Russian Designers ? ?

[Skirmisher]

Originally Posted by Double_Deuce

That was probably the 2nd funnest multiplayer campaign I ever ran although it did not complete (imagine that). Best campaign ever run had to be Red Snow due to player commitment, especially the team commanders Artur and Major Destruction.

I don't think most players know what's expected of them. Mainly meaning getting the lead out and finishing games.

The one you ran last year based on Angola was set up very well,but player commitment was abismal in alot of cases.
I mean if you don't have time to join a bowling league you just don't. Likewise If the players don't have time to properly
be involved in a combat campaign, quite frankly they shouldn't bother.

[Double_Deuce]

Originally Posted by Skirmisher

I don't think most players know what's expected of them. Mainly meaning getting the lead out and finishing games.

The one you ran last year based on Angola was set up very well,but player commitment was abismal in alot of cases.
I mean if you don't have time to join a bowling league you just don't. Likewise If the players don't have time to properly
be involved in a combat campaign, quite frankly they shouldn't bother.

Alot has to do with the level of detail. Most times it becomes overly complex as many of the harder core players want more detail which keeps their interest up BUT I believe also drives away the more casual players who just want to play and not have to spend several hours a week with planning, creating orders and coordinating with others on a strategic level. I also find you have players who end up playing the same people over an over especially if they have assigned units. That can also lead to boredom.

[Skirmisher]

Originally Posted by Double_Deuce

Alot has to do with the level of detail. Most times it becomes overly complex as many of the harder core players want more detail which keeps their interest up BUT I believe also drives away the more casual players who just want to play and not have to spend several hours a week with planning, creating orders and coordinating with others on a strategic level. I also find you have players who end up playing the same people over an over especially if they have assigned units. That can also lead to boredom.

I think Red Snow's success also had something to do with the fact you were using SPWAW. I haven't figured out why, but ALOT of steel panthers players have a love affair with that version.
I never will. I don't forget so easy.

The major Matrix Games steel panthers failures. (Yup here we go again)

1) Steel Panthers:Modern Warfare. They proudly anounce this on thier website circa 2000, and within about 12 months pull the plug.

2) Steel Panthers:Moderna After thier SP:MW dibacle they anounce that they are going to re release Ija Vahra's SP3-Moderna
mod and greatly improve it. Soon afterwards they ran into "roadblocks" which obstructed them from finishing.

3) Combat Leader- This was to be the "Next Phase" of Steel Panthers gaming. This was actually being slated for a mid 2003 release date. Vebber and Heath just never got it together.
They talked about this game for years until finally failing to produce it.

Three strikes, Matrix is OUT!

If you look at say the blitz ladder,almost everybody plays or will play SPWAW or SPWAW H2H.

Now dispite my revultion for Matrix, the TCP\IP feature used to be nice. There was really nothing like playing online.
I haven't actually played online since SPWAW 4.5 (2001?) and SP3 Online 1.0 (2000)

Sorry about the rant.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Skirmisher

I haven't figured out why, but ALOT of steel panthers players have a love affair with that version.
I never will.

If you do figure out why let me know. Early on I figured it was windows vs Dos thing . Later it seemed to be a strange affection for screwing the AI over more easily with the selective opfire or some deep seated belief that because armour is rated in mm instead of cm it's "more accurate" or maybe it's becasue Matrix was perceived to be a "big company" and we were just "part timers " but really...... IDK.

In the end though we set out in 1998 to improve the game and we're still at it and one way or the other SP "lives on" in both versions. "Something for everyone" I suppose.


Don

[EJ]

Don,
The only thing missing from Winspmbt and spww2 is being able to play it live over tcp\ip. Any chance of this happening in the future someday? All other things aside I like this game a lot and look forward to each and every patch. I own both cds and would buy them again....

[Imp]

If you do figure out why let me know. Early on I figured it was windows vs Dos thing . Later it seemed to be a strange affection for screwing the AI over more easily with the selective opfire or some deep seated belief that because armour is rated in mm instead of cm it's "more accurate" or maybe it's becasue Matrix was perceived to be a "big company" and we were just "part timers " but really...... IDK.

I suppose the armour in mm is more "atmospheric" bit daft with modern stuff mind. Plus you had to look at slope as was not worked out. The only other thing I can think of is again atmosphere not game play related is that it has a better sound map.
So I would say it appeals more to mainstream gamers except the graphics fail so go figure. Has rarity to but its so bad its a joke forget tanks one game bought 3 regular squads before all I could buy was SS & Paras
The only other thing I can think of is an English version OOB for WW2, have to admit playing a minor power you dont use often takes a while to see whats what & considered knoking up OOBs with Formations in English.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Imp

The only other thing I can think of is an English version OOB for WW2, have to admit playing a minor power you dont use often takes a while to see whats what & considered knoking up OOBs with Formations in English.

That may be an example of adding more " historical accuracy " biting us on the bum. It was thought by some members of the team at that time that this would be a good way of adding "atmosphere" to the game. The theory was the players who would never play as Hungary for example wouldn't care and the ones that would play as Hungary would enjoy it.. We did switch over Hungary a few releases ago to all English formation names but left the unit names " Hungarian". AFAIK nobody, and I mean NOBODY ever noticed and if they did they didn't say a damn thing about it.

The issue if switching back to "All English" has been discussed internally a number of times but where to draw the line ? MOST people understand German military terms and abbreviations and I personally don't think changing JagdPz Zug/4 to TD Platoon/4 is going to win over new players ( most likely just piss off a lot of old ones, me included ) . We changed Hungary simply because it was so different and so difficult to understand at a glance ( and the restrictions we have to abide by in regard to name length means that we end up abbreviating things which makes them harder to understand for everyone ). Since we have had zero feedback on that change there has been no reason to further consider others. Admittedly it may not be clear just what "Sec Ametraldora" means when you are buying formations from the Republican Spanish OOB but clicking on it will show it's a combined MG and Infantry unit. That said I know changing ( at the least ) all formation names in the majority of the OOB's to English some people happy but IDK how many hard core " Spanish Civil War " gamers we'd annoy by changing it all to English who would feel we've " sold out" to make a few people who don't want to learn happy.

We've had these " On one hand ........and on the other hand " debates many times over the years and generally it stays the same because first off it's a mother of an amount of work to change over ( I know because I changed over the Hungarian OOB ) and second, for everyone we make "happy" do we make a long established player " unhappy ". However. If anyone can present us with evidence that the national naming issue is what's keeping players away from the game we certainly will consider change. ( I know Andy would be happy...... Like the TCP/IP issue it's not something I've heard from people as being the reason they don't play the game but then that's probably a discussion that would never occur on our forums since what we are dealing with is the committed player

Don

[Imp]

Originally Posted by EJ

Don,
The only thing missing from Winspmbt and spww2 is being able to play it live over tcp\ip. Any chance of this happening in the future someday? All other things aside I like this game a lot and look forward to each and every patch. I own both cds and would buy them again....

Would you actually finnish a game then?

[EJ]

Originally Posted by Imp

Would you actually finnish a game then?

Imp,
NO NEED FOR YOU TO COME TO THE AND FORUM ANTAGONIZING ME. I have had someone quit a game on me and never had a problem with it. Me and this individual have played many games. Since you wanna call me out I challenge YOU to a game of mbt. Go to the looking for pbem opponents section. I'll post the details there....DON'T PUNK OUT!

[wulfir]

Originally Posted by Skirmisher

If you look at say the blitz ladder,almost everybody plays or will play SPWAW or SPWAW H2H.

You won't have any probs getting winSPWW2/MBT games on the Blitz, in fact game offers for SPWAW seems to have become rare.

I switched to WW2 back in 2003. At that time almost everbody at the Blitz assumed you wanted to play SPWAW, today people seem to more or less assume you want winSP.


SPWAW had a slight edge in eye-candy (building icons etc) back in the day and that's about it. SPWAW is also much much more arcade style and while some people might enjoy that I consider it a drawback... and SPH2H was created to remedy some of the failings of SPWAW.

Today, there's no doubt in my mind SPWAW has been eclipsed by winSPWW2.