Matrix Games Forums

Sunbather wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2023 2:54 pm For me personally, it was a mix of all those things above and some others:

- a bit too high of a price for a "new" series from a "new" devloper (I know you guys made a game before) and having no ability to refund here, every purchase is an all-in situation

- inconsistent UI (although remedied with mods by now)

- the map itself looks very low res

- as I understand there is no weather system (which would be fine for the scenarios depicted here but limits the engine's flexibility for a possible DLC or modders) [EDIT: I see now in the manual that there are indeed 3 different weather conditions in the engine but this game only uses one, which - again - is understandable for the depicted scenarios)

- no snow scenarios; game ends in November 1942 when clearly the whole Stalingrad affair took until February 1943 (it is commendable though that some of the pre-Stalingrad maneuvers made it in)

And yet, I am on the verge of buying the game, especially since the community seems very active but this is also the biggest problem: in the modding subforum you can find quite a few user scenarios already conceived or even built, some of them even depicting stuff like the ACW or American War in Vietnam, but all of them are on hold since the creators wait for the new patch to arrive - which is reasonable enough, of course. BUT this very thread here was opened 1.5 years (!) ago and since then there was not a single patch.
Now I understand that work is going on with the new titles but by the time this game (which people already paid for) gets patched, the momentum might be gone and the planned mods and scenarios will never get published. Sure, you could say that maybe they then switch over to the new game but if the current game is anything to go by and seeing the schedule for your upcoming games, the "new" game will also take the back seat in regars to the new, new release.

EDIT: Here is the thread in question. Apparently the bugs are already fixed but who exactly does that help if the patch, or rather the hotfix is not being released?

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6&t=394877

The bug report was from Nov 2022; the scenario by user "governato" ready in July 2023; patch still not out in late December 2023. Talking about losing momentum...
The problem with this is also that one can pretty much calculate how long the next patch is going to take if another semi-critical bug arises.

All fault for any issues with our game production lie squarely with Brian and I. We forgot about the future.

The original game engine was designed by Brian so he could learn Java for his IT job. He posted his results on The Wargamer forum some 12-13 years ago...gratis. I saw it and downloaded it. I enjoyed how open it was to modification and started doing what I do best--scenario creation, artwork, and playtesting. He liked what I was doing, got inspired and kept at it; expanding the capabilities of the game to do North Africa "right" over the years that followed. Desert War was never a "game system design"; it was a labor of love for our computer wargame hobby. It lasted about 6-7 years where we FAFO'd...and all of it was published free to the public. Fun times.

Much later...Matrix/Slitherine approached us when Desert War had matured a bit and made an offer to publish the game--we accepted. Having gone through that publication experience--I never wanted to do another wargame. But Desert War did very well financially (from our perspective)...so what to do next? Well...the engine was only designed to do war in North Africa. What to do?

Close in type to the North African desert terrain are the steppes of Russia...sooo...lets add/change a few terrain to make that happen...and some bombardment stuff...and then some asset mission profiles, etc. And thus, the Stalingrad engine was born...an engine that was no longer compatible to the Desert War engine. We were too nearsighted to see...cuz..only two game engines to patch--right? How hard is that?

Then we caught the WEGOWW2 as a system TRUTH. A long term commitment to compete with The Operational Art of War and Panzer Campaigns! How do we accomplish this? You need a standard game engine.

It is too hard and too time consuming to maintain three or more game engines. Soooo....One engine rules them all. And that is now the goal. Once we have one engine, we have more time to develop content--faster for our WEGOWW2 fans. Updates/patches can happen across the suite of our WEGOWW2 games. Monty's Front will set the standard.

That is what we are doing now--two guys at a time while doing our day jobs. We are pleased to have Don Timian now on-board as an OB researcher, and Frank Costanzo as the ever present ALPHA playtester/devastator of things.

Nobody is sitting on their thumbs on our game projects. We are working as fast as we can to accomplish the good. We are trying as hard as we can to remember the future.

Sunbather wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2023 10:54 pm

Zovs wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2023 10:34 pm These are both fine WEGO games, no reason to pass and the price is not high at all, especially since it 45% off!

I have heard these complaints about refunds and high priced games, but they are always from Steam only gamers prob in the 20-30 year old bracket. When I purchased WITE2 for $79 it was still not that high of a price, some of my board war games cost $120-399.

Hey Zovs. Love your mods and hope you're well and healthy!

Let's put all that aside which will lead to a futile discussion anyway; a discussion that has been had many, many times.
The core of my argument though is that it should NOT take any developer 1.5 years to fix a semi-critical bug.

That being said, I'll probably buy the game these days, especially since I eventually decided against buying WitE2, so I just got 50 bucks to spend, haha.

Thank you for your kind word on my mods and more importantly for my health. Doing splendidly now, thank you.

Not sure in the critical bug and the length of time to fix it, you might have a valid point there. I own six WEGO typed of games (Both Flashpoints, Desert War, Stalingrad, WITP-AE, and Command Ops 2) and out of all I mainly play Flashpoint and CO2 the most.

I love the concepts for both of DW and Stalingrad but I enjoy the UI of Flashpoint the most and am interested in CO2 the most.

Strange worlds lol

bcgames wrote: Sat Dec 23, 2023 5:24 am
[...] Then we caught the WEGOWW2 as a system TRUTH. A long term commitment to compete with The Operational Art of War and Panzer Campaigns! How do we accomplish this? You need a standard game engine.

It is too hard and too time consuming to maintain three or more game engines. Soooo....One engine rules them all. And that is now the goal. Once we have one engine, we have more time to develop content--faster for our WEGOWW2 fans. Updates/patches can happen across the suite of our WEGOWW2 games. Monty's Front will set the standard.

That is what we are doing now--two guys at a time while doing our day jobs. We are pleased to have Don Timian now on-board as an OB researcher, and Frank Costanzo as the ever present ALPHA playtester/devastator of things.

Nobody is sitting on their thumbs on our game projects. We are working as fast as we can to accomplish the good. We are trying as hard as we can to remember the future.

Hey there, thanks for the informative response. I always love to hear the background story of how wargames are brought into the world. I know that most of you guys work on these games AND have a daytime job. So please excuse me for being snappy.
Only now do I remember that you've already answered to me in another post, saying that your goal is to unify the engine so one engine update updates all the future games. I think this is a very good idea and once again I apologize for my harshness. I do wonder though: will the Stalingrad game be ported to the new engine as well or does this only pertain to the games from Monty's Front onwards?

I still think that making a thread like this ("Why didn't you buy?") and then don't update the game for 1.5 years doesn't exactly reel in new buyers. For example, I will now buy Flashpoint Campaigns: Southern Storm exactly because they updated the game many times and one can see that bugs will be squashed rather sooner than later. That being said, I will buy Stalingrad as well, haha, since I am tired of the IGOUGO mechanic. WEGO galore!

Zovs wrote: Sat Dec 23, 2023 10:22 am
Thank you for your kind word on my mods and more importantly for my health. Doing splendidly now, thank you.

Not sure in the critical bug and the length of time to fix it, you might have a valid point there. I own six WEGO typed of games (Both Flashpoints, Desert War, Stalingrad, WITP-AE, and Command Ops 2) and out of all I mainly play Flashpoint and CO2 the most.

I love the concepts for both of DW and Stalingrad but I enjoy the UI of Flashpoint the most and am interested in CO2 the most.

Strange worlds lol

Great to hear you're doing well!

Incidentally, "Southern Storm" is the other game in my shopping cart because the UI is so ridiculously crispy and sexy.

I heard a lot of bad things about the UI in WEGO Stalingrad and it sure isn't as sexy as the one in Southern Storm but from the videos I saw the UI does make sense and it isn't intrusive (e.g. covering the whole screen) so I am mildly optimistic that I will like it. I will see about that soon enough!

This thread, the devs asking why people didn't buy and not seeing any updates has turned me away. It sounds like the game is dead and will receive no further support due to lack of sales. I love WEGO as someone who just got flashpoint campaigns southern storm, that is where I'll continue to spend my time (and money when the DLC is released).

Tack299 wrote: Tue Dec 26, 2023 5:14 pm It sounds like the game is dead and will receive no further support due to lack of sales.

It appears you don't hang out here much. Who's going to tell him?

bcgames wrote: Wed Dec 27, 2023 5:07 am

Tack299 wrote: Tue Dec 26, 2023 5:14 pm It sounds like the game is dead and will receive no further support due to lack of sales.

It appears you don't hang out here much. Who's going to tell him?

Terrible reply from a dev, I assume you will be able to tell me...

These games are not dead, the devs are working on a new engine, and will port that to these games as their replacement engines. You read the history from the said developers on this, I thought it was in this thiread.

Tack299 wrote: Wed Dec 27, 2023 7:15 am

bcgames wrote: Wed Dec 27, 2023 5:07 am

Tack299 wrote: Tue Dec 26, 2023 5:14 pm It sounds like the game is dead and will receive no further support due to lack of sales.

It appears you don't hang out here much. Who's going to tell him?

Terrible reply from a dev, I assume you will be able to tell me...

Yeah its at the top of this page.

Zovs wrote: Wed Dec 27, 2023 7:55 am

Tack299 wrote: Wed Dec 27, 2023 7:15 am

bcgames wrote: Wed Dec 27, 2023 5:07 am
It appears you don't hang out here much. Who's going to tell him?

Terrible reply from a dev, I assume you will be able to tell me...

Yeah its at the top of this page.

And undefined timeframe for a whole new engine, where devs are doing this as a side project outside of their day jobs?

I wish all the luck and success, we need more WEGO. I'll check in periodically for updates.

Tack299 wrote: Wed Dec 27, 2023 8:17 am I wish all the luck and success, we need more WEGO. I'll check in periodically for updates.

Your terms are accepted.

Bought the game with my 24 years Matrix membership coupon.

Hope next installements of this series will get a steamkey as well.

I am not fussed about Steam keys, but having got this in the Winter Sale (aptly, given the subject..) it would be particularly lovely to see some movement on doing whatever is necessary to get the ACW mods released.

Does it really need a rewrite/third generation engine to fix the issue that's the reason for the pause in that?

superian wrote: Mon Jan 08, 2024 6:09 pm Does it really need a rewrite/third generation engine to fix the issue that's the reason for the pause in that?

Uh...there's never been a re-write and there never will be.

The OVERLORD engine is THE game engine--it exists right now. It's what we are ALPHA testing as I write. Desert War and Stalingrad have to be dragged out of their ancient vaults/primordial mud pits to bring them up to snuff with the current engine. We are not going to patch old shit to comply with an older engine--we are going to bring old shit up to the standard of the latest version of the game engine. The latest is what we want to give to our people who have purchased our previously published games.

Learn how to take better and free for an answer.

I'm probably a bit late to this thread but I'll add my thoughts even though I'll likely pick the game up later today.

I've been sat on the fence for a number of reason.

1. Price - A demo would go a long way to negate this.
2. No reviews. I have watched XTRG, Tactics Joe and a few others but I've not seen any "proper" reviews. E.g. I'd like to know if the game is buggy, how it compares to other hex games, if the AI is good, how well the multiplayer works. The last is very important for me as I'll likely have to grab two copies - one for my son - so the game is twice the price for me making the first point even more of a factor.
3. No Steam - At its current price and with no demo a bad purchase is going to taste sour. The user reviews really help push me across the line and the ability to find out if the game ever goes on sale is a massive plus. Also, I'd love to know if the game will work on a Steam Deck.

The reason I may finally cave and pick the game up is because of Flashpoint Campaigns. Myself and my son have enjoyed that game a great deal and I wanted to take a look at other WEGO systems.

Anyway. I'll be interested to hear any comments - especially if they can assist with point 2
Thx

I have had both DW and Stalingrad since their release but only learned to play them over the last two weeks. Both are totally awesome and I have not seen any bugs. The UI is simply brilliant and after reading the tutorial and quick start was able to play both games with ease. I suggest starting with DW first. But am totally hooked.

Good to hear, thanks!

Greetings to All,
I held off buying due to some negative reviews about clunky UI and concerns about java. However, I bought during the current sale bundled with Desert War and find both WEGO games are very good. I find the UI is adequate to get the job done. At age 71, I do not find it overly clunky when compared to board wargames like Streets of Stalingrad, Drang Nach Osten, Avalon Hills D-Day, etc.

Look forward to future WEGO Monty/Overlord titles.

Cheers, the latest game has 2 UIs now, so you can have a choice of how to play it

Hi! Thank you for creating such an impressive work!
Personally, I am very much looking forward to its launch on the Steam platform. As a mixed-genre player, I think that after WEGOs become available on Steam, I will be able to achieve a good balance in my library and manage all my games equally well. Furthermore, in the absence of a demo, I tend to prefer waiting for a discount, perhaps the winter sale or an anniversary event.
We currently lack sufficient WEGOs of this kind, and I would be delighted if more opportunities arose to make these games known to and accessible for a broader audience.
This is merely my personal opinion; once again, thank you for the job!