Slitherine

This is a flawed argument in all aspects. For one basically pricing a game based on its graphics is completely false economy, i.e. how many mediocre XBox 360 or PS3 shooters are out there that retail for £40 to £50 with shiny graphics and 10 hour campaigns that offer limited replay value but people will buy them as that is their bag / genre.

For example the CoD and FIFA franchises recycle the same game every year with minimal tweaks and updates yet they sell like hotcakes as fans of those games still lap it up every year as that is what they enjoy.

e.g. my gaff of the year (so far ) is buying Black Ops 2 for £40, installed it played it for 3.5 hours and thought "god this is cr*p", uninstalled it and will probably be in no rush to play it again for all its high production value and polished graphics etc. Historically I have loved the CoD franchise going back to the original in 2003 but now the franchise really is poor (the decline of CoD is a separate discussion altogether!!), lesson learned and we move on.

In contrast I should have put that money aside for Allied Corps, as I know that game will give me 100's+ hours of entertainment even with 1990's graphics lol.... and thus my "£40 investment" would have been much more sensible.

Panzer Corps doesn't have bad graphics but 'functional ones' that more than do the job and most turn based games do not require fantastic 3D visuals, which in a way is a blessing, as you are not having to think "$h** I need to update my PC or GPU to play Allied Corps" , unlike say those that want to play CA's Rome 2 in all its glory.

You know with the Panzer Corps franchise, it will run on a modest spec PC and you will never have to worry about upgrading hardware...! That alone to me is a selling point!!

All of us on here who have bought PC & or DLC's / AK etc will have had potentially hundreds of hours of entertainment from it and no doubt hundreds more so at the end of the day spend your money on a game that you know you will enjoy, simple as that!

Finally the biggest selling point of Panzer Corps and other turn based games like Civ 5 for me and I'm sure other married guys will agree is that I can play Panzer Corps on my lap top in the living room and talk to the wife / be in her company at the same time (genius ). Contrast this with if I disappear to the man cave / study to play an FPS / action game, then the wife will be nagging me that I'm neglecting her or not spending enough time with her etc... You cannot put a price on being able to game and keep the wife happy at the same time......!

You have a man cave? My man cave is where my wife lets me play Panzer Corp. With Splashtop2 I can turn on the computer and play a full game on my iPad, put down the top of the computer and the wife won't even know I'm haveing fun without her. OOP sorry dear was that you calling. let me take out this pole, from the living room, light pole. Been married 29 years happy

soldier wrote:

Regarding ladders and competitive games ... do people really need this kind of virtual penis contest to have fun?

No of course not. MP is still fun without a ladder or tournament but there's nothing wrong with a little competition, look at any sporting event. Obviously your not competitive but I'm sure some players here would like the challenge. Its war out there
And i think Mordan has a point. MP has been left as is since release. There's still plenty of interest and no doubt countless games have been played, but it will die out if the developers never contribute anything else to the arena. That would be a shame because its got so much potential.
MP campaigns, co operative battles and tournaments would be great fun and keep interest alive.

Thx for the support. I don't expect much here since the majority of PzC customers are geared towards single players, and I totally understand that.

I have played competitive games on unofficial ladders. From my experience, most of the players don't like the heat of a fiercely contested battle. I love it. I win most of my games. And i lose a few but all the good players are inactive or playing other competitive games like World of Tanks. And the current MP system makes me unable to find the best players out there.

That's the point of an official ladder. It enables the best players around the world to hone their skills. Right now, nobody knows what the "VERY BEST" strategy on a given map/scenario is, because the best players haven't played enough games on the maps to find out how to best play them, because the best players don't have a match making service.

One of my favorite map is the MP Stalingrad map. I'm undefeated in the unofficial ladders. If anyone want to try me. I have played scores of MP games and right now I'm bored to death. I win all my games. I'm pretty sure there are better players than me.

But for PzC, if the benefits of such a competitive environment are not visible in the short term, money wise, it brings credibility. Imagine Starcraft without competitive MP.
I know many players that won't take PzC seriously because of the lack of competitive play.. and again you cannot find much support here on this forum. You won't find it actually. It gradually appears when such a ladder exists. Tournaments are NOT a good idea. Those are one shot events that don't bring the aforementioned advantages. They have no visibility. Besides, for competitive play to actually succeed, the game client must be modified to increase cheat protection.

Man caves ..... I love hearing men discuss the trials and tribulations of dealing with their women

My wife, I likely should just call her my husband. She acts like most of you guys in her own way. I was nice to her and set up the living room to be 'her place'. The rest of the home is basically my turf though. But then, considering how I do all the housework here, well of course it is 'my space'. The kitchen is mine, the bathroom the bedroom and all the hall spaces it's all mine. I have a hobby room as well. I think it is comical it is the other half of the kitchen.

The wife is usually sleeping if not on the couch

I wouldn't mind it if she was doing this after spending a day at work of course. But it sure isn't her that is doing the housework.
She's a man that sits to pee as I see it

Oh well, she does a nice job of making me smile where it counts
No I don't mean feeding me (I cook most of the meals here too).

I spend as much time as I want on my hobbies, but it isn't limited by spending time with her, it's limited to whether I have housework needing my energy.

Really I just bought mine her own iPad, now we don't talk. Year 30 comming along just fine, don't tell her. I'll be busted to private again

I bought mine her own iPad too and she is addicted to that and will spend half the night playing Sims, but her argument is she will play it in the same room as me if we are at home together, where as I will disappear to the 'Man Cave' to game etc.

So the solution is move the laptop to the livingroom and play turn based strategy games so you can still communicate and appear to pay attention to the wife during the evening! (virtually impossible to do with an FPS or RTS game so it has to be turn based).

Also, there is something really cool about kicking back in the livingroom with a beer after a day at work during the week and having an hour on Panzer Corps before you go to bed etc!!

It has been my own notice, that if you are alone in the room, you really ARE alone, but, if you are not alone, even if not directly interacting, it is not the same.

I prefer my wife to at least be in the home to not feel 'lonely'. I prefer her to be in the room to signify she likes being 'with me' but the only time I don't want her attention elsewhere, is while trying to improve my procreation technique

Your woman wants to be needed and feel that way, she doesn't necessarily want you in her hair all the time. She just wants to know you are willing to send the signal all the time. Signal strength is always best when you are in line of sight

ElIndio wrote:So the solution is move the laptop to the livingroom and play turn based strategy games so you can still communicate and appear to pay attention to the wife during the evening! (virtually impossible to do with an FPS or RTS game so it has to be turn based).

Same here. It worked well until we moved and I had a sweet office.

"procreation technique" lol, nice phrase and yeah it helps to pay attention for that one otherwise there will be no procreation technique....

I think the bottom line is woman are complicated that is for sure but they more than make up for it in other areas.....!

It is a fine line at present between keeping the woman happy and conducting my Afrika Korps campaign on PC.....

ElIndio wrote:It is a fine line at present between keeping the woman happy and conducting my Afrika Korps campaign

Could you imagine if Rommel had his wife nagging him during his campaign?

Yes I can Erwin are you stuck again? It's hot out here. I want to see Egypt you promissed, when are you going to take me to see Egypt? I'm tired of all these un mummyfied dead bodies I want to see a mummy. ERWIN! Oh good we're getting a beach front home :lol:What did you say about Adolf dear. He should go where? Of course this is funnier in German.

Mordan wrote: I have played competitive games on unofficial ladders. From my experience, most of the players don't like the heat of a fiercely contested battle. I love it. I win most of my games. And i lose a few but all the good players are inactive or playing other competitive games like World of Tanks. And the current MP system makes me unable to find the best players out there.

<skip>

I know many players that won't take PzC seriously because of the lack of competitive play.. and again you cannot find much support here on this forum. You won't find it actually. It gradually appears when such a ladder exists. Tournaments are NOT a good idea. Those are one shot events that don't bring the aforementioned advantages. They have no visibility. Besides, for competitive play to actually succeed, the game client must be modified to increase cheat protection.

You make good points here. Unfortunately, as you say, MP in PzC is a small niche within a small niche. Thus, right now, we are testing new MP maps in Allied Corps beta, and the amount of feedback is much less than we hoped. It was the same in Africa beta too. This, together with the fact that MP stuff is usually harder to do (since I cannot do this stuff myself, I need to coordinate with Slitherine folks on server side), results in very limited development in MP area.

Still, I'll keep in mind what you are saying. BTW, speaking of anti-cheating protection. We have discussed this in the past, but I may have forgotten. What features would you like to see in the client, so that it is better protected against cheating?

Thus, right now, we are testing new MP maps in Allied Corps beta, and the amount of feedback is much less than we hoped.

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That is unfortunate. Panzer Corp has a strong single player component but for me its just something you do when you don't have a REAL opponent. Its true that many post here saying they only play single player but there seems to be quite a bit of online activity. Its really never been easier and more fun to play turn based battles online with slitherines excellent pbem system.

Perhaps some people just like beating up the AI but the only reason its any challenge in the DLC's is because it gets a massive advantage in men and material (which is probably fair enough on the eastern front)

maybe its also a matter of coverage? maybe the replay system might change something if some people do youtube replay stuff or something. As for the MP turnaments, I kind of agree that a standing ladder would probably be better than one time events to keep people interested. I dunno.

I myself currently simply am not so interested in MP I guess because I haven't even completed my first playthrough of the GC yet. But we'll see. I'm losing interest in World of Tanks right now because it's just not tactical enough in random games. Its just a boring grind to get t Tier 10 games whcih suck anyway because of 1/3 of the team consists of artillery. So I might go back to more leasure but more tactical MP like PzC. We'll see.

KeldorKatarn wrote:1/3 of the team consists of artillery.

So, just like PzC then? I'm not a big MP fan myself, but there aren't many incentives to become one, either. I agree that this probably needs to be built up gradually. This is fundamentally a single player game, but the turn-based structure lends itself well to a quick few turns in between other activities, instead of complicated team-matchmaking. So this might appeal to a certain group of people, but I guess their input is needed to better understand what is needed to make it interesting for them.

yes but PzC artillery doesnt shoot accurate enough at stationary targets to one shot kill them

nats wrote:But you know full well that nobody other than ardent fans of the game will pay almost £60 for a game with graphics like those which is based on an old game.

I am not going to get into the price issue, as parts of me sympathize with both sides.

But I want to comment about graphics in modern strategy games, particularly remade games. The OP seems to be implying that the PzC developers chose a low cost easy road by using "old graphics". Ugh. I know little about game development, but I think the OP is missing an important point. Yes, many games have much more eye catching graphics than PzC, but that isn't always desirable, particularly in a strategy game.

Let me throw out an example. I am a fan of an old PC game from 1994 called Colonization. It came out at about the same time as Panzer General, so perhaps some readers here will be familiar with it. I have played this game for hundreds of hours via a DOS emulator program, as it will not run under modern operating systems. Relatively recently (OK, like 4 or 5 years ago, but to an old fart like me that seems recent) Firaxis released a new version of Colonization based on the Civilization IV graphics engine. I smiled inside, thinking I could do away with all the tedious emulator stuff and get few new gameplay features. I plunked down the substantial purchase price (40-50 USD, I don't remember exactly) with little resistance. Only to find I HATED the new version. Why? Because of the new graphics. The new game uses a semi-3D graphics displaying the terrain from a sort of sidewise viewpoint (isomorphic? I am not certain of the technical term). Compared to the original game's simple overhead view, this makes it much harder to see where things are at a glance. The individual squares are also displayed on a much larger scale so you cannot see as much of the map at one time. Units also have complicated animations that display every time they move, which makes moves take several times as long as in the original game. The combination of moving units taking so much longer and having so much more trouble figuring just where things are is a game breaker to me. I have played the new game for maybe 2-3 hours, then gave up on it and fired up my DOS emulator again.

In a strategy game, designed to make you think, graphics should be designed with functionality as first priority and eye candy at best second. I don't care how pretty the freaking icons look, I just want to be able to visually distinguish the units and tell their relative positions at a glance. In my opinion, the PzC developers chose exactly the right option by giving us a simple overhead map-style view with 2D sprites. If this was somehow cheaper than complex animated 3D graphics, fine. But the issue of usability is more important than the issue of development cost.

I found the price very fair. Paying the price for the base game was a no brainier. That I simply owned Rudankort for his dedicated work creating PG Forever.
I just quote Allied General Workshop:

PGF brings PG into the 21st Century. PGF plays PG, AG, and custom campaigns on modern Windows systems (XP and later) with improved AI and UI, new options, and abilities to add custom efiles and icons.

He made this unpaid and completely free of charge. It's still available at pgforever.info So gratitude for that.

The 5$ per DLC seems to me almost too cheap actually. If you think about, each DLC has 14-16 scenarios. These scenarios are not just made up. You have to do research, read books, have a deep knowledge about the war, the battles that happen, were and when, which formations took place and learn the geographical maps. All this then need to be converted into an abstract scenario, which have to be designed and balanced for an evolving player core force over a course of 150 scenarios. Not forgetting the testing and QA that has to follow before release.

So by a price of 4.99$ per DLC you pay on average a 0.33$ per scenario. Take off from these 0.33$ the running expenses and... I guess Rudankort is by now running around with golden AK's firing platinum rounds into antique late Roman marble statues.

danhanegan's mention of Colonization is interesting.

There is a free remake of colonization here: http://www.freecol.org/ -- I've played it a bunch, and like its feel a lot more than Colonization for Civ 4. Freecol doesn't require an emulator. And it's free.

Is this off topic?

Not really.

You see, some people expect a remake of Panzer General to be free as well.

"But Panzer Corps is more than just a remake; it adds a lot of stuff to it..."

Well, that gets us back to danhanegan's reaction to Colonization for Civ 4; he didn't like the extra "stuff".

I guess it all depends on whether we think the extra "stuff" is worth the money... Will it help recapture the enjoyment we had when playing the game the first time? Or will it get in the way? Or will it just not be enough to make a 20-year-old game design feel interesting to us?

A lot has happened in games since the early 1990s. Some of us are not quite sure whether hex-based games are still interesting. Close Combat, Combat Mission, Call of Duty, Company of Heroes, Total War... Many of us are used to 3D graphics now.

I played the Panzer Corps demo, and liked it. But at the same time, I am wondering: is that enthusiasm sustainable over 10 hours? 20? 100? How many fun hours will we get if we pay for the core game, AK, and the DLC? What is the dollar-per-hour ratio, and, more importantly, what is the FUN-dollar-per-hour ratio?

The nice thing about free remakes is that if we get bored of them, we simply uninstall them. There is no pressure to complete them. Not so with paid games. It's hard to abandon something we invest money in, even if it's no longer giving us happy points.

This is our worry, and is why many of us are waiting for a sale. We want to feel like we're getting a bargain, so that the pressure diminishes.

Discount would be nice if there was not the time limit set to redeem your discount. I would have qualified for the %70 discount but unfortunately I am disabled and do not get paid until the 1st. so I lose out.