So why didn't you buy?

[kevinkins]

Sounds like war: complicated, hard to master, and forget any rule book given - just throw it out.

[bcgames]

Because it is like every other game Matrix gets its hands on, unnecessarily too complicated. And I own all of them and hate them. maybe 1 person in 100,000 can figure them out, .let alone know all the rules. War in the East 2 is a great example. Last time I looked 520 page manual. Are you kidding me? And you want me to believe players know and understand 520 pages of technical rules and calculations? HA. The sad thing is a lot of that stuff could have been stripped out or made optional.

And I suppose they will do the same thing to Rule the Waves 3 and make an advanced degree in Military history and tactics a requirement to understanding the rules.

Matrix has nothing to do with the quality of this game. They gave us the opportunity to publish it and we are grateful for the freedom they allowed to do it our way. All that is bad--we own. And as the designers--we still like what we produced. We might even love it a bit. A little bit too proud perhaps. Sorry this game could not connect. We are always open to input from our players.

[bcgames]

Sounds like war: complicated, hard to master, and forget any rule book given - just throw it out.

We worked hard on the manual. We hate reading it too. What to do? Checkers?

[Tom_]

Because it is like every other game Matrix gets its hands on, unnecessarily too complicated. And I own all of them and hate them. maybe 1 person in 100,000 can figure them out, .let alone know all the rules. War in the East 2 is a great example. Last time I looked 520 page manual. Are you kidding me? And you want me to believe players know and understand 520 pages of technical rules and calculations? HA. The sad thing is a lot of that stuff could have been stripped out or made optional.

And I suppose they will do the same thing to Rule the Waves 3 and make an advanced degree in Military history and tactics a requirement to understanding the rules.

Just curious what you find complicated in this game specifically? You might have some genuine feedback that could be useful to the devs.
Also if there is something particular you don't understand I'm pretty sure you could ask on the forum and get a decent answer.
With regards to WITE2 I have not read the whole manual - there is no need for it really. You can get the basics within minutes, or even a YouTube video, if that's how you learn.

Have you an example of a game that is not too complicated that delivers something similar?

[kevinkins]

Sounds like war: complicated, hard to master, and forget any rule book given - just throw it out.

We worked hard on the manual. We hate reading it too. What to do? Checkers?

My comment was directed at memoryleak. Not at the developers. Just trying to make light of his expectations regarding wargames. We should chip in and send him a copy of Advanced Squad Leader for goodness sake.

[Zovs]

Because it is like every other game Matrix gets its hands on, unnecessarily too complicated. And I own all of them and hate them. maybe 1 person in 100,000 can figure them out, .let alone know all the rules. War in the East 2 is a great example. Last time I looked 520 page manual. Are you kidding me? And you want me to believe players know and understand 520 pages of technical rules and calculations? HA. The sad thing is a lot of that stuff could have been stripped out or made optional.

And I suppose they will do the same thing to Rule the Waves 3 and make an advanced degree in Military history and tactics a requirement to understanding the rules.

I know you must be joking.

WITE2 at its core is very simple, mastering it takes time, and years. Very easy to learn with maybe 2-8 pages of reading, seriously.

I do come from a board war game background and am using to reading and interpreting rules, such as Advanced Squad Leader, the Europa series, The Operational Combat Series just to name a few, now some of those games are way more complicated then WITE2 and or WEGO: Stalingrad.

Some examples...

ASL - Infantry rules


ASL - DF


Europa - Scorched Earth - AECA/D and ATEC


NATO Division Commander

[bcgames]

Sounds like war: complicated, hard to master, and forget any rule book given - just throw it out.

We worked hard on the manual. We hate reading it too. What to do? Checkers?

My comment was directed at memoryleak. Not at the developers. Just trying to make light of his expectations regarding wargames. We should chip in and send him a copy of Advanced Squad Leader for goodness sake.

Sorry. I understood the poke. I also understand the frustration of players new to the game. The game manual and the Quick-Start guide is all we have right now. It is apparent that this is not the best way to transfer knowledge to every single player...some folks need other mediums.

We are going to try some stuff on YouTube. Which means I'm not doing what I should be doing--designing games. On the other hand, I do have a life-long love of like creating videos (films)...

We are The Best Practice for WEGO WW2. We are not "The Best Practices" for the last computer game someone played. So help us make the WEGO endeavor--a WEGO endeavor.

...and encourage others to read the manual and quick-start guide until we can create something better.

As always, thanks for your long-time support.

[bcgames]

...I do come from a board war game background and am using to reading and interpreting rules, such as Advanced Squad Leader...

Roll for Bog...

[Zovs]

X10

Guess the weapon lol

Hint its on the powder blue side

[Count Sessine]

I'm waiting for a Steam release. I would like to be able to refund it, if it doesn't suit me. But I must say it looks really cool.

[bcgames]

I'm waiting for a Steam release.

That'll be a long wait. There are no plans to release Stalingrad on Steam. But...Plenty of other good games out there.

[tucsonbandit]

Because it is like every other game Matrix gets its hands on, unnecessarily too complicated. And I own all of them and hate them. maybe 1 person in 100,000 can figure them out, .let alone know all the rules. War in the East 2 is a great example. Last time I looked 520 page manual. Are you kidding me? And you want me to believe players know and understand 520 pages of technical rules and calculations? HA. The sad thing is a lot of that stuff could have been stripped out or made optional.

And I suppose they will do the same thing to Rule the Waves 3 and make an advanced degree in Military history and tactics a requirement to understanding the rules.

I know you must be joking.

WITE2 at its core is very simple, mastering it takes time, and years. Very easy to learn with maybe 2-8 pages of reading, seriously.

I do come from a board war game background and am using to reading and interpreting rules, such as Advanced Squad Leader, the Europa series, The Operational Combat Series just to name a few, now some of those games are way more complicated then WITE2 and or WEGO: Stalingrad.

Some examples...

ASL - Infantry rules


ASL - DF


Europa - Scorched Earth - AECA/D and ATEC


NATO Division Commander

I play OCS and now BCS too and it may sound sort of ridiculous to people who don't 'get it' or understand truly how WITE2 actually plays and works, but I don't really enjoy playing WITE2 because in reality it is actually fairly simplified despite seeming to have a lot of superficial 'depth'.

Much of the depth, it turns out you don't really need to understand to play the game decently. The game throws a lot of stuff into its simulation box and combat models (much of it superfluous IMO-- its not my favorite way of designing combat or simulation in general), and then describes a lot of that in the rule book making it appear overly complex. But to play you actually can just largely push counters about after learning some fairly quick and basic ideas...

OCS and BCS are a much more enjoyable game IMO, in that it requires more planning of your overall operational goal and logistical considerations that must be planned for ahead of time, and then reworked as the situation changes. WiTE, and most computer games, simply allow you to push around counters without much forethought or consequence for doing so, all while having a veneer that there is a more complex strategy dynamic at work.

There is a very complex statistical black box, but IMO WiTE would be a much better game if it forced the player into developing and trying to maintain operational and logistical goals in a stricter fashion.

I realize you likely play a lot of WiTE as well, since you have it highlighted as a screen app-- I am not meaning to try and attack WiTE specifically, I find all computer games have this issue. It may just be too hard to program (although I am not sure of that), or it just may not be a thing that has translated from boardgaming to computer gaming yet...even in board wargaming, finding elegant ways to make players identify primary and secondary objectives etc is sort of new (although it had been attempted in the past as well). It honestly seems like something a computer could do easier than a boardgame could. Also, I obviously have not played close to all the computer wargames out there, so its possible it exists and I just don't know it.

[Sunbather]

For one, I think the title is somewhat misleading. When I read Stalingrad I thought it was only about Stalingrad, i.e. city battles and some battles surrouning the city. Only recently, I've found out that the game encompasses way more, if you want the whole southern part of the Eastern Front in Summer 1942. Maybe there should have been a better hint in the title. It is also quite hard to find out what the actual scenarios are, it's not on the main page, and I have found only single Youtube video that gives you an overview but only for 5 minutes somehwere in the middle of the video.
So yeah, that was my problem.

I also find the price a bit steep, despite the content. When you look at DC: Case Blue, it has a bit more content, and it's closer to 30 euro. But I don't want to argue about prices in wargaming. I just want to say that I do want to buy the game now but I am waiting for a sale (so I will buy in the Summer at the latest, I guess).

[adrazz]

I have watched some youtube videos and the game looks great, will probably add to my collection

[Tom_]

So I recently re-installed the games after I saw some updates have been made.

The title of this thread 'so why didn't you buy?' is perhaps misleading or at least gives the connotation that something is wrong with the game. There are a few quirks with the UI that have been mentioned and the devs are cognisant of the feedback.

That being said if you are a fan of WEGO/operational games this is actually really good.
It has a good balance between detail and operational decisions.

An example of this is the option to surge supplies to particular units that you assess will come into contact.
While the battle results dont necessarily declare which tank fired what projectile at which unit, the results page does articulate factors which determined the outcome of a battle. (terrain, leadership, quality, engineers etc)

So I would sum up and say don't underestimate this title, it has very good foundations and I cant wait for some more operations to be released.

[kevinkins]

Yes, the title is a bit confusing. The question delivered answers from players who bought the game and are reviewing it.
So in retrospect, they are asking do we need more upfront promotion and hype to drive sales. Additionally,

a. Did you read forum posts that caused you to shy away from buying.
b. Was the price point too high?
c. Did we explain WEGO sufficiently in the context of a operational war game.
d. Did we explain the how cool operational wargames can be?
e. Did we, or the community, have a positive attitude toward the product from the start or did we all have a wait and see approach?

This question is about marketing, and is independent of the game itself.

[bcgames]

Yep.

[Sunbather]

For me personally, it was a mix of all those things above and some others:

- a bit too high of a price for a "new" series from a "new" devloper (I know you guys made a game before) and having no ability to refund here, every purchase is an all-in situation

- inconsistent UI (although remedied with mods by now)

- the map itself looks very low res

- as I understand there is no weather system (which would be fine for the scenarios depicted here but limits the engine's flexibility for a possible DLC or modders) [EDIT: I see now in the manual that there are indeed 3 different weather conditions in the engine but this game only uses one, which - again - is understandable for the depicted scenarios)

- no snow scenarios; game ends in November 1942 when clearly the whole Stalingrad affair took until February 1943 (it is commendable though that some of the pre-Stalingrad maneuvers made it in)

And yet, I am on the verge of buying the game, especially since the community seems very active but this is also the biggest problem: in the modding subforum you can find quite a few user scenarios already conceived or even built, some of them even depicting stuff like the ACW or American War in Vietnam, but all of them are on hold since the creators wait for the new patch to arrive - which is reasonable enough, of course. BUT this very thread here was opened 1.5 years (!) ago and since then there was not a single patch.
Now I understand that work is going on with the new titles but by the time this game (which people already paid for) gets patched, the momentum might be gone and the planned mods and scenarios will never get published. Sure, you could say that maybe they then switch over to the new game but if the current game is anything to go by and seeing the schedule for your upcoming games, the "new" game will also take the back seat in regars to the new, new release.

EDIT: Here is the thread in question. Apparently the bugs are already fixed but who exactly does that help if the patch, or rather the hotfix is not being released?

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6&t=394877

The bug report was from Nov 2022; the scenario by user "governato" ready in July 2023; patch still not out in late December 2023. Talking about losing momentum...
The problem with this is also that one can pretty much calculate how long the next patch is going to take if another semi-critical bug arises.

[Zovs]

These are both fine WEGO games, no reason to pass and the price is not high at all, especially since it 45% off!

I have heard these complaints about refunds and high priced games, but they are always from Steam only gamers prob in the 20-30 year old bracket. When I purchased WITE2 for $79 it was still not that high of a price, some of my board war games cost $120-399.

[Sunbather]

These are both fine WEGO games, no reason to pass and the price is not high at all, especially since it 45% off!

I have heard these complaints about refunds and high priced games, but they are always from Steam only gamers prob in the 20-30 year old bracket. When I purchased WITE2 for $79 it was still not that high of a price, some of my board war games cost $120-399.

Hey Zovs. Love your mods and hope you're well and healthy!

Let's put all that aside which will lead to a futile discussion anyway; a discussion that has been had many, many times.
The core of my argument though is that it should NOT take any developer 1.5 years to fix a semi-critical bug.

That being said, I'll probably buy the game these days, especially since I eventually decided against buying WitE2, so I just got 50 bucks to spend, haha.