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Odox -> RE: WiTP: Returned to Sender (4/1/2006 12:29:39 AM)
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Gentlemen:
Please forgive me. My earlier post concerning returning WiTP unopened apparently raised both questions and ire. Perhaps a little clarification is in order. Quite likely these responses are simply the result of one or more misunderstandings.
In the first place, I am delighted to have received so many responses, and from people from whom I've come to hold in regard: Nomad, Mogami, mantill, niceguy2005, Mynok, Nikademus, rtrapasso, and Terminus. I also owe a debt of gratitude to moses, Sneer, Spooky, Tom Hunter, Cap_and_Gown, Oleg Mastruko, pauk, and irrelevant (and I'm sure many others whose nicks escape me at present) for their help in understanding this game.
I initially ordered WiTP last week, before I saw the announcement concerning a 1.8 patch and a possible WiTP II. As I've said, I consider a WiTP II to be reasonable from both a business and practicality standpoint; and I believe it would be much wiser to have this available in 6-8 months, and not the 2-3 years as one poster has suggested (niceguy2005).
In all likelihood I simply failed to heap sufficient praise of the game in order to make my critiques more palatable to those less inclined than myself to criticism of it. However, it would be a mistake to assume from my earlier post that I am inclined towards cynicism regarding WiTP. Far from it.
Again, most games of this type are going to have patches and fixes as a matter of course. What concerned me, however, was that a game of such scope and complexity would begin to devolve into an endless series of repairs in order to make it reasonably playable. I believe I see this occurring with WiTP. It's fine to have a game load from disk and have to come back later to download new features and the occasional patch. At some point though, it ceases to be a game from disk needing fixes downloaded and becomes an enormous and ongoing download headache that also happens to require a disk. I think it's crossed that line.
To those of you that feel I am being too 'perfectionistic' or somehow 'unrealistic' in my expectations for smooth game function, again all I can say is that nothing could be further from the truth; because unlike some of you (apparently) I believe it was unrealistic to expect them to get it right the first time given the game's enormous scope and complexity. I have a great deal of appreciation for what they've done and for what they've tried to do in WiTP. It is this appreciation that prompts both my admiration and my criticism. If it appears to some that I'm ignoring WiTP for the obvious achievement that it is (and retaining only criticism) this is entirely unintentional I assure you.
Frankly, with a game of this magnitude, I see us all as still playtesters. I anticipate a finished product substantially more polished and grand. This at least is the game's potential, and I can find no reason as yet to abandon this view.
I'm pleased one poster (mantill) has been able to enjoy the game for over 600 hours thus far. In the last six weeks I've spent very nearly 300 hours just running this initial assessment, this initial perusal. I noticed a few of you have begun to use spreadsheets and flowcharts also, and this is encouraging. I myself haven't even begun the most basic note-taking as of yet; but it is my habit to accumulate many hundreds of such pages and many thousands of hours of testing before I usually enter into even the briefest PBEM. I hope that suffices in convincing some of you I'm not at all 'lost' to WiTP. I'm merely waiting for the clunkiness in the game to be ironed out, observing some of you doing the testing and carrying on the strategy discussions I would otherwise be doing while I wait. I have certainly appreciated your contributions.
I especially want to thank those of you who responded to my concerns in such a courteous manner. I encourage such things, and I look forward to more such exchanges in the future.
Respectfully,
Odox
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