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pasternakski -> RE: So what is everyone's gaming $$ being alloted towards? (6/25/2008 2:20:16 AM)
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I am no longer willing, as I once was, to plunk down my hard-earned dough for new releases, no matter how interested I am in the subject. My primary trepidation is over the state of the game on release. Too often these days, you become a paying beta tester for a product that really wasn't finished, but was required by the marketing monkeys to be released anyway for bottom-line reasons.
Now, I am just as appreciative as anyone else of "superior customer support," but there's a point where six months or a year of patches and updates (mostly necessitating rethinking and restarting games) becomes a little too much.
AGEod's AACW is a case in point. I bought it right away and loved it. Then, the developers decided that the basic structure of army organization had to be changed and simplified. I didn't like the change, but the "bugs" fixed in the ensuing patches could not be corrected any other way than by accepting the new system. I adapted and got to the point of really liking the game again (somewhat grudgingly, though, still preferring the original design, which I thought to be more realistic and principled). Now, more than a year later, the most recent patch apparently allows entire armies to be annihilated in two or three days of fighting, something that neither happened nor was realistically possible (absent a force being trapped with no means of retreat) in the historical context. I have no idea where the design is going from here, but I see myself as owning a product that was incomplete and flawed when issued and remains broken to a degree that makes it unplayable.
Did I mention that most of the further work on the game has been turned over to people (good people and well intentioned, no doubt) who, at the beginning, were mere forum participants and aspiring "modders?" Now, it's impossible (for me, at least) to tell what the current version of the game is, particularly considering the degree to which mods have become "officialized" by the new responsible parties. The company itself seems to have taken a giant step back from this game, leaving it in shambles.
So, count me on the sidelines for the moment. Besides, I don't see any pending releases out there that make my wang dang doodle want to sing polly wolly doodle all the day.
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