Paul Vebber
Posts: 11430
Joined: 3/29/2000
From: Portsmouth RI
Status: offline
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Thanks! OUR Quality control will be better for things we expect folks to pay for!!
To much work at 2am!
But seriously, we argued a bit on what was "good enough" to be released. We could have easily spent another 6-9 months, but the GAME itself would be little different than it is now.
OOB was my worry, but frankly more bugs in that will be found in the next two weeks than I could find in 6 months. As this is a gift to the SP community, I did not feel too uncomfortable relying a bit on you "early adopters" to help out. We will do at least one major patch before the Magazine CD's come out and the game at least is exposed to several million...something that is in teh best interest of WARGAMING as a whole, not just Matrix.
That is why we spent so much time on the sound files and graphics. Some have asked why so much space for sounds? Well to the C&C crowd "sounding cool" is a hook. We can't compete in the graphics department (though Nick did a FANTASTIC JOB). David Heath and Scott Grasse thought sounds was a great hook and did EXCELLENT Work with Jon Johnson and others to bring that off. Of course the first comment from all the reviewers was "The sounds are so cool"...mission accomplished!
OF course the entirely new combat model is in there under the hood too, but newbies won't notice that :-)
We know there are some rough edges, particularly in the OOBs...blame me - I could choose:
1) Stay married
2) fix all the problems in OOB files
I chose 1)...
Mea Culpa...I will work inteh coming weeks to fix...
The bottom line is we could have delayed it six months (and pushed back a good portion of Matrix's other games in the process) so the OOB's were further along, LBM's were all there and the encyclopedia text was all there, but we made a decision that it was mature enough to put out to the SP community.
Was it done? No, it will NEVER be "done" as long as folks are out there editing OOB files, making their own sounds, doing new .shps etc.
Matrix will continue to support it for as long as we are able. But we look on this as a gift to the SP community, and an opportunity! Several million kids are going to be exposed to wargaming for the first time with this through the Gaming Magazines. Most will likely install it try it and probably uninstall it.
But a good number (we hope) will be intrigued, check out the web sites and with any luck will find a lot of excitement and folks adding to the game themselves! And looking at what other of these "Wargames" are out there...
That my friends is the only way we will grow new wargamers! So if you are dissmissive of SP:WaW becasue you don't think we finished it, well think about where you want wargaming to be 10 years form now. If it is going to be more than the same bunch of us 10 years older complaining to each other about how the new games all suck, then Wargaming as we know it is dead. That's not to say there isn't plenty of room to debate the tactical prowess of the Polish Army :-)
Matrix and SP won't "save wargaming". I'm not demented enough to think that. I'm not even sure wargaming NEEDS saving (though my intuition says we are taking on water...)This is just a first step on a long road. Showing that the WARGAMING COMMUNITY is a FUN and EXCITING place to be is the next step.
I challange you out there to be involved! The game will be as "complete" as we ALL make it. I can't do that myself, Matrix Games can't do that by ourselves. We ALL will be hard pressed to flesh out the being whose bones and essential muscles we have sent out.
Just the OOB files and technical vehicle characteristics for all the combatants could be someone's life work.
But together we can not only make things better, but show newcomers why we love the hobby so (besides the opportunity to complain about why nobody makes good games anymore :-)
Those kids whose interest SP:WaW piques enough to surf around the web, can find FUN or wonder why anybody wastes their time with stuff that everybody bitches about so much...
We are off to a great start here! The criticism is very constructive, and folks are getting along without the flaming and nastiness I've seen on other forums.
We will work to fix what we can and hope to work with some of you to fix things. The rest of you SHOW YOUR HAVING FUN. Write in about what happens in your games. Carry on some good natured chest-pounding about your accomplishments and victories. and most importantly what you learned in defeat.
This may well be the first place those newbies come so its up to you to show them how much fun wargaming can be!
This is a golden opportunity to attract new wargamers, but we have to all pitch in and help!!
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