was not insane! And the mechanics of the game were correct.

Paradox seems to be blaming everyone but themselves, its not our fault we didnt test it, its not our fault people dont like patches ( mind you it took them forever to patch it after hundreds of complaints and in the end the best patch comes from the players themselves).


To me this is a Paradox sob story, now their going to make simple games for simple people so we dont get confused at the flashing lights. If thats the case sales will drop even more. Surely in the year 2004 we came make a complex game of world domination- hell we put a man on the moon for christs sake in the 60's!

[degen]

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1

I will support the comment vis a vis board games going to far. I can actually list a number of board games, that started out great, were simple initially, which made them great, and then the tweak demons got ahold of it, and were convinced they were more than briliant enough to perfect perfection.

Often a great game becomes great, because the initial vision made it great, not all the superfuous fluff that was added to it several versions later.

There is no reason to assume automatically, that an endless spiral of tweaks mods and super detail actually makes a wargame "better".

I have a pet project (totally unsure it will ever see the light of day let alone worth buuuuut), to return ASL back to just SL, but with all the myriad nations made available.
Squad Leader made Squad Leader a household name, not Advanced Squad Leader.

Sometimes too much detail spoils the experience.

I felt the same way with SL. It was a fun and detailed tactical gane with about the right amount of complexity. The original game played great, but the add-ons became more and more detailed and could not see putting more money into a game that is constantly evolving and having to learn a myriad of detailed rules to play the game properly. All I wanted was more SL--different nations and new scenarios, not a more complex SL.

[Frank W.]

ORIGINAL: Muzrub

HOI should have been made better, they should have took more time.

Its not just the historical issues that plague the game, or its "complexity" its the actual mechanics of that game that has caused most of the problems.

I personally think HOI could have been more complex in terms of trade and dimplomacy + the military side of things. But I still would have enjoyed the game if the AI was not insane! And the mechanics of the game were correct.

Paradox seems to be blaming everyone but themselves, its not our fault we didnt test it, its not our fault people dont like patches ( mind you it took them forever to patch it after hundreds of complaints and in the end the best patch comes from the players themselves).


To me this is a Paradox sob story, now their going to make simple games for simple people so we dont get confused at the flashing lights. If thats the case sales will drop even more. Surely in the year 2004 we came make a complex game of world domination- hell we put a man on the moon for christs sake in the 60's!

yes, i could have written that.

i wait now for patch 1.06 for HoI and
if this does not improve the game and
iron out most of the remaining bugs i´m
going to sell it.

[dinsdale]

Victoria's main problem appears to be that it is not perfect. The ways it's not perfect are different for almost everyone on the forum. For example, there was a debate about events, one poster said the game was lacking because some critical events for the US (Guadeloupe-Hidalgo and The Gold Rush) were not included, while another said there were too many events. It's hard to see how Paradox can win

The original EU1 benefitted from one poster who took it upon himself to create and maintain the IGC. That mod became the de facto way to play the game, it fixed a bunch of historic issues, changed countries and generally balanced the game. I haven't seen anything like the level of cooperation and unified effort since. There were multiple mods for EU2, and it got to the point where the admins had to prevent these different groups from spending all their time attacking one another. Victoria is moddable enough where arguements about the Indian Mutiny being missing should be irrelevant; a large forum with the expertise some of these folks have is always going to do a better job at correcting historic issues and balancing than Paradox could ever do.

The nitpicking over such issues should be filtered out when looking at the game. Strategy gamers are a fractured and picking bunch (myself included ) no one is ever going to make a large group of us completely satisfied.

Next, Victoria is suffering from EU2/HOI hangover. Those games were a disgrace at 1.0. Victoria 1.01 was available on release, and it fixed most of the bugs in the game. I don't think it's as polished as say Highway To The Reich, or Korsun Pocket, but it was certainly acceptable IMHO, but there does appear to be a lingering expectation of bugs.

Finally, Victoria is not really a complex game. It appears far more complex than it is and suffers from a poor UI. Combined with awful documentation and no tutorial it's hardly surprising that reviewers weren't gushing about it. One of them stated how much he enjoyed the game, but pointed out the interface and learning cliff as reasons for the low review score. As a genre, wargames are still primitive when it comes to accessibility, something hardcore gamers usually get over if they enjoy the game.

Paradox need to find the key to getting good reviews and expanding their customer base; many of the recent Matrix games I've bought have been able to do this without resorting to dumbing down the complexity.

[Tom Stearns]

I have to agree with you about people wanting perfection. Rarely do I buy a game upon release. I usually wait for reviews to come out. I also wait until a patch has had time to appear. In fact I load the game and then immediatley download the patch. Therefore, most of these games I don't play unpatched and I guess I avoid the frustration of the imperfect release.

That being said, put me in the camp of liking Victoria. I agree it's not perfect. But I'm not expecting it to be perfect. I'm not expecting it to perfectly simulate every country in the world to the smallest detail. Part of the fun of playing a game is making a new history. If every event, every country's move follow's history and then it's predictable. Predictable isn't fun. But, bottom line is I think people become attached to systems and how things "should" be. If you don't like the system you won't like the game. I actually enjoy Victoria more than EU.

I recently bought Galactic Civilizations. I immediately downloaded the patch and have had a great time with it this weekend. I like the Strategy First titles and will continue to buy them. Se' la vie'.

[ravinhood]

I agree about not adding the complexity and more detail to an already great game. Squad Leader was fun to play, just the right amount of complexity, but, when I saw ASL, it turned me off totally. I don't want to spend half my play session looking up rules to settle squables over a silly game. Games should be entertaining and not a headache or nightmare of rules.

I feel the same about Victoria, I told them that game would fall on the Victoria forums, I told them and told them! lol and it did! I can play a game 30 minutes for the most part and tell you if it's any good or not or even if it's great. That first initial 30 minutes tells me a lot about a game. If I have to ramble through the rule book 30 times, have to figure out how to use the UI without proper instructions step by step, the ease of movement and combat statistics vs having to sit there and count up a stack of units attack and defensive values plus support units one hex away, etc. etc. When they get overly complicated, they are doomed to fail to the masses, oh the grognards will love it, but, face it, there's not a whole lot of wargame gorgnards left. Today's wargamer is "instant gratification", a want to defeat or lose in a perspective amount of time and it better not go over 4 or 5 hours. That's why RTS is so popular among the youth.

HOI on the other hand, I liked HOI up until I found out the computer AI allies could not and would not mount any kind of offensive to drive the Germans or the Japanese back, if the AI played them. That to me defeated HOI and made it just another wannabe try at a good strategic game of WWII. I didn't find it complex by a long shot as far as the tech tree. I just found it sad that the only AI in the game was Germany and Russia.

I was just saying on another thread, many games of the 80's were a lot better than the games today, with not much complexity, and the time frame to play one out might be 4 or 5 hours. That's another thing about complex games made today, they take forever to finish one game. I think developers need to get back to those games that take only 4 or 5 hours to complete in a gaming session. This to me would bring back more multiplayer play without drops or "I gotta goes", in my boardgaming days this was the way it was also, most of my friends only had 4 or 5 hours for a play session, and of course most did not want to pick up where one left off after a session because you lose immersion and you lose a lot of your strategic and tactical thoughts before the next session begins.

Personally I don't own any Maxtrix games yet, unless Steel Panthers counts, I'm still reading the forums and looking at reviews. Since I'm not a fan of the Russian front or Operation Market Garden, I haven't seen anything interesting yet except "Uncommon Valor". It's a pacific warside wargame and I like those, but, I remember Grigsbys "War in the Pacific", that is a huge game to me, and it's still on my hard-drive, I haven't made a full effort to attempt play it yet. I'm still reading the RULES! lol

[DerekP]

Well - people and glass houses spring to mind. [;)]

Bear in mind that the latest Grigsby game - which looks very interesting - is a massive step in the same direction as the quote from Paradox's game developer.

It is hard (if not impossible) to get a hyper detailed world simulation game right. No one (to my knowledge) has done so yet. EU2 is a fun game with a history backdrop and probably gets closest. Nothing in the WW2 era (including HoI) approaches the playability and broad historical sweep of that game. Strategic Command / Clash of Steel failed as did computer Third Reich.

The question is complicated by the nit-picking detail demanded by a vocal minority of wargamers which means that if you try to satisfy them they always ask for more.

Grigsby appears to be going back to a more abstract conflict system to avoid the "wtf how can they give the same combat factor to a Sherman V as a PzIVH" style complaints which do tend to crop up with monotonous regularity.

I think that both styles can produce great games - just that the simpler cleaner more abstract games are easier to get right (and more marketable) than the grand simulations

[Fred98]

Les, your opinion is always interesting. [&o]

But the shorter it is the more interesting it is

Joe

- an expert in human nature [:D]

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Unfortunately one of my more thought out posts was lost during the 1 day hiccup not long back that saw a loss of a days posts me thinks.

One thing though that is important, no one can say I am capable of attacking one game, while unwilling to do so to my pet favourites.

Any that would claim to have read my posts here and there, and would suggest or imply that I am unduly biased can't have really read enough of my posts here and there.

I always call what I see as I see it. This annoys some, but that is their cross to bear not mine.

[ravinhood]

What was wrong with STRATEGIC COMMAND? Other than I held France until May of 42, it was a pretty neat game to play. Easy to use, simplified combat system, the German AI needs a little help though. Either that or I'd have made a great Winston. I even took back parts of Norway before May of 42. Dang Germans "sunk my battleship" though! lol

Anyways though I'd give up my left testosterone if Paradox would make the Allied AI in HOI do something. All I wanted was some realistic amphibious invasions to take back Normandy and of course the USA to invade the Japanese held Islands, and they did try, God help them, but, ummmm I don't think one scrawy division a month is gonna break the German held French borders or move Japanese divisions off islands very fast.

I'm hearing that this is a known bug, and suppose to be addressed in patch 1.06, I can only ask why it's taken this long to fix this, it was pretty obvious from 1.0 that this was a major problem and not some insignificant bug. So here I wait, going on a year and a half since the games release for it to be playable to me. But, i'll give patch 1.06 the ole gung ho and hopefully see some decent amphibious invasions from the USA and Britian. While I play my glorious Brazilians and crush Spain and Africa for them

Question: Did Brazil even have anything to do with WWII? How many units did they send to Europe? They are fun to play, taking out Argentina and that northern province with all the oil and rubber was quite fun, then building a fleet of submarines and making heyday with Italian and German shipping around Malta, hehe. Invading Spain and Africa was fun, and being the Allied army that helped Russia crush Germany, with not one unit of American or British forces on the European map....how sad.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

What makes Strategic Command hands down a dozen time better than HoI will ever be capable of, is if I desire it, I can play both sides exactly as I can any decent wargame.

And in the process it is not material whether or not the AI is any good.

Any game where the AI can NOT be cut out of the picture, is unlikely to impress me.

[dinsdale]

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1

What makes Strategic Command hands down a dozen time better than HoI will ever be capable of, is if I desire it, I can play both sides exactly as I can any decent wargame.

And in the process it is not material whether or not the AI is any good.

Any game where the AI can NOT be cut out of the picture, is unlikely to impress me.

I would imagine you're in the minority then. One of the reasons for playing PC strat games is for an opponent and not to have to play both sides.

An AI doesn't have to be great, but it has to be competent. Similarly, if continous time is going to be used then there need to be a lot of tools to allow multiplayer, otherwise it's a reaction click fest. There also has to be some abstraction of events so that the player is not expected to have more decisions in a day than can be reacted to. All Paradox games have failed with this one; some bookeeping is done by the day, some by the month. They need someone to look at their next game and figure out what the strategic scale is, and what the right update speed is. That way, it might be possible to play MP without sacrificing strategy.

--------------------------------------

Ravinhood, I imagine that you derive a greater pleasure from games which don't meet expectations than ever from playing them.

[Fallschirmjager]

What?
You expected Strategy First to release a non bug ridden game?

That goes agaisnt company policy

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

You missed my point.

SC CAN be played hotseat with me as both sides if I feel like it.

I much prefer to play another person. Heck most people I have played are on average better than me

But to try and sell me a game where the AI is not about to go away, where it is play it or forget it. Well I chose forget it.

The AI in SC is not brilliant, it's alright, but lacks a bit of aggressiveness in some areas. But the best part of the game, is I can just not bother to play it against the AI.

I don't think that PC games were ever more so designed to be played against an opponent than board games though. But it is usually a selling point, when a game is not tied to one option only.

[Frank W.]

I'm hearing that this is a known bug, and suppose to be addressed in patch 1.06, I can only ask why it's taken this long to fix this, it was pretty obvious from 1.0 that this was a major problem and not some insignificant bug. So here I wait, going on a year and a half since the games release for it to be playable to me. But, i'll give patch 1.06 the ole gung ho and hopefully see some decent amphibious invasions from the USA and Britian. While I play my glorious Brazilians and crush Spain and Africa for them

Question: Did Brazil even have anything to do with WWII? How many units did they send to Europe? They are fun to play, taking out Argentina and that northern province with all the oil and rubber was quite fun, then building a fleet of submarines and making heyday with Italian and German shipping around Malta, hehe. Invading Spain and Africa was fun, and being the Allied army that helped Russia crush Germany, with not one unit of American or British forces on the European map....how sad.

mhh... i have seen allied invasions !

also some dangerous ones.

i remember a landing from the US in
sizily with about 10 divs or so....

i think i used a AI mod in this game.

but there are much more probs with the
game, you can go to the paradox forums
type in search for posts from frank w.
i reported much bugs + opinions on the
forums from paradox.

also i must credit HoI as the game that still
comes closest to a WW2 grand strategy game
from the ones i know....axis + allies was
more a joke, also i didn´t like s. command
( i played only the demo but don´t like it ).

the brazilians send 1 div to italy and some
fighters ( p 47 IIRC ). they were equipped
like US troops.