Mad-Magyar
Proton
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2017
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Well it's that time of year again. When Paradox slaps another $20 Hearts of Iron DLC on the market.
This is a naval themed update that comes with a few extra goodies such as:
A. "casualize" the base game and have only now decided to bring them back as an afterthought for the more hardcore players
Or, more sinful, B: Decided to remove the features ahead of time in order to sell them back to newer fans as DLC.
I'd like to give Paradox the benefit of the doubt and say sort of A. The Battleship Designer and Nations in Exile features in previous Hearts of Iron titles were very crude and hardly ever used. So they were removed from newer titles to cut down on the clutter. And you only have to look at a side by side comparison of HOI3 and HOI4 to know they cut down on a lot of clutter.
Now these new mechanics are reworked and seem less of a hassle to use. However, I would rather they take these old, reworked mechanics and add them to the game for free, instead of charging people $20 to use them.
But even worse is this: I never play vanilla Hearts of Iron 4 anyway.
World War 2 in Hearts of Iron is boring. It's watered down, sterile, and bland. Nothing really occurs. It really does encapsulate the "line drawing simulator" meme. I prefer the game with mods. Which leads to the rant.
I'll just throw it into a spoiler.
I don't really have a conclusion for this? So uhhh.
Anyone else play HOI4 or other PDX games? What do you think of their DLC policy? Do you play any mods for HOI4?
This is a naval themed update that comes with a few extra goodies such as:
[*]Naval Terrain (so like shallow water, deep water, etc)
[*]Naval mines
[*]Focus Tree and fleshed out Decisions for Mexico and the Netherlands
[*]A reworked United States and United Kingdom Focus Tree, including new Decisions and events
[*]A Congress mechanic (but only for the United States)
[*]Fuel Consumption
[*]Battleship Designer
[*]Nations in Exile
A. "casualize" the base game and have only now decided to bring them back as an afterthought for the more hardcore players
Or, more sinful, B: Decided to remove the features ahead of time in order to sell them back to newer fans as DLC.
I'd like to give Paradox the benefit of the doubt and say sort of A. The Battleship Designer and Nations in Exile features in previous Hearts of Iron titles were very crude and hardly ever used. So they were removed from newer titles to cut down on the clutter. And you only have to look at a side by side comparison of HOI3 and HOI4 to know they cut down on a lot of clutter.
Now these new mechanics are reworked and seem less of a hassle to use. However, I would rather they take these old, reworked mechanics and add them to the game for free, instead of charging people $20 to use them.
But even worse is this: I never play vanilla Hearts of Iron 4 anyway.
World War 2 in Hearts of Iron is boring. It's watered down, sterile, and bland. Nothing really occurs. It really does encapsulate the "line drawing simulator" meme. I prefer the game with mods. Which leads to the rant.
I'll just throw it into a spoiler.
I have much more fun with mods. And especially total conversion mods.
There are great mods that add layers of complexity to the base game like Black Ice.
There are enjoyable mods set in other franchises like Old World Blues (Fallout: New Vegas)
And, the focus of this part of the rant, there are amazing alternate history total conversion mods like Kaiserreich, which shows an alternate World War 2 scenario in a world where Germany won the First World War.
Mods like Kaiserreich have dedicated researchers, writers, artists, coders, testers and contributors all working to put out a well researched and fun alternate history total conversion mod. Kaiserreich is by far the most popular of these mods for Hearts of Iron 4. So popular that Paradox has made them the poster child of their modding community. Paradox has even invited the Kaiserreich mod team out to speak at PDXCon about their modding experiences, and have allowed Kaiserreich their own booth at the convention.
Now every time a new DLC/update is released, the mods on the workshop break. No big deal if you have a small mod that just adds/changes a feature here and there. But you have to remember, mods like Kaiserreich are total conversion mods.
So when new updates come out, they break total conversion mods hard.
Last update forced a downtime of three entire weeks for the Kaiserreich team. Other mods with smaller teams took months.
So how could this be prevented? Well the answer is obvious. Give the development team early access to the DLC and allow them to get to work on fixing the code that breaks the mod. Paradox has no issue with handing out DLC early. Nearly every lets player and youtuber that focuses on Paradox games get a free copy of the DLC early.
And yet, despite all of this, every time a new DLC comes around, the Kaiserreich team, as well as all other total conversion mods, are left high and dry by Paradox. This mod team, that PDX loves to parade around as the pinnacle of their modding community, are forced to scramble a fix for their mod. They are flying blind, not so much as a peep at the future code.
I'm sure they have an excuse for why they refuse. Something along the lines of "But what if that mod releases the code to be pirated?"
What about those Youtubers? No way they're giving a Youtuber with less than 20k subs the DLC for free without them signing a waiver. Same thing can be done with these mod teams. Hand them the code you know will break the mods (don't give them the fluff in the DLC like Naval Mines), and have them sign a waiver stating that if this shit gets leaked, lawsuit are a-coming.
There are great mods that add layers of complexity to the base game like Black Ice.
There are enjoyable mods set in other franchises like Old World Blues (Fallout: New Vegas)
And, the focus of this part of the rant, there are amazing alternate history total conversion mods like Kaiserreich, which shows an alternate World War 2 scenario in a world where Germany won the First World War.
Mods like Kaiserreich have dedicated researchers, writers, artists, coders, testers and contributors all working to put out a well researched and fun alternate history total conversion mod. Kaiserreich is by far the most popular of these mods for Hearts of Iron 4. So popular that Paradox has made them the poster child of their modding community. Paradox has even invited the Kaiserreich mod team out to speak at PDXCon about their modding experiences, and have allowed Kaiserreich their own booth at the convention.
Now every time a new DLC/update is released, the mods on the workshop break. No big deal if you have a small mod that just adds/changes a feature here and there. But you have to remember, mods like Kaiserreich are total conversion mods.
So when new updates come out, they break total conversion mods hard.
Last update forced a downtime of three entire weeks for the Kaiserreich team. Other mods with smaller teams took months.
So how could this be prevented? Well the answer is obvious. Give the development team early access to the DLC and allow them to get to work on fixing the code that breaks the mod. Paradox has no issue with handing out DLC early. Nearly every lets player and youtuber that focuses on Paradox games get a free copy of the DLC early.
And yet, despite all of this, every time a new DLC comes around, the Kaiserreich team, as well as all other total conversion mods, are left high and dry by Paradox. This mod team, that PDX loves to parade around as the pinnacle of their modding community, are forced to scramble a fix for their mod. They are flying blind, not so much as a peep at the future code.
I'm sure they have an excuse for why they refuse. Something along the lines of "But what if that mod releases the code to be pirated?"
What about those Youtubers? No way they're giving a Youtuber with less than 20k subs the DLC for free without them signing a waiver. Same thing can be done with these mod teams. Hand them the code you know will break the mods (don't give them the fluff in the DLC like Naval Mines), and have them sign a waiver stating that if this shit gets leaked, lawsuit are a-coming.
rant tl;dr? This dumb meme video I voiced and edited:
I don't really have a conclusion for this? So uhhh.
Anyone else play HOI4 or other PDX games? What do you think of their DLC policy? Do you play any mods for HOI4?
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