Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV to both receive expansions in November

Patches cannot objectively be both free and not-free at the same time.

Here, there is the logical error you are making.

Patches cannot objectively be both free and not-free at the same time.

Here, there is the logical error you are making.

Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

I'm sorry, but what? I get patches for each Paradox game I own every couple of months that I can download without paying a cent. That seems like (one of) the definition(s) of "free" to me.

Um... are they not free? Last time I looked, Paradox has never charged us for a patch.

Last time I looked, post-release support was critical to continued success of game. Game that was released broken and not patched up was often heavily criticized. If devs announce that they will stop supporting game (i.e., patching bugfixes) when there is a long list of bugs (especially after newly released DLC/expansion), they would often trash their reputation and sales.

If there is such expectation, and previously, while Paradox was known for releasing games in state that can be described as open beta, it was also known for eventually fixing all the bugs and people bought their knowing and expecting that, then it is not "free". It is part of the price I bought the game for.

I say it again, if on one say you say that these patches are "free", but on other said complain that some other company stopped support and didn't release patches (or that some product is less good because it wasn't patched), than something is wrong with your opinion consistency.

Well, sure, if you assume that continued support in the form of patches is "baked in" to the initial sale price then they're technically not free, but that seems to be a stretch.

Also, how much should go into a patch before you no longer consider it simply part of the purchase price? Bug fixes, sure, but what about new content that was never part of the original product? For instance, several patches for both Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV have substantially altered and expanded the map. It seems rather self-serving (for lack of a better term) to insist that these are nothing more than an expected part of the initial purchase.

Patches cannot objectively be both free and not-free at the same time.

Here, there is the logical error you are making.

How can it be a logical error to essentially quote one of the foundational axioms of symbolic logic? I can imagine it being an error, but not a logical one.

Patches cannot objectively be both free and not-free at the same time.

Here, there is the logical error you are making.

How can it be a logical error to essentially quote one of the foundational axioms of symbolic logic? I can imagine it being an error, but not a logical one.

I've already reminded him that Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

Patches cannot objectively be both free and not-free at the same time.

Here, there is the logical error you are making.

How can it be a logical error to essentially quote one of the foundational axioms of symbolic logic? I can imagine it being an error, but not a logical one.

Eh, first of all, "logical error" is used in common speech as well.

But if you want... if you use improper logic based on assumed, but not stated axioms, which applicability could be disputed, you will get incorrect answer.

Assuming that A can be either "true" or "false", or in our case, "free" or "paid" depends on expectation of all people. Someone can see it as part of continued product support, something that is part of the price of game or previously released DLC (especially since Patches went into two modes, hotfixes and big patch that comes along DLCs. Sometimes, you have to wait several DLCs for specific bug, introduced in previous DLC, to be corrected).

So A can be both "true" and "false" at the same time, depending on assumptions of other people. If person X consider A to be true, than A|X = TRUE. If Y consider it false, then A|Y = FALSE. Obviously, from this example, A can be both true or false. You will get global answer if you integrate through all people: A| \int_\Omega.

Obviously this goes beyond propositional logic. But, why assume that this problem could be solvable in propositional logic?

Sorry for replying w/o reading all the WoTs but just wanted to reiterate the arguments that actually count:

1) DLC prices are too damn high
2) vanilla bugs stay unfixed for years
3) they (un)intentionally introduce new bugs/nerf/remove existing mechanics with the so-called free patches to give you an incentive to buy DLC

That being said, I played EUIV, CKII and Stellaris for a couple hundred hours each and own quite a few DLCs.

My advice: pick and choose well, and wait for that discount.

Sorry for replying w/o reading all the WoTs but just wanted to reiterate the arguments that actually count:

1) DLC prices are too damn high

Depends, but I can agree on this one. That's why I wait for sales too. But some of them I bought them full price

2) vanilla bugs stay unfixed for years

Can you please give examples ? I recently made two complete runs with EU4 and I only had one bug, in fact, the same in the two runs, and from the first run to the second run it was even a bit corrected as far as I could see. Plus it was not at all a game breaking bug. Just units that can't be rerouted under certain circumstances.

2) vanilla bugs stay unfixed for years

Can you please give examples ? I recently made two complete runs with EU4 and I only had one bug, in fact, the same in the two runs, and from the first run to the second run it was even a bit corrected as far as I could see. Plus it was not at all a game breaking bug. Just units that can't be rerouted under certain circumstances.

I'm not minj but I can give some examples anyway:
-Broken crossplatform multiplayer
-Broken hotjoin
-Ironman save corruption when saving after losing internet connection
-Quitting to the menu doesn't properly reset the game (they "fixed" it by restarting the game each time you quit to the menu)
-Changing the start game before starting a new game causes problems (e.g. changing to a later start date and changing back gives France empire status)

And a lot more, including AI bugs and multiplayer issues (hard to say if those are new bugs or long standing ones since those are hard to replicate).

-Broken crossplatform multiplayer
-Broken hotjoin

Ok, those don't affect me, because I only do singleplayer.
By the way, they just posted this : [url=https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-development-diary-31st-of-october-2017.1052692/]

What they say in the end, if you don't want to read all the post :

"tl;dr: A lot of work on multiplayer has been done, and it will continue. Cross Platform, Cross DLC, and Hotjoin should now be working. Reporting your desyncs might get them fixed faster. If you guys have any questions or suggestions I’d be glad to discuss in this thread."

-Ironman save corruption when saving after losing internet connection

I'm glad I didn't lose my internet connection as I only play in Ironman for the moment

-Quitting to the menu doesn't properly reset the game (they "fixed" it by restarting the game each time you quit to the menu)

Agreed, the fix is not really nice, but it's fixed.

-Changing the start game before starting a new game causes problems (e.g. changing to a later start date and changing back gives France empire status)

Yeah I had this once too, but I don't play too much with dates, I most usually play the full campaign. Should try later starts one day

I agree that they should be fixed of course but all in all they don't seem so gamebreaking or things that happen so often.

So A can be both "true" and "false" at the same time, depending on assumptions of other people. If person X consider A to be true, than A|X = TRUE. If Y consider it false, then A|Y = FALSE. Obviously, from this example, A can be both true or false. You will get global answer if you integrate through all people: A| \int_\Omega.

Y'know, strange as it is to say, I actually understand your point now. Thanks for clarifying. I don't AGREE with your assumption that continuing support is somehow part of the initial price of the game, and I doubt more than a tiny fraction of other people do, but I can see now it's pointless debating it further, so I bid you a good day sir.

and I doubt more than a tiny fraction of other people do

You can doubt that, but you will be wholly incorrect to think it is only tiny fraction of people.

Lets make a small mental exercise, a model if you like:

Assume game from dev who will provide post-release support

1. Game is released, there are some bugs. Lets name perceived value at this state X_release

2. You know that game will be patched and bugs corrected, maybe a subsystem or two reworked a bit and improved. Lets name perceived value after all the bug fixing as X_supported. Assume that X_release < X_supported.

3. Knowing that game will be supported after release, you can count with X_supported instead of X_release. So you can check your perceived value of game X_supported * company_trust against game price and decide if the game is worth it for the price.

Note that company_trust is how trustworthy is the company to get into X_supported.

Thus: If X_supported * company_trust > game_price => buy_game, otherwise no_buy

As we previously stated, X_release > X_supported. So if what you say is true:

X_release < game_price => buy_game, otherwise don't_buy

Which means that the X_release perceived value must be sufficient.

It is now obvious that the difference X_supported - X_release * company_trust is important. If X_release < game_price, but X_supported * company_trust > game_price, you wouldn't buy game without trusting company to fix it.

Now, you can look at Paradox games and compare how well received are those in main series (EU, HoI, lately CK and Vic a bit as well) vs their other titles (march of eagels, the japanese one, EU:Rome). Even when they are from the same company, people just did not trust Paradox enough to buy into those knowing that Paradox won't support them for long, unlike EU, HoI and Vic. While traditionally, while EU1,2,3 and HoI1,2 were often released in kind of beta-state and paradox was accused to overload QA to players, people bought into them because Paradox eventually fixed it and reworked even non-functional concepts.

-Broken crossplatform multiplayer
-Broken hotjoin

Ok, those don't affect me, because I only do singleplayer.
By the way, they just posted this : [url=https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-development-diary-31st-of-october-2017.1052692/]

What they say in the end, if you don't want to read all the post :

"tl;dr: A lot of work on multiplayer has been done, and it will continue. Cross Platform, Cross DLC, and Hotjoin should now be working. Reporting your desyncs might get them fixed faster. If you guys have any questions or suggestions I’d be glad to discuss in this thread."

Awesome to hear. Guess I can give them a positive review again (didn't give them a negative one but I removed my positive one some time ago due to multiplayer issues since I was already conflicted before) :)

and I doubt more than a tiny fraction of other people do

You can doubt that, but you will be wholly incorrect to think it is only tiny fraction of people.

Yeah, in retrospect that was an unwarranted assumption on my part out of pique, and I apologize.

As we previously stated, X_release > X_supported. So if what you say is true:

X_release < game_price => buy_game, otherwise don't_buy

Which means that the X_release perceived value must be sufficient.

Yes? If a game's not in a state I think I'll enjoy at the moment I buy it, no sale. I'm not going to bank on it changing in the future. If it does, great; more bonus for me. If not, I got exactly what I expected to get.

[quote=Philadelphus]

Yes? If a game's not in a state I think I'll enjoy at the moment I buy it, no sale. I'm not going to bank on it changing in the future. If it does, great; more bonus for me. If not, I got exactly what I expected to get.

Good for you, but this isn't the case for majority of people. Why I am so sure about this assumptions? Just look at the damn gaming in past years!

Kickstarter, early access, people praising active devs that respond to people and fix stuff constantly. Steam reviews.

Kickstarter is the best example, because it basically set X_current = 0 (since release is a bad descriptor) and it all depends on perceived value after some time T multiplied by trust in dev.

Early access is in similar state. Just listen to people buying into half-finished game which promised continuous update and then look at how review trashed after dev stopped updating stuff for a while and look at forum of that game to see all the complains.

Or just look how important is reputation of dev studios.

Well, it's taken me a while to get here; I contributed to a number of Kickstarters several years ago* and still occasionally buy an Early Access game, but as mentioned only if I think it'll be worth its price to me now, and keep in mind that it might not ever get updated. (As an astronomer I always keep in mind that a meteorite could vaporize the dev team tomorrow, no matter how much I trust them! :P)

*and had, on the whole, a pretty good success rate with it with a few games I've backed already out (Rain World, Reassembly) and a few more in active development and quite fun to play right now (Parkitect, RimWorld), but one or two in…"indefinite development" have soured me a bit on the idea.