I'm the designer/lead coder of TOS:WS which will be released by Matrixgames very soon.
Just want to know from you hardcore wargamers wether this might be accepted or skipped because it does not draw its essence from real historical combat situations.
Will it be an atypical Matrixgames game ? It does feature squad based combat with much depth but it won't feature words like WWII, Tiger or Bismark (I'm german so my selection is limited here).
Not fishing for support, just trying to evaluate its interest far from the dedicated TOS forum.
I am one of those wargamers that will pick up a copy.
Would I buy this game or be interested normally?
No, I usually buy wargames only, or war related. Oh and sports. I would simply not have heard of the game if it had not been published by Matrix.
So this gives me the chance to try something new and support Matrix and your team too. Also I think Matrix is not only a wargaming company but tries to make games for the sci-fi crowd too.
So I hope there will be more of the fellow wargamers here that will give it a try.
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Joined: 6/15/2002 From: Western USA Status: offline
My favorite game of all-time is Jagged Alliance 2. I doubt there are many computer gamers that play historical wargames exlusively, although I imagine there are a few.
It's not vitally important to me for a combat game to be historical as long as it is done well. It is important to me that a game be historically accurate once it uses historical information. I do prefer real world weapons to sci-fi but then again X-Com is also one of my favorite all-time games.
Gamers do tend to pigeon hole games at a glance. For instance, from the little I've seen of your game I labeled it a "Mech game". I've purchased a couple of Mech games and for whatever reason, although they seemed well done, they didn't grab me. I hadn't intended to purchase your game but I will monitor the reaction once it's released. If it's well received, I'll consider getting it.
I think WS will appeal to a broad range of strategy gamers, and it seems like a perfectly logical title for Matrix to add to the stables. A good example of this type of branching out by a wargame publisher into similar genres is what Shrapnel Games did with Space Empires IV. Lots of grognards who never would've thought of trying a space 4X game ended up developing a very healthy interest in SEIV. Likewise, I'm sure more than a few SEIV fans ended up being exposed to and buying some really incredible wargames that they otherwise might have missed out on. Shrapnel is happy, the developers are happy, gamers are happy, everyone wins! Wargame publishers are very wise to start snapping up other titles that may appeal to their already established customers, as well as garner them new ones.
While I certainly appreciate historical accuracy in wargames (and it does affect my enjoyment of them to some extent) the main draw for me in any type of game regardless of theme is some sort of strategic and/or tactical decision-making process that relies heavily upon thought, planning, and guile. WS has all of that, so there's not much for me to not like.
I love the original freeware ToS, so buying WS is pretty much a no-brainer. Same thing with TAO and KP. Ditto STUN/STUN: DG. I was sold on all of these games a long time ago, and so have no reservations whatsoever about paying for new and improved versions of them now. Does it matter that each of them are radically different from the others in the atmosphere/setting department? Not to me. :)
Larkin the only thing a wargamer asks for, is for your game to be well done :)
Sure some of us will obsess on details, no the armour rating should be 31% not 30%. Not all of us are history only gamers additionally.
I spend a very large amount of my gaming effort playing Civ type games. I have also played scifi like games such as Master of Orion.
If your game is well done, you will enjoy success I think.
The only thing you will find outside of the TOS specific forum I think, is that some of us will not have been as active in the minutae of actually preparing the game. I don't think your sales will be limited to those that actively appear in there though.
Now if you reeeeeeeally want to make an effort, you need to take your game's name right outside of Matrix territory. That is where you need your PR dollar hehe.
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[QUOTE]Sure some of us will obsess on details, no the armour rating should be 31% not 30%. [/QUOTE]
TOS is made for these kind of people ;)
[QUOTE]Now if you reeeeeeeally want to make an effort, you need to take your game's name right outside of Matrix territory. That is where you need your PR dollar hehe.[/QUOTE]
Don´t worry about PR Sarge ;), Matrix is not only this website and forums, and we pretty much know there´s a world beyond this .....
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Marc Schwanebeck [B]TOS is made for these kind of people ;) [/B][/QUOTE]
Guilty as charged. I'll spend upwards of 30 minutes working on a new titan design, stripping and repositioning armor and components until everything's just the way I want it... and then take one last look at the final stats and trash it without a second thought. :D
What ToS really reminds me of is the old BattleTech board game that I spent the better part of my teen years playing. It really takes me back to that. And the cool part is, I can still play it with all my buddies that I used to play BT with (since most of our paper game tokens have systematically gone AWOL over the years).
Tabletop BattleTech still has a huge thriving community, and I'm sure many of them will be walking out of EB with a ToS:WS box in their bag too. And at the selling price, it's a killer impulse purchase. Especially for people like me who will buy just about anything that has screenies on the box with hexes showing (hopefully there are screenies on the box with hexes showing). :D
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Joined: 10/11/2001 From: Portugal Status: offline
A few BT-related forums have already been flashed with the links a couple of months ago. Waiting on release for some more - if it's going to be sometime this century that is :D
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Voidhawk [B]Tabletop BattleTech still has a huge thriving community, and I'm sure many of them will be walking out of EB with a ToS:WS box in their bag too. And at the selling price, it's a killer impulse purchase. Especially for people like me who will buy just about anything that has screenies on the box with hexes showing (hopefully there are screenies on the box with hexes showing). :D [/B][/QUOTE]
[URL=http://www.viciousbyte.de/images/tosws1.jpg]Something like this ?[/URL]
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Joined: 1/4/2001 From: Jyväskylä, Finland Status: offline
Tabletop BattleTech was fun and looking at ToS reminds me of it. I might wanna check it out the next time im buying games.
I think i tried titans of steel like many many years ago, the earlier sw version. (it had a bit clumsy interface)
It is also a fully open ended role playing system designed to allow you to choose between eight different race and gender combination All your pilots have a full statistics sheet and earn experience points. These experience points can be used to increase 7 attributes and 19 skills. Your pilots can go up in rank and will benefit from additional training. They are assembled in squads, which can have 8 pilots and up to 16 Titan-ATs.
Hosting a (tabletop style) "rpg" campaign through the net and using ToS to fight out the battles. That might be a lot of fun.
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