Merchant marines issue

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Balthagor
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Re: Merchant marines issue

Post by Balthagor »

Are you offering to pay my salary so I can keep working for BattleGoat and support my family? I do comment, more often if the users are polite. I have also gotten some small fixes done for the next update but I can't push an update myself.
Chris Latour
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burock82
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Re: Merchant marines issue

Post by burock82 »

I dont think i was rude! and no i do not offer any job for you which you need to work and i respect that! To be honest this is irrelevant with the topic.

I just wanted point that fixes takes time and i have the sensation that you are the only one doing something ! When i sent you save game , you always responded with suggestions or fixes. I am sorry if i cause a misunderstanding. I just wanted to point ; game has the ambient like left to die.


Anyway i hope you will release the fixes soon including the one with merchant marine things.


Regards,

Burak
Krawiec
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Re: Merchant marines issue

Post by Krawiec »

WoW, few months passed and there is no fix for this stupid game-breaking issue.
Sad.
YoMomma
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Re: Merchant marines issue

Post by YoMomma »

few months? few months of ignoring and saying it didnt happen, to slowly giving in, to now being a note 1 year after release. Doubt we will get there.
Gameplay 1st
GreenGoblin
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Re: Merchant marines issue

Post by GreenGoblin »

I really hope this is fixed in the next patch.
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Balthagor
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Re: Merchant marines issue

Post by Balthagor »

burock82 wrote:... I just wanted to point ; game has the ambient like left to die...
With the game fully released, development progress will be determined by community investment.
Chris Latour
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burock82
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Re: Merchant marines issue

Post by burock82 »

Balthagor wrote:
burock82 wrote:... I just wanted to point ; game has the ambient like left to die...
With the game fully released, development progress will be determined by community investment.

:) yeah good answer after almost 4 months but as i wrote in my posts and topics, we are giving necessary feedback and you are responding it just some of the issues are very game breaker like this one and making people annoyed. So ,personally, my expectation is that fix of this or this kind of things happens, they should be top priority.

Regards,

Burak
GreenGoblin
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Re: Merchant marines issue

Post by GreenGoblin »

burock82 wrote:
Balthagor wrote:
burock82 wrote:... I just wanted to point ; game has the ambient like left to die...
With the game fully released, development progress will be determined by community investment.

:) yeah good answer after almost 4 months but as i wrote in my posts and topics, we are giving necessary feedback and you are responding it just some of the issues are very game breaker like this one and making people annoyed. So ,personally, my expectation is that fix of this or this kind of things happens, they should be top priority.

Regards,

Burak
Agreed. The m.m. issue is serious and needs to be fixed.
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Re: Merchant marines issue

Post by nick-bang »

Balthagor wrote:
burock82 wrote:... I just wanted to point ; game has the ambient like left to die...
With the game fully released, development progress will be determined by community investment.
Eh... ?


Care to elaborate ... ?
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Balthagor
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Re: Merchant marines issue

Post by Balthagor »

Short version: The more copies of the game continue to sell, the more money there is to pay a programmer/artist/developer to do work. If we cannot pay them, they will go do work for someone who can...
Chris Latour
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Re: Merchant marines issue

Post by number47 »

Like you did... :D
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burock82
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Re: Merchant marines issue

Post by burock82 »

so it is not going to be fixed ?
nick-bang
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Re: Merchant marines issue

Post by nick-bang »

Balthagor wrote:Short version: The more copies of the game continue to sell, the more money there is to pay a programmer/artist/developer to do work. If we cannot pay them, they will go do work for someone who can...
Do we need do a Kickstarter project to get the ball rolling ... ?

I Didnt know that Battlegoat were financially under that much pressure... ?
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Balthagor
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Re: Merchant marines issue

Post by Balthagor »

burock82 wrote:so it is not going to be fixed ?
That's not what I said. I said I don't know. I have no idea how many more copies we will continue to sell.
nick-bang wrote: Do we need do a Kickstarter project to get the ball rolling ... ?

I Didnt know that Battlegoat were financially under that much pressure... ?
Even setting up a kickstarter requires investment (more time than money, but still investment)

Most people can figure out what a studio needs to survive.

- Google up the annual salaries for a programmer + artist + lead designer + a junior designer. Add those up. Add ~ 10% for overhead.
- Look at the price the game is selling for
- Divide the costs of running the business by the price per copy of the game.

That's how many copies of the game, not on sale, a company needs to move just to break even. And consider that there is at least one year before release were there is nothing to sell, so no income. Salaries always represent the biggest cost to a studio.

It's not so much that we are under pressure, it is that we won't invest in lots of hours of work unless there is a reasonable belief we will get paid for the work. It is why many studios stop supporting games soon after release, they've used up their development budget based on what they know the game will make.

One of the choices BattleGoat made was to invest in the Hard Core Strategy segment of the market because we believe the game will continue to sell for many years because there is little else on the market like Supreme Ruler. That means we have "long tail" of revenue to keep going with support, but the tail still needs to be wide enough if we want fast paced development. The smaller the tail is, the longer it takes us to get updates.

And for me personally, I have to think about my future. I've been in the industry 14 years now with my name to multiple titles published worldwide. Maybe someday I'll want to run a studio? There are certainly some industry people I would love to collaborate with if the opportunity presented itself.

But we won't abandon the game, we are much to proud of the work we've put in to just drop it. Things like the localization open new markets for us and could lead to new investment making the tail both longer and wider. Revenues is one of the major reasons for so much content now being offered as Free2Play with in app purchases.

And that's video game industry 101 ;)
Chris Latour
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Aragos
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Re: Merchant marines issue

Post by Aragos »

Balthagor wrote:
burock82 wrote:so it is not going to be fixed ?
That's not what I said. I said I don't know. I have no idea how many more copies we will continue to sell.
nick-bang wrote: Do we need do a Kickstarter project to get the ball rolling ... ?

I Didnt know that Battlegoat were financially under that much pressure... ?
Even setting up a kickstarter requires investment (more time than money, but still investment)

Most people can figure out what a studio needs to survive.

- Google up the annual salaries for a programmer + artist + lead designer + a junior designer. Add those up. Add ~ 10% for overhead.
- Look at the price the game is selling for
- Divide the costs of running the business by the price per copy of the game.

That's how many copies of the game, not on sale, a company needs to move just to break even. And consider that there is at least one year before release were there is nothing to sell, so no income. Salaries always represent the biggest cost to a studio.

It's not so much that we are under pressure, it is that we won't invest in lots of hours of work unless there is a reasonable belief we will get paid for the work. It is why many studios stop supporting games soon after release, they've used up their development budget based on what they know the game will make.

One of the choices BattleGoat made was to invest in the Hard Core Strategy segment of the market because we believe the game will continue to sell for many years because there is little else on the market like Supreme Ruler. That means we have "long tail" of revenue to keep going with support, but the tail still needs to be wide enough if we want fast paced development. The smaller the tail is, the longer it takes us to get updates.

And for me personally, I have to think about my future. I've been in the industry 14 years now with my name to multiple titles published worldwide. Maybe someday I'll want to run a studio? There are certainly some industry people I would love to collaborate with if the opportunity presented itself.

But we won't abandon the game, we are much to proud of the work we've put in to just drop it. Things like the localization open new markets for us and could lead to new investment making the tail both longer and wider. Revenues is one of the major reasons for so much content now being offered as Free2Play with in app purchases.

And that's video game industry 101 ;)
While I don't directly work for the game industry (though I have consulted on several A list games over the past few years), Balt is spot on here. This is one of the reasons that many development companies are going away from the traditional model (everybody works for a company and produces games) to a dispersed, independent contractor model (cheaper, less overhead, et al). And, like Balt says, developers and programmers have more than a little bit of "emotional buy-in"--more so than the players/customers in many ways. They take an idea, create something out of it, and hope people like it.

Is the game perfect? Of course not. Is it "broken"--no, but it does have some odd things to work around (MM issue--like I said a long time ago, I personally detest MM in general; ahistorical and leads to some seriously messed up pathing issues and slows the game engine, but I digress).

Balt hit the target spot on--it is all about $$, ultimately. You can only fix what you can afford.
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