Supreme Cmdr

quote: Originally posted by Antony: What are your thoughts on this? This is not the thread for that.

quote: SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 18 - Take-Two Interactive, maker of the hit video game series Grand Theft Auto, disclosed on Thursday that federal regulators plan to file a civil suit against the company, its chairman and two former executives over questionable accounting practices. Take-Two said the prospective enforcement action stemmed from an inquiry first disclosed in 2002, shortly after the company restated its financial results for seven quarters in 2000 and 2001. The company said the Securities and Exchange Commission had also raised questions about its current policies for recording revenue from the sale of video games. Such enforcement actions could result in fines and changes to the company's accounting practices, Take-Two said. Officials at the S.E.C. declined to comment. The disclosure is a significant turn for a company that has been a Wall Street darling, despite the cloud of investigation and a shake-up of its management last year. On Thursday, investors turned sour, with the stock closing at $27.84, down $2.55 or 8.39 percent. Company executives declined to comment beyond a statement filed with the company's quarterly financial report indicating that it had received a so-called Wells notice from the S.E.C. Such a notice usually indicates that regulators intend to bring an enforcement action, although that does not happen in all cases. The company said that Ryan A. Brant, its chairman and former chief executive, had also received a Wells notice, but declined to say which former executives had received notices. Mr. Brant has liquidated large blocks of Take-Two stock this year, regularly selling 20,000 shares at a time, for a total value in excess of $20 million. He could not be reached through the company for comment. Wall Street analysts had mixed responses about the significance of any enforcement action, and what impact it might have. Stewart Halpern, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, an investment banking firm, said that if the company did have accounting problems, it had since cleaned up its act and that its future looked bright. "There's been a restatement, wholesale management changes, settlement of shareholder lawsuits," said Mr. Halpern, who has put a strong buy recommendation on the stock. "All of those things are cures." "It's unlikely that anything they're doing now is clearly improper," he added. But other Wall Street analysts said the company faced continuing problems and that an enforcement action might be just the first shoe to drop. Marc Cohodes, a partner with Rocker Partners, a hedge firm that has lost money shorting Take-Two stock, said he did not believe that the company's troubling conduct was a thing of the past. "It's my hope that every penny that Take-Two insiders made by selling this stock they have to give back - and then some," said Mr. Cohodes, who continues to question the underlying strength of the company. He noted that in early September the company raised its earnings projections, causing the stock to soar. At that time, company insiders sold hundreds of thousands of shares. But the stock dropped back down quickly. On Thursday, Take-Two reported that it would have to lower its earlier projections, citing slower-than-expected holiday sales. On one level, Take-Two's fortunes have soared. For its fiscal year ended in October, it recorded around $1 billion in revenue, making it the second-largest American video game company, behind Electronic Arts. A crucial factor in Take-Two's success has been the performance of the Grand Theft Auto games - Grand Theft Auto III, which sold some 8 million copies, and its sequel, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which sold 10 million to 12 million copies, industry analysts said. Those totals make it one of the hottest video game franchises in an industry where a game is a hit if it sells 500,000 copies. But there have also been problems at the company. Trouble emerged in early 2002, when Take-Two said it had to restate financial returns for all of 2000 and the first three quarters of 2001. Trading of its stock was halted for three weeks and resumed on Feb. 15, 2002. The S.E.C. opened an inquiry. At the time, industry analysts said the company cited three reasons for having to restate revenue: it reported revenue from sales it did not make, it failed to record the cost of acquiring a competing game maker and it overstated licensing revenue. Analysts also said that the company said it sold products to itself and counted the money as revenue. Industry analysts said they could not be certain which practices would lead to an S.E.C. enforcement action. However, a former S.E.C. official, who insisted on anonymity, said the nature of the Wells notices probably meant that the charges would involve accusations of fraud as opposed to, say, complaints involving the company's stated policies. GameSpot also has a bit about it

quote: Originally posted by Eclipse: And I really don't see number 2 happening. heh, not in a million years. And I don't think thats their intent either or they would have taken me up on my offer to buy back the rights or sell it to someone else. They're not a particularly dishonest group of people. Just clearly - like ALL publishers - misguided, CLEARLY disorganized and just want to push boxes. I've been fielding emails all day about this and two from publishers. One thing I find curious is that this [game industry] is the only industry where you can't b*tch in public about your publisher's missteps, without being labeled a troublemaker, being blacklisted etc. In every industry, being it media, IT, govt. or wherever, stuff gets done all the time and either someone is suing someone or someone is b*tching about something or the other. Fact is, I've so far kept within my contract with DC and done what I was supposed to do. I signed on for two games - one of which I had to literally shoe-horn multiplayer into, in under three months and I'm surprised the darn thing even works. That game [bCM Gold] was signed in December '02 and it shipped as planned in Q1 03 (March). Even then, it had a slew of problems which weren't even known at the time. The game shipped. No fuss. No muss. And to this day, I am still supporting both the 2001 BCM and the 2003 BCM Gold. When I ran out of time for the multiplayer support in BCM and advised EB that I was going to drop it from the list, there was no problem with that. I didn't unreasonably hold shipping the game because I simply had to have it. I shipped the game as best I could and with all the important bits in, and I still got *****ed at by some in the public because it didn't ship with multiplayer. When they [DC] - out of the clear Blue sky - decided to rebrand and refocus MY damn game, while in Beta, I didn't go up in arms about it. I thought about it, agreed, moved on. And I put up a good face in the public to cover up the deep seated discomfort I had in having to bypass my BC established franchise. In the end, only relying on common sense (since the BC games had gone beyond being about space sims) for some sense of emotional stability. And I never even breathed a word to anyone(until now), that they [Dreamcatcher] made this decision to rebrand and rename my game (the testers with access to Area51, know the story and how it all went down) WITHOUT even so much as informing ME first. The first time I even knew about it, was when they sent me a first pass box art with some ridiculously braindead name for the game. Yes, I was livid as hell. So no, this is not the first time they are springing stuff on me and without my consent. UC was supposed to ship in late Summer and didn't because of that whole BCG to UC switch. I was still OK with it. I have a ton of money invested in this game and it IS in my best interest to ship it so that I can get that money back and hopefully turn a profit. DC didn't fund two years development of this game. They didn't invest two years of time and effort into it. I did, with my ragtag indie-to-the-end army. We missed the second 11/10/03 Gold date because the game had known problems and simply could not be shipped. I continued working on the game and stamped out no less than 29 issues in the final Beta build, before moving on to the RC builds (with RC1 being the first submission). All this time, NOBODY said ANYTHING to me about going Gold by hook or crook, on 12/20/03. In fact, they've known for TWO MONTHS that I was going on vacation from 12-22 to 01-06. So since the second GM date didn't happen, NOTHING prepared me for Christmas GM rush. After busting my sorry ass night and day and erradicating EVERY LAST item in the Beta list, I now had to contend with issues in the RC builds - which were the last road to GM. After submitting the RC1 build for testing, I continued working on the remaining issues, which were to become RC2 (as seen in the vcf). If we were going to ship in early Jan, the game would have had to go Gold next week. Thats why I posted this thread poll in order to see if in fact the fanbase wanted a game based on the RC2 build or whether they were willing to wait. Had the latter been the case, then a GM would not have been announced until mid January, for an end of January ship date. Then out of clear Blue sky, I'm in traffic downtown checking my emails on my PDA, when I get an IM that the RC1 build was good to go Gold. Thats how this farce started. Then knowing full well they didn't even *have* a GM build, they decide to go to replication today. with an RC1 build which had known problems (including a fatal crash bug) and a DRM signature. And people wonder why I'm pissed? I have a helluva lot more time, resources and money invested in this product than DC does. I get paid royalties, which means I have to sell a ton of units to recover my expenses, let alone even think of turning a profit. Forget about the whole E3 farce in May this year, in which, after making me leave my work, leave my family and go to LA, only to find that they weren't even planning on displaying the game. Instead, they had the booth filled with every conceivable me too title you could think of, some of which either (a) never see the light of day ( not even sell anywhere near ANY of my games. Once I protested, they quickly errected a booth, dropped one of the games and hoisted up the BCG materials. Of course, my game got most of the traffic (as did Painkiller) and very good commentary from the public including the media. To the extent that they [DC] even told me that it was a good showing and they were surprised by the whole thing. Who made all that possible? Me. I, being the only person there who could play the damn game, talk about etc. In the end, what do they do? They take out full page ads in most of mags, pimping Painkiller and God knows what else; not taking out a SINGLE ad for the game or doing ANY marketing for it - despite the clause in my contract. The closest they came was Amazon.com and some entry in the EB brochure. Of course, Painkiller didn't ship, got pushed to next year and I'm the one whose game gets to be hung out to dry (by shipping it prematurely) in order to pay for their silly mistakes. And this was a game they convinced me to rebrand and refocus, thereby not only increasing my dev time, increasing my financial risk and expenses, then not marketing it to the fullest extent. After leaving me to do my development (its not like they could help), at this LAST minute, they saw it fit to screw up the release of this game, with a single foolish act of CAPITALIST GREED. As if I didn't have 3x their investment invested in the game. How many times have we not seen publishers pull this stunt? Only difference is, if they own the IP, they can do wtf they like. In this day and age where it is becoming more and more difficult for gamers to return games, at the end of the day, when something like this happens, the gamers suffer and the developers get dragged over the coals; while the publishers remain faceless. As if I did'nt have enough troubles in this regard. I have shipped four games and with that first Take 2 fiasco, I have tried very hard to learn from my mistakes and swore that I would never let anything like that happen again. Who knew? BC3K - Take 2 released the game in Beta in 1996. At the time I was n00b and had no way of preventing it. BC3K v2.0 - Interplay signed this game and released it in 1998. No problems whatsoever with them. And if things were different for them, I'd still be there - not pissing around with Dreamcatcher. BCM - EB signed on this game (the first and only time they've ever done it) based purely on the sales strength of my games and left me alone to get it done. Shipped it in 2001. No problems whatsoever. BCM Gold - Dreamcatcher signed this in December 02 and I had to deliver it for a Q1 03 ship date, complete with multiplayer and a batch of other features. No problem. Did it. Delivered it. Shipped it. Like all my games, it made money, turned a profit yada, yada BCG - was to be my fifth BC game and here I am, faced with this rubbish. Again. I have a right to ***** and moan and I don't give a rats ass if I get blacklisted. If publishers didn't screw over devs - especially third parties - we'd all be one big happy family. You won't have games being shipped in Beta. Not ready. Entire devs teams pissing off and going somewhere else etc etc. This goddamn industry sucks. It sucks like hell and a LOT of devs are quietly suffering at the hands of the injustice served up by a several unscrupulous publishers who don't give a damn about gamers or the games they ship. All they care about is the bottom line. To hell with everything else. As it stands, I think they've got the clear message from me that I'm not pissing around. So, of course, there was no Gold announcement about this game (they only announced Arx Fatalis for Xbox) today. And now, in the interest of God-only-knows-what, I am faced with having to ship an RC2 build for GM; something I clearly did not want to do.

quote: Originally posted by Antony: What makes me curious is how DC is going to release the game when they know that a DRM exists.Is it possible for them to bypass this? They probably figured that I'd scramble to release the RC2 build as a patch, once I got wind of it. Having done that with Take 2, I've got news for them. It ain't happening. They ship RC1, they violate my contract. They violate my contract, two things (which I've done before), will happen. I will sue I will release the game for free on the Net and prevent them from profiting from it. But I know they're not stupid enough to do it, so this is all speculation. And no they can't bypass the DRM. And even if they did, it would be a violation of my IP. Which would spell even more trouble down the road.

Oh well...

Saw this on Gone Gold

quote: Originally posted by StormcloudCreations: Just curious: I wonder if other DC devs have been subject to the same type of "we're shipping, ready or not". Might be worth knowing if other devs have been similarly pressured, so you know if its status quo for them to just ship at a certain point or pressure devs into finishing quickly near the end of a project or at a certain timeframe. Hi Derek I know a few of the DC developers and in fact am in contact with two of them. I'm not at liberty to say anything further because I don't want this to spread further than it needs to. All I care about right now, is making sure that a build of my game with a DRM signature, does not end up in retail channels.

quote: Originally posted by Spindoktor: WOW. Thanks for the insight. So the holiday season is missed. It sounds like the retail order mentioned is lost. Those 2 deals are sunk. Given that, why the rush to replicate now? Sounds like there is more than we know. Like perhaps that "retail order" is tiered, i.e. it gets worse (reduced furthur?) if its not fulfilled at some other future date (in lieu of missing the holiday). Good luck in whatever you do SC. We as fans can only do what we do best. Game on when its eventually released! The only retailer I know of which has stopped their order, is Walmart. And they have the game as a must buy and already said that it will go into their January buy. This all from Dreamcatcher. No other retailer - that I'm aware of - has stringent rules for getting in product, like Walmart. And they being the largest chain, usually translates to a lotta business. Which is what gets publishers into trouble. The greed. Anyone remember the Strategy First fiasco of earlier this year? I've forgotten what sim it was they shoved into the retail channel, in Beta, and complete with known bugs. That, natually, killed the product, right there and then. As I said before, at the risk of suffering backlash, I was willing to work with them. But no, they had to go make a unilateral decision to ship my game, then send someone - other than the primaries I signed a deal with - to notify me. Via PM no less.

Copy protection is really to deter casual pirates. No method can stop hardcore dedicated pirates. At the end of the day, the honest gamers suffer. But thats life I suppose.

quote: Originally posted by zardalu: Here is a little Gamespot Article about the situation. Seems a little propagandist. Well, its the media. What do you expect? The situation is very simple. Yesterday morning DC sent me a rather terse email indicating that they were going Gold with the build they had (the RC1 build) this morning and that I should send along the RC2 patch. Well, this struck me as funny considering the following issues. ALL the builds have a DRM signature which expires. Those of you who have Beta tested for us, know this already and has been the norm for all my products going back to BCM. The RC1 build has several problems (see the VCF file in my first post in this thread) which I was working to address (ala the RC2) build and was going to submit to them prior to my departure for a pre-planned vacation with my family. The RC1 build does not contain ANY of the final scenarios because - as noted in the VCF - I didn't change the path to the final SCENARIOS.ZIP file when I updated the Installshield (ISX) installer for the RC1 build. All previous builds prior to RC1 (Release Candidate) were Beta and stored on a different folder on my NAS (Network Attached Storage) HDD. Also, the RC1 build is pointing to the incorrect mp executable as indicated in the VCF. They don't have the SafeDisc license for the game. I do (as I did for BCM and BCM Gold). As such, I'm the only one who can disable my own DRM, encode the EXE for SafeDisc encoding and burn a GM for manufacturing. So, they were either (a) bluffing or ( trying to get me to panic and send them RC2 so that they could go Gold today with it; thereby bypassing my desire to defer the game to January in order to finish cleanup and fix/address any of the four issues listed in the VCF and to address some instability* issues they claimed to be experiencing going back to the last Beta submitted in November. I am not particularly PISSED that they are DESPERATE to ship the damn game, I am pissed that they would even consider shipping the RC1 build, knowing FULLY well that it would (1) be illegal (2) put unsuspecting gamers at odds with me (3) leave me open to a potential lawsuit The problem is that I gave them indemnification in the contract against any/all claims etc etc. So, if they ship RC1 and a class action lawsuit ensures (when the DRM expiration causes the game to stop working), I could be held liable. Not to mention the fact that they would be shipping a build (RC1) with KNOWN fatal problems, expecting me to make the RC2 patch available post ship. As it stands, I've ceased all communications with them and the attorneys are now handling the matter. Yesterday after speaking with them, my attorney called me up and pleaded with me to get them a GM based on the RC2 build, in order to avert any unpleasantness so that we can move on. They want it by tomorrow or else. I gave DC the follow options yesterday morning in order to get more time to finish up the remaining issues in the game. They ignored me, but instead sent me the email that they were going Gold today with the version they had. quote: Here are your choices We hold off, go on vacation and schedule to go GM on 01/31/04. As you know, I am on vacation between 12-22-03 and 01-06-04 and I will not be doing any programming during this time. For this... 1. We hold off the release and I take a royalty percentage cut in exchange for the added time and with a further % cut for each week past the agreed upon 01-31-04 GM date that the game is not ready. 2. I give DC the rights to the UC add-on (as already proposed) and with NO royalties on that product. I would simply take a one time dev fee. Since this product is mostly content with NO added technology additions (and no space component), it could be hammered out in 6-8 months depending on the number of content providers we throw at it. And in addition, since DC is familiar with my technologies and gameplay, I would consider the submission of a game design proposal and my team will design the game along those lines and as agreed in the contract. e.g. if you guys want a pure shooter (e.g. like Novalogic's Joint Operations), you tell me what you want, how you want it and as long as it is within the scope of my technologies, we'll do it. All you do is pay a monthly bill for the development and a fee on delivery of the GM. No royalties. 3. I refund DC's expenses to date (as I've already said, I can raise the money quite easily) and be allowed to buy back all licensing and sub-licensing rights DC has outstanding, including those done through DC Europe. 4. I be allowed to sell the rights to another publisher (again, this is something I can do quite easily and without much effort actually). This would allow DC to recoup its expenditures, production costs (since the box, manual etc are already done) and possibly turn a little profit. Naturally, the required amount would have to be mutually agreed upon. Look, I know that I'm an eccentric and difficult (at times) individual, but I'm a damn good developer, I'm loyal, dedicated to my work and fanbase and most of all, I believe in my products. We would be better served to not ship this game with known issues - especially if the stability issues (which I'm not getting) which Mike and crew have reported last month, are still evident in the game. If DC is strapped for cash and *has* to ship this game, then I would like to help raise that cash by either buying back the rights or selling it to another publisher. Whatever the case may be, I'd like to help, especially considering that we signed this contract in December '02 and it has really taken less than a year of DC's involvment to get a game of this quality and calibre. I urge you to please think about this carefully and consider the consequences of the alternative. I subsequently got this based on an earlier query quote: Derek ? I?m told that there are no major stability issues that would prevent us from calling our current build gold. Again, with that in mind, any updates that you care to send to us today would be appreciated. Thats how things stand. I barely slept last night, as visions of the 1996 Take2 fiasco kept interupting my sleep. Here is a publisher who signed TWO products in December 02. Shipped the first one on schedule in March 03 - MADE MONEY FROM IT. Then have a game like this [uC] after less than a year (where other publishers spend millions and wait more than three years with baited breath) and two years of my time and a significant portion of my own finances. Then - in MID BETA - decide to switch the game's focus from BCG to UC, added 2+ months of additional development time, then are trying to rush an incorrect build into the retail channel in order to meet Christmas. For our part, we missed the first late Summer ship date due to the BCG to UC switch. That one had nothing to do with me. I could simply have said no, I'm not refocussing the game, piss off, but didn't. The 11/10/03 GM date was missed because of the pending issues, some of which you see in the VCF, the majority of which have been addressed. And today, I've told them that I'm not sending them sh*t until they put my contractual compliance waiver into escrow as they agreed with my attorney yesterday. I have fulfilled EVERY aspect of my contract with DC, now they want to screw me in the interest of cashing in on a ship period simple because, knowing their financial outlay on this game, they simply CANNOT lose ANY money on this game if they shipped it today, tommorrow or next year. Painkiller which is also delayed, got pushed into March 2004. That long in development water racing game (from Firetoad) was canned etc. They didn't shove those games into the channel. Why? Probably because they own the IPs. I own my IPs and so they don't give a toss what they do once they ship my games. It is MY game they are relying on to get out of whatever Q4 mess they're in. Yet, I'm the person they want to piss off and leave open to a lawsuit. Whats funnier is that yesterday I had considered shipping the RC2 build as GM, contrary to the poll stats, only because I realize how desperate they were to book this game. But no, rather than come and discuss it with me, they send me notification like this. This was after I had sent them the email about with the various options. quote: Derek, Mike is away today. Please send whatever patches by both FEDEX and by FTP. Replication starts tomorrow morning. And Mike is the QA manager and the first person to tell me - on MSN no less - the day before, that they were going Gold. To wit quote: [11:30] Clockwork Mike: hi derek u there? [11:31] Derek Smart: yeah, on my PDA and stuck in traffic. whats up? [11:31] Clockwork Mike: do u have that patch to send me which completes all the missions? [11:32] Derek Smart: you mean my current build? yeah, but I was waiting to get feedback about the RC1 before I built a new patch. The new patch for your version will only contain a new executable, the scenarios.zip file (with the final missions) and some updated docs. [11:33] Derek Smart: well?? [11:33] Derek Smart: Mike, hurry up, because this signal will drop at any time, I'm on a WiFi connection! [11:34] Derek Smart: ok, screw it, I'm gone. Send email [11:34] Clockwork Mike: the build looks great and we will be declaring gold today, but do you want to send a patch before we do. [11:34] Derek Smart: declaring Gold today? Have you folks been drinking?? Frigging publishers Why oh why do they do this? Why did'nt I have this problem with Interplay; who also had to wait for BC3K 2.0x, which was delivered and shipped on time? Why didn't I have this problem with EB? Who also had to wait eight months for BCM, which was delivered and shipped as scheduled? [ 12-19-2003, 12:17 PM: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

quote: Originally posted by Hellbinder: But in my opinion it is the same as traking Battlecruiser and making a weekely sitcom ala Friends out of it... /mental picture arrgghhhhhhhh!! Stop joking like that! hey, but wait-a-minute, Resnig's bumbling adventures could make for a pretty good sitcom I think.

quote: Originally posted by LostInSpace: I hope my observations of it aren't too Riddickulous (Sorry I had to say it I just couldn't resist that one ) hehe, actually I tend to agree with you. Those things didn't cross my mind (I guess I was too thrilled to be watching it), but now that you mention them. Hmmmmmm....interesting indeed.

This is a quick update. Its not looking good and DC have advised that the game is going to replication tomorrow, with or without the RC2 build. This was after I told them this morning that we should probably delay the game until January.

Whoa!! nice. Thanks for the link Bandus. http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/th...dick/index.html

quote: Originally posted by Outlaw: The trailer of the Chronicles of Riddick got my juices flowing though. Gonna see this movie one more time baby! wot?!?! They're showing the trailer already? Is it online anywhere?!?

GDR http://www.gamesdomain.com/gdreview/zones/...c/dec03/x2.html GameSpy http://www.gamespy.com/reviews/december03/x2pc/ [ 12-18-2003, 07:55 AM: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

Three and a half frigging hours? I guess I'm going to have to bring a bottle to pee in.

quote: Originally posted by almostpilot: Understood and agree with yours reasons SC, but , it┬┤s possible (or not) make like other games (Flight simulator series), thats give for the users something like a "mod" that alows they make a cockpits or panels and add this to game┬┤s the ships ?. Can't. It means programming in support for the addition of external pits. Thats not as simple as creating a 2D bitmap you know.

btw, feel free to discuss

I know this is unconventional, but then again, this is me we're talking about. Hopefully, DC won't get too pissed. Its like this... The game was supposed to go Gold on 11/10/03. It didn't, simply because I felt that it wasn't ready. Under normal circumstances, the average publisher won't give a toss and since they usually either (a) own the rights to their games ( rule their third-party devs with an iron fist, they would have put a game like this in a box, shipped it, then released a patch shortely thereafter. Lucky for me, DC are not the average publisher and whether or not they are throwing darts at a picture of me back at the ranch, while supporting my stance of releasing a game that is as bug free as possible, is irrelevant at this point. Given my history for taking the fall for the silly things that publishers do, since the Take 2 fiasco of 1996, I have always maintained ownership to my IP and strict control over my products. In other words, it won't ship unless I ship it. This has been the case with Interplay's BC3K v2.0 in 1998, the EB exclusive of BCM in 2000 and the subsequent BCM Gold released by Dreamcatcher in March this year. The release of UC is no different. During the weeks leading to 11/10/03, I advised DC that the game wasn't ready to ship and that I wasn't going to burn a final GM, nor did I have any intentions of shipping it. Naturally, they weren't very pleased about it, especially since we subsequently lost a substantial retail order by missing the Christmas ship period. According to DC, this game is highly anticipated by the retailers. As you all know, the PC gaming industry is shrinking and it is becoming more and more difficult to fund and develop these games, let alone compete for shelf space. The refocus and rebranding of BCG to UC is one such indication. When you find good niche offerings like the recently released X2 being scarse in the channel, you know something's very, very wrong and its not going to get better, regardless of whether or not Doom3 or HL2 ship in our lifetime. OK, no DNF jokes this time. Bearing this in mind and given the substantial amount of money that I have invested in this game, releasing it with known issues would be a death knell and all the 2+ months of additional work which went into diverging from BCG to UC, would be for nought. As it stands, the game is not GM ready. It is very, very close, but not as close as I'd like it to be. For this reason, I am still not at GM (Gold Master) status yet - though, depending on the decisions made before Christmas, GM could be a reality within the next 7-10 days. I know for a fact that DC - like another publisher - aren't very happy about slippage. But as always, while I do sympathize, this product is critical for my company and too much time, effort, resources and energy have been buried into it at this point. If my company is ever going to deliver on the plans I had for this game, recoup its development costs for almost two years worth of development, let alone recoup DC's production and development investment, the out-of-box experience for this game has to scream out things like polished!, come play me!, dayummm!, whoa!!! when is the sequel coming out?!? when you install and play it. Not stuff like Derek, you b*tch!! or Damn, if only they had another month and so on and so forth. At the end of the day, let me assure you of one thing, the publisher doesn't stand a chance of losing a single penny on this game, if I shipped it tomorrow, next week or next quarter. Its all on me and I have risked alienating my publisher with my stubborn stance in this regard. Publishers don't like developers calling the shots, but again I am lucky in that DC has allowed me to do what I feel is in the best interests of the game and both our companies - whether or not they are entirely happy or not, is another matter entirely - and one which is totally irrelevant to me. I don't thrive on promises and goodwill. I have always thrived on results and payment for my work - thats why I do what I do. Remember also that we signed this deal in December '02, which means that DC would have received a game of this calibre, in under 12 months (we started working on it a year earlier). This, unless you are doing the next rubbish value title, is unheard of in the industry. And the switch from BCG to UC, added 2+ months of additional development time. So, since you are the core audience, I am going to pose to you a question. The results of this poll will determine whether or not this game goes Gold in its current state or does so in around mid to end of January 2004. Either way, I want to hear your feedback and lets go from there. I will make my final decision by Monday. The question is simple, given what you see in the RC version control file, would you like the game to be declared GM ready or would you rather wait for the critical issues outlined in the pending sections, resolved. Remember one thing, regardless of what happens, I can still declare the game GM, but it will be up to DC to actually release it. And while reading that file, think about this, in addition to those entries you see there, 29 other issues were resolved since 11-10-03. Meaning that had the game been declared GM for Christmas, everything in the Beta list and indeed this RC candidate list, would have been in a patch. And yes, there were several show stopping bugs in recent Beta builds. And the one you see in the RC (related to rebuild objects) was a definite show stopper when playing on the planet. That is all EDIT: Earlier today - funny enough shortly after I posted this poll - I got word from DC that the build they had [RC1] was good enough to go Gold, once they received my RC2 patch. Naturally, that was a surprise to me. As soon as I had gotten over my surprise (I remember laughing at one point), I contacted them. Let me say this again. The game [uC] is not GM ready as of this minute. Hopefully next week, once - with DC's co-operation - I make my final decision before going on vacation. ps: The next person who posts any publisher bashing rhetoric in this thread - or ANYWHERE on this site - is getting banned forever. NO EXCEPTIONS! [ 12-17-2003, 08:48 PM: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

There you go.

...and then you have to deal with stuff like this when it comes to pits (note bugfix #3).

quote: Originally posted by mudpuppy: I just like having it drawn on the screen so I can feel like I'm in a spacecraft rather than watching a TV screen. That's one thing I regret BCMG not having. Yeah, I regret it too actually. And its my fault actually. Let me explain. In the first two BC titles (1996, BC3K & 1998 BC3K v2.0), the player only had control of the CC, FC, SH, ATV. That was just four crafts, hence four cockpits. When I started designing the next title in the series (BC:3020AD, which later became BCM), I decided to implement the one feature that almost all BC players were clamouring for. And that was the ability to fly any craft in the game. Now, if you know anything about the BC games, its that it has a *ton* of controllable assets (and UC adds almost two dozen more!). Well, thinking about this, here are the controllable assets in BCM code: 27 x cap ships (carrier, cruiser, transport) 24 x fighters 03 x shuttles 04 x close-air-support crafts 07 x vehicles To do a cockpit for each one (in MAX), then do the programming (because each pit would be different, different screen areas would need to be coded to house the locations of the various systems) would cost close to $100K for the content creation, and about 6-8 months of work in the programming for another $100K or so, depending on how long it takes to do. Then you have to factor in the content creation and programming time. You can't program the new pits, until the content is all done. So you have a period where you can't even use WIP content. In fact, the same thing happened in BCG, whereby the content alone took about 18 months (out of the almost 24 month dev cycle) to do. And during this time, I had to use BCM content as placeholders for BCG specific content which was not yet done and integrated into the game at the time. Now, it is a niche title and if it sells 100K units, I'd be lucky (previous BC games have sold around this number easily). Now just think, its bad enough having to spend almost $1m and 24 months developing it, why would I want to not only add close to another $250K adding pits, knowing that for that $250K, the game would have to sell almost 35K units in order to recoup that particular expenditure. All for a feature that most users would most likely turn off (using F1) once they get tired of it. Too much work. Too much money. Too much risk for very little (IMO) gain. So I decided not to do it and like several other features, dropped it. The same thing happened with BCG (now UC). The somewhat good news is that in January, work begins (in tandem with the WIP XBox game we're working on using the Renderware engine) on the sequel to UC (currently unnamed) and unless the sales of UC are strong enough to warrant implementing pits, I'm still not going to do it. I have been toying with the idea of doing an add-on to UC and having pits would be one of the features at the top of my list, but the problem with doing add-ons is that considering how many things are in UC, I'm going to be hard pressed to do an add-on with only a few things. Very few people will buy it. Which is what happened with BCM Gold (which was never supposed to be a release btw, that was all DC's idea); because it didn't sell as well as BCM, that tells me that not all BCM gamers bought it. The good news is that it did sell more than enough units to recoup its costs and turn a profit. So, there you have it. These are the business facts of this business. While gamers are thinking oh, it would be so cool to do this, we [devs/pubs] have to look at it from a financially viable POV. And some games have things that others don't. For example, while X2 has pits and a very strong trading kernel, it would be hard pressed to have a single iota of the high end tech (e.g. AI, planets etc) available in even the BC3K, the very first BC title. So, there you have the choice of sorts: pits or the ability to play on planets, in first person etc etc and the list goes on. Discuss

Did u try putting your HDD in the fridge? Try it.

quote: Originally posted by Worksb: I can steer so autopilot is off right? Maybe ill try using my joystick with its throttle. No, try setting your throttle to the lowest setting.