OOTP6 - speed up release ? - OPEN for comments

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by Lamorak
Whoaaa...I said I am *fan*, not a mindless game-zombie!

Allow me to rephrase:
"I am a interested and involved admirer of the OOTP gaming franchise."

I don't know what skydog thinks being a fan means but it's hardly a difficult to understand mentality! I believe the terms 'fan' and 'fanboy' have been blurred a little unfairly.

--Dave

I guess it is semantics then. When I hear the term "fan," I think of someone who shows favor toward a franchise, be it a sports franchise or game. I have no favor toward any gaming franchise.

[messenjah]

As long as it gets released in a patch next, I would have absolutely no problem with releasing it sooner. Then again, I'll still back this company no matter how late it pushes it's release date, because it always puts out a great product... period. Just don't let this go the way of Spring Training games in OOTP5, where it was said to be put in and then never got there.

BTW, keep up the good work Markus.

[Lamorak]

Any particular favour I have for a gaming franchise (or for that matter anyone or thing!) is based on my relative experience. To not show *any* bias would be to deny past experience- positive or negative.

The fact that you have a particular definition for fan with certain inferences entailed is proof positive of the pervasiveness of this. But that does not entail an unwillingness disavow an openness to changing that bias. I'm open minded, but my respect once earned is worth the currency it's due.

--Dave

[yankeesrule]

For what its worth, I voted Yes to the early release even though I'm very much looking forward to the H2H part of the game. My reason was simple, why wait an extra week or 2 for one small aspect of the game which will only affect the H2H portion as long as everything else on the game works great. I know myself personally, i'll wanna screw around with the game a week or so before going to playing others online this way I can familiarize myself with everything that can be done rather than jumping in head first. Just my 2 cents.

[Ben E Lou]

Allow me to point out that there is an advantage of a delayed release even for those of us who will never use H2H: we'll get a game with fewer bugs and better play balance. Regardless of how well it has been tested up to now, it will have bugs upon release. If the testers have the game for another week or two, they'll inevitably catch more bugs, and notice more things that will enhance the gaming experience. So far with OOTP, I've had to re-start my career every time a patch is released, because the patches have changed play balance, statistical results, etc. significantly. It would be nice to get a game a little later in the process that might allow me to continue playing when a patch is released. Just another thought to add to the mix.

[GeoWar]

I really don't like --- patching --- so I can wait OOTP5 is playing great and the first couple of weeks of the MLB season I really watch a lot.

[swcarney]

I would like to have the game as stable as possible. If it can be released earlier, so be it.

THANKS MARKUS!!!

[dannyheck]

Head to head internet will make this game the best ever. But 1 week, especially since I play 99.9% of my games by myself, heck yes I voted for release of the game now.

STUD Game!

[wsucougs]

im sick of waiting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[merlin9761]

the suspense is killing me.cant wait to log on here and be able to download OOTP6!!!!

[CSteinhardt]

I might point out that this poll is doing basically what I predicted; the minority of OOTP users who check this board daily (or more quickly) have immediately voted yes, and the other people who check it infrequently but actually make up the larger part of sales are slowly coming in and voting no. Which, of course, is why you see these numbers continually go down.

As I said, the best approach would be to officially release OOTP6 only when the game is complete, but a limited release only to people that pre-ordered of a "preview version" might be the way to satisfy everybody.

[merlin9761]

87% is an overwhelming majority in my opinion

[wireman]

originally posted by CSteinhardt:
I might point out that this poll is doing basically what I predicted; the minority of OOTP users who check this board daily (or more quickly) have immediately voted yes, and the other people who check it infrequently but actually make up the larger part of sales are slowly coming in and voting no. Which, of course, is why you see these numbers continually go down.

The annual influx of tourists swells the population of OOTP Town.

[Mike D]

Originally posted by Ragnar
Wait a minute. I already pre-ordered. Why would I ask for a refund of 25.95 then pay 34.95 when H2H is implemented?

How about I just wait to see if H2H gets in and then make my decision. Is there like a week time table for a refund? I will be able to hold off on DLing the game and asking for a refund until the game is officially complete, correct?

I do believe it will get in. I have faith. And I Will probably DL the game anyway one way or the other. But I am still amazed at some of the posts I see. It's easy for gamers to come to conclusions. But how many gamers here would risk losing %13 of their business? Not to mention gamers not on these boards or all of the gamers those 13% tell about this great game? Sure i'll buy it. But will I recommend it? I know mostly H2H gamers of all sorts. These are the reasons I have faith it will get in or a great attempt will be made to implement it.

From what I know, the return policy is only 7 days, so if H2H is not in till after 7 days, you will be pass the return policy period. I might be wrong, and if I am, I'm sure Kuff will be in to correct me. All I was trying to say was that if you wanted H2H in the game, and are upset that it might not be in during the intial release, then you still have the opportunity to return the game right now. If it's not the MAJOR reason you preordered it, and can live waiting 2 weeks for it to arrive, enjoy the $9 discount and DL when H2H arrives, or enjoy the game when it is released, and look forward to H2H being in there. That's all I'm saying, I'm not trying to piss anyone off, just trying to say that while I understand why some might be upset, you can always get your money back now, and purchase the game when H2H makes it in if you don't believe it will. But that's just me.

And CSteinhardt, I'm sure that if given the opportunity to have the polls being opened indefinately in Florida probably would have given us a new President.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by Mike D
And CSteinhardt, I'm sure that if given the opportunity to have the polls being opened indefinately in Florida probably would have given us a new President.

That analogy doesn't really hold water. Every registered voter in Florida knew when the election was going to be held. In this case, I'd venture to say that a *lot* of OOTP users didn't know this poll was even going to happen, let alone know when it was going to take place. It may be hard for us who use message boards to fathom, but there are many who play computer games who spend little/no time at message boards, playing multiplayer, or doing anything that is "community" related. What is even harder for those of us on message board to fathom is that these people make up the majority of the people who buy games. Just look at this poll for evidence. It has been up for over 48 hours (a long time in message board land), and only 609 people have voted. Now, I don't know what Viatech's percentage take on sales is, but for easy math's sake, if OOTP were to net $20 per copy, that only adds up to $12,180 in net revenue. I'd imagine that it has to net at least 5-10 times that amount to keep the company afloat. My guess is that we're looking at a poll in which, at BEST, 20% of OOTP users voted. (My guess is that it is more in the neighrborhood of 5-15%.) Granted, the online users tend to be the most vocal, but they also tend to be the ones who want the game *yesterday.* So, this poll is somewhat representative, but is by no means a scientific sampling of OOTPers.

On this topic, here's something that boggles my mind, but would lend more credence to the theory that the huge majority of OOTPers aren't represented in this poll. I play Empire Earth. EE is an *outstanding* multiplayer RTS game, but it sucks for single-player. The only way that the AI can be competitive is to cheat--and the way it cheats doesn't even make sense. I would be fine with an AI cheating that caused it to, say, gather gold 15% faster than the human player at the highest difficult level, for example. however, this game simply GIVES the AI extra resources at time intervals--rendering the common-sense RTS strategy of limiting your opponent's access to resources useless. What the point of me saying this, you ask? I'll tell you. Despite the fact that playing against the AI works so horribly, I read that over 90% of the people who purchased Empire Earth *never* have used the online servers. Even computer gamers aren't online as much as we message board junkies would think, guys.

[Mike D]

Ugh, sorry Skydog. I guess I should have ran the analogy by you first. My bad. But I would also venture a guess that Markus knew that not everyone who is buying the game would vote on this poll, and took that into consideration when making his best judgements about when the game is going to be released. And seeing as how nobody from OOTP developments has said anything new to this, a decision is not made yet. However, more screenshots would be nice MH.


Oops, wrong poll

[Lamorak]

Statistically, I'd call this trend regression towards the mean. Unless I'm mistaken. any significantly large sample will likely drift towards a median as the n grows.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by Mike D
But I would also venture a guess that Markus knew that not everyone who is buying the game would vote on this pole, and took that into consideration when making his best judgements about when the game is going to be released.

Of course he knew it. I wasn't pointing this out for Markus's benefit, but for the benefit of those who have tried to argue that this poll represents the opinion of all of OOTPdom (interesting word there, 'Dog). As far as screenies go, I'd rather have Markus 100% focused on coding, rather than more screen shots. At this point, I yield the floor to good ol' franklinnoble:

Bottom line... screen shots are like going to a nudie bar. Sure, they might be nice to look at, but in the end you're disappointed, because you're still going to have to go home alone and just masturbate while thinking about it.

[Lamorak]

Skydogs point about Earth Empire is interesting, but as OOTP largely distributed online the comparison falls unless EE is as well. I have not idea if it is. But a good comparison might be to a game like 'Combat Mission' from Battlefront, which is almost entirely marketed online. There, I would strongly suspect the majority volume of players are also active online.

[CSteinhardt]

Originally posted by Lamorak
Statistically, I'd call this trend regression towards the mean. Unless I'm mistaken. any significantly large sample will likely drift towards a median as the n grows.

Well, this is true under the assumption that the people that have voted so far are a random sampling.

My point is that this is a biased sample.

That said, it's still the case that there are a limited number of people, so as the sample size approaches a sizeable fraction of the overall sample, the polling results will still get more accurate.

But all that suggests is that the correct polling result is under 86%. It puts no other bounds on it; the correct result could be any number under 86%, whether that's 85% or 5%.