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2021? Damn, we are in the future now boys and girls!

I wanted to write this diary because it feels like it's been a really long time since we chatted. Well I guess it wasn’t that long actually but 2020 has definitely made everything feel like its taken forever ;D

2020 has probably been the most challenging year so far for the team since release. The COVID-19 situation really messes with your wellbeing, even if your life normally is chilling inside with your cat and computer games so I hope you are all taking care of yourselves. Looking back I think we overestimated direct impacts to work efficiency and absolutely underestimated impacts to mental health and general well being - things that are also incredibly important for doing a good job and being productive, as well as helping to onboard new members to a team. We have absolutely been impacted, and as a result I want to be pretty clear that you should not expect the next big expansion to drop before summer this year, which is what I was planning before COVID hit us right after La Resistance dropped.
I know a lot of you have been asking about dates for diaries to start up and for us to show stuff again, but you are going to have to wait a bit longer for that. I can say though that the expansion we are brewing up is gonna be pretty sweet I think and focus on a lot of things people have been wishing for :)

So, given that there was no PDXCON last year, where I normally do this, I felt I should take this opportunity to drop some statistics on you all…

Player Counts
With COVID keeping us all inside we and I suspect a lot of the rest of the gaming industry has seen a lot more players than normal playing. I know personally I have gotten a lot more gaming in. It's going to be interesting to see if there is a dip once our lives go back to normal again (whenever that may be).

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Top Mods
I am just highlighting the biggest total conversion mods here, and % numbers are based off daily player numbers.

TopMods.jpg


I think the standout here is TNO having jumped up in popularity quite rapidly during the year so congrats to the team behind that! Also feel free to chime in in comments if you think we have any other big up and coming mod to keep eyes on!

Road to 56 and KR keeping their top spots from before, and I also want to say that I am really inspired and impressed by the cool video and other transmedia content the KR team is putting out. I’m eager to see if any other mod teams do similar stuff in the future :cool:

Top 20 played nations
Counting most sessions > 5h

Germany - 17.9%
Italy - 7.4%
Soviet - 7.7%
France - 5.5%
Turkey - 5.1%
Britain - 4.7%
USA - 4.6%
Japan - 3.9%
Hungary - 3.7%
Spain - 3.2%
Greece - 3.0%
Romania - 2.0%
China - 1.9%
PRC - 1.9%
Bulgaria - 1.8%
Yugoslavia - 1.7%
Netherlands - 1.5%
Portugal - 1.5%
Mexico - 1.4%
Czechoslovakia - 1.2%

I think it's really cool to see Turkey this high. It was always popular but with Battle for the Bosporus it jumped up overall 60%. Greece and Bulgaria also more than doubled in popularity.

While I got you all gathered here reading, I also want to make sure to highlight here that there was an accidental released update of the launcher and that the launcher team is working on reverting that as quickly as they can as it introduced some bugs. Read about it here. I also want to say that we have received increasing amounts of reports of people using cheat tools to mess with multiplayer games over christmas, and we are looking into it.

See you all later, and to be clear this is not the start of regular diaries just yet. You'll have to be patient a bit longer on that front.
 
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I know, i'm late to the party, but i'm really surprised how low Japan is on "most played counties" list. I know focuses are bad, but from warfare perspective isn't Japan one of the most interesting countries to play? You have big land war early, have a fleet that matters, need planes and varied Divisions, not as bloated as USSR and can choose strong opponent later in game. The only thing Japan is missing is Armor, but you have Germany for that and still have some for current meta. if you really want to..
 
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Poopfaust said:
It would be great if the DD said that they are done with WW2 HOI 4, they cannot take it any further. Instead, the Paradox team will focus the entire series on Old World Blues situation. If OWB had the muscle of the Paradox team behind it, the possibilities for endless and varied gameplay would be endless.

PS - I know this will not happen, but man, it would be great.
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It seemed totally surreal and implausible to me that option should first ask Microsoft for permission that I recently created this company bought the developer that created the Fallout franchise and I doubt Microsoft would accept that another company made a game that it just acquired in property and that it did not do it for your account.


Second, the HOI franchise is currently one of the most played Paradox games and they know it still has a lot of room for improvement in most of its mechanics.
 
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I think another mechanic that they will very possibly introduce in the new patch / dlc would be similar to what they did in 3-way wars in WTT to reflect the Soviet attack on Poland in mid-September 1939 but it was not technically at war with the western allies.
 
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kimidf said:
It seemed totally surreal and implausible to me that option should first ask Microsoft for permission that I recently created this company bought the developer that created the Fallout franchise and I doubt Microsoft would accept that another company made a game that it just acquired in property and that it did not do it for your account.


Second, the HOI franchise is currently one of the most played Paradox games and they know it still has a lot of room for improvement in most of its mechanics.
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especially after the downgrade of certain meccanics respect older
 
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Poopfaust said:
It would be great if the DD said that they are done with WW2 HOI 4, they cannot take it any further. Instead, the Paradox team will focus the entire series on Old World Blues situation. If OWB had the muscle of the Paradox team behind it, the possibilities for endless and varied gameplay would be endless.

PS - I know this will not happen, but man, it would be great.
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Now that you mention it, what would be really interesting would be if PDX allowed some mod team - Kaiserreich, OWB, etc. - to make a full-fledged standalone game out of their mod, with full access to the Clausewitz engine.
 
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kimidf said:
I think another mechanic that they will very possibly introduce in the new patch / dlc would be similar to what they did in 3-way wars in WTT to reflect the Soviet attack on Poland in mid-September 1939 but it was not technically at war with the western allies.
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I believe there was also even a Soviet + UK vs Iran war too which I want represented in the game.
 
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Madzai said:
I know, i'm late to the party, but i'm really surprised how low Japan is on "most played counties" list. I know focuses are bad, but from warfare perspective isn't Japan one of the most interesting countries to play? You have big land war early, have a fleet that matters, need planes and varied Divisions, not as bloated as USSR and can choose strong opponent later in game. The only thing Japan is missing is Armor, but you have Germany for that and still have some for current meta. if you really want to..
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I don’t play Japan a lot because it requires a bunch of naval invasions and interactions and I have no clue how to build a fleet
 
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safe-keeper said:
Now that you mention it, what would be really interesting would be if PDX allowed some mod team - Kaiserreich, OWB, etc. - to make a full-fledged standalone game out of their mod, with full access to the Clausewitz engine.
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Like Darkest Hour or For the Glory?

Also, big angry at no HoI today.
 
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piki said:
Guys...let's make virtual riot or nkvd shall bust us ! Or vivid modifier shall be activated
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If the NKVD shows up we know its Soviets next.
 
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piki said:
Let's try it...then teasers shall show themselves...even in volga black cars
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"Trotsky did nothing wrong!"
 
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"Two legs good, four legs bad!"
 
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