Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Chessylite
Jan 21, 2009

Excretus ex fortuna

Vivian Darkbloom posted:

Thing is, if I bought an unfinished game on Steam, I would be entitled to a refund if I complained and demonstrated the problem.

I'm curious. Have you ever done this and been successful? I've heard some horror stories from people trying to get refunds on Steam.

Anyway, I feel like you're blaming GamersGate for your own mistake here. You should have read up on SR2020 before making that purchase. It was released back in 2008 when Paradox still had a pretty bad reputation for publishing unfinished and buggy games from both themselves and third party developers. They've improved now but this one never got fixed unfortunately. This is because it was developed by BattleGoat rather than Paradox themselves. This isn't GamersGate's fault at all.

Has anyone played Supreme Ruler: Cold War by the way? I'm wondering if things have improved at all.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Class Warcraft
Apr 27, 2006


Tomn posted:

What are you talking about? Everything I've heard about Steam refunds is that it's like pulling teeth and that you only get one refund over the course of your life, after which you can forget about it.

I can attest that steam refunds can be quite difficult.

My girlfriend tried to buy me a game once on steam and there was some sort of error at the payment screen that required her to resubmit her payment info. Anyway it ended up getting processed twice because of it, and she ended up charged for two copies of the game. Despite obviously being an error (I mean who buys two copies of the same game in two different transactions, seconds apart?) they still were difficult about it and it took like two weeks of back and forth correspondence and a threat to chargeback on the credit card before they agreed to refund her.

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


Chessylite posted:

Has anyone played Supreme Ruler: Cold War by the way? I'm wondering if things have improved at all.

How many ways can I say the word "no"? East vs. West isn't shaping up well, but at least I'll know what the gently caress I'm doing in it.

Flippycunt posted:

I can attest that steam refunds can be quite difficult.

My girlfriend tried to buy me a game once on steam and there was some sort of error at the payment screen that required her to resubmit her payment info. Anyway it ended up getting processed twice because of it, and she ended up charged for two copies of the game. Despite obviously being an error (I mean who buys two copies of the same game in two different transactions, seconds apart?) they still were difficult about it and it took like two weeks of back and forth correspondence and a threat to chargeback on the credit card before they agreed to refund her.

I had a similar experience with Gamersgate which was resolved within hours, though I never downloaded the game in question since I realized my debit card was overdrawn.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Chessylite posted:

I'm curious. Have you ever done this and been successful? I've heard some horror stories from people trying to get refunds on Steam.

Anyway, I feel like you're blaming GamersGate for your own mistake here. You should have read up on SR2020 before making that purchase. It was released back in 2008 when Paradox still had a pretty bad reputation for publishing unfinished and buggy games from both themselves and third party developers. They've improved now but this one never got fixed unfortunately. This is because it was developed by BattleGoat rather than Paradox themselves. This isn't GamersGate's fault at all.

Has anyone played Supreme Ruler: Cold War by the way? I'm wondering if things have improved at all.

No, it's the same thing, but with Cold War-era borders instead of modern ones. I played it once as the USSR, declared war on every country in Western Europe one-by-one in a massive, continent-spanning human wave attack, captured Paris, faltered, lost Paris, and turned it off because it's just the same thing as 2020.

jsoh
Mar 24, 2007

O Muhammad, I seek your intercession with my Lord for the return of my eyesight
So if I have Appointed upper house it is supposed to be comprised of all of the aristocrat and capitalist pops in my nation right? How come I can have a mostly reactionary set of those pops and they will refuse to advance reforms even if the pops themselves support the specific reforms. Like its a really cool idea to have the pops directly be represented in government but they should be represented as valuing the things they actually value instead of being stuck into one set of based on ideology. Also why is it so loving hard to get my aristocrats and capitalists to not be loving reactionary as the USCA?


edit: also I think it would be cool if the research points breakdown would project how many rp a year you make, even if it is just multiplying your current daily by 365, so I know about how long a tech will take to research, without having to do a math.

jsoh fucked around with this message at 04:21 on May 22, 2013

Fister Roboto
Feb 21, 2008

If a POP thinks a political reform is important, it will gradually start becoming more liberal. Aristocrats tend to be very reactionary, though, and more than likely they vastly outnumber your capitalists in your case. If you select a POP and mouseover its ideology breakdown, it should show you the factors that affect its ideology. Capitalists, for example, will become more liberal with higher consciousness, lower militancy, higher political reform desire, and higher militancy among the lower and middle class.

James The 1st
Feb 23, 2013

run DNC posted:

So if I have Appointed upper house it is supposed to be comprised of all of the aristocrat and capitalist pops in my nation right? How come I can have a mostly reactionary set of those pops and they will refuse to advance reforms even if the pops themselves support the specific reforms. Like its a really cool idea to have the pops directly be represented in government but they should be represented as valuing the things they actually value instead of being stuck into one set of based on ideology. Also why is it so loving hard to get my aristocrats and capitalists to not be loving reactionary as the USCA?


edit: also I think it would be cool if the research points breakdown would project how many rp a year you make, even if it is just multiplying your current daily by 365, so I know about how long a tech will take to research, without having to do a math.
It tells you when the tech will finish when you hover over it.

Vivian Darkbloom
Jul 14, 2004


uPen posted:

I agree that GG isn't great but steam isn't perfect either. I wouldn't expect to get my money back for a 5 year old game from any distributor, if you bought SR2020 on release day and were dissapointed maybe but 5 years on? You knew exactly what you were getting into.

Uh, if I'd known what I was getting into I'm pretty sure I obviously wouldn't have bought it?

I'm not saying this is the crime of the century or whatever, it's just underhanded that GG sells games that are literally unfinished. I figured the game would be not-broken after all the patches and the expansion, but I guess I was mistaken.

quadrophrenic
Feb 4, 2011

WIN MARNIE WIN

Vivian Darkbloom posted:

Uh, if I'd known what I was getting into I'm pretty sure I obviously wouldn't have bought it?

Next time, um... find out what you're getting into?

SR2020 isn't broken, it's a perfectly functional, hopelessly boring and tedious bad game. If you thought patches were going to make the game good I don't know if you fully appreciate how poo poo that game is. I just googled 5-6 bad-to-middling reviews of the game, maybe read those before you spend money on a game?

Tomn
Aug 23, 2007

And the angel said unto him
"Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself."
But lo he could not. For the angel was hitting him with his own hands

Vivian Darkbloom posted:

Uh, if I'd known what I was getting into I'm pretty sure I obviously wouldn't have bought it?

I'm not saying this is the crime of the century or whatever, it's just underhanded that GG sells games that are literally unfinished. I figured the game would be not-broken after all the patches and the expansion, but I guess I was mistaken.

Dude, Steam sold Sword of the Stars 2. Still sells it now. That game had planets spawning in the middle of the sun, starship designs that by default shot themselves when attempting to fire, and an AI incapable of making ships with anything other than starting technology, leaving aside the crashes to desktop and the in-game wiki full of broken links.

I honestly don't know what you're trying to say, anyways. Are game distributors supposed to pull games off their catalogs when they find out that they suck? Shocking fact - the only reason a distributor would ever pull games off their shelf is to make room for better games, and with the advent of digital downloads there's unlimited shelf space and thus no reason to pull almost anything that doesn't literally destroy computers or is a literal outright scam.

It is not and never has been the responsibility of the distributor to shield you from bad games on the market, and I don't know why you seem to think it should be. It's not their job to stop you from making bad decisions. If nothing else, the question of figuring out "What sucks enough that we shouldn't sell it?" starts to wander into seriously subjective territory. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is a famous cult classic, but it's also famously unpolished and unfinished. Should that have been banned? Most of the early Paradox games were buggy and rough to the point where it used to be a mantra that they weren't playable until the first expansion. Should they have been forbidden? Where exactly do you draw the line?

Vivian Darkbloom
Jul 14, 2004


No, there's plenty of features that just don't do anything. That's what makes it broken. I mean, the abysmal design and balance don't help, but let's be clear: we're talking about advertised features that were never implemented.

Tomn posted:

Dude, Steam sold Sword of the Stars 2. Still sells it now. That game had planets spawning in the middle of the sun, starship designs that by default shot themselves when attempting to fire, and an AI incapable of making ships with anything other than starting technology, leaving aside the crashes to desktop and the in-game wiki full of broken links.

I honestly don't know what you're trying to say, anyways. Are game distributors supposed to pull games off their catalogs when they find out that they suck? Shocking fact - the only reason a distributor would ever pull games off their shelf is to make room for better games, and with the advent of digital downloads there's unlimited shelf space and thus no reason to pull almost anything that doesn't literally destroy computers or is a literal outright scam.

It is not and never has been the responsibility of the distributor to shield you from bad games on the market, and I don't know why you seem to think it should be. It's not their job to stop you from making bad decisions. If nothing else, the question of figuring out "What sucks enough that we shouldn't sell it?" starts to wander into seriously subjective territory. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is a famous cult classic, but it's also famously unpolished and unfinished. Should that have been banned? Most of the early Paradox games were buggy and rough to the point where it used to be a mantra that they weren't playable until the first expansion. Should they have been forbidden? Where exactly do you draw the line?

I think it's their job to avoid selling defective products, and when Steam does so, they clearly deserve the same criticism. I'm a little surprised that this considered is a radical stance.

TOOT BOOT
May 25, 2010

Next time do more research before buying something. There are all kinds of products out there that do not function as advertised. I'm sure Amazon has thousands.

uPen
Jan 25, 2010

Zu Rodina!

Vivian Darkbloom posted:

No, there's plenty of features that just don't do anything. That's what makes it broken. I mean, the abysmal design and balance don't help, but let's be clear: we're talking about advertised features that were never implemented.


I think it's their job to avoid selling defective products, and when Steam does so, they clearly deserve the same criticism. I'm a little surprised that this considered is a radical stance.

I would be behind you 100% if this was a brand new game but Supreme Ruler 2020 came out in 2008. You have absolutely nobody to blame but yourself.

Tomn
Aug 23, 2007

And the angel said unto him
"Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself."
But lo he could not. For the angel was hitting him with his own hands

Vivian Darkbloom posted:

No, there's plenty of features that just don't do anything. That's what makes it broken. I mean, the abysmal design and balance don't help, but let's be clear: we're talking about advertised features that were never implemented.


I think it's their job to avoid selling defective products, and when Steam does so, they clearly deserve the same criticism. I'm a little surprised that this considered is a radical stance.

Have you never heard the phrase "Caveat emptor" before? It's generally accepted that it's the responsibility of the consumer to do their own research and make their own judgements about what to buy, except in those cases where the product being sold is in some way not easily-discerned to be actively harmful to the consumer or ludicrously broken (which Supreme Ruler is not). Not to mention that as I said before, it starts getting really sticky when wandering into the subjective realm of entertainment, where one man's poison is another man's meat. At which point do you say "Nope, this sucks too much, bin it"? Fable arguably didn't go as far as Molyneux was advertising - does that mean that it sucks enough that distributors should never sell it? Spore was a disappointment to many - should it have been prevented from going onto the market? Victoria 2 was a buggy and unpolished mess on release - should Steam have prevented it from ever going out at all? Hell, for all that Supreme Ruler is a bland and tedious game, there's some folks who'd consider it the best of a bad lot, since almost no other game simulates grand strategy in the modern age. Should they be prevented from picking up Supreme Ruler for their own good?

V for Vegas
Sep 1, 2004

THUNDERDOME LOSER

uPen posted:

I would be behind you 100% if this was a brand new game but Supreme Ruler 2020 came out in 2008. You have absolutely nobody to blame but yourself.

I just bought Breaking Dawn from Amazon - haven't read anything about it but I hope it's good! If not, I'm coming for you Bezos :argh:

Vivian Darkbloom
Jul 14, 2004


TOOT BOOT posted:

Next time do more research before buying something. There are all kinds of products out there that do not function as advertised. I'm sure Amazon has thousands.

Yep, I've bought some of them. And then I returned them. Hey, maybe I should try that with SR2020!

Nut to Butt
Apr 13, 2009

by FactsAreUseless

Vivian Darkbloom posted:

I'm a little surprised that this considered is a radical stance.

Caveat emptor. Buyer beware. You prized the time it would take to look at a few reviews over the money you spent to buy the game.

Learn from your mistake, and don't be a sucker again.

efb

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
If there's any criticism I could level about Gamersgate, it's that you need to run a separate installer for every expansion pack and DLC, and that their store page/functionality sucks for keeping track of DLC that you own. It bothered me enough that I re-bought CK2, Victoria 2 and HOI3 just for Steam (and also used the free EU3 giveaway to get that one on Steam).

Otherwise I don't find anything wrong with the service - it's just a combination of Paradox games specifically having a lot of xpacks and DLC to track whenever you need to do a reinstall, laziness, and the fact that Paradox is switching to full Steamworks for their future titles anyway.

I don't think Steam is on some kind of pedestal for not selling poo poo games, especially since they do sell Supreme Ruler Cold War. Another great example would be The War Z.

Kersch
Aug 22, 2004
I like this internet
In Victoria 2 I got beat up really badly in a war and lost, and afterwards my economy was garbage and my population's overall militancy was flying up like crazy. I was able to pass several political reforms all within a few years though, so it actually worked out for the best. I thought it was consciousness that allowed doing reforms, and militancy was just their chance to revolt if the reforms that were important to them weren't in effect? Could someone explain to me what was going on, or what is wrong with my understanding of those attributes?

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


Kersch posted:

In Victoria 2 I got beat up really badly in a war and lost, and afterwards my economy was garbage and my population's overall militancy was flying up like crazy. I was able to pass several political reforms all within a few years though, so it actually worked out for the best. I thought it was consciousness that allowed doing reforms, and militancy was just their chance to revolt if the reforms that were important to them weren't in effect? Could someone explain to me what was going on, or what is wrong with my understanding of those attributes?

Under conditions of high militancy conservative Upper House members will pass political reforms. Did you get a lot of Liberals elected as well?

Tomn
Aug 23, 2007

And the angel said unto him
"Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself."
But lo he could not. For the angel was hitting him with his own hands

Kersch posted:

In Victoria 2 I got beat up really badly in a war and lost, and afterwards my economy was garbage and my population's overall militancy was flying up like crazy. I was able to pass several political reforms all within a few years though, so it actually worked out for the best. I thought it was consciousness that allowed doing reforms, and militancy was just their chance to revolt if the reforms that were important to them weren't in effect? Could someone explain to me what was going on, or what is wrong with my understanding of those attributes?

If I recall correctly, high militancy means that your voting blocs start becoming willing to compromise and vote for reforms if it'll keep the riff-raff happy. To be specific, I think each party splits when high militancy happens, with one half of each ideology voting to compromise to keep the people happy, and the other half hardlining in whichever way their party hardlines. I know the conservatives in particular split between reaction and accepting reform.

e: f,b

Strudel Man
May 19, 2003
ROME DID NOT HAVE ROBOTS, FUCKWIT
The mainstream ideologies (conservative, liberal, socialist) will cave to popular pressure in the upper house when militancy is high, to a degree based on how high it is. At 1 average militancy, 10% of each will vote for reforms they wouldn't normally support, at 2 average it's 20%, at 5 it's 50%, and so on and so forth.

The hardline ideologies (reactionary, anarcho-liberal, communist, fascist) do not adjust their voting choices based on militancy.

cool new Metroid game
Oct 7, 2009

hail satan

re. sound effect annoyances discussion from a few pages back. It annoys the hell out of me that music plays in certain screens in CK2, like in the council/advisor screen, while general game music is also playing. Why the hell would you even do that? :psyduck:
Then again I am a major sperg.

GenderSelectScreen
Mar 7, 2010

I DON'T KNOW EITHER DON'T ASK ME
College Slice
So I've tried playing as the California Republic and I was unable to build any military units. What gives? I can't loving understand this game. :negative:

uPen
Jan 25, 2010

Zu Rodina!

JGBeagle posted:

So I've tried playing as the California Republic and I was unable to build any military units. What gives? I can't loving understand this game. :negative:

California has like 10,000 citizens living in it at the start of the game, how would you raise a brigade of 3,000 men?

jsoh
Mar 24, 2007

O Muhammad, I seek your intercession with my Lord for the return of my eyesight

James The 1st posted:

It tells you when the tech will finish when you hover over it.

Yes, but at certain points you want to only research something that you can finish before a certain date, so as to quickly get newly activated techs like the prestige ones or railroad upgrades or what have you.

Nut to Butt
Apr 13, 2009

by FactsAreUseless

run DNC posted:

Yes, but at certain points you want to only research something that you can finish before a certain date, so as to quickly get newly activated techs like the prestige ones or railroad upgrades or what have you.

Are you learning disabled?

You: I wish it would tell me how long it would take to research a tech!
James The 1st: It does. Hover over the tech.
You: Yeah, but sometimes you want to know when a tech will finish!

Tomn
Aug 23, 2007

And the angel said unto him
"Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself."
But lo he could not. For the angel was hitting him with his own hands

run DNC posted:

Yes, but at certain points you want to only research something that you can finish before a certain date, so as to quickly get newly activated techs like the prestige ones or railroad upgrades or what have you.

It costs pretty much nothing to start researching a tech, check when it'll finish, and then pick something else, all without unpausing the game. You shouldn't lose any significant tech progress from switching at day one.

Granted, this isn't necessarily the most intuitive way of checking how long techs take, but it does work.

jsoh
Mar 24, 2007

O Muhammad, I seek your intercession with my Lord for the return of my eyesight

Drink Cheerwine posted:

Are you learning disabled?

You: I wish it would tell me how long it would take to research a tech!
James The 1st: It does. Hover over the tech.
You: Yeah, but sometimes you want to know when a tech will finish!

Yeah. I want to do that without spending the banked rp. Also I just want for it to show a projected amount of rp a year. I understand that im weird. Also you're a dick

Chickpea Roar
Jan 11, 2006

Merdre!
It would definitely be an improvement if the tool-tip would show the projected completion date when you're hovering over the techs in the technology screen.
"If we start researching [tech] now it would be completed dd.mm.yyyy."

YF-23
Feb 17, 2011

My god, it's full of cat!


run DNC posted:

Yeah. I want to do that without spending the banked rp. Also I just want for it to show a projected amount of rp a year. I understand that im weird. Also you're a dick

It's not a lot of mental maths to get a good-ish estimate. Deduct the banked RP from the cost, then approximately divide the remainder with your daily RP times 100 to figure out about how many hundreds of days it will take for the research.

Of course if you want to min/max this is no good, but given that there aren't many variations on tech costs you can figure out what you want fairly easily and quickly.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
I made a quick-and-dirty research calculator:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AiqH16wH7lX1dFgtbE9jMC1pZFE3d0VEelI5UFp2dXc&usp=sharing

1. Input the RP cost of the tech by mousing over the "Research Points: " entry on the lower-right of the Technology screen. That already includes modifiers such as the "years known" reduction, as well as things like "Military-Industrial Complex"


2. Input however much RP you've got banked or already invested into the project

3. Input how much RP you gain every day, as indicated in the Technology box on the top menu-bar

4. Input the current date

5. The sheet should tell you how long it will take to complete the tech, the date that the tech will complete, and how much RP you stand to accumulate after 1 year

EDIT: This of course will not reflect any changes in your RP rates, which tend to go up slightly over time as your literacy and Clergy/Clerk population increases and other factors such as plurality kick in.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

Kersch posted:

In Victoria 2 I got beat up really badly in a war and lost, and afterwards my economy was garbage and my population's overall militancy was flying up like crazy. I was able to pass several political reforms all within a few years though, so it actually worked out for the best. I thought it was consciousness that allowed doing reforms, and militancy was just their chance to revolt if the reforms that were important to them weren't in effect? Could someone explain to me what was going on, or what is wrong with my understanding of those attributes?
Consciousness is the populace being politically aware, as opposed to just voting for "their" political party.* Being politically aware, they then start to get mad that the politicians aren't doing anything to implement the poo poo they want, especially if life generally sucks. Consciousness alone isn't enough though, politicians won't fold to the populace unless they believe reforms are the only way to avoid revolution. That's basically the history of political reform in the world, and it goes both ways, with dwindling consciousness/militancy allowing a rollback of reforms. Not that Victoria II goes far enough ahead in time for it to include the neo-liberal dismantling of the hard earned gains of the labor movement. This should of course be in East vs. West, but has probably been replaced by a system that models weapon jamming for each individual soldier.

*The latter perhaps best exemplified by the modern American political system.

Jabu
Feb 11, 2004

There are no heroes left in man

Megadyptes posted:

re. sound effect annoyances discussion from a few pages back. It annoys the hell out of me that music plays in certain screens in CK2, like in the council/advisor screen, while general game music is also playing. Why the hell would you even do that? :psyduck:
Then again I am a major sperg.

This bugs me a lot too. I turned music off why are you still playing music?! Stop it!

You're totally ruining the quiet parts of this pretentious post-rock piece!

Mister Bates
Aug 4, 2010

Vivian Darkbloom posted:

Uh, if I'd known what I was getting into I'm pretty sure I obviously wouldn't have bought it?

I'm not saying this is the crime of the century or whatever, it's just underhanded that GG sells games that are literally unfinished. I figured the game would be not-broken after all the patches and the expansion, but I guess I was mistaken.

The hilarious part about this whole argument is that Steam also sells this game.

Necroneocon
May 12, 2009

by Shine
I really have to ask the devs here, is the person that thought letting Ulm do the CK2 "AAR's" the same person that thought it would be a great idea to have Hitler do the tutorial for HOI3? Because if it's the same person that thought of these things, please fire them. He/She is an idiot with terrible, terrible ideas.

Rannos22
Mar 30, 2011

Everything's the same as it always is.
What's wrong with the Ulm AARs aside from being horribly lazy and dull and not really showing off the game at all? They're so "funny"!

Necroneocon
May 12, 2009

by Shine

Rannos22 posted:

What's wrong with the Ulm AARs aside from being horribly lazy and dull and not really showing off the game at all? They're so "funny"!

I think people aren't happy with your monkey cheese bit, Ulm



What do you mean they don't like it?! Am I not zany enough?!
/
0
|
^


I think they'd like an AAR for a highly upcoming expansion from someone that shows off the features and writes more than one sentence



But I had two pictures of the upcoming game that showed absolutely nothing new! And I made funny European jokes! Haha those English people
/
0
|
^


If only there were more talented AAR writers, such as Thingol who did an amazing CK2 LP here, or the ones that are on the Paradox forums...


Nonsense! People want the monkeycheese!
/
0
|
^

Necroneocon fucked around with this message at 00:59 on May 23, 2013

Rejected Fate
Aug 5, 2011

Rannos22 posted:

What's wrong with the Ulm AARs aside from being horribly lazy and dull and not really showing off the game at all? They're so "funny"!

As far as I understand it that guy's apparently pretty popular on the forum, probably why they picked him.

Didn't even know it was going on. Oh well, at least it showed me a couple of screenshots to get a look at the map.

....Actually wait, I can just pause videos. ...Yeah, useless AAR.

Rejected Fate fucked around with this message at 01:15 on May 23, 2013

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Vivian Darkbloom
Jul 14, 2004


Mister Bates posted:

The hilarious part about this whole argument is that Steam also sells this game.

They don't sell SR2020, but I'm sure the Cold War version is just as bad.

  • Locked thread