Strategy Informer  

All right then, just need to wait for the Steam sales now :)

It took them a whole year to finish the game?!?!? What were they thinking when they released it a year ago?

Bout friggin time,good thing i was told the bloody game wasn`t ready before i bought it.Would definetly still like to see what becomes of it but i`ll prolly wait for a sale like noc and will definetly wait for the game to be fully fixed before even thinking of buying it.

Oh well, guess we are veterans now, we saw everything from the start of this game :)

As with "Red Orchestra 2" then, Chosen. I'm still whittling away at "SotS"(1) so as the Geisha Girl says, come the sales it will be on my short list.

Oh seriously? Skipped SotS due to everything. Hm but love these kind of games. May give it a go. Anybody did?

Sale as well, sorry Kerberos :)

I can't justify spending full price after all of that.

Sots1 is great in my opinion they could beef up the zuul a bit but it might be just their style i don't like anyways tarkas battle riders ftw XD

Its great 4x Kres, U should try it!

aye the first one also has been known to get a crap start like the first one but naturally its 99% bug free now ^^

Just a little thing that QA missed - beta testing (REAL beta, not alpha). Minor point, but goes a long way to ensuring a good release, though some take it way too far (hello Blizzard).

It should be noted that Paradox released this game.

This means that as a publisher, Paradox is either ineptly released a pre-alpha game, OR knowingly released a pre-alpha game.

If they were inept, it means not only they released the game without any beta testing, but also they didn't even play it once.

If they knowingly released the game it's pre-alpha state, it means they are basically scum-sucking pond life, colluding with the developers to steal money off customers.

Either way, it is not good. Paradox should have been subject to all sorts of non-violent action, such as class action law suits and boycotts.

But instead, despite their record of being vendors of shovelware, pretty much everybody forgave them.

But is the game any good?

This is one of the best 4x game, with no alternatives in industry at all! Battles in real time, good customization options, very good tech tree, and pretty awesome visuals.

"despite their record of being vendors of shovelware"

I'm sorry, what PLANET are you from? (no offence meant) PI games are some of the best supported titles on the market. The reasons the public doesn't blame PI (entirely) for this debacle is because they always provide massive support, updates and DLC/expansions to their titles, which are, for the most part, niche strategy titles that you couldn't possibly find anywhere else/

So yes, they probably could have done a better job of tracking Kerberos and monotoring the development process. But they are still one of the best publishers out there, that actually care about their product. Even SotS, any other publisher would have ditched that mess and walked away, PI instead worked with Kerberos to get it in a playable state, releasing free update after free update to get the game to a completed state.

Yes they dropped the ball, but they also took their responsibility and did their best to fix it. Tell me when you saw EA or Ubisoft do that?

Have to agree with SirRoderick on this one, PI does a good job of supporting their games. They might not always launch perfect but they surely bring them as close as possible to that in the end. For example HoI3 did not have the best launch but the game now is brilliant. That's why we can forgive them cause we know they're not going to abandon their games without finishing them.

There's no excuses for SotS2.

Whether they released the game knowing the dire state it was in, or not, both options make PI look really bad.

As for shovelware:

1. EU: Rome. Poorly designed game, albeit with few bugs, they acknowledged that by releasing a "patchspansion" soon after release.

2. HoI3: On release dire. Rather than support the game through patches they release expansions. Now the game is pretty good.

3. Naval War: strategy game that can take hours to play released without a save function. No indication that they intend to add one. Unacceptable.

There are other examples of PI publishing turpitude.

I can agree on the expansions "issue" a bit, they tend to release a lot of what could have also been a few free updates in between.

HoI III Vanilla is perfectly playable and enjoyable. They patched that game up to 1.3 actually, hardly a lack of support. The expansions are fantastic as well, each adding a lot to the base game. If you were expecting to get all those for free, you're quite frankly deluded.

EU Rome, not a great game is all, there's nothing WRONG with it. A completely irrelevant example here, it's just not well designed. They did patch it and even expanded the features, support wise and ethics wise there was nothing wrong with it.

Haven't played Naval Warfare, in no place to judge.

With the sort of library that PI has, there are going to be a couple titles that aren't 100%. You have no reason to be singling them out like this, THAT is properly unacceptable. They don't release perfect games all the time, big freaking deal. Fact remains that they have the single best collection of grand strategy games, most of which aren't just playable, but brilliant. EU, Victoria, Crusader Kings, Mount&Blade, all games that are absolutely brilliant, well supported, easily modded and recieving a constant stream of new content over their lifespan.

Compare that to the other mayor publishers' track record. Seriously now.

I HAVE played "Naval Warfare Arctic Circle" and it, unfortunately like many PI releases is shameful and dogged with problems from the outset (where is my 'save game' feature so long promised?).
As for "HoI III" - what about the sprite packs? Hardly what I'd c\call good value DLC.
Playing the Devil's Advocate here, but as a long time supporter and purchaser of PI games I see Chris_Spray's point. PI do have a reputation for releasing games in shoddy states (SotS 2", "NWAC", any Aegod release, "The King's Crusade" and many Russian titles including "Kharkov 1942").
So unfortunately it is not just "...a couple of titles that aren't 100%" on release but more like 50%, sometimes more. "East India Company" is that PI published that immediately should bring shame on the company as it, and it's expansions is a dreadful experience and at the time an expensive one."HoI III" was so badly optimised, and still is, that it was virtually unplayable.

This seems PI's biggest problem. Many, many titles, whether developed by or simply published by PI are not optimised well at all and are a huge drain on system resources when they shouldn't be. I have a long list of such titles that I've played. Now I know many are almost evangelical when it comes to PI, but I can see both sides. Yes, they release games that no one else would and I am grateful for that, but some of those really should never have seen the light day...at least not until they were QA tested to Melbourne and back.

As I said, just playing DA.

"Yes they dropped the ball, but they also took their responsibility and did their best to fix it. Tell me when you saw EA or Ubisoft do that?"

makes me recall hellgate london was something quite good but neglectly left without its support only 1 patch was ever released and it only made the game worse :/ but theirs a fan ressurection tho

but don't think PI is the only one releasing games in a state that could've been better at least they put some time to support it

also elder scrolls well known game to everyone very popular and very good game but as typical bethesda they also have quite a lot of bugs ^^

My only real disagreement with what you've said Lich is that Bethesda (and for that matter EA and Ubisoft) have not released a game that is virtually unplayable, or Campaign progress is denied by bugs. PI do it with great regularity. Often too the tutorials are bugged as hell, as with most Aegod releases and are never, EVER fixed.
I'd love to know what really happens in the PI QA department, aside from long naps with beer and pizza in between.

idd but still a lot of bugs innit tho :P

Break out the bug spray.

If I can get it cheap and the new reviews are good, I'll probably bite.

ill get it once i get a better pc as people unfortunately said it requires a lot of resources due to bad optimization and this being 3.5 - 4 year old pc now my coprocessor is starting to bugger on me... so once it dies ill have a new one lolz meanwhile get the best that i can from it...

still doesn't beat a pentium 3 i had once... i made that bugger run for 15 years XD

Maniac O_o

meh was a topnotch pc in its days XD never overclocked it never had to replace parts of it ran very good untill well it had to break someday lolz

spent some good time games on it makes me miss the bugger lol never had problems and only have to vacuum it once in its lifetime to maintain it lol don't underestimate the good quality of surten hardware :P

Ahem!*rises from chair and admires self in mirror*
I and my neighbour put four kitchen tables together, surrounded by 6 pedestal fans and built the first 486 PC before Intel had finsihed with the i386 and even announced the i486. What a beaut, but bloody hot to run though.

My best and most adored PC: the XT, closely followed by my 286.