May Release Is Official

[Hosakawa Tito]

I just received an email from amazon.com that my order of Shogun Warlord edition has a new release date of May 2,2001.Not unexpected,but disappointing just the same.I hope the delay will mean it will be bug free.
Am I a glutton for punishment or what? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
Tito

[Geisha]

Bug free? No game is ever bug free... Maybe it will mean less bugy though... and more features?

[edRonin]

Bug free ... the date for that is June 23, 2113.

Hopefully the bugs that are present in May aren't bad. Hopefully it arrives in May. The anticipation is killing me.

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All your base are belong to us

[Contubernalis]

This, to me, a newbie to the PC gaming world, is unbelievable. How can you announce a release date and then roll it back from March to MAY!
Can anyone see any other product area where this is successful business? I think that CA/EA owes us an explanation and an apology. Make that an apology, samurai style.
I must say, the lack of respect and business sense this shows is appalling.
A release date is an implied promise. Can you imagine Hideyoshi saying to Nobunaga, "well, I said I need three days to fix the castle wall; I actually need a month"?

Again, the lack of respect this shows is heartstopping.

[Shiro]

Have they no honor or are they just eta?

[This message has been edited by Shiro (edited 02-26-2001).]

[BanzaiZAP]

Contubernalis:
Ah, the innocence of youth. You think a two month delay is bad? Think: Diablo II's original release was delayed by years not just months. The original release of Shogun:Total War itself was delayed a number of times. Other games got pushed back so much and so often they finally evaporated. Was anyone waiting for Obi-Wan?

The gaming industry, software industry, hell, the whole COMPUTER industry functions like that. If your car crashes as often as Windows does, we'd all be riding horses. And yet people tolerate that level of efficiency in the computers that run their lives. At the risk of repeating myself; Lord, what fools these mortals be!

-- B)

[Tenchimuyo]

Well I'm one of those fools.
Can't live with out a computer. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

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A great warrior never reveal his true skills....

[Puzz3D]

Don't get your hopes up too high for May 2nd either. I suppose this pushes back the v1.13 patch as well. I wouldn't want to see the Warlords/Mongols release pushed out the door before it's ready. Serious bugs can kill a game in the marketplace. It doesn't take long for word to get around on the internet. I won't buy Age of Sail II for that reason.

MizuYuuki ~~~
Clan Takiyama ~~~

[Magyar Khan]

as predicted. i will get used to it

[Dark Phoenix]

I went down to the local EB store yesterday and they are only going to be getting in the gold edition at the moment. If this happens I will not be able to get it. How many of you would pay $200 for 1 game.



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DoragonPhoenix of the Clan Doragon

[solypsist]

whatever the release dat,e once the expansion comes out, the .Org posts will be flooded with this icon in particular:
http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif

at least for a few months.



[This message has been edited by solypsist (edited 02-27-2001).]

[barocca]

Expansion Pack?
WHAT Expansion Pack?

My local games Stores tell me there is no such animal,
They have not been offered an Expansion Pack, so how can they order it in for me?

Phoenix said the game was going to wind up costing him $200 (original and warlords)!

Well for me you can DOUBLE that figure,
My Girl and I both play online,
I've already spent $200.
Now they want another $200 !!!

The Expansion Pack was going to be the only way I could afford to 'upgrade' to the new units and features!

Not Available till May?
And now they want us to wait until MAY !!!

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/mad.gif http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/mad.gif http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/mad.gif http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/mad.gif


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DoragonBarocca of Clan Doragon (http://clandragon2.homestead.com/Dragon01.html)

[Doragon_Ajidrik]

Goddamn liars, now I have to wait until May. B and Mori, why does PC games cost $100 over there in Oz? It will be $39.99 here in Us i think. Can some1 tell me if this is the correct price for the Gold edition?


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RUN, to live to run another day!

Honor to Clan Doragon
www.doragon.cjb.net (http://www.doragon.cjb.net)

[Erado San]

Sigh...

Nobody, not EA, not CA and not Dreamtime have announced a release date. All that is officially known is that it will be a Spring release.

If you think release dates published on Amazon or wherever are official, yer nuts!

And since spring means something like march-june, I suggest ecpecting a june release. Saves a lot of frustration.

[Dark Phoenix]

The reason that they cost so much here Aj is that we are a minority game market and for the advertising costs and the rest of promoting expenses they need to charge us these ridiculous prices.

If they do not have the just the expansion out here and I checked with the 2 biggest games store chains today and neither are expecting just the expansion they will piss a lot of people off. Shogun was in the top 20 highest selling games here for about 6 months.

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DoragonPhoenix of the Clan Doragon

[Hosakawa Tito]

Someone in the USA should be able to buy the game and ship it to you for cheaper than $200.My god that is robbery.
Tito

[Tenchimuyo]

All these scrambled release dates are driving me nuts! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/mad.gif

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A great warrior never reveal his true skills....

[Gregoshi]

Programming is not like building a house or car. Have you ever given someone instructions to do something and they messed it up anyway? Then you find out you missed a step, were unclear or made a bad assumption? Your instructions are a very simple program - a program with a bug in it. And you gave your instructions to a thinking (hopefully) individual. Now imagine trying to give those same instructions to a mindless computer.

There was a game I had on my old Commodore64 in which you had a robotic tank that you had to program AI into it using a simple language. Then you had to put your tank up against the enemy. Your powerful tank looks rather stupid when it gets stuck behind a rock and can't figure out how to get unstuck. So you re-program (debug) it to get unstuck. Now you find your tank gets away from the rock but is doing circles on the battlefield - doh! My point? Programing AI is tricky business. Then think about trying to test all possible situations provided by the plethora of options available to Shogun. Cut them a break, they have a monumental task in front of them.

Holding them to a release date and then flaming them for not sticking to it is not a good thing. It is "delayed" for reason and that reason isn't to piss off the people most likely to buy the product. Better they delay to make sure it is good rather than rush it out the door to appease us and then have us find out it is a piece of crap (this has happened a few times in the past year or so with other games). Of course when they do finally release it, it better be free of any major bugs. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

You can be disappointed (I am), but please don't rip them for it. One of the great things about being a programmer is knowing that people are appreciating the fruits of your labor. If they feel that no matter what they do the (vocal) majority will flame them anyway, what is their incentive to do a good job?

Okay, I'm done. Sorry for the lecture.

Gregoshi (ex-programmer)
A Member of Clan Doragon

[Anssi Hakkinen]

Very good points there, Gregoshi-san and Erado-sama.

Did we not tell you? Expecting a game to arrive early is one of the quickest routes to disappointment. An even quicker one is expecting too much of the game, which Soly-sama (our resident doomsayer http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif) seems to anticipate.

So, settle down. They're not doing this to spite you. If they were trying to grab our money and run, they would release the 'pack ASAP and start making vague promises about patches upon hearing the complaints about bugs. (And if someone says "that's what they did with the original game", I swear I'll slap him or her around a bit with a large trout.) The delay is for our benefit, and they haven't slipped from what they promised originally *one bit*. I know I'm being repetitive, but patience...

BTW, someone tell me the Aussie dollar has a significantly lower value than the US dollar. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/tongue.gif

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"The warrior who does not know his business is like a cat that does not know the way of ratting."
- Tsukuhara Bokuden

[Dark Phoenix]

Well Anssi is around 60 cents. But a lot of people hear are pissed off about the prices seeing that we can import them for cheaper than what we pay for them in the shops. I would import all my games except I dont have a credit card.
So if anyone wanyts to contact me with there details I would be very happy. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/tongue.gif


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DoragonPhoenix of the Clan Doragon

[solypsist]

yep, when I was in Oz I noticed how expensive the software there was. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure there is very minor yet important difference in the computers exported there so that software made for the US market won't operate on an Oz system - kinda screwy, but then, for example, you can't run an American VHS tape on a European VHS player, althohg they are technically the same thing (and by the same company!)

[Anssi Hakkinen]

Hate to (even respectfully) contradict you, Soly-sama, but the "minute but ever-so-important" difference in US and Euro VCRs is because of the different television signal format they use; in the US it's NTSC, in Europe it's PAL (this could be the subject of a vs. debate in Off-Topic! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif). Consoles succesfully capitalize on this difference; even though it might be technically possible to build a console that works with both NTSC and PAL TV sets, they don't, because it's a great way to gain control over the various market areas separately.

But as far as I know, there are no such impediments as far as PCs are concerned, so there is technically nothing to prevent using European software in US computers, or US software in Aussie computers. Someone just has to get the CDs over the ocean.

(Note: if I just tread on a mine, Soly-sama, you may congratulate yourself for having me going for six full hours. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/tongue.gif)

Now, uh... Shall we get back on subject? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

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"The warrior who does not know his business is like a cat that does not know the way of ratting."
- Tsukuhara Bokuden

[Gregoshi]

Anssi,

I can't believe you just said that! "Shall we get back on subject?" indeed! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

Gregoshi
A Member of Clan Doragon

[Dunhill]

I got a valid copy of Shogun for A$20 in Bangkok, "patch/stolen?" copies sell for about A$6. The game I got came in a Thai box with a Thai manual, however, I have gotten copies of other games that work just fine for A$6. A trip to Bangkok to upgrade your hardware and shop for CDs can pay for itself in what you could save. Socket A, AMD board and 700 Mhz Duron chip and fan for A$250, you can't beat that here.

[ShadowKill]

i THINK one of the resons for the hold back like many other games that are due out already is because of the slow down in the consumer buying. I think they will wait till the time when things pick up a lil before releseing the game so they get the max amount of buyers. if you look around you will see many other games doing the same thing.

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Clan Shades
Shades (http://www.geocities.com/shadesofshogun/index.html)
You are already dead you just don't know it yet!!

[edRonin]

Thats an interesting point ShadowKill. But there are no guarantees that the economy is going to get better. Plus a dollar today is worth more than a dollar 3 months from now. Plus you run the risk of alienating the gaming community when you delay a game. So I really think the game is slated to come out in May because thats when they think it will be ready.

This kinda feels like when you were a kid and you are waiting for Christmas. All the anticipation is driving you nuts. Then on December 18th you find out Christmas has been postponed until March 1st.

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All your base are belong to us

[This message has been edited by edRonin (edited 03-02-2001).]

[Methabaron]

Yo people

Checking the forums again...

Glad to see there is some light in the community... just a couple of threads show some.

No patch, no expansion...and I would bet hard that June is not even close to what it will be.

Show no mercy, any weakness will be used against you and will extend the await...

Try instead the map editors and mod possibilities... you will find much more reward in those if you still believe in the game.

Metha

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"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect."

[Hirosito]

gregoshi u said it is difficult to programme PC games fair enough but what has that got to do with wrong deadlines...why do they not say june if its all so difficult

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Hirosito Mori

A warrior's wisdom is shown in the treating of his defeated opponent http://cgi.tripod.com/smilecwm/cgi-bin/s/owen/sid.gif

[Gregoshi]

Like with many things, programmers make plans too. And the company itself needs to know when the programmers expect to be done so they can prepare marketing, distribution, etc. The planning starts with an estimate of how long the programmers think it will take them to do each of the features/fixes on their list. As the project development advances, the magnitude of the tasks become clearer to better define a completion date, but many unexpected issues can also come to light. Depending upon how serious the problem is, they may have to go back and re-do some of the programs they already finished writing and testing. Once they do this, then they not only have to test the programs to see if they fixed the original problem, but they also have to go back and re-test any other features that may be affected by the programming change they just did. If they don't do this, then they find out later (after it's released) that the fix to one problem caused a different problem(s).

Testing & beta testing can also find problems - that is their purpose. Users (players) have a tendency to do things the programmers never thought of - that is our nature. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif An example of this might be found in the forum discussions about players using tricks to maneuver units through the "red zone" at the edge of the map.

This doesn't just happen in the PC gaming industry. A friend of mine is installing new features into his companies computer system this very day. The project was supposed to be completed in April 2000 - 10 months later it is "going live". Ten frustrating months of finding new issues, reprogramming and retesting. I've lost track of how many times he's retested his programs.

Hope that helps a little.

Gregoshi
A Member of Clan Doragon

[Erado San]

I fail to see one point: Why does everybody keep complaining about the release date being pushed back? They never said anything else but a SPRING release. That's March 21 until June 21. So even a June release will not mean a push back.

For the patch, yes that was promised for cristmas last year. They postponed that until the new editions are there. And though their explanation is plausible, I hate that probably more than anybody. Boy, would a patch that solves the NVIDIA driver incompatibility save me a lot of forum posts and mails. (but then again, I think I know why that is not an easy thing to solve, and doing that parallel to the development of the new releases is very sensible; if I was working on it I'd probably make the same decision, knowing I would not get very popular)

Apart from the patch, your complaining about pushed back release dates it irrelevant and incorrect, simply because they haven't been pushed back yet.

But what I hate almost as much is the useless, pointless, and utter boring whining about it that's all over the forums. Kindergarten stuff like "I want my candy and I want it NOW Weeeeeehhhhh....."

[Gregoshi]

I totally agree Erado San.

However, there is a saying: "Perception is reality." The perception was that there was a release date of March 20-21, thus it became the reality for many people. My only point in my postings was to address the reason as to why there would be a "delay" for the many people who were going with the perception. It also indirectly explains why companies give such broad release dates like "spring 2001". http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Gregoshi
A Member of Clan Doragon

[Devil's Advocate]

As I posted wrongly at the other place.... EB World has box art - just can't read it.

[Magyar Khan]

in the other thread my post was answered by the EAraskal that my answer was "wise". so it would be may and even maybe june!