Ask Paradox Development Studio anything!

[blackninja9939]

A few questions for the Content Designers (and anyone else who has done that job before but now is working on something else):

- How "fluent" are you in the scripting language for the game(s) you work on? Do you rarely -- if ever -- reference e.g. lists of existing scopes or existing script (unless you want to make sure that something matches something else to a great extent), or is it something you do semi-frequently or even daily?

A lot less than I used to be when I was a Content Designer or modding, that section of my brain has been taken over by C++ since I changed roles.
I would constantly have the wiki, or in newer games the script doc console command output, open to be able to check for different triggers or effects as remembering all of them is wayyyy to hard lol

- What is your usual approach to working on something after a task has been assigned to you, particularly after you've gotten any necessary research out of the way?

Depending on the thing I would usually blot out by hand on paper the rough flowchart of the system, so if you start something in CK2 by a decision to interact with China that would be the start and then branch and converge chains of events where necessary plus random pools along the way for random events.

Then I would make the base flow of the system putting in a dummy event when it was something I would want to get back to later. Usually I did most of the script before adding any text to it. Of course then you test it and improve it until committing it into the main branch and waiting to fix any bugs that QA finds.

- What are your favourite and least favourite things to work on, whether a specific part of the world or a specific set of files (events/decisions/etc.)?

Finding sources for research I found tedious, if it wasn't on wikipedia then having to deep dive through google to find the right bit of information about a location and time period could be rather challenging and fairly time consuming. Oh and doing any form of gfx scripting in CK2's portraits, that stuff has some obscure thought processes and backwards ways of thinking to get it to do what you actually want.

Working on interactions that bring life to the characters or countries involved was always fun, the role play is one of the reasons I love CK2 and the ability to create emergent stories and providing the frameworks for those things.

Having something pop up on reddit is also always satisfying, a joke internally is that the Content Design KPI is measured by how many upvotes you can get for something divided by how memey it is. A couple of my contributions to Jade Dragon got up on reddit and that was always awesome to see

- What was the most memorable bug (whether discovered internally or after something was released to the public) that you either caused or fixed?

In Jade Dragon we expanded the Monks and Mystics Smith system and I also added some fixes to it, said fixes and new things turned out to in fact cause other bugs. One of the random events that could happen was your smith teaching your child how to wield a hammer and be in the forge to gain the brawny trait, except I forgot to add an age check... so the smith could teach your 1 year old child how to do all that and make them super strong. Someone after me then fixed that, and then someone else fixed it, and then another... Until finally the team actually for reals fixed it for reals over a year after I had made the bug and left the team

- What is something you think the average person playing your game(s) don't understand well about the work you do?

Tough one, a lot of stuff in the entire development process people make assumptions about how it works or wild claims with no evidence. But that is not too specific to the role

 

[SolSara]

- How "fluent" are you in the scripting language for the game(s) you work on? Do you rarely -- if ever -- reference e.g. lists of existing scopes or existing script (unless you want to make sure that something matches something else to a great extent), or is it something you do semi-frequently or even daily?

I haven't been a CD since 2015 but I've scripted for almost all games and DLCs since Victoria II and HoI3: Semper Fi, my last project as CD was Europa Universalis IV: Common Sense. The scripting is fairly easy - cannot speak for Stellaris nor HoI4 though - but I still sanity-checked the ones I was a bit uncertain of and often copy-pasted other CD's work (even my own) to ensure everything was OK.

- What is your usual approach to working on something after a task has been assigned to you, particularly after you've gotten any necessary research out of the way?

I started with making a flowchart and then the scripting, getting that out of the way, then I wrote the event texts and tested the events by triggering them via the console. If everything seemed OK, I committed the files and started on the next set of events.

- What are your favourite and least favourite things to work on, whether a specific part of the world or a specific set of files (events/decisions/etc.)?

My least favorite was taking care of the history files, for any of the games. HoI3: Semper Fi I was supposed to do OoB and I did not enjoy that at all. Then I took care of most of the characters for CK2 with lots and lots of help from our betas, but the sheer amount of them! I think we had about 10k when the game was released and I had to start the game and try every bookmark to ensure there were no parent younger than 16 or any other errors.

Favorite thing was painting the map for CK2, writing the event series "Merry Men of [Root.GetProvince]" and "Gates of Hell" for that same project, and the events for the Hunt for the Seven Cities for EU4: El Dorado. There's a small Easter egg there, I tried to name all of the events after Heinlein's books

- What was the most memorable bug (whether discovered internally or after something was released to the public) that you either caused or fixed?

I think my Easter egg with a kitty that you can pet or kick in CK2 caused mass death, as the mean time to happen was broken so it happened all the time and instead of 50% chance of dying, it was 100%

- What is something you think the average person playing your game(s) don't understand well about the work you do?

The amount of research done for each game is staggering, as we try to be historically correct as long as you don't unpause the game ;P Most of it is done by the team or the beta testers. Regarding my current role, how much work is actually done before we start localizing a game into different languages. You need PEGI/ESRB rating, target audience, wiki, dictionary/glossary of terms, Q&A Google Sheet, formatting rules, checklists and other information necessary for the translators to do as good of a job as possible.

 

[CrackdToothGrin]

Oh and doing any form of gfx scripting in CK2's portraits, that stuff has some obscure thought processes and backwards ways of thinking to get it to do what you actually want.

100.This is why I'm so glad you guys are much better at scripting than me.

 

[neondt]

A few questions for the Content Designers (and anyone else who has done that job before but now is working on something else):

- How "fluent" are you in the scripting language for the game(s) you work on? Do you rarely -- if ever -- reference e.g. lists of existing scopes or existing script (unless you want to make sure that something matches something else to a great extent), or is it something you do semi-frequently or even daily?

I have reference lists open most of the time, especially now that we're getting better at internal documentation and formalizing the process of expanding what can be done with script.

- What is your usual approach to working on something after a task has been assigned to you, particularly after you've gotten any necessary research out of the way?

I'm very erratic in the way I approach tasks. Sometimes I might spend a long time planning a mission tree with pen and paper. Other times I might delve straight into scripting a complex event chain and let myself "discover" how it's going to work as I go.

- What are your favourite and least favourite things to work on, whether a specific part of the world or a specific set of files (events/decisions/etc.)?

I enjoy any task that gives me a lot of creative freedom (events, mission trees, etc), and dislike "pure scripting" tasks where something just needs to be done in a certain way.

- What was the most memorable bug (whether discovered internally or after something was released to the public) that you either caused or fixed?

The Impalement of the Sultan event caused all sorts of issues with Ottoman rulers. We fixed it by expanding the event to also impale his son, his wife, and the rest of his household. The even also brings absolute ruin to his capital (usually Constantinople, which makes me happy) for good measure.

- What is something you think the average person playing your game(s) don't understand well about the work you do?

History an important inspiration for what we do, but we're not aiming to create a simulation. Something I do occasionally after reading about an historical event or situation is try to translate it as directy as possible into EU4 terms, and marvel at how bad it would be for the gameplay experience if I actually implemented it in that way.

 

[Starlancer369]

Whats the best way to create edit particles/effects? PDX Particle Editor?
Is it also possible to use another program (Maya?) and export to an Stellaris compatible format?

 

[Snow Crystal]

A few questions for the Content Designers (and anyone else who has done that job before but now is working on something else):

- How "fluent" are you in the scripting language for the game(s) you work on? Do you rarely -- if ever -- reference e.g. lists of existing scopes or existing script (unless you want to make sure that something matches something else to a great extent), or is it something you do semi-frequently or even daily?

I usually have a tab with triggers and effects open in the background while working on Imperator, so if there is ever a specific thing I need that I don't use particularly often, it is quick and easy to access. I probably reference this once every other event or so, unless I am doing something obscure where it comes up a bit more often.

- What is your usual approach to working on something after a task has been assigned to you, particularly after you've gotten any necessary research out of the way?

Content Design is pretty broad, so the tasks can be pretty varied (see map tweaks, adding cultures, adding religions, events, etc), but if we are talking specifically about writing events, I usually like writing a very simple set up in Google Docs so I can get my ideas down on paper. Then I set up the events in-game (no descriptions, or very placeholdery), just to get all the effects working. After getting things working, I go through the events again and add titles/descriptions, and add some fine tuning to things, making sure everything works as intended.

- What are your favourite and least favourite things to work on, whether a specific part of the world or a specific set of files (events/decisions/etc.)?

My favorite thing to work on would be map stuff (that isn't the Steppes). I really like expanding on areas that (isn't the Steppes and) feel like they missed out.

My least favorite thing to work on would be the Steppes, or monotonous tasks. (E.g making sure there are no provinces in Imperator that start out over Pop Capacity.)

- What was the most memorable bug (whether discovered internally or after something was released to the public) that you either caused or fixed?

In Holy Fury's development, I accidentally messed up one of the events in the kowtow event chain (while trying to fix another issue), so a whole lot of characters who went to China never came home.

 

[Nick_San]

Since you guys have access to the prison architect would you guys be interested in a retail architect sim? Kinda like how Squeaky Wheel Games took the same formula from Prison Architect for there game Acadamia: School Sim
Could we expect similar games in the future?

 

[Rex Italia]

Why hasn't PDS developed a game set in late antiquity considering that most historical periods have been covered? Maybe PDS didn't think this through. PDS has developed games in many different historical periods yet ignores this period.

 

[Flying Turtle]

Does Paradox has any plans to work on a Cold War era title or even a modern time period title?

 

[AndrewT]

Why hasn't PDS developed a game set in late antiquity considering that most historical periods have been covered? Maybe PDS didn't think this through. PDS has developed games in many different historical periods yet ignores this period.

Does Paradox has any plans to work on a Cold War era title or even a modern time period title?

I never quite know how to respond to questions like these. There are a number of unannounced projects under way at Paradox of course - emphasis on unannounced! Naturally the first public information about them is not going to be a casual forum post here. What is being considered for future projects would also be kept confidential.

IMO late antiquity would be hard to make a game out of; managing the decline of Rome for instance would not be seen as much fun for that player.

As a general statement nothing is ever 100% ruled out, but IIRC it has been fairly definitively stated that no historical period after HOI4 would be considered.

I hope that addresses those queries to some degree!

 

[macgregor2150]

I know there are a lot of guys eating up HOI4 and that I'm probably seen by Paradox as part of a disgruntled fringe wanting something more Darkest Hour-like. I'm still hopeful, however apprehensive. So many paradox games would be immeasurably better if manned by human players instead of so much AI. You'd think by now they would have some format to organize big multiplayer games.

 

[delra]

When United Nations inevitably bans computer games to forever end the violence on this planet, what will your next job be?

 

[SolSara]

When United Nations inevitably bans computer games to forever end the violence on this planet, what will your next job be?

Underground video game developers, fighting the good fight

 

[AndrewT]

Off topic posts deleted.

Non-game politics to be discussed in the OT forums only, thanks.

 

[DominusNovus]

This is less of a inquiry and more of a request: When you have events like PDXCon coming up (or any others that you're attending) could you put the dates front and center in your banners? For example, if I look at the top of the screen right now, I don't see the date, unless I actually click on the 'buy ticket' button. Its a small thing, but its bugged me for a few years now.

 

[Druplesnubb]

This is less of a inquiry and more of a request: When you have events like PDXCon coming up (or any others that you're attending) could you put the dates front and center in your banners? For example, if I look at the top of the screen right now, I don't see the date, unless I actually click on the 'buy ticket' button. Its a small thing, but its bugged me for a few years now.

Or here's an idea: try having the actual date literally anywhere on the site. The closest thing to an actual date is how the "agenda" page talks about the 18th, 19th and 20th. No mention of what month it is, though. Didn't this site first go up in like February or January or December last year or something? Good luck figuring out that the con is supposed to be in October (I think).

 

[Archangel85]

This is less of a inquiry and more of a request: When you have events like PDXCon coming up (or any others that you're attending) could you put the dates front and center in your banners? For example, if I look at the top of the screen right now, I don't see the date, unless I actually click on the 'buy ticket' button. Its a small thing, but its bugged me for a few years now.

This would be better asked in the general PDX thread in the general forums. This thread is for PDS specifically.

 

[macgregor2150]

I've been mentioning some kind of VPN or game hosting that allows players to find other players based on keywords. This way scheduling and organizing can occur. Hardly anyone plays with 7 players; and that to me is practically essential to limiting the AI enough for the game to see it's full potential, and that goes for a dozen paradox titles.

It might help to be able to use a player's saved game in singleplayer to mesh into the AI so players could pick different AIs based on actual players. Perhaps algorithms in their general attack/defense tactics can be developed; and once the game changes circumstance, employed in that AI . This way EVERYONE could have their own AI stored, uploaded and catalogued so players can peruse and choose which AIs to fill their games. It's an idea. The best is still real human players in my opinion.

 

[Gornova]

I'm curious about current design process, from game concept to mechanics. Because dev blogs are more "game" related ( one for EUIV, one for IR, etc..) there is somewhere some kind of explanation of your internal process on this ?

 

[N3UTR0N]

Dear paradox, I would love to see a Modern themed grandstrategy game with modern nations, atleast as HoI4 DLC would be great aswell if you think It's just gonna be a Modern reskin of HoI4