Play.com release date change.

[VPaulus]

Does Play charges the credit card immediately after pre-ordering or only after the product gets shipped?
Thanks.

[LegTaste]

they dont charge your card until its posted

[Urufu_Shinjiro]

Originally Posted by Dano

Think most of you have missed the point here, play has, as you all point out, in the past made wild guesses and adjusted the release date numerous times, however they have never once in all that time emailed anybody with a pre-order to tell tham that the manufacturer has given them updated information as they have just done so with SoW. I seriously doubt that they've made it up as a joke and as such the only logical conclusion to draw is that somebody somewhere in the publisher's employ has updated them.

Originally Posted by AndyJWest

If you want to believe that, Dano, it's fine with me. Just don't claim that it is "the only logical conclusion to draw". It isn't. They've been touting for preorders on the basis of dubious release dates before, so why should it be any different now?

Originally Posted by Dano

Because they actually bothered emailing and not just changing the dates as per usual.

All that tells me Dano is they have a new marketing director or some other such staff change. For all we know every pre-order for the last year that they have adjusted the release date for has had that same form email sent out, but SoW hasn't been adjusted since they changed their policies. They have no information, hell, they can't even get the NAME of the damn game right, Il2 is and will be nowhere in the title of this game, they have FAKE box art up on their page, the email is 100% form letter. There is nothing to see here and frankly I wouldn't believe a damn thing play.com says based solely on their very questionable pre-order practices.

Gamestracker says Nov 1st 2010.

IGN says TBA 2010.

Gamershell still says Nov 2006.

Tothegame.com says it's cancelled.

GamesRadar says 2007.

Gamefaqs has two dates posted, 2006 and 6/01/2009.

Do you see where I'm going? No one knows and anyone who claims to know is probably a liar.

[swiss]

Gamestracker also says it's Ubi.

omg.

Well I think. Oleg wants it released before the official end of BoB, 31 October.

And maybe he also wants his announce to come true, that thousands will be playing by October.

And Oleg also said in last friday's update thread that he himself wouldn't release a game with quite many bugs, but it is up to the publisher.

---> So he's out of the woods.


After-release-patching is standard today so why should Oleg do different.

[Thunderbolt56]

Originally Posted by Hecke

omg.

Well I think. Oleg wants it released before the official end of BoB, 31 October.

I've no doubt he'd like that too, but seriously doubt it considering a publisher hasn't even been announced yet.

Originally Posted by Hecke

And Oleg also said in last friday's update thread that he himself wouldn't release a game with quite many bugs, but it is up to the publisher.

---> So he's out of the woods.

No he's not and he knows it. His name will still be attached to it.

Originally Posted by Hecke

After-release-patching is standard today so why should Oleg do different.

I'm sure he's not any different in that regard, but I doubt that will be a consideration in moving up the release date. Post-release support has always been the norm with 1:C.

[Blackdog_kt]

There are various scales of post release support. Completely disregarding content enhancement patches and focusing on fixes, some games are almost unplayable out of the box and there's a patch out on release day, others are the same but the patches take longer and some games while not perfect are at least playable straight after installation.

I think they are aiming for the third scenario, releasing without game-breaking bugs but maybe a few minor ones that can be easily patched. Of course, this takes more work to achieve. IL2 was similar in that regard in that while post release support was very good, it was mainly about content additions and tweaks instead of correcting fundamental flaws, as there weren't any game breaking issues on the first release version.

To be honest, i think that having a playable SoW at X date is better than having an unplayable or frustrating SoW at "X-2 weeks" date. I sure would like to have it on my hard drive as we speak, but if any game is suffering from game breaking bugs that detract from the experience the novely factor wears off quite fast and i end up not playing it anyway because i'm waiting for the fixes, hence no use of having something that doesn't work for any other reason apart from the ability to watch all the fancy stuff in motion for a couple of days. In that sense, having a game that doesn't work well enough is like not having the game at all and i feel that the Maddox team realises this and try to release with as few bugs as possible, hence the extra delays if we take the complexity of the project into account.

It would be good to have some concrete information to lay the speculation to rest, but most important for me is to have a title that works within 90% of what's advertised straight out of the box.

[swiss]

Originally Posted by Hecke

omg.

Well I think. Oleg wants it released before the official end of BoB, 31 October.

Well, I think: Oleg actually wanted it ready 2006. lol

30 days for bugfixing and marketing/distribution set-up? ROFL!!!

The latter is probably going to take more than 8 weeks.

After-release-patching is standard today so why should Oleg do different.

1. because he's neither Microsoft nor Apple
2. He can't take the potential damage
3. The publisher can't take it either

[major_setback]

Originally Posted by swiss

.....30 days for bugfixing and marketing/distribution set-up? ROFL!!!

The latter is probably going to take more than 8 weeks.....

You are going to Roll On the Floor Laughing for more than 8 weeks???

[swiss]

Originally Posted by major_setback

You are going to Roll On the Floor Laughing for more than 8 weeks???

It's not even funny.

Just think of all things the publisher has to take care of.
As far as I know that not only includes distribution, but also production of marketing material and the production(hardware copy) of the game itself.

In fact I thought about my post while getting cigarettes, and, unless a lot the stuff is already printed, I think it takes more than 12 weeks.
Imho several hundred man-hours on the publisher(-s?) side.
And the publisher is not going to waste all of his resources for one upcoming game.
After all, this is just a freakin' FLIGHT SIM.
How many % of the consumers can you reach with it?
I know not one(!) person in my personal "environment"*(other than my squad) involved in flight sims, well, maybe the one guy I met 15 years ago...

The flight simmers are, percentage wise, only a 1digit niche in the market.

I'm sure OM is aware of this, and BoB is only the spearhead of a new generation of Battle Sims.
(A tank sim would already double your potential consumer)