Quick update on development progress.

[brisd]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

I'll never understand how anyone can complain about $70. I paid $80 for War in Russia (that is, the 8-bit version for the Atari) in the mid 80's

Same here. But some people are spoiled by piracy and cheap games. I am curious what World At War will be priced at? It will be more mass-market. I agree with Mr Frag, I'd pay $100 for this game, maybe not pre-order it without some independant reviews but still buy it. [8D]

[freeboy]

I agree this looks like a timeless classic... piracy really is a sore point, my favorite anti pirate rant is the China market.. where all kinds of things are copied and very lax enforcment. mext is the file sharers.. music etc... code breaking and stealing games or others' works should be punished, but not as sevearly as those who profit by illigal selling of illigal things... just an fyi watching TORO TORO TORO last night gave me an idea, could the US fleat and airplanes on a random start be set to be alerted at pearl? Would I need the to us the editor?

[Mr.Frag]

Perhaps they should just go the online game route. You pay $20 for the game, then $10 a month for the right to run the game. Throw in the first month free, but after that you need to keep coming back and paying more forever!

Lets see, that would bring the price up to (12 months x 5 years x $10) - $10 (free month) + initial $20.

Hey it's cheap! only $610! [:D]

Other saving grace ... no piracy at all. You swipe a copy, it busts whoever donated it and dies after 30 days.

[freeboy]

online gaming that is a pay as you go, as opposed to a forum based free service like matrix sponsered bhq are not my thing, very pricy in the long run..
Frag, are you by any chance being sarcastic?

[Admiral DadMan]

Ok, Bill Parcells time:

"I apologize in advance if I offend somebody..."

QUIT BITCHING ABOUT THE PRICE FOR GOODNESS SAKE. ALL THESE REPLIES ARE FILLING UP MY EMAIL. LET'S GET BACK TO TALKING ABOUT THE GAME.[:D]

I buy maybe 2 or 3 games in a YEAR and play the hell out of them. UV caused many a bleary-eyed morinings. Think I paid 60 or 70 bucks for that puppy, and I got my money's worth, just ask my wife [:D].

Consider this: In addition to the game, you also get a full-featured editor. How many of us bought Carriers at War for $40 USD, and then bought the editor ($30 USD) on top of that? And then CaWII? I loved that game so much I ended up hating it in the end because I wanted more.

So, think of WitP costing you $45 and the editor costing $25. It takes you right to $70.

I'm going to stop reading posts in this thread because... well just because, damn it.

It's a fair court. (and no talking to the audience.)

[Mr.Frag]

Frag, are you by any chance being sarcastic?

who me? [:D]

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: brisd

Same here. But some people are spoiled by piracy and cheap games.

Then i have the web site for them [;)]

http://www.cheapass.com/

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: freeboy

, could the US fleat and airplanes on a random start be set to be alerted at pearl? Would I need the to us the editor?

already done....select the "variable start" toggle.....one of the options is an alerted Pearl harbor.....

[Mr.Frag]

one of the options is an alerted Pearl harbor.....

And behind door number two is the "OMG!!!! I lost both Allied CV's!!!!" [:D]

No free rides here, sorry.

[freeboy]

Losing both cv's sounds about right, alerted pearl might save some of those beloved bb's[:D]
does the ijn have 3cvl at game start and 6 cv.. could some of thesee be used to attack sanfransisco, or is that too far for the first turn rule?

[denisonh]

TORO TORO TORO sounds like a bunch of bull to me......[:D]

ORIGINAL: freeboy

I agree this looks like a timeless classic... piracy really is a sore point, my favorite anti pirate rant is the China market.. where all kinds of things are copied and very lax enforcment. mext is the file sharers.. music etc... code breaking and stealing games or others' works should be punished, but not as sevearly as those who profit by illigal selling of illigal things... just an fyi watching TORO TORO TORO last night gave me an idea, could the US fleat and airplanes on a random start be set to be alerted at pearl? Would I need the to us the editor?

[freeboy]

lol.. is it TORA TORA TORA? oops

[freeboy]

The new spanish armada.. toro toro toro

[Nikademus]

why do i suddenly have an image of mass squadrons of lawn mowers appearing over the skies of Pearl Harbor....?

[Mr.Frag]

Losing both cv's sounds about right, alerted pearl might save some of those beloved bb's

Oh no, don't get that idea, you *still* loose some BB's ... The CV's go down during the afternoon phase. The morning phase *still* hits the BB's [:D]

You can't make the west coast with the speed boost on turn 1. You also can't make Efate, Noumea, PM, or any of the other places you might think of trying.

It is to simulate ships are were already loaded and on their way. You can't even make the back side of Borneo.

[ZOOMIE1980]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

On the other hand Frag will pay any price.. or will he be rewarded for his faithful service with a free copy?

I joined the beta program to cure some of those *I hate UV* bugs that always cost me CV's coupled with some bugs with fast transports that drove both Leo & I nuts.

The reality is that 80% of the folks in this forum will buy WitP, 20% probably will not and wait until a pirate copy surfaces. Matrix may sell another couple of thousand copies outside the forum, but thats about it.

The average sales for wargames is generally less then 10,000 copies. This being in the super grog catagory will probably halve that number.

At $70 x 5,000 we have $350,000. 4-5 people working for 2 years = 35,000 to 43,750 a year.

I don't know about you, but thats not exactly in the high catagory. Thats just paying the guys to do the work. Show me where the profit comes from?

As far as me getting a free copy, not going to happen, i'll be buying a couple copies to keep these guys in business.

Yes, at those comp rates, doing these games is a labor of love.... a lot like teaching school or being career military....

[ZOOMIE1980]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Perhaps they should just go the online game route. You pay $20 for the game, then $10 a month for the right to run the game. Throw in the first month free, but after that you need to keep coming back and paying more forever!

Lets see, that would bring the price up to (12 months x 5 years x $10) - $10 (free month) + initial $20.

Hey it's cheap! only $610! [:D]

Other saving grace ... no piracy at all. You swipe a copy, it busts whoever donated it and dies after 30 days.

This server idea, is a pretty good one, actually. Some of you may remember a massive-multiplayer, turn based war/conquest game game that a group named WolfPack did a while back called "Empire". Pretty cheesy little game but the model was a nice one, kind of takeoff from the EverQuest thing. They used a series of servers and had lots of downloadable "clients". It was an open source game. At first it was a text only game, but eventually one could get GUI clients for Windows.

Of course, for a game like this it would have to have a completely rewritten data handling system, probably an SQL based one, and a pretty sophisticated comm layer coded with modern compression techniques. But it would be vastly superior to PBEM games and you could have 30 day freebie logons with limited, free, downloadable GUI clients or hell, just make the whole Client side a HTML/Javascript or a Java app so it runs anywhere someone has access to a browser/JVM.... Then have a nominal $7-10 per month subscription rate.....

[ZOOMIE1980]

ORIGINAL: denisonh

TORO TORO TORO sounds like a bunch of bull to me......[:D]

Sound like an attack of the lawn mowers to me....

[kaleun]

Considering the length of the turns, the length of the game, I would not buy thisd game if it was one of those pay as you go kind of games. I would be concerned about the site that runs it going under.
On the other hand, I would pay $100 for the game. Probably $110... well may be even $150 but I would want a map with it[8|]

[GameTester]

$70 is very reasonable for a game with this depth. The serious wargamer will get many hundreds of hours of play out of the thing. Really, it's a bargain.

For the non-serious, it is probably best if you saved your money and bought something else. Remember, it will take a few weeks just to figure out how to start playing.