Page 4 of 5
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 5:51 am
by jjoshua
I just couldn't see why it was so important to have units or tanks pointing north, south, east or west, during the move or after the move. I would assume that aiming north, or whatever direction on the move may be a nice touch, but after the move, who cares what direction they are facing; as long as they end up on the map where you want them to be. Can't see how this effects game play. I just don't see the confusion of it.
I just figured that in real life, after a move, tanks and men were aimed in whatever direction they need to be in, so why squabble over positions of movement.
Maybe someone can figure a way to add the old style counters to appease those who don't like the units in basic true life form.
As for the graphics, they posted screen shots and unit layout on the map, I figure if one looked at them, they would already know what the graphics looked like, and how the units were layed out. Nobody should have been surprised by the game looks.
Maybe I used poor sarcasm with the compass shot...just don't see why someone would knock a game for such small things thats all. It seems awfully trivial in the grand scheme of things thats all, to reject the game or get tied in a knot over it.
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 6:10 am
by jjoshua
I am not cutting you down as a user, I just think you are being overly critical on such a small thing, thats all. You are throwing the baby out with the bath water. You can voice your opinion as much as you like, I don't have a problem with that...but don't you think that a game can earn its merits on playability and content, outside graphics and basic direction of units.
I too have played alot of games as well, and I think that the simplicity of the learning curve in this game was well thought out. Man, other games, I felt like I need a PH'd in combat tactics to just get past the tutorials.
When I started playing WitP, AE...I was totally lost. That game was an excercise in madness and frustration for me. I truly appreciate this game after that nightmare.
I felt it was a breath of fresh air, to be able to dive right in and start playing without spending bookoo hours just figuring out simple movements. For me, and my novice game abilities, it sure was nice to start out so quickly.
Like I said, it is a 'GAME'...and a good one at that.
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 7:10 am
by IainMcNeil
The reason we didn't have multi facing icons is that units are very hard to differentiate if you are not an expert. This is by design. The average user could not tell a Pz III facing north from a Pz IV facing south, but keep them all in profile and differences are obvious.
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 8:02 am
by jjoshua
That makes a ton of sense.....never thought about that.
I am fine with them the way they are.
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 12:38 pm
by gids
i was a betatester aswell ,and bought the game out of support ,other reasons aswell ofcourse
,i find myself every
day playing the campaign at least 1 to 2 hours and i think im close at 25 times doing invasion of poland ,and i play games like warhammer and witcher 2 ,cool games in their own lane but Panzercorps and alot of games that matrix offers have something to offer that only wargame grognards can get at their site:),i cant put a tag on it or a name ,i do know these are games made by enthousiastic people and still for the love of it,if they put that kind and amount of time in it ,i dont have a problem they get paid for it aswell,its not like their ceos from a bank who do 40 meetings a year and then get a bonus of 50 million euros :p because they performed so well
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 1:40 pm
by sillyflower
I'm very happy to pay a price that leaves good developers wanting to make more, otherwise I won't get the games I like.
A good game like this/WitE is one of the cheapest forms of entertainment per hour that doesn't make one go blind.
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 2:03 pm
by mbar
ORIGINAL: Iain McNeil
The reason we didn't have multi facing icons is that units are very hard to differentiate if you are not an expert. This is by design. The average user could not tell a Pz III facing north from a Pz IV facing south, but keep them all in profile and differences are obvious.
Ah! Thanks for the explanation. I was just wondered what the design choice was for left/right facing vs isometric projection.
PC is worth $40 to me. The gameplay and art design show a wonderful attention to detail.
Well done.
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 3:19 pm
by Hertston
ORIGINAL: Tomus
IMO there is an accepted level for a new release game between £30-£40. Perhaps more for additional content/bumf in the packaging. Anything within that scope I will happily pay for a new release.
I worry when Matrix decides inflate a game's price such as BftB which went for £65 which is absurb and it drives people from the market. The cost of Panzer Corps is more than reasonable.
Disagree. I've bitched a fair bit about some recent Matrix games being overpriced, in my very humble opinion, but BftB isn't one of them. Neither is WitP or WitE. Those games just can't be viewed as the same 'sort' of product as those 'new release games' at £30-£40, or Panzer Corps, any more than something like Steel Beasts Pro Personal Edition can (at a cool $125 net). I think 95% of purchasers understand both that and that they will get far more from those titles than virtually any combination of two lower-priced wargame titles, and while reduced prices would result in more sales I doubt they would result in increased profits, which is presumably Matrix and Panther's view.
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 8:02 pm
by flybynight
ORIGINAL: Iain McNeil
The reason we didn't have multi facing icons is that units are very hard to differentiate if you are not an expert. This is by design. The average user could not tell a Pz III facing north from a Pz IV facing south, but keep them all in profile and differences are obvious.
Ok some better examples of just move my army north example..
In Open General, when you are moving your units many spaces down a road, the unit will point into the direction of the road as it moves, In Panzer the unit is static as it moves.
In OG, if you are planning a land assault and you move your transports next to the shore to off load them on the next turn, the units are facing the hex you plan to move the unit to, in Panzer again the units are facing either left or right.
In Panzer if your unit is left of an enemy, with your unit facing right, and the enemy unit is facing left and if you move directly above the enemy unit and attack, the attacking unit stays pointing to the right while enemy stays pointing to the left, in OG they will turn and face each other for the attack, the only thing I have seen Panzer do is if you attack from the left while the enemy is pointing left as well, it will turn to face the attacker, but only when to the left or right, attack from above or below the unit, and its direction stays static.
Also the maps are not that much better than OG.. sure the railroads are nice, and I understand the Reto look and feel.. and I am not asking for Starcraft 2 looking maps, but really for it being 2011.. they could/should have been better looking.
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 8:20 pm
by Lord Zimoa
De gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum, some like this, some like that... no problem really. You like OG style, others like PzC style. We live in a free world with many tastes and free choices. That counts for developers as well as for players. We like our design, you don`t, and unfortunately that is something we must agree on to disagree.
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 9:26 pm
by JWW
ORIGINAL: flybynight
ORIGINAL: Iain McNeil
The reason we didn't have multi facing icons is that units are very hard to differentiate if you are not an expert. This is by design. The average user could not tell a Pz III facing north from a Pz IV facing south, but keep them all in profile and differences are obvious.
Ok some better examples of just move my army north example..
In Open General, when you are moving your units many spaces down a road, the unit will point into the direction of the road as it moves, In Panzer the unit is static as it moves.
In OG, if you are planning a land assault and you move your transports next to the shore to off load them on the next turn, the units are facing the hex you plan to move the unit to, in Panzer again the units are facing either left or right.
In Panzer if your unit is left of an enemy, with your unit facing right, and the enemy unit is facing left and if you move directly above the enemy unit and attack, the attacking unit stays pointing to the right while enemy stays pointing to the left, in OG they will turn and face each other for the attack, the only thing I have seen Panzer do is if you attack from the left while the enemy is pointing left as well, it will turn to face the attacker, but only when to the left or right, attack from above or below the unit, and its direction stays static.
Also the maps are not that much better than OG.. sure the railroads are nice, and I understand the Reto look and feel.. and I am not asking for Starcraft 2 looking maps, but really for it being 2011.. they could/should have been better looking.
I think everyone gets your point. Gee.
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 9:33 pm
by JudgeDredd
ORIGINAL: Hertston
ORIGINAL: Tomus
IMO there is an accepted level for a new release game between £30-£40. Perhaps more for additional content/bumf in the packaging. Anything within that scope I will happily pay for a new release.
I worry when Matrix decides inflate a game's price such as BftB which went for £65 which is absurb and it drives people from the market. The cost of Panzer Corps is more than reasonable.
Disagree. I've bitched a fair bit about some recent Matrix games being overpriced, in my very humble opinion, but BftB isn't one of them. Neither is WitP or WitE. Those games just can't be viewed as the same 'sort' of product as those 'new release games' at £30-£40, or Panzer Corps, any more than something like Steel Beasts Pro Personal Edition can (at a cool $125 net). I think 95% of purchasers understand both that and that they will get far more from those titles than virtually any combination of two lower-priced wargame titles, and while reduced prices would result in more sales I doubt they would result in increased profits, which is presumably Matrix and Panther's view.
I still haven't bought Battles for the Bulge, even though I bought War in the East and a plethora of other titles...even though I thought Conquest of the Aegean was an amazing game and engine...I was so disgusted with the price hike and the attitude that was delivered to people complaining about it I didn't even pick it up on sale in the Winter! Cutting my nose off to spite my face? Maybe...
Like I said above - everyone has their reasons.
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 9:39 pm
by JudgeDredd
flybynight - whilst I wouldn't argue these points are important to you, it seems your core beef is that units don't face a certain direction when moving or attacking - and whilst I wouldn't argue this is an important point for you, in the grand scale of shit that is about in todays gaming world and given the scope and size of the game it seems to me to be extremely irrelevant.
But like you - I am only expressing my opinion [:)]
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 9:51 pm
by JudgeDredd
Although
Without going into another price thread, I just wanted to say this...
I've been playing CotA again for the last week...if BftB hadn't been so expensive, then I would've been playing that...but what I really wanted to say was this...
I've just read the AAR I first wrote about a tutorial mission in CotA. As I read it, I saw the enemy troops making atwo prnged attack towards two bridges in force. I saw them get held up at the middle bridge...and I saw a unit sneak round to the right and try the third bridge. Finding it intact and lightly defended it crossed...that was one allied unit. Once the middle bridge was blown the enemy decided to put it's main effort into securing the most westerly bridge and started moving it's units to that bridge...but anothe unit had crossed at the easterly bridge and the AI realised there was a bridgehead...so started moving all it's troops down there to cross that bridge...it very nearly pulled the win out the bag.
Futher to that, I was playing First Clean Break tonight where I play the Allies and have to fight a delaying action. So I set my forces up to delay along a couple of the main routes...but I'm only a couple of hours (in game time) into the scenario and I'm watching in awe as the enemy units are coming across the bridges, bumping into my delaying action...probing and then moving around the delaying units onto other roads. I've positioned a tank unit at a bridge head and as the enemy came into contact, a few units fired and then started off the the eat to a point where there is another bridge.
It is actually amazing what Panther Games have done. The engine is second to none. The command structure is second to none. The gameplay is second to none.
I will be buying this game next month. I wasn't waiting for the price to come down. I wasn't trying to tell you that your efforts were not worth £70. It was pure principle that I wasn't buying on the basis that I didn't want my hobby to cost me that kind of money.
But I do not need a demo to tell me that you guys have a winning engine. I can see it in the previous title. Just playing Conquest of the Aegean again and seeing the way the enemy moves, probes, attacks, re-evaluates and diverts is mesmerising.
Good luck -I'll have to not buy a game this month or next month, but I have to say after watching CotA play out, I cannot sit by and NOT support a developer that puts this kind of game on the market.
It seems I was intending to do buy BftB - and there, you see for yourself, lies my very, very bad memory....
I could say after reading that that I will go and get it tomorrow, but will forget and probably moan about the cost further down the road
oh well.........
Point of note - it seems (from that post) that the game was £70 at the time. It's now £40 (plus VAT) - considerably cheaper, and the urge to get it has not nearly EVER got to me since release...and the only reason I point this out (apart from it being a price thread) is that the "impulse" buy at the right price for that game would've been a sell for me and money in their pockets. As it was, the impulse vanished and I still haven't bought it...more than a year after release...EVEN THOUGH I thought it was a great engine and EVEN THOUGH I thought it's predecessor was amazing - they priced it wrong (for me) at release and it was (and continues to be) a lost sale.
So anyone who bemoans a cost for something should be heard. To everyone the price is subjective - but just because it's affordable to you, doesn't mean it's affordable to everyone.
Of course there's a way to put things...[&o]
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 1:30 am
by flybynight
ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd
flybynight - whilst I wouldn't argue these points are important to you, it seems your core beef is that units don't face a certain direction when moving or attacking - and whilst I wouldn't argue this is an important point for you, in the grand scale of shit that is about in todays gaming world and given the scope and size of the game it seems to me to be extremely irrelevant.
But like you - I am only expressing my opinion [:)]
I guess after playing OG for so long and getting use to the game play, and I must admit I don't remember how the game play was for PG1 and 2, but PG3 scorced earth (was able to get to run on win 7
but the colors are off
) ..had better animations.
But honistly for the last 2 days, I have been doing nothing but playing OG and Panzer back to back.. Panzer has a few +'s over OG (unit progression is better + Elite units) the voice overs for the next Mission and the nice unit veiw screens... ohh and the fact if you set it on super easy mode you can really kick some....
I still don't find the actual game play for Panzer any better than OG
But....
And another note to Devs.. have an option like Hearts of Iron to either show the unit as an Icon, or as an old school counter... I could play this if the Icons where old school counters!
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 2:45 am
by Hertston
ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd
I still haven't bought Battles for the Bulge, even though I bought War in the East and a plethora of other titles...even though I thought Conquest of the Aegean was an amazing game and engine...I was so disgusted with the price hike and the attitude that was delivered to people complaining about it I didn't even pick it up on sale in the Winter! Cutting my nose off to spite my face? Maybe...
Like I said above - everyone has their reasons.
LOL.. it's best just to avoid complaining about price as you always get jumped on by somebody. Having mulled it over I think that's probably some sort of psychological necessity; having forked out people need to justify it to themselves as well as others.
BftB is an odd one, though. The trouble with CotA is that, brilliant game as it is, it didn't sell well. Indeed, the whole series has never sold that well, and we are only seeing more of it as Panther have contract work that pays the bills. With CotA I think one reason was undoubtably "I'm not interested in the theater" which roughly translates (with apologies to more sensible US readers) as "there are no Americans in it" - only the Eastern Front can get away with that. The other was the Scylla and Charybdis of "real-time" turning off the TBS diehards on one side and NATO symbols turning off everybody else on the other. That leaves a very small market principally of existing wargame customers who 'get' the system, and I genuinely believe the 'hiked price' was the only real shot at making any money at all from the games.
As you say, though, your problem with the price is an absolute rather than a relative one which is fair enough. No matter how good a game is, if you are anything like me you'll have a dozen already on the drive well worth playing-time you don't have. They say PC gaming is in decline, but I can't recall a time when I hade so many great titles lining up for more attention.
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 6:43 am
by Visery
Having played this game for a few days I still struggle to justify the whopping $40 price. The gameplay is a virtual carbon copy of PG which is fine, but the graphics and quality hardly justify the price when you consider the fact that I brought Mount and Blade, which is another indie game for the fullprice of $15. Maybe because Panzer General is not a hardcore wargame, and there for I am not a hardcore wargamer gamer so I have a hard time "supporting the developers" in this matter but the price still burns.
It all comes down to this, for a retail price I expect retail production value. At $40 there should've been more. It's as if a developer created a perfect copy of Civ 2 then charging $40 for it. I don't see how this is ok.
Oh I just noticed another game that I used to be totally infatuated with, Close Combat 3. But your remake goes for $40, LOL. This is ok with you guys??
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 9:11 am
by Hertston
ORIGINAL: Visery
Having played this game for a few days I still struggle to justify the whopping $40 price. The gameplay is a virtual carbon copy of PG which is fine, but the graphics and quality hardly justify the price when you consider the fact that I brought Mount and Blade, which is another indie game for the fullprice of $15.
Neither Mount and Blade nor Warband were released at the low price, unless you bought into the beta. What is the fact it's an 'indie game' got to do with anything? So is WitE by the same sort of criteria. What matters is the number of potential purchasers, which is limited even for a PZ remake (and PC does, in fact offer at lot more than any single PG game did.. and they were all released at 'full' price. M&B has sold 100s of 1,000s now.
It all comes down to this, for a retail price I expect retail production value. At $40 there should've been more. It's as if a developer created a perfect copy of Civ 2 then charging $40 for it. I don't see how this is ok.
You do understand that 'retail production value', particularly with regard to graphics, can literally cost millions? How many copies of PZ do you expect them to shift? It's OK for the reason I suggested earlier in respect of BftB; the pricing is set to maximise the bottom line. That's different for most Matrix titles from the Mount and Blade, Terraria or Magickas of this world because the market is so different.
Oh I just noticed another game that I used to be totally infatuated with, Close Combat 3. But your remake goes for $40, LOL. This is ok with you guys??
Yes. Simply because at the sort of price you think is appropriate there would have have
been no CC re-releases. There's no obligation to buy all or any of them.
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2011 1:20 am
by rich12545
I played OG for a while. The whole pg2/og concept is very good and there are LOTS of campaigns from different time periods and it's all FREE. I wanted to like it, I really did, but never could. Just something about it that didn't jell with me. But PC is the opposite.
I always think it's hilarious when people complain about prices because it makes me remember the early days of pc wargaming. SSI was the only game in town and the technology was VERY basic. The whole game was on a 5 1/4" floppy. 48k ram. No hard drive. No color graphics. And games were $60 in 1980 dollars. Today's buyers are spoiled. Panzer Corps is a bargain at $40. It does need a lot more scenarios and campaigns. And it needs to support all the different fronts without making separate games although expansion packs are fine.
RE: Cost too much?
Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2011 2:49 am
by flybynight
Speaking of over charging.. Garys war in the East. $80 bucks? I played Garys war of the world, it was ok but not awesome (again not worth the price I though) .. hope he made war in the east worth 80 bucks!!