Refund Possible?

[2ndACR]

 Well, flaming back will get neither of us anywhere. I went thru the same thing as you with MOO3. And that was vaporware within about 1 month. Have yet to see a Matrix title go down that road. Keep the faith.

MOO3 experience is the reason I have stuck to Matrix titles.

[Sigh]

Well I dont feel that past titles justify anything. I could also name games that weren't this buggy to begin with

It IS great that the developers are at least fixing things though. Ill give them that. Its just that this game (all matrix games) are EXTREMELY expensive.. so I want TOP quality from the get go. Im living on a budget right now.

Btw: I love the games vision and im having fun despite it being (in my eyes) unplayable.  Ive found ways to kind of work around some of the "quirks" (that are in my eyes abominable constructs from the depths of hell) and am enjoying alot of the game play.

It really needs a lot of ironing out though. I have fun for about 30 mins and a bug pops up that destroys the gameplay for me. Or my ship fly's into a black hole

Not to mention i havnt played long enough to see the balance issues

[hermanhum]

ORIGINAL: Sigh

Well I dont feel that past titles justify anything. I could also name games that weren't this buggy to begin with

For the sake of comparison and perspective, could you name some of those titles that you felt met with your expectations?

[Sigh]

Ok I was about to name a bunch of commercial titles and then remembered "AI Wars". Single Programmer.. Same Scope... (Kinda)- Similar Gameplay.... It Works. (even done in the same language i think )

I never played the very first version and im sure there were some "quirks" but im almost positive it wasnt broken like this (currently) is.

And heres the kicker: IT COST 20$ WHEN IT CAME OUT (15 now) and gets the same support that you guys claim Matrix gives.

If Distant Worlds cost 20$ i would be giving suggestions and naming bugs. Not ranting. But sorry its triple the price for 10 times the frustration.

I do like distant worlds gameplay more though (when it works) but thats not the point (im sure others like AI Wars more.. Its a good game). The point is simply: If your going to charge me 60$ then i want a working title. I can deal with bugs... But do i want to babysit my fleet that's getting shredded by a single pirate because it wont fire back? NO i don't

No this isnt supposed to be advertisement for another game (i read the rules). But i think its a perfect example.



For the record i wouldn't refund this now given the chance.. i want to see how it turns out after the next billion patches [;)]

edit: Ohhhhhhhhh it also had a DEMO. You know those things that let you test a game before you buy it? Thats also i reason i got (am) overly mad. I just feel cheated.

edit: (in fact i reaaaaaaly keep thinking that this game was inspired by AI wars very similar in some aspects ^^. Not that that is a bad thing. I do the same when thinking of ideas for my projects Could just be coincidence though)

[HsojVvad]

Somebody needs to complain. I have been complaining about this for the last 10 years and more. A game should never be patched after release except for problems becauae of different machine configurations. But for some reason the computer gaming industry got lucky and it's an accepted practice to release game early and patch later. I am not saying this is the case for DW, but it happened to my favorite game series. MOO 3 is a perfect example of game being released early and had to be patched later and then abandoned even when promised more would be done. Also Activisions, Call 2 Power 1 and 2. I love those games, but there is no excuse as to why those games were buggy on release.

Even Civ IV was a crappy product on release. It took a lot of patches to make that game fun and work. Firaxis lied about the game specs for the game to run. At least they made patchs to make the game run even though I had the recomended spec, not minimum specs. No excuse for this at all. Shamelessly, we are all to blame for accepting this kind of behaviour. I guess that is why I buy mostly console games now. I am tired of buying a game now and patching later. At least with DW, I found it very playable as soon as it "came out of the box". Ok now box, but as soon as I installed it, version 1.00 is very playable.

[Fishman]

ORIGINAL: Sigh

1. Why give components random names that are impossible to identify (without actually learning the whole tech tree by heart). It may seem super creative when you name something "Talassos AR5" or "MegaTron Z4" but how about thinking about the PLAYER who has no freaking clue what that is supposed to be.

Well, to be fair, it's not a real problem in this game, because every new technolergy that isn't a racial special is always an upgrade, and if it wasn't an upgrade, you couldn't be offered it in a trade. So...GIMME! The Megatron one is actually the only "trap".

ORIGINAL: Sigh

Select location for station, select space station from list, place station, "Automation" takes over the rest.

This would be awfully convenient for those cases where you really don't care who does it as long as someone does. Rather than having to give orders on a unit level, it would be nice to handle things in a format not unlike Majesty: Build this, kill that, check this thing out, etc., without really caring WHO does it. For instance, if I see a pirate, I can say, "Kill this thing", and the game will automatically find a nearby warship to take up this task, without my having to stop, find out which warship is in range and free, find out that he needs more fuel first, get fuel, find out that the pirate has left by that point...it would be nice to just be able to say, "Kill this thing", and someone appropriate will get on it at the next available opportunity. If I WANT to order a specific ship to do a specific thing, I can still do that, but let's face it, most of the time, you don't really care, you just want it dead.

As for buying anything, always ignore any positive comments you see. Anything positive you see is just shills who are trying to sell the product, nothing more than lies and propaganda, so ignore them and go straight for the negative comments. Understanding that there is no such thing as "good", only "less bad", is the first step towards enlightenment. Anytime I see a review that has nothing bad to say, I ignore it as worthless shill propaganda. Just as there is really no such thing as "cold", only the absence of heat, there is no such thing as "good", only the absence of suck.

[Erik Rutins]

Hello Sigh,

I'm sorry you were disappointed with your experience. I think we can agree that how much someone likes or dislikes a game is a subjective, rather than objective thing. This is why we don't offer refunds for disliking a game, though we will refund if we can't get the game to work on your system.

ORIGINAL: Sigh 1. Why give components random names that are impossible to identify (without actually learning the whole tech tree by heart). It may seem super creative when you name something "Talassos AR5" or "MegaTron Z4"  but how about thinking about the PLAYER who has no freaking clue what that is supposed to be. I guess MegaTron is the better one since it has mega in it... This is problematic during both Ship design and ESPECIALLY during diplomatic trading. (even more so when your offered something for a crap load of cash). During trading at least it tells you what kind of component it is (wow) but not the level. When your offered something.. well you get to guess. Would right clicking on the object to get some info be to much to ask? Would adding some sort of description to the name be possible like "Shields 4".. Or allow the player to hover the mouse over the item to at least get the research type/level? It doesnt help that the manual doesnt even have a list..

It's very easy to view the component details during ship design. Just click on the component guide button. I agree with you on Diplomacy and we plan to add a way to get tech info during a diplomacy offer. In my book these are not severe issues, but I understand that for your playstyle, they are a source of frustration.

Including some kind of documented list in the future is also a good idea and we'll plan to do that.

2. Automation vs Micromanagement.. Yeah.. I like how the automation is advertised as if it were something special but really all it does if give you the choice between "MANAGE EVERY SINGLE ASPECT OF X" or  "YOU GET TO DEAL WITH EVERY LITTLE INANE DETAIL OF X" There just arn't enough options. Not that it should be like Space Empires V where deciding what gets automated is a game in itself but whats the big deal? Either you let the game play itself or you manage every inane detail. Basically Automation vs Non-Automation does not work seamlessly... See next complaint:

I have a tough time figuring out what you are looking for here. To address your comment specifically, you actually have "Manual", "Automated" and "Suggest" for many of the options, so there is a middle ground between running everything and automating everything. Since you can turn the automation on and off or set it to suggest for each area individually, there's a lot of flexibility over what you want to automate, down to the individual ship level.

Most of the feedback we've received has been extremely positive on the automation - there are things that can still be improved and tweaked, but you seem to have a problem with the fundamental implementation rather than just a few parts of it, which is the first such complaint I've seen.

Since I disagree with you fairly completely on this point, I'd like to know how you would suggest we improve it. I accept that you don't think we did a good job on this, but I'm not clear on what you think we should have done instead.

3. Micromanagement.. This is where my forum nick comes from.. For a game that advertises the automation this is way beyond acceptable.. So If I want to build a station somewhere this is what i have to do:

I have to find a constructor ship (yes i know there is a menu for this).. Leave the selection menu.. send it to its destination to build. (maybe even have to zoom in to set it exactly where it should go)... wait for it to get half there.. learn that it has run out of fuel... tell it to refuel at the next refueling station watch it IGNORE the resupply station that is right next to it and zoom off to some other system.. refuel... tell it to go build that damn station... repeat. All the while im being attacked constantly by pirates and whatnot :rolleyes: Also when this retard of a constructor is finished with its cue it is no longer set to automatic. So if i should forget about it (while doing the same with some other constructor) well.. too bad.. Its a waste of a ship/maintenance

This example tells me that you're not really using the game as intended. All you really need to do is open the expansion planner, pick the planet/moon/asteroid you want to mine and click on the "queue construction ship" button for that. Your automated construction ship will go there and there's a good chance if you have enough Escorts and Frigates that it will get an automated Escort to ward off pirates or other threats. If it's automated, it will take care of its own fuel and gather up the resources it needs, all without bothering you. It will also stay on automatic after it's finished, it will not become manual unless you manually give it orders.

Select location for station, select space station from list, place station, "Automation" takes over the rest.

That's exactly how it works for me, using the Expansion Planner.

If your going to sucker me into paying 60 dollars by advertising this oh so great automation at least make it worthwhile..

As a counter-suggestion, perhaps you should try asking a few more questions before making up your mind about the game?

4. Several other things including: My ships entering enemy territory for reasons like refuiling.. and a war erupting because of it, The hassle of finding and placing the correct ships into a fleet... bla bla and so on and so on

I've never had a war erupt because of that. The ship trespass issue is generally a very minor hit. I'm guessing this empire was already quite upset with you for other reasons and happened to declare war when you were trespassing.

Finding ships and putting them in a fleet is very easy using the sortable Ships screen where you can click-select multiple ships and add them all to a fleet with one more click, then use the Fleet screen to tell them to refuel which will assemble them in one location.

Thats just a sample of what is really getting to me. Frankly I dont see why i should even be wasting my time typing this anymore as ill prob get a lot of fanboys giving me worthless "explanations" or workarounds because they cant admit that a game they like is subpar.

This is quite an attitude. I respect that you are frustrated, but from what you describe so far I don't think you've actually figured out everything that the game can and does do to make your life easier and reduce your frustration. While we are always willing to make improvements in future updates, the quickest help I can offer is to point out when the game already does something that you're looking for.

I'm still giving this a chance.. because as said it seems like it could be a decent game (And because I paid 65 dollars..). Of course that means if i start getting into it a bit ill prob notice other things like: Your empire falling apart once you hit a certain size because of rebellions that always happen (read about that one)

Don't believe everything you read - size alone does not cause any empires to fall apart. There are many things that can cause that, but simple size is not one.

, prob some terrible economic balance, AI is prob retarded (it already seems very random using diplomacy...), Memory leaks (although i guess the patches so far have helped there). Maybe I sound very unfairly pessimistic but the game is taking on this pattern.. So i have no reason to think otherwise.

I think this is glass half-empty/half-full issue. You are reading forum threads and gathering only negative impressions while apparently missing all the positive ones. I'm seeing a different pattern - issues are reported and they are fixed, improvements are made and overall the game continues to improve rapidly. Most customers are happy with DW and getting happier, from what I can see.

Well.. I've read that Matrix Games is known to release unfinished products so MAYBE the patches will fix this game up. I'm hoping so.

This seems like a gratuitous dig to me. It's definitely in our definition of non-constructive criticism, or "bashing" since you provide nothing to backup your claim. In my opinion, we do better than the majority of game companies in terms of QA on our product. We take responsibility for any issues that get through to release and do our best to work with the developer to quickly resolve them. We have games that have received post-release improvements up to five years after release, not because they were unfinished but because of the fact that we support our community as much as our developers.

Regards,

- Erik

[Fishman]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I'm sorry you were disappointed with your experience. I think we can agree that how much someone likes or dislikes a game is a subjective, rather than objective thing. This is why we don't offer refunds for disliking a game, though we will refund if we can't get the game to work on your system.

Well, that is one policy, an understandable one. Others offer a policy in which any cause for dissatisfaction with a product is grounds for a refund, generally in the belief that people generally do not ask for refunds unless the product is unusable, as individually defective items are typically replaced rather than refunded.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

This example tells me that you're not really using the game as intended. All you really need to do is open the expansion planner, pick the planet/moon/asteroid you want to mine and click on the "queue construction ship" button for that.

The expansion planner is a good way of doing so, but tends to offer no information about the actual abundance of a resource, so you may have just queued a constructor to construct a mining station on a place with 20% yield, and tends to provide little context as to where it is or what the environment there is like, so you probably just sent a construction ship to die at the hands of 50 Kaltors. There is also the tendency of the expansion planner to queue orders on the nearest construction ship, so ONE construction ship receives a dozen orders while the rest are left totally idle after their current task finishes. Lastly, the system is ineffectual for queuing non-mining bases, so if you wanted to build resorts, or defensive emplacements, all of the above concerns become compounded.

Using the Expansion Planner for colonizing shares similar flaws: The orders are queued on the nearest colony regardless of construction rates or queue-fullness, so most likely a half dozen colony ships are queued to be produced at some tiny new colony and will never complete within a reasonable timeframe. WORST OF ALL, the colony ships queued are not even your actual colony ship, but some made-up design that you do not want and often costs more than the design you HAVE made, or is missing critical features that will prevent it from safely reaching its destination.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Select location for station, select space station from list, place station, "Automation" takes over the rest.

That's exactly how it works for me, using the Expansion Planner.

Well, in order to use this functionality, even under optimal conditions, requires that you go into the expansion planner, a lengthy and often incomplete list, locate a planet with an inscrutable name you cannot remember, and then pick it out of the list. Most likely the user in question has spotted the desired planet visually, by seeing it as he follows the progress of an explorer ship or finding it next to one of his colonies. Given that mineable objects typically have utterly inscrutable names like AA####, having to try to find it again in a list of hundreds of similarly indecipherable objects is not exactly convenient. And, of course, there are all the attendant caveats of order-queuing, such as that orders are not balanced between constructors. If the Order Queue were maintained in a constructor-independent manner, as an empire-level "to do" list, instead of a per-ship queue, this would probably not happen.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I've never had a war erupt because of that. The ship trespass issue is generally a very minor hit.

Surely you jest. The ship trespass issue is probably the single largest factor to negative diplomatic relationships. I have seen values like -80 "your ships and colonies violate our space". This is not a "minor" hit, this is often the single largest grievance on the list. The visibility of the issue is further exacerbated by the fact that the AI treats this grievance in a manner which the human player is unable to easily grasp: Imagine that the AI does this to you: How offended are you? Probably not very. Do you even notice? Probably not. As a result, the human sees the AI as taking disproportionate offense at a "transgression" that the human is frequently completely unaware of, even if the AI were doing it to them, and therefore perceives the AI as being unreasonable.

Meanwhile, the AI gleefully performs the highly offensive act of colonizing in the human's back yard (which the game helpfully does nothing to inform you about, so you can't even SEE it happening until it is too late). If the human player is going to be able to perform some transgression that the AI is going to get bent out of shape over, the game should helpfully inform you when the AI is doing that to you, so you can share in the irritation and be offended as well, thus making the AI's behavior seem more reasonable and understandable, or spam the crap out of your beta testers, so that they will complain about the constant popups and cause you to re-evaluate whether this is really all that offensive, as your testers will complain about the game nagging them about petty crap they don't care about. If your testers find the notification of the offense more annoying than the offense itself, the alleged offense probably should not be considered all that offensive.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Fishman Well, that is one policy, an understandable one. Others offer a policy in which any cause for dissatisfaction with a product is grounds for a refund, generally in the belief that people generally do not ask for refunds unless the product is unusable, as individually defective items are typically replaced rather than refunded.

I'm not aware of any company with digital download games that offers a better policy. Take movies as another example - if the movie you paid to see is shown on time and without technical glitches, you don't get your money back if you didn't like the plot.

The expansion planner is a good way of doing so, but tends to offer no information about the actual abundance of a resource, so you may have just queued a constructor to construct a mining station on a place with 20% yield, and tends to provide little context as to where it is or what the environment there is like, so you probably just sent a construction ship to die at the hands of 50 Kaltors. There is also the tendency of the expansion planner to queue orders on the nearest construction ship, so ONE construction ship receives a dozen orders while the rest are left totally idle after their current task finishes. Lastly, the system is ineffectual for queuing non-mining bases, so if you wanted to build resorts, or defensive emplacements, all of the above concerns become compounded.

Actually, if you click on the planet in the expansion planner and click on "Select Potential Colony" or "Select Resource Target" you can see the abundance details without leaving the Expansion Planner.

Also, the display on top shows you which resources you currently do and don't have sources for and what your stocks are.

Regarding non-mining bases, those are generally built rarely enough that I haven't found it to be any issue to go to a planet and build from there, either from the map or from the colonies or construction yard screen, or to pick a construction ship and tell it where to build a resort or research base. Similarly, you can just leave a constructor automated or leave "Suggest" on and such bases will be built automatically or you will be asked if you'd like to build one.

Using the Expansion Planner for colonizing shares similar flaws: The orders are queued on the nearest colony regardless of construction rates or queue-fullness, so most likely a half dozen colony ships are queued to be produced at some tiny new colony and will never complete within a reasonable timeframe. WORST OF ALL, the colony ships queued are not even your actual colony ship, but some made-up design that you do not want and often costs more than the design you HAVE made, or is missing critical features that will prevent it from safely reaching its destination.

Regarding where colony ships are built, there is an issue that can cause too many to be queued at a single planet. We're planning to tweak that. The second part, I have no idea what you are referencing there. If you are seeing an issue there, can you please post it in a new thread?

Well, in order to use this functionality, even under optimal conditions, requires that you go into the expansion planner, a lengthy and often incomplete list, locate a planet with an inscrutable name you cannot remember, and then pick it out of the list.

I have to say that having played through entire games using the Expansion Planner, your characterization of how difficult it is just really doesn't make any sense to me.

Most likely the user in question has spotted the desired planet visually, by seeing it as he follows the progress of an explorer ship or finding it next to one of his colonies.

I usually don't try to find such things visually. I do use the expansion planner. I filter by resource and sort by distance, then click on each one so that the map in the expansion planner shows me where it is. If I want to check abundance, I use the Select button in the expansion planner to check that. It's a one stop shop for me.

If I do wander upon it on the map, I can either sort by name in the expansion planner or right click on the planet and queue a mission from there without an issue.

course, there are all the attendant caveats of order-queuing, such as that orders are not balanced between constructors. If the Order Queue were maintained in a constructor-independent manner, as an empire-level "to do" list, instead of a per-ship queue, this would probably not happen.

I find they are pretty well balanced across constructors actually, but I can see the value in an empire-level queue. Good suggestion, can you please put it in the Master Wishlist as well?

Surely you jest. The ship trespass issue is probably the single largest factor to negative diplomatic relationships. I have seen values like -80 "your ships and colonies violate our space".

That's because of the colonies, not because a ship or fleet briefly trespasses. I'm not joking, give it a try when you have no colonies sharing another empire's system.

Meanwhile, the AI gleefully performs the highly offensive act of colonizing in the human's back yard (which the game helpfully does nothing to inform you about, so you can't even SEE it happening until it is too late). If the human player is going to be able to perform some transgression that the AI is going to get bent out of shape over, the game should helpfully inform you when the AI is doing that to you, so you can share in the irritation and be offended as well, thus making the AI's behavior seem more reasonable and understandable

That's actually what the listed modifiers in the diplomacy screen are intended to communicate, so that you know what's bothering each AI empire. You may also note that on our list of improvements for the next update are some tweaks on how the AI deals with human players in this regard.

Regards,

- Erik

[Fishman]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I'm not aware of any company with digital download games that offers a better policy.

Not generally offered with games, no, although applications frequently offer a money-back guarantee for any dissatisfaction with the product. You would think that the policy would be offered more frequently for digital downloads than non, since you don't have to deal with a physical product return and restocking. Still, not really a complaint, just a point of note.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Actually, if you click on the planet in the expansion planner and click on "Select Potential Colony" or "Select Resource Target" you can see the abundance details without leaving the Expansion Planner.

If your monitor is of enormous size, yes. For those of us who use regular monitors that can actually fit on desks rather than giant plasma screens that hang from walls, that we can pick up, without the use of a forklift, not so much.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I have to say that having played through entire games using the Expansion Planner, your characterization of how difficult it is just really doesn't make any sense to me.

Yes, but you also have "Developer Tunnel Vision". Developers very easily get a tunnel-visioned view of how the game should be played. I know this because I have developed things, only to have users try to do things in a completely strange manner that I had never even thought of doing, because of developer tunnel vision. You get set in this "one true way" of playing the game, and then you encounter someone else, who has an entirely different approach to playing and manipulating the game's data and interface.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I usually don't try to find such things visually. I do use the expansion planner.

Exactly! Because you are the developer, and you made this expansion planner to do that. You haven't seriously considered that someone might visually spot a resource by chance or following something, and want to do something to it: You're used to manipulating the world from the expansion planner: That's your tool of choice. The idea that someone may do otherwise is utterly alien to your thinking, but yet, here it is: That is clearly what the user is doing and this is why he finds it frustrating.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I filter by resource and sort by distance, then click on each one so that the map in the expansion planner shows me where it is. If I want to check abundance, I use the Select button in the expansion planner to check that. It's a one stop shop for me.

And this is a fine textbook example of developer tunnel vision. You've gotten this particular scheme down so pat that you haven't considered that others might not do things precisely this way, and indeed, they can't, because they don't have the hardware you do. For instance, you use the Select Button. I can see how for you, this works great. But not everyone has a huge monitor like you! The expansion planner entirely blocks that window, and WE CAN'T SEE IT! And the map in the expansion planner? Our monitors aren't as huge as yours. That map is tiny and everything looks like a little dot, where most features of "where the hell is that" cannot be precisely identified.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

If I do wander upon it on the map, I can either sort by name in the expansion planner or right click on the planet and queue a mission from there without an issue.

It is possible to do this, and indeed, it seems the expansion planner is your pet tool. It's a good tool. But it's not perfect. For one, it's hideously slow and cluttered if the list of potential objects is huge. And was that planet I just saw HX-521, or HY-588? Let me go check. *close expansion planner again, double check, reopen, watch it recompute the list, find another planet that happens to look very similar in name*. It's a good tool. But not perfect.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I find they are pretty well balanced across constructors actually, but I can see the value in an empire-level queue. Good suggestion, can you please put it in the Master Wishlist as well?

Yeah, I'll do that. Then it will end up forgotten like most of the other things in the list, heh.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

That's because of the colonies, not because a ship or fleet briefly trespasses. I'm not joking, give it a try when you have no colonies sharing another empire's system.

Not joking either. I have guys who are ABSOLUTELY FUMING at me purely over ships.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

That's actually what the listed modifiers in the diplomacy screen are intended to communicate, so that you know what's bothering each AI empire. You may also note that on our list of improvements for the next update are some tweaks on how the AI deals with human players in this regard.

Which isn't my point. My point is not that we cannot see that the AI is taking offense at the act. My point is that the player is unable to empathize with the problem or really understand WHY it bugs the AI so. He may not even be consciously aware he is causing it, so he will just suddenly find the AI fuming over some slight that he was not even aware of. It is like having a roommate that takes severe personal issues with some minor thing that you happen to do: You can't even really remember doing it and probably not even consciously aware of it, but for some reason, that thing you do, whether it's leaving your socks on the floor or not presoaking the dishes, it REALLY BUGS THE CRAP OUT OF HIM and he's incredibly strident about it at random points. Worst of all, he does it, too! (And then blames YOU for it!) Plus, he does that really annoying thing where he ___________.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Fishman Not generally offered with games, no, although applications frequently offer a money-back guarantee for any dissatisfaction with the product. You would think that the policy would be offered more frequently for digital downloads than non, since you don't have to deal with a physical product return and restocking. Still, not really a complaint, just a point of note.

Understood. Actually, it's typical for digital download stores to offer _no_ refund because there's no way to really "return" a digital download.

If your monitor is of enormous size, yes. For those of us who use regular monitors that can actually fit on desks rather than giant plasma screens that hang from walls, that we can pick up, without the use of a forklift, not so much.

Ok, sorry about that. This works on both my test systems, but the lowest resolution I have is 1440x900.

Yes, but you also have "Developer Tunnel Vision". Developers very easily get a tunnel-visioned view of how the game should be played. I know this because I have developed things, only to have users try to do things in a completely strange manner that I had never even thought of doing, because of developer tunnel vision. You get set in this "one true way" of playing the game, and then you encounter someone else, who has an entirely different approach to playing and manipulating the game's data and interface.

Sure, I understand how that happens. With that said, if the way that I use works very well (for me) and is the "intended" way to get the most out of the game I think I should share it with others, no?

Exactly! Because you are the developer, and you made this expansion planner to do that.

I'm not the actual developer (that's Elliot), but I did work with him throughout development so the game definitely reflects his vision, my vision and the vision of the testers. We did try to accomodate different play styles with the screens and menus, but pre-release pretty much everyone agreed that the Expansion Planner was a serious time saver.

You haven't seriously considered that someone might visually spot a resource by chance or following something, and want to do something to it: You're used to manipulating the world from the expansion planner: That's your tool of choice. The idea that someone may do otherwise is utterly alien to your thinking, but yet, here it is: That is clearly what the user is doing and this is why he finds it frustrating.

But we did - I mean if you see a planet right on your screen, you can right click on it and order something to happen (build a mine, build a colony ship).

And this is a fine textbook example of developer tunnel vision. You've gotten this particular scheme down so pat that you haven't considered that others might not do things precisely this way, and indeed, they can't, because they don't have the hardware you do. For instance, you use the Select Button. I can see how for you, this works great. But not everyone has a huge monitor like you! The expansion planner entirely blocks that window, and WE CAN'T SEE IT! And the map in the expansion planner? Our monitors aren't as huge as yours. That map is tiny and everything looks like a little dot, where most features of "where the hell is that" cannot be precisely identified.

Guilty as charged on the Select button, but the rest still applies. The map size is the same for me as for you though, the sub-screens don't scale with resolution. I just look to see where the dot is so that I can confirm it's not in some other empire's territory or so far from mine that I won't be able to defend it. For the intended purpose, it works fine.

Also, as noted above, although I have a preferred style we are not blind to other styles. I think the interface can support they style you mention through the right click context menus.

It is possible to do this, and indeed, it seems the expansion planner is your pet tool. It's a good tool. But it's not perfect. For one, it's hideously slow and cluttered if the list of potential objects is huge. And was that planet I just saw HX-521, or HY-588? Let me go check. *close expansion planner again, double check, reopen, watch it recompute the list, find another planet that happens to look very similar in name*. It's a good tool. But not perfect.

Certainly, it is not perfect and I've said all along that there is and will be room for improvement. But if you don't like it you can order up that mine or colony by right clicking on your object of interest as you see it on the map.

Yeah, I'll do that. Then it will end up forgotten like most of the other things in the list, heh.

Ye of little faith...

Not joking either. I have guys who are ABSOLUTELY FUMING at me purely over ships.

Ok, I'll re-check this here, but I have not seen that. How many military ships do you have in their territory and how long have you left them there?

Which isn't my point. My point is not that we cannot see that the AI is taking offense at the act. My point is that the player is unable to empathize with the problem or really understand WHY it bugs the AI so. He may not even be consciously aware he is causing it, so he will just suddenly find the AI fuming over some slight that he was not even aware of. It is like having a roommate that takes severe personal issues with some minor thing that you happen to do: You can't even really remember doing it and probably not even consciously aware of it, but for some reason, that thing you do, whether it's leaving your socks on the floor or not presoaking the dishes, it REALLY BUGS THE CRAP OUT OF HIM and he's incredibly strident about it at random points. Worst of all, he does it, too! (And then blames YOU for it!) Plus, he does that really annoying thing where he ___________.

Ok, so the AI is too passive aggressive in its communications - check. We'll see if we can add more "prior notice" for the player when something starts to bug the AI.

[Fishman]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

But we did - I mean if you see a planet right on your screen, you can right click on it and order something to happen (build a mine, build a colony ship).

Yeah, I brought up that issue with the colony ships. It would be nice to be able to specify not only a colony ship, but also, what race of the applicable races you have you would like to see there. As most empires are multiracial, and there is probably some bonus you want, or at least some agenda you are trying to push (either the preservation of an endangered race, or a dominance agenda), not to mention differing environmental preferences, having a colony ship picked at random from somewhere is not necessarily desirable. Especially if the resulting colony ship isn't even able to land as a result of being the wrong race...I wouldn't know if that happens because the previously mentioned flaws with that interface render it completely useless to me. The indication that the event you might request is already happening when you rightclick is handy, but contains insufficient information: All it tells you is that some colony ship of some indistinctly useless name is either being built, or en-route, but not when this event is likely to happen.

It is also impossible to cancel or change the order if circumstances have changed to make it a bad idea, or some other greater priority has come up: If a colony ship under construction is given an order, you cannot cancel it, change it, or give it a new one. Or give it one at all, except through the expansion planner, which has numerous shortcomings in this regard, such its omission of valid targets.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Ye of little faith...

I'm not a faith-based person. I expect little, and am quick to criticize when what I never expected in the first place isn't delivered yesterday. I am a man of action, immediate action, and my track record in my own work shows this. It is commonly the case that when someone reports a bug to me, I fix it. Now. I prefer to acknowledge a report by indicating it has been fixed already and that you can thus go and get the fix, rather than making empty promises that something will be done.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Ok, I'll re-check this here, but I have not seen that. How many military ships do you have in their territory and how long have you left them there?

None. They're screaming about the freighters, or their escorts, again. Based on your reports in the upcoming patch, I expect that the screaming will continue.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Ok, so the AI is too passive aggressive in its communications - check. We'll see if we can add more "prior notice" for the player when something starts to bug the AI.

Passive-aggressive and hypocritical, since the AI does it to YOU all the time, and clearly does not expect you to get as bent out of shape over it as he does. I'm not calling him up to scream that he remove his escort craft from my space every time they show up. In fact, 99.9% of the time, I will not even notice, and when I do, I will shrug and meh. This universally asymmetrc value judgement does not help the player relate to the AI. Meanwhile, his habit of invading your space with colony ships has absolutely no recourse whatsoever: No option exists in the diplomacy menu to complain about this behavior, demand that it cease, or otherwise do anything about it, while the AI is entirely willing to gripe about it if you do it to him. Also, when the AI complains, there is no actual option given to either comply with his request or refuse it, unlike when complain: If you complain to the AI about his ships, he is given the option to comply with or refuse the request: When the AI complains to you, there is nothing you can do. You can't agree, you can't refuse, and if you were going to refuse, there is no way to indicate WHY you are refusing. This is a major problem with pretty much every 4X game to date: When you refuse an AI's request, there is no way to indicate why you are refusing the request. The AI will therefore see you as belligerent and noncompliant, you are given no means of expressing your own disputes with the AI, and quickly, the disruptor cannon becomes the only universally understood tool of communication. The diplomacy system is then seen as lacking.

[Sigh]

Im not going to sit here and argue your points. Thats the job of the beta testers BEFORE the game is released. Im not doing their job for you. You tell me to use the expansion planner to build bases but just IGNORE the fact that research is also a part of the game and needs bases built in random points scattered through the galaxy.. you tell me that you have never had a war because of ships in other systems (despite it giving a huge penalty to the way they perceive you and contrary to MANY reports of just that happening) You talk about only seeing the "bad" things written about the game while you obviously only see the good. This is not only a marketing form of pep talk but really doesn't look good. People arnt posting the bad things just so that you can tell us that we should focus on the good things. The reason we post the bad things is because THEY SUCK and we want them changed.

Im not an idiot and im one of the most veteran gamers you'll ever find Erik. I know the flaws of the game and i know how they relate to other games. I know how to program and design games. Pointing out small pluses in the game and trying to wave away the great flaws is NOT going to persuade me in any way. Trying to call the automation good while i watch my fleets get blasted by a single pirate because they cant defend themselves is UNACCEPTABLE. It will be fixed in the next patch? WHY ISN'T IT WORKING ON RELEASE?

The game has great potential but right now its a steaming pile of dung (in price/quality terms). Maybe it will get better and all be "worth" it but this has taught me to never buy a game from you guys before testing it..

Oops NO DEMO? I wonder why [8|]

If I sound like an ass well sorry but I'm not the one on the spot here. The game is overpriced and I am very unhappy as a customer. Any explanation of the game being worth it is like a used car salesman trying to tell me that a used car with bad breaks, a broken door and rust is worth MORE than a NEW car. (Giving the reason that It can always be fixed up)

Because that's exactly the way this game is being sold

Despite all this I still wish you success with the game. I know how hard it is to create such an ambitious project with such a small team. Still.. Why should I have to pay for the difficulty involved?

[Webbco]

The majority of people on this forum are actually enjoying this game. That to me, indicates it is not broken.

There are definitely bugs, but they are being worked on by a team who appear to care about this game, and what people are saying.

This gives me the ability and desire to wait patiently for other stuff to be fixed and tweaked without expressing too much frustration, but I realise it's not the same for everyone.

[Sigh]

That doesn't mean anything. Most people are not hardcore gamers and have lower expectations. I seriously think most people dont even see the flaws because they dont have the same basis for comparison. (I think a lot of people here are also matrix vets... Its natural for people to be more tolerant when part of the community.. i prob would be too.. well maybe)

You can have a talented musician listen to typical MTV Pop and and a kid without any musical understanding (and who is also easily influenced by "talk" [;)] ) listen to the same music. The kid will prob think its great and the talented musician will think its an abomination.

Of course in that example it doesn't really matter since people are entitled to their opinions and the talent has the option of staying away from the music if he pleases.

I (and others) didnt have the option. There is no demo for download (and whatever matrix tries desperately to name as a reason it just comes down to them being scared that it will result in less sales.. i bet there will be one once the game is patched) And the game does not function as advertised. I can not even play the game anymore since have come to the understanding that the experience will be destroyed within 30 mins of game time.

Some people are just more tolerant of bad game design when when they see it. I don't think i have to point out why this is no justification of it still being bad. I liked Daggerfall when i was 14. It was still an AWFUL game considering you had to pay for it.

And im sick and tired of hearing the "patience.. they will fix it" argument. I already paid for the damn product. I didnt pay for it just to wait a year for the majority of things to be worked out.

There are bugs/flaws that are unacceptable for a release version. The game is in BETA. And it cost 2-3 times as much as comparable indie games (that work).

If you and others are enjoying it well im happy for you. I dont wish the feeling of being cheated on anybody. As said the only thing i can do is "hope" the game becomes playable and never buy a matrix game again (until it is available for demo.. since there are some good games offered by the company)

edit: Btw i did notice you saying that you understand its different for everybody. Im just ranting ^^

[VarekRaith]

Some friendly advice. Being antagonistic is not a good way to get others to consider your points.

[Sigh]

Thats not my goal?

[Webbco]

Yeah this is just simply a difference in opinion. I'm fine just waiting for things to be fixed, because I can play the game now and enjoy it. Sigh, and a few others, feel that these are fundamental issues that make the game unplayable, where others consider them as issues but ones that require some tweaking and improvement to be resolved.

I personally wouldn't have suggested that most people have lower expectations because I know I'm definitely not in that catagory...but then it's all relative and subjective. I've taken back many games I don't deem worthy of my purchase. If the support for DW wasn't as good as it was at the very beginning, I probably would have stopped playing it by now but due to the swift and effective patch releases I've been happy.

My point I suppose would be that now you have laid down your opinion in pretty blunt terms, Sigh, consistently bringing the game down wherever possible will not achieve anything whatsoever. And making comments such as "that doesn't mean anything" to other people's posts surely cannot be constructive. Can it?

[Sigh]

I apologize if i offended you. It wasn't intended to denounce your post in the way you seem to think it was. Basically all I meant was that just because there are people enjoying it, it doesn't mean the game is in acceptable release condition.

A Lot of the people that are enjoying the game seem to also think the same.. They just accept it (I'm obviously more irked by buggy software/games). But that's whats so bothersome. You can get away with this now because people act like the fixing of a game after release in some way deserves praise.. When I read people thanking Erik because they are fixing it it makes me sick. Of course I am happy that the game is being fixed.. And I have stated that I really enjoy the basic premise of it (I really want it to work so i can actually play it ) But why not just release the game in working condition? Besides business reasons of course... (which are not relevant to me as a consumer)

[themetalcrow]

honestly dude, if the game plays than why should you get a refund? if a car works would you get a refund?

you don't really believe you should get a refund just because you disagree with how the game works? or would you believe you should get a refund on a car just because it is with or without certain things that you think it should or should not have?

besides you weren't forced to buy this game were you? and why not wait till it's been out a while anyway, like im going to do.

i guess i just don't get your sense of entitlement to a refund just because you don't like something.