why is Paradox so awful and incompetent?

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

Seriously, the moment I heard it was going to PDx I groaned. I to this day pin the bulk of the blame on them, and their own greed and utter incompetence. I guess at least on the plus side I have not as of yet been made to suffer seeing literally $300 worth of DLCs that should've been in the base game. Paradox is one of the top three worst vidya companies. I rank it in this exact order of awful from worst to less worse: EA, Activision, Paradox.

I have no idea why people just let Paradox get away with it while harping on Activision and EA. Not even EA goes to the extent of PDx in their greed, which I guarantee you there would've been microtransactions, and likewise guarantee you that part of Mitsoda's firing had to do with them trying to splice little bits of content into paid DLC and microtransactions that would've alienated their whole team especially the writing team.

Now that VTMB has been getting trashed as a franchise before it even left the gate we can faithfully say that Paradox is right up there alongside Activision. I so, so wish CCP or whomever else could've been in charge of this. It was literally one of the three worst companies, although I guess to be fair Bethesda also would've been freaking awful.

Hot take: Ubisoft itself isn't even that bad, at least not atrocious. Had Ubisoft been left in charge of this project and simply retained much of the original writing team, artists, and composer, it probably would've turned out fine. The Division makes me think in spite of being a triple A studio that they could've really aced it with the open world part, and simply left other people in charge of programming the RPG mechanics and the writing and plot. I had a ton of fun with The Division in winter of 2020, and quite frankly their own writing wasn't bad either and can see them making actually great fantastic games if they simply stopped making casual bydlo tier AAA cover shooters and got staff with the right stuff to make the branching story RPG elements.

Am I mad about all this? Yes and no. Because now I don't get to see something I cherished so crudely and savagely violated as I always knew Paradox was going to do. And yes this steam sale I'm looking at an old game, from 2015, and Cities: Skylines has literally I ♥♥♥♥ you not $200 worth of DLC the overwhelming bulk of which should've been in the base game. The absolute audacity of these Swedes would've been incredible had this game gotten released this spring and subjected us all to the endless parade of cut basegame content resold as DLC for $20 to get "2 new custom outfits! plus 3 new NPCs with dialogue options!" and then another one "two new disciplines and a new hat! wow only $15!" and then "be the most seductive vampire possible with this all new Seductive Fang DLC now you can use persuasion and seduction skills!"

You think I'm joking or being hyperbolic--I'm not. The moment I heard Paradox was in charge I assumed that's what they were going to do and how this would all play out. The greed of the corporation would win out. Whole missions cut to be rebranded as DLC. All the original staff lips sealed under atrocious NDAs. All kinds of crap we never wanted like coop and in game stores for special items and additional skill points. I'd love it if you could prove me wrong--but I know you won't. I have no faith in this company, never had faith in them to begin with, and so this project remaining totally up in the air with all the actual good staff like writers fired with nothing to show for it as of July 2021 doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

[ichabod_scream]

Waiting, waiting, still waiting. Hoping this doesn't go the way of the much hyped but never arrived World of Darkness MMO.

[Anvos]

Even big mmos are still sharded so it wouldn't be as bad as you think.

The estimate for New York is also closer to 200.

[SunfireKnight86]

It was WoD, not VTM. There are mages, werewolves, ghosts, kueijin, and hunters. Also suspension of disbelief.

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SunfireKnight86:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Hao Zhao:

When you buy DLC, you buy it once, and then you have unlimited access to it. With a subscription service, you only have access if you continue to pay every month.

I'm not sure what you think your point is here. Actually, I'm not sure if you know what your point is here. Our entire society runs on subscription services. Electricity, telephones, cable TV, etc. are all only available on a subscription basis. Subscriptions are entirely legitimate business models and always have been.

Of course you aren't sure. You're coming at it from a "if I want it I have to pay for it" mentality. Others here are pulling some "if I want it I should just get it" crap.

If you hate the games, don't play them. If you think this game is going to be garbage, feel free to stop showing up here for months/years on end complaining about it. Jesus Christ, are this many people that attention starved?

Imagine actually licking the boots of a corporate entity to this degree

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Nomilh:

To be fair Paradox has a lot of issues on releasing full unbroken games, CK3 has been great from the start with minor bugs at launch and at each huge update along the paid DLCs they added features for free too.

I do agree that it's ridiculous to pay 400$ for the full 8 year old game with all the DLCs. They should lower the prices of their old DLCs over time so that you get all the DLCs for 100$ max otherwise it's just way too much for what you get.

I would never put Paradox in the same basket as Ubisoft, EA, Activision, etc... Those companies have been garbage for almost a decade, so it's nowhere near as bad as releasing two - three broken game at launch and a mediocre DLC policy.

Hundreds of dollars for what any other studio would see as base game content is not "mediocre" it's trash and it's not just their GSG games. I enjoyed Tyranny but they pulled the same crap with that game's DLCs too, where it's clear it was stuff cut from the base game.

People keep defending garbage like this and then wonder why the whole industry ended up the state it's in today. If you told someone 12 years ago they would be charging full game prices at $60 and then adding microtransactions and lootcrates on top of that, they'd have laughed at you. Now we have things like Total Warhammer straight up charging $3 for a "blood DLC" something that's not even "it should be base content" it's literally parting out basic core ♥♥♥♥. Honestly these alleged people who'll out of one side of their mouth call people "greedy" for criticizing practices like this as "durr hurr what you just expect blood textures from battle to be free what are you some sort of communist" and the other straight up cucking for corporations are entirely pathetic. It's outright enabling us to get to the point where core functionality of a game will get parted out as $15 DLCs like the "crouch mechanic DLC" and I can imagine plenty of imbecilic zoomers trained to be company pets lapping it up.

The whole Western gaming industry is just atrocious and all this fiasco was is more symptoms of many of the same problems. And yes Paradox is in general every single bit as terrible as EA and Activision, they've just not had as much time to get good at being evil and have as lengthy a rap sheet of ruining things. Once this game comes out (if it ever does) will be one of the first big name corpses to add to their body count. It took EA decades to start killing nice things like Bullfrog and Bioware and to truly blossom into the awful ♥♥♥♥ that it is. Paradox meanwhile has elevated ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and price gouging to an artform literally no other company has the balls or audacity to even try, not even SquareEnix or EA when it comes to shafting us with basic stuff left out of core content and added to a piecemeal list of practically nothing for $15 strategically parsed out to ensure you need at least $75 extra to make it function the way a base game should.

I warned you all how awful it would be if Paradox took this project over. In the last year only a small glimmer of that got proven right so far. And no, it's not all HSL's fault. Who's idea was it to put a team like that in charge of this to begin with? Or was the way the writing team firing was handled also only the wisdom of punting this to HSL? to say nothing of the DLC policies that will happen to this game, or to the IP and the eventual shovelware and cashgrabs WoD will get reduced to.

[SunfireKnight86]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von BlackSun:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SunfireKnight86:

Of course you aren't sure. You're coming at it from a "if I want it I have to pay for it" mentality. Others here are pulling some "if I want it I should just get it" crap.

If you hate the games, don't play them. If you think this game is going to be garbage, feel free to stop showing up here for months/years on end complaining about it. Jesus Christ, are this many people that attention starved?

Imagine actually licking the boots of a corporate entity to this degree

Paying for things isn't boot licking, it's being an adult.

[PhoenixOmen]

I Agree. But "thanks" to those buying into the whole Pre-order and DLC "system" we won't ever make a stand.

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SunfireKnight86:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von BlackSun:

Imagine actually licking the boots of a corporate entity to this degree

Paying for things isn't boot licking, it's being an adult.

>paying for lootcrates and defending the practice isn't bootlicking, it's being an adult
>imagine actually saying ♥♥♥♥ like "being an adult" on a steam forum for a videogame

[eijibayushi]

Sharkmob is even worse. They claim to be inclusive but allow toxic language on their discord with just a warning. How you gonna claim to be inclusive then allow bigots?

[SunfireKnight86]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von BlackSun:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SunfireKnight86:

Paying for things isn't boot licking, it's being an adult.

>paying for lootcrates and defending the practice isn't bootlicking, it's being an adult
>imagine actually saying ♥♥♥♥ like "being an adult" on a steam forum for a videogame

There are no lootcrates. The game isn't even out and you're crying about having to pay for it.

[Indvstrial Black]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von eijibayushi:

Sharkmob is even worse. They claim to be inclusive but allow toxic language on their discord with just a warning. How you gonna claim to be inclusive then allow bigots?

By all means, for every lost sale to a "bigot" Sharkmob can bump the price for you. I'd expect the game to be about $90 bucks per license by the time they are done purging. Get out your wallet.

Got an idea for you: block anyone you think is a bigot.

[SunfireKnight86]

You're insulted by people being insulted and you think they're sensitive. lol That's a laugh.

[eijibayushi]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von GrandMajora:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von eijibayushi:

Sharkmob is even worse. They claim to be inclusive but allow toxic language on their discord with just a warning. How you gonna claim to be inclusive then allow bigots?

Inclusive means everybody is allowed to speak their mind. Not just the people who you enjoy listening to.

Do you have so little faith in your community, that you think good people will be swayed / converted by the bigot's words?

No it doesn't. You can't come in and say talk white supremacy or homophobic talk. You just sound like your making excuses in favor of the bigot. Disagree? Go ahead, go into a discord and talk like that. See how long you last then try and run your version of inclusive by them. Go on. I promise you it won't work in your favor at all.

[eijibayushi]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Kaos:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von eijibayushi:

Sharkmob is even worse. They claim to be inclusive but allow toxic language on their discord with just a warning. How you gonna claim to be inclusive then allow bigots?

By all means, for every lost sale to a "bigot" Sharkmob can bump the price for you. I'd expect the game to be about $90 bucks per license by the time they are done purging. Get out your wallet.

Got an idea for you: block anyone you think is a bigot.

Nah. So your answer is to be tolerant of intolerance? Great plan!

[SunfireKnight86]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von eijibayushi:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Kaos:

By all means, for every lost sale to a "bigot" Sharkmob can bump the price for you. I'd expect the game to be about $90 bucks per license by the time they are done purging. Get out your wallet.

Got an idea for you: block anyone you think is a bigot.

Nah. So your answer is to be tolerant of intolerance? Great plan!

The dude is blatantly transphobic and talks like a boomer but I bet he's like 30.