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Kojiro wrote:It's currently a real gem but covered in deep layers of buggy shit. I've played a few hours and I'm really looking forward to being able to play properly.

White Haven wrote:If Magicka had drop-in play, the disconnects/crashes in multi would be tolerable. Without it, they're crippling. Here's hoping one or both deficiencies gets rectified soon.

PC indie Magicka a "hit" despite broken, negligent release

By Ben Kuchera | Last updated January 26, 2011 9:55 AM

Expectations for game stability differ depending on what title is being released—the wretched state of Fallout: New Vegas at launch didn't seem to hurt the game—but we expect games to be playable, at least partially. Yesterday's launch of the independent and satirical title Magicka wasn't just problematic; the game has been completely unplayable during our testing.

The co-op, fantasy-based game is supposed to be a funny, low-cost alternative to Diablo clones, with an innovative element system for magical spells and team play. Game-breaking bugs kept us from launching even a single game to test those claims.

The official forum has a list of bugs players are experiencing, but the real truth is that the game is fundamentally broken. Last night we had four players attempt to play, and sometimes it crashed, sometimes it didn't launch at all. At one point the menus disappeared so I couldn't make any selections. Online play is completely broken, with games not showing up in the server browser, and LAN play is likewise nonfunctional. The single-player also has numerous bugs, making the game impossible to play.
Developer brags while gamers facepalm

Magicka has enjoyed positive buzz from PC gamers, and interest in the title was high. I had even convinced three of my friends to buy the $10 game so we could play co-op, and I have a feeling they're going to be slightly more skeptical of my recommendations in the future. According to the game's developer, Magicka has sold 30,000 copies since launch.

"The reception for Magicka has been better than we dared to hope, watching the numerous YouTube clips of gamers and editors worldwide laughing themselves senseless as they misfire spells left and right as well as the comments on twitter and forums show us people really get the humor and the idea behind Magicka.” said Shams Jorjani, Producer at Paradox Interactive. “Singleplayer and LAN is what most people are currently playing but updating the multiplayer lobby and continuously improving the game is our top priority."

While the marketing speak mentions that the team is hard at work on patches, the tone of the press release is in stark contrast to the threads in the gaming forums, with players complaining about the state of the game, and Paradox representatives promising timely fixes to the issues. Magicka, at this point, is in the worst possible position for an independent release: it has good word of mouth and a decent start in sales, but the product itself is fatally flawed. To release a glowing report of the game's performance to the press is at best hubris, and at worse negligent. Shouldn't players be warned that the game doesn't, you know, work?

Magicka is a game my friends and I are still looking forward to playing, but after spending precious spouse-points to get out of bathing babies to open our schedules for an evening—and maybe even getting some beers—it's maddening to be greeted with a press release glowing about the game's popularity after struggling and failing to get the game to run.

30,000 people may have bought the game, but odds are most of them are regretting the decision. Paradox needs to lay off the hype until the game is playable.

Update: We were contacted by Paradox Interactive, who had nice things to say about this story. "I do agree with you that the MP game should have been better on release, probably the SP game as well. I know working on the game after release is a sorry excuse," Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox, told Ars. "Our press release had no intention to brag about the numbers—WoW [sold] around 2 million first 24 hours after all—,rather telling the gamers we do not consider the product finished but in need of updates, sorry if it came out the wrong way."

We plan on continuing to cover the game as the patches are applied.

Paradox tells Ars what went wrong, how it's fixing Magicka

By Ben Kuchera | Last updated January 28, 2011 6:52 AM

It's not often you get to put questions to the man responsible for a broken game your friends just bought so they could play with you, but that's exactly what I did when I spoke with Fredrik Wester, the CEO of Paradox Interactive. Readers commented that our first story sounded personal, and it kind of was. I don't often get a chance to get all my buddies together to play a game, and it was galling when Magicka simply refused to work for any of us.

"We ran the game through two rounds of external QA, one of them dedicated to co-op multiplayer, including hot seat, LAN, and over the Internet. We got a lot of good feedback from the QA team on all forms of co-op," Wester told Ars. "I want to make it perfectly clear: it's obvious not enough was done to fix the online multiplayer part, as it turns out."
Life at Paradox

Paradox Interactive is a busy company. Its 28 employees are working with outside studios to launch 12 games this year. "Paradox also tends to invest in good ideas and people with strong visions, and oftentimes those fresh and new ideas come with less experience," Wester said, listing the many first-time developers they've worked with, including Taleworlds and Nitro Games. "That's kind of our thing now. The risk is always higher working with new studios, but we want to introduce the global gaming community to these teams and their games. While we might encounter challenges, we're convinced that the pros outweigh the negatives at the end of the day."

How Magicka was delayed

As the above video illustrates, the game was already delayed past its planned release in spring 2010. The extra time was spent on the tutorial and campaign. "The Internet Connection problems should have been better detected and addressed then, but now have to be fixed after the fact," Wester said.

If you read the comments on our first piece, you'll see how many gamers bought the game and continue to support Paradox. It's a balancing act to keep those gamers playing while assuring those having problems that you're listening. "When you get negative feedback, it will of course cause sales to slow down. On the other hand, we are also getting some good feedback from people who aren't having trouble and they seem to enjoy it a lot," Wester explained.

He's hoping sales continue to pick up once the game is running smoothly for everyone who wants to play. "We will also continue to release content to the gamers and make small changes that are suggested by the fans. I enjoyed this game immensely myself, but I confess to having mostly played it on LAN and local co-op, and that has been running smoothly."
Moving forward, putting out fires

So if Wester could go back in time a week or two with the knowledge of what happened, what call would he have made? "With that advance knowledge, we would have held the release a few weeks to test and fix the connectivity under more realistic circumstances to avoid the situation where people cannot connect properly to games online, instead of being limited to hot seat and LAN to enjoy Magicka," Wester told Ars.

Now the job is clear: fix the game, get people playing, and then the word will spread about the quality of the game itself rather than the bugs. "The development team is working around the clock and we will get this fixed," Wester promised. "We will make this right."

Steel wrote:Paradox have 28 staff and release 12 games a year? Good shitting lord!

Thats why their games have such wank QA! They build an entire game with effectively TWO PEOPLE actually working on it!

I was not aware that Paradox is considered "indie" these days.

Sarevok wrote:

I was not aware that Paradox is considered "indie" these days.

That reminds me of something. Paradox claims to publish indie titles.

Speaking as a Swedish game developer whats your opinion of Paradox ? Is it worthwhile to approach them ?