Paradox signs Mad Minute Games

[ravinhood]

Wishing Paradox ill will is like killing one of the last 3 women alive on earth. She may or may not be uglier than the other 2, but there just aren't enough of them to go around...

Lol Veldor think, if there are only 3 women alive on earth, they will all be dead within a day.

[Marc von Martial]

ORIGINAL: Lava

If you had kept up on their forums, you would have seen they were even working on Christmas.

Oh, that's normal hours in this business. Nothing unusual or uncommon [;)]

[Marc von Martial]

ORIGINAL: Confederate_Beagler

Ok, I might get gang-raped here because I am part of the MMG team, but I don't plan on tossing any spam. Ok, maybe a spoonfull.[;)]

Don't worry [;)]

[Confederate_Beagler]

ORIGINAL: ravinhood
Actually they didn't, their initial promise was to deliver a game with ALL the major battles of the Civil War in one package for around $60. Of course that changed when the cha ching of "hey lets just sell modules of the game and make oodles more money". So, now we get Bull Run, Bull Run again, basically more BS. lol By the time they get to Gettysburg their engine will be as old as Paradox's old and used engine from the origional EU.

Actually it turned out to be impossible for a tiny team of part-time volunteers to produce a quality game covering every battle of the Civil War. Now, if we being the capitalist swine that we are, can exploit the working masses enough with this new title, perhaps we can expand the team and start doing bigger chunks of the war.

[*Lava*]

ORIGINAL: Marc Schwanebeck

ORIGINAL: Lava

If you had kept up on their forums, you would have seen they were even working on Christmas.

Oh, that's normal hours in this business. Nothing unusual or uncommon [;)]

[X(]

That's why you folks are crazy!

Ray (alias Lava)

[Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Lava

Hey,

Well sorry if I PO anybody, but yes I am a fanatic for the game, so please excuse my over enthusiasm.

Getting back to the announcement.. what Paradox brings to MMG is some real muscle in the marketing department. Here's a few links I found following their announcement of the game:


http://www.dreamstation.cc/news/video_games/id8706

http://www.paradoxplaza.com/news.asp?Ar ... &Page=News

http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php ... ad&order=0

http://www.gamepressure.com/news.asp?ID=21214

http://www.wargamer.com/news/news.asp?nid=2926

http://www.combatsim.com/

http://www.gamershell.com/news/27106.html

http://www.gamestar.de/news/pc-spiele/strategie/30509/

http://www.spel2.se/nyheter/2005/12/29/2798.html

http://games.tiscali.cz/news/news.asp?id=16524

http://www.gbase.ch/global/news/23970.html

Things sure seem to be starting off in the right direction.

And that is exactly the kinda thing MMG needs.

Ray (alias Lava)

Hey Lava,

We get it you like the game, you can stop spamming now [8|]

[ravinhood]

ORIGINAL: Confederate_Beagler

ORIGINAL: ravinhood
Actually they didn't, their initial promise was to deliver a game with ALL the major battles of the Civil War in one package for around $60. Of course that changed when the cha ching of "hey lets just sell modules of the game and make oodles more money". So, now we get Bull Run, Bull Run again, basically more BS. lol By the time they get to Gettysburg their engine will be as old as Paradox's old and used engine from the origional EU.

Actually it turned out to be impossible for a tiny team of part-time volunteers to produce a quality game covering every battle of the Civil War. Now, if we being the capitalist swine that we are, can exploit the working masses enough with this new title, perhaps we can expand the team and start doing bigger chunks of the war.

Shouldn't make statements you can't comply with or keep then.

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: Veldor
So just play the games and have fun.

Veldor, I agree with you on most things, and find your commentary useful (and this post's remarks about the utility of hexes is right on the money) - except it's here where we part company.

I don't have time to play all the games. Most people can't afford to buy them all. There's junk out there. I want good designers to produce good games. Some take it seriously. Some don't. Some deserve to survive (that is, be supported by the buying public). Some don't. I want to see a good shakeout through a healthy marketplace "natural selection" process. For example, that silly Polish vaporware site purporting to be the front for a new strategic WWII Pacific game that looks like an embellishment of Empire Deluxe needs to go away. A lot of the junk Matrix has picked up needs to get lost. Let's have some improvement in areas and ways that will create demand among the buying public - and let's get serious about marketing.

I have never been persuaded that wargames cannot appeal to a mass market. The right designs in the right hands can make a lot of money. This new American Revolution game that's due out in January is intriguing. It doesn't appear to have a lot of innovative game mechanics or graphics, but it looks really nice on the screen. Problem is, it's not going to get the kind of marketing juice that was behind Civ, SimCity, and most of the other highly successful (in terms of sales) series of games out there. One surprise winner is GalCiv. I don't have a lot of the answers, but it seems to me that designers, developers, and marketers can learn from what has succeeded in non-wargaming contexts and bring, if not the same sales numbers, at least significant improvement, to mainstream wargaming. I'd like to see that. I don't want more mediocre games that sell maybe 5,000 copies, leaving everyone shrugging their shoulders, wringing their hands, and saying, "Well, it's just the nature of the market. It's a niche. There's nothing we can do."

I can't agree that it's just a matter of the entire bunch of computer wargamers in the world throwing money at every title that makes an appearance. This "Mad Minute" thing provides an example of how uninterested I can be as a consumer. What's it got going for it? What innovations and improvements over "let's throw together a bunch of code and see what happens" are there? Where's the beef (apologies to Clara Peller and George Herbert Walker Bush).

I just can't get it up over this (and while you're killing off that third woman, the other two and I will be out behind the barn having a good old time).

[Sarge]

From the MMG forums [X(]

Hi!

The truth is that there are certain peope who advocate boycotting Paradox, no matter who the game designer is.

In the case of MMG, that is unreasonable.

If you are truely interested in helping out these guys, we all need to speek up against such a "broad brush" mentality in any forums in which we encounter it.

Matrix.. for example.

Ray (alias Lava)

Call it anything you wish, this is nothing but a spam campaign.

[*Lava*]

ORIGINAL: Sarge

From the MMG forums [X(]

Hi!

The truth is that there are certain peope who advocate boycotting Paradox, no matter who the game designer is.

Matrix.. for example.

Ray (alias Lava)

Call it anything you wish, this is nothing but a spam campaign.

Look Bud,

I ain't no stranger to these boards.

If the shoe fits.. where it.

Kewl!

Caio!

Ray (alias Lava)

[Adam@madminutegames.com]

ORIGINAL: ravinhood
Actually they didn't, their initial promise was to deliver a game with ALL the major battles of the Civil War in one package for around $60.

Where did you see that? I'm not familiar with anything like that. The closest thing I can think of is that we said our goal was to be able to play the entire Civil War by combining the tactical & strategic aspects in a innovative way...without doing a disservice to either aspect of gameplay. We said that designing a game on that scale would entail building it in modules (battles) where we add more features and refinements with each iteration. And that's what we're doing.

We do this part-time because we have full-time jobs. Please let me know when the "oodles of money" thing starts to happen so we can work on this series in the light of day. Until then...2nd Manassas anyone? [;)]

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: Adam@madminutegames.com

ORIGINAL: ravinhood
We do this part-time because we have full-time jobs. Please let me know when the "oodles of money" thing starts to happen so we can work on this series in the light of day. Until then...2nd Manassas anyone? [;)]

Well, I suggest that you not quit your day job if "Second Manassas" is the best you got to start the oodle train running.

[ravinhood]

[Where did you see that? I'm not familiar with anything like that.]

Bet you thought this would be deleted from The Wargamer by now huh?

Sadly these guys have copped out on us for more money in the long term. Have you read the latest on there site?

http://www.madminutegames.com/

quote:

Doing the entire Civil War became more than our small team could handle. We've been developing this engine for over 3 years and really wanted to get something out (should've added OF IT). Our original plans had been an elaborate $60 game, basically our dream game. We realized that we were shooting too high for our first release, and decided to tone it down to something more manageable. So our first release is going to be just the 1st Bull Run battle. There's going to be plenty of other stuff in there to take up all of your time. But as far as historical battles go, we are just doing the 1st Bull Run at a lower price point than we originally planned. Not sure what it will be yet. We want to get you our engine so that you can finally see what we've been talking about. We will still be developing the our dream game, but we want to get something out there to the loyal fans that have been emailing us over the last year.

We are a very small team and were reaching too high for our first release. We still plan on releasing this winter, not sure on an exact date yet. We are very close and did not want to make everyone wait another 1 or 2 years for a product. We want to make sure that whatever we release is a top quality product, so that's what we have been focusing on. [unquote]


@ Pasternakski, lol "keep your day job" that's a good one.

Truth be said about the CWBR game. You don't really do a whole awful lot. You "watch" the game more than you actually play it. I guess you could say the AI is good since "it plays itself moreso than it plays against you". The more I have played it, the more I started to notice this. {one example, I just wanted to play one artillery group, but, everytime I would unlimber them the AI would limber them and start to move them where IT wanted them to go and that was smack dab out in front where they got slaughtered eventually because of this silliness} It's like watching a movie and you jump into a "scene". But, the AI has way too much control in many situations. It's a $20 "VALUE" game as Activision promoted it. Fair price for what one got. But, $40?? little much for basically the same thing, same engine and near same if not same "battlefield". Typical Paradox type games, especially "same engine" part. I still prefer Sid Meiers Gettysburg/Antietam to MM's. Lots more activity by the player and it does have a mutliplayer feature.

Oh and 2ndM "doesn't even have a multiplayer feature". Now most grogs will be turned off by this and a LOT of the mainstream since this is their bread n butter for just about all games. Many want BOTH included in games nowadays, single player AI and multiplayer features. $40 for a game without a multiplayer feature?? Might as well go back to playing Commodore 64 games. {Note: a multiplayer feature isn't a must for myself, but, I've seen the rants when a game doesn't have a multiplayer feature and a mulitplayer campaign game}

And if you think the spam is bad here Pat, you should see them over at The Wargamer. They are no different from the "typcial Paradox" fans that start numerous threads on the same game when it could easily all go into one.

You do see a lot of forum hoppers coming into praise their beloved games from other forums at the Matrixgames forums though (must be they KNOW Matrixgames gets the most audience) . And I certainly don't forum hop other forums and tout how great Matrixgames, HPS, Sharpnel and other games I like are. Maybe I should triple thread Ron Dockals Schwerpunkt game AGW. Nah, one thread is sufficient when a game is "good", if you have to spam 3 or more threads, there must be some doubt about the game.

Main thing I'm not going to wish them good luck or bad luck, my position still stands. I'm not going to support "any" Paradox published only games retail.

[Hertston]

Quote acknowledged, but having played the first game I don't really see that the engine could ever have delivered something that would cover the entire Civil War... and nor, reasonably, should it have been expected. MMG may have aimed too high, but I can't really see recognising the impossible as being a cop-out. Far bigger developers than MMG have done that.. and released a complete turd rather than an excellent game in the end. I was surprised the first game didn't include both 1st and 2nd Mannassas, though, at that was certainly do-able and would have been a very good combo. Still, in view of the price and the excellent game that was delivered I'm not complaining.

I agree 100% with Ravinhood about the lack of multiplayer. That is something that really must be addressed by the next game, IMHO. MP is expected and makes a game a far better all round product. Some game designs only suit SP only, but this is not one of them. If MMG don't have the coding expertise in that area, they need to hire it or Paradox needs to provide it.

[Adam@madminutegames.com]

Ravinwood,

I see what your talking about now and can understand how it might be misinterpreted. Our apologies if you were led astray, perhaps we could have said it in a clearer way. Either way, I don't see what MMG is doing is a "cop-out" given our resources and situation.

The Take Command series clearly isn't your cup of tea. That's cool...but there are other people here who enjoyed the game tremendously and are interested in 2nd Manassas. I don't think that informing people as to the status of the 2nd Manassas release is spamming. So, every now and then we'll keep the wargamers on the various forums updated on Take Command.

@ Pasternakski, lol "keep your day job" that's a good one.

...yes, a good one.

[Sarge]

@Adam

This whole thread was in no attempt to bash on MMG or your game engine/titles. On the contrary most post have nothing but prase (well deseved I might add) for MMG.

The call to arms V's Matrix on your forums is a result [;)]

If you are truely interested in helping out these guys, we all need to speek up against such a "broad brush" mentality in any forums in which we encounter it.

Matrix.. for example.

[Adam@madminutegames.com]

Thanks, Sarge. I appreciate your words.

MMG has no beef with anyone at Matrix or any other forum. We are just trying to get the word out to the people who enjoy Take Command and give them info on the upcoming game. I don't really understand a good portion of the barbs that guys are tossing back and forth..and I certainly don't think it helps anything. People defend the things they love and that's noble and should be applauded. We all can be a bit more accepting of the differences between us because we all love games and want the best for the genre.

Wargamers need to kinda have tolerance because these kinds of games are darn near impossible to get major publishers interested. It's very hard to get any kind of historical game into retail. So, I hope that you or anyone else realize that we are all wargamers and forgive others for their passionate responses....cuz in the big picture we're all standing on the same sideline!

[Zap]

In terms of if a person is a "grog"-well, how much history do you read? Probably the more you do-the more of one you are. The more you demand from your games in their fidelity to history, the more "grog"like you probably are.

I would say I'm a specialized grog. I've done a lot of reading on the American Civil War history

[Sarge]

Hey Zap,

Have you played this first MMG title, if you are a ACW buff its the title for you [;)]

PS: I am still waiting for that CMAK PBEM [:D]

[ravinhood]

Have you played this first MMG title, if you are a ACW buff its the title for you

Now now Sarge you're not being fair to the other games out there just as good.

1) Sid Meiers Gettysburg/Antietam

2) Hunters ACW

3) SSI's Civil War series: Gettysburg, Shilo, Antietam and Chickamauga

4) Talonsofts Civil War series: Same as above.

5) HPS Civil War series: They have quite a few from the Western Theater, this is unique since most mostly cover only the Eastern Theater, they recently release Campaigns Gettysburg.

6) North & South (comical/arcadelike version campaign game of the Civil War).

8) Blue Powder & Grey Smoke (bet many don't remember this one)

9) Lee vs Grant

10) The Blue & the Grey. (Not exactly sure about this title, it was one of Impressions games of the Civil War).

11) No Greater Glory

12) Oh and Civil War:Battle of Bull Run commonly known as Take Command 1861: Bull Run version/module. Oh wait you mentioned that one didn't you. heh

13) Honorable Mention: "Age of Rifles"