This pretty much sums it up, about WWIIOL and any game(From the ww2ol board):
Take a look at the economy and then look at greats now. Programs are getting ever bigger and more complex, taking large teams of people years to complete. Time is money. And money is hard to find outside of the "big boys" who hardly ever take a gamble.
If you think he is wrong, I have to ask you, where are the developers of some of my favorite games? Where is Janes, Spectrum Holobyte, Dynamix? What happened to UO2? Where is Kesmai and Air Warrior 4? Why does EA pour more development into the console over the PC platform when the PC platform is what put them in the business in the first place? What was the last submarine game you played? For me, Silent Service and Janes 688 are still the kings there. If you are a serious racer, you cant touch the Nascar series or Grand Prix Legends for cars that really act like cars! And GPL is over 3 years old! I read some stuff from the papyrus guys who said Sierra wont let them do another Grand Prix series. Why? Because GPL was too hard for us to drive and it didnt sell well enough when compared to the other cookie cutter titles we bought. Of those I listed above, only Nascar 4 is current.
B17 II was rushed out the door before it was finished because of money. Same with Flashpoint. Do you really believe that either of those developers wanted to release games with terrible or non-existant net code when they see the thousands of people playing together on gamespy or the zone?
Its all the same. The only measurable difference is in degrees. We are all in the same boat except for one thing... No matter how long you want to support any of the above as a player, those developers have already, or will quit supporting those titles, let them stagnate, and move or have moved on to the next several year long project. We will be supporting and growing the WWII Online "world" indefinitely. As long as we have the support to do it.
We have apologized time and time again for the problems that we are experiencing and for the fact that we have not met many of your expectations. No matter what we do, we cannot change the past. What we can do is acknowledge the problems and fix them. With enough time and support, we can and will far exceed those expectations. On the other hand, as we meet and exceed those expectations, I fully expect you guys to grow enough new ones to keep us on our toes..
WWIIOL for all its warts and blemishes, offers something special. The first and only realistic historically based (I know, too many tanks... fixed before pay) combined arms battlefield experience.
I know you all have been there and seen the sparkle either playing with your friends or alone. The adrenaline rush and/or cold sweats when the shells and bullets are flying. When you know that there is no possible way your gonna survive this, and somehow through some miracle you do. Or even when you dont make it, but your last minute sacrifice made the play for your team. Otherwise I cannot see a logical reason for the emotions to run so high when the damn thing CTD's, or "lags" your plane into the ground. Its frustrating as hell for you and for us.
Why did it go out earlier than we wanted it to? Simple. So that we could keep it alive. Why go pay to play now? Slice it, dice it, cut it with a side angle grinder, it still boils down to the same thing. To keep it alive. We see no other alternative. If you have any better ideas on how to do this, we would love to hear them.
The point I am trying to make, is that all frustrations aside, we are all on the same side. We want the exact same things that you do!!! Blitzkrieg is not the WWII game that is in the WWII Online design doc, it is only the beginning. The first and by far, hardest step in finalizing the system designs and cleaning up the code so that we can move on to gameworld and weapon expansion utilizing said systems. And we are sooooo damn close!!! Its not about getting rich off of subscriptions (fat chance although that probably would be cool), its about paying the bills and employing the needed human resources so the programmers can keep fixing and adding to the game. And to keep the bandwidth and servers going so that we all have a cool MM WWII world in which to use our new "toys" against each other on the bloody field of battle.
In a few days, the fate of this massively multiplayer WWII game will be in your hands. Your support or lack thereof will keep it going or kill it. And I am willing to bet my last dollar that if you plan on waiting for another one, be prepared to wait another 3 to 6 years. I dont know of any other "professional" developers that currently happen to have one hiding in their back pocket.
I dont want to wait for another one either. I subscribed my anonymous account yesterday. Every little bit helps.
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Rodney "Hatch" Hodge
Playnet\CRS
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