Whats new?

[sapper_astro]

I missed the bus the first time around, as reports I had received of the Japanese AI were not promising, along with a plethora of bugs many ranted about lead me elsewhere. I am now seriously looking at purchasing this game, but I have two questions to ask first.

1) In a short spiel, what will be the major differences between this edition and the original game? As I do not know the original, I cannot make heads or tails of the various things that people are discussing on here, so make it dummy friendly[;)]

2) How is the AI broken up? Is there, say, certain fronts that can be controlled with the AI taking on the other roles? Can I take the role of the Japs in the East or South? Or the Australian front? The Far East front? etc?

[TulliusDetritus]

Humm, I am not following the AE development very closely but this is what I got:

1) more accurate OOB (lots of new ships, air and land units)
2) No more uber CAP, no more bloody air battles
3) each hex = 40 nm (60 in vanilla)
4) the AI will be better than the poor thing in vanilla

Others can be more detailed [8D]

Regards

[felixghost]

I also passed the first time round, b/c I heard that this was in the making. Now that it's almost done I'm looking forward to it.
However, I think they have said that we have to buy the original Witp and then buy the Admiral's Edition.
The expense of buying both back to back is prohibative.
 

[Andy Mac]

No the AI may not take partial control any more its all or nothing its unfortuante but wasnt possible to get the AI to take partial control it just steals all your units

[IndyShark]

Felix, buy WITP now and upgrade to AE later. There is a large learning curve and this is a great game. You will get hours of enjoyment from it. This isn't the type of game that you play once and you're done with it....

[Terminus]

ORIGINAL: felixgrey

I also passed the first time round, b/c I heard that this was in the making. Now that it's almost done I'm looking forward to it.
However, I think they have said that we have to buy the original Witp and then buy the Admiral's Edition.
The expense of buying both back to back is prohibative.

Since the price hasn't been publicized yet, I'd wait with making that decision.

[felixghost]

Sounds good. I'll go back to stand by mode, until the price is published.
Indy,
I hear you man, but the whole reason I didn't WITP in the first place is that I knew this was in the making.
However, after reading all these aars, I'm sure I will pick this up when it ready.
 
Thanks

[Barre]

FWIW...I picked up WITP right after it released.  Although it's not perfect, the game is dazzling in its detail and kept me amused for years.  Even for those of us who play the AI and never manage to PBEM, WITP provided a huge amount of entertainment cheaply.  AE should be the same.... 

[Terminus]

Except much, much more so.[:)]

[sapper_astro]

Thanks for the responses,
 
I was unaware that it also required the original. I was under my own silly assumption that it would be along the lines of GG world divided, COG Emperors edition, (insert other revamped wargame being resold a couple of years after the original was released). I will await further developments and see how the players react to it.

[Lützow]

I wouldn't purchase WitP right now anyway. Maybe Matrix offers a discount bundle with AE release.

[Terminus]

With the understanding that sales and marketing are Matrix's sovereign domain, and they don't tell us anything about it at all, I'd be VERY surprised if there isn't going to be some sort of bundle deal for first-time buyers. It just makes good business sense.

[m10bob]

For gosh' sake....Don't drink that nice cold beer now!..Sure.....you just crawled out of the desert and feel parched.....but just think how nice the cold.....wet....beer will feel later....after you have had time to savor the cool.........moist........droplets of the brewers gold.....when you have been able to savor it for a while.........(Don't pay attention to those guys all around you burping and having a good time with your girlfriend....they are just selfish pigs who can't place value on a nice cold brewski!).....[:D]

[Erik Rutins]

Let me nip the pricing questions in the bud. It's as good a time as any to buy WITP, because the decision was made long ago to set the pricing for AE with the knowledge that a customer would need to own WITP in order to play AE. So AE's pricing will be what we consider reasonable (given its development effort and niche market) for someone who already has WITP.

There won't be a special limited time discount, it will already be built into the permanent AE price (which is set with the combined price of WITP + AE taken into account). Requiring ownership of WITP for AE is what allows that, if we sold it as a separate product the resulting price would be significantly higher and in that case we would have likely offered a limited "upgrade" discount.

This is not to say that there may not, at some point in the future, be price changes to WITP (and there will be the holiday sales and the occasional Blitzkrieg sales). However, right now no price changes to WITP are planned or on the horizon.

Regards,

- Erik

[Crimguy]

TD - Does Fergie ever get that balloon??

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

Humm, I am not following the AE development very closely but this is what I got:

1) more accurate OOB (lots of new ships, air and land units)
2) No more uber CAP, no more bloody air battles
3) each hex = 40 nm (60 in vanilla)
4) the AI will be better than the poor thing in vanilla

Others can be more detailed [8D]

Regards

[TulliusDetritus]

"Does Fergie ever get that balloon??" -- Crimguy

Nope. But tomorrow he can try to catch a mighty trophy: the European Champions League Final. Amazing match [X(][X(][X(]

Anyway, as you may already know a multimillionaire recently paid the Warner Bros (?) company. "I want the Coyote to catch the Road Runner. I have big big big money"...

And the customer is always right... or almost...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJJW7EF5aVk

[Grotius]

There won't be a special limited time discount, it will already be built into the permanent AE price (which is set with the combined price of WITP + AE taken into account). Requiring ownership of WITP for AE is what allows that, if we sold it as a separate product the resulting price would be significantly higher and in that case we would have likely offered a limited "upgrade" discount.

Hmm -- with all due respect, I have to say I'm a tad surprised at this decision, or at least at the packaging of the decision. I personally don't care -- I'd pay more for more AE than I did for WITP. But I want my on-the-fence friends to buy both WITP and AE. (They are potential PBEM opponents!)

Why not charge a bit more for AE and a bit less for WITP, as a limited-time bundle? The bottom line would be the same for you (or even better), and it would give newcomers a sense that they got a reasonably good deal, since they pay a little less for WITP than I did and pay the same price for AE that I do. That wouldn't bother me, and it might entice them. Maybe the price of AE will be so low that it looks like a bundle anyway?

I dunno, maybe others feel differently, but I'm a bit surprised. My on-the-fence friends keep asking me whether there will be a "bundled price." Now I have to tell them no.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Grotius
Why not charge a bit more for AE and a bit less for WITP, as a limited-time bundle? The bottom line would be the same for you (or even better), and it would give newcomers a sense that they got a reasonably good deal, since they pay a little less for WITP than I did and pay the same price for AE that I do. That wouldn't bother me, and it might entice them. Maybe the price of AE will be so low that it looks like a bundle anyway?

I dunno, maybe others feel differently, but I'm a bit surprised. My on-the-fence friends keep asking me whether there will be a "bundled price." Now I have to tell them no.

Yep, I understand your point. This is one of those funny areas of human psychology. Note that AE has been known to be coming for two years now. For over a year we've said that WITP would be required to play it and in that time we've had WITP on sale twice for significant discounts.

Now we could also discount WITP for a limited time during the release period, but this would only be for a very limited time since we feel that WITP is still well worth the original price and also serves as a good "trainer" for AE (If you can't handle WITP, you shouldn't be playing AE).

I'll give it some more thought.

Regards,

- Erik

[mbatch729]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
since we feel that WITP is still well worth the original price and also serves as a good "trainer" for AE (If you can't handle WITP, you shouldn't be playing AE).

Regards,

- Erik

Ah, well, I guess you just lost a customer. According to my PBEM opponents, I definitely can't handle WiTP...

[Tophat1815]

ORIGINAL: mbatch729

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
since we feel that WITP is still well worth the original price and also serves as a good "trainer" for AE (If you can't handle WITP, you shouldn't be playing AE).

Regards,

- Erik

Ah, well, I guess you just lost a customer. According to my PBEM opponents, I definitely can't handle WiTP...

Wow,then you'd be lost pbm with AE.