ORIGINAL: oldman45
How many problems are players finding because of the short comings of the current algorithms and game engine? I agree with most of what you wrote Bull, but I feel that AE needs a complete overhaul with a new engine and algorithms before I would spend 100+ dollars. I am not sure something like that can be negotiated like AE was.
I wrote that at about 0100 this morning. Just re-read it and I see I went a bit astray from my core point.
I agree up-front that a WITP2 can't be done as AE was. AE was properly scoped and not aimed at a re-write of the underlying spaghetti code. A new generation would need to establish a new, tight code framework on which to lay the OOB and algorithms gained from Matrix. That is what I was alluding to when I said "player-level gemeplay interaction." All of the usability and labor-saving things we've talked about here recently and in the past. Pilot training, intel management, economic planning, task force formation, etc. In there would need to be as well a re-examination of the turn phases. It might be that 12-hour pulses are not what that design needs and over the whole span of the war little is lost. I would also call for a core design which rested on global envronmental variables feeding from a much larger, more robust front-end set-up screen array so re-play variability would be enhanced. Maybe more, shorter grand campaigns with more "what if" built into the set-up variables. But overall, yes, I think the majority of the of code would need to be tossed and a new skeleton written.
Where I disagree is that the core algorithms ought to be tossed as well. I don't think any team put together by Matrix, or even a fan-based effort like Henderson Field was/is, is going to find a JWE or an Elf, real-world subject-matter experts on tactics, weapon perfomance, ballistics, etc. All the esoteric things you don't learn from designing wargames but do learn in certain government-funded professions and schools. To me those inputs were the most valuable thing about AE. Although I love the new map and love fiddling with things like ship repair it was the underlying algorithms' improvement from WITP which make AE so much better. As I've read this forum for three years now I have seen that, from my limited real world perspective (mostly subs) a lot of comments calling for this or that are from people who just don't know what they're talking about on a technical level. JWE, the Elf, and company DID, and AE shows it.
There is so much low-hanging fruit to be gained from UI, player routines, and a new AI architecture that I'd happily pay MORE than $100 for a game which re-used the AE OOB and algorithms (with Da Babes alterations of course.) I spent about $80 on WitE and largely wasted my money, which is my current cost-benefit yardstick. I will never buy a counter-based wargame again. That ship has sailed for me.
One other thing I didn't make clear in the first post either: IF (a big if) a new, stand-alone team were put togehter to do a clean-sheet mega-PTO game--and had to self-fund without help from Matrix--I would ask the next logical question. What would that team need them for? Publishers perform a basket of services, but in the past the two biggest have been funding and distribution and promotion. For those they took a very hefty cut. A lot of readers would be shocked if they knew how little of the retail price of a book goes to the author. But if a team is self-funding and has Steam and other Web-based distribution channels available, why do they need Matrix? I posited that they need them for the OOB and algorithm libraries, but if all they have is a blank screen and good wishes, and Matrix's future promise to put the game up on a low-traffic site while Matrix controls retail pricing, what's the updside there? A team can hire its own legal services. It can hire its own QA. It can rent its own development tools. One reason Matrix ought to be promoting a next gen of its core franchise is self-defense. As time and tech moves along big publishers are more endangered, more unneeded. Matrix has the current crown jewels in the OOB and algorithms. They ought not sit on them too long.