DBAOL Map Generator

[Africanus]

As some of you may be aware, I have been trying for a bloody long time to try and get some answers from the people at DBAOL Support in regards to the future of this game. The majority of my emails have not even been answered but thanks to a few snidey, sarcastic and obnoxious letters they have finally decided to answer me and this was the reply.....
"Hello Neil,

Sorry that I didn`t reply you in time. I was waiting for reply myself.
Again, I can`t tell you anything exactly. In September we are going
to give the players Map Generator program, so you could create
new maps yourselves.
As for DBAOL updating... It is a question of time people. Actually,
we have no suitable person to work with it. I am trying to persuade
our team to devote at least one day a week to start developing
DBAOL but they have no time.
Right now we are thinking of making the game free at all, if we
don`t find a person who will program its code.
Sorry.
I don`t know what to tell the players as I don`t know the answer
myself...

Regards
Olga"
Sounds good but will it happen? I certainly won't be holding my breath.
A long overdue reply, promising nothing.
Is there anyone out there who may be able to help the folks at DBAOL Support with their problem of not being able to find anyone able/willing to write some code for our DBAOL updates? Maybe you could send them an email offering your services. Seems like the only way we'll get some action is by providing the labour ourselves.
And by the way, I wont be able to send bounds for a few weeks as i've taken to my pc's hard drive with a meat tenderiser, and surprise surprise, its not working now. In the process of building another. :mad:

[imported_Aspirant]

Well....regardless of the outcome good on you for giving it a try...

Regards

Aspirant

[ August 30, 2003, 22:50: Message edited by: Aspirant ]

[Kachoudas]

smile.gif
Neil, your " few snidey, sarcastic and obnoxious letters " (while I dont know the meaning of 'snidey' ?) seems to have won an answer ... congrats! ...and so much for me ;)

Olga's letter is clear that they have a kind of problem that a young and small company wouldn't like to publicize, so that may be the explanation for so much silence.

As for a map generator... let's see. I believe if they just release the tool that define the BG area and roads, that should be easy for them.... Wait and see.

Anyone for a bet about when it will really come ? Oct ? Dec ? March ? Sept 04 ? ;)

---More seriously, If by "free" they mean "free access code" that is fine for me. But if Olga means "freeware" ??? I am not really willing for now to play for free, as I believe it would be the definitive end for DBAol... After some time they would just find it to expensive to maintain in server and close it.

[ August 31, 2003, 04:46: Message edited by: Kachoudas ]

[Africanus]

Jerome, the only problem they have is called Massive Assault. We can only hope that their new project fails miserably and they dedicate their time and resources back into DBAOL. From what i've seen of MA, it's destined to fail. Remarkably B gradish.
And my money's on the New year for the generator.

[Kachoudas]

"B gradish" ? I'm afraid my english knowledge fails me her ! ;)
Doesn't seems great anyway. I was concept beta tester and didn't enjoyed it... but if they improved it after concept critics :rolleyes: , that may be a little game that could help them be a little more known in the game market. But in all case, you're right, OUR (DBAoler) problem is MA...

[Africanus]

Sorry Jerome. I forgot your not from an english language background.
Snidey= Smart a s s , nasty, cynical
B Gradish= Bad, poor, weak
;)

[ August 31, 2003, 05:01: Message edited by: neil ]

[aleksander]

Originally posted by Olga (April 16th 2003)
Dear All,

First of all I should apologise for the silence and not-responding to all your questions. I am waiting for a definite reply as well.

We have temporary problems with DBAOL developer, or rather lack of him. So we have been looking for a new one, but we have no luck.
At the moment the person familiar with DBAOL code can devote too little time and it is not enough for developping the game and fixing the bugs.

But we plan to debug multi-generals version and introduce the release version by middle May or beginning of June.
This version will include 3D maps (which are ready by the moment) and more historical battles.
Immediately after version release, Contr.Gr. button is supposed to be fixed (if there is enough time, it will be done along with multy-gens).

New maps will be available in a 5-6 weeks period.

Concerning advancement to 2.0 rules, I can`t answer for certain, but we are working on it.

I understand your indignation. And I can`t ask you for patience and understanding.
I can only make apologies from me, personally, and from our team.

Regards
Olga This is not meant as a snidey ;) stab at Olga or the team but unfortunately it shows that clearly the information passed to Neil in that email should be taken with a pinch of salt. When this post was made on April 16th this year it regenerated quite a bit of enthusiasm- at last we had heard something and it held many positive aspects but aside from the 3D maps none of it has been bourne into reality. New maps- 5-6 weeks? I make it 19 weeks and counting.

Am I a pessimist? Well, yes I am but in this case I think I am right in being so.

As to making DBAOL free this worries me more than a little. I agree with Jerome here and for them to suggest such a thing makes me think they are about ready to give up on this little project entirely. I personally would much rather stick with what we've got than see it go down this road.

Congrats on getting a response anyway, Neil. Even if I don't really believe what I hear it does help to know that Olga, if none of the others, is still interested in listening and trying to reassure our little community.

[ August 31, 2003, 11:04: Message edited by: aleksander ]

[imported_Skilletus]

Well, of course there's a lot to cogitate about over this latest communique. Two points,

1. it is worrisome to think that the game developers think so little of this game that they're considering offering it for free, which is tantamount to saying, we are Not going to upgrade this game or even provide minimul support to the players.

2. I may be an oddball, but I'm paying every month for this game and I expect something in the way of updates / support for my money. The lack of attention given us is extremely frustrating, so if they're not going to improve the game, they Should give it away.....ie provide the service for free, or (even better) relinquish the rights to someone or some entity that will make the game the same type of priority that it's players do.

We deserve better my friends.

[SunTzu]

Heck that's a far cry from what they thought about it over a year ago when Dave and I offered to take it off their hands and fix it. You'd think we were trying to buy IBM for what they wanted for it.

[imported_The Paper General]

Never mind, this free idea might just be happening...what's that you say...well, I just plunked down my $ 10 for my subscription, and guess what? On my personal stats it says my subscription ends June 1st 2006!!!! Not bad for a $ 10 investment...go figure!
Now I really am a Happy Hominid! :D

[Kachoudas]

Originally posted by Happy Hominid:
Never mind, this free idea might just be happening...what's that you say...well, I just plunked down my $ 10 for my subscription, and guess what? On my personal stats it says my subscription ends June 1st 2006!!!! Not bad for a $ 10 investment...go figure!
Now I really am a Happy Hominid! :D :D
I guess you'll see the 10$ fly away every monthes until then, isn't it ?

[aleksander]

Happy Hominid,

They list your subscription until the expiry date on your credit card when you subscribe on a monthly basis via this method.

[imported_The Paper General]

...aw, you guy's burst my bubble... ;)

[Olga]

Hello,

As soon as I make one person learn me to use Map Generator and I master it, I will write a kind of manual and the Generator will be available for use.

Regards
Olga

[Richard III]

Thanks Olga, that's great news!

RIII

[ September 01, 2003, 14:02: Message edited by: Richard III ]

[imported_Aspirant]

From someone who enjoys this game immensely Olga....thank you...thank you for the time and effort on our behalf..


Regards

Aspirant

[Bid the meek]

Let's see 300 players at 10$ a month is 3000$ a month.

A good programmer is at the very least 48000$ a year (Unless they really go for cheap in Russia, would you work for less than market value ? ). Note that Im not even including support personnel here.

Which means net loss 1000$ a month. And the other costs have not even been covered yet.

Im fairly happy with what we have now. Of course if we get more Ill be even happier. But all this complaining can lead to wargames.net simply dropping DBAOL as too much trouble for a product that does not cover it's costs. And as Jerome said, if free mean the eventual demise of DBAOL then I would rather pay up.

[Bid the meek]

Originally posted by Aspirant:
[QB] From someone who enjoys this game immensely Olga....thank you...thank you for the time and effort on our behalf..QB]What he said smile.gif

[Kanishka]

Bid you're assuming that the programmer is employed 100% on this subject, and forever.

In practice a programmer might spend a limited time on revamping DBAOL, then move on to something else.

How do your figures look if the programmer has to spend 3, 4 or 6 months on DBAOL every 2 years?

Suddenly that $1000 "loss" becomes somethign a little more useful - providing over 200% annual return on salary.

Now I don't know if that's a lot in the programming world, but it looks like a nice LARGE round figure.

Not only that but at 300 ppl I think the current DBAOL has reached its limit - if the customer base is to expand then it neds revamping - not jsut more pictures and 3-d maps, but better mechanics and bug-fixes.

IMO some time spent fixing up DBAOL will:

1/ preserve the current customer base, and
2/ allow it to expand

Without such investment I predict DBAOL's demise as a viable commerical concern within a couple or 3 years.

[SunTzu]

Kanishka,

Good observation. When Dave and I took DBAOL to Historicon we pretty much learned that if the game was revamped the membership and thus subscriptions would double or even triple. But our recommendations fell on deaf ears. Maybe this might be a glimmer that what we gave them over a year ago might be sinking in.

Sincerely,

[Africanus]

The bottom line is, Talk is cheap, and from what we've seen from those at DBAOL, then all they seem to be able to do is talk.
Trey and David have tried reasoning with them, and from what i've heard have put forward some very viable proposals....but.......
Victor is in MAssive bloody pathetic assault mode and seems to be just plain ignorant to the DBAOL fanaticus communities requests.
As Keith also mentioned in one of his previous posts in this thread, the promise of more things for us to play with has just died in the a s s!Olga posted that after the 3d maps(which were a huge con as far as i'm concerned)the other updates would follow...but alas, another blatant lie!
ENOUGH!
Get your **** together at support or pass the code onto others who want to see this game succeed! Your 9 lives are rapidly declining. I reckon you have about 2 left....Tops!

[Bid the meek]

Kanishka,

What I am saying is thatwe should not expect what we pay to provide for an upgrade to DBA 2.0

If what you say about not having the programmer in full time or for a short period. The same thing as is happening now would happen. The programmer gets sucked into another project and evenutally does not have time to look at DBAOL again. Result we get a partial, buggy implementation. Right now DBAOL is pretty close to DBA 1.2.1 and I would be ready to bet that this effort was made by the founding programmers not getting paid. And I cant see it happening again, houses and food has to be paid eventually.

I do agree that to increase our player base there is a need for an upgrade. But that is a catch 22 if we hope for funds from DBAOL. To upgrade you need money, to get money you need players, to get players you need an upgrade ...

Or they get fundings from a different source, perhaps an outside source, perhaps Massive Assaults. So instead of wishing for MA to be a massive failure, perhaps we should hope for it to be a success instead, it could benifit us.

[Dusty the Mighty]

This game will never have a massive following. Even with major graphics it will never be an AOE. It would be great if the programmers could do v2.2, but don't hold your breath. If I recall, the Victor was a student when he designed this program, and someone said he did not use modular implementation. So if he ever does v2.2, he will have to start from scratch. Considering that he started designing BB and hasn't done more, I don't expect it will change. A shame, too. There are probably a few hundred players who have dropped out because of the old version.

[Whatisitgood4]

I agree entirely it will never be a mass game. But it could have a lot more players than it has now.

It's a matter of economics and I obviously don't know how their figures break down - other than the raw calculation of income, which does come to a depressingly small figure.

But with a better marketing, some product development and perhaps (perhaps) a price drop, the potential market is much bigger than the 2 or 300 odd currently subscribing.

Whether it's worth their while going to that trouble, I don't know because I don't know their cost structure or business aims.

But I feel a potential base of 1,000 + world-wide is realistic - providing the product/price/marketing mix is improved.

Say 750 players paying $US10 a month would still only generate $90,000 a year. That's good money IF it rolls in without too much imput and work, but would rapidly get eaten if it's a high maintenence, high effort proposition.

Personally, I like the game as it is and feel it's worth the money. The only things I'd really like to see are more players and more maps (especially the double maps!!!).

But I'd also be happy to see the game updated to 'whatever number we're up to'.

[Dusty the Mighty]

Originally posted by Whatisitgood4:
But I feel a potential base of 1,000 + world-wide is realistic -

Say 750 players paying $US10 a month

Personally, I like the game as it is and feel it's worth the money. The only things I'd really like to see are more players and more maps (especially the double maps!!!).

But I'd also be happy to see the game updated to 'whatever number we're up to'. I believe this game could easily have a thousand players if it were updated and had a map generator. I would like to see Victor drop the Big Battle for now and just upgrade to the latest version. And a map generator is a must. Most of the big maps they made aren't worth a flip. As for the price, you quote $10US a month, isn't that about what it is now for a yearly subscription?