11/23 status update from Chantz on IG forums

[LDiCesare]

Even though I can no longer but myself moo3 as a birthday present, I am happy they delay it. I mean it is better for us to get a game with no corrupted saves than one with.
I think the project has been managed well from IG point of view, and maybe this is due to the manager rather than the firm. I don't think the title had the same sales expectations as civ3, which may have given more freedom to the developers, too.
I am mostly pissed off by the fact that the IG forums seem to be full of people who complain at Chantz whereas as he says he just gives information and this time you can't say they rush the game out with bug. It is such complaining that made them rush games in the first time. Nice to see people here are more positive.
Otherwise, I must say I share wervdon's opinions on the coding part, but want to point out that in windows you can have a debugger automatically launched when a program crashes, which is (almost) as good as a core file, so QS should in theory be able to debug any crash.

[MariOne]

LOL, all the above commercial considerations are of course correct...
I don't know whether this would console Rantz or make him mad, but most likely *I* will be one of those helping smooth out the sales curve, by indeed "coming through after the holidays end"...

[moomin]

I honestly am to old to really care about when Moo3 hits the stores - I have no problem waiting. But I'd be disappointed to see it miss the huge x-mas buying binge, since that will drastically reduce the chances of patches and expansions. If Moo3 doesn't sell enough IG will drop it without so much as a shrug. And x-mas sells a lot.

[Ozymandous]

Interesting...

Originally posted by fatjoe79
hey unless they're flat out lying here, it's good to see QS not just shipping the game and patching a couple days after release. It's nice to see a commitment to quality that most developers *cough*firaxis*cough* don't seem to have.

Since I bought Civ3 & PTW and plan to get MOO3, I only hope that QS is as dedicated to CONTINUING to work on their product after it ships as Firaxis has been. You may not like how or when Civ3 was shipped but the improvements made to the original via patches (made largely from player feedback, which is almost impossible to get even WITH beta testing) has been very solid thus far.

I have faith in QS fixing any major bugs that MOO3 has, but will they continue to refine and tweak the game once it's out and thousands of people start the feedback process? Only time will tell.

[Lee Johnson]

Even though I can no longer buy myself moo3 as a birthday present,

You can always buy it for yourself as a late birthday present...

As for myself, I also plan to buy MOO3 as a birthday present for myself. I'm hoping it will be out well before my birthday, though: December 24.

[Hrett]

Originally posted by Rantz
To comment briefly.

IG has done something I have honestly never seen, that is, delay release of a game, just because it could benefit from extra time to bug and double and triple check balance issues.

Good for IG and good for QS. Keep it (for a little while) make it better. We will all be happier for it.

I like to see this approach to first release quality. Bioware did the same thing for NWN. Although there were (and still are) patches post release, the game shipped with only minor bugs that werent show stoppers. I havent bought PTW yet, but from what I hear, there is just no excuse for that kind of drivel being released. Triple check away!

Now I just hope that MOO3 is a success and there will be some good post sale support to not only fix whatever minor bugs that will surely appear, but make the game better as time passes.

Keep up the good work!

[Alex-C]

Talking of Christmas...... Any chance of it coming out in time so we can all have some yuletide fun conquoring the Galaxy? I sure hope so.

[Thue]

Originally posted by MarkG
Bird-O-Prey,

you're not following the trend.

the march 29 delay was for a whole quarter(from q2 to q3)
the next for 56 days(from the last day of q3 to nov 26)
the last one for just 8 days(to dec 4 )

so the next delay should be for 2-3 days at most. then we go to hours...

So the time we have to wait is the sum of a decresing sequence. But is it convergent?

[fatjoe79]

I guess it's because Chantz is in charge of MOO3 at IG

In any case, it's good to see a PUBLISHER deciding to delay the game to fix minor bugs and balance issues...I'm relieved that there's only minor stuff left.

But one thing IG should realize is it would behoove them to not delay too long over extremely minor problems....they need to take advantage of enough of the holiday shopping season to maximize sales (especially impulse gift buys)....if they release any later then say Dec 10th they're in trouble. ...and that means no MOM2

I personally wouldn't mind if there's a patch on release day or close to it....as long as it's playable out of the box, MOO3 won't suffer much in reviews.

[MarkG]

I personally wouldn't mind if there's a patch on release day or close to it

actually, you can be certain that something like this will happen no matter what

[Anguille2]

This is really amazing...but will IG also give MOO3 the markenting it deserves?