What does Ganker think of these guys?
What does?
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They made their niche in gaming and now have gone full garden gnome mode with DLC.
first post gets it right again.
>now
the only reason to buy their games is because modders use it to make actually good games with far more content and for cheaper
/thread
i could still install mod from steam in my pirated hoi4 back then, around 2 years ago
has it changed?
nah they blocked anon downloads of their games mods from steam.
btw this decision is made by the company, not by steam, for example you still can do that in rimword, because the devs are not dicks.
Cool games but they design a game, strip it of 60% of the content and release it like that so they can trickle the remaining 40% as DLCs through a year or so.
They're good & bad at the same time.
gays
Johan in particular is that nasty type of shit eating Sedish gay
How they handled CK3 is baffling. They want the Reddit audience and pushed the game in the direction of being a visual novel. The DLC model is generally annoying but I like how it changed EU4 to be a game about manipulating dead content to get massive stacked modifier boosts. Imperator was a fucking fiasco, Victoria 3 looks bad, and I never touched HOI4 because it seems more multiplayer focused. Overall they're only dominating because no one else tries to do what they do, but they have no focus
they make good games
the base game is $15 and gets 10 years worth of expansions
the expansions and DLC are piss easy to pirate, literally as easy as 'drag and drop the files into the DLC folder in the game directory and it works'
CK2 and Eu4 were released 10 years ago.
Paradox didnt release a good game since.
EU4 is shit
CK2 is dope though
I would rather play Vicky3 than touch EU4 again
are there mods that bring back any form of combat yet
hoi4's pretty good
only the most extreme autists actually like 3 over 4
Stellaris is better than both
Every time I see their logo I'm reminded of the LEGO Exploriens set I had from 1996 with the alien x-ray fossil piece
People need to stop acting like a corporation is a person. The devs that made CK2 are mostly no longer there. You are looking forward to a completely different group of people making games from the same IP, and poorly.
I used to work there, so they buttered my bread, but the company has changed and morphed into something different since I joined.
Most of the old CK2 team are still there, but in higher and different positions due to time and experience there.
Death to you and your kin
A thousand curses on your house
They make games for people too dumb to learn actual grand strategy, but charge enthusiast tier prices.
>They make games for people too dumb to learn actual grand strategy
What? They are literally the name-brand of grand strategy games. I don't even know any other companies who make grand strategy.
>I don't even know any other companies who make grand strategy
Because you don't play them lmao
I’m still fucking angry that Magicka 3 is not happening.
Their biggest problem is that they make single player games (nominally they are also multiplayer but 90+% play single player) and dont spend enough effort making the AI competitive. Combine this with their DLC model and the games suffer immensely. For HOI4 every DLC adds a bunch of theoretically fun and interesting mechanics such as lend lease, tank/ship/plane designers, supply, balance of power, etc etc etc. The problem is that the AI is not taught how to interact with these systems and so its completely pointless.
Last game I played Germany sent half their army to fight in Kongo and got rolled by the soviets, ridiculous.
bunch of fags
Used to be cool.
Scum now.
Tried playing stellaris. Was expecting a grand strategy to be about using strategy to conquer the galaxy. Instead the only thing "grand" is the insane amount of submenus to click through. You have a billion traits and perks that amount to "+50% to this stat". Apparently these games are for the 16 year old warhammer 40k youtube lore gays who like to roleplay as the sphess marines and not people who enjoy competent game design.
>releasing yearly flavor "expansions"
>can't be bothered to fix bugs like not receiving favors for money, manpower, etc
Ruined Prison Architect.
EAs kid brother.
No is more dishonest than these fucks.
CK3 STILL sucks btw, let's wait for the next 12 paid DLCs
This companybis dead the second another one gets into the GSG market
https://www.slitherine.com/
I'm basically waiting for them to make CK3 good and to make Stellaris 2 with a better interface and endgame performance
One of the most gnomish devs in the industry, really only outdone by EA and the companies that make racing and train games.
That being said the games are fun after 6 years of development with all the DLC and tons of mods
Decision bloat
DLC bloat
worse monetization practices than many AAA games
I don't care for most of their games, but I'm still pissed about how they treated VtM:Bloodlines 2
>buy the IP from CCP games
>Brian Mitsoda, arguably the lead creative of the first game (definitely a huge reason it's so soulful) pitches a sequel to them mere weeks after the acquisition with Hardsuit Labs behind him
>Paradox surprisingly say yes
>treat this like their first attempt at a truly AAA game and a fully fledged RPG to boot, allocate a large budget to suit
>...not the wisest idea as Hardsuit not only have never done anything similar to this style or scale of game, but need to speed hire a bunch of extra staff to try and do so
>meanwhile, they also want to make World of Darkness books set in the old continuity
>for some reason they refuse to use Onyx Path, the people who wrote almost all of the previous (good) books and hire their friends and randos instead
>TL;DR: the new books they put out are shit in many ways, but most notably they cause a minor international incident with Chechnya because of a canonical "gay purge blood farm" in the third book they released
>back at Hardsuit, the game is looking like total ass. Terrible employee retention + spaghetti code + community college hires = nothing getting done in terms of game design
>but Mitsoda is doing his job and doing it well
>is actually a big credibility token, so Paradox have him do all the PR despite him having anxiety issues
>he heroically soldiers through it while also continuing to work on the game
>demo is shown, is awful, game is indefinitely delayed but is still being worked on
>only after gay purge blood farm do Paradox actually seem to be looking at what Hardsuit is doing
>realize what a money sink Bloodlines 2 is
>heads at Paradox change
>new head brings the hammer down on Hardsuit without warning, starting by firing Mitsoda, the ONE person they shouldn't have fired
>try to get an Ubisoft company man to fix it
>can't
>close down Hardsuit
Who knows where the game is now.
In Hell forever, hopefully.
Paradox's recent desperate plea for fans to make games FOR them (while they get all the monies lol) really illustrated that hopefully they're done sodomizing the corpse of this setting as it's no longer economically viable
Why did Paradox even buy the IP? They're a grand strategy game company, why buy something like WoD, that they have 0 connection to?
Because it was going under and it was for sale
Wasn't like a hostile takeover or anything like that
Aside from it being available due to CCP cutting costs and not being crazy expensive, Paradox have an TTRPG book arm and seemed to want to put out more books and maybe the odd small scale game (like the visual novels), but then they just drunkenly decided to do Bloodlines 2.
For non-/tg/ heads that don't know the whole story:
>White Wolf, creators of Vampire the Masquerade and World of Darkness were formed in 1991 when two small TTRPG publisher merged
>were amazingly successful very quickly, had a whole range of books and raked in the cash but weren't exactly the most business savvy as they'd normally spend said cash on stupid (but fun) shit like fetish parties, offices they barely used, and a warehouse with junk in it for people to smash as stress relief
>get interested in making video games, license it out twice, one of which led to Bloodlines being made
>soon after Bloodlines they rebooted the entire series and created Chronicles of Darkness
>isn't as popular, most fans are attached to the original continuity
>in order to get an MMO made (which they think will earned them World of Warcraft money), they sell themselves and their ownership to CCP Games where the original continuity will continue
>White Wolf are still, essentially, their own company though and continue to publish books
>MMO progress is slow and costly
>at one point CCP hits hard times, has to fire most of the White Wolf staff
>but it's okay because they form Onyx Path, who are subcontracted to write all of the books anyway. Essentially the same people are making the books
>CCP eventually have to sell White Wolf and their IPs after their MMO has been in development hell for years
>Paradox buy them, start dev on Bloodlines 2, but for some reason refuse to use Onyx Path to write the new books, want to use their own freelance writers instead
>White Wolf are an internal sub-company within Paradox, but have to answer to Paradox
>they did a dogshit job at editing...
1/2
>the goal is to bring back the old continuity, so the new books are considered Version 5 of the old rules and lore
>seems partially made from ideas and art from the cancelled MMO and other ideas that have been lying around unused for years, but a good chunk of it is a fresh plotline about a Second Inquisition attacking the vampire world via spy and security agencies
>is a pretty cool idea imo
>preview of the main core book is released, lots of people don't like, nobody seems to love it
>clan lore and abilities are changed, Thinbloods are a new "clan" with an OP ability, all sorts of weird rule changes, some plotlines make no sense (ALL of the Sabbat and Elder vampires somehow migrate to Iraq unnoticed while the vampire world is under strict surveillance)
>preview has some mildly alt-right leaning jokes: Brujah's curse is renamed "Triggered", sample dice roll comes up as 1488, some other mild shit
>a small subset of fans REEEE about it, one in particular accuses them of being Nazis
>White Wolf/Paradox do damage control, add a "Nazis are bad" page at the start, change the offending material, hire woke writers who add shit like Rudi in the back
>sit back and sleep now that they've achieved world peace...
>...their next book, the core Camarilla book, has a bit where they say they caused the IRL gay purge in Chechnya as a smoke screen and as a blood farm. Causes outrage with everyone, not just insane lefties, actually reaches the Chechnyan government
>Paradox fully absorb White Wolf after this, taking away their office and directly supervising EVERYTHING
>none of these books sell particularly well, some needing a Kickstarter for initial funding
Not so sure on the rest of it, but I think they basically did 2 or 3 more smaller books after this trying to micromanage things, but eventually started working with Onyx Path like they should have from the start and have been slowly loosening their grip each time they write something.
Fucking subhuman Swedes requiring the most retarded map shit I’ve ever dealt with.
I love paradox games, but I hate paradox.
/tg/ here
i hate them
i hate them
i hate them
i hate them
I wish I could pet your head and tell you its gonna be all right. . .
paragarden gnomes
At this point the only reason to still play their games is their modding community, if you wait for them to make new quality additional content you'll never ever get it.
meiou fucking ruined the game to me.
on the one hand, i fucking HATE all the mechanics it introduced, and how many countries start at war in the initial bookmark
on the other, i fucking LOVE its map and now vanilla looks like an off brand mobile game to me.
>ship designer in new dlc
>tank designer in new dlc
>plane designer in new dlc
Infantry and arty designer is definitely going to be in their own separate dlcs so they can really milk the tits of the game until the very last drop. I'm still wondering why the nordic countries don't have their own paths.
its insane to think their turbo garden gnome DLC policy is considered standard by many game publishers nowadays