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ComradeP -> RE: Why I'm Not Buying (Yet) (12/6/2014 3:34:51 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: 76mm
If by playable you mean that the game did not crash, etc., then you are correct. If you mean that the rules were well thought-out, and the game balanced (among many issues, the blizzard rules, 1:1=>2:1 rule, etc.), then I strongly disagree--hence the many patches the game has gone through.
I haven't been involved in WitW's testing for a fairly long while, but based on WitW's release, I'd say some very hard lessons were learned from WitE's release.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
You certainly have a right to that opinion. I disagree in that many of the issues you are pointing too only became issues after months or years of competitive multiplayer play where the community reached a consensus that they preferred a change from the original design.
This is a very unfair to the commitment of WitE's test team, Erik.
quote:
ORIGINAL: 76mm
Actually I think that some of the significant issues, particularly the blizzard rules, were apparent right away, and it was difficult at the time to understand how they were overlooked during play-testing...
A game being released with certain problems doesn't mean feedback exposing those problems wasn't given.
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As stated above, I have the impression that WitW is a significantly more polished product at release than WitE was, with all the new mechanics having been thoroughly tested it seems. Earlier in the thread, it was mentioned that due to the decreased turn numbers and in a way also the more limited scope (as you'll only have a fairly large numbers of divisions in the field in mid 1944 at the earliest) it's easier to balance than WitE. The fact that no one is jumping up and down the forum to answer questions or discuss potential issues, like I did when WitE is released is also a good sign if it isn't needed.
Personally, testing WitE and the aftermath of that testing, including the opinion that the test team failed as mentioned again by 76mm made it a bad experience for me, and after the initial testing of WitW I just wasn't going to let that happen to me again.
Out of all the developers I worked with, either as a tester or a team member, working with the team for WitE was my worst experience hands down. That didn't actually have anything to do with Joel and Pavel (the parttime programmer, who wanted to spend more time coding than explaining the mechanics, which was usually understandable: that was why he was in the team after all), the two team members I actually talked to, but rather with Gary never appearing on the forums to discuss the mechanics and never responding to feedback. It gave me a feeling that I had essentially wasted hundreds of hours as the feedback never got through to where it mattered.
As such, I won't be buying WitW. However, based on the initial impressions and what I'm hearing about the commitment of the test team in the stages where the game was truly playable, I think I can recommend the game if you enjoy strategic-scale wargames where you can really see your plans "grow up" as the historical reality of the game is such that you'll need a decent plan before invading as the Allies, and the air war also needs to be properly planned. It might sound like a paradox that I won't buy the game but still recommend it, but my reasons for not buying the game are personal and don't have anything to do with the merits of the game, which were already clear in the early testing stages when I was still in the test team.
WitE's combat engine, flawed as it was, was capable of simulating WWII combat with a reasonable degree of accuracy. The fact that it didn't doesn't mean that the capability to do so wasn't in the system. The AAR's and initial comments make it sound like this release is more like what WitE could have been, and what WitE 2.0 will hopefully be like.
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