TLDR; Look for the red text below
This is a common thing it appears in the game/software development world. I personally know of many games where the developers moved on to new projects while leaving glaring bugs in their previous products.
Now, while I realize their business is really not so different than many others, in that they've constantly got to move forward, or get new projects so that they can eat and pay the light bills too, just like I need to constantly find new clients if I wish to keep the lights on, the difference seems to be that when I create a project for a client, there is just no way that I can leave some glaring mistake in their project and move on to a new project. So why is it that so many developers do this exact thing?
To bring it into focus with this forum, there are a couple bugs left in Diplomacy and the last thing that I read suggested that while they would like to fix the problems, they only have so many hands to go around, and apparently all their hands are in a new project. So the past game is left to wallow with it's problems while they continue to pay the light bills and feed their families by starting a new project.
This brings me to the point of wondering... I've been playing games now since the 1970's and in the past 8 years I've been fortunate enough to be able to say that I have over 300 games for the PC, and maybe 20 or so for my Xbox 360. The reason that I mention this is because I'd like to somhow quantify that I've seen this action where developers leave their last title to move onto the new project and they NEVER come back to finally fix it. That is to say, it's a blue moon event for a developer to come back to a title that they've already been paid for and fix it after having moved onto other projects. In general, people that have only a few games, they've not really experienced this situation enough to have it bother them, but when somebody with 30 or so games has experienced this 60% of the time in their game that they own, they start to get, well..., let's just say they start to get a tad frustrated, and eventually it boils over and really angers them.
There comes a time when as a customer, I have to wonder... Why should I buy any (not just Sins developers) developers new game when they left their last game with some glaring bugs still in it? I know that the best way of dealing with developers that have left their previous game with bugs that affect it's gameplay or performance is to vote with ones wallet by not buying their future titles, unfortunately this is the gaming market, and luckily for developers and publishers, there is a large percentage of gamers thata re children who's mental facilities have not fully matured yet and are still of the mind of 'I want, I want, I WANT' and so it doesn't matter to them that a dev or pub's last title was left with problems or not since they just WANT. So getting a large enough group of people that ARE willing to vote with their wallets is really not a viable option.
I personally have voted with my wallet quite a few times, many times against Atari for leaving a game that they produced about 4 or 5 years ago, completely feeling unfinished and ridden with performance issues and have never bought another Atari game since. While I realize that few people vote with their wallets and those that do don't amount to a hill of beans to the devs or publishers, it is unfortunately the only thing that we have. Sometimes grass roots efforts start up like this and unfortunately put developers out of business because the ball gets rolling on some site and then BAM! People don't want to buy that developers new titles and then publishers don't want to touch that developers work anymore. This is truly unfortunate as I never want to see people go unemployed, especially in times where they might be living from paycheck to paycheck and or have children in their family. But seriously, there has to be a point where developers are held responsible for their code and assuring their consumer that it's working as intended and not left off with a bunch of bugs just because a good portion of their audience has moved on to other titles. There are most assuredly people that still want to play their last game and who might not because of some glaring bugs in the code.
Now, I'm not suggesting that anybody makes an example out of Ironclad or anything like that, but I for one am a bit fed up with other developers before Ironclad that have done the same thing, left their last game still buggy and moved on to their next project and it's sort of come to a head for me with Sins, a game that I like very much but which frustrates me with some of the more obvious bugs that were left in the game.
To get specific here... you know TLDR;
Why would I want to buy Sins developers new title when they didn't fully complete Diplomacy and left stuff in it (theres many threads, so I won't repeat the problems) or left stuff out of it, or didn't fix it? Theres no way for me to be assured that their next title won't be left in the same way that they left Diplomacy. And after 300 games, to be quite honest, I'm a tad tired of buying games that are left with problems when the developers have to move on to their next project to keep paying the light bills and can't afford at least 2 hands to fix the left over problems in their last title.
I am a small business owner, and I assure you that I can't leave problems in my last clients projects and just 'move on' to my next client. Eventually clients get to talking and wondering why their project was never complete or still has issues in it and my reputation suffers and eventually I get no new clients as I have no references to give them as every client I've ever had was burned by my moving onto the next project. It's my duty as the owner of my business to put aside the resources needed to complete my clients projects even if I have to move on to another clients projects and then come back in an acceptable time period and fix the first clients project, I feel it's time to hold developers and publishers to this same standard that 90% of the other business's in the world have to be held to.
I agree 100%
I agree as well. The problem is that contemporary gamers have greatly eroded expectations and it suffices to give them good graphics for the majority to be satisfied. Take Empire TW for example. Up until the second latest patch, almost what.. 9 months after release?... the battle AI was absurdly stupid. I know, I know, everybody heard about people whining about AI being stupid in every game that ever featured any AI. However, Empire's AI was a masterpiece. You could give yourself and the AI opponent identical armies, place your own in the most standard manner (not even on the edge of the map) and never touch the mouse or the keyboard for the whole battle and you still would score a great victory! The AI (almost) never used their muskets, never flanked, never used their cavalry to screen or harass... it just plugged bayonets and tried to zerg rush your musket line!And the best thing is - the vast majority of the player base NEVER NOTICED ANY PROBLEM WITH THE AI! They were happy that they managed to kill 33231241541 people without losing any of their own, it made them feel g00d.
So, I wholly agree that projects opened should be finished. Only that most of the kids playing games don't really care if it's finished - as long as it looks good, they're happy. And the cash flows. So why bother fixing it? The cow's milked.
Still, Ironclad did better with Sins than CA did with Empire (or Med2 or Rome). Gotta give'em that.
I definitely agree in principle. But I question whether it applies to Sins. What specific bugs do you find to be so bothersome? The game has been pretty good since the last patch with only occasional minidumps. There are certainly many features I want for online multiplayer, and there's a lot of room for enhancement in that department, but I wouldn't call the lack of those features bugs.
As far as I can tell, the biggest problems are that the pirates are on steroids and games over Ironclad Online sometimes have small (ICO-based) lag spikes.
why should other consumers refrain from buying something they want for the sole purpose of helping -you- make -your- statement? that sounds like a fairly selfish way of looking at it
sins of a solar empire was made by IRONCLAD. elemental (which is what i am sure you are refering to) is made by STARDOCK... stardock ONLY published sins, and while a stardock signoff is required for any patchs, it is ironclad's responsibility to patch sins, and so you need to be barking at ironclad, not at stardock.
iirc.
What I find most disturbing is that it almost seems as though Ironclad has abandoned Sins. We have not heard a single peep out of them since the last patch was released (back in March?). Supposedly they're working on a land-based RTS and have tired of space-based games. I don't think Sins is in bad shape as it is now, so it's not that big of a deal. However, it would be nice to have more communication from them.
In short, regarding Sins specifically, you'd buy the next one based on everything don before. Sure, diplomacy still needs work, plain and simple. But the years prior? Many patches, Entrenchment, many more patches, it's disappointing that they seem to have abandoned it now, but I'd still buy their next game based on all the support it was given up until the last patch, which is still plenty more than most games seem to get.
I agree mostly on this post as a long time gamer, clocking my first game time in 1980, but I think your annoyance is directed at the wrong place. I find that Stardock and Ironclad have done a wonderful job of answering the demands of the community. while I would agree that Ironclad could have given Diplomacy more love, as a person who was on all the betas since the beginning, I know where the game started and where it is today. Sure there is still that 2GB memory leak but for the most part the game is just awesome and for my money these guys do waaaaaay more than any of the EAs and Activisions - you might get a patch but only for 1 issue if it is breaking the game as a whole. But if it is just a balance issue you are on your own and hope they fix in the next version.
To that end if IronClad is listening - when is the next sins and are you ever going to fix the memory leak. To stardock - Elemental is a good start and I home that the update from last night does not crash like the day 0 version did yesterday. LOL - Good luck telling EA something like that
Stardock has Ironclad locked in the basement with no internet.
What memory leak?
I've learned not to have high expectations for sequels and new games. It's always possible that the next game could be compromised in various ways or <gasp> even consolized.
I'll buy Sins-2 if I'm still gaming at that time in my life, but if so I expect it to be superior to Diplomacy or to at least add new elements to the game (an extra race or two, more planet types) and to be more polished and offer more game play features (more game types, better online multiplayer user interface and features). The game play for a sequel should be just as good as the original while also being better polished and offering more features. You'd expect that this year's car model would be better than the one from ten years ago.
Example of a bad sequel: Unreal Tournament 3. Going from the original UT99 or UT 2004 (PC only games) to UT3 felt like going from a souped up Lexus to a stripped down Kia or Yugo because of rampant consoliztion.
I can excuse them not bothering with any more balance changes at this point, as they probably realize it's a lost cause and the community can do better than they can at this point. However there's still some minor bugs that really should have been fixed long ago. In particular the 'AI only puts bounty on Human players' bug makes the game a far more frustrating experience for new players than it should be. The whole point of Sins Diplomacy was to make unlocked FFA THE single player experience of choice, and this kind of handcuffs it. I bought a friend Sins Trinity shortly after it was released as he was an RTS fan who missed the boat on Sins, and the first feedback I got from him was, "I keep losing to the pirates, is it supposed to be this hard? It's kind of slow too." Afterwards I advised him to turn them off and play on Fast speed as a default, and he enjoyed it much more. But still, this and whole OP pirate thing in general is something Ironclad should have addressed by now as new players will play with the defaults and have their lives made miserable by them.
We don't need a miracle patch here, just something to address the remaining bugs.
While I would like to see some more refinement on Sins, the fact is that the game has already received stellar post-release support compared to the majority of the games I've played in the past.
The funny thing is that there isn't a whole lot that needs fixing, most of what needs to be done is pretty simple spit shine work.
For example, pirates. They're broken. You could fix them in a number of different ways, most of which would involve no more than a code monkey and some testers. Heck, you could even add a "pay them off to not bother you" button. The pirates would set back and watch the protection money roll in and players wouldn't have to worry about babysitting the timer. Done with minimum work (though this is by no means the best solution, just the quickest fix).
That's pretty much the most pressing issue.
The polish work is equally simple. Get a pixel artist to fix you up some better icons for the new planet bonuses and you're set.
All that's barely even worth an expansion. Heck, it's minor patch.
As for bugs to fix... I actually haven't noticed any (which is not the same as saying they don't exist) and have been quite satisfied with the game's performance.
If the developers want to add new stuff at minimum cost, I'd recommend checking out some of the mods and asking their creators if they want their work to go into the official build. You know the majority of em would say yes, which basically means free new content for Ironclad.
Sins1 is more or less one patch/expansion away from being fiat accompli. How much Ironclad wants to give us as a parting gift is up to them, but I'd hope they remember the loyal fans and let Sins1 have a happy retirement.
Sins 2... well... I'd reallyreallyreally like that...
The franchise needs more love and a sequel would give it that very thing.
(course, Ironclad could pull off a Blizzard and wait over a decade to release the sequel... which has its pros and cons, I'll admit...)
when I notice things like the GalaxyScenarioDef.galaxyscenariodef file not corrected after lord knows how long... stupid errant tabs at the end of lines and the same double quotation marks "" at the end of lines in the English.str file, I think carelessness -especially since I told them many moons ago, sent them a fuller GalaxyScenarioDef file and corrected English.str file, and watched as nothing was done. The same things are present in the newest GSDef file and the English.str file in the Diplomacy folder.
These are two very minute things, but speak volumes imho about Star/Clad's opinion of SINS. SOASE was released rather barebones compared to many other games -I've been gaming since 1985 and played a lot. I've sent the eternal gripe about zero campaign since I got the game and went "WTH?! Single and MP only?" There wasn't even the attempt to create sequences of maps with external readme.txt's with some kind of story -just the same sort of thing on every map. You start with nothing everywhere you MIGHTY empire starts as if when you win the map, your scientists all commit mass suicide and fleets scuttle themselves leaving your to re-research everything from scratch.
No more expansions, work on SINS 2 and learn from errors and omissions in SOASE.
Semaz,
It's still a great game in spite of its flaws. Anyone who gets bored with the single player game should come play it in online multiplayer against human opponents. They'll discover that it's much more interesting when you're playing as part of a team and when your opposition is not silly AI.
Its when you drink so much in an evening that every time you go and pee a small part of what you have done that evening gets peed out - if you drink enough the memory leak is so bad you cannot remember anything you did the evening before.
(Sometimes your friends can remind you of what you did - which has its pros and cons).
omg 1 and half year old thread resurrected!
I'd say I wholeheartedly agree. But I do not feel Diplomacy is in a horrid state. Maybe my expectations have plummeted, but if I compare it to the likes of such shit-in-a-box releases like Moo3, Sots2, and Elemental, I simply cannot say it is a terrible game. While some bugs persist, and I'd love to get them out,t hey are minute. And while there are other things I feel are still missing, like better map placement, generation, and position settings, along with some things that were actually taken out for no good reason, most of my gripes involve MP game.
However, I will still not buy Rebellion, even though I want to badly. And the reason is draconian DRM that takes the power away from a paying customer, and puts it squarely into the hands of some third party corporation with no scruples.
I've been playing the Rebellion Beta since it was released and I haven't had any problems so far in those regards. The online multiplayer aspect feels pretty much the same as it did in Diplomacy. It isn't even necessary to enter a password for your account to log on now. Nothing about Sins's implementation on Steam seems draconian to me.
uum just say you like rebellion but its still buggy and unfinished. Saying you haven't had any problems is like saying its finished.
just my 2 cents.
Fairly sure Sanchezz was referring to not having any DRM problems. I can also say I haven't had any DRM problems with Sins on Steam. I DID have a problem with Heroes of Might and Magic VI but that was more due to Ubisoft putting their complete crap of a DRM program into it and after enough complaining Steam gave me store credit since I had no inclination of trying to figure out how to "fix" the Ubisoft DRM. Steam works great for me and I hope more developers jump on board with putting their game libraries onto it.
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