Brief Rantz comment

[jscott991]

I have been using this site to follow MOO3's agonizing progress toward gold and release but have never posted, but I simply could not avoid commenting on this thread.

Why is everyone thanking and congratulating the developers after this gold announcement? It boggles my mind that we should somehow be grateful to QS and IG for 1. Releasing the game at all 2. Releasing the game after missing numerous announced released dates 3. Possibly delaying the shipping of a gold product for nearly an entire month 4. Holding back release of a product because of multiplayer bugs.

If customers continue to behave like toadies to inept development houses and inconsiderate publishers, we will never receive on-time, quality products. Show some backbone!

Jeremy

[darcy]

"on-time" does not equal "quality".

It's common knowledge that all announced release dates are wishful thinking in this industry. I blame the fan(atic)s for making such a fuzz about a few weeks more or less. When will they finally stop believing in these carelessly announced dates?

We know nothing about the quality of the end product yet. The greatest danger is the dramatic design change that happened someway in the middle of the road, when QS suddenly discovered that MOO is not about a terrible mess of unimportant details. Did they have enough time to get back on track? We will see.

That said, customers don't need to be grateful at all; they pay, after all. However, this is not a customer site, but a fan site, so this attitude misses the mark slightly.

[Rantz]

Originally posted by Daz
Hey Rantz!

Now that the pressure is over, what will you do with your spare time? Play MOO3? No really, are you fed up with every aspect of MOO3 or...?

[/IMG]

Free time?!? We still have *other* projects we're working on!

I am however going to start back to work on some much neglected personal projects. Comics and animations shorts stuff.
Don't expect to see me in MP games online. I suck horribly at it, and it's bad enough getting schooled by the art team, I ain't about to subject myself to that humiliation with the fans

[dojoboy]

Rantz, how's the mac version coming?

[ZargonX]

Just please tell me that the manual is more than 20 pages long... I don't like being forced to buy a strategy guide in lieu of actual manual content with the game (ala Simcity4...)

[AIL]

Originally posted by jscott991
Why is everyone thanking and congratulating the developers after this gold announcement?

For me I can say I did it because everybody else did. I guessed I am to do so because it could show a good manner or such.

I would not have done if the others had not. And I would only have asked the question in the second part of my post.

[Apolex]

I missed the deadline on turning in my dissertation several times too before finally finishing it and getting my hard-fought degree. And I was still congratulated by lots of people (and myself) for completing such a long and difficult project, despite the delays.

That's why we're thanking Chantz, Rantz and the team. Sure there were delays and we were frustrated at times. But it was a long very ambitious project, and they finished! Reaching the finish line deserves congrats in it's own right. Combined with the excitement many of us have for MOO3, we're ready to heap some well deserved thanks on those guys.

I stand by my previous statement: WOO-HOOOO!!!

[Rantz]

Originally posted by dojoboy
Rantz, how's the mac version coming?

not far behind a couple of minor fixes and we're done.

[jscott991]

I just don't agree. Perhaps people are more forgiving than I am, but rather than wanting to congratulate them on finally completing a game that should already have been done, I am livid at the further delays in going from gold to shipping. If fans of the genre are going to be this tolerant, then we will never see improvement in these kinds of fiascos and, as we all know, these kind of situations are very common.

QS and IG shouldn't be thanked for finishing, they should be condemned for the delays. Only in the software industry are clients and customers so forgiving. I wish people in the legal industry were so naive.

[Rantz]

[SIZE=1] Only in the software industry are clients and customers so forgiving. I wish people in the legal industry were so naive.

The music industry, Film... any form of commerce entertainment tends to have the same reaction.

I am reminded of the internet sequence in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back for some reason. Now, where's my movie check...

[jscott991]

It is extremely rare in the movie industry for a movie to have an announced date, then within a week or two of that date say "oh, sorry, we'll be coming out next year instead." In fact, outside of the September 11th situation, I can't remember it happening to a major release in my lifetime.

The entertainment software industry is unique and that's why its dying (if you doubt it is dying, you should read the interesting article on PC game releases on gonegold.com). You can't be anti-customer when most every other industry and business is striving to attract customers through better service.

[Rantz]

Originally posted by jscott991
It is extremely rare in the movie industry for a movie to have an announced date, then within a week or two of that date say "oh, sorry, we'll be coming out next year instead." In fact, outside of the September 11th situation, I can't remember it happening to a major release in my lifetime.

A week before no, but I cannot even begin to count the number of movies in production that become late or never see the light of day (Spiderman 15 years, latest superman, cancelled, superman vs batman, cancelled, etc, etc...)

And music is worse by far NIN ( a year and a half after announced date) Guns and Roses (4 dates missed and now *maybe* in 2003).

Like it or not, while entertainment is commerce, there is also a degree of craft and art in it, and that leads to unquantifiable delays. In the case of musicians, it can be writers block, in the case of software, it's deciding at the 11th hour to fix more bugs over release-and-patch.

Dying or not, they are still multi-billion dollar industries, and comparing them to a muffler shop or a hotel chain in terms of service and customer relations is apples and avacados. You can do it, but it don't make a lot of sense.

(Reminded even more now of the JaSBSB internet moment...)

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Rantz
(Reminded even more now of the JaSBSB internet moment...)

* Arnelos wonders if Rantz is contemplating going apesh** on a bunch pre-teen IGMoO posters

[jscott991]

What a nice, flippant response from the kings of flippant responses. You can't help but hope that QS and IG continue to do well in the future with such wonderful people working for them.

There is a huge difference between movie rights being announced as bought but not seeing the light of day and software companies playing games with release dates. There was no substantive work on Spiderman until Raimi took the project over and once filming began, the movie was completed on time. Are you comparing MOO's problems since November with the 12 years that Spiderman simply existed as a concept in some producer's desk?

The fact is that software companies are unique in saying that a product is going to release on a certain date and then, very close to that date, pushing it back. Movies do not do that. Books do not do that. I am not a major consumer of CD's and other music, but I find it hard to believe that a CD is given a release date and then right before its supposed to be released they announce "oh, we wanted to put another song on it so its coming out next year" or even better "the song quality is slightly lower than expected so we're going to re-record one or two tracks and release it months later."

Conducting your business in a pro-consumer manner is not something that software companies should be immune to. They have increasingly become so, and that is why I think customers should be more outraged by it.

[Rantz]

Originally posted by jscott991
Movies do not do that.

Case in Point, Knockaround guys. finished and announce 1 1/2 years ago, just released. Titanic, announced for a release 3 months before it actually did.

Books do not do that.

Case in point Harry Potter. Or Donna Tartt's last book.

I am not a major consumer of CD's and other music, but I find it hard to believe that a CD is given a release date and then right before its supposed to be released they announce "oh, we wanted to put another song on it so its coming out next year" or even better "the song quality is slightly lower than expected so we're going to re-record one or two tracks and release it months later."

Case in point Nine Inch Nails. The Fragile was scheduled for release one and a half years before it came out. If you went into Tower records they had it on the upcoming releases, along with a date. 1 month before release Trent decided to not release it saying he wasn't satisfied with it. And so on...

We're not pro consumer? hmmm ok, I haven't gone out of my way to answer questions that it is not my job to answer, to keep the fans informed within the limits of what I am allowed.

You can gripe about the Oct/Nov slip and if you think I'm at all happy about not making Thanksgiving vs. Christmas, you are dead wrong. Would we have been more pro-consumer if we released a game in Oct with the average number of bugs and needed tweaks that most games have these days? To me, that's being less respectful of the consumer and the fans, assuming they will put up with problems until the patch, rather than giving them the best.

You may disagree with me on that, but I'm not being flippant, I'm simply stating some facts to counter hyperbole.