Which one are you or other?

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Balthagor
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Re: Which one are you or other?

Post by Balthagor »

dust off wrote:...cut the information available about units...
What info? The unit popup is exactly the same.
dust off wrote:...The bar for readiness doesn't work as well for seeing where your units are at...
Sorry, what bar for readiness? I'm not sure what you're talking about.
dust off wrote:...Now no manual control of bonds...
Agreed. Consider that traded for Space Race.
dust off wrote:..., recruiting,...
What recruiting? The minister priority was replaced with a new one but it's about the same. It's part of the "Military Growth" priority.
dust off wrote:...ROE gone for units...
I already indicated that will be back.
dust off wrote:...I am interested, what weaknesses would you say have been carried forward to SRCW?
The two products are different, each with their own weaknesses and strengths. I'm sure there are some obscure bugs and engine limitations that didn't get addressed during development but we could have developed longer and still not touched them.
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Re: Which one are you or other?

Post by SGTscuba »

I think the readiness bar he was talking about is the one that you see on the unit and it changes colour from green to red depending on how much fuel or ammo they have left, this I haven't seen in cold war but it may be an option somewhere like changing the unit orders and selection key over to the way it used to be in 2020 (or at least the way I had it).
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Balthagor
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Re: Which one are you or other?

Post by Balthagor »

You mean the HUD bars attached to the units?
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Re: Which one are you or other?

Post by Fistalis »

Balthagor wrote:
dust off wrote:...cut the information available about units...
What info? The unit popup is exactly the same.
I think hes talking about this, http://www.bgforums.com/forums/viewtopi ... 66&t=19070

I've been meaning to report it since I don't think it was intentional (the pop up has the space for it but they don't show so prob a bug) but I just now got around to it. :wink:

(but complaining about it in a thread like this is silly when you COULD have just reported it in the support forum instead of waiting for me to.)
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Re: Which one are you or other?

Post by SGTscuba »

Balthagor wrote:You mean the HUD bars attached to the units?
yeah the ones on the unit that used to change colour depending on the supplies the unit had.
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Re: Which one are you or other?

Post by nick-bang »

dust off wrote:
nick-bang wrote: No one give their games more support. At all. '...
So I dont see it as an expense. I see it as an investment in something to keep my very limited sparetime enjoyable.
IMO, that's simply untrue. Their support of 2020 was quite limited when I compare to other Devs support of their games.

Was optomistic about SRCW, but there are so many problems with it that forumites have had a general concensus on since 2010 that I'm starting to getthe feeling that SR is more about the money for them than excelling. So I'm waiting to see how much it come on and for it to be very cheap DL.

Will 'invest' in the odd company, either because thay are small and provide niche game or they have excellent track record. BG no longer has a AAA rating on that front. Heck, even the major faeature changes that make it a new game are bugged and disfunctional.
Name ONE ...just ONE game that will even come close to the level of support that has been done for first SR2020 and now SRCW. The fact is BG presents far more and working patches than for any other game I have ever played. Also they communicate with users in dialogue instead of a monologue.

"with it that forumites have had a general concensus on since 2010" Bullsh.. - you are wasting my time with nonsense and unfounded sillyness. Document your statements or leave it at that. Because as far as I see then the consensus is NOT what you describe.

As far as I have experienced it, then ALL software are buggy when it hits the markets. This is one of the sad things about computer software. However I belive that a) BG is one of the better softwarehouses in this regard and b) they actually do something about it iunlike many publishers/developers that cant seem to be bothered fixing what they made.

Its true that there are numerous issues but I believe that many of them will be resolved in the ´next patch which will hopefully be soon.
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Re: Which one are you or other?

Post by dust off »

Balthagor wrote:
dust off wrote:...cut the information available about units...
What info? The unit popup is exactly the same.
dust off wrote:..., recruiting,...
What recruiting? The minister priority was replaced with a new one but it's about the same. It's part of the "Military Growth" priority.
dust off wrote:...I am interested, what weaknesses would you say have been carried forward to SRCW?
The two products are different, each with their own weaknesses and strengths. I'm sure there are some obscure bugs and engine limitations that didn't get addressed during development but we could have developed longer and still not touched them.
1. No there was more unit info in 2010, and the prospect of training units.
2. Before we could see how many werein our armed forces and set a slider to increase or decrease.

"obscure bugs". Without ooting up th game to get my prompts- do you not see that:
the AI still builds beyond his economy- and even map space sometimes. That he is not managing army size effectively.
Result bug blods of units- so that player can't even see the map.
A major section of these units just sit by the cities in war, so that the AI does not give many military challenges.
Soo many units slow the game down to a yawning crawl.... and there are more.

I'm curious why you wouldn't see these things.

Nickbang- Battlefront is one. Also, if a dev spends 18 months fixing bugs then that's expected. If they make tweaks that add a few niceties that's appreciated, but the niceties, and the new UIs imho are less of a priority than the Elephants in the room that are core to gameplay. Hell we still have refueling planes crashing out of fuel, plane not sticking to their base, and the mother of all click fests just to move an army across the globe. Good grief guys, I'm not trolling.
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Re: Which one are you or other?

Post by Balthagor »

dust off wrote:1. No there was more unit info in 2010, and the prospect of training units.
2. Before we could see how many werein our armed forces and set a slider to increase or decrease.
fine, I was only comparing to SR2020. The sales figured for SR2010 showed that there simply was no market for the game in that form. You accused us of being "more about the money" but you seem to want us to design a game while we destroy the company and put ourselves out of a job. Either this is a viable business model or it's not. We're certainly not getting rich doing this.
dust off wrote: the AI still builds beyond his economy- and even map space sometimes. That he is not managing army size effectively.
Result bug blods of units- so that player can't even see the map.
A major section of these units just sit by the cities in war, so that the AI does not give many military challenges.
Soo many units slow the game down to a yawning crawl.... and there are more.
Everything you've mentioned here has been improved with each version of the game. Is it where I'd like to see it? No, but we make the improvements we can.

And really, if the things you mention are such elephants, why are there not more threads calling attention to these issues? Why isn't everyone telling us those are big priorities?
dust off wrote:...I'm not trolling.
I understand that, but look back at your post. You accused us essentially of poor customer support. That becomes almost personally insulting when - because of the size of the company - I'm about 1/3 of the tech support department. I get up and check my e-mail before breakfast nearly every day. I answer tech support questions on Christmas morning and New Years day. We may not always manage to achieve what we want or what some users want from our projects but we have nothing but the deepest commitment to our work.
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Re: Which one are you or other?

Post by dust off »

Balthagor wrote:
dust off wrote:1. No there was more unit info in 2010, and the prospect of training units.
2. Before we could see how many werein our armed forces and set a slider to increase or decrease.
fine, I was only comparing to SR2020. The sales figured for SR2010 showed that there simply was no market for the game in that form. You accused us of being "more about the money" but you seem to want us to design a game while we destroy the company and put ourselves out of a job. Either this is a viable business model or it's not. We're certainly not getting rich doing this.
dust off wrote: the AI still builds beyond his economy- and even map space sometimes. That he is not managing army size effectively.
Result bug blods of units- so that player can't even see the map.
A major section of these units just sit by the cities in war, so that the AI does not give many military challenges.
Soo many units slow the game down to a yawning crawl.... and there are more.
Everything you've mentioned here has been improved with each version of the game. Is it where I'd like to see it? No, but we make the improvements we can.

And really, if the things you mention are such elephants, why are there not more threads calling attention to these issues? Why isn't everyone telling us those are big priorities?
dust off wrote:...I'm not trolling.
I understand that, but look back at your post. You accused us essentially of poor customer support. That becomes almost personally insulting when - because of the size of the company - I'm about 1/3 of the tech support department. I get up and check my e-mail before breakfast nearly every day. I answer tech support questions on Christmas morning and New Years day. We may not always manage to achieve what we want or what some users want from our projects but we have nothing but the deepest commitment to our work.
Woa. Nope. I disagreed with Nick Bang saying your support was way better than any out there. He is categorically wrong on that, period.
Never said you were only trying to cash in, and reading through I can't see that I implied it. You must have inferred it. And heel, who care if you make a fortune- people have to make money.

Again downgrading from AAA is not, definately not accusing you of "poor support". It is saying that it's no longer tripple A.
And please don't tell me 2010 sold more therefore dropping user controlled stuff and detail is the way to go. Because just maybe you going with Paradox and moving to a whole world map had more to do with it.

People have posted about them repeatedly over the course. Maybe some of those things irritate me more so I see and remember those threads more. Conversely, you perhaps don't take as much note of them.

Finally, agreed you guys have made steps- but some of those steps are very small, or as I said previously light.

By the way, when players support rebels- can rebel units spawn in in the target state?
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Re: Which one are you or other?

Post by Balthagor »

dust off wrote:...By the way, when players support rebels- can rebel units spawn in in the target state?
Yes, they can.

You may not like that there are arguments supporting a "less complex" game, but that doesn't invalidate those arguments.

Anyway, I've had enough of this discussion. We have both taken the time to clarify our positions and still disagree on some issues and that's life.
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Re: Which one are you or other?

Post by dust off »

Balthagor wrote:
dust off wrote:...By the way, when players support rebels- can rebel units spawn in in the target state?
Yes, they can.

You may not like that there are arguments supporting a "less complex" game, but that doesn't invalidate those arguments.

Anyway, I've had enough of this discussion. We have both taken the time to clarify our positions and still disagree on some issues and that's life.
Ok, fair enough. Thanks for taking time for a civilised clarification.
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Re: Which one are you or other?

Post by George Geczy »

Though the second half of this thread has generally gone in circles, the one point I feel compelled to add to is the suggestion that increased complexity is accepted to be a "good thing". Yes, we know that some players like the minutia of every spec, detail, and gameplay control, no matter how obscure of arcane, but this really can't be seen as a mainstream view any longer.

The Supreme Ruler series is already one of the most complex and detailed strategy games under current development for the PC, but if we are looking to bring new fans into the strategy game circle we won't do it with a game that builds complexity on top of more complexity. Yes, there are some players that may feel we're taking the wrong direction when certain features are simplified, hidden or even eliminated. Chris (Balthagor) is often one of these. And we do take the views of our oldest and hardest-core fans very, very seriously. But there is more to our audience than the hard core. Unless you guys are willing to pay $300 per copy, we need to appeal to more than a base of 1000 hard core fans. And it doesn't do strategy gaming for the PC as an industry any good to have games that are so overwhelming that new players stay away.

SRCW has had a large number of very positive reviews written on it - outside of the complaints about there being no in-game tutorial, the recurring theme in the reviews is that this is a very complex game - a lot of information, a lot of detail, a lot of gameplay options.... that newbies generally need not apply. So yes, we are looking at simplifying some elements and making the game at least a little bit more approachable.

Many of the "missing" SR2010/SR2020 features have limited gameplay aspects - yes, people have complained about some missing unit specs, or missing inflation figures in the finance dept, etc... inflation doesn't even make historical sense in game that uses a common world currency and "purchasing power parity" economy system. Of course, we could always add a currency exchange and region currencies, but that would be making things even worse from the complexity standpoint. The old "inflation" number is still used under the hood and does affect other things that the player sees, including certain minister actions and minister alerts when things need attention. Does it "dumb down" the game not to show an inflation number to the player? Only from a hyper-grognard perspective.

New features like Proxy wars (already an extremely complex feature under the hood, by the way, due to all the possible combinations and influences) are targets for improvement as players make suggestions give opinions about how it could be made better. Is proxy war "broken" because planes cannot attack under proxy? No, that was the original design decision. Can the design be improved? Yes, and we're listening.

If your intention is to look for a modern game more complex than SRCW, you're not going to find much, because people are not making them. So yes, you do have every right to say that SRCW is going the wrong direction by trying to streamline gameplay and be more approachable, but nobody out there is going to make the "uber complex" game you're hoping for - there simply isn't a market for it.

-- George.
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Re: Which one are you or other?

Post by Fistalis »

George Geczy wrote: but nobody out there is going to make the "uber complex" game you're hoping for - there simply isn't a market for it.
Sad but true
:wink:
(I could have went on a long diatribe about how complexity in games used to be limited by technical issues, and is now limited by the um.. how to put this nicely... lack of interest in complex games. But i think the link says it all without me being too much of an arse :D )
Last edited by Fistalis on Sep 04 2011, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Which one are you or other?

Post by Chesehead »

I'd agree with the Dev's here. The PC genre is slowly dying, and few people are interested in super complex games. Frankly, I'd rather have a somewhat complex game that gets updated then a uber complex game that never gets patched or that frankly doesn't exist.

I'm really into the complexity and realism simply because it better prepares me for the future and will probably lend a hand in the future with my career. Plus I find it entertaining.
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Re: Which one are you or other?

Post by SGTscuba »

Most people simply cannot get their heads around complexity nowadays (young people), thats why they turned to consoles, because there are less buttons and less complexity, the game makers know this hence they make games that suit their level of intelligence.

intro -> run -> cutscene -> shoot ->cutscene -> nuke -> everything changes -> end

Personally, I love the complicated and understand that things have got to get simplier in order for you to keep making the games. But please never make it that simple (as I descirbed in this post) as it's nice to have a intellectually stimulating game to play, especially as those conversations are hard to come by these days.
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