White elephant

[grab]

I think MWIF is the most expensive and biggest white elephant I have ever purchased.

The private WIF Netplay does not work, the sceanrios fascist tide and day of infamy do not have maps and hence don't work and nobody seems to be playing the game. I posted on 24/4 for an opponent, 291 read the post only one replied and on 11/9 I posted again so far 44 views and 0 replies. With no prospect of head to head or pbem play and apparently no AI for the foreseeable was this game really worth buying.

[michaelbaldur]

I feel your pain.

[Gizuria]

the sceanrios fascist tide and day of infamy do not have maps and hence don't work and nobody seems to be playing the game.

Yes, this is discouraging. If you look in the MWIF Monthly Reports thread, you'll see this...

Missing Optional Rules & Half Map Scenarios
I want to make some progress on these in February. Obviously, bugs have a higher priority at the moment. However, when time permits, my preference is to whittle away at larger tasks, such as these, so they are not quite so monolithic when they rise to the top of my to-do list.

Missing Optional Rules & Half Map Scenarios
Unfortunately I made no progress on these in February. Obviously, bugs had, and have, a higher priority.

Missing Optional Rules & Half Map Scenarios
Unfortunately I made no progress on these in March.

Missing Optional Rules & Half Map Scenarios
Nothing new in April.

.

Missing Optional Rules & Half Map Scenarios
Nothing new in May.

Missing Optional Rules & Half Map Scenarios
Nothing new in June.

Missing Optional Rules & Half Map Scenarios
Nothing new in July.

Missing Optional Rules & Half Map Scenarios
Nothing new in August

[:(]
I'm not expecting to see either of these any time this year or even early next.

[grab]

7 months and no progress is not good and suggests a very cavalier attitude on the part of the developers. It feels a bit like "we have your money so what does it matter if we don't provide the full product".

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: grab

7 months and no progress is not good and suggests a very cavalier attitude on the part of the developers. It feels a bit like "we have your money so what does it matter if we don't provide the full product".

There's only one developer I think, which is probably more the problem...

[Omnius]

grab,
MWiF isn't the only computer wargame that's a white elephant upon release, every computer wargame is a white elephant upon release. Every computer wargame has serious issues like functions that don't function correctly or at all. I say bear with MWiF, it is getting better and will get even better once they put out the second installment which will complete the game with all the functions we want to have.

Don't equate replies to one of your comments as any indication of the game being played, could just be your comment wasn't worth answering for most. As far as not having an Artificial Ignorance yet I'm all for games not having them, they are a waster of programming time and always worthless opponents unless cranked up massively to cheat. I'm all for getting the game mechanics working properly before getting head to head play working. No sense in getting Netplay working if the game mechanics are still messed up.

So have patience and learn to enjoy playing solitaire. That way you give yourself a better game even if you lose the element of surprise as to what the enemy is doing. By playing every country you really learn how to play each country better. You also learn how to beat other countries better. So enjoy this early version and learn how to play the game while we wait anxiously for the game to be finished properly.

Omnius

[Zorachus99]

ORIGINAL: grab

I think MWIF is the most expensive and biggest white elephant I have ever purchased.

The private WIF Netplay does not work, the sceanrios fascist tide and day of infamy do not have maps and hence don't work and nobody seems to be playing the game. I posted on 24/4 for an opponent, 291 read the post only one replied and on 11/9 I posted again so far 44 views and 0 replies. With no prospect of head to head or pbem play and apparently no AI for the foreseeable was this game really worth buying.

I also cannot play the game. Non-oil dependant units *automatically* reorganize at the end of the turn, without tracing supply. Allowing this is about the most unrealistic thing possible.

Anyone who has played 3rd Reich, ADG games, and MANY other historical re-creations know that units that are surrounded are typically destroyed after a certain amount of time. However, in this game they happily re-organize, resupply themselves from nowhere, and generally make supply a broken system. In China, it breaks the game. The Nationalists don't even need to capture a city to wander around behind the lines, which makes capturing cities much easier. Also since the Japanese ground strike on '3' at best, trying to disrupt these units behind the lines, is incredibly difficult if they choose not to move.

It's so unrealistic, I simply can't play. For all of you who are playing WIF Basic, please continue to enjoy the game.

The main point here is that, adding netplay before implementing a few necessary optional rules is going to postpone any additional optional rules potentially forever. The codebase is a nightmare already, with slight modifications having unintended consequences, as we learned from Steve trying to fix supply, netplay, and other bugs all at the same time initially. Netplay would work for a few impulses, but the single player game would break immediately after repairing Netplay.

I am interested in having at least 1 ONE! stable version of the game that works before even attempting to add major features.

I would hope Steve would agree. Adding optional rules to both Netplay and Solitaire after they are both completed makes very little sense from a programming point of view. While I haven't plunged my head in this code for the last 10 years, I do know programming paradigms.

Again, I am interested in having at least 1 ONE! stable version of the game that works before even attempting to add major features. I would love to have netplay, but currently, I'm my perspective, and many others, I don't have a game that even runs yet.

[Centuur]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

ORIGINAL: grab

I think MWIF is the most expensive and biggest white elephant I have ever purchased.

The private WIF Netplay does not work, the sceanrios fascist tide and day of infamy do not have maps and hence don't work and nobody seems to be playing the game. I posted on 24/4 for an opponent, 291 read the post only one replied and on 11/9 I posted again so far 44 views and 0 replies. With no prospect of head to head or pbem play and apparently no AI for the foreseeable was this game really worth buying.

I also cannot play the game. Non-oil dependant units *automatically* reorganize at the end of the turn, without tracing supply. Allowing this is about the most unrealistic thing possible.

Anyone who has played 3rd Reich, ADG games, and MANY other historical re-creations know that units that are surrounded are typically destroyed after a certain amount of time. However, in this game they happily re-organize, resupply themselves from nowhere, and generally make supply a broken system. In China, it breaks the game. The Nationalists don't even need to capture a city to wander around behind the lines, which makes capturing cities much easier. Also since the Japanese ground strike on '3' at best, trying to disrupt these units behind the lines, is incredibly difficult if they choose not to move.

It's so unrealistic, I simply can't play. For all of you who are playing WIF Basic, please continue to enjoy the game.

The main point here is that, adding netplay before implementing a few necessary optional rules is going to postpone any additional optional rules potentially forever. The codebase is a nightmare already, with slight modifications having unintended consequences, as we learned from Steve trying to fix supply, netplay, and other bugs all at the same time initially. Netplay would work for a few impulses, but the single player game would break immediately after repairing Netplay.

I am interested in having at least 1 ONE! stable version of the game that works before even attempting to add major features.

I would hope Steve would agree. Adding optional rules to both Netplay and Solitaire after they are both completed makes very little sense from a programming point of view. While I haven't plunged my head in this code for the last 10 years, I do know programming paradigms.

Again, I am interested in having at least 1 ONE! stable version of the game that works before even attempting to add major features. I would love to have netplay, but currently, I'm my perspective, and many others, I don't have a game that even runs yet.

Why are you so serious about this optional rule? Does not having this rule break the game, where you are concerned? What I don't like about the isolation rule is the fact that, even if you have a whole country you can plunder as a unit, without any enemy units in a 1000 km. radius, you still don't get reorganised if you use that optional rule. That's very strange, isn't it?
If you would want to have a good rule, that optional rule should have been written differently to start with. I don't like that rule as it stands now at all. What's surrounded?
We used to have a house rule instead, stating that enemy land units should be within 2 hexes of the isolated unit to prevent it from being reorganised. Otherwise, it would reorganise...

On the game itself, now that most of the supply issues and the production issues are out of the way, things are running more smoothly. If naval gets cleared, the number of crashes and dead stop will be minimal...
The last couple of weeks, I didn't run into any crashes...

Now, I agree on your opinion that everything should be working right, before Netplay should be taken on. But I'm just a beta tester and it's not my decision how things should progress. Other people disagree with my (and your) opinion and that's something we should accept...

[Centuur]

ORIGINAL: grab

I think MWIF is the most expensive and biggest white elephant I have ever purchased.

The private WIF Netplay does not work, the sceanrios fascist tide and day of infamy do not have maps and hence don't work and nobody seems to be playing the game. I posted on 24/4 for an opponent, 291 read the post only one replied and on 11/9 I posted again so far 44 views and 0 replies. With no prospect of head to head or pbem play and apparently no AI for the foreseeable was this game really worth buying.

First: the statement that nobody seems to play the game isn't correct... There are at least 4 or 5 AAR's running. Sure, Netplay isn't running. And that's something I want to have running soon, since I want to start trashing other players (well, that's to say: I probably get trashed...). [:D]

Now, I agree totally that it's frustrating to have a game, which looks so nice, but doesn't do the things it is promising to do. Especially since it appears that there isn't any progress (which isn't true, but progress is slow, very slow) For that, I can only say: check in a couple of months time.

[paulderynck]

I think there's a simple workaround for not having the Isolated Re-org option that would be 90% effective.

In the unit menu when you right-click a unit, you can make it disorganized. (Caveat - maybe this is only in the beta test version, perhaps someone running the public release can verify?)

Anyway during land movement for the units that should have stayed disorganized, couldn't you just right-click on them and make them disorganized? Likewise if you in solitaire or you and your opponent in H2H agree, then don't run around with them, just disorganize them. I say 90% effective because you'd have to wait for the first impulse of a new turn with those units moving and if you are moving first,you likely have to wait an impulse to take advantage of them being disorganized, and then the weather could change or whatever...

Edit: I just loaded the public version 1.2.0.7 and found that I can manually disorganize units, so this workaround should be relatively effective.

[brian brian]

I too am not interested in playing without the Isolated Re-Org rule. We made it a House Rule starting in the 4th Edition in the early 1990s and have used it ever since. Given that the Oil Rule was coded I really can't understand why it was left out, aside from the fact that it wasn't an official part of 5th Edition so it may have been discounted in importance.

Supply is about more than food for the troops. You generally can't plunder ammunition, and without ammunition, soldiers are soon dead.

Supply is already fairly generous in the game to keep it playable and Isolated Re-Org is a good brake on units running around all over like they were made out of cardboard or something.

[warspite1]

Well I've got to say if it was coded I would play with it in a flash - just like if I had confidence in the oil rule. But I have no issue playing without oil or isolation in the meantime. Not to everyone's cup of tea obviously.

[tom730_slith]

I'm currently into my third attempt at global war.
The first time I didn't understand the rules well enough to make a decent showing and/or frustration level.
The second one went a lot better, but an "update" caused that game to disappear. Initially upsetting, but then I realized I understood the rules much better and could add a few more optional rules once I started my third attempt.
Now I'm on my third global war, up to March 1944, and the Axis is running wild. I've learned a LOT about the key role that NAV units play as well as CVs of course.
I've stated this before but I have already gotten so much more than my money's worth out of this game, and it keeps getting better!
I understand some don't agree, but to me this is about as far from a "White Elephant" as you can get. It certainly isn't perfect, but it's pretty darned good, an amazing amount of fun, and they seem to be working hard to improve it.
I think people forget that the economics of a war game are not at all like "Madden Football" or some first person shooter that sells a zillion units. I'm guessing it was developed on a shoe-string and is a "labor of love" and for that reason I'm EXTREMELY grateful that the game was made at all, let alone that there are continuing efforts to improve it.

[grab]

Omnius "MWiF isn't the only computer wargame that's a white elephant upon release, every computer wargame is a white elephant upon release. Every computer wargame has serious issues like functions that don't function correctly or at all. I say bear with MWiF, it is getting better and will get even better once they put out the second installment which will complete the game with all the functions we want to have."

As someone who has developed war game's and beta tested quite a lot of them I agree however this game has been out for nearly a year and the term new release is wearing a bit thin.

Tom730, I don't think people do forget the economics of a war game in fact I suspect most people that buy a war game are only to aware of the niche market this hobby has. However whether its a niche market or a mass market the customer has the same right to expect to buy something that is fit for purpose. As consumers if we bought a new car and something didn't work would we say that's alright I'm sure they will get it right sometime, I doubt it so why, and this is a generalisation and not aimed at any particular games designer or distributor, do we accept it from producers of PC games?

[Numdydar]

Well WitP AE has been around for a LOT longer and is still getting updates. As well as WitE too. Would you consider these the same way? After all they are 'broken' to a certain extent hence the patches. But people play them and have a lot of fun.

I realize that a lot of people may feel that the amount charged was excessive, but I bought on release and have definitely gotten my monies worth out of the game. But unlike many other publishers Matrix is willing to continue improving games. Even though they should have stopped doing so long ago.

[Zorachus99]

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

I think there's a simple workaround for not having the Isolated Re-org option that would be 90% effective.

In the unit menu when you right-click a unit, you can make it disorganized. (Caveat - maybe this is only in the beta test version, perhaps someone running the public release can verify?)

Anyway during land movement for the units that should have stayed disorganized, couldn't you just right-click on them and make them disorganized? Likewise if you in solitaire or you and your opponent in H2H agree, then don't run around with them, just disorganize them. I say 90% effective because you'd have to wait for the first impulse of a new turn with those units moving and if you are moving first,you likely have to wait an impulse to take advantage of them being disorganized, and then the weather could change or whatever...

Edit: I just loaded the public version 1.2.0.7 and found that I can manually disorganize units, so this workaround should be relatively effective.

Paul, whatever I've said about you, I take it all back.

You are a prince among men. You found a workaround for my problem.

Yes, my last game was ruined by supply not operating correctly, and now after many months I can contact my opponent, discuss if he want's to keep track of units which should not re-organize, and disorganize the ones that should not have re-organized themselves. Sadly, this is a temporary and imperfect solution for someone who once said, if the game lets me do it, I'm going to do it.

Then we can track all the units manually by ourselves... and .... oh wait, didn't I buy the computer game to do this? I really bought it for one reason only, to prevent myself and other people from inadvertently cheating, which at my age, happens frustratingly often when moving units, and messing up supply, weather, odds and more.

Oh well, I have a way to proceed. Once the option to voluntarily disorganize units disappears, my game will come to a screeching halt again.

Paul you are pretty awesome! Thank you.

[bo]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

I think there's a simple workaround for not having the Isolated Re-org option that would be 90% effective.

In the unit menu when you right-click a unit, you can make it disorganized. (Caveat - maybe this is only in the beta test version, perhaps someone running the public release can verify?)

Anyway during land movement for the units that should have stayed disorganized, couldn't you just right-click on them and make them disorganized? Likewise if you in solitaire or you and your opponent in H2H agree, then don't run around with them, just disorganize them. I say 90% effective because you'd have to wait for the first impulse of a new turn with those units moving and if you are moving first,you likely have to wait an impulse to take advantage of them being disorganized, and then the weather could change or whatever...

Edit: I just loaded the public version 1.2.0.7 and found that I can manually disorganize units, so this workaround should be relatively effective.

Paul, whatever I've said about you, I take it all back.

You are a prince among men. You found a workaround for my problem.

Yes, my last game was ruined by supply not operating correctly, and now after many months I can contact my opponent, discuss if he want's to keep track of units which should not re-organize, and disorganize the ones that should not have re-organized themselves. Sadly, this is a temporary and imperfect solution for someone who once said, if the game lets me do it, I'm going to do it.

Then we can track all the units manually by ourselves... and .... oh wait, didn't I buy the computer game to do this? I really bought it for one reason only, to prevent myself and other people from inadvertently cheating, which at my age, happens frustratingly often when moving units, and messing up supply, weather, odds and more.

Oh well, I have a way to proceed. Once the option to voluntarily disorganize units disappears, my game will come to a screeching halt again.

Paul you are pretty awesome! Thank you.

Errrr easy on the praise Zorachus, please, now we have to deal with that inflated ego for at least a month[:D]

Bo

[Omnius]

grab,
While the game has been out about 10 months now I can agree that's it's technically not a new relase any longer. However please name me a computer wargame that's 10 months old that is completely polished and functioning perfectly? Like I said all computer wargames are white elephants and all require over a year to become close to properly programmed. Most never reach this exalted state as the company moves on to the next money making project, or decide they'll milk us for a second version.

Yes it would be nice if games would be properly programmed before they go out for sale. Back in the old days before the internet companies used to put games out much more properly programmed. Back then bugs had to be fixed by sending complaining customers a floppy disk update by snail mail. Once the internet became so pervasive then companies got lazy finishing games prematurely just because they knew they could more easily and cheaply put out game fixes.

I usually like to wait at least a year before buying a game after release. However MWiF is much too fun to want to play after waiting too long for it's initial release. As long as too many customers plunk down their money for games when they're first released then this industry-wide problem will never end. We have met the enemy and we are the enemy.

Omnius

[WarHunter]

MWiF was advertised to be playable over the net. At the last minute it was advertised that netplay was not up to speed,
but would take priority. This before any bugs were diagnosed with the foundation of the game.

We took the word of the company that all this was fixable. What we did not count on as customers is that we would still
be looking for netplay or a fully functional basic game without workarounds.

Matrix offered an apology and was accepted. It does not erase the facts of the past or present.

The paying customer is not informed that buying the product puts you in the new frontline of beta testers.
That is something not advertised but part of the package, when a bug is discovered.
Not everyone likes to be volunteered for extra duty. Especially for a non-beta release.

If paying for this game was like paying for a car. It would have never got off the lot.
We would be helping the mechanic put the engine together and still be waiting for the "(transaxel)edit" to arrive.

Sure it will get fixed up. It will be a 2014 model released in 20??.

White Elephant or Lemon? Take your pick.
[&:]

I'm still waiting to leave the lot.

[AxelNL]

Trans axel?