Fed Up - Page 2

JCrowe · #11 June 9th, 2011, 05:36 PM

Wow. So many ways to comment, so little breath to spare.

Sad to say, Aaron's assessment is probably accurate - for all the wrong reasons. Put a turd sandwich on your menu, and call me Captain Crazy, but I'll go out on a limb here and guess that demand for a change in the recipe will be low. Because no one will be buying one in the first place. Adding cilantro and a dash of salt just won't cut it. But replace "turd" with "pulled-pork barbeque and bacon-cheese" and you might have yourself a white-hot best seller.

Instead, we've got crash - burn - suck.

That and a bag of grievances. And more than a little wonderment. Questions I would ask, and expect we'll never know:

1.) Why would you launch a new product for the holiday season that was so woefully incomplete, thus maximizing the exposure of your flaws to the very public you hope to court?

2.) Why (HOW?) could you consider it a 'finished' work, unworthy of updating and correction, and due for general abandonment, after having made such a huge (? - I would presume...) investment in its initial creation? You mix the batter but don't bake the cake?

3.) What other project over there so consumes the balance of their time, that no attention can be paid to a flagship (?) product? What is this 'next great thing' that now so occupies their minds? What incredibly cool piece of candy is the ol' Wonka factory over there tweaking for release?

4.) And lastly, why do they think their customer base is going to throw down dollars on New Thing!! (With Sparkles!) when their last big showhorse was allowed to suck air and die as they stood by and watched? Really. This isn't the kind of confidence-building precedent a business wants to set. GM & Chrysler tried it for 40 years and it's still not working.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - it's a shame. This game had real potential. And unfortunately, it appears that potential is all that it will ever have.

Mike_T · #12 June 10th, 2011, 04:19 AM

Fantastic summing up, JCrowe. You're absolutely spot on.

Is anyone else underwhelmed by the deafening silence from Shrapnel on this thread?

spillblood · #13 June 10th, 2011, 05:09 AM

Yeah, the silence of Shrapnel is pretty suspicious. But I think they'd rather close this thread than discuss with us. Just look at their last response to a thread about customer relations. I'm getting pretty angry at them.
Hehe, but when you think about it, Aaron is pretty right with his mail, making a patch for only two or three people who are still interested in the game (like me and JCrowe) really doesn't mean a lot of demand. Man, I'm thinking about taking that Federal Complaint action ScottWar suggested, but I'm not sure if this is of any use (and I'm not a US citizen, so complaining to a US federal institution might not be right for me).

spillblood · #14 June 10th, 2011, 05:13 AM

As far as I'm concerned: This game is a failure, and I'm not sure if it can still be saved, because it doesn't get much support from the community any more, cause there is no real community. Most people aren't interested in this game anymore, and I think new customers will turn to other games pretty fast as soon as they realize how bad WS is. I think most of them won't discuss this game in the forum.

spillblood · #15 June 10th, 2011, 05:18 AM

I think a good cause of action would be that all people who still have interest in the game and want it to be finished should contact Aaron directly via ws@malfador.com. Using Shrapnel customer support is absolutely useless in this case. Maybe he'll realize that there's still a demand for a new patch if enough people email him. Another way would be to make a petition to Malfador or Shrapnel for another patch. We must take action if we want this game to be fixed, I think.

Mike_T · #16 June 10th, 2011, 06:33 AM

Dear Shrapnel

Will you please respond constructively to the issues raised in this thread. If you continue to remain silent, people will assume that you don't care about your customers. If the game should be sidelined, why not just say so? All game publishers have the occasional failure - it's not the end of the world.

spillblood · #17 June 10th, 2011, 11:23 AM

Maybe we should try to pm S.R. Krol or another guy from the Shrapnel team. I'll try.
Just sent him a personal message. Please enable personal messages in your forum options. They are disabled by default. Had to enable them. Would be good if you also try to contact those guys. We really need to do something.

ScottWAR · #18 June 10th, 2011, 11:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike_T

All game publishers have the occasional failure - it's not the end of the world.

I shouldnt be expected to foot the bill for someones elses failure. In fact,...when a product is a failure (doesnt work as advertised) you are legally entitled to a refund.

spilblood...........As for not living in the U.S.A.,...Shrapnel is an american company,and must abide by U.S. law. The F.T.C. is the department of the U.S Government whose responsibility it is to ensure they are abiding by those laws,...no matter where they sell their product. So , a complaint to he FTC from you will be taken seriously even though you dont live in the U.S.A. . in fact,....since you dont live in the U.S.A it may well be taken MORE seriously.

Edit- just saw your edit above spillblood....Trust me,...There is no way Shrapnel doesnt know how badly unfinished this game is. At this point I think they are just hoping we go away.

spillblood · #19 June 10th, 2011, 11:41 AM

Yeah, I think I'll try this, but I've to formulate my complaint carefully. Maybe tomorrow, don't know yet. Do you know if any of the other guys has tried yet?

spillblood · #20 June 10th, 2011, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScottWAR

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike_T

All game publishers have the occasional failure - it's not the end of the world.

Edit- just saw your edit above spillblood....Trust me,...There is no way Shrapnel doesnt know how badly unfinished this game is. At this point I think they are just hoping we go away.

Yeah, I'm sure they know. And they advertise this game as if it's finished and completely OK. That's the biggest problem, I think.
By the way, I also bought three Shrapnel games so far. WS is the second one. BCT Commander was even more disappointing so far 'cause you can't really get into it without military training (total nerd game), and it's old and not optimized for XP. WS at least is playable (but sucks gameplay-wise). The game i was most satisfied with so far is Remote Assault, which I've ordered in physical form (very cool RTS with kick-*** AI, bad graphics though).