What future for Steel Panthers?

[DRG]

I started this project in 1998 because the original designers went down a path I didn't care to follow ( SP3 ) and they showed no interest in updating the more popular versions (SP and to a lessor extent SP2) so we adapted SP2 to WW2 game play which opened up a number of new features that were included in SP2 but missing from the original.The original intent was a one time mod then get on with life. 17 years later we're still at it. And I have NO DOUBT we were provided the code in the expectation we would fail .......what could two guys really do?........ SURPRISE.

Point by point

1/ Nothing lasts forever.That's inevitable but we are already into a second generation of players and the numbers we see for free DL's and sales show interest in the game has NOT lessen even when we look back half a decade or more and it's not showing any signs of dropping off yet. Maybe we don't have as vibrant a PBEM section as we used to but I'm a game developer and have little interest or talent for cheerleading the game. Not really a "people person" but that should be obvious


2/ We don't have Call of Dutys numbers and I never expected to.The market for a wargame where people are required to actually think is really very small . The "Golden Age" for games like this peaked in the 90's ( though there are new titles released every year ) when the "serious" game companies learned there is no serious money in it and when there is no money in it the investment in time and talent does not get made. It's a niche market and always will be


3/ 'A community of passionate voluntary developers rewrite completely the program and redo all the graphics of the game" I know this was written seriously and please don't take this the wrong way but .............HA ! --------If there actually was "A community of passionate voluntary developers" we'd all know about it by now..............they DON'T EXIST. All the real talent is scooped up and are producing as Suhiir says " FPS-MMOs or.......rude and crude slaughter-fests". If you could actually find lets say 3 or 4 actual SP fan programmers willing to put in the kind of hours Andy and I have to re-write SP into a "modern" game what you would have is 4 or 5 people who all have different ideas on what would make the "perfect" "SP revisted" it would soon devolve into chaos unless you had a strong willed team leader with a wide skill set ( and infinite reserves of patience and tact ) then you'd need 3D graphics artists and once again if there was an abundace of those they would have stepped up by now . What's left are people looking for other people to step up and re-do all the work while complaining how dated the game looks now or that an Icon is a few pixels out. I like it just fine but there are things I would do differently if we didn't still support 640x480 or if we were just trying to make the game pretty for widescreen users.......but we support the old formats and there are people who appreciate that we do . I would be interest to hear how the interface is "impractical and badly adapted to the current screen resolutions" the games play just fine on my 1920 x 1080 screen and that was just a dream resolution in 1998
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4/ see 2/ and 3/. NOBODY is going to invest the kind of money required to create a new and improved SP that MIGHT sell at best half the sales in a year that call of duty does on the first hour of the first morning of its first day of release and the ONLY way you get "volunteers" to work like rented mules for someone elses vision is if they share it and as I have already said if they existed we'd all know about it by now but if you'd like to get the ball rolling be my guest but NOBODY gets our code. If you want a new Steel Panthers from the ground up you get to start the old fashioned way....with an idea and a blank screen.....thats the only way to "start fresh" but the learning curve is Matterhorn steep.




Don