Version 1.4

from Elemental Forums

Why was the last thread on version 1.4 locked? I think some valid points were made in there and I can't seem to understand the response from frogboy. This is what was said:

"I'm sorry you feel that way. I fear you won't find FE to be worthy either. I certainly enjoy WOM at this point and I think most people would. That said, sure, I can see endless ways to improve WOM but it absolutely makes no sense to try to overhaul WOM because no matter what, users will always be able to throw how flawed the game was on release to back up any current criticism of the game.

I've been making games for 20 years. If WOM v1.4 had been the initial release, it would have done very well critically and commercially despite the flaws you see in it. I still see people who claim Galactic Civilizations II was "unfinished" and even Sins of a Solar Empire. It is the nature of the beast of any game of significant complexity.

But to paraphrase a famous saying, games are never finished, they are simply shipped."

 

I am not trying to be rude, just trying to understand. Heavenfall made some very relevant comments on the state of the game and I dont understand how those comments could just be brushed off as some kind of "opinion" or some kind of "apples" and "oranges" thing. What I mean is, those things, all of them are serious flaws, bugs, etc. with the game. How can that be considered just a matter of opinion? It isn't even a matter of improving the game but fixing the inherent problems in it. I can understand giving up on the game, just moving on and making FE great but I remember statements saying that WOM would continue to be worked on, etc and I feel like they figured they couldn't fix it so they are just quitting on it.

21,811 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I just wanted to say "hi" before they lock this thread too.  "Hi!".

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Unfortunate. Hi, Troj!

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Yes, I disagree with the above quote by Frogboy too.  Just call a spade a spade and say that WoM has so many problems with it that you've decided to work totally on FE.  That would be true, and people would understand making FE a fantastic game since WoM just has so many problems with it that they're almost not worth fixing.

Best regards,
Steven.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I think Frogboy must be feeling frustrated.  Every release its lots of negative comments with few positives.  However, I agree that WOM can't be called done.  I think there is a good game underneath it all, but yes, glaring bugs need to be addressed.  Keep it a work in progress, or abandon it altogether.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm certain Brad just doesn't want to hear bad things about his patches. If you constantly get to hear how much your game suck and that the latest patch you made is useless and that people say they're are uninstalling it and throwing the CD out through the window....then you would most probably get a bit sad and noncaring after a while.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

It would be good if we could take a survey about how much fun we're finding the latest patch.  It is hard when you've made a stuff-up (such as a really bad release) and tried really hard to fix it but no-one seems to care.  However a big part of the problem is that there's so much that needs to be fixed that even if you fix 25% or 40% of all the remaining bugs in a patch there will still be a lot of bugs left.  It is up to Brad what he does after 1.4, but there is just so much that needs to be done to even make WoM OK.  It is a hard choice, leave WoM as it is in an unfinished state or spend time making it better, which isn't likely to get much praise at all.  FE will have a much better starting point, so there is something to be said for leaving WoM alone after 1.4.  If I could make a suggestion I would give source code or extreme bug fixing ability to Heavenfall (who likes to work alone and may do a community patch) with the proviso it is not released into the public arena.  If he still intends to make a WoM community patch it may be better to save developer time fixing WoM and give Heavenfall the ability to bring the game to a satisfactory or good state, which I think he could be relied upon to do so.  I think Heavenfall and Frogboy are both trustworthy people and a team up may be the best answer to both have good work done on FE *and* WoM.

Best regards,
Steven.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

I wouldn't be able to do much with source code (I'm not a coder).

I would hope that my critical position is a point of inspiration. Instead of attacking the message, fix the bugs.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Sorry about that Heavenfall!  And I agree that there are lots of bugs, and they need to be fixed before people will get on board.

Best regards,
Steven.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

This is a pretty pointless discussion, TBH. "Finished" or not, WoM is about to be done. Almost all the resources are on FE. Aside from tinkering a bit, WoM is not changing from what it is.

It's not a very good game. It's never going to be a very good game. There's just too much stuff that needs changing for one person working on it to be able to change that. If it really could be done, FE wouldn't need the entire development team working on it for months. At the end of the day you just can't get around the number of man-hours required and that they don't exist for WoM anymore.

 

Quoting Ausland, reply 4
I think Frogboy must be feeling frustrated. Every release its lots of negative comments with few positives. However, I agree that WOM can't be called done. I think there is a good game underneath it all, but yes, glaring bugs need to be addressed. Keep it a work in progress, or abandon it altogether.

But it's not like people are just trolling it. 1.3 had some issues that can only be described as absurd, like how prestige worked to make growth impossible once you had more then a small number of cities. That's not a small bug, the system itself just didn't make sense in how it worked. That got worse from 1.2 to 1.3, and "you have to mod the game to continue to have city growth" isn't a problem that should appear this late into things. But that was just caused by tweaking to try and fix a different problem in 1.2 (and now we have how it works in 1.4, which Heavenfall already critqued in the first thread).

Compare this whole approach to what Derek did with cities in FE: gutted and totally redid them. THAT is what needs doing to fix the flaws in this system, and the resources to do it in WoM simply don't exist.

"It is what it is" is the statement that best describes this situation. If you don't think WoM is a good game now, then it's time to just move on because that is never going to change. FE has the resources and the planning and is where you should divert your attention.

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Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Yes, that makes a lot of sense, and I think something similar to what we were all trying to say, just in a varying way.

WoM is what it is.

Best regards,
Steven.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

I think everyone has it just about right here. WoM was a disaster and Brad did everything he could to try to make it good with very limited resources. It's hard to swallow the failure of the title. I undestand the frustration, but it seems clear to me that it would be best if Brad forgot about WoM and moved on to Fallen Enchantress.

Heavenfall is calling it as it is. Brad's comment that FE will not be enough to Heavenfall is just the frustration talking. I am the same way, I'm very poor at giving up trying to remedy my own mistakes. The thing is, we don't really need WoM to be really good. It's much better to focus on FE and make it the incredible game we all hoped WoM would be.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

I'd prefer if Brad moved to FE as well. I understand that he cannot begin work on the higher-level logic needed by the AI, but there should be plenty of helper functions that need writing or improving.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Frankly, I'm tired of the complaining regarding WOM and am done with it.  

It is not worth my time to keep working on it when every update is met with "Yea, that's nice but why didn't you do A, B, and C?"  

WOM is what it is. I like it. I'm satisfied with where it's at.  It's done.