The Future of TT from GG!

[joemaruschak]

One thing I have learned about GG/Bravetree is that they are wicked smart when it comes to making games. However, the business decisions leave a lot to be desired. They say they lost of money because of the Linux version. I say they made a lot of money because of it.

geez guys.. come on. You can argue about this all you want.. I owned the friggen company that made the game. I know how much we made off linux. We use linux dedicated servers, but direct sales of the linux version were crap. Argue it all you want.. I know the numbers..

As for business decsions.. which ones leave a lot to be desired? I mean.. honestly. what business decisions are you referring to? I will get into it here if you guys want.. but if you want to argue with me about business, be prepared to enter into a meaningful discussion about it.. any of this

"you are a business idiot for not making a new linux standalone" is just stupid crap that is not even worth talking about really. If you think you know better, make me an offer to buy the IP and codebase outright and you can make your fortune on selling the linux version of TT..

for all of this commentary, you either want to support what we are doing or you don't. If you want us to add more to TT, it will be by way of instant action.. if that is not what you want, then you have the standalone. What we want to do with the game, and what we want to provide (modding tools, better admin management, etc, etc) is all the backend stuff we could not afford to develop for the standalone, and that we can now work on creating now that GarageGames is working to develop a platform for game connectivity. This will happen for TT if the instant action develops a user base.. and if it does not get a user base, then it won't be where we focus our energies.

as for all this commentary.. if you want to continue to insult me (us) about our business decisions.. go for it. Most of what is being spouted here is a bunch on uninformed rambling with little knowledge of the facts or understanding of the economics of the game industry. Honestly, get a clue. If you want one, ask and I will give you one.. but spouting crap like this is just lame.

my first thought was "they want a community to build up and demand it?" what the heck are we? chopped liver? anyone ever get the impression that we are not listened to? maybe not appreciated?

the features we are planning on putting in to instant action are all the things that you guys have been bugging us to do for years. We listented, have lists.. have ideas for features and designs for adding all the stuff people have been saying they wanted... We could never afford to do it before..now we can. It is all not in place, but we want to build it all. The response here toward this attempt to provide the things people have been emailing me for years.. well.. thanks for the darnit You.. after all this.. you ding us for not supporting Linux?

Whatever.. this is us getting started on something new.. and this is where we want to go. You don't have to support it.. you have the existing version of the game.

So, I am going to tune out now.. I would love to have a discussion about this, but it seems that you guys are having too much fun flaming us.. which I will now allow you to go back to doing.

[dad]

^I'm no expert in the gaming business, but as a business owner I must say I usually do, or attempt to do, what the majority of my customer base wants. If I went the other direction I would be out of business in no time. Most of the people that post here are TT junkies. From a business standpoint, I would take advantage of that. There is revenue to be had from all of us. I'm only speaking for myself, but I would be willing to pay an annual/bi-annual fee to have TT, or even pay an annual fee(or some sort of "subscription" fee) to be able to access the master server.

You've made it clear that your company wishes to proceed with the IA version of TT, but I've yet to see any positive commentary regarding that version. I logged on earlier this evening, user name dad_ptt2, and was disconnected twice in the middle of the game. When I finally got into a game, there was someone spinning around in circles shooting everything that moved, my mouse froze up, and I had to do CTRL+ALT+DEL, to get out of the program. You mention that we should notify you with problems. There has been mention of people doing that have gotten no response. The improvements at IA have been moving along at a snail's pace.

Can someone tell me what it would cost to start and maintain a master server? It looks as though that's the route we need to take. Apparently GG has made up it's mind which direction it wants to go regardless of what their consumers want.

[joemaruschak]

I'm no expert in the gaming business, but as a business owner I must say I usually do, or attempt to do, what the majority of my customer base wants.

and this is what we are trying to do. For years now, I have been getting emails asking for things that were not possible to build and effectively maintain given the economies of the ThinkTanks audience and user base. I have kept a list, and the community has done the same. We now have an opportunity and the resources to do this in a way where we can spread the cost of construction and maintenence of the these features across a number of games. We are now building all the things everyone is asking for.

If you are having trouble with instant action, log onto the forums and post a bug. If the connections are spotty, say so. Instead of joining a game, start one. The behavior of the game as it relates to lag is no different than if you launched a game from the standalone thinktanks interface for launching a game. effectively, it will end up launching a locally hosted version of the game.. which is what you joined and what you are playing on. Quality of Service can be an issue without dedicated (hosted) servers, and those will come online when the demand for them increases. If there is no demand, it will not be a high priority.. if there is demand, then it will get some heat. The site is in beta, and there will be issues. If this is too much for people to deal with, then so be it.. if no one here wants to endure some bumps to achieve a better end.. then we are ok with that.

As for all of this commentary on 'follow the wishes of the customer'.. geez guys.. I am trying. I finally found a way to build what people have been emailing me for years to build. It will not happen overnight. If it all needs to work 'now' and work 100% out of the gate in order to get you over there.. then I guess we have lost you as customers.

as for the master server.. it takes nothing to run it. We have it running somewhere on one of our boxes, and it is usually up.. when it goes down, we seldom notice, as it is not actively monitored by someone. All it does is link up each client to other clients. The real win is dedicated servers (hosted server instances) which Shockwave, HomeLan, and others hosted for us. We stopped paying for dedicated servers some time ago because the cost was prohibitive.

I hear that people may be willing to subscribe for master server access.. would you be willing to subscribe to premium dedicated server access on instant action? If no, why not?..

as for the customers comments.. I re-read this thread.. and what I am hearing is basically 3 things.

lag (known issue for client hosted.. looks like dedicated servers need to come up sooner)
linux - we are stupid and lame becuz linux rulez and we sux.
and .. well, it just sucks..

I am not getting any useful new information out of this.. we know about lag.. the linux stuff is just like.. well.. listen to the customers? they certainly did not speak with their pocketbooks as it relates to linux.

the rest.. work with us to make it better, and we will do so. reject it, and that works too.. I would like you to work with us, but I am not going to twist any arms here. If anyone can be claer about what it is the customers 'want'.. please make it clear and don't just keep beating the same 'it sucks' drum. and please everyone drop the linux stuff.. honestly, I know some of you like linux, but you guys are really a small minority. We believed in linux, shipped the game on linux, and tried to support it on linux and it was not a money making proposition. If the 'customers' are wanting linux, they sure did not show up when it came time to pay (with a few exceptions, with 'few' being a key word)

Isn't it possible to send a notice about an upgrade patch through that or even through GarrageGames/Shockwave who distribute the game?

just wanted to respond to this.. the actual answer is no.. when we shipped on shockwave we had as part of out agreement a deal that we could not use that feature.. distribution (which we needed back then to survive) effectively hobbled a lot of the 'stuff' we had in there to keep the game updated, synced between user bases, and update the game quickly.. a patch required us to create actually like.. 16 different builds and configurations of the game to remain synced and moving forward.. we could (and did) notify the people who bought the GG version about updates, but we stopped doing updates (unless they were necessary to fix issues like the XP bug and the Mac OS updates) because they became cumbersome to do.. so, yeah.. possible, but a PITA.. and we were looking for a better solution.. which we are trying to build. If this community rejects it, then so be it. We will succeed or fail on our own merits..

last note.. we do listen to people, and listen to feedback. We also are not stupid, and we analyze the play patterns and purchasing patterns of the user base at large. If you want to continue to insult our business practices.. go for it.. most of it is really hot air. There is a concept called the vocal minority.. this place has a lot of that. Insulting us into doing what you want when it makes no business sense is just not going to work. Work with me, I will work with you.. insult me and call me stupid.. well, it is just not going to work. Telling me I am wrong when I actually have lots of collected data, information on sales of the game, and 7 years of watching it grow and change over time.. I will listen, but sometimes you guys are just wrong, and if you want to argue about it.. cool.. go ahead.. it still does not make incorrect speculation any closer to reality.

and now I am getting roped in to some stupid internet forum argument instead of sleeping.. which is why I kind of bowed out of participating in the community actively some years back.

So, with that, respectfully ask that you let this thread die. I have no desire for this thread to be a breeding ground for bad feelings. Please stop beating a dead horse. If anyone really wants to know the straight business on the 'business' of games, ask meaningful questions and I will answer them honestly. If anyone wants to take me to business school.. guys.. please stop. I don't need the advice. if you do have anything positive to comment, please do, by this armchair quarterbacking is just getting annoying. If you don't like what we are doing, get busy and make your own game from scratch, then you can do whatever you want with it.

[wOOt]

I just have 1 thing to add Joe...

All we are going by here is what has been given to us by you/gg since the beginning of TT, for the long term vets many things have been taken away. I don't think everyone here thinks your stupid. We have begged for updates, to my knowledge none have even been attempted, we asked for the CTF missions so we could host them, nada again. We have asked numerously for many things, but as of yet nothing has been sent our way, so I'm asking you? what response would you expect this bunch of die hard addicts to have. We love the game dude, its a forever keeper. Maybe if you could ponder why and where we are coming from it may help you understand the frustration on both end.

I'm not trying to berate you bud, but we bought a fantastic game and many have given countless hours in modding, serving, ect.... And what this feels like is you want all of us to drop this and move to IA which as of right now is not a 1/8th of what this game is. Let me invite you to come and play a few games with us. Then run over to IA and see the difference,then im sure you will understand what we are attempting to convey.

[Wild Alaskan-AK-]

I was hanging out in MI banlist yesterday with a couple of demos. Their conversation went like this:

DEMO(#1): Would you pay $20 for this game?
DEMO(#2): no
DEMO(#1): How much would you pay?
DEMO(#2): maybe $10
DEMO(#1): me too

(some grammar and punctuation were added)

I think that with a some upgrades tt would be worth $20 again to a first time player and sales could go up. (make it look like crysis and ill buy a $40 coppy )

[Mighty Mouse]

^ Right we listen to demos all the time. We value their valuable input to this game. Please note my sarcasm.

@joe, I know you may not be around to read this, but we've grown to enjoy the playability of the standalone version from the efforts of those in this community. When I first bought it from shockwave, in between the unbearable firerate and lack of instructions, it was unplayable. But it was the hardcore people here who brought me along and made the game playable and fun.

With the recent "announcements", I guess we expected more from the IA version. Don't misunderstand, there are certain definite improvements, but it is clear that there is a long way to go before you can attract the casual gamer like some of the other FPS games. Just like my friend said, the hardcore will be there no matter what you do, it's the casual people you have to attract if you want to make money.

To that end, I'd say hurry opening up a dedicated server and placing some sort of instructions on the different gametypes. I spent good 20 minutes explaining how to grab the flag and what to do with it on the IA version yesterday. And on some of my other computers, I get the black screen, even though I have the latest Flash Player...

[Cannon-Dale J]

^ I'm with MM mostly & his previous post. I think that those who seem to claim to understand a companies business model are naiive. They have the data which relates to the $$$$s which is what it's all about. We may be the harcore, but we are not the majority in terms of marketing for the new game, but YES we are those who can have some input into the new game which GG seem to be receptive to. What Joe is saying seems perfectly fair to me.

@ MM - I do dis-agree with your

^ Right we listen to demos all the time. We value their valuable input to this game. Please note my sarcasm.

It's the 'noobs' which will buy this new game. Players like WA probably spend 100x more money on PC games than we do. We are boring old farts at the end of the day who liked Pac Man so are more interested in playability than graphics. Graphics = cool to my kids & dad plays a crummy old outdated game & is mad.

I for one can't see TT lasting as it is. In fact with Roo not hosting anymore there isn't anywhere un-laggy for me to play anymore, so I would support TT2.

I also can't believe that Linux isn't a minority (I had never even heard of it )

I played TT2 with OofFa today after not seeing it in ages & we had a great time. The advances in game quality were very good & Dazzles hint on where to find the reticle changer helped with the aiming 100%. I think that if the obvious bugs (it is beta, so accepted) were ironed out & there was a master server it would be a good game, albeit different from TT.

My feedback from playing (only briefly) is as MM says, not many knw how to play the game, but one would think this was easy to include in the star-up page. The physics of the turret & projectiles is different, almost like speedy all the time (need to play more to get a handle on this). Yes the screen is too small...

Demand = Potential sales = Improvements.

If existing players want the improvements, it seems they are a possibilty. Our end of the bargain is to generate the demand & outline suggested improvements in a positive & prfessional manner, not nice person & whine.

Dazzle is a shining example regarding this issue

[DJ Wings]

I don't care what everyone else decides. I've already given my ultimatum- if IA doesn't support Linux, I'm not going to be there. The whole community can switch for all I care, but if anything, Joe's posts only reinforced my decision.

[LGM]

Joe-

Thanks for the thoughtful replies. I find it helpful to hear from you about IA. I've been running it a bit, like the graphics, etc. I prefer the original right now, but see potential in the IA version. It's in closed beta for macs, and I'm reporting the bugs, etc.

It's hard for me to understand the negativity about your plan. TT isn't a money machine like Halo, and we need to get perspective here. You're in business. This isn't a garage hobby at all for you. For some here, it is.

Some of the difference between the versions are very noticeable, but the potential for your plan isn't bad at all. Could be huge.

I'm trying to work with you on the mac beta. The bugs are getting reported, and I'm getting replies about them. I'm hoping there is potential for an eventual merge between this great community and the new IA TT, which doesn't have much of one yet. I guess that remains to be seen, though.

[NUTS!]

@Joe
Sorry for coming off harsh, was not cool. I am sure you guys are trying to make the best decisions for the game.

I spent a few years as research analyst for an investment boutique that managed over a billion dollars. My main areas of focus was tech, including the gaming areas. I found that a lot of the gaming companies were not properly run (sorry threw GG in here too). One thing I learned is that market does not care about data. Whether the market is the stock market or the gaming market. Heh, I still laugh that even though I was the tech guy they stopped inviting me to the investment meetings. Cause I had become very negative. After losing 15 points on Xilinx, which had a killer product at the time. I knew the data didn't matter anymore and was yelling sell all tech. They just couldn't believe that they could buy NT for $20. Of course they bought NT, I left. They now manage under $500 Million. The market didn't care about the data back in 2000.

I don't want GG to get behind Linux because I use it. I also use Windows and have a mac. I do prefer Linux cause it just fits my brain better. I want GG to get behind Linux because I think there is a ton of money to be made there. There is an underlining trend in the computer markets right now, MSFT is trying to downplay it and/or get involved. Plus I think that MSFT made a big booboo with vista. Not just from a personal standpoint but I have friends/contacts in the IT world who will never get it. I know the whole personal computing space with the ASUS EEEE is not going to sell billions, will not all run Linux. However, I think over time it just may. To me that is were IA could get some Linux money. I can understand your point totally, that GG has not made much money with linux. Things change, we may be seeing one now. MSFT does have a strangle hold on the markets and is the killer. They also have a huge amount of negativity now. Don't want to see GG become a supplier to GM. When the markets screaming for hybrids. (yes my analogies suck, but hopefully get my points across better).

I also want to thank you for taking the time out to respond to "us". I can not remember the last time I saw a JoeM post. Heh, some say I am easily impressed .