Slitherine

I'd be totally against any pay per play or monthly charge. With that in mind the cost per expansion is quite reasonable IMO & I'll be buying most of them.

I would like to see a bulk pre-order option for signing up for say 4-5 expansions. If that got me an extra 5% I'd go for it. And if it was 10% for 8-10 then I'd go for that too.

But then I'm a sucker for a bargain!

if i wanted subscription, i would be playing DBA Online... and get a more tabletop experience.

i have never played a subscription game. i will never play a subscription game.

jin

We have no plans to move to a subscription model. It's good to know you all think we're taking the right approach

On the bulk ordering side, we don't want to take money for thigns that don't exist yet so instead we give a pre-order discount. If you continue to do that you'll be saving 20%, much more than a 5-10% bulk order discount.

We're trying very hard to reward the hardcore players rather than penalise them. You are the community and we need you to make this a success.

got mine. January is the slowest month

iainmcneil wrote:You will be able to play other opponents who have bought the army, even if you dont have it.

That's great: the expansion won't divide the multiplayer community!

Pre-ordered!

I guess the flip side to the discussion on subscriptions et al would be, do you know people who would enjoy pay per play - friends who might only have time for the odd game, but would be happy to pay a few dollars to have a game now and again with you. We'd love to allow the community to include people who might not have the time to play lots of games, and who thus can't maybe justify buying the full game.

Just a thought to provoke, well, more thought

Cheers

Pip

IMO the game is so cheap they would buy it anyway if recommended. A free try before you buy, i.e. where you can only do a couple of turns, would be useful for talking others into giving it a go. Hexwar do something like that for their SPI games.

Is their any thought to being able to play games in one sitting, pbem is great but their are times I have an hour or two to kill and it would be good to be able to play a game to conclusion in one go. Would it be possible to have both players seeing the game they are playing at the same time? Could a chat function be implemented for those that wanted it? Might make tournaments easier to organise and play as well.

I dont think we'll have both players looking at the game at the same time but we could look at in game alerts for when your turn is received. You definitely will not be able to view their turn as they do it - the system is not designed for that at all.

We could possible add in game chat of some sort even that is pretty painful as you are never directly connected.

A small update the initial post. Digital River gave us the wrong info so an update is here:

Note - when pre-ordering your credit card is not billed until the game is released, unless you use a deferred payment system like PayPal. In this case payment can only be taken at the time of authorisation.

If anyone who used PayPal wishes to cancel their order based on this new information please let me know. Apologies for the confusion.

Hi, i am interesting in the game (and some of the books if you move it to the PC game) but have a little question, in this first expansion/add-on you talk about add LOS to the game, ok, but is LOS added only with the expansion or you are going to add it in a patch to basic game??? i am interesting in some periods but not in all and if you add engine improvements to the game only via expansions not patch... i know that every period have their own engine improvements but general like add defensive fire or countercharge... i want to know if you are going to update the basic game without expansions, thanks.

I totally agree with the current statements of Slitherine and strongly think that a subscription model wouldn't be accepted by a lot of customers.
You're doing a superb work. Let's carry on in the right direction!

Generally what we will be doing is patching the core game with all the new features and the expansions will allow you to use the armies in them. This way even if you only have one expansion you'll be able tio play others with different expansions as your code base willbe teh same. There may be specific features limited to certain army packs but I'm not sure what they woudl be at this stage.

Note - when pre-ordering your credit card is not billed until the game is released, unless you use a deferred payment system like PayPal. In this case payment can only be taken at the time of authorisation.

I ordered via pay pal, should the receipt email have included a serial number and download link or will that be sent upon release?

cheers

The link & serial will be mailed to you upon release.

Thanks for the fast reply, i see, then expansions are more like army add-on to the basic game and only can expect especial engine improvements for some armies or periods (isnt the same musket&pike than sword&arrow), glad to know it. Oooo i forget another important question, the multiplayer system is great and i like that dont include aditional payments but is any plan to create a more clasic system for PBEM??? i create the game play the turn and send the file to my opponent all out the game??? thanks.

No plans to revert to an old style PBEM system - it doesnt add anything as far as we can see!

I expect some people would rather buy particular armies, such as the ones they have, a la carte rather than by the bushel - like itunes, and selling a one battle demo with their favorite army is probably the best way of attracting interest. Certainly beats having to play face to face to show how it works.

iainmcneil wrote:No plans to revert to an old style PBEM system - it doesnt add anything as far as we can see!

The main value I would see in an old style PBEM system is that it would guarantee that the game could continue to be played multi-player if Slitherine at some point in the future should end support (voluntarily or involuntarily) for the multi-player server. As an additional benefit it would allow multi-player play if people are on a network that is not connected to the Internet but which does support internal email. While the current server adds value as a way to match up players, there does exist the possibility that it may not always be there or not always be available.

Chris

The problme is it lets people make mistakes, use the wrong version etc and creates bugs where none exist. Currently we have no plans to allow you to play without the server but don't worry - we plan to be here for a very long time!