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ZOOMIE1980 -> RE: Quick update on development progress. (6/15/2004 5:06:06 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: rawink
I consider myself a gamer.. I like Flight Sims.. I don't pay more than $49 for one.. regardless of how good, because a newer, better one will be out next year. In the past few years eye candy has become more important than physics and long term playability. Random mission generators don't make it anymore.. so you geta linear campaign that is played out after you learn the tricks and puzzle solving of the campaign. Sure that impossible mission is a pchallenge the first 3 times.. but then it's cake. I HATE that. Janes Longbow 2 had a dynamic campaign where what you did affected the campaign in real time. Ala Falcon 4.0.. Falcon was worth $100 in it's day.. "Generic flgiht Sim 2004" isn't worth it..
I have all 3 of the Steel Panthers games.. the first is bit dated now, and doesn't appear on the hard drive now.. but 2 and 3 both do. But my favorite Steel Panthers game is the Steel panthers: MBT hack done by SP-Camo I literally play 40 hours a month on it. All for free.. it's about the experience and REPLAY ability to me. I have started maybe 200 games of UV.. finished maybe 30 of them in the last few years. It has INFINITE replay ability. I have no doubt I will be playing WITP in 5 years, unless they come out with a world wide version covering the globe with all Navies and air forces!!! (DROOL)!
So paying $100 or even a bit more for that kind of replay ability to me is a great bargain! 3 games at $49 that will bore me in 3 months.. vs $100 for a game I will play 80-100 hours a month for 6 months straight? what a bargain!
Pretty good take here. Yes, it has always been the "REPLAYABILITY" that gives value to a game, IMHO. And for those of us that do not typically participate in the multi-player arena, the AI makes or breaks the "replayability" of a game. For most turn based wargames, once you make through a scenario the first time, that's pretty much it. You have the AI completely figured out. The computer is pretty much going to send the same forces, configured the same way, to the same places at about the same time every time through the scenario. For me, that was UV. The enemy carriers ALWAYS show up with a CV, CV, CVL configuration in roughly the same place at the same time every time. So once you figure that out, you sit a 4 CV "death star" in that spot and wait. You also know the AI is ALWAYS going to send those little bombardment TF's to Lunga (American computer) or PM (Japanese Computer) every week or so, so you just position a CV, CVL TF and sink them every time until they run out of surface ship! And then go about winning the scenario. BORING!!! No replayability at all once you figure the AI out.
The saving grace with this game is that it is simply so vast that replayablity will probably not be an issue. Playing maybe 20 hrs a week might take a year to get through the major campaign just one time! And we have been assured that this AI is MUCH LESS predictable and repetative than the UV AI. In otherwords, the testers have told us that, for instance, the Japanese AI will not necessarily attempt to take Java on the same date with the same TF structure every time through and doesn't always send the carrier TF's to the same place at the same time with the same TF configuration every time through the same scenario. I hope that proves to be true.
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