ZOOMIE1980
Posts: 1284
Joined: 4/9/2004 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft quote:
ORIGINAL: Kid quote:
ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft A simple text or HTML file would do ... Oh and the same thing for bugs would be even better If you look at the Wish List pinned at the top of the page, you will see notes in blue text that was added by me. It will tell you which items I've added to the list and which ones I have not. As for bugs, I will never post that list. Yes I knew about the Wish List thread and thank you. I do realise that lack of time is an issue. Now, let's be controversial for a minute. I think the nub of this whole issue is that the game is woefully underpriced. It's just not economic for the developers to do much. So, how do you get to charge more? Obviously, selling the game at an up-front price of $500 is not going to work. The answer - stop acting like the music business and move to what I shall call for the sake of argument the "Everquest model" or perhaps the "phone company model". Details:- - Separate out the front-end (map/unit editor) from the back-end (combat resolution engine)
- Separate out the AI player, let's call it Mr Bot.
- Put the back-end and Mr Bot on a server
- Make Mr Bot configurable or maybe even scriptable so that players can create their own improved versions
- Make the front-end available for download at a reasonable price e.g. $29.99
- Charge a monthly fee, say $9.99, to use the server to play either other humans or Mr Bot and family. Turns (game state files) get uploaded to the server via a web interface or email. The server then informs players via email when their combat resolutions have run and delivers to them (again via web or email) their revised game state files and combat replay.
- Make the first month free
People will generally not baulk at paying a monthly fee for something that they want. This way, the dedicated players who carry on for 2-3 years+ will generate a revenue stream of $200-500+ each. Others who just dabble will only end up paying about the same amount as they would for any other game. You use more you pay more. Obviously not something that can be done for any existing game like WitP, but for the future ... ? Yes, I've been an advocate of the client-server architected turn based wargame concept for a LOOONNNGGG time. Back in the 1990's right up until just a couple of years ago, a small non-profit group, Wolfpack, used to run one of these. The game was known as "Empire". It was a shallow game with lousy clients that used Unix-like command line instructions and never really took off, but the concept was a good one, IMHO. We have a fairly large group of PBEM players already. I am quite sure these players would love a more responsive, flexible way to play head-to-head and how many posts have we seen concerning a desire for multi-player or team play? You are correct in that what you have to do is break out the client, which is nothing more than a presentation layer, from the server, which is run on high performance big-iron with a big, fat communications pipe attached to it. Everquest continues to be enormously successful, but it took a while for it to take off. My son is involved in that effort and it is quite vibrant today. They make money selling subscription access but the also make good money selling new clients. And imagine the possiblities of a client-server model. On the server side you now open up the possibility of using Enterprise level, robust RDBMS's to manage literally millions and millions of "rows" of data, not only for game data but also for the AI to use. Not only that, you could still offer a standalone version that ships both the server and a client so folks could still do the solitaire thing. But don't expect Matrix, themselves, to do this. It's going to take a new Partner to take the first steps. Hmmmmm..... sounds like something I might be interested in tackling myself in near future.....
< Message edited by ZOOMIE1980 -- 7/27/2004 2:04:38 PM >
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