ORIGINAL: Rob Gjessing
What is the difference between this version of Harpoon and the one that is currently available through Matrix?
Matrix is a new start of sorts for Harpoon and vague answers to your question Rob may be frustrating but one of the few things the various factions of Harpoon have generally agreed upon is no trashing either of the games in a comparison in public forums. HC (Harpoon Classic/HCE) folks are plenty capable of trashing H3 (Harpoon 3/ANW) and vice versa. It has been done, it has ruined gaming relationships, and has made everyone look bad. Oh, and did I mention AGSI doesn't much appreciate it either!
AGSI positions H3 as more hard core and HC as a lighter game, imho that is mainly marketing and product positioning and has little to do with the games themselves. A stock answer is that each game has its place, they each do certain things better, H3 excels at small engagements, HC will deal with larger engagements better (broad generalization...). The list goes on and on as you can well imagine.
As for the approach to making the games, H3 is the star child with paid staff (with a ton of volunteer help, testing, etc.), professional coders (Darrel Dearing for instance who you will find in the credits of almost every Harpoon computer game). H3 has the direct feed from the paper rules guys. So H3 has the clout, the future, and the need to fund development.
HC since 2003 was meant to be an end of life product, finish up the additon of the WestPac battleset (which has been around since 2003 but never in a non-beta release of the game), release the game and a bug patch or two and put it out to pasture in the history of naval simulations. Thanks in part to Matrix showing some interest to Bond, Carlson, Gilman for continued development of HC after the HCE release, and in part to a few of us regularly sending Don Gilman (AGSI) proposals to keep working at the game, HC development will continue after the HCE release. We're working for free or for a bit of royalties, time will tell, but nothing monetarily worth the investment of time and effort.
Anyway, the way forward once HCE releases is I'll get access to the source code again and will transition to being the primary programmer (how long that takes depends upon how active Fletcher wants to remain in coding), CV32 (author of HCDB) will handle support along with a fellow who goes by the username Akula (he has done a lot of the platform photo work with us and writes some nasty good scenarios too). H3 -> TNH (The Next Harpoon) is and will be AGSI's focus.
HC should pretty much be left to the three of us as a steering comittee of sorts. We'll have almost zero resources next to H3 but we'll also have a measure of agility and lightness H3 does not. The three of us are in it for the game, not the almighty dollar. My approach will be an open one, there are bugs, there will be bugs, but the bugs will not be brushed under the rug. That also doesn't mean every bug and every unexpected behavior will be modified, but you will be welcome to speak your mind and interact directly with those of us who have more control over what does and doesn't happen in terms of changes, additions, etc. to the game.
Yes, I'm excited for HCE, I'm extremely excited for the changes and enhancements to the game that will occur after release and hope that we are allowed to continue development for many more years! TNH had better be great but we're out to do everything we can (outside of real life and work [:(]) for HC until that ideal Harpoon computer game materializes.
with a bit of freshening up and a WestPac battleset (with more fun to come after release).
