Lost Victories-response

[Grenadier]

THERE ARE NO PHOTOS OR DOCUMENTS MISSING> TO STATE THIS IS MISLEADING. I RESENT THE IMPLICATION THAT LOST VICTORIES IS UNFINISHED. tHIS IS SIMPLY UNTRUE. There are no scenarios missing and the game progresses as planned out.

As I have stated in the past, Lost Victories is playable to the end and many have done so. As with any project, there are always little improvements that can be made and I have every intention of making those improvements to finish a, to use a Hollywod term, directors cut of the mega campaign.

I wrote in the past about this issue the following
Several of the results files were accidently omitted and then deleted once the 2nd patch was completed. As the author of many of these has been unresponsive for some time I have been left with the task of redoing them. These results files DO NOT affect gameplay. They are for the storyline. The storyline also was suffering from a problem many have pointed out, that the characters at the point of the end battles no longer matched the characters in the core force due to losses, etc. The original results files which have no storyline and that tell you you got a decisive, marginal, draw, etc. are in the game.

There are several battles in the Crimea that I was not pleased with the outcomes of and the scenarios I was also adding a few final documents such as a complete list of sources for the historical part of LV and a complete list of the scenarios and their authors and testers to complete the credits.

None of these issues affect gameplay. The campaign plays through to the end and all of the battle descriptions, sound files, photos and documents appear as programmed to do. Only the last few battles at the Donetz River and the Crimea are missing storyline result texts.

I will again restate that these missing text files DO NOT AFFECT GAMEPLAY, only the storyline. These files were designed as an enhancement and were to make the Vebber stoty complete.

I made an unfortunate choice in using the word patch to describe my desires to rework parts of Lost Victories and enhanced the storyline. Patch denotes that something needs fixing. Lost Victories does not need fixing, it is playing as designed. Some may dispute that the missing text files mean the MC is broken and I disagree. The end of the battles gives a result of a decisive, marginal victory or defeat or a draw and theb goes to the next battle. The player is informed of the battle result and if he has suffered and wounded or captured leaders or staff.

I again restate that only a few storyline result files are missing. from what I have been told by many players Vebber , Wirth, Baumann, Averitz and most of the rest of the squad leaders have been replaced by the time the player reaches the Donetz River or the Crimea. In hindsight, the storyline was a bad idea and it is made even worse by the inference that the game is incomplete because the storyline is not finished. No other mega campaign has a storyline. Wild Bill did not do one for Desert Fox and after seeing the results of the distortion by leader losses in lost Victories made the wise choice not to have one in either WatchTowwer ot Screaming Eagles.


The resources and comprehensive credits documents have become a major problem. To place them at the end requires a major resfuffling od the documents or the deletion of 2 of the included documents to make room for the sources and credits documents. There is only room for 10 documents, including photo captions for each battle and the final battles all are full with 10 documents each. Changing document positions in the mega campaign program is a daunting task equivalent TO CHANGING AN OOB IN THE SPWAW GAME. ONE SLIP AND THE WORK IS WIPED OUT.I have a dilemna in working this out but right now my feeling is that there has been so little mentioned or discussed about the historical information in the mega campaigns that I doubt anyone would care if the sources are listed.

Regarding Directors Cuts. In the film world, we waited nearly 22 years before Robert Wise did the version of Star Trek, the Motion Picture he originally wanted to do and it took 12 years for Wolfgang Peterson to do his directors cut of Das Boot and 8 years for James cameron to redo Terminator 2. If I can do it still I promise I will not take that long[:)]

[Warrior2]

99.999999% of the SPWaW community has no problem with Lost Victories. Personally, I consider it some of the best gaming money I've ever spent. You did a great job, and if there never is a "Director's Cut," I won't be disappointed. I'm more than satisfied with what I already have. Thanks, Brent. [&o]

[rich12545]

THERE ARE NO PHOTOS OR DOCUMENTS MISSING> TO STATE THIS IS MISLEADING. I RESENT THE IMPLICATION THAT LOST VICTORIES IS UNFINISHED. tHIS IS SIMPLY UNTRUE.

You've been saying exactly the opposite all along.

Look, if you don't want to do a final update then just say so. If you want to do it sometime off in the future then just say so. BUT WHEN YOU PROMISE AN UPDATE BY A CERTAIN TIME THEN BY GOD DO IT OR POST SOME SORT OF PROGRESS REPORT.

[Tombstone]

Warrior, I'm not so sure that there are 100,000,000 SPWAW players out there, heh. But the percentage of people that have a problem with it that actually played it are extremely low. Probably low enough for statisticians to call it 0.0%. For those who bought and didn't play it, it's probably kind of high because there are so few people like that. You'd only need like ONE guy to crank the percentage way up...

As far as a director's cut, argh. I don't know, there's too much good SPWAW I haven't played. It'll be years before I can go back and do LV again. I, for one, would rather time and resources by spent on new stuff, like a good old fashioned Grenadier-made scenario or something.

Tomo

[Alexandra]

Personally, I *like* the storyline aspect of LV. I think it was a good idea, and always found it good. If I lose the leaders the storyline talks about, well, then, that's my fault and not the design team. They did a fine job, and anyone who doesn't think so should, IMO, volunteet to be part of a MD design team to see how hard it is to make one.

Alex

[Tombstone]

I *like* it too. That doesn't mean it's worth all this madness... you can have one without the other, but not the other way around.

Tomo

[John David]

Thanks for producing a great MC Grenadier!
I liked the story line Idea, so thanks for that too!

If you decide to do anymore work on it, great, if not, no sweat!

Just wanted you to know that like Warrior said , it was money well spent!

[&o][&o]

JD

[RockinHarry]

Woa! Da boss is back![X(][:D]

[Hades Strikes Back]

i really liked the storyline idea of LV. Its not hard to keep most of the leaders alive and if they die... a little renaming isnt hard

[M4Jess]

[>:][>:][>:][>:][>:]

Rich told me 2 nights ago that he IS moving on...right[:'(]

did I ever tell you guys about how I was Excommunicated from the church because I had sex in the baptism fountain during sacrament?

[:-]

[M4Jess]

yes...I had sex!...once![:D]

[tracer]

...we're you alone, or was somebody else there?[:D]

P.S.: statues don't count![:-]

[rich12545]

Today I had a telephone conversation with Brent that lasted the better part of an hour. He's actually a very nice fellow.

The problem that I had with Brent from the beginning is that he would set a deadline for himself on the update and then not make it and not communicate. So we worked out a deal. He's not going to set any more deadlines for himself and therefore I have nothing to rant about. Simple. Communication is a wonderful thing.

Just to clarify a few things.
He used the term "director's cut" about a year ago in a post. It was not used for the first time a few days ago as I asserted. I didn't recall that term being used. It's been a while.
What is missing from mclv isn't historical data, it is stuff that goes at the end of the story line. This is the only mc with a story and that's what is still not there.
Brent continues to work on the update a little at a time and it will probably be completed sometime in the future and will be posted. If for some reason it never gets done, then that's the way it goes.

As far as I am concerned the matter is really closed. This is my last post on the subject and hopefully the same goes for everybody else.

We can now move on to more pleasant subjects......like oobs. [:-]

[Goblin]

ORIGINAL: rich12545

Today I had a telephone conversation with Brent that lasted the better part of an hour. He's actually a very nice fellow.

The problem that I had with Brent from the beginning is that he would set a deadline for himself on the update and then not make it and not communicate. So we worked out a deal. He's not going to set any more deadlines for himself and therefore I have nothing to rant about. Simple. Communication is a wonderful thing.

Just to clarify a few things.
He used the term "director's cut" about a year ago in a post. It was not used for the first time a few days ago as I asserted. I didn't recall that term being used. It's been a while.
What is missing from mclv isn't historical data, it is stuff that goes at the end of the story line. This is the only mc with a story and that's what is still not there.
Brent continues to work on the update a little at a time and it will probably be completed sometime in the future and will be posted. If for some reason it never gets done, then that's the way it goes.

As far as I am concerned the matter is really closed. This is my last post on the subject and hopefully the same goes for everybody else.

We can now move on to more pleasant subjects......like oobs. [:-]

w00t! Way to go Brent! And a very good post, rich. I am glad you guys chatted and solved the issue for both of you.



Goblin