Maybe Im too harsh?

[dinsdale]

ORIGINAL: von Murrin

I read the forums. I have roughly 250 posts in them and maybe 3-5 times that much in OT. Want to know something interesting? I would say probably 150 of those are in the EU2 forums, 75 in the HOI forums, and the rest in the Vicky forums. I was pretty active in the HOI forums until the whining got bad about 2 months after release. I was just starting to get back into the game boards, particularly Vicky, when the whining started again with the 1.2 patch. There was a day when the constructive threads were outnumbered about 3 to 1 by rants and flames. That's the last time I bothered to look in there. Your post, so wonderfully suggestive of your smug, self-righteous opinion of me, has been read and noted. Let's leave it at that.

Well one day of complaints over 1.2 would certainly give you all you need to know about a forum [8|]

Glad you noted the smug self-righteousness, next time you might even notice the point.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Your post, so wonderfully suggestive of your smug, self-righteous opinion of me, has been read and noted. Let's leave it at that.

You need to learn when someone says something nice to you man.

I am not smug, nor self righteous nor god's gift to wargaming.

Just a wargamer.

[von Murrin]

ORIGINAL: Golf33

You can't actually compare Matrix and Paradox. Matrix is a publisher and should be compared to Strategy First; Paradox is a developer and should be compared to, e.g., 2by3games or Wargaming.net.

Regards
33

Heh, I knew someone would latch on to that. [:D]

To clarify, I intended the comparison to be between companies, not their respective functions.

[von Murrin]

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1

Your post, so wonderfully suggestive of your smug, self-righteous opinion of me, has been read and noted. Let's leave it at that.

You need to learn when someone says something nice to you man.

I am not smug, nor self righteous nor god's gift to wargaming.

Just a wargamer.

Meh, that reply was for dinsdale. Sorry! [:o]

EDIT: I see there are separate buttons for reply and quote, and reply specifies the poster to whom you're responding. I learn something new every day.

[von Murrin]

ORIGINAL: dinsdale

ORIGINAL: von Murrin

I read the forums. I have roughly 250 posts in them and maybe 3-5 times that much in OT. Want to know something interesting? I would say probably 150 of those are in the EU2 forums, 75 in the HOI forums, and the rest in the Vicky forums. I was pretty active in the HOI forums until the whining got bad about 2 months after release. I was just starting to get back into the game boards, particularly Vicky, when the whining started again with the 1.2 patch. There was a day when the constructive threads were outnumbered about 3 to 1 by rants and flames. That's the last time I bothered to look in there. Your post, so wonderfully suggestive of your smug, self-righteous opinion of me, has been read and noted. Let's leave it at that.

Well one day of complaints over 1.2 would certainly give you all you need to know about a forum [8|]

Glad you noted the smug self-righteousness, next time you might even notice the point.

I was reading, have read, still do read, and will READ the game forums. The whining put me off POSTING in said forums, and to a lesser extent, reading them. Copy?

Goodbye.

[dinsdale]

ORIGINAL: von Murrin
I was reading, have read, still do read, and will READ the game forums. The whining put me off POSTING in said forums, and to a lesser extent, reading them. Copy?
Goodbye.

Doubt it. If you did read then your wouldn't spout garbage about how hostile the Victoria forum is and why that's the reason for Paradox's switch to simpler games.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

I am, in the interest of accepting when a topic has met its limits, deciding to exit it while I might

There are so may wargames, so little time

No I am not retracting any previous comments. Just going to move on

Got the email Von Murrin, no harm done

[dinsdale]

ORIGINAL: Tactics

Dinsdale I read your "Any Plans to Finish this Game" thread in the Victoria forums. I still have not purchased the game and I dont think I will. I know you guys are talking AI and marketing etc, but dont replys like this tick you off?

you are perfectly free to not want to buy CK for some time because of this but, IMHO, that isn't going to be particularily productive, for anyone involved.

Scythe

It's like they want you or us (the consumer) to support their half assed work. "Yea, our work is shoddy and we break more than we fix, but if you stop supporting us we wont be able to bring you more 2nd rate products in the future".

Vicky is a good game - we will get it improved further but we don't have a right to get it improved.

Argg!

So I guess a plea for a little more positivity in requests and fewer ultimatums is what I'm suggesting.

Double argg! If thats the attitude of the Victoria community Im glad I didnt buy it. It smells like the World War II Online problem--Keep silent about the games problems and we can sucker more people into buying the game. I guess the idea being to generate cash so the developers can work faster on fixing broken products.

Well, I think that it's natural on the game's forum for posters to be biased in favour of the game or developer, otherwise why would they be there? It doesn't sicken me and I'm glad that a lot of folks are able to enjoy the game and have more patience than I do. I think buying games is subjective and it doesn't bother me if someone wants CK on day1 or like ravinhood they want to get it as cheaply as possible after all the problems are worked out (or not.)

I've had a lot of fun with Victoria, I'm just a little pissed at the length of time it's taking to fix and the way it's being fixed and for me, unfortunately that's eroded any goodwill I had to buy future Paradox games and trust that they will be completed.

As for that thread, there was really only one personal attack, the rest were valid opinions, and I'd say that's one of the reasons why I like the Paradox boards; they're civil and open to criticism.

I have recommended the game before, but now I'd have to say wait and see what happens with 1.04. There aren't a great deal of problems, but incrementally, they have put me off playing for a while.

[Cheesehead]

IMO the reason many people get so worked up about HOI (in a negative sense) is the disappointment they felt after buying the game and trying to play it for the first time. When HOI first came out about 3 or 4 years ago, there were no other grand strategy WWII games for the PC on the shelves or even on the horizon. My excitement upon spotting HOI on the shelves for the first time knew no bounds. There it was, tucked in among all the 1st person shooters, a game for the "true wargamer." After loading it and reading through the rules, my first impression was the old adage "measure with a micrometer, hit with a sledgehammer." The level of detail was so exceedingly complex in some areas and ridiculously simple in others. It didn't make sense to me that you were limited to playing only one country. I want to play one side or the other (Axis or Allies). Sure, it is more realistic if you want to realize what it was like to be a Churchill, or a Stalin. But than again Churchill and Stalin didn't have allies run by AI (and a limited AI at that). I was crushed. Here they finally make a strategic level WWII game and it sucks. My biggest reason for disappointment was not that I wasted $60 on a game I would never play. It was my concern for the genre. The possible damage to future GS WWII games for the PC was my foremost concern. Now that Matrix has come along with WaW and CWiF, I'm not worried. But it looked like a death blow to my favorite hobby.

[dinsdale]

ORIGINAL: ravinhood

Name me some games that touted the AI Learns. It's pretty easy to say you've seen, but, I would like to see their names? please

Superpower, Universal Combat.

AI development in other industries has made quantum leaps over the last 10 years, games remain in the stoneage. Those two above are the ones I could think off the top of my head use learning AIs, but who'd care about Superpower's AI as the game is worse than crud, and UC is a Space Sim. GalCiv used an interesting mechanism, IIRC the AI 'thinks' durning the player turn, thus taking advantage of the time a player uses to plan moves instead of leaving the CPU idle.

There's plenty of processing power on a modern PC and with memory so cheap, there are no excuses not to improve AI performance.

[ravinhood]

I think another concept of the buyer is thus: They bought the game and it must not suck because they bought it, therefore it does not suck, for if it sucks they just wasted $50. That's the concept for most of the loser software out there and the loser companies. They have a fanbase that blew $50+ dollars on their products, heaven forbid if they suk, how would that make the fan(atics) look? lol Instead of defeatism, there is elitism. The game they bought and the company they bought it from does not suck and anyone who tries to say it does is a "troll".

I'll use the concept of an apple with a worm hole in it. Now while probably 75% of that apple is still edible, only a handful of people would even attempt to eat that apple, a very low MARKET of people would eat an apple with a worm hole in it. And likely not even go back to that store after seeing so many apples in the apple bin with worm holes in them, that need to be C.O.R.E(d)/PATCHED over time.

[DerekP]

Well, thats an opinion.

It's not mine. For me that $50 is measured against my broadband connection $50/month. The next shirt I'll buy ($30), the next tank of gas ($50 - it's the UK ok[:'(])

Thats why I'm an optimist about most companies and most wargames / strategy games. Very few of them give me less pleasure than the next tank of gas [:D][:D][:D]

[ravinhood]

Wow where do you live? A full tank of gas costs me about $17.50 and broadband just went ot $19.95 a month for the next six months. No wonder I'm a cheap bassturd eh? hehe

But, you can see, to me a $50 game is quite the expensive, compared to other things in life. $50 buy me two weeks worth of groceries also.

[ravinhood]

Superpower, Universal Combat.

Yep, can't say I ever heard of either of those two games. Musta been real dogs.

[dinsdale]

ORIGINAL: DerekP

Well, thats an opinion.

It's not mine. For me that $50 is measured against my broadband connection $50/month. The next shirt I'll buy ($30), the next tank of gas ($50 - it's the UK ok[:'(])

Thats why I'm an optimist about most companies and most wargames / strategy games. Very few of them give me less pleasure than the next tank of gas [:D][:D][:D]

[X(] Thanks Derek for reminding me that despite Caramels, Walkers Shortbread, May, Cricket and decent TV drama, I won't be moving home anytime soon

The dollar is plumming new depths so it's hard to compare, but what's the price in pounds per gallon these days?

Let's see, $50 is

...dinner for two
...2 trips to the movies for 2
...about 3 new cds or dvds
...between 1 and 5 books
...2 tanks of gas for me
...1/3 of a speeding ticket [;)]

[ravinhood]

When HOI first came out about 3 or 4 years ago, there were no other grand strategy WWII games for the PC on the shelves or even on the horizon.

I think they should have called it "Civilization takes a TOTAL WAR-RISK on WWII" heh Because to me that is exactly what I saw in the game of HOI, civilization technology tree, the random events of the Total war engine, the risk like play, province to province with cute tanks and truckies and lime green infantry men to blow up with firecracker gameplay. heh I also saw a biased programming of the Germans and Russian AI, and very little allied ai at all. What do the, is it Swiss or Swedes/Paradox developers have against the allied faction during WWII? I'm seeing a trend of weak British, English isles/American/Usa colonies being weak when it comes to the AI playing them. Wonder why that is? And yet, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Germany, Japan, some France, and some Italian, have at least a playable AI?

So, in theory, if you're going to make wargames/strategy games, and you want them to be a hit and your company to be a hit, you better make darn sure the ALLIES AI is better than the AXIS AI. Or any OTHER AI in the different types of games.

[frank1970]

Hey, it depends who will play what fraction. If they think all players will play Allies (hey, they are soooooo cool ), why should they do a good Allies AI? [;)]


I take a lot of pleasure from editing HOI. One has almost unlimited possiblities. That is one of the main reasons I bought HOI.

[DerekP]

ORIGINAL: ravinhood

When HOI first came out about 3 or 4 years ago, there were no other grand strategy WWII games for the PC on the shelves or even on the horizon.

I What do the, is it Swiss or Swedes/Paradox developers have against the allied faction during WWII? I'm seeing a trend of weak British, English isles/American/Usa colonies being weak when it comes to the AI playing them. Wonder why that is? And yet, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Germany, Japan, some France, and some Italian, have at least a playable AI?

So, in theory, if you're going to make wargames/strategy games, and you want them to be a hit and your company to be a hit, you better make darn sure the ALLIES AI is better than the AXIS AI. Or any OTHER AI in the different types of games.

So a good game is one in which the US and UK win?[8|]

You might consider that writing an AI to handle trans-continental logistics, reinforcements and multi-front wars a tad more difficult than a one dimension German AI.

Besides - some people were slagging off Pardox for being anti-German / pro-Russian for Vicky [:D]

[Mr.Frag]

So a good game is one in which the US and UK win?

Sorry, but I had to jump on that one [:D]

No, simply put, the largest installed base of home computers (ie: customers) happens to live there. One always needs to play to the consumer if one wants sales.

Making a product where some obscure little nation fights some other obscure little nation results in closing the product to 70%+ of the potential buyers interests.

This is the same reason that CC3, while being a far better engine then CC1 & CC2 failed to deliver, it was the location, not the game that decided it's fate. Russia vs Germany just was not a mass seller in the USA, compared to the previous two which had the Brits and Americans against the Germans.

If you are going to produce something, made darn sure that the two most popular sides work, then delve into the others. From a wargame perspective that means you need the looser (cause everyone wants to show they could have done better) and the winner (because the majority of people want to win no matter what!)...

[frank1970]

I don´t want to jump on that one, but what are you speaking about?

The EU has about 300 million inhabitants, Russia 120million, Japan 100 million, etc. All this nations together for sure are a larger market than the USA alone.