Matrix Games Forums

Sarge,

I know you are putting a lot of work into this game, and I hate too ask, but do you think this project is to big for the team assigned it ?

I am really keen on this type of game but every time I log on to check it seems no where near completion. There are posts going back 2 years on release dates and nothing on here seems to indicate it is going to be released anytime soon.

So I ask in all seriousness. Is there any mileage in releasing what you have for a nominal amount of money and releasing the source code so the community can get involved ?

I don flak jacket in preparation for the responses.

ahhhh, wrote my reply and got logged off, let see if it saved enough to post

I figured I would ask the higher ups what kind of reply I should make to this

both basicly said to be honest and let them know what is going on (and No)

so, basicly, I have stated what is going on before

overall, would say, we are closer then you seem to think, but, I had 5 major issues I needed to get corrected

Gary G helped out and got 2 of these, Harley nailed the 3rd, we are still waiting on Waynno's to come in and placed

of course, as in all things, correcting 2 of the issues, made a couple of minor ones pop up

so, as far as I see it, we got 2 major issues left, a few minor ones, and then the clean up ones (overlapping font, end game botton and so on)

the main hassle is Programming time, the main Programmer works and is going to school, besides the rest of the goodies that go on out there

and I would like to say that Gary Grigsby, Keith Brors, Joel Billings and Mike Woods have been very helpful during all of this (had some interesting talks with Gary) I also talk to David and Erik most times weekly, other times more or less so, and I will be working with Erik on the manaul shortly

so, other then that, I am not sure what you want me to say

Thanks for the honest reply Sarge.

Frustration is coming out because like most on this forum I cannot wait to get this game.

My idea is probably a non starter because no one else has joined the thread with any comments.

Good luck with it anyway.

Now that's the kind of answer that gives me hope.[&o][&o]

A lot of work to do i think.
Boss God Bless you and go ahead

It's been a long wait, but I for one had rather have a finished product than a bag of bugs. In my opinion, take whatever time you need.

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

the main hassle is Programming time, the main Programmer works and is going to school, besides the rest of the goodies that go on out there

Uh ohh.. this is indeed news to me. Matrix dont have employee programmers?!
I find it hard to belive that matrix cant afford that, using scoolboys on their freetime to make all the games. Nay i simply don't belive this, only conclusion here is that this title's priority are on the bottom of the list. I mean, 1+1=2.

Sorry, i don't wan't to offent anyone, knowing you folks involved doing all you can, but it feels abit sad to realise the above, and ofcourse this definately WILL affect quality.

Hiring 2 fulltime coders (a trillion guys on the net would do it for free) would bump this baby to releasedate within a month or so.. That i am certain!

STILL.. keep up the good work, and really thanks for sharing as much as you can HS. There are many games where'as devteam doesn't even communicate with community at all, as for example neverwinternights 2 amongst many others.

[8|]

Must admit Sarge it does not exactly feel me with confidence - 1 part time programmer ?

No offence but this project is sounding more and more like a shareware thing. If Matrix are not throwing staff at this where is the long term commitment coming from when it does get released and a 100 users start finding bugs/problems ?

I think the biggest problem Matrix are going to have is that if this thing is priced as per other games everyone is going to hold of buying it until v1.1.

I would just hate to see all your hard work go to waste. And personally I would buy it from v1.0 as I think this hobby needs as much support as it can. B

Hey Guys

lets calm down a little

one, I got 2 part timers, not one

Plus, as I stated, I got 3 "real" programmers who had worked with us and on it (and two of them are Hall of Famers)

and I don't think you can really call Harley a Schoolboy ! (even worse coming from you, Vils, you know Harley and you know his work from before)

and to be honest, that is the way most of the games are done around here (not with parttimers, but with there own programmers, Matrix people do what Matrix people do, and the game people do what they do)

over all, the main plans for the 1st patch, when it comes out, is more a feature patch, for things we can't add in right now, along with any bugs that are found that we didn't see

If you read the threads on the other forums Matrix is the publisher of most of the games. They seem to to work with what I call the 1 or 2 man bands.
Since face the facts hard core wargames are not big sellers. Only Matrix or maybe Strategy First will touch them, but lately you don't see too much
comming from stategy first. It seems the Matrix job is make sure the installer and the program functions like it's supposed to and to do the manual.
With the last set of title's they aquired basically the Matrix people just did the vistaization(hey I wound if Microsoft will sue over that?). It seems a well
trained or enthusiastic(hate to say it) part timers are doing the most of the job. Even 2by3 games is not immune. If you read the developers journal
you will see that one of them had to get a more stable job in the real world than to do war games 5 days a week.

Fair point but my point is that you do not see many games (war or not) with forums posts 2-3 years old about release dates.

Here are my thoughts. Wargames players tend not to be FPS types who moan about a FPS then look for the next one. We tend to want to make the gaming experience as good as possible for ourselves. We invest time in forums, give feedback, make suggestions and offer to mod.

So why not scale back the game. Just do a release of BoB for example. Don't charge £30 for it, just make the War over Germany, Med, wherever modules that you can buy for an extra £10.

I appreciate it is none of my business, and Matrix can do whatever they want however.[;)]

ORIGINAL: LuckyJim1006

Fair point but my point is that you do not see many games (war or not) with forums posts 2-3 years old about release dates.

with out going into the details behind it, I would have to say, that this game was mentioned and forum made, way too early, most games, that are in ALPHA, you will not even hear anything about, or may hear a rumor or two, most games in BETA, are not mentioned until the end phase of BETA, this game was set up in the forums, before it was even in ALPHA, so while I will agree with you that it has been on the boards for a long time, it really shouldn't of been, and as far as that goes, we should be seen to be in the late Beta phase


Here are my thoughts. Wargames players tend not to be FPS types who moan about a FPS then look for the next one. We tend to want to make the gaming experience as good as possible for ourselves. We invest time in forums, give feedback, make suggestions and offer to mod.

agree, and that is where most of the people working on this, come from to begin with

So why not scale back the game. Just do a release of BoB for example. Don't charge £30 for it, just make the War over Germany, Med, wherever modules that you can buy for an extra £10.

hassle here is, it is two games with the same engine now, so once BoB is ready to go, so is BTR, what is wrong with BTR is also wrong with BoB, in the old games, most of what you could do in BTR, you couldn't in BoB, and it was a major hassle if you were used to one game or the other (most people who played BTR, didn't go back to BoB, the engine was just too different)

so while a good idea, in this case, it really wouldn't help


I appreciate it is none of my business, and Matrix can do whatever they want however.[;)]

again, without going into the details, I have joked with David, that if it wasn't such a boreing story, this would make a good movie, the background stuff has been, very interesting, in fact, most of the people in the story, don't know most of it

any body got any questions on the games themself ? it is much easier for me to talk and or show things, then to defend what is going on

ORIGINAL: vils

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

the main hassle is Programming time, the main Programmer works and is going to school, besides the rest of the goodies that go on out there

Uh ohh.. this is indeed news to me. Matrix dont have employee programmers?!
I find it hard to belive that matrix cant afford that, using scoolboys on their freetime to make all the games. Nay i simply don't belive this, only conclusion here is that this title's priority are on the bottom of the list. I mean, 1+1=2.

Sorry, i don't wan't to offent anyone, knowing you folks involved doing all you can, but it feels abit sad to realise the above, and ofcourse this definately WILL affect quality.

Hiring 2 fulltime coders (a trillion guys on the net would do it for free) would bump this baby to releasedate within a month or so.. That i am certain!

[8|]

I gotta respond to this one.

I ain't no schoolboy. I am a 37 year old IT professional. I am presently doing a Masters Degree in Information Systems Security. Our other programmer is a professional in his field, also. I'll leave it to him to describe his situation.

I am taking offense, whether you apologise or not doesn't stop it being an offensive remark, but I will not respond in kind.

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

and I don't think you can really call Harley a Schoolboy ! (even worse coming from you, Vils, you know Harley and you know his work from before)

I didn't aim it to him personally, acually i didn't even know he was more involved than betatesting uhm. Sorry again if i offended you Harley, i hadn't said that if i knew it was YOU hardsarge talked about!

But frankly i was just answering what you wrote:

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge
the main hassle is Programming time, the main Programmer works and is going to school

.. therefore i concluded (wrongly apparantly) that the Main programmer of EagleDay to Bombing the Reich was a school-boy.

Still, as i have understood, you guys go to scool, got another job, and as priority 3 coding the game for Matrix, right? Thats the thing i was trying to point at. Its not an effective way to work, i know i am 39 years old, got master exam in IT ISP/Linux/dns/colocation and many more, worked on an ISP for many years.. I KNOW priority in the bussiness, and this is a lowbie to say the least.




[:(]

maybe priority 4
 
life
family
work
further education
 
and than probably the programming of the game.
 
 

Hiring 2 fulltime coders (a trillion guys on the net would do it for free) would bump this baby to releasedate within a month or so.. That i am certain!

and you say you work in the IT world.....

I think you miss the scope of BTR and the time that testing and retesting of the game needs ( in my opinion we are in beta since this year, everything before was alpha ).
yes, it is based on the old game and code, but it is not that easy - a small change may have a huge impact somewhere late in the game....there are no real shortcuts to jump to a certain gamedate with a new exe or new data files.

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

Hey Guys

lets calm down a little

one, I got 2 part timers, not one

Plus, as I stated, I got 3 "real" programmers who had worked with us and on it (and two of them are Hall of Famers)

and I don't think you can really call Harley a Schoolboy ! (even worse coming from you, Vils, you know Harley and you know his work from before)

and to be honest, that is the way most of the games are done around here (not with parttimers, but with there own programmers, Matrix people do what Matrix people do, and the game people do what they do)

over all, the main plans for the 1st patch, when it comes out, is more a feature patch, for things we can't add in right now, along with any bugs that are found that we didn't see

You must have a huge set of balls...to be talking about the plans for the first patch when you can't seem to get this game out the door at all.

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

ORIGINAL: LuckyJim1006

Fair point but my point is that you do not see many games (war or not) with forums posts 2-3 years old about release dates.

with out going into the details behind it, I would have to say, that this game was mentioned and forum made, way too early, most games, that are in ALPHA, you will not even hear anything about, or may hear a rumor or two, most games in BETA, are not mentioned until the end phase of BETA, this game was set up in the forums, before it was even in ALPHA, so while I will agree with you that it has been on the boards for a long time, it really shouldn't of been, and as far as that goes, we should be seen to be in the late Beta phase


Here are my thoughts. Wargames players tend not to be FPS types who moan about a FPS then look for the next one. We tend to want to make the gaming experience as good as possible for ourselves. We invest time in forums, give feedback, make suggestions and offer to mod.

agree, and that is where most of the people working on this, come from to begin with

So why not scale back the game. Just do a release of BoB for example. Don't charge £30 for it, just make the War over Germany, Med, wherever modules that you can buy for an extra £10.

hassle here is, it is two games with the same engine now, so once BoB is ready to go, so is BTR, what is wrong with BTR is also wrong with BoB, in the old games, most of what you could do in BTR, you couldn't in BoB, and it was a major hassle if you were used to one game or the other (most people who played BTR, didn't go back to BoB, the engine was just too different)

so while a good idea, in this case, it really wouldn't help


I appreciate it is none of my business, and Matrix can do whatever they want however.[;)]

again, without going into the details, I have joked with David, that if it wasn't such a boreing story, this would make a good movie, the background stuff has been, very interesting, in fact, most of the people in the story, don't know most of it

any body got any questions on the games themself ? it is much easier for me to talk and or show things, then to defend what is going on

Especially when there's no way in hell you can defend what is going on other than as rank unprofessionalism. Matrix should give you guys the heave-ho. As much as I'd like to eventually see this game--not that I think I will at this point--you've conducted this project more like schoolchildren than professionals.

ORIGINAL: Executioner Five

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

ORIGINAL: LuckyJim1006

Fair point but my point is that you do not see many games (war or not) with forums posts 2-3 years old about release dates.

with out going into the details behind it, I would have to say, that this game was mentioned and forum made, way too early, most games, that are in ALPHA, you will not even hear anything about, or may hear a rumor or two, most games in BETA, are not mentioned until the end phase of BETA, this game was set up in the forums, before it was even in ALPHA, so while I will agree with you that it has been on the boards for a long time, it really shouldn't of been, and as far as that goes, we should be seen to be in the late Beta phase


Here are my thoughts. Wargames players tend not to be FPS types who moan about a FPS then look for the next one. We tend to want to make the gaming experience as good as possible for ourselves. We invest time in forums, give feedback, make suggestions and offer to mod.

agree, and that is where most of the people working on this, come from to begin with

So why not scale back the game. Just do a release of BoB for example. Don't charge £30 for it, just make the War over Germany, Med, wherever modules that you can buy for an extra £10.

hassle here is, it is two games with the same engine now, so once BoB is ready to go, so is BTR, what is wrong with BTR is also wrong with BoB, in the old games, most of what you could do in BTR, you couldn't in BoB, and it was a major hassle if you were used to one game or the other (most people who played BTR, didn't go back to BoB, the engine was just too different)

so while a good idea, in this case, it really wouldn't help


I appreciate it is none of my business, and Matrix can do whatever they want however.[;)]

again, without going into the details, I have joked with David, that if it wasn't such a boreing story, this would make a good movie, the background stuff has been, very interesting, in fact, most of the people in the story, don't know most of it

any body got any questions on the games themself ? it is much easier for me to talk and or show things, then to defend what is going on

Especially when there's no way in hell you can defend what is going on other than as rank unprofessionalism. Matrix should give you guys the heave-ho. As much as I'd like to eventually see this game--not that I think I will at this point--you've conducted this project more like schoolchildren than professionals.

This kinda BS being thrown at Developers is exactly why many devs don't communicate to the public. Frankly anyone who wants to see this game come out should be nothing but thankful for the time and effort these guys are putting in.

What grinds my gears is supposedly grown up men acting like a bunch of demented child kings because their new toy ain't ready when they want it!

Now someone has managed to piss off Harley and this was a guy that shoulda known better.

At least the guys who are trying to get this game done right and not have it be a bug ridden piece of frankenware haven't been giving arbitrary release dates like most companies do. These fellows have been up front and honest,some of us just don't like what they are saying and want things "NOW". Its impossible to please that crowd,please don't waste your efforts trying.

No need to go down to offensive statements. DEV houses are business and producers are businessmen. Whatever the date, it's their call. Whatever the product it's their call. Your call comes when it's time to buy or not to buy. The rest is fried air as they say [:o]