I really don't think anyone is all that upset at the delays. Seriously. Most of the posts I see are very tongue in cheek.
Besides, the real vitriol will come soon after its' release. The history geeks will complain about capabilities, and others will provide an endless list of things that are "broken." We all know from WitP that it takes at least 3 years before anything is officially stamped broken in the game . . . with the possible exception of sub warfare.
With my 2nd child coming on June 27 or so, you have made my day. I will have something to do while I do graveyard shift watching her sleep. Thank you very much for the effort. I think I'll name her Terminita "Yamato Hugger" Schwartzstein. Catchy name.[:D]
ORIGINAL: Terminus
Disclaimer: This is my opinion only, and not a "company line" of Matrix or anybody else.
I can understand if people are frustrated by this seemingly endless delay. Lots of time I, and the rest of the team, have been as well. We've seen several release deadlines come and go, and every time it's very difficult to muster the energy to go on.
But here's the thing: those release deadlines were pushed back FOR A REASON. Every single time we took a look at the product and had to admit that this was not something that was fit for release.
We're not doing this to be douchebags, but because we're gamers ourselves. We can look at this with both player and developer hats on, and see if it's ready, and there's no almighty publishing house standing behind us, pushing us to release to some arbitrary deadline. Kudos to Matrix for that.
We could have released this a long time ago, but it would have been an incomplete, inferior and quite frankly unworthy game.
My name is on the credits list for this product, and I don't want it to be anything less than something I can be proud of. I remember a quote from a game manual once (IIRC, for Civilization IV) along the lines of "we didn't want to be known as the team who broke Civilization". Well, we don't want to be known as the team who broke WitP.
We've all stuck with this game for nearly five years now, waaaay longer than most games live in this day and age, and we're just about to take a big leap forward. I love what we've done and are continuing to do with AE, and the vast majority of WitP gamers will too.
Rant over.
[:D][:D]