The Future of TT from GG!

[joemaruschak]

Are there enough standalone players here -- if a substantial percentage went over to IA -- to drive a shift in TT's level of priority?

that is hard to say. Right now, at any given time, on instant action, TT has 4-8 players playing concurrently in 3 games.. this is on the decline, and some of the decline has been that Legions is taking a lot of 'new users' that used to try TT or Rokkitball first. Legions has 108 people playing 24 games (right now) and that is pretty constant. RB has a 12 players playing 6 games (concurrent).. looking at TT, right now I see 22 players playing 6 games. When I checked last month (before I went on vacation) I was seeing upwards of 50 concurrent users on TT standalone.. so, the idea is, yes, if the number of concurrent users on ia.com jumped to be what we get organically on ia.com in addition to what we see in the standalone, we would be seeing 60-70 players concurrent in 10-15 games.. making it 'nip at the heels' of legions instead of there being an order of magnitude difference in number of concurrent users.

my opinion is, yes, if there were a full on shift over to ia.com, it would be noticeable enough.

At the moment, we are mostly growing organically (not doing a huge user aggregation effort) so there is not a huge number of people in the churn one sees with demos.. it is not insubstantial the amount we get daily.. the number of unique visitors to TT on ia.com FAR surpasses the size of this community, but the number of committed users is a small percentage of that..

as for improvments to the site and the games and the quality, we know. We are not blind.. we are working on it. We are not in a position where if we don't do it now we fail.. we are in a position where if we don't do it right to scale, we shoot ourselves in the foot. So we are just taking the slow and measured approach.

[Blind Cide]

@Joe
Thank you for taking the time to spell things out for us. The insight you have on the evolution of internet based gaming is always interesting to me.

Having researched the lag issue as it relates to the stand alone TT, I would think having good dedicated servers is critical for getting players interested in returning to IA once you get them there.

I'd also be willing to help out with dedicated servers. The player base for the stand alone TT is already interested in funding data center regional servers, so perhaps our interests can coincide. With multiple processor servers becoming affordable, we could run an IA game along with ours easily. We could enhance our immediate playing experience while helping you develop the IA platform.

I'm with Dash on the dedicated server issue. Just let us know how we can help with those.

[*Stiffler]

@ Rx if u need any web page designer i could cover that area. i am taking a web page des. course so yeah it is kinda easy

[jedirieb]

I still find it hard to accept that someone so much into business as Joe says he is can ask us all to play a faulty product, saying that we will get more stuff later on, if enough people buy it. Meaning buying/playing TT IA would be an investment for anyone of us who does it,though not a very good-looking one atm. I guess I just answered my own question then...

My advice, Joe, is to take BC's and Dash's offers. If you want us over there (and despite BS to the contrary, I think you do, or else you wouldn't spend as much time posting here as you do), then reduce lag. That is the biggest complaint right now, right? Then help BC and Dash get dedicated servers up there, reduce the lag, and you'll see more of us over there (myself included).

EDIT: No offense meant by anything in this post. I'm just stating it as I see it. (And I'm too lazy to state disclaimers every time I see something possibly offensive in it. )

[GRRReat]

I cant add much to what has already been posted.
“Future development is going to be determined by the amount of players.”
My son and his friends, if they are not up and playing in 5 minutes ,well the game sucks and they wont be back. “any game”
You are losing all those potential customers. They tried a game that responded poorly and wont be back.
From my experience , you have to release a good game to get players to play. Then promise them it will get better, to get them to stay with it. Not give them a poor game and tell them it will get better only if they play it.

Even PS3 games with all the options and great graphics add ons and all. 2 weeks and they are moving on the the next game or just wait for number 2,3,4. LOL

There are tons of web based or browser games out there for free. Sure you my have to watch a 30 second advertisement. (time for a drink)

[44]

Not usually the voice of logic on these forums, I believe that our options are pretty clear cut for us at this point.

There is absolutely NO way that the community is going to be able to raise the sort of cash that would be required to purchase the source code for TT based upon the initial sales estimates that Joe threw out there before. I tossed a number out as to what I would contribute to some people and it was a fairly substantial sum. Upon further review, that probably wouldn't cover the legal fees of the transaction. Moreover, even if the amount I proposed was 20% of the total purchase price of the source code, it would most likely result in a tax write off for myself and the remaining investors. I doubt very highly we would be about to sell over 300 upgrade packs, let alone thousands. I love playing this game, but not THAT much.

I've had customers do betas for various software, and some of them have been painful. So the IA beta is painful to play. Very painful. We've just been told that to spur further development, we need to get in there an play. Otherwise, the IA team is going to lose interest in TT and we will be totally out of luck.

Time to suc.k it up. If we TRULY love this game as much as we SAY we do (I've tried quitting many times....doomed game is harder to quit than tobacco), then take 30 minutes out of your time in Roos, Banlist, Dash's etc and go play IA TT for a few games. Then provide feedback. Tons of feedback via the feedback link in IA. Constructive feedback.

Hopefully that will get us going in the right direction again. As of now we are losing the battle.

I agree with Smacky 100%. Not sure I'm motivated to make the move over to IA, however.

[THE V]

Joe thank you for your replies. This community has been frustrated from brief communications that we've had in the past. Thank you for spending the time to respond to our concerns.

After reading what you wrote and playing the games on IA the last few days this conclusion has become obvious. TT on IA as it now stands is dead. Why? The game on IA is terrible to play. It's boring and there is nothing worse for any computer game than to be boring. You're in a tough industry with stiff worldwide competition. If your games aren't fun, then your all out of jobs (wee bit of pressure there).

You've stated that GG doesn't have the resources to develop a game where there are doubts on its ability to generate revenue. Perfectly logical, your a small company and you've got to chase the dollar. So at this point if I understand the business model for the IA, having TT on IA will soon be barely breaking even or creating a loss (if not already). Legions has the best gameplay on your site and will probably continue to generate the most interest. This will mean that all of your limited resources will go to chasing this money. Unless legions makes gigantic revenues you will not have enough resources to develop the other games as fully as they should be. As a business decision, it makes sense to just let TT fade away (i.e. postpone for later development).

I think you've may be posting here because you might be a little sad to see that happen. TT has had a good long run with a very durable little community following it. This group doesn't want to see the game die and its willing to work on it to keep it alive. If you need more maps for IA there are hundreds to choose from. If you need more gametypes there are several that have been created. If you need dedicated servers, they have been offered. If you need more skins for the tanks there are too many to choose from. If you need help programming, there are several excellent programmers who here who would volunteer their time. The original game was excellent and you made a little money from it. If you allow this community to help, perhaps it can continue to do so. It will just take a little creative development.

[Rogue]

Edit: Just made an executive decision. I'm really not that interested. This just goes in circles.

"Come play TT on IA."

"It doesn't work."

"Well...play it more."

"But it doesn't work."

"How do you expect it to work if you don't play it more?"

"My cat's breath smells like cat food."

[MonicaTTmed]

I won't pretend to know anything about business, but it seems that GG and the TT community have fundamentally different ways of looking at this situation.

GG/Joe want us to prove that we would provide a sustained paying community for IA TT by playing the beta, before they start making updates on what could be a cash sink that doesn't bring in any revenue.
We (in general) want GG to prove that they can make a playable game by fixing problems/updating, before we start using up time (and/or cash, later) on what could be a major bust.

Both sides have their own interest in mind, which is justifiable, but is anything substantial going to get done?

Also, about the buying/open-sourcing idea... if we were to go through with that (doesn't seem likely), who would be the official "owners" of the game? Would all the contributors to the "TT Fund" form a company, or would it be owned by one person? Would any subsequent updates be free to people who already have the game?

[Blind Cide]

@rogue
Read Joe's posts. If they see more players in the servers, IA TT will get more resources alloted to it. Joe is giving us a heads up on how we can help the future of TT.