[johan osterman]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
This is news to me. It is certainly not the impression I get, or feel I am supposed to get, but perhaps that is because I feel that a 50 dollar price tag lends the impression that the product isn't to be treated like shareware. Ditto for the purchasers (clients) of the product (company).
Well hats off to a bunch of blokes who made this great game in their spare time. And ok for them for getting a publisher too. But boo! on Shrapnel then, because somebody is doing something with some money which should be going into post-sale client support, and I suspect it is Shrapnel. When I purchase software -- also from a small publisher or firm -- for 50 dollars, I expect at least some tacit agreement between buyer and supplier common in the game industry, and it seems to me if what you folks are saying is true that this is not the case here. Maybe I am a conservative boor (probably), but I find that irksome. I don't think it is right to put out a game and expect whomever (whether two guys sitting in their garage or 40 people in a well-furnished office) to bring out patches in their spare time or out of the goodness of their hearts. I think the game (like *any* software release) needs some work, and I feel it is the right of the customer to be able to say that without putting poor programmers under pressure who would rather or who have to do something else. Well I am sure no one here agrees with me, but unless you are joking with me I think this situation is not right.
Well this has nothing to do with the endgame issues, sorry. (They are secondary.) Hmpf well excuse me I think I just ranted there. But tell me honestly and as objectively as possible why I am wrong, if so.

1 I think you are overestimating the kind of money dom 2 generates, and shrapnel actually passes on a relatively large chunk of the proceeds from dom 2 to illwinter. Also while there are not enormous amounts of cash being generated by dom 2 sales there is still some cashflow that passes unto illwiner, even after the punitive swedish taxation, so you do not have to rely solely on the goodness of Kristoffer and JK for them to put out patches to keep theirs and shrapnels customers
happy.

2 Considering the patch that is allready released and the patch that is on it's way I do not think that illwinter is providing less post game support than most bigtime developers. And the general consensus after the release of dom 1 seemed to be that illwinter provided more post game support than many other bigger companies, and at this point I see no reason for anybody to claim that these standards have fallen.

I am not even certain if I have adressed what you are ranting about, since I don't really get what the target of your rant is. As far as I can tell your basic complaint is that you believed illwinter to be bigger than it is. I do not think that anyone has tried to give you this impression, and of the games that shrapnel publishes it appears that they are generally made by 1 or 2 person companies, Malfador consists of Aaron Hall, Stormcloud creations of Derek etc. I do not even understand why you imagine shrapnel and or illwinter would want to give you this impression.

[ February 10, 2004, 11:49: Message edited by: johan osterman ]