OOTP6 - speed up release ? - OPEN for comments

[Mike D]

Originally posted by SkyDog
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.

I agree that more time should be spent coding, however, seeing as how the game is in beta, I don't see how hard it would be for Steve to post them. And besides, Markus said in his April update that he would be posting new screens in the next couple of days. And of course, I have never said that this poll is everyone, just the few of us dorks who have nothing better to do.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by 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.

Very true, but further evidence from a game in the same genre that is distributed online-only would be FOF. Jim Gindin has publicly stated that revenue from FOF games (and he's selling one new game per year) is enough to fully support his family. Here are the numbers of user names logging into FOFC recently:

yesterday and today: 412
this week: around 550
month of March: around 650
since FOF2K4's release: a little under 1,100

Of course, some people use multiple user names, and others are on the board who don't buy a game from him every year, but we'll use the numbers above as high estimates of what the online community represents. He sold FOF2K4 for $34.95 to most people ($5.00 discount for some, but I'll leave that out, too.) This means that the FOFC community represents less than the following numbers in gross revenue:

everyday users: $14,399 per year
once a week or more users: $19,222 per year
once a month or more users: $22,717 per year
everyone who has been there since the new game: $38,445 per year

Jim has a customer service rep, artwork fees and Viatech's cut. I wouldn't want to venture to guess what percentage of that gross revenue goes to those folks, but it has to be a decent amount. He's paying his own insurance, retirement, etc. as well. Clearly, the regular users of FOFC, representing less than $20,000 per year in gross revenue don't come anywhere close to supporting the Gindin family. My guess is that he's got to be grossing at *least* four times that amount to have been doing this for six years. Based on this info, I'm guessing that FOFC's regular users represent less than 20% of his revenue, and that less than half of his revenue has ever even bothered to register at the message board.

Granted, FOFC is not an "official" message board, so the numbers would naturally be higher for OOTP. Still, the point holds that a large number of people show up online to purchase the game, then rarely, if ever, come back again and participate in the message board community.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by Mike D
And of course, I have never said that this poll is everyone, just the few of us dorks who have nothing better to do.

You calling me a dork, just because I run numbers, analyze text sims, and argue about gross revenue of text sim companies in my spare time????????

[Mike D]

Yes

[Johnny Slick]

Originally posted by Mike D
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.

You must be a liberal, because you sure seem to want it both ways! [/Manny Trillo]

The whole point of the pre-release discount IMO is for a couple things:

1. OOTP rewarding loyal customers - the kind of people who don't just buy the game, but buy it, participate in message boards about it, and (presumably) tell their friends (that they haven't alienated by playing the game during all available hours) by giving them a small discount.

2. A way of saying "sorry guys, we know there are going to be a few bugs in the initial release... that's the way it goes" and, knowing that the kind of person who checks the website often enough to take advantage of the discount is also the kind of person who will post bug reports in the boards rather than gripe about it and toss the whole thing into the trash.

3. OOTP gets the cash a little bit sooner, giving them more opportunity to invest it or whatever.

4. A way of gauging the initial popularity of a title; while it might not matter for OOTP6, it may mean a lot when ITP2 comes in terms of deciding whether to implement a couple more features to bring in more customers or to just release the thing now.

If you are not going to buy the game without a H2H mode, my suggestion is to get your refund as soon as an announcement is made that it won't be included in the initial release. Yes, you'll lose 9 whole dollars in the process, but a. you can now spend that money elsewhere, and b. you're probably not the kind of person that OOTP wants to reach for reasons 1, 2, and 4 anyway.

[treedom]

Originally posted by SkyDog
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.

The other thing this example lends weight to is that the majority of gamers really don't care about online (H2H) play.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by treedom
The other thing this example lends weight to is that the majority of gamers really don't care about online (H2H) play.

Oh, I'd agree wholeheartedly with that statement. The "silent majority" as someone called them, is silent by nature of the way they play: alone. They're not in online leagues or on message boardss, so you and I never hear from them, but sometimes developers do. (Jim Gindin has mentioned that the biggest feature request he gets is for NFL Europe--yet no one at FOFC has hardly ever brought it up.)

In some ways, it might just make more sense for solo-only players never to come online. FOF would be much more of a challenge for me if not for the collective wisdom of FOFC. I was playing Civ2 at Prince Level, having fun, and being very challenged by it until I read a strategy guide at a message board. Actually, I probably would have played that game a lot longer (and therefore gotten more entertainment hours for my money spent) if I had had to figure out on my own how to easily beat Deity level.

[Ragnar]

Ok so you pre-order. They release the game unfinished, tell you in 2-3 weeks it will be finished but you only have 1 week to get a refund. Does that make sense to anyone? I can see if they released the game as is then said if we get some stuff in later then fine. If we can't we won't. But thats not the case here.

This is not your normal situation.

[Mike D]

Originally posted by Johnny Slick
If you are not going to buy the game without a H2H mode, my suggestion is to get your refund as soon as an announcement is made that it won't be included in the initial release. Yes, you'll lose 9 whole dollars in the process, but a. you can now spend that money elsewhere, and b. you're probably not the kind of person that OOTP wants to reach for reasons 1, 2, and 4 anyway.

Hopefully that wasn't directed at me because I was stating for the people who want H2H and are disappointed that it might not make the intial release. I have no intrest in canceling my preorder.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by Ragnar
Ok so you pre-order. They release the game unfinished, tell you in 2-3 weeks it will be finished but you only have 1 week to get a refund. Does that make sense to anyone? I can see if they released the game as is then said if we get some stuff in later then fine. If we can't we won't. But thats not the case here.

This is not your normal situation.

As someone who doesn't give a rat's patootie about H2H, I do have to say that I understand where y'all are coming from on this issue. If I had pre-ordered the game and cared a lot about H2H play, on some level I'd have to be thinking: "I can't get the pre-order discount because they decided to release the game without a promised feature that meant a lot to me. The last time they did this, that promised feature didn't show up."

(Note: I am basing this statement on the fact that no one has disputed the claim that FC was promised for OOTP5, then pulled for a patch, then never showed up in OOTP5. If it was not, in fact, a promised feature, then the sentiment above doesn't carry much weight. As FC was/is not a feature that I care about either, I wasn't paying close enough attention to remember if/when it was promised/hinted/whatever.)

[Jordan]

I just hope H2H is in the game. I'd be terribly disappointed if it was excluded just because the majority (i.e. newbies who only show up when they have a problem or the game is about to be upgraded/releaesed) voted yes on this poll.

[Ragnar]

The took this poll to see whether or not to release the game "unfinished" early to "please the masses" as stated previously. At least that what i understood from the original post. I doubt the results of this poll will determine when my refund time table begins. But it doesn't matter anyway. I'll be too weak not to DL it.

[thehatfield]

I just hope H2H is in the game. I'd be terribly disappointed if it was excluded just because the majority (i.e. newbies who only show up when they have a problem or the game is about to be upgraded/releaesed) voted yes on this poll.

I'm terribly disappointed that in your petty world longevity on a message board equates into greater relavance of opinion.

[LAH]

I think the poll needs more choices.

I would buy the game now and wait for the H2H in a future patch.



please release it soon, my Yankee season in OOTP5 is not going well and I need a reason to quit.

[treedom]

Originally posted by Jordan
I just hope H2H is in the game. I'd be terribly disappointed if it was excluded just because the majority (i.e. newbies who only show up when they have a problem or the game is about to be upgraded/releaesed) voted yes on this poll.

they pay just as much for the game as you

[Ragnar]

Originally posted by Jordan
I just hope H2H is in the game. I'd be terribly disappointed if it was excluded just because the majority (i.e. newbies who only show up when they have a problem or the game is about to be upgraded/releaesed) voted yes on this poll.

As much as I enjoyed the above post we all know that it is not the reason for the poll results.

The poll % is a result of OOTP not having the H2H option in all 5 releases. Had H2H been in all releases we would have a much closer poll.

[Mike D]

If it was in all 5 releases, this poll would not be needed. Your reasoning is flawed a little. If Markus put in his release newsletter that the game was going to have full 40-man rosters, and then posted a poll saying that the game would be out sooner if he could release it sooner and then add it later, I bet that the results would be closer to 50/50, but people would still be in favor of getting the game earlier. But, because there is a great majority, and I mean great majority, that would not use this feature, that's why the results are the way they are. I can't wait to see the feature myself, however, I'm not impatient, so whenever they release the game is ok for me, with or without H2H.

[Ragnar]

There is a great majority because there are few people here who want H2H. Why would they be here if the game never had H2H?

Hopefully in the future this will not be the case from all the new people they will get from THE NEW H2H option. By version 7 maybe 8 you will not be the majority. When H2H is in this game I will post it all over the H2H football league boards. I know there are many baseball fans that would love a H2H game to play as good as this one. But do not know it exists.

[pollaro70]

I'm sick of everyone talking about bugs. You know what? Every game has bugs. We're lucky that Markus and Co. take time to listen to people, find what the bugs are, and then fix them. A lot of companies don't do that, or they take forever with them. Everyone talks about a "bug-free" game. I bet the ETA for that would be about 2050 or so.

[markprior22]

Originally posted by SkyDog
As someone who doesn't give a rat's patootie about H2H, I do have to say that I understand where y'all are coming from on this issue. If I had pre-ordered the game and cared a lot about H2H play, on some level I'd have to be thinking: "I can't get the pre-order discount because they decided to release the game without a promised feature that meant a lot to me. The last time they did this, that promised feature didn't show up."

(Note: I am basing this statement on the fact that no one has disputed the claim that FC was promised for OOTP5, then pulled for a patch, then never showed up in OOTP5. If it was not, in fact, a promised feature, then the sentiment above doesn't carry much weight. As FC was/is not a feature that I care about either, I wasn't paying close enough attention to remember if/when it was promised/hinted/whatever.)

I get so tired of hearing this sentiment. FC didn't get put in because it proved to be too difficult to code, not because Markus mislead people and now can't be trusted concerning H2H. If we used this thinking for FC (waiting until it was implemented before releasing OOTP5), OOTP5 probably still wouldn't be out.

Consider this example...OOTP6 is released early without H2H play. H2H ends up not being implemented due to "coding issues". What will have been lost by releasing the game "early"? Absolutely nothing! If it can't be put in via patch, then it isn't going to make it into the game this year no matter how many months we wait. This time next year, we'll still be waiting for OOTP6.

Let me say CLEARLY...from what Markus stated, the process seems to be far enough along that it is beyond the point of not being implemented due to surprising coding issues. I believe H2H play will be added in a relatively short amount of time. But all these examples get old because the lack of H2H upon release isn't hurting anyone (H2H will probably come out relatively close to the time the game would be released if we waited) and the early release will make MANY customers happy.

As far as preorders go...order the game. If you aren't happy with the released version, RETURN IT. Nothing lost.