Imperator: Rome - Status Update (Apr 2021)

[Arheo]

Hi all, Arheo here.

As mentioned above, many of the faces you've become used to seeing in relation to Imperator will be moving on to utilise their talent in support of new projects.

2.0 was, and will remain a seminal moment in Imperator's history. The reception from the players has been overwhelming, and we are beyond proud of what the team has accomplished.

I will also be joining the team in their exodus to projects various, so I wanted to take this opportunity to thank the I:R team, our community and fans for crafting Imperator into a strong, unique element in the PDS repertoire.

I have confidence that Imperator will continue to grow towards the vision we created for it, and I will continue to be present both here and elsewhere for further conversation regarding the best PDS game

/Peter

 

[Arheo]

I assume you can't answer but I'll still give it a try... does this mean that in the future, if development resumes, there will be another game director instead of you?

That is likely, yes.

 

[podcat]

Actually thats just a fuckup ;D its another Peter on my team (my UX boi) ;D I poked ppl about it but its not been fixed yet

He appears in the HOI4 team in PDXCON Remixed Agenda View attachment 711964

 

[Dnote]

I don’t understand how this can happen when PDX experiences positive growth year after year. They’ve become such a large company. Can’t they just hire more people if manpower is such an issue?

There are currently 29 job adverts listed on our site for the three PDS studios. There is no lack of desire to recruit people, but we can't force people to work for us.

PDS is the fastest growing part of the company in these last twelve months and there is no intention to stop growing it.

 

[Dnote]

You must have known before making this announcement that "we are taking a 12 month break AT LEAST from developing any new content for our game because nobody plays it" is immediately going to make everyone assume that you're taking imperator out the back to shoot it.

People aren't going to suddenly pick it up, and after 12 months you have this huge gap of experience which will delay it even further. Why bother restarting after that time?

So what is the plan Paradox has for Imperator post 2021? Are there confirmed plans to restart again after this year?

I know I sound like an entitled gamer, but I invested a lot of time and passion in this game in the expectation that whilst it might not last as long as EU4/CKIII, it will still be developed.

After the events of the last I feel really let down as a Paradox fan.

Just to clarify, we're not expecting new content to turn up before the end of the year (maybe some fixes, we'll see), because its going to take some time for new people to get up to speed and for them to actually develop something. But the idea is to have a full team on the project again as soon as possible.

We're just not sure what asap translates into time wise right now. I can't magic developers out of thin air unfortunately.

 

[Dnote]

Despite the frustration and disappointment I too wanna recognize and thank them for the awesome work that has been done on the game by the Arheo and the team. I am aware they have the right to be even more frustrated and disappointed than us. Good luck on your future endeavors everyone! And finally sorry the language @Dnote I know you are just the messenger, please don't be offended by my tone, it's not towards you as you know

As long as you stay within the forum rules, feel free to vent your frustration, I don't mind.

After all, this was actually my decision, I'm not just the messenger. I have a soft spot for Imperator, as I helped Johan start it back in the day, was there for the launch and the first few updates and whilst I took a step away until November last year, I am ultimately responsible for all our strategy games and the business decisions around them, with my team of Product Managers in collaboration with the studios. So, this ones on me, no one else.

 

[Dnote]

Despite the sad news, thank you very much for your transparency, seriously. I never imagined that a Product Manager would come to the forum to give us feedback and be so open about it.

Look at my profile, I've been at Paradox for coming up to five years, but I joined these forums back in 2005.

I was a fan of these games long before I had the opportunity to work on them. We always try to be as transparent as possible, there are limits though to what we can say. I will always be happy to talk about my job and our games though.

 

[Dnote]

Do you know and can share what happens to the new team that was being built just for I:R? Are they too dispatched in various other projects?

I'm not sure what you mean here, but the majority of people that were working on Imperator: Rome in the run up to 2.0 have moved to other projects.

I keep wanting to say for the greater good, but it just reminds me of Hot Fuzz.

 

[Dnote]

Before you all fully switch of the lights, can we please have a forum medal for Heirs of Alexander?

I will look into this, seems a little strange there isn't one already.

 

[Dnote]

Enjoy the fruits of your labour, Dnote...

View attachment 712562

I have no idea how naive or stupid you have to be to believe you can pull shit like this, put your best game on hold for 12 months which will effectively kill it, and then believe that you can just bring it back like nothing happened.

Especially for a game that had to fight so hard to restore/rebuild its image after so much work and so many updates. You threw all of this away with a single move, shitting all over the work of Arheo and his team. Well done.

And on top of that, you believe that this will not reflect on your other games/projects and the company as a whole. This is the slimiest and most spineless move I have seen any of the more well-known companies make in recent times.

There are no words in the English language that can describe how blatantly idiotic this move is.

Dear PDX: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Not sure how that contributes to anything, people are free to review the game however they wish.

Though the mentality of not recommending a game for any reason other than "is it good or bad to play" seems weird to me.

 

[Jamor]

Hi all.

Tough news today, obviously, but it's really nice to get all these uplifting messages of support for our efforts on 2.0. We want to finish this thing on as strong a note as possible, to leave a kickass live version that left the potential for future development open. I truly hope we accomplished that.

It would have been pretty easy to give up on the project after the tough circumstances of the initial launch, but like I always say: you don't choose the cards you're dealt, you can only choose how to play them. As a PDS player myself since 2007, I take our long tail support model as a point of pride.

We pushed the button on a couple DLCs and numerous free patches since 1.5, all working 100% from home. The feeling of releasing a new patch or DLC is what I imagine it must be like to have a kid: excitement, mixed with spine-chilling terror. I've got a few more grey hairs than I used to, but it was worth it.

On behalf of the entire Imperator team, I want to say thanks for your support and encouragement throughout this strange year we're living in. I'm looking forward to seeing what my skilled, veteran colleagues do in their new teams. You'll see me around, too, and no, I'm not telling you where yet

Thanks all. SPQR.

 

[Snow Crystal]

I've got a question in regards to this, hoping to get a "blue" response here.

Why does Paradox hire content designers skilled in both coding and narrative design? Do you feel that perhaps these two fields are too far apart? Sure, it's possible that you'll find some new talent well-versed in both, but what are the odds to find an expert writer that can also hold their ground in coding? These fields aren't exactly correlated. It's not like copywriters or community managers that tend to have some experience with graphic editing software, or gfx designers that could possibly undertake some illustrator assignments, etc.

Now that you're undergoing some major restructuring, do you feel that maybe it's time to revise how you staff your teams as well? Asking as someone who'd apply in a heartbeat if you had an opening purely for a narrative designer, but I am /completely/ unequipped to deal with any sort of coding, at all. And I'm sure I'm not the only one out there (both among your fans and beyond).

So I'll try to answer you @yerro. We usually look for people good in 4 different fields actually, not just two, when we look for Content Designers:

• Narrative Design
• Game Design
• Scripting (What some here would call coding)
• Research

We don't really expect anyone to be a master in all 4 of them, because that'd be impossible to find, but it means that we try to find someone who is superb at 1 of them, and decent at the others. Which means you end up with Content Designers who are good at different things, e.g I am quite decent at scripting, alright at game design and research, and my writing skills are something I am actively trying to improve.

The simple reason why, is that you need those tools to be able to work effectively. If you had only been a pure narrative designer, you straight up would not be able to implement anything at Paradox.

I've never seen anyone who cannot pick up scripting, when introduced to it properly, no matter what sort of background they come from. It is honestly quite easy, as soon as you start working on it, have the right tools, and someone to explain it to you. In other words, if you are a narrative designer or have a thing for writing, I would recommend for you to apply. The worst thing that can happen is that they say no (hopefully you think this is worse than them saying yes ).

 

[Dnote]

@Dnote Are there any plans to increase moddability for Imperator before you put out the lights?

I was thinking that working on mod support and quality of life improvements would be a good way to onboard a new team. But whilst I oversee the strategy games, I don't actually tell the teams what to make for each game, so we'll see what happens.

 

[DebbieElla]

Please stay on topic, and stop being rude. Several warnings handed out, and posts deleted.

 

[Dnote]

I have to admit, I would prefer you would make a game in the age of the Han crisis to the Jin dynasty, instead of a sengoku game.
Nobunaga's Ambition is a series of pretty good grand strategy games, but Romance of Three Kingdoms is too much based on the book of the same name, instead of the actual history..

I for one would be interested in your take of those games - though I will compare you to Koeis GS games, of course.. =P

I think going from around 200 to 450 CE would cover a lot of interesting history. You would still need to lean heavily on the Three Kingdoms period for marketing, but having some of the time before and a fair bit of time after gives plenty of great events to use to drive the experience.

 

[KaiserJohan]

Civil War and Carthago are a jam. PDX game soundtracks are bangers. I listen to them even outside the game.

Absolutely! My favorite is the Vicky2 soundtrack followed by Imperator. CK3 isn't bad either but I'm bloody tired of EU4 music at this point!