Managing after a failure

[flyingblind]

I'm not sure you can class CloD as a failure. It got off to a pretty shakey start
for reasons no one here really knows. But the developers have steadily made great
improvements including a complete rewrite of much of the core code. True it has
been time consuming and some elements have been removed or cut back for the sake of
playerbility but the latest update has really moved things on. Who knows what will
be reinstated in future and exciting things have been promised.

The only thing I can think will make it fail is having enough buyers of the sequel
to recoupe developement costs. They need a good few thousand rather geeky anoraks
with an obsession with all stuff WW2, with deep pockets for the heavy hardware, too
much time on their hands and a chidlike desire to be Biggles. Oh and if married, a
tolerant wife and a thick skin to weather the ridicule of their kids.

I agree the size of the map is probably a large part of the problem. I sometimes
wonder if all the goodies we were expecting were developed on a much smaller test
map and when the big channel map and the game engine met things went a bit pear
shaped but as too much had been invested in map and engine and development time
had run out then some serious compromises and back peddling had to be done until
the developers could find out how much could be salvaged. But so far so good.