someone get me a towel!

Puke · #1 December 2nd, 2005, 03:49 PM

I think I just messed myself.

I was passively considering downloading the WW demo for ages. Kept putting it off. Never got to it. The game looked interesting, but not enough to cram into an already overfull schedule.

But then someone else I know downloaded the demo. And I saw it. And Oh, how I was wrong. Ever so wrong.

The beauty, the simplicity, the endless randomly-generated beer-and-pretzels fun. And its downloadable, so I dont have to wait for the post. It will be on my hard drive, as soon as I get home.

I can not suffciently endorse this game with words alone - it has to be seen to be appreciated. Hell, I could just watch the title-screen demo for hours on end. Its not deep; its not vast; but it could be played forever.

I think it could even give my old standby "Joust" a run for its money. That suckers been on each of my computers for.. 15 years now? Kudos to Digital Eel, this is the refreshing enema of vitality that the gaming industry has needed for years!

Puke · #2 December 3rd, 2005, 06:53 PM

oh no! the Gamer's Front download option has not treated me well!

Everything was going smooth, untill it came time to download the file. My web browser blocked the popup, and when I clicked to accept the download, the page indicated that it had already been downloaded once. I have placed a request for help with Gamer's Front, but I'm not sure if they work weekends.

Anyone have experiences with their support crew? I'm sure they will fix it when they get to it, but I'm starting to shake from withdrawls!

Anyone else have trouble with their download, possibly related to popup blockage?

Shadowcat · #3 December 6th, 2005, 02:17 AM

Puke: You don't know where your towel is? Oh dear.

I have a friend who also fell foul of this inexplicable error doownloading the game. In his case he aborted the download manually in order to restart it with a more reliable ftp client, and was told falsely that he had already downloaded the file

Go to the support page and make sure you generate an official support ticket -- they dealt with it very promptly once he had done that.

My question to Shrapnel is... why on earth are you adding this unnecessary flaw to your system? If someone has bought the game, there is no reason to prevent them from downloading it again, regardless of whether they completed the download the first time.

The present situation, where it locks you out if the connection dies for any reason (and I'd probably run out of fingers listing possible ways in which this could happen), really isn't acceptable.

I realise the system is new, so I just hope that resolving this is fairly high on your list of things to improve.

Combat Wombat · #4 December 6th, 2005, 04:38 AM

Esmeralda stole all of my towels

Annette · #5 December 6th, 2005, 10:13 AM

Quote:

Shadowcat said:
My question to Shrapnel is... why on earth are you adding this unnecessary flaw to your system? If someone has bought the game, there is no reason to prevent them from downloading it again, regardless of whether they completed the download the first time.

The present situation, where it locks you out if the connection dies for any reason (and I'd probably run out of fingers listing possible ways in which this could happen), really isn't acceptable.

I realise the system is new, so I just hope that resolving this is fairly high on your list of things to improve.

Thanks for your feedback. Actually the system we're using is not "new"; it's what we've been using for downloadable products for the past few years. And it's features are limited. We will soon be upgrading our store to a new system which will give us far more flexibility and promises to be more user-friendly. We've gone through one round of testing and are adding the final touches. We need to test again and hopefully will be launching the new store soon.

Our original plan was to release WW as a downloadable product after the new store launched, but overwhelming customer demand convinced us to wait no longer. And judging by percentages, the "old" system is working well for the majority. For those who do have trouble, please dont' despair - our customer support staff (including yours truly

) is dedicated to offering quick resolution to anyone who has trouble with their order.

I'll take this opportunity to ask that anyone who orders a game from us should whitelist fulfillment@shrapnelgames.com in their spam filter. We've had far more instances of our emails not reaching the recipient than we have of failed downloads.

Puke · #6 December 6th, 2005, 02:35 PM

I have to say, the quality of tech support that I received over last weekend was above and beyond. The trouble was all on my side, though I hear what Shadowcat is saying about the download counter.

The other option is something like a time limit, where you have 3 days to download the software, or something. The problem with that, of course, is one person telling their "warez" newsgroup to all jump on the server to download the file over that time period. Slightly worse than the possibility of someone shareing the ISO arround.

I would guess that replacing the download counter with something like a emailed certificate or cookie, would actually create more tech support cases than it averts.

But those are just my uneducated guesses.

Now the real question: Is Esmerelda based of a real person that the game designer knows? I have several interesting stories about exes stealing towels.

Ed Kolis · #7 December 6th, 2005, 05:41 PM

Oh drat, I thought you were going to start a HHGTTG mod, Puke

Puke · #8 December 6th, 2005, 06:48 PM

it would be easy enough to mod in some HHGTTG items and events. The real trick would be making something that has a random effect each time you use it. not sure thats possible.

Shadowcat · #9 December 7th, 2005, 01:18 AM

Quote:

Annette said:
Actually the system we're using is not "new" [...] We will soon be upgrading our store to a new system

Ah, now I understand.

Someone asked a while back when Weird Worlds would be available for download, and I heard in response that Shrapnel was working on a new system to allow exactly that for all their games.

My incorrect assumption was that there was no such facility available at present, so when the downloadable version was announced shortly thereafter, I thought it meant that the new system was up and running.

Thank you for the clarification

Phoenix-D · #10 December 7th, 2005, 03:44 PM

Quote:

Puke said:
it would be easy enough to mod in some HHGTTG items and events. The real trick would be making something that has a random effect each time you use it. not sure thats possible.

I don't think it it, but you could mod in several identical items, and have them trigger an event to disable the others when one is found..