Raising The Bar...

[Arboris]

First let me say that I think SE IV is the BEST conquer the galaxy game that I have ever played. However upon close inspection there are a myriad of things that need to be fixed in order to make this a time tested classic.

Having purchased the full Version of SE III years ago and watching the development of that game I am sure MM will make the corrections necessary and advance the present game beyond our hopes.

However I do think that MM needs to raise the bar on customer service. Now before MM or the loyal SE IV community take offence, please hear me out. I fully understand the obstacles that need to be overcome when operating a small business. For the Last two years I have had a struggling enterprise that for the majority of that time was staying afloat barely on a month to month business. However when the Last half of 2000 put us firmly in the black I invested that profit into adding more value to my existing product line and services.

As I stated in an early post ..when MM decided to take a short break during the Christmas holidays I felt that it was probably a long overdue and well deserved rest. I would also not be surprised to find out that MM probably could not enjoy their entire break without occasionally thinking about their product and the many things they would like to improve and enhance.

SE IV has apparently done very well. Selling out is always a good sign that a product is in demand.

SE IV was sold to us at the average going rate for a full commercial/retail software product. However they did not have the expensive of a pretty box and box art, nor did they invest much in their manual. Nether MM or Shrapnel has had to invest much if anything in advertising, and MM does not have the typical 12+ man crew for R&D. In a nut shell I would guess that financially things must be looking pretty good for all involved.

This is why I think that MM and Shrapnel need to raise the bar in regards to customer service and support . MM came back from their rest on the 4th and here it is the evening of the 10th and we have not heard a single word from them. I know that they are under staffed and working hard on the ongoing development of SE IV but , how hard would it be to drop by once a week and just give us a short progress report and answer a few of the questions that the people on this board have had.

In addition to this they need to get a better service provided that will not shut down their ability to receive emails. These are all things that are the cost of doing business. They need to take some of their profits from this game and invest it back into the company. Perhaps hire some help. I am sure they could get some inexpensive help from some people right here in the community. As much as I love SE IV and I think the team at MM is great. They need to start thinking big and expand their horizons. SE IV could be a runaway hit if they had a box with great cover art and a decent manual. I need not point out how fantastic the cover art for upcoming "Stars: Supernova" looks and thus gives the impression of a fully fleshed out and professional product. Just for the record I hated the original "Stars" game.

As it stands only the most dire hard fan of this genre will take the time and energy to pour over this game and absorb the vast wealth of material that is needed to be learned in order to have a satisfying experience.
Have I not played SE III and thoroughly read their wonderful 300 page manual for that game. I would be totally lost. There are many things that are not answered in the hard copy manual and the Online manual. Too many things are left to be learned from these message Boards and by trial and error. I would be willing to pay extra for this manual even though I feel we should have been given it in the first place.

There have been many positives reviews of SE IV and that will give the potential of many new sales for MM & Shrapnel. However since this is a mail order only product, many people will visit this board and others like it and I'm afraid that the number of unanswered issues, lack of a decent manual, occasional inability to email MM,and lack of timely progress reports, may hold back potential customers and leave the visitor with a negative impression as to what they can expect.

Nigel Wulf

[Atrocities]

I must say, that is one of the most professional post I have ever had the fortune to read. Very well stated.

[Mephisto]

Well put. I totally agree. Some more information given to us would be real nice, too. How about a list of known and worked-on bugs?

quote:

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Originally posted by Atrocities:
I must say, that is one of the most professional post I have ever had the fortune to read. Very well stated.

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[Richard]

But I think this is where reality and fantasy diverge...

The problem is that YES the game is doing well but you know what as well as it is doing Shrapnel only has one full time employee and me as a part timer. Even with the sales we have not made enough money to have me quit my day time job. Neither has it made enough for Aaron either. And yes we have spent quite a bit of money on advertising for the game. The problem is folks do not understand how expensive most advertising is. Web advertising is not that bad, and that is where we spent the most money.

We respond to each and every email we get and Aaron does, I get tons of good email about how well Aaron responds to his community. The problem is since this is STILL not enough for us to quit what we do full time Aaron is still doing this after he gets off from work. Because of that the patch process is slower, at the same time though can you even get close to this much feedback with the lead programmer of any other game? If so I would like to know because I doubt it.

As far as access to the testing forum we discuss things that are trade secret in nature in there and thus we could never open it up for read only access. As it is I think we are fairly open and honest with you guys and so far have listened to all input.

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Sarge is coming...

Richard Arnesen
Director of Covert Ops
Shrapnel Games
http://www.shrapnelgames.com

[ColdSteel]

Although I completely understand the points expressed in this topic, in fairness to MM I think you need to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Just reading and answering emails alone can be an all day job. I know that when I'm off for a week I need at least several days just to catch up on the emails and voice mail and I'm sure Aaron's gets far more of that stuff than I do. It's likely he's still trying to wade through both the emails and the Posts (a ton of both) and determine what needs to be worked on in the next patch. If we haven't heard from him on the forum it's probably because he's buried and playing catch up.

There's only so much you can do when you're essentially a one man show like MM is. I'd rather have him concentrating on what needs to be done and popping his head up to say hi and tellus what's going on only when he needs a break from the programming grind.

I'm sure he does read our emails and stay in touch with the forum topics but there is only so much one man can do. He'll get SE4 to where we all want it to be eventually, its just going to take time.

[Poddu]

I gotta add my 2 cents here.

Although a new face here, I've played computer games for quite a while. And I can understand that a few people can only do so much, and you must prioritize your work. But if you want to create a classic, its not advertising that will do it, but *word of mouth*. I'm relatively sure that [for example] Sid Meier's Colonization had a larger ad budget than Civ did, and it had a player base from Civ to get it going, but that didn't matter. Civ is well remembered, Colonization much less so.

Why? .. word of mouth ..

As an older player, who played Civ and Moo when they first came out, and happily informed fellow shoppers to "buy this game", I find myself unable to do the same here without caveats about how hard the game is to learn to play well. Thus, my main gripe is the shameful manual/Online manual.

Every review of this game has dinged the manual. And understandably so. The interface is confusing to the new player, and the Online manual is cumbersome as well. Nothing so well illustrates this than trying to refit/retrofit a ship. Question 19 of the Q & A: "How the ---- do I retrofit a ship?" The wording of this reflects not only humor, but the confusion and frustration of the player having to tunnel down through several mouse clicks to do what should be a simple thing. It's easy to understand in hindsight, but certainly isn't intuitive when you're trying to do it the first time.

The Tutorial could be expanded to alleviate this, but, currently, does not take you far enough into the game to illustrate the many features that the game does offer. Note that if this title were released by a major vendor, it would lose several points ranking, because one would have to buy the strategy guide to find out how to do basic things in the game which should have been covered in the manual, and this is currently and rightfully deemed a rip-off.

The cumbersome interface is another big drawback. You're always clicking. There are no windows in this windows game. You cannot move or resize a window and you cannot have two open at once, which would oftentimes be useful. This compartmentalizes information. For example, when inspecting an enemy ship that you have fought before and have in your enemy designs screen, you must go to this screen to see what should be in the large ( and empty) ship report window.

Another classic is "Why doesn't my new colony have any people on it?" This is covered in the Tutorial, but is so anti-intuitive that anyone who just jumps into the game can't figure it out, and comes here to post. [One could argue that a colony ship should automatically have people on it, just as a warship automatically has ammo on it. Imagine if you had to load ammo manually unless you used the Attack button while your warship was at at one of your planets.]

But, I digress .. Give us a good manual and a streamlined interface, and the game will advertise itself.

[WhiteHojo]

Poddu has some valid points in regard to the poor documentation in the game and the effect that has on vairous players and their willingness to recommend this game to others.

I do have a counter point to his view on colony ships being automatically loaded w/colonists. Some situations can find you in the position to expand quickly but not have the population on most of your colony worlds to fill all the colony ships you build. I solve this by building CS wherever I have a shipyard, regardless of the pop of the planet, then move the CS to a move heavily populated planet and load up the colonists. This prevents the removal of all but 1M colonist on worlds w/small pops when building CS. While this is verrrrry unintuitive (a word?) it does, I feel, serve a purpose.

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Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

[Richard]

I think there are things both Malfador and we can learn from this release. The manual was certaintly below our standards but to be honest I have to wonder how we could have taken all of the necessary info and not had a 500 page book .

As far as the interface I actually like it. I think it is FAR more intuitive than say MOO2's interface. Yes there is clicking but I like the way that a lot of common info is in ONE area so I don't have to search for it. It makes micromanaging much easier.

As far as Aaron goes I just spoke with him and he is going through his email SLOWLY .

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Sarge is coming...

Richard Arnesen
Director of Covert Ops
Shrapnel Games
http://www.shrapnelgames.com

[Emperor Zodd]

I never played SE3 and then I found the SE4 demo and loved it. It was fun learning the game using the demo while I waited for my copy in the mail. I got the hang of this game in just a few days. When my copy came I wasn't upset with finding a small paper manual. I read the HTML manual and discovered I knew everything already from playing the demo. Some people are slow learners and need everything spelled out to them in manuals. I find this game very easy and straight forward,and I only wish the A.I. was improved,plus a few tweaks here and there. The Last thing on my wish list or mind is the manual. When I had the demo and had no manual,half the fun was learning the game by playing it.

[This message has been edited by Emperor Zodd (edited 11 January 2001).]

[dmm]

Poddu is totally wrong about the colony ships. Because, for example, sometimes my spaceyard is on a planet with O2 breathers but I want to colonize an H2 planet. I will colonize it with an empty colony ship, and bring a transport with H2 colonists. Or maybe pick up the H2 colonists with the colony ship. If the colony ship were automatically filled, then I'd have to jettison people.

If you want the colony ship auto-filled, use the colonize button. That's what it's for.