Paradox Interactive Thread: V3 'Check out my sick Germany blob' - Games

If they need us to pay this much and this often, maybe they should lower the production costs. Because I enjoy DLC for other games at a far lower price overall than these, which are up to 100€ combined in the end.

[QUOTE=Atlascore;50828759]If you think it's crazy then don't buy it, the cosmetic DLC are completely optional. FYI they don't pull these price tags out of their ass, they're based on how much it cost them to make, which is reasonable.[/QUOTE] What a crock of shit. The base game has 6 playable races, in addition to sounds, all the programming required, texturing, ect, and only costs $40. If making portraits and ship models for literally one race was that expensive the base game would be much more expensive or they're taking massive losses on every copy of the base game they sell. Or are you going to claim that the $40 price tag covers purely the cost it took them to draw some portraits?

They probably only charged 40 because they know they'll make a billion dollars back in sales and DLC [editline]4th August 2016[/editline] Doesn't excuse the DLC price though

You literally did not answer my point. If one race needs to be sold at $8 then how can they afford to sell 6 of them + everything else in the base game for $40? All their first post says is that is the price point that they decided it need to be sold at to be worthwhile for them, not that it is the price point they must sell it at to not incur a loss. If making individual races costs them so much they have to sell them at $8 each then the base game would have to be at least $50 just to cover the cost of making the races. Just face it, they are hoping to milk this for all its worth.

[QUOTE=Atlascore;50831392]I don't know, ask the devs yourself why there's such a disparity in the prices. Did you even read the second post? He clearly says they're not going to sell products at a loss, which implies there's not much room if any to lower the price.[/QUOTE] First he states it's just the price point they considered worthwhile then he says they won't sell a product at a loss. He's literally giving two different reasons. I don't see any reason to believe the second point over the first. However considering the price point of previous cosmetic DLC's in previous games one can assume that they just want to get more money out of it, since they don't have any issue selling CK2 cosmetic shit at $5 which involves portraits, animations, modeling, ect.

[QUOTE=Atlascore;50831423]The EU4/CK2 cosmetics don't take anywhere near as much effort to create, what is so fucking hard to understand about this!?[/QUOTE] What proof can you provide that this requires so much more effort? And before you say "they have historical data to base them off of" researching takes a lot of time and effort. [editline]4th August 2016[/editline] Also Wiz did answer my question, it's basically "we sell more of the base game and thus make more money from it" so this has nothing to do with selling the pack at a loss, they just believe they'll get higher returns this way. [url]https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/7-99-for-plantoids.961185/page-12#post-21664900[/url] [editline]4th August 2016[/editline] So they're literally trying to squeeze as much as they can out of the one DLC.

[QUOTE=Atlascore;50831494]EU4/CK2: - Look up historical info for the uniforms, maybe throw in a little fictional design when info is lacking - Make 4 low detail 3D models based on this info, slap it on the generic infantry skeleton - Texture and polish - Stellaris: - Draw concept art, pick a concept that fits the game and looks good, now do it 3 more times for other other ship types, and then do it over a dozen more more times for the modular ship pieces - Model the base ships, now model all the modular pieces, altogether this is almost two dozen models, maybe more. - Make sure the modular pieces fit together flawlessly - Particle effects for engines, lights, etc - Textures and polish - Draw concept art for the turrets, missile launchers, etc, keep going until you've got something that looks good - Model them, rig them, make sure they don't clip excessively, right size, etc - Texture and polish And that's just the combat ships, you've also got the four orbital stations in the game, defense platforms/stations/fortresses which are all modular, the spaceport which is also modular, fighters/bombers for carriers, the science ship, the construction ship, and the colony ship.[/QUOTE] Except the common sense skin pack has 64 skins in it, far more than just 4. You're also going on the assumption that there is no concept art done for historical skins, which I highly doubt, and that every ship has entirely unique particle effects which, again, I highly doubt. You're massively overstating how much effort this takes. Until Paradox actually details the process your entire post is conjecture, not proof. [editline]4th August 2016[/editline] I mean, shit, if CA can sell the culture packs for Attila at $7.99 which contain significantly more content and work required, Pdox can sell some skins and models for less and still make money. [editline]4th August 2016[/editline] Frankly if it was so hard for them to get a return on making models they should have just included the plants in a larger DLC instead of just selling them as a cosmetic DLC that literally adds nothing to the actual gameplay.

I'd just rather a good change of pace and see Paradox release a DLC with actual content that's not super overpriced. At least there's not Plantoids Content Pack $3.99

[quote=Johan]Technically all ships have lots and lots of separate parts you build together in the ship designer. Plantoids alone contains art at about 1/6th of the entire game. IMHO, plantoids could have been priced at 19.99$ and have bern way worth it.[/quote] :downs: this is fucking Johan.

Apparently the only content in the game are the portraits and ship models. Maybe that's why it feels so empty.

[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;50833698]:downs: this is fucking Johan.[/QUOTE] Seriously, now I had enough. Witcher 3: Blood and Wine is 20$, that's 30 hours of memorable gameplay. I'm not paying the same price for cosmetics. At the very least there would need to be major changes to the game included.

[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;50833698]:downs: this is fucking Johan.[/QUOTE] This guy should not do PR

I thought it was gonna be something like 2 quid. Fuck paying 5 and a half.

Someone on 4chan figured out you can remove two lines of text to get the DLC for free :v:

[QUOTE=EnlightenDead;50835612]Someone on 4chan figured out you can remove two lines of text to get the DLC for free :v:[/QUOTE] How do these people become software engineers I don't get it

Anyone believing that the devs set the price just to recover costs and gain a little bit in the process Should be sent to a north korean economics reeducation camp

I tried Stellaris a bit when it came out and I don't remember it much because not a single interesting thing happened

I've got to admit, I love playing Paradox Grand Strategy games so I'd expect this to be one of my most visited threads in General Games Discussion but as a whole this thread seems disproportionately negative about a lot of stuff, to the point where I wonder if you even like the games or if you're all just out playing Darkest Hour or Kaiserreich or whatever griping about how good things used to be That's not to say that that Paradox is blameless - it's got some shitty business practices for sure - it just seems the complaining and overreacting far outweighs the cool stuff people do or the discussions where they talk about what's fun and interesting in the games. /rant [editline]6th August 2016[/editline] On a different note, any interesting countries to try in HoI4? I've mostly played as Germany, Sweden, Turkey and the US. Not sure about playing Britain or Japan because I am awful at naval combat.

[QUOTE=RearAdmiral;50836624]I've got to admit, I love playing Paradox Grand Strategy games so I'd expect this to be one of my most visited threads in General Games Discussion but as a whole this thread seems disproportionately negative about a lot of stuff, to the point where I wonder if you even like the games or if you're all just out playing Darkest Hour or Kaiserreich or whatever griping about how good things used to be That's not to say that that Paradox is blameless - it's got some shitty business practices for sure - it just seems the complaining and overreacting far outweighs the cool stuff people do or the discussions where they talk about what's fun and interesting in the games. /rant [editline]6th August 2016[/editline] On a different note, any interesting countries to try in HoI4? I've mostly played as Germany, Sweden, Turkey and the US. Not sure about playing Britain or Japan because I am awful at naval combat.[/QUOTE] We're mostly just negative on Paradox's DLC policy and shenanigans.

[QUOTE=Anderan;50836636]We're mostly just negative on Paradox's DLC policy and shenanigans.[/QUOTE] I can respect that, it's just from checking the thread about once a week for the past few months it's like listening to a broken record it seems like idk maybe I'm the one overreacting now

I think I've said it before, but the FP thread is a good counter to how the Reddit/Paraforums usually are, which are always singing high praise of Paradox no matter what. At least here its a bit more neutral. I think everyone here enjoys Paradox games, its just the company as a whole makes very poor decisions and can't do good PR without seemingly making an ass out of themselves.

I wouldn't put a good 1000 hours into pdox games if they didn't like them, I just get tired of having to shell out $20 constantly for what are essentially minor content patches.

[QUOTE=Anderan;50836675]I wouldn't put a good 1000 hours into pdox games if they didn't like them, I just get tired of having to shell out $20 constantly for what are essentially minor content patches.[/QUOTE] And here's the thing about cosmetic DLCs. They do matter in some cases. Immersion is a huge factor in games like Crusader Kings 2, and having that immersion allows you to role play and enjoy what the game is, a character-focused drama set in the middle ages. War and conquest takes a backseat to intrigue and powerplays. Religion matters, your family matters, you yourself matter. This immersion is immediately and completely shattered, however, when there are only 3 ethnicities in the world, and the dynastic emblems of major families are reduced to simplistic, paint.net-quality slapjobs. If you want to enjoy the game simply from a visual standpoint, you have to be prepared to put out nearly the price of the base game. That's asinine.

[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;50836843]And here's the thing about cosmetic DLCs. They do matter in some cases. Immersion is a huge factor in games like Crusader Kings 2, and having that immersion allows you to role play and enjoy what the game is, a character-focused drama set in the middle ages. War and conquest takes a backseat to intrigue and powerplays. Religion matters, your family matters, you yourself matter. This immersion is immediately and completely shattered, however, when there are only 3 ethnicities in the world, and the dynastic emblems of major families are reduced to simplistic, paint.net-quality slapjobs. If you want to enjoy the game simply from a visual standpoint, you have to be prepared to put out nearly the price of the base game. That's asinine.[/QUOTE] Also on the topic of cosmetic DLC in CK2, some of the default portraits are just downright ugly as hell.

[QUOTE=EnlightenDead;50835612]Someone on 4chan figured out you can remove two lines of text to get the DLC for free :v:[/QUOTE] pretty sure you've been able to do that with Paradox Games since forever. There is a line that says something like required_DLC = DLCName or something Everyone has the Stellaris Cosmetic DLC graphics because you need to have it for Multiplayer

[QUOTE=Atlascore;50837228]Have you literally never visited the Paradox forums or subreddit? Both places regularly burst into flames every time Paradox does [I]anything[/I], I mean just look at all the threads spawned by the release of Plantoids, it caused a huge tidal wave of hate towards Stellaris, even before that practically nobody had anything good to say about the game on either site for the past two months.[/QUOTE] When I looked at it yesterday the Stellaris subreddit had literally one thread about the release of plantoids and their responds was pretty much just "Eh, I think it's overpriced". Every other thread was mostly either complaining about the latest patch or just random posts. Even the thread that was linked yesterday about the pricing was mostly full of people calling Johan for his retarded "I think it is worth $20" comment. Honestly the paradox forums were near cult worship (with sprinklings of /gsg/ tier hatred) for the longest time, the fact that they've lost so much goodwill just shows how badly they've burned their fanbase with their DLC policies. Also, yea there's such a huge tidal wave of hatred against the plantoids DLC there's literally only 4 threads about it on the front page of the stellaris subforum, one of which is a blatant shitpost and another is in support of the price.

People disagreeing with the price is not a "torrent of hate towards stellaris". Looking through the thread there a lot of people either fine with the price or are ok with it after wiz posted. If you honestly belive people just disagreeing is a "torrent of hate" you should make a trip to /gsg/ for a whole 10 minutes. If the paradox forums were nearly as up in arms as you claim they would be far more toxic right now and there would be a flood of threads against it, as there usually is on a forum related to something people are upset about.

I'm not so much mad that they have a million DLC that are cosmetic/only marginally useful I'm more mad that I want to give them money but they're jewing themselves out of it by making the DLC cost too damn much [editline]5th August 2016[/editline] Give me all the EU4 DLC for $20 and all the CK2 for $30 and I'll consider buying it

[QUOTE=Atlascore;50839260]I may have over exaggerated a little. Regardless, it's not sunshine and rainbows and cult worship for Paradox like you guy keep parroting, every time they release new DLC the top threads aren't "Wow Paradox rocks!" or "X game is so much better!" it's "The DLC is way overpriced" and "YOU'VE BROKEN THE GAME!". This Facepunch thread isn't some magical "bastion of intellectualism" among the "sea of ignorance" that is the Paradox community, literally all your criticisms are regularly brought up in the official communities.[/QUOTE] Well the DLC really IS always overpriced and the updates often do break the game.

[QUOTE=Atlascore;50839260]I may have over exaggerated a little. Regardless, it's not sunshine and rainbows and cult worship for Paradox like you guy keep parroting, every time they release new DLC the top threads aren't "Wow Paradox rocks!" or "X game is so much better!" it's "The DLC is way overpriced" and "YOU'VE BROKEN THE GAME!". This Facepunch thread isn't some magical "bastion of intellectualism" among the "sea of ignorance" that is the Paradox community, literally all your criticisms are regularly brought up in the official communities.[/QUOTE] A very large number of comments in the thread about the plantoids DLC are along the lines of "I want to support paradox but this is too expensive" so they're just barely even criticizing paradox. Literally nobody called fp a "bastion of intellectualism" among the "sea of ignorance" so I don't even know what the fuck you're going on about. The whole cult of personality thing is based off of old information admittedly but their forums are still very much supportive of paradox.