"Anybody still playing this thing?"

[Jonathan Palfrey]

I think you somewhat exaggerate the involvement of Matrix in this and other games. As I understand it, the game is made by Western Civilization; Matrix publishes it. Thus, any praise or blame should go primarily to Western Civilization.

The game as originally published works well enough and doesn't seem to suffer from program bugs (which is worth commenting on); it has been criticized for certain game design features that Matrix probably shouldn't be expected to detect or control.

At least, that's my understanding of the situation; perhaps others can comment if I'm wrong in some way.

[Mike13z50]

ORIGINAL: Jonathan Palfrey

I think you somewhat exaggerate the involvement of Matrix in this and other games. As I understand it, the game is made by Western Civilization; Matrix publishes it. Thus, any praise or blame should go primarily to Western Civilization.

The game as originally published works well enough and doesn't seem to suffer from program bugs (which is worth commenting on); it has been criticized for certain game design features that Matrix probably shouldn't be expected to detect or control.

At least, that's my understanding of the situation; perhaps others can comment if I'm wrong in some way.

I agree that the current game is worth playing, the best strategic simulation of the ACW I've played. I consider that I have already got my moneys worth from it. The patch will make it even better.

[Gray_Lensman]

ORIGINAL: Mike13z50

ORIGINAL: Jonathan Palfrey

I think you somewhat exaggerate the involvement of Matrix in this and other games. As I understand it, the game is made by Western Civilization; Matrix publishes it. Thus, any praise or blame should go primarily to Western Civilization.

The game as originally published works well enough and doesn't seem to suffer from program bugs (which is worth commenting on); it has been criticized for certain game design features that Matrix probably shouldn't be expected to detect or control.

At least, that's my understanding of the situation; perhaps others can comment if I'm wrong in some way.

I agree that the current game is worth playing, the best strategic simulation of the ACW I've played. I consider that I have already got my moneys worth from it. The patch will make it even better.

I disagree. It has the "potential" to be the best strategic simulation of ACW. So far, until the so called design features are corrected, the best simulation of ACW has been the American Civil War published by Interactive Magic. Matrix Games is the publisher of FOF and therefore is responsible for whether or not the game was released in its current "beta" form and regardless of the shifting finger pointing in this case, Matrix has a reputation to uphold and has jeopardized it to some extent by not exercising its publishing responsibilities to thoroughly test products released under its logo. I reiterate that Matrix has a great reputation for working with developers to maintain software through updates and patches, but it also has a responsibilty to ensure that software released under its logo is reasonably complete and ready to play as "expected" by the purchasers. In this case, FOF is not reasonably complete, nor ready to play as expected by a "majority" of the purchasers as this poll itself obviously points out.

[Andy Mac]

I enjoy the game as is but have stopped playing until the patch is out as I don't want sicken myself playing it to much before the patch is out

[desertstorm]

Thank you GRAY_LANSMANN, your statemnent is exactly the point !! 

[Jonathan Palfrey]

ORIGINAL: Gray_Lensman
So far, until the so called design features are corrected, the best simulation of ACW has been the American Civil War published by Interactive Magic.

I also rather liked the basic design of Frank Hunter's game (published by Interactive Magic), but it was a horribly buggy program and he never managed to get all the bugs out of it, despite making a considerable effort to do so.

[Gray_Lensman]

ORIGINAL: Jonathan Palfrey

ORIGINAL: Gray_Lensman
So far, until the so called design features are corrected, the best simulation of ACW has been the American Civil War published by Interactive Magic.

I also rather liked the basic design of Frank Hunter's game (published by Interactive Magic), but it was a horribly buggy program and he never managed to get all the bugs out of it, despite making a considerable effort to do so.

I've been playing Interactive Magic's ACW off and on for years, and the only problem I've ever had with it was hardware incompatibilities and it defiinitely does not work well with XP, but considering that it was written before XP was ever released, I don't hold that against it. As far as gameplay was concerned it worked reasonably well, however, it was purely strategic/operational in design, and FOF with it's detailed battle control does have the "possibility" of being the best, once completed. My concern is purely about the obvious lack of complete play testing before the initial release of FOF. There is more to a "completed" game then the fact that all the screens work and the buttons work, and it doesn't crash to the desktop.

[Feltan]

Great concept for a game, but there are a lot of great games out there. This one has sat on the shelf after a week of play, and will remain there until the patch is commented on by players in this forum. If the patch pans out, I will download and give it another try.

Regards,
Feltan

P.S. And yes, I will give every new Matrix published game in which I have an interest a month or two before I buy. I purchased this one as soon as it was available -- I should know better, but I did it anyway.

[Johnus]

Gray_Lensman:

I have been a pain in the ass about rushing the patch. I started the ETA thread re same. Your statement that the game as issued is incomplete an unready to play is, however, dead wrong. The game as released (or after the first quick patch) is definitely ready to play. I had an issue or two with it, and once I learned they had been addressed in the patch, I decided to wait for it. Its overdue; I can live with that.

How is the game incomplete ? How is it unready ? Please provide some examples.

When a game encompasses as much as FOF, there certainly will be areas to improve. This is par for the course for such a game (ala EU3). But to state same was incomplete or unready is unfair to Matrix and Western Civ.

[Gray_Lensman]

ORIGINAL: Johnnie

Gray_Lensman:

I have been a pain in the ass about rushing the patch. I started this thread. Your statement that the game as issued is incomplete an unready to play is, however, dead wrong. The game as released (or after the first quick patch) is definitely ready to play. I had an issue or two with it, and once I learned they had been addressed in the patch, I decided to wait for it. Its overdue; I can live with that.

How is the game incomplete ? How is it unready ? Please provide some examples.

When a game encompasses as much as FOF, there certainly will be areas to improve. This is par for the course for such a game (ala EU3). But to state same was incomplete or unready is unfair to Matrix and Western Civ.

As shown above, 72% of the respondents to the poll above are not playing the game as released. They are waiting for various"issues or two" to be resolved. That speaks for itself. Obviously, these various "issues or two" should have been caught and resolved before the game was released as a completed product.

[General Quarters]

The fact that people do not want to start a new game when an upgrade is in the offing does not by itself mean that they regard the game as unfinished. For many (though not all), it means only, as they often explain right here, that they do not want to start a campaign that will not be compatible with the new patch.

[christof139]

The fact that people do not want to start a new game when an upgrade is in the offing does not by itself mean that they regard the game as unfinished. For many (though not all), it means only, as they often explain right here, that they do not want to start a campaign that will not be compatible with the new patch.

Apparently some people do, otherwise they wouldn't be saying what they are saying.

Chris

[Jonathan Palfrey]

ORIGINAL: Gray_Lensman
I've been playing Interactive Magic's ACW off and on for years, and the only problem I've ever had with it was hardware incompatibilities and it definitely does not work well with XP, but considering that it was written before XP was ever released, I don't hold that against it. As far as gameplay was concerned it worked reasonably well, however, it was purely strategic/operational in design, and FOF with its detailed battle control does have the "possibility" of being the best, once completed. My concern is purely about the obvious lack of complete play testing before the initial release of FOF. There is more to a "completed" game then the fact that all the screens work and the buttons work, and it doesn't crash to the desktop.

I bought the Interactive Magic ACW game in 1996, when it appeared, and played it quite a lot. A few years ago I played two complete games of it by e-mail, under Windows XP, without experiencing any problems between the game and Windows XP.

However, I found quite a lot of bugs and 'undesirable features' in the game itself (despite years of attempted debugging by Frank); the ones I found are listed on my Web site at http://www.thurb.com/games/acw/bugs.htm.

[Drex]

Jonathan, it looks like Frank Hunters game was in a lot worst shape than FoF when it was released.

[Jonathan Palfrey]

ORIGINAL: Drex
Jonathan, it looks like Frank Hunter's game was in a lot worst shape than FoF when it was released.

In terms of game design, not necessarily. Some people might prefer one, some might prefer the other.

In terms of program functionality, there's no comparison. The bug list on my Web site represents the remaining bugs after seven years of patches. Some earlier versions of the game had a memory-management bug that prevented players from playing any game to completion. Most earlier versions had more serious bugs than are shown in my list.

[Berkut]

ORIGINAL: Feltan

Great concept for a game, but there are a lot of great games out there. This one has sat on the shelf after a week of play, and will remain there until the patch is commented on by players in this forum. If the patch pans out, I will download and give it another try.

Regards,
Feltan

P.S. And yes, I will give every new Matrix published game in which I have an interest a month or two before I buy. I purchased this one as soon as it was available -- I should know better, but I did it anyway.

What he said, except that I played it a lot more than a week. And I tried to help somewhat with some of the design issues by posting copious feedback, that I suspect annoyed more than anything else.

[parusski]

I guess I am in the minority here. The game is still fun to play despite it's flaws. My gaming is time is split playing SPWAW, GGWAW, TOAWIII and FOF. But, I spend more hours with FOF. The patch will be great, looking forward to it.

[Drex]

Well I'm not sure we're in a minority Parussk.i

[parusski]

You are most likely right Drex. I think there is a silent majority that never posts. I have been a member for 7 years and have only 282 posts, which shows I read all that is going on and then just go back to gaming.

[Drex]

I recognize you from SPWAW although we never played against each other.