Jump to content

Just saying hello


-Saige-
 Share

Recommended Posts

my first exposure to bc3000 was when i purchased the game a few years back. well, i ended up with the rushed-to-market version and was sorely disappointed.

a year or so later on, i found out bc3000 was alive still and being worked on. i stopped by this site every few months just to see what was going on. honestly, at first, i was still kinda bitter over the fact that i paid money for a game that wouldn't run. over time, i finally read into the background behind that initial release and pretty much lost any bad feelings towards bc. by then i had enough experience to know this was a "publish the game asap and patch after we have the money" kind of world.

well, yesterday i was checking out ebworld and couldn't believe it when i saw that BCM was nearing release. anywho... here i am.

derek, should you read this, i just want to say that i'm honestly impressed with the effort and determination you've shown over the past few years. you seem to demonstrate a work ethic i wish was more predominate in this country... get it done right and stand behind your product. best of luck to you in the upcoming months as BCM's release nears!

can't wait to get my hands on the demo!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While this isn't related to your post directly, it seems as good a place as any to put it...

Honestly I can't see why people make such a big deal over the initial version of BC3K being the way it was. I've seen other games from big name companies every bit as buggy.

Most of them never get patched...

Anyone ever played Daggerfall?

Bethesda softworks claimed they playtested it extensively, but you couldn't finish the game until a few patches later. Even then many serious bugs remained and were never fixed as the game was abandoned by the company...They didn't even have the excuse of a rushed delivery either.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Daggerfall was a nightmare...I never knew when the game was behaving properly, or whether I was doing something that I wasn't supposed to do because of a bug. When Morrowind finally comes out I'll probably hold off because I don't trust Bethesda's QA department.

~Pio

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've had a project rushed and released against my wishes when I knew it wasn't ready.

It's a big deal.

It hurts the customer, but I'm sure Derek will agree, it hurts the developer way more. It hits you harder than any customer could ever feel. Particularly if you put everything you've got into the project. It really hurts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I sure it's a big deal to the developers who don't get to see their game come out the way they envisioned. I was merely observing that some people, i.e. some customers act like you cut their legs off or something over a single game.

Warning the following rambles on a bit:

That was why I mentioned Daggerfall. It's one of the worst I have seen. Am I mad because of it? Nah, just disappointed.

I wish Bethesda had done more with it, but can understand that at some point they had to say "Are we making any money off this?"

I'm sort of a video game collector. I collect anything I can and play as much as I can. Recently I've been going back and looking at some old games and testing them on my new PC's and looking for patches, etc.

It's sad to see the way some games were simply abandoned, although from a company's financial perspective I can understand why it happens. It's just a little sad to see games forgotten. Take for example a great game like Mechwarrior 2, go to the multiplayer servers and find 0 people there. Searching web-sites reveals a veritable ghost-town of Leagues, tournaments and half-finshed sites with posts like "Big tournament this weekend! Will post the results on Monday!" and seeing the last update occurred sometime in early '98.

It's like one of those creepy sci-fi movies where everyone disappears overnight...

Okay I lost any semblence of a point by now I think.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

responding to ohso, i'll venture a guess as to why there was so ill will towards bc during its initial release.

back in the old'n times (sorry... sorry!) seriously, back around that time, i don't think internet access was as wide spread as it has been in the last year or so. i think it was still a bit of a challenge at times to get game patches out or even just find them. i'd like to think that up until resently most companies were a lot more careful about the software they released simply because correcting any bugs would be difficult.

these days, seemingly everyone is on the net and its not too hard at all to find a patch or an update for titles these days. a lot of us probably even buy games half expecting to be downloading patches very soon, even it the title was just released.

so, to summarize a lot of rambling, i think people were mainly upset because it wasn't as easy to find or download patches as it is these days. people still bought games expecting them to work near-perfectly.

my 2 cents... but what do i know. its friday and my thoughts are revolving around how i'm gonna waste all my time this weekend. smile.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Welcome, Saige!

------------------

Commodore Kyle Antilles

ICV-Eclipse, Destiny Starstation (Nevuela)

Commanding Officer, Destiny

Spectre Fleet

External Beta Tester

Battlecruiser Millennium

"You can only love or hate something you truly understand"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's a decent theory Saige.

Still, even in this day of easy to get patches, you find many games with major issues persisting long after the patches have stopped flowing. That in my opinion is much worse than a buggy release.

Early release vs. Early abandonment?

I'll take early release every time, and in that respect BC3K has been an obvious and stellar success.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with you Saige, and I am so right with you on Daggerfall Ohso.

Now it's my turn to ramble on a bit.

Maybe the Take Two debacle was a blessing in disguise.

Let me explain.

I was reading Robin Walkers article on Stomped about Mod developement and it struck me that BC's development has gained alot from the almost Mod like development.

Mod development has many major advantages as Robin pointed out; original game design, building a community through succesive updates, and most importantly, user feedback.

I think Derek would probably agree that the game wouldn't be where it is without the support and suggestions from the community that helped support the game. If the game is a success, it will be because those people who downloaded each upgrade, and new version and gave feedback to Derek about what worked, and what didn't.

Now BC isn't a mod. It's all original tech, made and developed by the man himself, so he doesn't have to pay any huge licence fee, and he can licence the tech out if he wants. This gives him the advantage of a more commercial approach to development.

Imagine what an awesome game Daggerfall could be if just a couple of programers who loved the game made updates to it on a semi regular basis. Made bug fixes, patches. Incorporated suggestions from gamers playing the game.

I think that the way PC games are published, and sold should be revolutionized.

Unfortunately I don't think publishers are going to cease to exist any time soon, but I'd like to see development houses getting a stonger handle on owning the rights to their material and being allowed to upgrade when necessary. It's a win win situation for the developer (they get to improve their game) and the publisher (the more it improves the more it will sell).

I also think that it's perfectly okay to develop a game that is a small portion of the whole vision. Work on the code, get it as solid as possible, then release updates to the game incorporating user feedback and bug fixes.

Essentially this is what Valve did with Half Life. Sort of. Release the game. Update the game with TFC, another update for CS, and just keep going.

I'm sure the whole Take Two fiasco broke his heart at the time, but I think Derek's actually in a stonger position now than before.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

quote:

Originally posted by Kush:

Imagine what an awesome game Daggerfall could be if just a couple of programers who loved the game made updates to it on a semi regular basis. Made bug fixes, patches. Incorporated suggestions from gamers playing the game.

So true Kush...I'm sure they had a pretty powerful engine (for its time) that was creating those randomized dungeons, and they probably would have been on the cusp of the mod scene had they gone that route. It is interesting how many releases now have some kind of support for scripting/mods and it really seems to boost the community. Look at Tribes for example...the mod and scripting community helped make that niche game into a huge online phenomenon.

The thing with BCM is that there are a whole generation of gamers (like myself) who missed the entire Take 2/BC3K experience and thus have no negative feelings about Derek or the game. We want a great space sim with a persistant universe, and we want extensibility. Now that I'm getting into the GBS system myself, I am pretty confident that the mod community is going to flock to BCM and GBS-II. And the downstream effect of that is a larger (new) fanbase anticipating and supporting GCO.

~Pio

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Mikel

Welcome!

------------------

Sargeant Nimitz "Defcon" Adams

Marine Detachment, GCV Prophecy IV, ISSHQ (Saturn)

ISS, Tactical Support

External Beta Tester

Battlecruiser Millennium

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First, welcome! (I'm saying that often by these time, eh?)

Second, I can feel some jealousy in the comments against Derek. They're jealous because of his "mind" strenght, jealous that the "little independant" guy is about to make money while they work everyday... jealous of his intelligence... jealous of his psychic powers... wait... Derek does not have psychic powers... of well, they're jealous of his success that they won't ever admit.

Hail our master!

Hail the Supreme Commander!

HAIL DEREK SMART! (this is getting religious)

Supreme soldier of the New Derek order...out!

------------------

Commander Epsilon 5

GCV - StalkerIV, Orion Starstation (CENTRIS)

Deterrence Battle Group

www.orionfleet.com

'This Far, No Farther!'

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Shingen

First, Greetings!

I just wanted to add my two cents worth to this 'topic' that's not really on-topic.

I remember in 1996, when Frontier: First Encounters was released.. ( for those of you who aren't 'in the know', FFE was a sequel to the ground-breaking space-sim ELITE (1988)and Frontier: Elite 2 (1995)...also one of the best series of space-sim games ever released) ...anywayz, FFE was also released pre-beta and until it was finally patched, was so full of weird bugs, that it was extremely unstable, and unplayable... (even with the patches, it's still kinda funny) ..but my point being, I don't recall the developers of the Elite series getting flamed as bad as our beloved SC.. and regardless of the bugs, I'm still and will always remain a devote ELITE fan!

..just as I've been and shall always remain a devote BC3K fan!

..ok, was that worth two cents?? smile.gif

------------------

Commander Shingen

UCV Deathstrike

Assassin

"Death is inevitable, it's life that's uncertain"

[This message has been edited by Shingen (edited 03-16-2001).]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You're right about FFE. I've mentioned that before in another thread.

About FFE:

I'm still not sure whether mine is fixed or not as I believe seeing on the Gametek site (before FFE went bye bye) that the pathes for the UK and US versions were NOT the same.

I have the US 1.0 CD and subsequently all the patches I've seen to not seem to make a distinction. After applying the 1.06 CD patch, my game still acts weird although I haven't tried it in awhile so I couldn't tell you what it does specifically.

I wonder if that matters anymore?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Shingen

1.06 was the last patch for FFE, and since the game was released unfinished, there are always going to be things that are weird, and unplayable about the game. Still, all told, it's a game that hasn't left my HD since 1996 (my old 486 anyway) and I still play the game regularly! ( Elite is not a game, it's a way of life!) Much like our beloved BC3K!

FYI: For those interested in the Elite series, you can find out more about the game, and the possible, upcoming, release of the source-code (for us devoted hackers that want to finally FINISH the game!) at: http://www.eliteclub.co.uk

WHEN or IF they ever release it)

------------------

Commander Shingen

UCV Deathstrike

Assassin

"Death is inevitable, it's life that's uncertain"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah dispite it's bugs FFE was, and still is a cool game. I especially like the way it attempts to re-create our entire galaxy star-system for star-system, and the way they did planetfall - a smooth transition with randomly generated terrain. If you ask me, this game was way ahead of it's time, but then so is BC3K.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...