I Really Want to Buy This Game But...

[Akiva]

I'm not even sure how I came across the title but I immediately fell for the Windows 95-style iconic unit graphics and how quick it was to just slip in and start playing thanks to a great tutorial (this is coming from a Hearts of Iron fan and someone who is eagerly awaiting Matrix's version of World in Flames). I grabbed the demo and was on-board immediately...

Except... for the price tag. It just seemed really, really steep for what I was getting: an expansionist game with only one available strategy. Now, before I get launched upon, let me add this: I've been lurking here for awhile now, watching the game develop, update after update, and Brit's just flat-out on the ball when it comes to the game. So, I see that part of the steep price is the constant stream of game updates fueled mostly by immediate response to player requests. That's just amazing.

However, I still can't make myself pull the trigger. The game is really fun and each successive update seem to make it better but I'm finding myself hanging out here to see how the game is progressing more often than I am firing up the game itself (admittedly, that's partially because, as a Mac user, I have to fire up a Windows 7 VM first).

I'm not really sure what my point is here other than that I have the money right here but just can't justify it right now. Especially when HoI3's next patch is just around the corner (and, for that matter, the 10.4 patch for Football Manager 2010). I'm not demanding a list of plans, really. I guess I'm just saying that I really like this game, it's great fun, but I just can't get over a sense of reluctance. So, in the meanwhile, I'm going to keep playing the demo from time-to-time and watch the active development progress. Something tells me either something will happen with the game that will provoke me into buying it: either an update that I can't resist or the demo expiring.

Keep up the great work, regardless.

[Moon]

Thanks for the feedback Akiva!

Maybe a few words about our pricing policy for games. It is actually very consistent. The main factors boil down to general appeal, scope, replayability, editors, mods and multiplayer.

EOS is scoring very high in most of these, actually. It's highly moddable, has incredibly in-game multiplayer features, it has endless replayability and a never ending supply of winning strategies. Unlike many other games with canned levels that are basically slightly better looking clones of the same FPS or RTS game over and over again EOS is offering a LOT of gaming for your buck (or $45 bucks to be more precise).

One thing you will find about EOS as well as all Battlefront games is that on a "per minute playtime" basis, we're scoring way ahead of most other publishers (if you like war and strategy games that is).

Martin

[Scott_WAR]

The game was worth it to me to buy because it has been a while since a game made me keep saying 'one more turn' and staying up entirely too late doing that 'one more turn'.

Also any developer that creates a good game,..supports it well, and listens to the community,........thats a developer that deserves our support,...and there is only one way to support a developer,....and thats by buying their games.

[Akiva]

Moon, thanks for the unexpected reply. I certainly didn't mean to call into question Battlefront's policies (in fact, the thought didn't even cross my mind when I posted). I think I was more just 'typing out loud' on why I like the game but haven't yet bought it. As Scott_WAR points out, it definitely has that 'just one more turn' addictive factor, which is great. I guess that coming from such complex games like HoI and WiF, it's kind of hard to not keep thinking, 'Man, this would be so much better if...' and just taking the game through its own value. I mean, heck, sometimes it's nice to fire up a game not have to worry about a thousand little details.

Anyway, as I wrote, it's probably just a matter of time for me. Each update that Brit pushes out always has at least one new feature or change that makes me sit up and say, 'Heck yeah. That's exactly what this game needs to get even better than it already is.'

[Rosseau]

Akiva,

HOI3 is the holy grail for me as well, despite the issues. Moreover, even Empire II really did nothing for me. Yet, I bought this game and am well pleased with it.

Primary reasons are the awesome interface and modding ability--the same reasons I like HOI3. Plus, the patches come a lot quicker than from Paradox!

If you're not going to create new unit types and rules, and just playing it vanilla, then maybe it is not as good a value. But like HOI3, Advanced Tactics, etc., I will be playing this one a long time.

[Moon]

I guess that coming from such complex games like HoI and WiF, it's kind of hard to not keep thinking, 'Man, this would be so much better if...' and just taking the game through its own value. I mean, heck, sometimes it's nice to fire up a game not have to worry about a thousand little details.

Many strategy players want more and more and more details. So much so that after a while they ask themselves why the game they liked so much has become unplayable or why they never manage to finish a game anymore

I say "many strategy players" based on what most strategy games in the genre have developed into nowadays. Our successes of games like Strategy Command (or even Down in Flames for that matter) may in fact indicate something else, namely that at the end of the day, it's nice to be able to fire up a game that you can play in a single night's session and enjoy. The secret to the success of such games (and EOS falls into the exact same category, by the way, if there was any doubt ) is providing simplicity (which means better playability) without insulting people's intelligence This is achieved by the developer having a good instinct for what to simulate and what not to simulate. Hubert (Strategic Command) has mastered this art, and Brit (Empires of Steel) has a natural talent for it as well!

Many of the overloaded strategy games of today for me personally are an unplayable mess of useless details. There I said it. They often absolutely lack the elegance of a design like Empires of Steel, and seem to have been created by the principle that more is better. I wonder sometimes, at the end of the day how man "fans" of these games actually end up really playing them. It reminds me a bit of those sim fans that crave for more and more detail only to end up setting everything to AI control in the end

I guess I am rambling but perhaps my point is that you shouldn't value the cost of a game based on the number of bullet points of "features" on the outside packaging. Many people do this of course (which is why the games market is dominated by marketing folks, not developers), but at the end of the day the game's value comes from other, less tangible, properties. And EOS has plenty of them. Have you played EOS head-to-head yet against other people?

[Akiva]

All very good points. Hearts of Iron III is a great example of what you're writing about here: I doubt very many people can manage the game without some AI assistance. On the other hand, I remember one of my first impressions of Empires of Steel is that there's not really much to research except technologies that provide new units and unit upgrades. There's not much in the way of, say, infrastructure upgrades, diplomacy (and espionage) tech, and so forth. I don't think those sorts of things add significantly to the complexity of a game as much as they add options other than building up military strength. In other words, I wouldn't want to not have such things in the future if the reason why for excluding them was that it would just be automated away by player AI.

Also, I haven't played against another person yet. It's not always easy for me to schedule time for that sort of thing so I tend to almost always play against the UI (which is another reason why I haven't fired up Hearts of Iron III in months).

[Deguar]

Spend more time with the demo and soon you will "join us"....

The primary reason I went from demo to purchase...the half dozen or so updates that happened while I was still getting into the game.

In fact this is probably the first "full price" (although I believe American price points are up to $60 and then there is all the day one DLC to buy and they'll force you to join GFWL or Steam or two separate portals to get points for the DLC) game in a year or so where I've seen actual support from the developer and programmer.

It's also the one I'm still playing because I can jump in for an hour..or five or even half a dozen turns especially as I can multitask with it easily without it killing the computer.

In receding order games I bought recently...without it being a rant

Dragon Age - Origins : Just didn't grab me, I got to (and couldn't find a way past) the first boss fight after a lot of false starts and persistance and thought meh

Cities XL : Shut down their own forum during the beta, "sourced" any further communication to third party fan sites and pretty much failed to deliver updates or the promised content. They also managed to get their MMO side economics totally wrong to the extent that only four months in and it's being pulled.

Sims 3 : I played a heap but I had more fun with doing buildings than the game as the promised "story mode" turned out to be a series of random dice rolls with no logic or consistency. It's also getting increasingly buggy with every patch...rather than less buggy. The latest patch pretty much broke the game for large numbers of folk, the World Adventures expansion added breakage. Yet instead of patch fixing we get content packs and numerous items added to the store.

Oh I also considered Hearts of Iron...but as I managed to get defeated by the complexity of Europa Universalis III I've clearly reached that time in life when I need more "simplicity".

[Kilroy Lurking]

I Really Want to Buy This Game But...

I am unable to activate my account - New password sent by battlefront Robot but not received (many times). The system will not let me open a new account with my current email address(?). I opened a "Ticket" in the help page (XAX-247584) on 8th Feb but as yet no reply.

I have also checked my junk mail folder and "Whitelisted" <sales@battlefront.com> on my server.

Are there any more options short of my asking my wife to open an account and order it for me?

David

[Moon]

David, if you are not receiving the www.battlefront.com/lostpw email, and it's not in your spam/junk mail folder, then it is being blocked by your email provider on a server level. Contact your email provider and whitelist sales@battlefront.com with them.

As for the helpdesk, you have a reply in the Helpdesk. Log into the helpdesk to look it up. You didn't receive the email from that reply most likely for the same reasons why your server is blocking the password retrieval email.