Gold Yet?

Instar · #1 October 6th, 2000, 10:43 PM

Hooray
Hehe
The path to this point was a hard one, but we made it

Mark Pavlou · #2 October 10th, 2000, 05:25 AM

While all progress on the final game is good news there are some issues that I would like to see addressed.

My main gripe has been the (unacceptably) long delay between payment and shipping. Taking pre-orders is one thing but debiting credit cards 2-3 months prior to delivery (mine was debited mid-August) should not be. The best business practice would be to debit when the product is shipped and I would like to see this rule being followed more closely.

Secondly - the demo. Yes, graphically impressive, and yes, a good taste of the game. But that 100-turn limit! This cripples a game with the depth that SE4 has and every time I run the demo, I mentally curse whoever put it in.

However there is a fix for both the above issues. Shrapnel Games could make a modified demo availabe to those people who had purchased Online. This demo would have the 100-turn limit removed (and perhaps a couple of tech limits relaxed too). The .exe file is just under 1.9MB so this should not cause the bandwidth issues that downloading the full 440MB game would.

So far it does seem that people have been fairly patient. Go on, Shrapnel. Give us customers something to drool over and keep us from chewing the carpet until November 1st.

Psitticine · #3 October 10th, 2000, 05:49 AM

I'd rather they just come up with the gold-Version demo instead of bothering to develop something special at this late date.

I also think the 100 turn limit is important to get people motivated to buy the game. If you don't set a limit, a lot fewer people would get around to buying the full Version. That's not good for business, and what's bad for the developers is ultimately bad for the gamers!

Psitticine · #4 October 10th, 2000, 05:49 AM

That reminds me: has anybody heard anything new (i.e. newer than the info on MM's site) about the upcoming demo release?

[This message has been edited by Psitticine (edited 10 October 2000).]

Seawolf · #5 October 10th, 2000, 04:29 PM

New demo should be "soon" whatever that means.

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Seawolf on the prowl

Possum · #6 October 10th, 2000, 06:42 PM

I EMPHATICALLY agree with Pavlou. My credit card was debited months ago. We were told there would be a new demo Version *just before* the game went gold (see MM's site for this pronouncement, dated 9/22). Now we're told the game went gold a week ago, and still no new demo or ANYTHING. I too loathe and detest the 100-turn limit with a burning passion. The effing game ends just as it starts to get interesting. And I could not agree more that MM/Grapnel should do something more for those of us who have already chumped up our money. I feel that we have been treated rather shabbily up to this point, and I'm emphatically not happy about it. This is NOT the way to get and keep customers.

Iron Giant · #7 October 10th, 2000, 08:53 PM

Just because I'm bored while I await the game:

When I saw, quite clearly listed, that preordering would mean they take your money NOW, instead of when it ships, I declined to preorder. $5 off is not enough a motivation for me to give money for a product that I may not see for months...

On the other hand, it WAS clearly listed that they would take the money now, and as different as that is from any game I've ever seen, it wasn't hidden.

The 100 turn limit is WICKED annoying, but its better than no demo at all.

At this point, I'd like to see a formal announcement about the Gold status, the ship date, the best way to get the game, where it will be sold, the next demo, etc.

Would be nice for us who have been following this game for a while, but we are used to big huge game companys with big fat budgets too, maybe they just need a little slack...

j/m .02