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Why Are Engine Enhancements Never Back Fitted To Older Games?


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Probably because the effort wouldn't make much money for them. 1C Company is definitely attuned to the retail games market, which tends to have a short attention span for a games release/patching before going on to the next thing. It's not a great situation for the customer, but it is the financial reality of games development that they face.

Backporting would entail going through all of the data of the old game and updating it. This would be almost as much effort as creating a new game when they move it to another theater each time, etc.

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1C's track record seems to be publishing a new game, wait a year to publish one add-on and then release a completely new game with an improved engine and let the older game die.

I pre-ordered the upcoming Combat Mission game and will no longer support 1C's marketing strategy by not ordering TOW3.

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Well I was impressed with TOW2 improvements over TOW1, Although I'm not a big fan of Africa. The wow factor was there.

But I don't like the campaign continuity (it should be OK to win the odd battle easily in a campaign before getting stiffed by heavy opposition). I tried that in my homemade attrition campaigns and it felt more like what I would expect in a campaign. Also feeling the crunch of loosing a valuable asset in a finite force pool is something else I would expect in a camp. Not done for some reason.

The series gets better each release. But it is what it is. Backwards compatibility may not work for some things such as entering buidings in Tow1.

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I pre-ordered the upcoming Combat Mission game and will no longer support 1C's marketing strategy by not ordering TOW3.
And I will support 1C throughout all their ToW releases (within WWII and Korea boundaries). Nowadays, when Microprose and SSI are gone, 1C, Battlefront, Shrapnel Games, Matrix, Graviteam, and HPS Smulations are the only companies that produce serious strategy/tactical wargames worth of attention. Imagine the World without them. You'll have to play stupid productions like Company of Heroes or other ****. So it's in our own interest to support the development of their games. And the ToW series are getting better with each release. True, the improvements in each of them are not milestones, but still... The infantry survivability in ToW2: Kursk was tweaked significantly since ToW, the X-ray LOS/LOF too, not to mention the ability of rotating the tank with a broken track and the satisfaction of knocking out the tank with a hand held AT weapon similar to one you could get in Close Combat series. :) The series need further tweaks of AI and mechanics of course but I'm sure 1C devs are doing everything to improve it.
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And I will support 1C throughout all their ToW releases (within WWII and Korea boundaries)

I for one won't be supporting 1C by purchasing their up-coming release of Korea. I would however pay for patches/bug fixes in the form of upgrades to the TOW2 series; If they haven't abandoned the TOW2 engine that is. Map size is a bit small too.

Nowadays' date=' when Microprose and SSI are gone, 1C, Battlefront, Shrapnel Games, Matrix, Graviteam, and HPS Smulations are the only companies that produce serious strategy/tactical wargames worth of attention.[/quote']

You forgot to include eSim in that group ;) I agree that Battlefront produces a decent product and they support their stuff (I personally have no experience with the others). It would be nice if 1C could do the same.

Pay for patches at least cover the cost of the time they would put in.

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I also would be willing to pay for patches / engine upgrades for TOW-2 Africa & Kursk. However, as Schrullenhaft mentioned in this thread:

1C Company is definitely attuned to the retail games market, which tends to have a short attention span for a games release/patching before going on to the next thing.

I agree with this observation and can extrapolate that the TOW2 engine games will be left to die. Pity as I enjoy Kursk/Caen very much. I wanted to get into modding Kursk, but never could get the extractor to work. I wish 1C would have released modding tools and upgrades/patches for a fee. I would have paid for it.

Unlike 1C, the other wargame developers mentioned earlier in this thread always supported their products post release.

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