I have to say that for the most part what you write is correct, but with some exceptions. I happen to be one of those on-line(however, seldom) WiF players you write about below. Currently I happen to be in 2 seperate WiF face to face groups here in south Florida and one of those games is with someone on the ADG WiF Rules Committee. I also have attended WiFcon in Michigan twice and Euro-WiFcon once.
Concerning what you write...I want to emphasize the EiA experience issue. What I plan to do is allow one of my friends to purchase MWiF first since I know he is gung-ho about doing so...get his feedback, borrow the game from him for a week, and if we agree its ok, then I will buy it. There are others in our face to face gaming groups that would buy it as well, but will wait first because some of them had their fingers burned with EiA. Word of mouth is big! Also, I do not consider AI important since my main goal would be to play head to head against humans(there is no AI that can be as fun as playing against a human opponent, and at least with our current technology no AI worth playing since it can be figured out in a matter of a few games you play against it...in which case it loses its appeal. The only "good" AI in games out there are ones that cheat to be challenging(ie...like in MWiF if rolling on average well above 11 on 2d10 land attacks, and below 5 on naval searches...the "hard" button as it were...which becomes un-fun in a hurry)).
The points I disagree with you about are: I am not turned back by the changes in MWiF...in fact they intrigue me...the maps are awesome, divisions, our WiF groups here never liked POLIF other than for the units, we hate to use houserules anyway, and more than anything WiF is such a huge game that from time to time you find something new in the rules that you are playing incorrectly(even when playing with someone on the Rules Committee)...as well, some of us see playing MWiF alleviating mistakes that anyone can make in their builds, forgetting to move a unit, etc...
I think that if MWiF turns out to be fantastic and gets rave reviews from the various WiF boards, you would probably go out and spend the $60+. However, the $500 price Marklv suggested is ridiculas. One other thing that could drive sales and keep everyone's hard core attention on this product for a long while would be for Matrix and ADG to hold MWiF tournaments(maybe with prizes) and to have a MWiF rating scale much like Avalon Hill did for its games.
C
ORIGINAL: Greywolf
I think the game could impact the computer wargaming community, some of them not being WiF player. The game wont appeal at all to the vast majority of the other gamers : it is dry 2D graphics (even Paradox had to go 3D with Europa Universalis, to my great dismay by the may and alienating quite some fan base), turn-by-turn, long and need to understand nearly 80 pages of rules, even if the computer manage some of them.
Let it be clear: its rating on many general newsgaming papers and site will be abysmall (splg?) regardless of the game real quality. That is the way all complexe strategical game with no 3D and real time action go. For them Strategy mean RTS, even if a RTS is not really a Strategy game but a Logistic and Tactics game as we all know.
The other trouble is that the previous release of a Matrix game adaptation of a ADG boardgame was very very poorly received, commented and bashed. I know quite a lot of players with burned fingers syndroma about EiA that wont jump on MWiF on fear it suffer from the same bugs and poor AI problems. And no amount of fixing of EiA after release can cure that.
As other comments there is a community of online WiF players using cyberboard, Vassal and Zuntzu, and Wiffedit and other PBEM or NETPLAY game support. Thoses players will be interested with MWiF but wont be motivated to pay a lot for something that just do a bit more than their regular programs do and change quite some things too. Thoses people wont care about the AI as they want to play PBEM or NETPLAY only. They could be turned back by the changes MWiF introduce : new map, infinite division, no POLIF, no house-rules because that is the computer that set the rules so you can just adjust the option set but not the way you usually tweak the options, a graphical choice that is nice but not necessarily better than the original nor better looking than the high quality scan of some cyberbox. Thoses guys want a computer to play regular WiF on or with, not something different, and the closest it feel and look to real WiF the better.
All considered I think a release price in the WiTP range is what to be expected, but it wont sold a lot of units. Cutting the price down to 49$ would sold a bit more but not that much. MWiF is already a niche project. I think they have quite a clear idea of the number they will sold. If it is sold above 60$ I think I will probably pass on and wait for it to hit to sold-out or second hand bin. There is too many thing you can do or buy nowadays and a lot of high quality games for a lot cheaper than that. MWiF will appeal to the hard-core wargamers but it is not the only that will appeal to them and we are in a time of choice.
