Testing The Game

[wildhawke11]

Seems to me this ageing system is not only very confusing for us testers and our forum in general but must be a nightmare for the newcomer who buys this game. The idea of course should be to make this game as easy as possible to understand, and make the navigation or way of doing things within the game itself as easy as possible. The magazines who reviewed our game were right about one thing, its confusing and makes the game less enjoyable and more of a chore just trying to understand how to play it. This of course is in this day and age when the computer is expected to take some of the hard work away from you and let you go about enjoying the game. This screams out at me its time for some changes at least in any future boxing games.

Recently on a very well respected boxing site i was asked after plugging this game how to adjust the ageing system by a couple of very knowledgeably boxing fans who had bought the game. It was most embarrassing when i had to reply "I am not really sure". Of course i was not quite so direct as this but it tells me along with guys like Cap, myself and others who still are not sure how to do things after more then 12 months or more of playing it that some change is badly needed to make things more easy and understood in any future boxing games.

The above of course to put it bluntly only applies if this company want to have a better chance of increasing sales and hoping that the new buyers of any future boxing games game will recommend them by word of mouth to others. I think this is a great little game despite the reviews that have been done on it by the major game mags, but to make it even better its obvious at times you have to take a step back and look at it from the buyers point of view and at times be critical of your own product.

On a last note Andreas has once again thrown this soon to be released new patch on to this forum to give it a real testing. Please guys forget looking for new pics or new fighters for a few days and give this a good testing before its fully released as official. They reason i implore you to do this is i dont think and this is only my personal opinion that much more time can be given to this version of the game. Its pretty obvious the thoughts of the company must be turning to calling it a day on this one, and moving on to another game which might bring in some much needed revenue. Later on we may all regret not doing so when after we get bored with other games and decide to put our beloved Title Bout back on our hard drives.
Thanks To All Who Read This

[Bam Bam]

Originally Posted by wildhawke11

Seems to me this ageing system is not only very confusing for us testers and our forum in general but must be a nightmare for the newcomer who buys this game. The idea of course should be to make this game as easy as possible to understand, and make the navigation or way of doing things within the game itself as easy as possible. The magazines who reviewed our game were right about one thing, its confusing and makes the game less enjoyable and more of a chore just trying to understand how to play it. This of course is in this day and age when the computer is expected to take some of the hard work away from you and let you go about enjoying the game. This screams out at me its time for some changes at least in any future boxing games.

Recently on a very well respected boxing site i was asked after plugging this game how to adjust the ageing system by a couple of very knowledgeably boxing fans who had bought the game. It was most embarrassing when i had to reply "I am not really sure". Of course i was not quite so direct as this but it tells me along with guys like Cap, myself and others who still are not sure how to do things after more then 12 months or more of playing it that some change is badly needed to make things more easy and understood in any future boxing games.

The above of course to put it bluntly only applies if this company want to have a better chance of increasing sales and hoping that the new buyers of any future boxing games game will recommend them by word of mouth to others. I think this is a great little game despite the reviews that have been done on it by the major game mags, but to make it even better its obvious at times you have to take a step back and look at it from the buyers point of view and at times be critical of your own product.

On a last note Andreas has once again thrown this soon to be released new patch on to this forum to give it a real testing. Please guys forget looking for new pics or new fighters for a few days and give this a good testing before its fully released as official. They reason i implore you to do this is i dont think and this is only my personal opinion that much more time can be given to this version of the game. Its pretty obvious the thoughts of the company must be turning to calling it a day on this one, and moving on to another game which might bring in some much needed revenue. Later on we may all regret not doing so when after we get bored with other games and decide to put our beloved Title Bout back on our hard drives.
Thanks To All Who Read This

I think when you start talking about databases alone you're gonna scare away some customers off the bat. Not that the terminology is avoidable.

just my opinion, but it seems to me that this public beta is a pitty gift from our TBCB developers. Fo some reason I think our long awaited TBRP is going to be on the shelf for a long time

[Cap]

Have to agree with you there, Danny. The game play needs to be simplified if you're going to attract any new players in some quantity. Maybe the aging system should be buried in the game with an option to open an .ini file to make adjustments as was the case in High Heat and other baseball games. But the truth is, maybe this isn't Fusion's biggest seller. (Are they still the owners or did it change hands again?) If it isn't then everything else from here on out is gravy, me son.

Cap

[CONN CHRIS]

I can appreciate the frustration that you gentlemen feel but I disagree that this particular game needs much in the way of stream-lining game play, et cetera. Most decent text based sims are difficult to get your arms around at first due to the nuanced features. Were it any other away, the game would lean more toward an arcade feel rather than the in-depth feel that is the genre of text based sims. Perhaps the role play game can be more a marriage of the two if such a thing is possible.

As for testing, I agree. I will certainly note anything that I find.

[northtexas]

Originally Posted by Cap

The game play needs to be simplified if you're going to attract any new players in some quantity. .

Cap

They will never attracted new players in quantity until they do something about the animations-skins.
Today I simulated a fight between LaMotta & Fullmer and there's two dark skinned fighters representing white fighters...totally destroys the illusion for me! I know that most of the "hardcore" on here could give a rat's ass about the skins but I guarantee that's the first thing any new player sees...and it's a turn off.

Bt the way, Fullmer won a split decision.

[CONN CHRIS]

Originally Posted by northtexas

They will never attracted new players in quantity until they do something about the animations-skins.
Today I simulated a fight between LaMotta & Fullmer and there's two dark skinned fighters representing white fighters...totally destroys the illusion for me! I know that most of the "hardcore" on here could give a rat's ass about the skins but I guarantee that's the first thing any new player sees...and it's a turn off.

Bt the way, Fullmer won a split decision.

Those images are annoying in my opinion as well. I wish that there were simply an arial view with circles to represent the fighters' ring location. "Be what you are" I say, a text based-sim. That type of in-game 'view' has worked fine for Football Manager for years.

[wildhawke11]

You would not believe the number of times i have brought up the colour of the fighters skins. In fact i was a little rude once and said the game looked very amateurish and an unfinished or rushed release. I also said if the major game mags got a hold of this product it would be marked down because of this glaring obvious fault in it. One of the reasons i was given was that it would take to much work to be sorted out. At times in the past i also have some might say been a little negative about this game but the reasons i do this is to try to make them see that they are shooting themselves in the foot by not correcting things like the colours of the fighters skins.

It stands out a mile to me either get the pictures right if you are going to show two fighters in the game or find some other way of representing the ring action. Its such a shame that the pics cannot be corrected because it would turn this game from being just good into a little classic that we would all be proud to say we all played a small part in. All i might suggest we all do is try once more last time to push Andreas and the team to do this for us.

Having said push Andreas he might push me right out of the testing area but what the hell GO FOR IT *He who dares wins*-sometimes i might add

[mh2365]

I agree the animations need work to attract new customers as long as the animations are just for show (no button mashing). I also think the manual was very well done, but they need to add a new section for the aging and the new ranking system.

[mh2365]

Originally Posted by Bam Bam

I think when you start talking about databases alone you're gonna scare away some customers off the bat. Not that the terminology is avoidable.

just my opinion, but it seems to me that this public beta is a pitty gift from our TBCB developers. Fo some reason I think our long awaited TBRP is going to be on the shelf for a long time

I disagree completely. While I think this maybe the final update (this is an update BTW, it's not a patch), we'll probably see another database update or two before all is said and done. I doubt it is the last patch, as Andreas will always try to fix any bugs.

Once OOTP is released I am positive (not firsthand knowledge though) that Andreas will go to work on the TBRP. It may take a year but that will be next on his plate. I can't see TBCB going much further so TBRP has to be next.

In case some don't play OOTP the reason Andreas is helping out so much is becuase Markus is completely overhauling the game and starting from scratch. It's a major release for this company, SI and Markus. That game will generate major revenue, which in turn will allow projects of love like TBRP.

It will happen but my guess is early 2007.

[Scoman]

From what ive experienced so far the aging system works great,but i wish there was a "set all fighters to beginning of career button", for those of us that would like to start each fighter like that.As it stands now you have to set fighters to the beginning manually(10100 fighters for me}. In the long run,the aging feature helps this game enormously. A awesome and much needed addition.

[Gunsmoke]

Good suggestion, I will raise it my little small improvements thread I have going in Beta... well it was a minor improvements thread before Danny got hold of it

[Boxingnut]

Originally Posted by wildhawke11

You would not believe the number of times i have brought up the colour of the fighters skins. In fact i was a little rude once and said the game looked very amateurish and an unfinished or rushed release. I also said if the major game mags got a hold of this product it would be marked down because of this glaring obvious fault in it. One of the reasons i was given was that it would take to much work to be sorted out. At times in the past i also have some might say been a little negative about this game but the reasons i do this is to try to make them see that they are shooting themselves in the foot by not correcting things like the colours of the fighters skins.

It stands out a mile to me either get the pictures right if you are going to show two fighters in the game or find some other way of representing the ring action. Its such a shame that the pics cannot be corrected because it would turn this game from being just good into a little classic that we would all be proud to say we all played a small part in. All i might suggest we all do is try once more last time to push Andreas and the team to do this for us.

Having said push Andreas he might push me right out of the testing area but what the hell GO FOR IT *He who dares wins*-sometimes i might add

Personally I would do away with the animations and make the commentary better. Although what better is, is a matter of personal taste. If you are going to have any graphics I would rather have a representation of where the fighters are actually positioned in the ring. I don't feel that the current graphics really add anything to the game. Casual users, playing the demo for example, must look at the graphics and laugh/cry/wonder what is going on, etc.

[Cap]

Yeah. The animations are sorta pathetic, although I still like to see when one guy gets dropped. Maybe have something simpler like an overhead view with a simple pre-fight command to select fighter tones, either black or white. Then have a graphic show when one guy gets knocked down. If that is not possible, then remove the animations and put in cheering crowds or something around the "ring" where the commentary is. By the way, that particular aspect seems to have been improved. I noticed they replaced the bit about looking good after 4 rounds though the 4th round had just started, instead of fixing it. Not sure why.

Cap